The Problem with Poke'mon and Digimon

[King Green]

Just finished watching the original 3 seasons of pokemon and digimon and boy, was I trying my best to not killing myself by eating glass. The plot and world building of both franchises were interesting but never challenging the audience by formulating the characters to question the world(s) they lived in.

Like how is Arceus and Promomon not worshipped as gods or why are their creations enslaved and treat with near-respect from humans?

As a devout but cautious follower of both massive franchises, let me hear your views. Plus they need to stop recycling Ash as an idiot hero with an unsuspecting harem of tween girls, r34 scared me when I looked up "Ash + X-girl".

[MithrandirOlorin]

but never challenging the audience by formulating the characters to question the world(s) they lived in.

I question the sanity of anyone who thinks this is necessary for a firggin Kid's show to be good.

Early Pokemon is better then anything else made in the 90s.

[Antiboyscout]

Early Pokemon is better then anything else made in the 90s.

gonna have to disagree with you there.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Early Pokemon is better then anything else made in the 90s.

gonna have to disagree with you there.

Yeah, that Cartoon is so overrated it makes me laugh.

[ProfessorDetective]

Early Pokemon is better then anything else made in the 90s.

gonna have to disagree with you there.

I mean...


youtu.be/emPLuxGC340

[Edvarius]

I have no experience with Digimon so I can't really comment on that. But as for Pokemon, well, that's just not what the writers are going for. It's never been what they're going for. It's not like there aren't other places you cant go for that. As far as games go if you want darker stories you can go to the Megami Tensei series. Heck, it was doing monster collecting before Pokemon even existed, and most of that series is as dark as night. I mean Persona 4 was just released on Steam for about 20 bucks, and that's technically a monster collector game. One about hunting a serial killer who is throwing people into TVs to be torn apart by physical manifestations of their Jungian Shadows.

Or if you want something that is mostly lighthearted but actually looks at some ramifications there's Final Fantasy Worlds. I mean, you have to put up with an extremely stupid hero and it takes a while for the actual plot to get going, but once it does one of the things it goes into is how having stupid kids with that much power is not a good thing. You end up screwing things up so much the only way to prevent the complete destruction of the world is a time-travel reset button.

On the anime side of the spectrum if you want a cute show with deep explorations as to what everything means there's always Princess Tutu. Seriously, that's possibly one of the most meta shows out there, where just about everything could be a metaphor for stories, their creation, and how people relate to them. It also likes to take apart and examine all of the magical girl and fairy tale tropes it can find. In a show about a magical ballerina duck princess.

[Beelzquill]

I remember the first three seasons of Digimon, or I guess I should say the first two digimon shows on Fox Kids way back in the day. Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 were in the same continuity And Digimon Tamers was it's own thing. Tamers in particular I think definitely challenged the audience, there was some straight Lovecraftian shit in that show. It also has one of the best redemption arcs I can remember. If I had the money I swear I'd pay enough for Chuck to review every episode in order.