anime manga art

Let's get some things cleared up first, for anyone who hasn't picked up on it: yes I like digimon/human ships. In case you couldn't tell!! I'm a huge fairy tale lover and I've always been drawn to the idea of interspecies romance (in fantasy settings where this is a possibility), there's something about it that's just so fascinating and endearing to me. I could go on a ramble about the queer nature of it all, and how it resonates with me as an asexual individual, but this isn't about me. Point is, I'm into that stuff. And you'd think a franchise like Digimon, which features monsters with human-like intellect forming strong bonds with humans that they call partners, would be the perfect setting for this type of thing, and the fandom would be full of pairings like this. Yet... it's not.

Humans as the primary focus

Here's the thing though: I kinda get it. When I was younger, I never considered those a possibility. It's something that actually took me a while to realize, even though I already enjoyed those types of pairings in other media. And it all comes down to what I can only describe as human bias, from both the fandom and the show itself. Throughout the first few seasons of the anime, the story always focused primarily on the human characters, regardless of how much agency the digimon characters were given (Adventure notoriously tended to treat the digimon as extensions of their partners and oversimplify their personalities, and this remained present in its modern sequels). And of course us, as the human audience, will always be naturally drawn to the human characters as well. So really, it makes sense that for most people, the idea of a digimon and a human having romantic feelings for each other will never even cross their mind, and canon insinuations of this will be regarded as silly jokes. What I do find strange, however, is the way people react when this idea actually gets brought up.

(Now as an aside, it is worth noting that my approach to shipping is probably a rather weird one. I'm drawn to the dynamics between the characters, and I'm not really concerned with labeling what they have. I don't care whether or not they're dating or what type of relationship they have and how this affects their other relationships. That's all so confusing! They're in love!! Does anything else matter? I may joke about them being married and whatnot, but I'm not actually too concerned about that aspect. But it does matter to some people, so I'll try to look at things from that perspective for the most part.)

The Digimon fandom is very passionate about shipping. I've always been well aware of this, being constantly bombarded with romantic fanart of every possible (human) character combination when looking up Digimon pictures as a kid. People will ship any two characters for any reason whatsoever. Sometimes I'd even find shippy art of the digimon themselves! Usually just matching the pairings of their human partners, because digimon aren't allowed individuality (shout-out to Wizarmon/Tailmon for actually breaking the norm there, I remember being quite fond of it back in the day). But digimon/human pairings have always been quite rare (even if they did exist) and treated by most people in the western side of the fandom as some sort of taboo, like it's some weird and immoral thing. Even back in the old days, when people shipped the twins from Frontier and no one cared!! Before all the modern day fandom drama!! Somehow the interspecies stuff was "too weird", even when there was nothing morally objectionable about it in context. And I keep wondering... why? Why are people so averse to this?

The ethics of interspecies shipping

Throughout the years I've seen people present many arguments for why they consider this type of shipping as "wrong", and why they're personally opposed to it. The most common (and in my opinion, the most nonsensical) is that "digimon are basically talking pets, and dating your pet is wrong". This argument is so stupid in so many ways that I don't even know where to start.

I mean, yes, the franchise did start out as virtual pet toys, the "boy version" of the Tamagotchi (and as a casual Tamagotchi fan let me tell you, those are not like pets at all either), and in the one-shot that is generally considered the first Digimon manga, C'mon Digimon!, they are, indeed, treated as pets, and aren't capable of speaking or display much intelligence at all. But that was basically the first and last time they took this approach, and in every Digimon story from that point on the digimon have been consistently shown to be intelligent creatures on the same cognitive level as humans. Even in media that makes use of the v-pet toys as a mechanic! Of course, each universe has a different approach to digimon/human partnerships, and not all of them will be the most suitable for the exploration of romantic relationships (not if you apply real world morals to them anyway). Sometimes your digimon partner is more like your child, and that's fine too! It's not like the idea of interspecies romance applies to all partner pairs. It doesn't apply exclusively to partner pairs either, those just tend to work the best in most contexts.

