DIGIMON: DIGITAL MONSTERS: SEASON TWO. (2000-2001) LABEL: MANGA UK. DIRECTED BY HIROYUKI KADUDŌ. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
For those among you who are scratching your heads in puzzlement right about now and mumbling: 'What the bloody hell is a Digimon?,' fear not, all will be revealed in good time. Is now a good time for you? It is? Grand. Sure, we'll explain it all now, so, if you're absolutely certain it's a good time...? Yeah, right, let's cut to the explanation...!
As far as I can make out (yes, I too am a Digital Virgin, just like some of you...!), the whole DIGIMON thing is a giant Japanese media franchise, a lot like the POKEMON one, that includes virtual pet toys, anime, manga, films and a trading card game. Just like POKEMON, snigger, but I sure as shit ain't saying that no-one copied nobody nohow, and you can quote me on that, haha.
The early 'virtual pet' toys were influenced by the famous Tamagotchi pet toys. Even if you don't know what a 'Digimon' is, I bet you had a Tamagotchi in the 'Nineties. Rememember those sweet little hand-held computerised devices, and your 'pet' would walk around in your hand and be as cute as a button and go to sleep and wake up and you'd have to feed him and look after him just right or the little bugger would die? That's right, die.
There used to be blue f***ing murder in our house when the little critters croaked. You don't even want to know. There were state funerals and periods of mourning and a minute's bloody silence and tiny coffins for the poor little stiffs and everything. But, see, all the terrible tragedies aside, we know more than we thought we did about Digimon, so go, us...!
The Digimon themselves are (mostly) adorable wee creatures/monsters living in the 'Digital world,' a parallel universe that originated from Earth's many and various communication networks.
Their world is accessed through computers, and in Season Two, a whole new generation of cool, smart and tech-savvy Japanese youngsters are taking the plunge and entering the Digital world because the kids from Season One all grew up and moved onto High School and such-like. Is everyone with me so far? Grand. See, we're as smart as pesky kids any day of the week.
There's usually some peril afoot in the Digital World that the kids, a lovely, funny well-behaved bunch of young 'uns, have to battle in order to keep the good little Digital Monsters safe and sound in their world.
This time around, the foe comes in the form of the sadistic and cruel Digimon Emperor who, when all is said and done is just a smart-mouthed kid in a fancy cape with a cool hairstyle. Big whoop, huh...?
This Digimon Emperor is controlling the sweet, good little Pokemon, ooops, I mean Digimon, by means of dark rings which he throws at 'em. Ooooh, I'm so scared...!
The Digimons are cuddly and vulnerable and no match for the Emperor's bigger, more belligerent Digimon like the dinosaur-based Tyrannomons, so it's going to be up to the good guys, aka the schoolies, to save the poor little Digimons and restore order and peace to the Digital World.
The kids from class 5A, namely TK, Yolei, Davis, Cody, Kari and Izzy, all have human identities as well as their Digital World selves. As the Emperor is just a human kid like themselves rather than some supernatural being, they hope to find out about his human identity in the hopes that it will give them some sort of a handle on what they're dealing with here.
You know, the way people in horror films go to the town library and go through these yellowed old newspapers dating back to Victorian times, and then they see the pictures of their house and they find out it used to be an insane asylum for lesbian prostitute witches who'd had multiple abortions and Satanic babies without benefit of anaesthetic or aftercare, and that's why the house is as haunted as f**k now and everyone in it is going to die horribly...? Yeah, like that.
Anyway, in Episode Three, we get a clue as to the Emperor's human identity but I'd rather eat a stuffed pepper (yeah, they found a way to make 'em worse, haha!) than reveal the truth. I'll just say that maybe, just maybe, it's the guy whose motto is that it's not how you play the game that matters, it's whether you win or lose...! Sounds like something Gordon WALL STREET Gekko might say...
This fantastically colourful anime series with the cool theme tune is out now on DVD from MANGA UK. I must say, it's unbelievably good value for money as there are no less than fifty episodes in Season Two and every episode lasts twenty minutes.
Now, I've no head for figures but, if you bought Season Two for your rugrats this Christmas, just think of how many hours of peace and quiet you'd be buying for yourself and the hubby/wife! Time to peel the sprouts, cook the turkey, make the-beast-with-two-backs because you haven't had sex since the always-frantic run-up to Christmas started and make a start on the bubbly before your Nan gets her hands on it and falls down drunk as a lord before the Queen's Speech. You can't say fairer that that.
Your kids will be tech-savvy enough to follow all the technology stuff in the episodes, plus they'll learn a whole new language too, a language in which you simply affix the prefix 'digi' in front of everything, as in 'digi-armour,' 'digi-volution,' 'digi-egg,' 'digi-destined,' 'digi-tude' and 'digi-tise.' I digi-dig, do you guys also digi-dig...? You digi-do? That's digi-f***ing-marvellous.
Actually, when I started researching this phenomenon known as DIGIMON I realised that we already had quite a lot of Digimon merch in the house, completely unknown to ourselves.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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