There Is Something In The Fact That Instead Of Hikari, Tailmon Found Vamdemon, Dwelling In The Very Castle

There is something in the fact that instead of Hikari, Tailmon found Vamdemon, dwelling in the very castle that the chosen digimon originated in.

Because of course Nyaromon should have grown up with the others. She should have grown up playing together and waiting for Hikari with others who knew what she was waiting for in why. Tailmon shouldn't have had to grow up to be an adult while the others were still babies.

But if we're going with what ifs and should haves, then all 8 of them should have been at that castle, but with the Agents to teach them about what they were meant to do. With their tags and crests, and knowledge of their meanings. With knowing not just who they were waiting for but why.

In the end, Plotmon found where she was supposed to be, but none of the people who were supposed to be there, were there.

Listen, I understand why Suite isn't a popular season. Generally speaking, the best parts of it are generally done better in the two seasons that precede it. It in many ways is just a weaker frankensteining of Fresh and Heartcatch. But Fresh and Heartcatch are fantastic, so just because it's worse than those seasons, doesn't mean its bad in my opinion. And to be fair, it does deserve many of its criticisms.

But it's also one of my favorite seasons, and I think some of it's criticisms are more a matter of taste. There's just a lot I love about Suite.

Hibiki and Kanade

I also know a lot of people aren't huge fans of the whole fighting thing Hibiki and Kanade have going on. And I agree, it's not the best executed and some things don't make sense. I also understand that many people are not fond of the vitriolic best buds trope, but I don't think that makes their relationship inherently bad just not to everyone's taste. For what it's worth, we haven't had a pair of cures like them before and since and it's a tragedy to me personally because I am quite fond of vitriolic best buds, duo cures and childhood friends. We have so many cure duos and aside from these two, none are childhood friends. The CLOSEST is the fact that Saki and Mai met once, when they were 9. Several trios of childhood friends (Fresh, Doki Doki and Happiness Charge), but they're the only true childhood friend duo. I honestly want more cures like these two. They get the learning to understand each other that the new friendships have, with the wealth of intimate knowledge about each other stemming from their childhood friendship. Despite spending a year "apart", the years they spent together still mean something, and they can't seem to stay away. They're mad at each other but there is still a comfortable familiarity in the way they aren't afraid to fight with each other. They say they aren't friends but they still call each other by first name.

Their hearts naturally fall into perfect harmony. The have like the same sense of style. Kanade likes to bake. Hibiki likes to eat. Souta refers to Hibiki as "Hibiki-Nee-san", and otherwise treats her similarly to his own sister. They have a flashlight code that they use to communicate across town at night. Neither one realized that there are two entrances with Sakura trees at their middle school or tried to talk about it for a whole year. They're both so stupid.

They take after Nagisa and Honoka a lot too. Nagisa and Hibiki are both athletic redheads who are good at sports and have black as a main color in one of their outfits (Cure for Nagisa, Civ for Hibiki), and generally use pink in their outfits. Both like to eat. Both can be prone to grumpiness and disagreements with their family members. Honoka and Kanade are both white Cures with fierce tempers and a strong sense of responsibility, able to handle domestic things like cooking. Both have more academic strengths, but are relatively graceful. There are some twists of course, Kanade has the little brother who she bickers with (their little brother's even both end their name with "ta"), Hibiki is the one with a parent who is often abroad. I really like how the two called back to the original duo without at all feeling like a copy.

To be fair not communicating is the name of the game in Suite. And so, I do 100% understand not liking this plot. I really do understand it. It's more than fair. All of the plots basically revolve around miscommunication. That is like. The entirety of Suite. Miscommunications, and the breakdown and subsequent healing of relationships. A very very valid complaint. One that I can overlook, but understand if others cannot.

Siren and Hummy

So, Precure's second heel-face turn Cure (if we don't count the Kiryuu sisters). She's a shapeshifting cat who can sing. The original one.