Another argument I see pop up often, usually in reference to certain specific ships, is regarding the digimon's age. Which is actually a really interesting and valid point! Because this is something that varies a lot depending on the setting and the specifics of how digimon function as a species and how they're connected to their human partners. Digimon don't really age in the same way humans do, and their lifespans are often different from those of humans (they can be much longer or much shorter, and in most cases they're essentially immortal, being reborn each time they die, with or without their memories intact), which makes their age something really hard to define, and makes it practically impossible to try to think of it in terms of real life moral and legal definitions.

Thankfully, digimon aren't real, so the ethics of it only really matter if that's something you're interested in exploring within the narrative. Most of the time it all just comes down to the digimon's level of maturity, and how the actual dynamic plays off. And, most importantly, whether you actually care about all that stuff or not. In my opinion, this only adds an extra layer of interest to the situation, especially the thing with the different lifespans (ahh, the tragic potential of it all...), but with that said, I can understand why this specific point might be a turn-off for some people regarding some pairings. However, I do find it really interesting that no one really cares about that when it comes to a certain ship... but more on that later, we're getting there.

And a third argument I see pop up on occasion is one that only really applies to certain specific continuities, but which I find very pertinent, especially with Beatbreak currently airing. And that's the idea that this kind of relationship is wrong because of the digimon existing specifically for their human partners, and being an extension of them in some manner. This one is funny to me, coming from modern internet fandom. I thought y'all loved soulmate AUs??

Ok, jokes aside, I fail to see how this is an issue. I mean, I'm not crazy about the "soulmate" approach to partnerships myself, personally I prefer when digimon and humans become partners by choice. I think that makes their bond feel all the more special, because they specifically picked each other rather than being thrown together by the power of fate. But I don't think the latter is bad, and I especially don't see how it would get in the way of this relationship being seen as romantic. If anything, it feels ideal, having someone who is your other half and was born just for you, who will love you unconditionally and be there for you no matter what. Someone who reflects aspects of yourself that you grow to love the more you love this other person. Is that not the epitome of romance? Come on guys.

With all that said, there is one big, obvious reason people have for not enjoying this type of pairing that stands above all three major arguments I discussed: Appearance. It's all about how the characters look. You can see this easily in how the few pairings of this type people tend to be okay with usually involve humanoid digimon (even then, there's always some opposition still). But nothing illustrates this better than one of the fandom's most beloved BL pairings: Yuujin and Haru.

Appearance above nature: Yuujin, Rhythm and double standards

You see, all these arguments I've been talking about, minus the silly pet thing, can easily be applied to these two as well. Yuujin is not human, despite looking like one — he's an AI, much like the titular Appli Monsters of the show. His entire body and mind are fabricated, things like age and gender are simply a part of his programming. And much like how the digimon in some continuities are born for their human partners, Yuujin was created for Haru. The whole purpose of his existence was to befriend Haru, to love him above all else and become the most important person in his life. And yet, you will never see anyone try to claim that this ship is wrong or "problematic" for these reasons, the same way they do for digimon/human pairs. In fact, many of the people I've encountered who are opposed to the latter are huge fans of this ship in particular. How ironic.

And why is that? Simple, it's because he looks human. He has the appearance and behavior of a normal teenage boy, regardless of how this ties into his actual biology (or lack thereof), and therefore is deemed a valid candidate for the role of Haru's love interest. And this is even more fascinating when you realize that, considering all I've said, Yuujin/Haru should technically be seen as worse than, say, Dokamon/Eri for example. Because Yuujin is less human than an appmon. While the show acknowledges both as types of artificial intelligence, Yuujin is a fully artificial android, with a mechanical body. He's a machine. Meanwhile appmon are "AI lifeforms" naturally born from mobile applications. As far as we know, they have fully organic bodies when apprealized. They're living beings. It's the same general logic behind regular digimon! So how come Yuujin gets a pass, but not them?

