robersora wrote:I've also watched the new Appmon show. (a.k.a. Tame the Fusion)
Appmon takes the franchise into an interesting new direction. It felt like a weird yet engaging mix between
- Gatchaman Crowds’ very current depiction of how people use and are affected by the internet (without the overt critical undercurrent, of course - this is still Shonen),
- EvangelionQ-esque relationship between the two MCs (including a conversation that’s framed almost the same way as Kaworu’s and Shinji’s in Q in which Kaworu takes off Shinji’s choker),
- A parallel world reminding me of C - the money and soul of possibility control (the weakest of nakamura’s shows, but still cool and definitely high-concept) and also X-1999,
- Also how dependent people are on technology and if one thing fails a lot goes haywire reminded me a lot of .hack… But in Appmon the consequences aren’t that apocalyptic, of course. (at least, not yet)
- Also Dennou Coil might be the better version of this show... But it's not Digimon, so who cares, lol.
Can't say I see half the quality you do.
MC is stated to be good; we get all sorts of people calling him good before we see him do much of anything. We're told, not shown what he's like. The only character trait I'd could pick out, is that he's somewhat self-defeatist.
Thus, when appmon makes the claim to the enemy that the MC is someone who'd fight for others... we have no basis to feel the same thing he is in that scene. We don't know that the MC is like this, we're only told this just now, and expected to accept it at face value as "fact".
Contrast this with Tamers.
By the time Guilmon and Takato had engaged in their first battle, we knew rather well what Takato was like. We had spent the first episode and most of the second with him in his day-to-day life. He wasn't Marty stu. He wasn't someone people bragged about; he was a 10-year old with a penchant for drawing, who wanted a cool pet.
Takato and Guilmon starting out were very much "Boy and his Dog", with the relationship changing overtime and getting hints of drama as Takato; at first excited over having guilmon in his life, beginning to strain himself under the weight of having to train & take care of what he realizes is a dangerous creature that he doesn't fully understand.
To another point, Tamers aesthetically continued the Tokusatsu look digimon established in the first season. Tamers' digimon were mostly conventionally cool creatures: your Wolves, your fire-birds, your giant-lizard cyborgs. It was all about taking a base animal you probably recognized, and then just piling more elements on them as they reached higher stages.
Appli Monsters however continues the look of Fusion, with broader, more pastelle-looking color pallets, and creatures that look like... plastic toys. Less like animals, and more geometric angles. A mish-mash of random elements, that leave them unrecognizable or relatable to anything in the real world, or commonly-known folklore.
Now I didn't think everything in the show was bad; there were two things I liked.
First was the update to the premise; retooling Digimon as something tied to apps, rather than just physical devices. That more directly relates Digimon to things kids would be familiar with, and tells me that the creators are aware enough to not simply re-hash all the same tech elements of the past series, which were made for an internet 2.0 generation.
Second is something I'd say is even an improvement over the previous "good" seasons; tying the mechanics of battle directly to mechanics of the internet.
The "elemental" side of Digimon has always been a bit of a wash compared to Pokemon, and it is largely ignored in the TV series. It only came up twice in season 1, and I never saw it after. Here, we see appmon's power as an extension of the "search engine", relating him to something real world, and which kids watching have probably used. His opponent's power, too, was a real-world thing; texting. This set the stage both for how he attacked (with angry messages), and how he presented himself as a threat to everyday people (spam & the ability to go through your history) This is all basic, but good. It'll be interesting to see how far they can take this, if they can keep formulating new powers that derive from internet applications or features.
But even though both of these things are good, neither will make them better or "as good" as previous seasons if the characterization doesn't pick up. Right now, the show comes off as being at the same level as Data Squad; it's dumb, power-fantasy shounen.