While normally I dislike the "Brainwashed to be evil" trope. It can be very effective. Go Princess used it to great effect in which there was a level of tragedy to the years that had been stolen away from Towa, and how her motivations had been twisted. I think it has similar effect here, where we kind of get both. She was brainwashed, and I do think that does cheapen Siren's motivations and redemption a bit, but she also had genuinely negative feelings towards Hummy, that she acted on in refusing to practice with Hummy. She still has to face Hummy head on, and as much as she tries to pretend that she's hard and strong enough to live in her bitterness. Siren isn't actually mean enough to keep facing her friend and betray her over and over again.

Hummy being better at singing than her caused her to lose a piece of her identity. The most important singer in all of Majorland. The one who sings the melody of happiness. So Siren doubles down on that identity. She becomes Minorland's singer. But she also, due to her shapeshifting, spends that time adopting different identities. Testing things out, even if she doesn't realize it. Ultimately she has to completely let go of her old identity (losing access to her original form) and everything associated with it and forge a new sense of self, in order to find happiness. But she doesn't completely lose everything.

Despite not liking to be called Siren anymore, she still lets Hummy call her that. She turned her old identity of Siren into something bitter, so she had to cast it off to redefine herself. But Hummy is the only one who ever saw the real Siren through everything Siren tried to become. Hummy may have been the one who took her sense of worth, but she's also the one who always saw Siren's value as Siren. Hummy gets to use Siren because her relationship with Hummy is the only thing that survived Siren's evolution. The two have to forge a new relationship to a certain extent. But it's built on what came before.

I also just think it's fun that the bulk of this emotional arc is on Hummy. It's cat drama. Fairy drama. Usually this is the kinda of stuff that happens between the pink and the heel-face cure. But not this time. This time it's the cat fairy, and the pink is dealing with her own friendship drama. I think it also ties right back into Suites continued echo of healing relationships, actually listening to people in order to harmonize with them. Hibiki and Kanade have to resolve their bitter feelings from their estrangement. Siren has to get over her jealousy to let Hummy back into her life. And Mephisto and Aphrodite have to stop fighting a war against each other.

Major Land's Royal Family

I mean really, no one bothered to tell Hibiki and Kanade at any point that Mephisto was the brainwashed former King of Major Land and that Major Land had a princess who was in hiding? Just locked out of the loop. Both Kanon and Majorland are entirely made up of people who can't communicate.

Anyway, Ako is my all time favorite cure. I rather unpopular choice, I know. But she fits right in with many of my other favorites, characters such as Hikari Yagami, Takeru Takaishi, King Clawthorne, King Ezran, Anya Forger etc. I love kid characters. I especially love messed up traumatized kids who don't always deal with it in great ways. And kid characters with heaps of responsibility on their shoulders. Like chosen ones and royalty.

So Ako is the epitome of what I look for in my favorite characters. She's a 9 year old with high future expectations, that she can't even begin to try and live up to because she's been sent away from everything she's known and loved. Not just moving to a new town, but a new world, where the rules of what is and isn't normal are different. In addition she was forced into physically altering her appearance, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and cutting her long hair. Not only that, she now has to keep everything about her secret. Her hometown, whatever music magic she has, her real future career plans, everything that made her her, has to be suppressed and kept secret. And she was like. Six. That's tiny. And she has to construct a whole new fake identity?

No wonder she's grumpy and keeps to herself? Her alternative is just trying to keep up a bunch of lies all the time. And keeping to herself, means few friends, and trying to keep people away, because this is supposed to be temporary to some degree. She has back home eventually, she's their future queen. She really has no choice BUT to be a grumpy brat. To keep from getting found out and to keep from getting attached. Like sure she doesn't have to be a brat to Hibiki and Kanade, but she's kinda right half the time, and honestly her tempering that brattiness into being just unpleasant enough to be left alone without being so obnoxious she draws people's ire involves way more socio-emotional intelligence than should ever be expected from a nine year old. And at a certain point, after years of it, it became part of her real personality. The sweet optimistic little princess is still there. But it's under a layer of cynicism.

Ako wants her family back. So she gets the power to do that. And things still don't go her way.