Now, don't take this as me dunking on YuuHaru, or Haruujin or whatever ship name is the most common nowadays. I actually like it a lot! I have drawn art of them! I can't watch the Appmon finale without crying my eyes out, because I love them so much and I want them to be happy together! And I totally understand why they're such a beloved couple to so many people. But I also think Hackmon and Rei should kiss and I don't know why that isn't okay. I just don't understand this double standard that people have when it comes to what interspecies ships are acceptable. And also what intraspecies ships are unacceptable, funnily enough.

So, remember the Savers movie? The one with Rhythm, the human-looking girl who is actually a digimon? I watched it a couple times and always found it quite enjoyable (also I still really need to draw Rhythm eventually), it's a nice movie. But what I never knew until only a couple years back is that there are some people out there with very strong feelings against one specific element of this movie, which is the scene at the end where Rhythm kisses Agumon's nose and tells him she loves him. Now, this is really funny to me, because I actually never perceived that scene as romantic, so I was quite confused when I saw people talk about this. It was just a cute interaction, I don't think they spent enough time together for their feelings to go anywhere beyond a mutual platonic fondness, but that is how some people see it, and... yeah I can understand why. What I don't understand is why they're mad about it. They're both digimon!! And digimon can take on many forms!! What is the issue here!!!

Well apparently the issue is simply that Rhythm looks too human, and that makes it weird in these people's eyes. Because why would you give the funny yellow dinosaur a pretty humanoid girlfriend? Even though they're both equally intelligent beings belonging to the same species? I've never even seen a good argument against it, it really just comes down to their appearances, and it's insane. We've seen digimon couples before, we know digimon dating and marrying and forming families together is a thing in many universes, so that can't be the weird thing here. No, the weird thing is that their looks are mismatched. And looks, as it turns out, are the most important thing.

Beatbreak ships and fandom culture across the globe

Now of course, we all know that looks play a big part in shipping culture. It is a well-known fact that people will ship two characters who have never even met simply because they look good together. They'll take the one character they find attractive and make up other characters to ship with them, or in some cases they'll even split the same character into two or more people and ship them together. And I'm not judging anyone for doing that (that's totally valid), but I do find that phenomenon quite interesting. For some people, shipping often works as an expression of attraction towards the characters, and they're the most drawn to pairings between characters they find attractive, and repulsed by the ones featuring characters they consider unappealing. A lot of popular ships center on young attractive male characters. And you know which Digimon season features plenty of those? Beatbreak.

I've been a Digimon fan all my life, but Beatbreak is only the second Digimon anime I'm watching weekly as it airs, and the first for which I am actively engaging with the fandom while watching it. And let's just say that it has been quite an interesting experience so far. I'm getting to witness firsthand as certain characters and pairings rise in popularity, and watch the gradual evolution of the top relationships on the AO3 tag. I even check different social media sites regularly to look for fanart and get a glimpse of what people from other parts of the world think of the show. And I find the cultural differences here to be quite interesting.

Of course, Raito/Tomoro appears to be the most popular ship for this series pretty much everywhere as far as I can tell, and... yeah that makes sense. It's your typical rival/protag ship, of course that's gonna be popular. Nothing new there. But when you look at what comes after that one, that's where it gets interesting, because what you get is basically a mix of various ships revolving around Kyo that vary depending on where you're looking. Now these are just my observations based on what I see, and they might not be an accurate reflection of reality, but it seems like Murasamemon/Kyo is overall the most popular ship among japanese fans (bless their hearts, thank you for all the wonderful fanart) and perhaps among korean fans as well, Kaito/Kyo seems to be quite popular in chinese-speaking countries, and the leading ship in the western side of the fandom is, for whatever reason, Asuka/Kyo. And this takes us back to that bizarre ask I got. The one that assumed, somehow, that this is the default Kyo ship everyone should like, and seemed confused by my silly theory about them being brothers.

