Digimon Ghost Game Review: What Went Wrong?

0:00 it's been more than one year since Digimon Ghost came the latest original Digimon anime series premiered simultaneously in Japan and internationally through streaming ghost game was one of many releases that could be sorted into the Digimon reboot project a multi-year creative plan by Digimon toei and Bandai to make the franchise relevant once again that included things like the anime reboot of the demon Adventure in 2020 the rollout of the Digimon card game The Return of video games like Digimon survive and the vital bracelet essentially a Fitbit cross Pokemon go where you raise Digimon on a watch by moving around the world now the Digimon reboot project doesn't succeed or fail based on a single revitalization effort but ghost game had a huge role to play the first anime series back was a reboot of a classic definitely a safe move if there ever was one but it also catered to a nostalgic audience eager to see old characters ghost game on the other hand being an

0:46 entirely new series with an original Trio of human characters each with digital Monsters designed specifically for this new show that would be the real test of how Digimon could compete amongst the competitive anime landscape in the 2020s more than 50 episodes into the series run it's safe to say the show has no taken over the world so the next best question is how do Digimon fans who've been following Digimon this whole time feel about this latest series is this a series to get lapsed fans back in do long time fans think this is the best Digimon series well it's complicated videos like this one that can take a lot more time research and effort are only possible because of the support of

1:31 sponsors like bye bye is this online proxy service that lets you buy things directly from Japan through them and they ship it to you wherever you are in the world they're the original sponsor of this channel they reached out almost exactly a year ago and I'm so glad they did because I've used them for anime merch like the vital bracelet dim cards through by E you can shop on Japanese storefronts like rakitan mercari Amazon JP just see a ton of games and exclusive merchandise you buy whatever you want and buy you will handle getting it shipped to you no need for a Japanese address no need to understand Japanese they'll take care of it if you sign up to buy e with the link in this video's description you'll get a 2000 Yen coupon for your first order once again head to the link in my description for the 2000 Yen coupon thanks again for sponsoring the video by E I think ghost game has one of the strongest starts in all of Digimon with the dark tone incredible monster Designs Great characters and an

2:18 intriguing mystery but it fails or stubbornly refuses to let those great characters grow or to expand on that intriguing mystery the dark tone still great the Digimon design is still great but unlike past Digimon series that have told complete stories with multiple arcs and had overarching villains that last 10 to 20 episodes at a time in a 50 or 60 episode season ghost game has committed to an almost strictly episodic nature and I say almost for a reason a frustrating reason that we'll come back to in this episodic nature the story is always contained to a single episode and almost never referenced again after an initial story setup that lets us know that Hiro's father is missing in the digital world that some Digimon are now arriving in Japan via portals into the real world and then a mysterious black gotomon appears to be the one Digimon who can freely travel back and forth we stop talking story altogether and focus

3:05 on one-off creepy Misadventures around town Digimon has always had episodes that could be enjoyed as Standalone stories but fit within a larger Story the skull Greymon episode inside the original Digimon Adventure anime for example is an iconic episode that took place on the second continent our team visited after Jedi reached out to the Destin and called on them to collect the crests needed to digivolve to Ultimate there was a lot going on in the background we got our skull Gram on episode but it was wrapped around a setup and a domino effect with the events of that week leading into the next the status quo was changed our characters have learned lessons that we take into the next episode and were one step closer to a goal ghost game instead chooses to reset the status quo back to normal at the end of every episode even when a digimon absolutely terrorizes all of Tokyo nobody's talking about it in

3:50 the next week sometimes people do learn about Digimon only to be written out and never mentioned again characters close to the main characters will learn about Digimon either directly or indirectly coming into contact with these beings unlike anything they've ever encountered and then are just written out of the show we never get to explore what a world would look like where more than three characters knew about Digimon on paper there's nothing wrong with a purely episodic show especially when that's what you've set out to make in a lot of ways with the light horror Vibes and the episodic nature of the show sometimes reminds me of this old cartoon Martin Mystery from the mid-2000s more than anything shows like Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob and Batman the Animated Series and countless others tell single stories in their episodes and then we more or less reset in time for the next episode so if we don't criticize those shows for being that way then why am I and so many others criticizing ghost game for

