Ryo Tominaga - Tumblr Posts

That last one of Lopmon is killing me

happy 2nd anniversary digimon survive! i’m sorry for no new survive artwork so i reposted my fave survive pieces ive done

Minoru: *says something funny*

Ryo: *says something funnier*

Minoru: 😦😠

Digimon Survive Crests

In deciding what crests to give them, I basically picked a colour first and then justified my reasoning later. Honestly this is more for aesthetics than anything reasonable - if you look at my art and fics over the last 2 years, you might notice I've been using specific colours and words for each kid.

Courage - Minoru (bc orange)

Friendship - Takuma (bc blue)

Love - Kaito (bc red are you sensing a pattern here?)

Knowledge - Miu (bc purple, also I never like giving knowledge to the most academic person on the team)

Sincerity - Aoi (bc she gives her all + 200%)

Purity - Saki (bc green)

Hope - Ryo (bc yellow gotta match with Kunemon)

Light - Shuuji (bc pink)

Also, I chose their crests according to the quality they were lacking/misusing when they died. 'Cept you know who

BONUS

Kindness - Professor

Destiny - Miyuki

Miracles - Haru

Why I think Ryo is the Ken of Survive.

Obviously, all the Survive kids are meant to reflect one of the 8 original Adventure kids. However, the characters aren't completely one to one, as each of the characters are in fact, unique characters in their own right. (Most evident I think is in the fact I'd assign basically every character except for Miyuki a different crest from their adventure counterpart). But they do echo the basic archetype of the role each adventure character played in the series. For the most part this is self explanatory, some more than others.

Takuma is Taichi Minoru is Koshiro (Less obvious but that's a separate point) Aoi is Sora Shuuji is Joe Saki is Mimi Kaito is Yamato Miu is Takeru Miyuki is Hikari

However, Survive has 10 important human/digimon partnerships.

The sole adult of the group, the professor, even bares some resemblance to a rather important "old man" of adventure, Gennai. An old man who knows a lot of their situation, was involved in the "inciting incident" looks after the kids to a certain extent, but is rather unreliable and has amnesia regarding some very important things he should know. Of course original Gennai isn't even really human, and therefore doesn't have a digimon partner, (Jijimon also takes on some Gennai traits imo) but Akiharu I would still say parallels Gennai.

However, Ryo doesn't match any of the original adventure cast. But I think it is fair to say he resembles Ken. Ryo has a worm digimon. Ryo has a family member whose death deeply affected him. Ryo is grumpy and aggressive, while hiding a secretly gentler and hurting side. Ryo is self-destructive, at the cost of his partner.

Ryo can't be Adventure Ken really, because Adventure Ken doesn't really exist. But Ken isn't exactly an 02 kid in the way Daisuke, Iori and Miyako are. A reoccurring theme in 02 is the difference in outlook between the Adventure kids, the Adventure and 02 kids, and the 02 exclusive kids. And so Ken is in no way one of the original Adventure kids, but there is something to be said of the fact that his (executive meddling hellscape) backstory reflects experiences of Takeru, Hikari, more than it does the other 02 original kids. He even has an associated crest. In many ways, Ken is a retroactive Adventure character, without actually being an Adventure character. Ken in the context of digimon Adventure 02 is very much so an example if a character like Takeru had been driven to the darkness, who then had to be rehabilitated by a set of characters with an outside perspective. Really that is what all of 02s Jogresses is really, the new kids helping the more experienced kids deal with their unprocessed issues. Miyako helps Hikari look out for herself, Iori helps Takeru stop lashing out in anger from keeping his emotions hidden, and Daisuke helps Ken see value in his own continued existence.

Which is why I think Ryo is a homage to Ken. It's not the "Adventure Ken" that theoretically exists, the little boy wondering around the digital world with Wonderswan Ryo or whatever did or did not happen in that unreliable backstory, but 02 Ken, the Ken after the trauma, who needs SOMEONE to connect with him to help save him. He's the sole character who is taken from 02 era rather than the first Adventure era. And 02's themes are in this character. Ryo dies in part due to hopelessness and depression. He is unsavable the first playthrough. Unsavable in the initial adventure context. The original context where the focus is on survival and connection with your own digimon. Wormmon couldn't Save Ken alone. just as Kunemon couldn't. Both Wormmon and Kunemon die in desperate attempts to try and save their partners (really from themselves). But Ryo is saved from death when you can manage to become friends with him. When you connect with him, not unlike how Daisuke managed to save Ken. And from there, Ryo manages to save other people (Shuuji) from falling into that same despair, not unlike how Ken tried to reach out to the dark spore kids. It's noteworthy that of the 3 initial endings, the moral route is the closest to the truthful route, but aside from Ryo and Shuuji has one key difference. It ends like the original Adventure did, the kids and their partners separating, while the truthful route has the kids and their partners living together, invoking the 02 ending. While the Harmony and Wrathful routes do also bear a resemblance to 02's ending, just relatively less optimistically, Harmony and Wrathful routes involve the failings of personal connections. The failure to understand each other. Ultimately the truthful route resolves peacefully, even the big bad reconciling with his sister, no longer feeling the need to lash out at others. Ryo is the factor that takes this adventure and adds a bit of 02 to it, 02 in this context being the importance of connection. 02 being what makes the happy ending.

It's not a 1 to 1, after all, all of the characters are different from their adventure counterpart, and take pieces from one another. For example, its Minoru that has the parental divorce backstory, and Miyuki is a protective older sister to the professor, not a younger sister to Takuma, and the Professor is the most curious about the digital world's nature, and is the one with the digimon partner Gabumon. Saki is the one hesitating the most about going home at all rather than being the one to bring it up the most. I'd say Ryo also has elements of Joe in his fear of his partner and for being an unreliable older kid, and Shuuji has elements of Ken in his cruelty of Lopmon, and insistence on authority and desire to measure up against an older brother with whom he has a flawed relationship. Really none of these kids match up one to one with the adventure kids, and that's great, but I think it is fair to say that as far as analogies go, Ryo does draw from Ken.

02 is an extension of Adventure, and despite their differences in plot, theme and character arcs, no discussion of Adventure will ever be truly complete without discussing certain elements of 02 in relation to that, particularly 02s epilogue and what it means thematically. Ryo is a reflection of Ken, and how his story and needs were a reflection of the themes of 02, and how those themes were built off of the themes of Adventure. How Ken needed something that was not as prevalent in Adventure. Naturally, I think the "truthful" story of survive, would have to be a route that includes elements of 02 no matter how faithful it is to other Adventure themes otherwise.

Grandiskuwagamon work as a dark biomerge for ryo and kunemon