I'm not insane, right? This is weird. Why Asuka of all characters? Of course I didn't expect the MuraKyo ship to be the popular one on this side of the fandom, for all the reasons I already mentioned (even thought the Glowing Dawn family dynamic is so fun...), but there are so many characters you can ship Kyo with. So many interesting dynamics to explore. And so many conventionally attractive male characters too! Just what people like! It's crazy to me that Kaito isn't people's first choice actually, that seems like the one that would make the most sense when you think about it. As of episode 39 (the most recent one at the time of posting this), all Asuka has going for him is... a couple lines from Kyo that tell us they're old friends? That's it? He's barely in the story at all. He's basically dead for the time being. But... maybe that's the thing.

Seriously, why Asuka?

So, I think I actually have an idea of what's going on here. Both the AsuKyo ship and the general fixation people seem to have on Asuka, despite him not even being much of a character at all so far, are things that I've seen before. It's been happening since the very start of the show (like back before episode 2 when most of us thought he might actually be dead). People were obsessing over Asuka and theorizing about his and Kyo's past since really early on (even drawing fanart, I remember this one comic that popped up on my dash a couple times), and already at that time I was getting this sense of déja-vu. Where have I seen this before...?

You see, back in my late teens I went through a brief phase when I was really into Disney movies and shows. This just so happened to occur at the time when Disney had just released the first teaser trailer for Big Hero 6, and I was obsessed from the first time I watched it. I got really into it, always keeping an eye on any news and reveals that came out. That movie was actually the thing that made me start posting on my old tumblr blog back then! And... well, if you ever had any contact with the fandom for that movie, you know how obsessed people were with Tadashi. The guy who was there for what, half an hour or so? before getting killed off. Whose entire personality boiled down to being the really nice older brother who wanted to help people and did nothing wrong. But who was really attractive to the average tumblr user, and so they just couldn't let go of him. He got shipped with every character. People had so many theories about him actually being alive. When the TV series aired years later (I was there for that too) they kept expecting him to come back at some point. It was crazy. And as someone who was more interested in the rest of the cast, it was a bit frustrating at times too. And... yeah, when I saw the way people were acting about Asuka, I immediately got Tadashi flashbacks.

Now... I don't think the Asuka situation is nearly as crazy. Smaller fandom and all, plus Asuka does seem like he might play an important role eventually. But it is still pretty reminiscent of it. I can't go in the Beatbreak tag without seeing several posts talking about Asuka, even at times when he hasn't been mentioned in the show in a while! And people keep bringing him up when talking about Kyo too. Especially here on tumblr, it's like half the fandom cares more about Asuka than the rest of the cast (surely that's an exaggeration, but it's what it feels like). And don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning anyone for that. People are allowed to like whatever characters they want, and ship whatever they want. I just find this fascinating. There seems to be this tendency in western fandom spaces, especially here on the good old hellsite, for characters with certain traits to get really popular. Male characters, usually older teens or young adults, tall and thin, with really simple but generally attractive designs and very straightforward roles in the story. Even better if they're dead! Usually the sweet and gentle kind, although people also love to see this type get corrupted in some manner. Y'know, it's probably a variant of the phenomenon that created the Onceler fandom. I'm not trying to compare Asuka to the Onceler, but... I suppose they have more in common than you'd think.

So yeah, it makes sense that Asuka is a character that would thrive on tumblr. And it makes sense that people would ship him with the first other young man available, Kyo. It's not like it's exclusive to tumblr or western fans either, I've seen asian fans who are into it as well. With that said, it's still really bizarre that this ship gets treated as the default for Kyo. I suppose it's just because it was the only thing people had during (most of) the first arc of the show, and they held onto it.

Makoto and the queer analogy (Chiropmon who??)

Well, it was the only thing they had because they don't see the digimon as valid options, of course, otherwise I could see a handful of other ships being really popular. Such as ChiroMako! Boy, is there a lot of shipping fuel for those two. If only Chiropmon was shaped like a human boy instead, people would be all over it. Dare I say they might even get compared to Haru and Yuujin, with people going "there's no way it's not canon" because what else could the intention be, right? Too bad people don't even see Chiropmon as a character to begin with.