4:36 adopting an episodic style well that's because Digimon ghost game won't commit to being episodic wanting so badly to be both strictly episodic and also a Serial I.E a show with a continuing plot like past Digimon series I already mentioned how we know that Hiro's father is missing in the digital world government has a dark transformation we don't understand there's this black gottamont character who can Dimension hop and the show keeps reminding us that we should keep these things at the top of mind and adds new Mysteries into the mix in episode 13 after gulus galamon first appeared a black Agumon was spotted looking on from above when ghoulis reappeared in episode 21 a black gargamon was watching this time these are obvious hints that a story wants to be told is begging to be told but as of the show's 50th episode we are no closer to having any answers to any of those things the reason the show like Batman

5:22 the Animated Series is immune from this criticism that there's no overarching story is because it doesn't constantly try to remind you there is one and then never deliver like if at the end of a SpongeBob SquarePants episode we zoom in on dark Patrick watching over SpongeBob from the distance then 20 episodes later dark Squidward is creepily watching from above with no explanation we would want to know what those episodes were about and when we were going to return to that ghost game's head writer recently gave a horrifying interview that fans have been discussing with some concern where he talked about all of these little hints in the worst way possible almost confirming my worst fears for the future of this show popular Digimon fan site with the will interpreted the interview into English writing quote he commented that there are various small details throughout the series that foreshadow things some done with great effort some of these he expects for people to only

6:08 notice while watching the final episode and going ah that line from the first few episodes was foreshadowing this this interview has led many to believe that we're not going to be kicking into serial plot mode like when Tamers had the kids go into the digital world things really started happening then instead based on this interview it's far more likely that ghost game will just continue to be one-off Adventures for another 10 20 maybe even 50 more episodes we still don't know because they've given no episode count or end date and then rather than giving each of those loose threads we currently have a proper Arc or explanation it's sounding like they're all just going to be crammed into a single episode right at the end which feels like something no one wants ghost game wouldn't be criticized for its poor handling of overarching story if it didn't attempt to have one like yes it's not fair to criticize a series for something it never attempted it would obviously be absurd for anyone to criticize ghost

6:54 game for its 3D animation because it doesn't use 3D animation but since it does present us with story beats and carrots on sticks that it never commits to paying off it should be open to having its story or lack thereof criticized it's been a full calendar year in the world of Digimon ghost game in addition to the real world with episodes 4 and 49 both being Halloween episodes and with the characters clothes having changed to reflect the changes in temperature across fall winter spring and summer those characters who we previous obviously said were a great super promising starting points for memorable Digimon protagonists they've been frozen in Arrested Development for a year of their teenage lives hito is kind to a fault kyoshiro is scared but sometimes manages to find courage in replicating his favorite anime heroes they're lovely characters that have been robbed of the ability to evolve into

7:39 anything more than their character bios and speaking of evolution in the best of the prior Seasons digimon's Evolutions were used as visualizations of the characters overcoming some trauma fear or other kind of obstacle in their life the humans little Monster Friends turning into hulking beasts was a metaphor for having an emotional breakthrough because the show's characters do not grow the evolutions are no longer visualizations of the growth and progress of their bonds nowhere was this more painful to watch than in government's ultimate form debut episode a lot of fans assume that the Glorious glowing white dragon form Kano of Iceman would be locked behind the dark goose gamamon and that resolving whatever gulas gamamon storyline would unfold was going to be essential and that there reward was Cano weissmann essentially a visualization of light conquering darkness and all that jazz

8:25 somehow we got Kano weissmann while the ghoulis gamamon stuff was still not resolved and now we just have a light and dark Evolution for gamamon and we do not talk about the dark one any sense of development payoff or gratification was entirely missing from Cano weissman's ultimate debut and the same goes for angorumon's ultimate form because they both just showed up when needed and now we have them on hand forevermore I want to revisit that recent interview with series head writer as interpreted by with the will and returned to another standout line that gives us an explanation from the head writer's point of view for why ghost game is the way it is why it's only ever done one and done single story episodes with the will interprets that the basis in the writing was looking at Tick Tock and YouTube and the creative staff believing kids tend to jump off after a minute due to boredom and the feeling that it's hard

