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straightforwardly) wrote2026-03-22 05:49 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2026-03-22 05:49 pm
351 | pokémon shield & digimon ghost game
► This week on Pokémon Shield! I have now obtained the first two gym badges, and am on my way towards the third. Miscellaneous thoughts, in bullet point form:
► I didn’t get around to mentioning this in my last post, but a couple of weeks ago I finally picked up Digimon Ghost Game again and have been slowly making my way through it! Some of you might remember that I was originally watching it while it was airing back in 2021, but that got interrupted by Funimation’s acquisition of Crunchyroll (and my extreme reluctance to pay for streaming services lol). But I have thought about it yearningly over the years, and one of the big appeals of my giving in and picking up a year’s subscription for Crunchroll was the little voice in my head going, “heyyy, then you could actually finish Ghost Game…”
I didn’t bother to rewatch the episodes that I’d already seen before, instead jumping in at episode 22, and have currently watched through episode 29. Some thoughts!
Immediately, I was struck by: how much I love this series, its aesthetic, and, above all, it’s characters. Jellymon and Kiyoshiro truly are the duo of all time in many ways—hands down my faves—but I also really like Ruli and Angoramon’s dynamic quite a bit as well. And while they’ll never make the running for faves, Hiro and Gammamon are fairly solid, as far as main characters go!
I don’t have too much to say about the first two episodes I watched (other than I quite liked Nightmare), but for the rest:
Twisted Love: Plant horror, my beloved… I also enjoyed the antagonist for this one, and the horror of their final fate. I think this episode also did a decent job of combining supernatural and mundane kinds of horror: supernatural, with the whole body horror plant horror thing, and the mundane, with the toxic stalkery obsessions masquerading as “love”.
The Crimson Banquet: Unfortunately, a contender for the worst episode of the series so far (though admittedly I don’t remember all of the first 20 episodes), despite the fact that it stars Myotismon. His plan just made no sense? And the pacing and focus of this episode was all wrong. The set-up for the plot makes it seem like it’s going to be a Ruli-focused episode, and yet, in the actual main battle, Angoramon plays no role, and this in fact ends up being the episode where Gammamon got his ultimate? On an intellectual level, I do think the in-battle build-up to Gammamon evolving did hit the kind of emotional beats that belongs to a narratively satisfying evolution… but it should have been linked to an episode where the overarching story focused on Hiro & Gammamon’s bond, not one that focused on Ruli & Angoramon’s instead, and since it wasn’t, it made the moment fall flat for me.
Cannibal Mansion: The title of this episode made me feel so concerned going in, but no: if the previous episode is a contender for the worst of the series so far, this one might be the best. Just, wow. 10/10 for the atmosphere, the build-up and pacing, the emotional core of the story… I felt genuine dread when Ruli followed Digitamamon up those stairs, despite knowing that the series wouldn’t actually let her die. And the little details, like her finding the knocked over doll alongside “sand” in the wardrobe, and how the series just allows you to piece those facts together and realize what happened there without explicitly explaining it… ugh, it’s great. And the fact that we almost never seen these characters actually killing Digimon in this series, usually always finding different solutions instead, but this one does end with Angoramon killing Digitamamon, and how the impact of that is further heightened by the fact that they’d been such good friends… I loved it all.
Monster's Beauty Serum: Splashmon feels like such a Sailor Moon villain to me. Just look at him! His evil plot also feels very Sailor Moon-style "monster of the week" to me.
Face Taker: Love Jellymon taking care of Kiyoshiro after he has his face stolen… and love that her idea of “taking care of him” is drawing super sparkly anime eyes onto him as a “new face” lol. I do love how often he gets whumped and/or damseled in this series <3
Monster Pollen: THETISMON TIME YESSS. I did spend most of this episode convinced that the kid was actually a Digimon and an antagonist, partially because of how weird her facial shape was and partially because some of her lines just felt suspicious to me. But nope, genuinely an actual child! I am wondering wtf is up with Kiyoshiro’s whole limit break thing… I was surprised when he didn’t remember his actions afterwards. Also, Thetismon getting called a goddess by the humans who saw her, when she’s named after a goddess… nice <3 I do think this episode was a little messy, but I got lots of Jellymon & Kiyoshiro interactions, and Jellymon got her ultimate!!, so I'm willing to cut it some slack for that.
So this means Angoramon’s the only one left who still needs to evolve to ultimate… I feel like I probably once knew what his ultimate was, but I’ve since forgotten, so I’m curiously anticipating it now. I love SymbareAngoramon quite a bit; it’s probably my favorite of the three champions (though ofc I really adore Teslajellymon too), so I’m hoping it’s not a downgrade on that. No spoilers, please!
- I am amused by how often deus ex Wooloo is being used in this game.
- Also amusing (to me): literally the next day after I wrote a post about how immediately being shown (almost) all the gym leaders at the beginning of the game was kind of deflating, I went to the grass gym town, entered a cutscene, and went, “huh, who is this guy, he looks familiar…” …it was literally the grass gym leader who’d I’d just seen the day before asdfghjkl; my memory: a sieve
- Why is the water in the grass gym green…
- Nessa: also hot, and Sonia mentioning that the two of them are friends made me give massive /eye emojis at the screen. Sonia’s stupidly hot… Nessa’s also very hot… they actually know and have a connection with one another… you see where my mind is going here.