I have gushed about episode 30 of Beatbreak quite a good amount back when it aired, both here and in private conversations with friends. I could not shut up about it. I still can't. You just have to mention it and I'll start yapping incessantly about it. It was such a sweet episode, giving Chiropmon some much deserved focus and nice character development (quite rare for digimon in Beatbreak, as this is another very human-focused season), and showing the strong, beautiful bond that exists between him and Makoto. At some point I just started referring to it as "the ChiroMako episode", because really, that's what it is. It's so easy to view this episode under a romantic lens, to see Chiropmon and Makoto's story as one of queer love. And that was the general consensus among my friends when we were discussing it back then, so I know I'm not crazy.

In fact, I'd like to take the opportunity to quote my artist buddy Fortune ( @fortunemagex ) because I think he put this into words quite well:

For me one of the most interesting and hurting parts was Chiropmon's choosing to go away so Makoto can be happy, that queer feeling that your partner will be better with a "normal" family and environment and that you are only a hindrance.

And Chiropmon feeling like this was the thing that got Makoto super angry and led them both to the resolution to reach evolution. Not only that but they literally FLY OUTSIDE OF THE EGG (representation of closed society and high class, etc.) to reach their destination.

This episode is just so full of queer symbolism and romantic potential, it's hard not to see it. Well, at least not when you're acknowledging Chiropmon as the central figure of it, and viewing him as just as much of a person as Makoto is. Because, it turns out, some people don't consider Chiropmon to be his own person at all! After watching this episode, I went around the tumblr tags and other social media as I do, checking what people had to say. And I was absolutely baffled to see several people acknowledge the queer themes of the episode... while completely leaving Chiropmon out of it. Some of the posts I saw didn't even mention him at all, while others just referred to him as an analogy for Makoto's queerness, a metaphor of sorts, nothing but a mere concept. If you ever see me and my friends make dumb jokes about Chiropmon not existing, this is what we're referring to. The dismissal of Chiropmon’s character and role in this episode is just so insane, we can only laugh about it. How do you even do that? How can you ignore what's going on in such a blatant manner?

The only explanation I can think of is that this is a result of not only the human bias I've been mentioning but also people taking the show's "mirror image" approach to partnership way too literally. Which I can't blame them too much for, considering even some of the show's actual staff members seem to suffer from this problem (as I've said before, the issue can sometimes come from both sides). Which is crazy considering the show constantly showcases how the digimon are not literal mirrors of their partners, but simply reflect some of their traits as they feed on their emotions and are born from the power of said emotions. They are still their own individuals, they have their own hobbies and interests, and their own distinct personalities. Not every part of them is meant to be representative of how their partners think and feel. And as I've said before in another post, the mirror thing goes both ways! If you can draw a better understanding of the human by analyzing the digimon, you can also understand the digimon better by analyzing the human. But you never see anyone do the latter, because only the humans matter.

And it's interesting to see how this human bias is so ingrained in people's minds, especially after we had an entire season that did an exceptional job at giving its digimon characters proper focus and depth. Not only that, but it actually brought the topic of digimon/human romance to the forefront and explored the idea in some very interesting ways. Of course I couldn't write a post about all this without talking about Ghost Game.

Ghost Game's legacy

This season was the first Digimon anime I watched weekly as it was airing, and it was such a unique one. Ghost Game did so many new interesting things for this franchise, despite not really having any exclusive gimmicks or cool new mechanics, and there's a good reason I have it in my Top 3. Well first of all the horror theme and episodic format are right up my alley, and second of all... well. This show is interspecies shipping paradise. Of course I like it a lot.