9:10 to make them watch longer stories they're also worried that if it's a Serial they may not see the beginning and will skip it or if it's too long they will watch half and give up so he feels it's hard to write sir reals for kids and teenagers I find this a rough paragraph to get through it is not a very generous assessment of kids and teenagers ability to consume quality media basically doubting their own audience's attention span while there's no denying the way that social media and video on demand apps have changed the way we consume media it feels totally backwards one Surefire way to lose an audience's attention is to show them the same thing over and over and over again and not answer their questions what's also ironic is the fact that serialized shows actually have become much easier to consume and catch up on now due to things like streaming services and the way media change the way we binge watch this idea that quote they're worried if

9:56 it's a Serial they may not see the beginning and will skip it that would honestly apply way more in the 90s when if you missed an episode you truly were out of luck and just had to rely on the recap at the start of the next episode in my opinion kids and teens are a lot smarter and have more patience than the head writer suggests in this interview while it's true that Tick Tock favors shorter content look no further than the one and a half hour Disney movies the 45 minute YouTube video essays or three hour twitch stream for evidence that young people will stay to watch if the quality and storytelling is there I've no doubt upset some portion of my audience who wants to celebrate ghost game week over week by pointing out these criticisms and in some ways I get it the complicated part with all of my ghost game feedback is that if you take any ghost game episode and isolate it it's a pretty dang great episode of anime there are a ton of ghost game episodes that I adore but it's when you

10:42 line up 50 plus of them and realize they're all so very similar and it becomes a bit jarring to realize that each one is essentially a reskin of the last episode so how to wrap this up let's deliver a verdict a 12-month assessment of the latest Digimon series things could always change maybe one week after this video releases plot kicks in and we get 20 or 30 amazing episodes of mind-blowing story or maybe we get 50 more Monster of the week stories with an occasional gulous Gammon sighting and maybe some megas then a one or two episode finale before saying goodbye forever Digimon ghost game delivered what was advertised there's no denying that a light horror themed take on the Digimon franchise with fun characters a fresh new art style and brand new into devolutions to work our way through but did it deliver what was expected or go beyond what was expected the sense of momentum a serialized story

11:28 told in episodic blocks that build slowly over time that we've come to expect and appreciate from Digimon no definitely not that's not here did it bring answers to the big questions it asked in its first few episodes no again not at least not in the first 50 episodes which is a long time a lot of Digimon series are either wrapping up at this point or have already finished Frontier for example was 50 episodes Digimon ghost game is a fun episodic almost horror Anthology with little one-off story set in the Digimon universe and I would recommend trying it out or at least looking up a list of the best episodes and watching those but what I'll say is this if you liked the first 10 episodes then that's awesome the next 40 episodes follow the exact same formula with no changes to the status quo no new setting no new humans to join the team no known villain so if you're okay with episodes 11 through 50 being just like episodes 1 to 10 and

12:14 simply want to see new takes on Old Digimon villains and slight tweaks on the formula you're gonna have a great time with ghost game like I said I've had a great time on several weeks if you enjoyed the first 10 episodes but you're expecting the story to pick up and go somewhere you're gonna be sorely disappointed with episode 11 to 50. Digimon ghost game was a successful inclusion in the Digimon reboot project in that it's certainly given existing and some lapsed Digimon fans something to talk about online weekly and created a bit of a community but if you're asking if Ghost Games succeeded in making Digimon a household name once again or creating a significant amount of new fans it doesn't seem to have worked but hey the nice thing about Digimon which has been true since 1999 is that they reset the rules and shake up the formula every season so of this latest Digimon series isn't for you it's not the end of the world for all we know

13:00 the next one that comes around will be the greatest thing you've ever seen [Music]