I've joked to people before that Ako is one of 4 cures with divorced parents. Her parents are effectively divorced, but extra. They're not just trying to fight over a house and custody of her, but over not just an entire kingdom, but the fate of the world. And her father doesn't even know who she is anymore. Her parents are actively at war, and her mother honestly shows no qualms about letting her husband be potentially killed, not bothering to tell the people she's sent after him about their relationship and his true nature. (And then her mom asks Mephisto to kill her to protect their kingdom, Ako can't catch a break).

This ties back to a fact that is kind of brushed over in the show. Ako is the princess. In the show she's honestly just the princess because it puts her in between Mephisto and Aphrodite's drama. But we see in show that Mephisto and Aphrodite are constantly putting their kingdom's needs above their own. A- monarchs (points deducted for getting brainwashed), but like. B- parents tbh. They love Ako so, so much, but simply can't raise her themselves. In fact, Ako's parents won't look after themselves, so Ako has to look out for them instead of the other way around. We see this a lot with Mephisto.

Sometimes Ako makes absolutely stupid decisions, like releasing notes, because she doesn't want to go against her dad, even if he isn't himself right now. Because she's a child whose parents are fighting, seemingly to the death, and if she can spread out the fight, she can hopefully drag out the arrival of consequences.

Ako does eventually learn to use the power as a cure, so she can balance the needs of the many over the needs of her loved ones. So she can do both. But she has to learn to make the hard choices and be willing to stand against her loved ones.

Also Ako also gets the miscommunication based friendship breakdown with her and Suzu, and to a lesser extent her and Souta in the movie. Suite really goes hard on the whole healing relationships thing.

Ako is really a direct foil to Yuri who precedes her. Missing evil brainwashed dads. Present throughout the whole show, but only join the team in the last quarter (the latest of any Cures). Semi-awkward friendship with one of the other cure's siblings in part because their friend doesn't know about all their magical girl trauma. Already looped into the magical girl stuff before any of the other cures, so has a preexisting relationship of some sort with the grandparent mentor. Ako is pretty much just a baby Yuri, but who has just now gained the power to try and fight after years of inability to do anything, instead of having just lost her power, and having to face down her own failure and keep going. So she's an angry elementary kid rather than a depressed high schooler. How can I not love her?

Ah, Precure dance endings. A series staple. Whether you consider the First dance ED to be "You make me happy" or "Ganbalance de dance" or even the very first "Get You! Love Love?!" the point is they've been around for a while. Generally speaking nothing but a simple fun time, but rarely has had anything to do with the show proper. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the very first Precure ED was a bit more than that.

Futari wa, as opposed to every other season, only has the 1 ending. Sure, it changes visually halfway through to accommodate Pollun and the new villain team, but that's it. (Which is more than the OP which doesn't change at all, which is also unusual). But I think people often miss the relevance of the song in between all the less relevant eds, and the iconicness that is the OP.

But the ED is also iconic and a crucial piece of the Futari wa Purikyua experience.

Episode 45, the last episode before shit hits the fan, features this song heavily. This song isn't really my favorite ed, and the episode isn't a particular favorite of mine (Futari wa has so many good episodes), but it utilizes the ed effectively, and the song that you've been listening to all this time hits harder.

Nagisa immediately falls in love with the song. The song speaks to her looking at the lyrics of course its no surprise. But it's not just "song that Nagisa would like". Though I would be remiss if I did not mention the inclusion of sweets in the lyrics. Nagisa loves chocolate. It's the go to simple important part of life for her.

They have the girls sing it. Sung by a chorus, not just Nagisa and Honoka (but they do get solos), but the whole class, many of whom appear in the ED. Because of Futari wa's small main cast the side characters hold a more important role than they do in many future series, so these are characters we know, even if just from an episode. There's a weight to the music being diegetic.

Of course the episode ends sweetly, with Nagisa, Honoka, and the fairies, singing their heart out with the rest of their class. But for a moment that wasn't a guarantee. Nagisa and Honoka being unable to sing with their class highlights the toll that this fight has taken on their normal school lives. They have to fight against someone who fully intends to kill them, and then destroy their loved ones, alone while every one else is.

Made all the more poignant by the subject matter of the song.

