#alias iii

Hello all you happy people and welcome to Pop Culture Buffet, where I review some of the best media around.. and sometimes throw some in the garbage bin.  Today we dive into a classic I just discovered, one tied to a staple franchise of my childhood, and one you fine people voted on. It’s time to give it 100% for Digimon Adventure: V-Tamer 01: A Rope of Sand. 

I first found digimon via the anime, which came over to the states at the exact right time. I was 8, I loved Pokemon, so my atttiude to ANOTHER cool show about raising adorable and badass monsters that had it’s own engaging worldbuilding, loveable characters, and cool as heck monsters was ...

I was hooked and the fact it was on FoxKids, which I watched every saturday, as I eagerly gobbled up both adventures and the first half of tamers, saw the movie and bought tons of toys I wish i’d held onto because shit’s expensive to rebuy.  While I sadly didn’t see much of late stage tamers thanks to poor scheduling and haven’t gotten around to watching the anime after (And in the case of Frontier actively noped out as a teen when I found out the premise and found reruns on jetix), I’ve always loved this franchise ,and only haven’t watched what i’ve missed nor revisited my childhood because my watchpile is a massive nightmare from which few things actually escape. It’s a creative spin on Mons as while it wasn’t the first on the block, it was the first to really codify the monsters being their own individual beings who chooose to work with the humans, instead of being essentially being pets who fancy a scrap. Instead their wild creatures choosing to fancy a scrap to save the world, either by desitny or just liking this human they found and thinking they’ll keep them. This idea has been used since but I feel Digimon’s the one who really codified this version of monster taming.. which is odd given they were originally virtual pets, but still. The franchise also often dosen’t sell short the danger our heroes are in: while it still keeps it within family friendly territory, digimon CAN die, and while they can also reincarnate, it’s not a guarantee you’ll come back.. and if your a leomon pre-2020 ,i’ts a guarnatee you won’t be coming back. When stranded in a digital world our heroes are often in deadly danger and while Surivive seems to be the work emphasising this the most, there hasn’t been a one i’m aware of that wasn’t a gag manga that didn’t make it deadly clear that as peaceful and kind as most digimon were, the digital world and what comes form it is often dangerous. 

So why V-1. Well as I said it won a poll I did last month to see which manga/manhwa i’d cover with my patreons having picked out the applimon manga and the manhwa adaptations of adventure 01 and 02. And to my shock.. this one swept it. Granted in hindsight I can kind of see why as V-01 is both something people who haven’t read it, while adventure, as loved as it is, has at the time of this writing gotten 2 series, 5 movies, and tons of merch and tends to be the most represented in various media. So it’s not a huge suprise people would instead go for something they don’t know as well, and those who do know it clearly love it. As for why I picked it it was for those reasons: It’s unqiue, I hadn’t got around to reading it, most people don’t know it and thus it fascinated me and i’m pleased as punch to say my curoisty paid off though as for why and how.. you’l ljust have to read on, and hopefully for those who haven’t tried it I can convince you too as unsuually for me I won’t be trying to go into heavy spoilers for my review. Normally I like to get deep into the analysis, but here I feel i’d rather more people get to enjoy it and those who do know it can nod their head or shake their fist at me accordingly. There will be a light spoiler here or there, but for the most part you can go directly from this review to the manga and still enjoy it. Let’s begin. 

                                                 What Is V-Tamer 01? For the uninitiated, V-Tamer 01 is a digimon manga. The Digimon Digital Pets were a huge hit in japan which lead to a one shot Manga , Come On Digimon! by Hiroshi Izawa, which debuted in V-Jump, and was such a hit it warranted a full series. Debuting in 1998 This was not only the first bit of major Digimon Media but predates Adventure by a year, though weirdly it’d not only outlast adventure but run through frontier, before being cut short because frontier nearly murdered the franchise.  As a result of pre-dating the anime, it thus dosen’t have some of the logic to the franchise that would later be popularized by the anime: For starters when a digimon evolves, it STAYS evolved. Digivolution isn’t reversible unless it’s done by Jogress aka Fusion. Not only that our heroes partner digimon STARTS the Manga as a champion, having already been raised up to that, so for the first third he has a champion as a partner and for the other two thirds he’s an ultimate, only becoming a mega at the very end. This also applies to any ally digimon as we see both big good magnangemon and his right hand leomon evolve as the manga progresses. As a result the main antagonists for the first third are Ultimates, to be a level above zero, and for the second and third parts we get Megas. 