- I had the unusual experience of actually being concerned about a water gym for once! I’m a grass type enthusiast and usually go for the grass starter, so I usually see water gyms as cakewalks, but my current team is Drizzile, Corvisquire, and Carkol… so one Pokémon that I was not going to be switching in under any circumstances, and none who had any super effective moves. But it worked out in the end—I send out Drizzile for the Dynamax portion, and with a bit of strategizing I made it through.
- The Galarian Stunfisk makes for SUCH a great mimic Pokémon, omg. I don’t think I’ve been that surprised by a mimic since Voltorb all the way back in Pokémon Red. And it kind of made navigating the mines more fun, in that I was carefully trying to dodge them like I was picking my way across a minefield. Genuinely delightful!
- Kabu being a fire-type specialist who’s deliberately going out to train against wild water-type Pokémon is making me tentatively intrigued by him as a character.
► I didn’t get around to mentioning this in my last post, but a couple of weeks ago I finally picked up Digimon Ghost Game again and have been slowly making my way through it! Some of you might remember that I was originally watching it while it was airing back in 2021, but that got interrupted by Funimation’s acquisition of Crunchyroll (and my extreme reluctance to pay for streaming services lol). But I have thought about it yearningly over the years, and one of the big appeals of my giving in and picking up a year’s subscription for Crunchroll was the little voice in my head going, “heyyy, then you could actually finish Ghost Game…”
I didn’t bother to rewatch the episodes that I’d already seen before, instead jumping in at episode 22, and have currently watched through episode 29. Some thoughts!
Immediately, I was struck by: how much I love this series, its aesthetic, and, above all, it’s characters. Jellymon and Kiyoshiro truly are the duo of all time in many ways—hands down my faves—but I also really like Ruli and Angoramon’s dynamic quite a bit as well. And while they’ll never make the running for faves, Hiro and Gammamon are fairly solid, as far as main characters go!
I don’t have too much to say about the first two episodes I watched (other than I quite liked Nightmare), but for the rest:
Twisted Love: Plant horror, my beloved… I also enjoyed the antagonist for this one, and the horror of their final fate. I think this episode also did a decent job of combining supernatural and mundane kinds of horror: supernatural, with the whole body horror plant horror thing, and the mundane, with the toxic stalkery obsessions masquerading as “love”.
The Crimson Banquet: Unfortunately, a contender for the worst episode of the series so far (though admittedly I don’t remember all of the first 20 episodes), despite the fact that it stars Myotismon. His plan just made no sense? And the pacing and focus of this episode was all wrong. The set-up for the plot makes it seem like it’s going to be a Ruli-focused episode, and yet, in the actual main battle, Angoramon plays no role, and this in fact ends up being the episode where Gammamon got his ultimate? On an intellectual level, I do think the in-battle build-up to Gammamon evolving did hit the kind of emotional beats that belongs to a narratively satisfying evolution… but it should have been linked to an episode where the overarching story focused on Hiro & Gammamon’s bond, not one that focused on Ruli & Angoramon’s instead, and since it wasn’t, it made the moment fall flat for me.
Cannibal Mansion: The title of this episode made me feel so concerned going in, but no: if the previous episode is a contender for the worst of the series so far, this one might be the best. Just, wow. 10/10 for the atmosphere, the build-up and pacing, the emotional core of the story… I felt genuine dread when Ruli followed Digitamamon up those stairs, despite knowing that the series wouldn’t actually let her die. And the little details, like her finding the knocked over doll alongside “sand” in the wardrobe, and how the series just allows you to piece those facts together and realize what happened there without explicitly explaining it… ugh, it’s great. And the fact that we almost never seen these characters actually killing Digimon in this series, usually always finding different solutions instead, but this one does end with Angoramon killing Digitamamon, and how the impact of that is further heightened by the fact that they’d been such good friends… I loved it all.
Monster's Beauty Serum: Splashmon feels like such a Sailor Moon villain to me. Just look at him! His evil plot also feels very Sailor Moon-style "monster of the week" to me.
Face Taker: Love Jellymon taking care of Kiyoshiro after he has his face stolen… and love that her idea of “taking care of him” is drawing super sparkly anime eyes onto him as a “new face” lol. I do love how often he gets whumped and/or damseled in this series <3
Monster Pollen: THETISMON TIME YESSS. I did spend most of this episode convinced that the kid was actually a Digimon and an antagonist, partially because of how weird her facial shape was and partially because some of her lines just felt suspicious to me. But nope, genuinely an actual child! I am wondering wtf is up with Kiyoshiro’s whole limit break thing… I was surprised when he didn’t remember his actions afterwards. Also, Thetismon getting called a goddess by the humans who saw her, when she’s named after a goddess… nice <3 I do think this episode was a little messy, but I got lots of Jellymon & Kiyoshiro interactions, and Jellymon got her ultimate!!, so I'm willing to cut it some slack for that.
So this means Angoramon’s the only one left who still needs to evolve to ultimate… I feel like I probably once knew what his ultimate was, but I’ve since forgotten, so I’m curiously anticipating it now. I love SymbareAngoramon quite a bit; it’s probably my favorite of the three champions (though ofc I really adore Teslajellymon too), so I’m hoping it’s not a downgrade on that. No spoilers, please!