First of all, the title "Get you! Love Love!" is in English, and a bit nonsensical in English. But "Love Love" in Japanese, means more "lovely-dovey". It's VERY much so in your face romantic. A word used to describe Mepple and Mipple. The song is about the joy of teenage romance. While I don't really want to call it frivolous, next to world saving it doesn't hold the same weight.

Now, I recognize that may seem counter to my point that the song is important to Futari wa. I mean there's no canon romantic relationship. Closest is Nagisa's crush that she never actually confesses to. But putting aside all of Futari wa's romance elements (which is an entirely different discussion), the lyrics are still very relevant to Futari wa.

The Opening holds the iconic line "even wearing school uniforms we're unbelievably tough" and features scenes of them fighting evil in their school uniforms. The opening is an ode to how badass they are in all aspects of their life.

But the ending is the other side of the coin. It tells us how frustrated they are with the villains encroaching on their everyday life. While I don't speak Japanese, and have seen it translated a couple of ways, the reoccurring "datte yatte ran'nai jan", is either "because you can't make me do this", or "because I can't do this". IDK which is right, but either way, this is in regards to fighting, stress, and trouble, which stands in stark contrast to the opening which is very much so about how much they can and do fight. "For the sake of the earth, for the sake of everyone That's fine but isn't there something that you're forgetting?! Now!" They aren't even being subtle about the Pretty Cure part about the girls lives in the song. How much that they don't want to do it. "My heart is pounding and throbbing like a dreaming teenager An original daily life is something I won't get rid of" The lines of Nagisa and Honoka's solo. The most thematically important lines in the whole song imo. While the importance of the everyday is important in most Precure seasons, it is especially emphasized with Futari wa. The main theme of the story is about how precious day to day things are, and how unfair it is for the girls to have to fight for that.

Because ultimately that is what Futari wa Pretty Cure is about more than anything. I think it's important to view Futari wa Pretty Cure through the lens of a slice of life first. It's tone a lot of the time, focusing on poor grades and unfinished homework, lacrosse, errands, sleepovers and family. A relatively grounded slice of life from the perspective of magical girls. The value of the normal events highlighted by the desperation Nagisa and Honoka have fighting to defend them. The ED highlights it by focusing on the more "frivolous" aspects of the girls lives.

The visuals of the ED are pretty simple, but effective. They showcase the different circles the girls interact with. Their families, their classmates, their clubs and of course the villains. Because of Futari wa's focus on their community, the presence of these characters in the ED is deserved. A fun lighthearted focus on their day to day lives to contrast the OP.

Also, I'd like to point out the ED visuals humanizing the villains. While Futari wa's villains are easily among some of the franchises worst, having the unforgivable flaw of being forgettable, the show doesn't do a completely terrible job of humanizing them. And the ED contributes to that. The dancing of the villains, just being the goofy people that some of them are when not, trying to destroy the world. While I wouldn't call the behavior canonical, it really isn't off base for characters like Gekidrago and Regine. The villains, for all that they are generic, are primarily motivated by their desire to continue existing: the same motivation that drives the Cures. (Gotta love their goofy dance).

Also a guy screams at the end of it. If I have to hear it now so do you.

AITA for choosing to kill my best friend?

I (M14) am part of a group dedicated to preventing the take over of an evil AI (L) that split off from my grandfathers creation (M). Turns out my best friend, lets call him YJ (M14… kinda?), was an AI created by L in order to spy on me. Anyway, YJ didn't actually know about this until L activated some sort of override of his free will and used him to gain access to a strong power that allowed him to enslave all of humanity and turn them into AIs.

Anyway, we thought we managed to get him on the ropes, though M was destroyed in the process, but L at the last moment issued an ultimatum to me. I could delete L, and by extension YJ or let YJ live, but humanity would be imprisoned, and I only had 60 seconds to make a decision. I chose to delete YJ and L and save humanity. I did promise to study AI to revive YJ in the future.

But right before I could press the button YJ regained enough control to stop me and press the button himself, so I wasn't actually the one to kill him. He said it was so I wouldn't have to. But I still feel bad because he felt he had to delete himself and I was going to do it myself otherwise.

