Green is not a creative color

Happy Odaiba Day!

I’m not talking about the fact that said dub covers up several aspects related to Japanese or Asian culture (that’s of course an inevitable part of localization), but the fact that said dub often takes those aspects and makes a mockery of them to levels that go beyond the call-a-rice-ball-a-jelly-donut level. For example:

Two scenes from 02 episodes 22 and 25 where curry and peas on rice respectively are made into “gross cafeteria mystery food” jokes. The above are easily recognizable to anyone familiar with those, and it’s not exactly a comfortable feeling to see those labeled as something you should be treating like gross sludge.

There’s also one point where they make an MSG joke, when the stigma against MSG is a racist myth perpetuated to make Chinese and other Asian food seem filthy – an especially unnerving comment to see out of a localization of an anime from Japan, where commercialized MSG originates.

The reason I’m making this post is that there was a tweet where a Japanese fan found cups that resembled the ones used for the oolong tea in Our War Game! and got Westerners QRTing them memeing about “beef jerky shakes” because of Digimon the Movie, which is really not a good look in front of the OP who noticed and made some tweets about foreign insensitivity about Asian tea after that (mistaking barley tea for whiskey, etc.), and also pointed out that the real-life Suntory oolong tea bottle was in their picture and yet people still had to make jokes about it being beef jerky shakes. You really do have to consider that it’s kind of uncomfortable to see this kind of thing treated like it’s equivalent to “some weird impossible bizarro drink” because oolong tea is either too foreign or not funny enough, and so while I’m not trying to completely tear down the dub or anything, please at least have more conscientiousness about the fact that this is ultimately only a single localization, and that for people who are at least a little disturbed by this kind of thing, it’s not comfortable to have this thing forced down your throat as “superior because it’s funny”.

Disclaimers for mistakes and misinterpretation, also please do not repost anywhere else, thank you! :)

02 is, first and foremost, a story about relationships between people; it is not a story about the individual, and it has never been a story about the individual.

I cannot emphasize enough how important understanding this concept is to understanding 02 itself, to the point where I might even say something as extreme as insinuating that not taking this into account means risking having the entire point of 02 go over your head. Not only has it been outright stated by official (multiple times, at that) that this is a point it intentionally was made to contrast with Adventure with, you can also even see it in the evolution gimmick (Jogress) being about people connecting with each other. It’s an important point to make in general, too; as long as we live in a world with other people in it, how we reach out to and connect with others is just as important of a personal character trait as how we deal with ourselves. This is one of 02′s most standout qualities, especially in contrast to other Digimon series; it’s the theme that sets it most apart from everything else.

I’m writing this partially because I felt I should touch on it in general, and partially because lately I’ve been hearing sentiments about how introducing the new upcoming 02-based movie with a “guest character” instead of the 02 group itself is somehow doing said characters a disservice. I touched on this a little earlier, but to be honest, as someone who personally loves 02 very deeply, this take unnerves me a lot (and, predictably, comes very often from people who don’t even care for 02 that much; seriously, it’s a bit unnerving to hear these kinds of sentiments acting like they care about the series’s welfare from people who never cared for it in the first place). So here’s a post about the importance of “relationships” in 02′s narrative overall, and how “guest characters” tend to play into this.

Funny how things work out sometimes, huh?

STRICKEN MOMENT OF PANIC AS HE LOOKS IN THE MIRROR ONE MORNING AND FINDS HIMSELF THINKING HOW AHIRU’S BEDHEAD IS PROBABLY REALLY REALLY CUTE

drae/udg: builds a relationship between two girls that could possibly be interpreted as gay

sdr2: a third of the cast are implied to either bisexual or gay

dr3: one canonically gay character who’s story revolves around him being gay. also shows two other scenes where two other implied to be gay characters swoon over their crushes.

ndrv3: literally all but three of the characters are implied to be bisexual or gay. one character is a blatant lesbian who is constantly talking about girls.