The other big swing is that the digital pet aspect is used and much like Tamers after it, Digimon is an actual thing in the real world, if just as a v-pet line, with the various tamers being people who raised their mons as digtial pets int he real world first. As a result the digivice can be used much like a pokedex in pokemon special: It can check health, relay commands and check moves, instead of being a mystical super thing. I honestly prefer this as it give sthe digivice more weight as a tool and allows the tamer to be more active in fights. Our main heroes Tai and Zero are as strong as they are because they work as a team with Tai’s strategy and Zero’s raw battle talent meaning they can beat foes outside their weight class, and when they can’t work in concert , such as the enemy preventing commands, is when their at their most threatened. 

And speaking of Tamers, only ONE tamer here is a chosen one: Tai himself, who was brought here. The others are antagonists, all coming here to create a new world for themselves. Even with that a lot of the mainstays of the franchise were there from adaptation one: The hero having goggles (being an alternate version of Tai, which the manga itself later establishes in a crossover), digivolution often being based on emotions and done at a critical and dramatic moment, esclating threats that are usually esclating sets of quirky minibossses, and digimentals, which would be key to adventure 02. It’s still the same digimon I know and love. .just remixed a bit to fit an older verison of the franchise. So what kind of story do they tell with that?

                                                       100%  V-Tamer 01 is the story of Tai, a middle school fan of Digimon Digital Pets whose quite good at it but gets rejected from a tournament because his Veedramon, Zero, isn’t recognized by the tournament officals... who you’d THINK would have sympathy to a child who clearly didn’t hack this and it was clearly either a glitch or simply a digimon you guys hadn’t heard of yet but

So as a consolation soon after Tai ends up in the digital world and meets Zero for real. And yes that’s another weird thing here: while most digimon, like the rest of the franchise are referred to by species, Tai’s two companions here have names outside of it. Granted it’s probably less confusing when you have a pack of digimon to not have a three jims type situation and have to call them the agumon when you can just call one Jerry, or Frank, or The Lone Locust of the Apocalypse.

The two get along great and their partnership is one of the things that makes the manga special: The two are truly best friends which isn’t unusual for digimon, usually partners and their tamers are very close and it’s their bonds that allow them to grow and reach their true potetials. But  this may be easily one of the purest and most adorable friendships i’ve seen: The two work hard together, train and trust each other more than anything, and train hard to get stronger. Well at leats in the first third, but in the second and third acts things are esclating so quickly there isn’t really time, so it’s fair. They also have the endearing as hell habit of dork dancing any time they win. 

My friend Masked Maverick helped me with this, as he’s a huge fan of V-Tamer 01 and a digimon expert, and I agree with him this is just so damn charming. 

The two trust each other on a level that only the truest of friends do, in a way that feels real like I do with my best friends.. and it thus becomes their greatest asset in battle. Zero is a great fighter, but really isn’t a tactical genius, while Tai is but obviously is a squishy human. It’s explicit here that the combo of Zero’s raw strength and tai’s intellgent tactics, helpfully transmitted wirelessly after having to shout the mearly on is what MAKES them so effective. Their earliest opponents are ultimates, digimon a level stronger, and thus the two HAVE to rely on smart strategy or die. It’s another of the manga’s strong points: While ther’es plenty of your standard “Heart helping a hero pull through” and hot blooded action like all shonen, the real strength in the fights is tai using everything he can think of to help Zero win. They may have a limited moveset, simply using v-arrow on things and claws and once zero digivolves, flight, but the manga works it hard. Said limited moveset is also because digimon in the v-pet era only had a few attacks, with card and video games helpfully fleshing it out for future media. The tactics make each fight exciting as you figure our heroes will probably win.. but not HOW they will or what their opponents are going to pull. 

Not only that the true partnership and friendship... actually creates problems. Zero is so devoted to tai tha it’s revealed he hasn’t become an ultimate because he’s worried it’ll affect their friendship, and only does when Tai’s life is on the line. (Tai of course dosen’t care what he becomes, but is willing to let Zero digivolve on his own time), while we later find out the boost zero gets from emotions.. has some serious drawbacks. I won’t spoil them for you but not only does it cleverly deconstruct the emotinal boost but Zero KNOWS about it and was damaging his body with them for Tai’s sake. It’s clever to show that while said friendship is healthy our own doubts and nerousis can cause us to take horrible unecessary risks just to hold on to a friendship that isn’t in any danger. 

The two soon meet Gabo, a gabumon who thinks their little sobs but soon comes around and takes them to meet his master, MagnaAngemon, whose the big good here. As it turns out he brought Tai to the digital world as the Evil Daemon, who yes is indeed a digimon, is trying to take over the world. 