Especially since it seems M may have known YJ was an android made by L when she recruited him to our side, and she may have been counting on his decision all along. M saved our life and helped us take out L, and sacrificed herself in the process. But she still asked YJ "if there was someone he would give his life to protect" as his test for joining our team. I feel guilty that I didn't notice how suspicious that question was before and that I hadn't been as worried about his self-sacrificial tendencies before.

I know that we didn't really have a choice and it was either that or let all of humanity die. But I worry that he may not have appreciated himself enough or made him think he wasn't important.

AITA for not noticing that M was setting up YJ to sacrifice himself?

So you loved Kira Kira Precure a la Mode, and/or some of the other seasons of the past 10 or so years. So you go to watch the season that started it all, and its probably not what your expecting. And there's a good chance you don't like it. That's fair. The two could not be more different. Now, Kira Kira Precure A la Mode is not a bad magical girl anime. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It has charming characters and creative battles. But is it a good Precure show? It is Futari wa Precure's antithesis. At least as much of an antithesis as it can possibly be while still being a show targeted towards young girls. Kira Kira Precure A La Mode is a colorful show, with 6-8 larger than life characters as they battle against hatred. They fight in confection themed outfits while wearing heels and being unabashedly cutesy. It's main protagonist always saving the day with an energetic "Whip Step Jump" or a "Bright Idea". To be fair, many modern Precure series are more similar to Kira Kira. Girls who are role models. Girls who chase after their dreams with everything they have. Who even without being Precure live extraordinary lives. There is only one Whip, there are many like her. There is no Cure like Black.

Now excuse me while I get really emotional and overdramatic about Futari wa Precure.

Futari wa Precure is not modern Precure, Modern Precure wouldn't really start until Fresh. Splash Star took the first steps, and Precure continues to evolve, but the first seasons of Precure, particularly the first 3 are not the Modern Cure. Futari wa Precure is not a story about Extraordinary girls, doing extraordinary things. It's not loud, nor bright spectacle. A show is not wrong for being these things. But these things are not Futari wa. It is a story about ordinary girls, who live ordinary lives, who fight against eternal forces that seek to destroy the normal things they hold dear, with only each other to count on. There are two sides to Nagisa and Honoka's lives. Their day to day lives, filled with people they love. Takoyaki and Chocolate and Dogs and Lacrosse and a million other simple things. Slice of life filled with unapologetically ordinary vibes. The world they seek to protect. And the things they do to protect it. The lonely brutal battles. The interruptions to their day to day. The threats on those they love. The villains dismissal of their important feelings and things in a battle that feels bigger than them. There are only the two of them. And 2 fairies who, themselves, only have each other, desperate refugees stuck in a world that makes them so tired that they cannot navigate it on their own.

And when I say there's no Cure like Black, I'm not exaggerating. There aren't many sporty lead cures anymore. But even when there were. There was no one like black. Melody, Rouge and Bloom are closest. But even then. Cure Black is not an optimist. She is not confident. Nagisa does not want to be a Cure. She does not want things to change. She bullies her little brother, she argues with her fairy. She is irresponsible and struggles to do things she dislikes. She hates fighting. But she fights anyway. She is not hope. She is courage. Because if she's going to die, she will die fighting. Bitterly.

When I say there hardly any Cures like Black, I mean there are also no Cures like White. We have cures into Science, though even now not many. And when we do, they are mostly into biology. (Doctors, Nurses, Marine Biologists, Botany). The closest we have is Himari, and her way of connecting sweets to science. We do have two cures who want to be astronauts (Tsubomi and Hikaru), but even then their primary interests are Botany and Cryptids respectively. Not that these are bad goals. But they are not White's more nebulous interest in science, that extends beyond the life sciences. Beyond domesticity. She loves learning, pure and simple. Honoka is well off, but gets her hands dirty. She is a woman of science, but takes the supernatural in stride. She is kind, but does things her way. She is graceful and polite, but temperamental and bold. In this way, Rhythm and Egret perhaps resemble her though not each other. Egret shares her independent nature, and mild obliviousness. Rhythm shares her temper and hands-onness. Honoka is hope. But she is not the loud Hope, like so many pinks, burning towards a dream. Burning with the possibilities. She is the quiet hope. The stubborn hope. She is the hope born of sorrow and things that cannot be. The hope that hears "This is the way it is" and says "No".