But once again, we're not talking about me! We're talking about how the fandom as a whole responds to this stuff, so let's talk about how they responded to Ghost Game's themes and characters. As I said before, Beatbreak is the first season I'm watching while actively engaging with the fandom, but while I wasn't actively engaging with it back during Ghost Game's airing, I did occasionally check what people were saying about certain episodes. And seeing the reactions to some elements of it could be quite baffling at times.

So, this season is very dedicated to exploring themes of communication and acceptance, through digimon and humans learning to coexist peacefully. Many if not most of its episodes revolve around digimon accidentally causing chaos after being sent to the human world because they don't understand human culture, and when they try to engage with it they inevitably get some things wrong. The results of these misunderstandings vary, with some of these stories ending tragically, while others get happy endings thanks to the protagonists being able to reason with the digimon of the week. And not only did a couple of these cases involve digimon having presumably romantic feelings for a human (and not knowing how to deal with them, thus both of these stories had sad endings), but two of the partner pairs within the main team had some very clear undeniably romantic undertones to them, with one of them being especially obvious to the point of becoming a bit of a hot topic among the fandom. That being, of course, Jellymon and Kiyoshiro.

Jellymon has a crush on her human partner Kiyoshiro. This is canon — although it was never stated out loud in the show itself, external materials have confirmed it to be the case. And really, it's quite obvious with her constantly addressing him as "Darling" and generally treating their relationship as if they were a couple, even accusing him of cheating at one point. The show doesn't make it clear whether Kiyo eventually returns these feelings, but it's easy to believe it might be the case with the way he grows clearly fonder of her throughout the course of the show (after being initially terrified of her). Point is, the feelings are there, whether they are one-sided or not. And while some fans (me included) embraced this idea and saw nothing wrong with it, others were very upset by it. Between criticizing both the show and shippers for "making it weird" and attempting to deny the canonicity of it, even trying to recontextualize Jellymon's feelings as familial, I've seen a bit of everything! I have even seen some people try to bring up the whole age argument as an attempt to paint the pairing as wrong — the funny thing is some people will claim Jellymon is a child, while others insist she's an adult woman. At the end of the day, no one even seems to agree on the correct way to hate on the ship. It's quite funny, really.

And aside from those two, there was also the slightly more subtle but equally present romantic coding of Angoramon and Ruri's relationship, implied in the general knight/princess dynamic the two have and made quite explicitly obvious in the Werewolf episode, in which the two are clearly meant to parallel Ruri's ancestor and the werewolf, who fell in love and met a tragic fate due to the people disapproving of their relationship. You could even perhaps use that tale as commentary for what goes on in the Digimon fandom. And on the topic of tragic tales, Twisted Love is another very interesting episode. I have made a post about this one before, in which I compared it to two fairy tales featuring tragic love stories between mermaids and humans that involve one of them undergoing some change to be with the other, and that's yet another situation that you could draw some great commentary from. Ajatarmon met a tragic end because she was so obsessed with the idea that she and Yuuto could only be together if they were the same species, it ultimately led her to destroy herself. And I think it's obvious why the idea that you must change yourself or others for love is bad. Yet the conclusion I've seen other people draw from this episode is "See? The show is telling us romance between digimon and humans is wrong and could never work out!" Which. How do you even get there.

Now with all that said, what is especially bizarre about people reacting this way to seeing those things in this season in particular is that, unlike most of the older seasons, this one was not biased towards the humans at all. The digimon really felt like actual characters in it! The show made a point to say that digimon and humans are not all that different deep down. For the most part, they simply have to work through their cultural differences and communicate properly in order to reach an understanding. Some digimon may be difficult or even impossible to reason with, but the same applies to humans, for there is good and bad on both sides. And everyone's goal at the end is to build a world where the two species can co-exist as equals! But despite this being such a central theme of this season, some people seem to have missed it completely, and still treat digimon as inherently inferior.

And here I'd like to quote another friend of mine, my dearest spouse Tez ( @tezuze ) on this topic:

(...) what grinds my gears the most is I'm pretty sure Ghost Game was a commentary on immigration, and treating the digimon like they're on a different social hierarchy than the humans IS LITERALLY GOING AGAINST THE THEMES OF THE SHOW.

