Digimon Ghost Game

Digimon Ghost Game is the latest anime installment in the franchise and with the disappointment of Digimon Adventure 2020 one would understandably be hesitant to give it a watch. As such, after finishing its final episode I can safely say that... the recommendation is still up in the air depending on what you're looking for. On the one hand, compared to its predecessors, here the cast are much more charismatic, cheerful, full of fear and all in all emotional. And I'm not only referring to the main three but the partner Digimon and some of the supporting cast as well. Each of them has a wayof approaching things that resonates with their partner and they each have their set of episodes to shine... though some more than others. Plus, the way they come to solve their conflicts isn't just to beat up the bad guy rather to come to an understanding and for the most part, even in the horrific situations they are put through, that was a welcome change. Also, there's the digivolutions, of which there are quite a bunch and in order to not spoil them (though they have already been spoiled if you follow the products such as the VB) I'll just say that I'm really into the way the sequence are short enough to not take too much time out of the episode and they 're really well animated as well. I comment this as a frequent criticism the older series have had to do with this time loss. Plus their design is usually on point and it follows Digimon evolution logic with how one “kind of beast” transforms may transform into something completely different. On the other hand we have to address the elephant in the room: the narrative. At first it seemed that even though the show was advertised to have an episodic format, it would also feature an overarching story with little to big steps throughout it depending on the Digimon in question to be the main focus of the episode. However, after one of the first glimpses we got of that, there were too many episodes in between where barely no progression at all was made, only for it to take many huge steps by the end. It probably wouldn't have gone down as bad as it did if from the get-go the show didn't have an end goal or the progression would have been spread more seamlessly. In that way, the viewer has time to process each new development and theorize about their meaning. In reality, as the "Digimon of the week" came by with a new horror theme attached to it, the question was whether there was an endgame or not. Furthermore, aside from the most relevant and prominent battles, and the digivolution sequences as mentioned previously, there's really not anything remarkable about the animation. Most of the time it looks bland and with some of the horror theming it would have probably benefited more by having a bit more production put into it. The soundtrack at least has a few notable tracks, mainly Faction Faction by The Wieners and Monster Disco by Suga Shikao and a few of the digivolutions tracks whose names I'll have to look up later. With all that was mentioned above, I'd say this is a mixed bag. If you're into horror and don't mind slow to null story progression but seeing what dark themes can come up from the Digimon setting, then you may get a kick out of it. If on the flip side you've either bounced off previous Digimon series or were looking for a narrative focused one, you'll not probably not have a good time with it. At the very least, you should give the digivolution sequences a quick view.

Digimon Ghost Game is like watching Gegege no Kitaro, but watered down. Do not expect this anime to return Digimon to glory: it is a set of self-contained stories, which can be entertaining and that play with a large cast of evil digimon and typical Japanese folklore stories and themes to reflect on, although without going too deep. It's disappointing to see how the opportunity to make a good story has been lost. The story is non-existent and is stupidly explained and resolved in the last three chapters, since throughout the series the story barely develops. GulusGammamon takes center stage in the series in hisfew appearances, which is when you think the central story is going to move forward but absolutely nothing happens. In short, an anime that has little of Digimon and a lot of Gegege no Kitaro or other similar series, but also lacks the development of a central story, which is extremely superficial and simple and only develops at the end. Although I would give it a 5, I'm giving it a 6 because this is "Digimon" and we want more Digimon. I positively value the attempt to do something different, the format of self-contained stories that a certain audience may like and the diversity of digimon that appear, giving prominence to the evil versions and evil digimons. Will we ever see a Digimon similar to Digimon 1, 2, 3 or 4 again? I see it difficult, the truth, after Digimon Ghost and the disastrous remake of Digimon Adventure, I don't see them with the talent or the desire to make an anime that returns Digimon to its glory days.