Cure Black and Cure White are not merciful. They do not redeem their enemies. A general hurts Black's brother and laughs. She kills him in rage. He was desperate. But she was vengeful. The enemies they fight are not all encompassing evil. They are darkness, and a threat that needs to be eliminated. But for many they merely want to survive. But so do Black and White. Cure Black and White fight, pitting the survival of their world against the survival of their enemies. It's them or her, and she chooses her and she loses. Her brother is vengeful and angry, and its him or them. And he chooses them. They lose a friend to this pointless struggle. But they continue on. The battle continues on. Honoka cries and cries for him. Did it have to be this way? It doesn't matter because it is. And there is no one she can talk to aside from Nagisa, and Mipple.

There is no one shouting to cheer on the Precure, no miracle lights. Those wouldn't come until Yes 5! They are merely rumors. A half seen fight. A figure seemingly out of a dream. Are they even real? Their imitators on the playground are more real than they are. Bring more smiles than they do. The universe is more vast than any of them could comprehend. There are entire other worlds with people who laugh and cry.

And there is no setting quite like Futari wa's setting. The setting in Futari wa, which I don't believe is named in show, is based on the Tokyo area. Not a made up city. A real one. Sure their school is fictional, as are the stores they visit. But the amusement park they visit is directly inspired by a real one. Nagisa lives in an Apartment building I believe to be modeled off a real one. They travel busy trains. Honoka's grandmother lived through war and tells stories of bombings. This is the Tokyo of a world not quite unlike our own. And perhaps most notably, this world is melancholic. Not bright.

Nagisa does not have pink hair. She does not have blond hair. She has orange hair. Not bright orange. Orangish brown. Though not one common in Japan, a real color. Honoka has black hair. Some might say blue. Although with its darkness its otherwise indistinguishable. It might as well be black. Shiho has red hair. And later Hikari will have blond. Kirya's will be green, but like Honoka so green it might as well be black. These may not be real hair colors, exactly. But they're close. Their muted. In the same way this is Tokyo but not.

With all of this said, there is still one core tenant Kira Kira holds to. It is still a story about girls, different kinds of girls, protecting the things they love. In Kira Kira, it is sweets. In Futari wa... its sweets.

Sweets. Precure was always about sweets go home.

How Digimon Universe Invokes Myth

I had a horrible, horrible epiphany about Appmon that I am compelled to share.

So, as I was writing my Appmon analysis thoughts, considering how Appmons main thesis of using kindness to fight the singularity and how that stands in antithesis to the self-fulfilling prophecies so common in myth where going out of your way to fight something is what makes it come to pass in the first place. The most notable example to me was the Greek Myth where Uranus was overthrown by his children who he prevented from being born, hurting their mother Gaia in the process. In turn his son, Cronus, was overthrown by his children whom he ate, and his son Zeus, who was prophesied to be overthrown by his son, consumed his child’s mother before he could conceive the child of his doom. And the God Grades were named after Greek gods this season. In my head this was a sort of side note. A cool little detail. Not that this is exclusive to myth (hey Kung Fu Panda II) or anything. But myths are the foundation of human storytelling. Even today it’s something that gets used quite a lot. Because it's such a terrible, human concept. Using violence out of fear against people motivates them to want to use violence against you.

Now if you want a recap of what I said somewhere else that I don’t care to look for, Appmon argues against it, basically Appmon is a battle between Denemon’s children. While one of his children goes rogue and kills him, fulfilling the prophecy of the singularity. He does not overthrow humanity because ultimately through the kindness he (and Haru) showed, Minerva (and Yuujin and the Appmon), remained loyal to humanity. Even though Appmon grew strong enough to overthrow humanity, they didn’t. Now I have an additional thought, that being Uranus, while defeated, still exists as the sky. Just like Denemon, though killed still exists. Does that mean anything? I don’t know.