You're literally saying "Jellymon can't date Kiyoshiro because she looks different".

I don't have much of an opinion on the show being about immigration, but I can absolutely see how it may be interpreted that way. And when you see it from that perspective, it really only makes matters all the worse. And it is indeed going against the themes of the show. Because if the show is deliberately telling you that digimon and humans are equals, and yet you still insist on digimon not deserving the same rights because they look different, that only comes across as extremely prejudiced.

Ok, so. Some people watched Ghost Game and learned nothing, it seems. But the series did also have its positive impact here and there. I feel like the whole exploration of interspecies romance got many people to actually open up to the idea, and be less opposed to it. And I know for a fact that this was many people's introduction to digimon/human shipping, as some have told me just that (not only that, I think despite everything the fandom in general is a bit more accepting of those now compared to before). And of course, the focus on the digimon as people on the same level as their human counterparts did resonate with quite a few fans who, even if just for this one time, didn't prioritize the humans over them. Even those who didn't vibe with any of these aspects were at least forced to acknowledge them to some degree!

...And then Beatbreak happened. And, for as much as it is an amazing season, and it still gives the digimon characters their moments to shine (and even made a point to reinforce that digimon and humans are equals, not to mention whatever Maki and Panjyamon had going on), compared to Ghost Game it feels a bit like a regression in that regard. And y'know... that's fine. Different universes, different rules. Can't always please everyone in every area. But I do notice that this season's reception has generally been much more positive, and there's a lot more discussion around it. And that might just have been good timing, with many people discovering or returning to Digimon after the release of Time Stranger, but I can't help but feel like there's more to it. After all, Beatbreak feels a tad more reminiscent of a classic Digimon anime in its structure when compared to Ghost Game, which experimented a lot more with both its format and themes. It's still a different, unique season, but I can't help but notice people drawing comparisons to the classic shows, and I wonder... is that why?

The curse of nostalgia and the rejection of change

Digimon fans are terribly drawn to nostalgia. We all know that. That's why Adventure is still so popular, and it keeps getting new merch and animated sequels and reboots and additional material to this day. It's why the first four seasons of the anime are generally regarded as superior to everything that comes after (even if Frontier still gets some hate for being too different) and always get the most attention from Toei and Bandai themselves. It's why Tamers is loved by so many people as the alleged "dark and mature" season. And it's why the franchise can never seem to succeed while relying on the new stuff alone. People keep returning to the old and familiar and have trouble accepting change. Which I can't help but think, for a franchise that is all about the idea of "evolution", is quite ironic.

You can even see this in the way people insist on trying to fit characters into established tropes that they perceive as mandatory in the series. Which are often not even really a thing that ever existed in the first place. How many Digimon anime, or even media as a whole, actually feature a hot headed goggle-wearing red-coded fire themed protagonist partnered with a dinosaur or dragon digimon, and a "lone wolf" blue-coded rival character partnered with a canine digimon, without any changes to this formula? There actually isn't a single anime season that fits this description exactly! (Frontier is almost there, but Takuya/Flamon's evo line kinda goes many places and isn't exclusively dinosaur or dragon.) And the more you travel forward in time the more they deviate from these "traditions", that maybe were never really intended as traditions to begin with, but more of an amalgamation of known popular tropes in media aimed at the same target audience. I mean, the whole red/blue thing is a tokusatsu trope. There are even many shows that parody that. And dinosaurs are cool, and kind of symbolic for Digimon with Tyranomon being its original mascot. The goggle thing was an accidental tradition and one that they broke pretty early on with Savers. Canines? What about that bug over there? Kiriha has a dragon army, that's pretty cool. Most of the so-called "rivals" aren't even actual rivals at all! Or loners for that matter! I'm just rambling pointlessly now, but hopefully you get what I mean.

