Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Digimon Savers – episode 8

July 18, 2006 on 12:32 am | In Digimon Savers | 4 Comments

“Yoshino gets her Cinderella Story!? Chrysalimon’s Shadow!”

A thrilling indictment of both the Japanese gossip media machine and of the fraudulent nature of using performance enhancing Digimon to further your career.

I watched this episode on the train, sitting next to my mother. She finished reading her book and turned her attention to my screen. As Masaru ran in for his attack she asked me “Why is she punching that other Digimon?”
I had to set her straight. This evening she told me that “Digimon aren’t half as cute as Pokémon”.

Hashimaru Neon is the next big thing in the idol world. DATS suspects Digimon activity in the building that he lives in, so they despatch Yoshino, his childhood friend, on an infiltration investigation mission.
Of course, there is Digimon activity in the building, and it is closely related to “Neon”.

I know I shouldn’t mention the cold openings any more, but the way this story is structured the OP almost acts as the eyecatch on this show. That’s a scary thought. You discover the key relationship of the episode and the not-designed-for-surprise revelation of the villain before you even get the idea that we’re going to punch on through to digital victory.

There are several aspects of the story that make pretty much no sense: the DATS HQ is flooded with phone calls inquiring into Yoshino; the Digimon, Keramon, broadcasts the work of “Neon” to the world at large and changes rankings on the charts to make him seem more popular, but when we see all of this stuff in the show we don’t get to hear anything. Our friends at the Digimon production company probably couldn’t think of anything to put in its place and this may be a casualty of the traditionally low budget of these series. I can be almost certain that when Fox Kids releases this next year there will be some kind of great awful song in its place.

The tabloid part of the story was well covered as that sort of thing is just about universal. Not only do we get to see Yoshino and “Neon” trying to be normal people, we also get to witness the DATS mind-erasing technique, its illogicality and the emotional repercussions of it.
All throughout the episode we couldn’t feel that strongly for “Neon” because, as Masaru said in his way that was refreshingly free of jealousy, he hadn’t earned any of his success.

If you use a Digimon to get yourself to fame, and you fake the extent of your fame, it is an empty existence. Also you shouldn’t be allowed to live by yourself in an apartment with a Digimon at the age of 14 or thereabouts but hey, this is Japan: in Japan children are allowed to start living by themselves as soon as their parents decide to travel overseas on business.

Despite that, due to the presence of Yoshino we can feel the pain of “Neon” (or Hitoshi, as he should be known) when he realises that he must forget what has happened. The story never considers for a second that Yoshino was using Hitoshi to achieve the goals of DATS, so we can think that the connection that they had was sincere. One might say that this is just the spare the feelings of Japanese children but, eh, they could cope with it if it had happened.

An enjoyable episode of Digimon Savers that never once made me gag at the sight of the bridge bunnies. That’s got to be worth something. Next ep sees the return of Togemon!