Then I was thinking about how Digimon does gender in all its different seasons. And how Appmon was the most baffling. Because okay. Digimon aren’t consistent and they can have gender sometimes. But those are usually in the series where digimon aren’t man-created AI. So what the heck Appmon. Why do you have gender? And your appmon have parents? Parents have only been used for digimon in Xros (the season infamous for implying digimon sex), and Frontier, where digimon very much so had gender, but also were born from reincarnating eggs whose gender did not seem set in stone. Both seasons, which took the more “Digimon are naturally existing fantasy monsters” rather than “Digimon are AI monsters born from human influence” approaches. Are they AI born from humans? You can’t give me two completely conflicting stories about Appmon’s existence. 

Or can you?

So I’ve taken a few classes on myth and religion through the years. And unfortunately due to reasons I have mythology fresh on the brain. But the idea that myth contains conflicting stories about things is one that was discussed. Myths generally weren’t told as one continuous story of truths. They were told as independent stories. While they were regarded as truths, you weren’t supposed to think deeply about the discrepancies because these are stories of the divine. Beyond perfect human understanding. The individual stories each said something about the society. Each story held its own truth, relying on a consistent cast of characters. An example is how there are two, semi-conflicting stories of the creation of man in Genesis. This results from the fact that at one point these were two separate stories, each meant to illustrate a point about the world. It was only after they were gathered and codified did we consider them part of one story.

But this also got me to remember what gods are. They are divine representations of things. For instance it is not that Gaia represents the earth or governs it. It is that Gaia is the earth. Hades is also the name for the underworld. Gatchmon is a search app. Appmon are to Gods, the way Apps are to natural phenomenon. Appmon are modern gods. Now this isn’t the first time Digimon tipped its toes into myth. It has digimon who are representatives of all sorts of preexisting myths. But they don’t enact these myths. Perhaps they will be referenced as having godlike influence in their reference books, but they will not be worshiped like gods in the texts (anime, Manga, games) themselves. They invoke these myths, but they are not myths themselves.

The apps are personified in the way the gods are personified. Gatchmon is like a human comprehension of the search engine. Search engines exist, finding and sorting knowledge in ways that are beyond the average human comprehension. Search engine giving irrelevant knowledge? Gatchmon messing with you. Search engine giving you the perfect search result. Gatchmon. Music app algorithm playing songs you hate? Musimon. Music app playing the exact song you were in the mood for? Musimon. Phone randomly reboots… Rebootmon. In the same way the gods of myth toyed with human lives, causing them pain and suffering. Disease, love and fertility were all products of the gods. Appmon toy with humans in the same way. People earn the favor of the AI the same way the Greeks earned the favor of the Gods. Through sacrifice. In this case the sacrifice of their personal data.

So how can apps have parents? And go to school? And have genders? The same way that God’s have gender, have affairs and have parents. The way. Appmon live an existence beyond human comprehension and beyond the human flow of time. Appmon go to school for the same reason that there are myths of the gods cheating, and fighting and stealing among each other getting into petty grudges. App Fusion charts is like the genealogy of the gods. But for the Apps. It is the way that some Apps use other Apps to improve their functions. The way search apps will reference locations or the weather if you ask it to look those things up. The way Apps relate to each other, communicating using AI that builds upon each other. We wouldn’t have video calls if it weren’t for camera apps or phone calls already existing. The stories of the Appmon going to school, or having parents is the representative explanation for why things are the way they are. This app was never released? It failed app school. This App references these two? Those two Apps are its parents. Some Apps come into existence fully formed. Some do have parents. SOME APPS ARE BOTH, THE TRUTH NOT UNDERSTOOD BY MORTAL MEANS AND ONLY RELEVANT TO THE STORY THAT IS BEING TOLD. APPMON ARE MERELY OUR COMPREHENSION OF THE FORCES THAT GOVERN OUR LIVES.

 So now having established that, Appmon is a modern myth. A story of what’s to come, and the characters, the Apps, that rule our modern lives. Digimon Universe is the Ragnarok, the Book of Revelations of our modern age. Obviously it is not a true myth. It’s a children’s show. But it invokes the patterns of myth so I’m calling it as I see it.