And Magna summoned our heroes to gather the 5 tags needed to penetrate his castle and stop him and stuff. So for the first volume and a good chunk of the first third, it’s simple monster of the week stuff: Tai fights one of Daemon’s general, uses clever tactics to get through, maybe meets a friend along the way, and gets a tag. 

What mixes it up and truly pushes V-Tamer 01 into greatness is the introduction of our TRUE antagonist, Neo Saiba. Neo is another tamer.. but Tai’s opposite, seeing digimon as merley means to an end, gladly discarding ones he finds weak and finding out their some form of real dosen’t remotely stop him from thinking this way, his first fight with tai having him curelly sacrifice a metalgreymon who just wanted to be strong for him simply to get scans of Tai’s abliities with his digivice. He is cold, will gladly throw away anything to achive his goal of making a new world, and he is every bit as clever and tactical as Tai. His first tactic is using jogress (Fusion), but having the fusion disolve to dodge attacks, and allowing him to replenish and he still uses jogress as his main tactic going into the second. It’s something you rarely see as the only other evil tamer around the same time , 02′s ken, uses far diffrent tactics and it wouldn’t be till xross wars (which i’m currently reading the manga for and is pretty damn sweet), we got other tamers/generals who could use the same tactics as our heroes, and to this day no one has really used fusion combativley like this that i’m aware of. It’s a completely unique and awesome techinque that requires tactics, the tecs weakness (both digimon split the damage so their still injured), and a digivolution to overcome. It raises the stakes by giving Tai an equal opponent to fight.

Neo is a truly intresting big bad, using strategy to overwhlem his foes and when the second act hits and he needs to grow the ultimate digital monster Daemon has been growing all manga and raise it, he enlists three MORE tamers, as while Tai can now enter the castle he has to get there first. That’s where things hit their peak as Tai must now fight three tamers who not only have stronger mons but each have their own clever tactics to fight  tai with and their own reasons for wanting “to create their own new world”: Sigma , a masked lad who felt ostracized in the real world and who uses his Piedemons ablities to itnercept tai’s commands, Mari, who is creepily selling pictures to older men depsite being in MIDDLE SCHOOL 

Ugh. Just.. no to all of that, and who pretends to be a ditz... onlly to reveal it’s a stalling tactic so Neo’s plans can go off without a hitch and Hideto, who has an utterly heartwrenching backstory that ties into zeros and who has a FUCKING OMNIMON AS HIS PARTNER. No I didn’t mistype that. OMNIMON. Yes Royal Knight, Tai and Matt’s ultimate trump cart, THAT OMNIMON. THAT HAPPENS. 

That.. really was my reactoin. I flipped out. There was also supposed to be a third phase, but it got cut down as Frontier nearly killed the franchise, so the manga had to speed up to the climax after the alias 3. This also leads to why the manga hasn’t been localized. JUST this one, the other ones have no excuse bandai what the shit, but this one.. had some legal issues with the writer. As such daemon and veedramon had to have vastly diffrent designs in other media and many of the manga’s original digis, including the ones that were originally going to be recurring but were reduced to cameos for time, have yet to show up again. The writer/artist of the manga has since reconclied with Bandai and has done some work on ghost game, so there is hope for them but yea, sticky legal issues left this out of print for a while and still out of print here despite digimon’s rising popularity again. It’s why while I won’t link to sites directly, I encourage you to look for a fan translation as I feel no shame in reading something online if it has no offical release or is long out of print. Sometimes it’s the only way to keep a work in circulation like the archie sonic comics. 

And I REALLY do recommend it as I loved this one: it is a quick read, only 9 volumes and the pacing is breakneck. It is fairly monster of the week: first the 5 devas, then the alias 3 and again there was going to be another before the final showdown with the big bad, and we get maybe THREE fights without zero in the whole manga, so it could be repittive.. but the slow escalation and clever tactics , forcing our heroes to constantly evolve their tactics or die, and the engaging characters really keep you hooked. I coudln’t wait to get to the next chapters each time and if you like a good fighting manga, this one is an outstanding one to check out. 

It’s only real weaknesses are the said lack of variety: It’s very much zero saves the day, and Gabo is there mostly to scream from the sidelines. He never evolves, only fights once and while his help as cook is useful and he’s still fairly likeable, it feels disapionting he never gets to digivolve into garurumon and pitch in. It dosen’t help the garuru line is one of my faviortes, and given we see Neo and Hideto both have multiple partners, there’s no reason Tai couldn’t of added Gabo to his digivice. It’s a mild disapointment. I also feel the later tritagonist added, while an intresting character, dosen’t get to do much of her own agency and just mostly wonders around a castle for most of her time in the manga.