I love Digimon franchise. Every new series is different and makes it feel fresh, even if the similar formula is used (like evolving, which is crucial part of any Digimon). Ghost Game was no exception for this. But this time they took a different approach. As the title of the series implies, is kind of horror story. And maybe it's not as scary as the horror movies, but it gets some creepy moments. That kind of story is even more different than all the other series compared together. When it started it had a very great potential. First episode was big with plot revolving around digimonstealing time from people. It had also great opportunity to make what Adventure 02 did wrong - the multiple side evolutions. And it actually did pretty good job with it. But there are always two sides of the coin and unfortunately I can't call Ghost Game a good series. The problem wasn't with characters or evolutions. It wasn't with the episodes itself. But with lack of plot. You quickly realize that You don't even know what direction is the anime going to. You watch new digimons that wreaks havoc and then being pacifized by the team. Every episode looks like this. New digimon. New problem. Problem resolved. But there was no significance to the plot whatsoever. Then they were giving some glimpses of something. But it was just small stuff. You couldn't get much of these scattered pieces of information. There was only one thing that was known from pretty much start - Gammamon is key to what is happening. But in what way? I've watched every single episode and impatiently waited for any plot to emerge, any villain to appear. But we actually got plot bomb at the end of 64th episode. Just like that, totally unexpected. And the last three episodes 65-67 were actual plot of the show. No, I'm not exaggerating. Even digimons that acted like they could have be involved with plot, weren't. And they even mocked us with just easily removing these bad digimons from the plot. I won't call this show a good one, but there was many great stuff in it, nonetheless. For example trio of main characters weren't Your typical characters. Hiro wasn't 100% positive like Taichi, Daisuke or Takato. Kiyoshiro wasn't edgy as Yamato or Kouji. And Ruli weren't just a supporting "female" character that is just background for the "male lead". But instead every one of them were... not what I would expect. Hiro still is very positive one, but lacks that naivety of most of flat archetype type characters like Taichi or Takato. He is more decisive in his actions and also more responsible. Kiyoshiro is scaredy cat, but has some kind of responsibility on his shoulders and Ruli is often a way to find information of what is happening, because she is kinda like Instagram star. She has her own account on social media, where she posts paranormal stuff, so people often are commenting there when they see something off. And all that is also connected to their three digimons that has their own uses. Notably, Jellymon is kinda support/healer of the team, but not in bad way. She is important. Obviously, Gammamon gets most of the spotlight, but I feel like both Jellymon and Angoramon got more attention that usually deuteragonists are getting. I would compare it to Yamato and Gabumon or more Takeru and Hikari. They were still important. The problem with lack of attention started when we got higher level evolutions. With Adult level it was still sufferable, but when Perfect and Ultimate happened, they were pushed to the back, so the Gammamon could shine like a star (pun intended; for those who don't know... Gammamon has connection to stars... gamma rays, his evolutions and so on). I also mentioned Gammamon's multipl evolutions. Yes. This is something that Adventure 02 already did with Armor Evolutions, bu they made it so these evolutions are only viable once and never more. This wasn't the case here, because Gammamon often used different types of his evolutions, depending on what he needed at time. That was the proper way for doing this. As much as I like Armor Evolutions, they were just redundant, because new digimon had to get new Armor Evolution, so only that digimon and that evolution of them was important in the episode. That was done better in Ghost Game. Other good sides of the show are that it could get really creepy at times. It wasn't always the case that we got happy ending. And even if we get, the episodes could make You shiver. Many of the digimons that appeared once, appeared more on later episodes. And some of the digimon characters were appearing in more important times. Something like Gennai in Digimon Adventure, that helps the kids do their mission. Many of them helped Hiro's team in their perils. They weren't one time characters. Of course, not every single digimon reapperead, but many of them did. So, basically... there are both good and bad sides to the show. It had great potential. If plot was done properly instead of ignored till the very end, it could be even the best series of Digimon. Instead, they used great parts but totally messed the most important - plot, which made it far worse than it should be. Don't expect it to be totally bad. Neither expect too much of it. It was still fun to watch for me, especially if I took the episodes being just single episodes and not the whole show. If I take it as a whole, the plot is just bad, especially when it was only 3 last episodes. They had to rush everything suddenly after making veeeeeeery slow progress for the 64 episodes and suddenly making everything starting and resolving in last 3. That was ridiculous. Not to mention, I didn't really like that plot that much. I expected much, especially after waiting for so long to finally see what it is all about. So that's it. If You want to see if You'd like it or not, the first episode is actually the best and is really great. You'd get a glimpse of how creepy this show can be. But then we will get hills from that point. Some episodes were better, some were boring. But if You really want to decide, i recommend watching at least first episode and You'd understand what it is about.

This anime has great potential, and people actually expect a more mature and darker story. However, what we got is like a Scooby-Doo style anime. Sadly, if we skip a lot of episodes, only 20-30 episodes truly matter. You might wanna google which "filler" episodes to skip. My rating for those 20-30 episodes is 6.7 out of 10.0 because the story is kinda good and some episodes like episode 13 bring the same vibe as the previous installments and make watchers realize "Yeah, I'm watching Digimon, not Pokémon" As a whole, I might give it a rating of 5.4 out of 10.0 because it still has goodanimation, introduces a lot of new Digimon, and features good fights between the Digimon. Without these aspects, maybe I would give it 4.2 out of 10.0. Yeah, it's too boring even for an episodic format anime.  The target audience for this anime is kind of confusing. It's not suitable (kinda boring) for veteran fans, but it's not compelling to children as well. It's like a mix of Pokémon and Scooby-Doo, and children will choose those two shows or other kid-friendly anime instead.

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