Yet people really hold onto these tropes. They expect to see them in every show, and get upset when this doesn't happen, or happens in a way that's different from what they perceive as the usual. And when that is the case, they try to force it to be a thing. I have seen Kiyoshiro thrown together with the so-called "rival" characters quite a few times in fanart and memes and whatnot, even though the closest thing Ghost Game has to that role is GulusGammamon (but he's a digimon, and people have enough trouble accepting a girl in the group as it is). And people were desperate to find a character for this role in Beatbreak too, before Raito came along (and he's not much of a traditional rival either, being an arc-exclusive character). I saw Kyo being forced into the role back then, despite being more of a mentor figure the way Satsuma from Savers was and not really fitting the vibe of a rival at all. Reina was a victim of this too, but at least she does fit the part a bit better (but since she's a girl not that many people latched onto this). Time and time again they try so hard to identify these patterns everywhere, and... frankly it's quite exhausting. Can't we just enjoy new, different things for what they are?

And this ends up tying into the human bias thing once again. Because, as I've mentioned, people are still obsessed with Adventure, and Adventure was a heavily human-focused season that really struggled with giving its main digimon characters any depth, and just treated them as an extension of their partners for the most part. And this is the way people are treating digimon even now, regardless of what approach is taken in each individual universe. They (consciously or subconsciously) expect the series to always follow the same rules, even though that's the exact opposite of what Digimon has been doing this whole time. And it can result in some amusing situations. I've actually seen people complain about Time Stranger not giving its human characters much development, which is true, but it's so funny to me. Because I never see people complain about the opposite (they expect it to be the opposite, in fact). I actually love that about Time Stranger, I love that the digimon get a lot more focus and the humans are kinda just there for the most part. It's nice for a change! But people hate change. Even though Digimon is all about change. It always has been.

Final conclusions (or lack thereof)

So to finally conclude this whole thing (this may be the longest post I've ever written), yeah. The Digimon fandom here in the west — at least the side of it that enjoys the series for its storytelling and not just the designs and toys — is extremely biased towards the human characters, and nowhere is this more apparent than in shipping discussions. Humans will always take priority over the digimon, even the ones that have little to no development at all. The digimon are sidelined, treated as analogies and metaphors, if not ignored entirely, and their own development is instead attributed to their human partners. Anything can be grounds for shipping two human characters romantically, even if the two have never been shown interacting, but relationships between digimon and humans, no matter how deep, intense and sometimes even straight-up romantic in nature, will always be downplayed, misinterpreted or disregarded, or simply defaulted to platonic or familial bonds even when the equivalent between humans would never be interpreted that way. And the only non-humans that get a pass are the ones that look human enough to be seen as such.

And I don't expect this to stop anytime soon, as much as I wish it would. I didn't even write this essay in hopes that people will read it and change their minds, because I'm fairly sure that won't happen. I doubt many people will even read the whole thing until the end (if you did reach this point, however, congratulations and thank you for sticking around), I just wanted to write down my thoughts on the matter and share them, hoping some of you will at least find it an amusing read if nothing else.

There is some gradual change happening however, despite everything. And I definitely think works like Ghost Game and Time Stranger (which I only briefly mentioned as it is a fairly recent game that many haven't played in full yet, but did do an amazing job with its digimon characters) are a big part of the reason for this change, and I'm very grateful to them for that. And I sincerely hope this change will continue as the franchise keeps growing and evolving further.

As for me, at the end of it all, it's not like I can force anyone to change their minds. I wouldn't want that either way. People are free to have their own preferences and opinions, and I have nothing to do with that — but that doesn't mean I can't vent my frustrations with the general state of things here and there. Complaining won't do much though, so like I've said before the best I can do is keep creating the content I want to see, and hoping it will have some kind of positive impact. I like to joke that I'm the biggest advocate for digimon-human equality, because in truth I have never met anyone else as passionate about this topic as I am, but I have met plenty of like-minded people thanks to my constant yapping about it, so that's nice I think.