Real Inconvenient That Xros Wars Can Refer To The First Arc - Tumblr Posts

Over a year ago I started watching Xros Wars. 3 days ago I finally finished Hunters last episode. To be fair in the interim I also watched... every other digimon anime in its entirety (except for some movies), finished Cyber Sleuth and played the entirety of Hackers memory.

But I do have some thoughts about Xros Wars, or at least how I'm interpreting things.

So. Taiki.

Taiki's is a “Paragon” type of hero whose biggest flaws are being too dedicated to helping people and as such sometimes collapsing. Admittedly far from my favorite type of character, even when done well. Xros Wars fortunately does make this a flaw that causes them issues at times. Unfortunately though, in my opinion, it does not properly acknowledge this flaw. 

It causes problems in the Lake Zone, when it puts him out of commission. But aside from that it doesn’t really come up. It also sort of comes up again during the Death Generals arc, both with Gravimon’s core, and Yuu’s game. Two instances where it really is Taiki’s life vs. their goals. And the answer seems to be “Taiki is worth more healthy than he is sick/wounded/dead”. Which I think is a good take on the “too good” archetype. And it is something Taiki seems to do less as time goes on.

But I do think Taiki does have a different arc, that does actually get handled better that this ties into. Taiki’s final arc in relation to Apollomon boils down to sometimes, tough decisions have to be made. And I think this is what they were trying to do in episode 25. However, the situation that they are presenting isn’t really a “no good answers” deal, as much as it is Kiriha being an asshole. Taiki learning to have to make tough decisions is a great one for him. The only thing I would wish for in this regard is perhaps a better build up to this. But again, I think this is just a smaller piece of what is supposed to be Taiki’s main arc. But the core of this, is Taiki is someone who can’t turn his back on injustice, can’t turn his back on people. But is willing to throw himself into harm's way for other people. And these two points are related. It parallels Nene and Yuu’s relationship, in which Nene would do anything for Yuu, but in doing so fails to recognize Yuu’s autonomy which ends up hurting everyone involved. It foils Kiriha’s narrative in which he takes responsibility for being too weak to handle things when really he’s a victim.

While I don’t think it’s handled the greatest, I do think this is one of Xros Wars main points. You are not responsible for the actions of other people. You are worth just as much as any other person. Other people can be at fault. Other people can help you out. Everyone is an individual. 

Taiki in episode 30 is not properly giving Akari and Zenjirou the space to make their own decisions. They can’t come anyway, but he’s not really allowing them autonomy. In fairness, Taiki accidentally put them in danger in the first place and it would make sense that he feels guilty for that. But Akari and Zenjirou are their own people who can make their own decisions, and I felt like Taiki grasped that at the end of that arc, or was at least on his way there. Which is why Taiki keeping things from Akari and Zenjirou in Hunters is dumb, although I'm not really judging questionable Hunters decisions in the context of judging Xros.

This also extends to Taiki’s “traumatic backstory” in which Taiki felt guilty about the decisions someone else had made. Manga Taiki had a similar incident, but that incident Taiki was at least a little more involved in the events that transpired. But in both cases, Taiki takes responsibility for something that is not his own fault, in what on the surface seems to be altruism, but is really egotistical. While I think I like the manga’s take on this better, the anime has its own charm in being such an insignificant incident that Taiki latched onto. Either way I think Taiki’s real arc in Xros Wars is coming to realize that he is just one person and that he can’t make decisions for other people. You might even be able to consider the final episodes of Xros Wars, when he willingly patches the torch to Tagiru to be accepting he can’t do it all (or the fact he’s literally too injured to do anything or a half-baked excuse to justify Tagiru, your choice). 

Taiki is capable of denying others help, to a certain extent. Taiki denies helping Shoutmon, at first, because he doesn’t think Shoutmon is someone who's actually in trouble. At least, not to the point of prioritizing him over Zenjirou and Akari, who he stuck in another world, and that takes precedence. He thinks Shoutmon is asking for help for something unnecessary, for his own selfish dream. Taiki’s manga backstory actually makes more sense here because Taiki’s dream lead to hurting others, and that could make him more critical of self-aggrandizing dreams. But that’s a different story. Regardless, Taiki is easily persuaded and it seems it was the “Bigger” problem of Akari and Zenjirou that kept him from easily agreeing to help Shoutmon.

It’s also not as if Taiki is incapable of asking for or accepting help from other people, Akari in particular. In fact he depends on Akari’s help to do what he does. (Even if the show doesn’t acknowledge it past the first arc). But he definitely avoids drawing other people into problems, supporting those that are already involved.

Apollomon and Beelzebumon I think make this come full circle to Taiki. Beelzebumon died because he wouldn’t rest, but he made that decision for himself, a decision that Taiki earlier in the show was willing to make himself. And Apollomon suffered because Taiki refused to do something that he wouldn’t hesitate to do to himself if the roles were swapped. 

There are hard decisions that need to be made in war. But the goal isn’t merely to disregard life when there’s bigger stakes. It's to accept that there are people who are willing to make sacrifices just like you are and accepting their autonomy in being part of these hard decisions. (If this makes sense?)

If we look at Shoutmon’s desire to be King, a King is fundamentally a person who makes decisions on behalf of a group of people. Shoutmon is perhaps a little more honest in his goals. Shoutmon wants to become king so others don’t suffer, and recruits people to his side to accomplish this task. Shoutmon deeply values his friends and allies inputs and wants to be strong enough for their sake, to be a leader. (Thanks episode 25). Meanwhile Taiki is recruited by others for their own goals, because he believes that he owes others his strength.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m reading too far into this or if this was obvious to everyone but me. 

Taiki’s “thing” is his ability to hear the melodies of dying digimon. It’s not really explained why he can, nor does it need to be. It’s just a version of Takuya’s degree of spirituality, or Masaru’s excessive digisoul, or Taichi’s fateful digimon encounter. A thing that sets him apart from the crowd. I actually really like this concept, as Xros Wars does touch on the idea of different people having different destined roles. Being chosen children in unique ways. Xros Wars doesn’t quite do enough with this, or its music motif in my opinion, but this is a really good take on it and a good way of explicitly demonstrating Taiki’s empathy. I think it could be used a little more often, especially later on, but that’s neither here nor there.