The unsolved mysteries of "Digimon Tamers"
(Kill me now.)


So, I was doing that stupid thing I do every year or so where I make a very valiant attempt to clean out my clothes drawers. Now, this involves throwing all the too-itchy sweaters and wedgie-inducing shorts into the good old Goodwill bag. For most normal people, the process ends here. I ain't normal people. Everything that's left over must now be neatly laundered and ironed. Everything. I only do this so that FOR ONE WEEK at least, I can completely open and close my dresser drawers without either (best case scenario) throwing my back out or (worst case scenario) causing the dresser to fall over onto my skinny, brittle little body.
Which is how the Darwin Awards people would find me.

Now, as we all are aware, when a Crankizen engages in obsessive-compulsive behavior, the only known natural result is for that Crankizen to start making the Vogons sound like Robert Frost.
[Okay, okay, easy dig there. I'm sorry Eamon (if you're reading this). We all love you...
Okay, we all grudgingly tolerate you, but that's damn near equivocal to love in our sick little subculture, now isn't it?]
Anyhoo, here's a little masterpiece I lake to call "Getting Old":

Stupid horny teenage boy
Flirts with next-door neighbor's daughter
Blares mix tape of sappy love songs
Blares them right outside my window

Ah the beauty of springtime courtship
Devolving into Diane Warren-penned tripe the "handsome prince" sings out of tune
Cannot stand it, want to throw my laundry at him
Want to throw this white-hot iron at him...

It goes on like this but you get the idea. Now, aside from bad poetry, the other things going through my head while ironing (probably due to the rejuvenated fumes of pit-stained shirts I simply cannot part with) had to do with...
Well, they had to do with the season finale of "Digimon Series Three: D-Tamers".

Okay, I realize by writing this, my dear readers have probably lost what tiny little micron of respect they had for me. The fact is that I happen to really like cartoons, and "Digimon" (or, more correctly, "D-Tamers" or "Digimon Series Three") was arguably the best this Saturday Morning season had to offer. Just stop and think about it. We got a sad sophomore slump from both "X-Men" and "Static Shock", and "Pokémon" has long been waiting to be retired. "The Ripping Friends" managed to present an argument for the dread network censors (take a look at the scene where a hot dog argues with a bun, and you'll probably agree that John K. *needs* somebody to tell him "no"). "Mon-Collie Knights" was less fun then watching a bunch of Newbies trudge through their first RPG, "Yu-Gi-Oh" gave me a migraine for hours, and I could swear that "Jackie Chan Adventures" was recycling unused "Hammerman" scripts. As far as live-action series, the "Power Rangers" need to hang up their damn helmets already, "Galidor" would've been rejected by Nickelodeon during their "Tomorrow People" era, and "the Nightmare Room" was simply embarrassing.
What I'm trying to say is this: Enjoy this "D-Tamers" review, cause I sure as hell wasn't going to do a year-end wrap-up on "Cubix".

See, the touchingly naive (and dominant) part of my personality would rather like to think that you all have NEW respect for me in writing this article and, effectively, outing myself as an Adult Looser Digi-Fan so early in this website's inception. Let's hope for that while we go through all the trouble of writing this, shall we?
So, here we are at the end of another Digi-series. The little red clouds of data have settled and we are now aware of how the whole adventure wrapped up. I have to say that on the whole, I wasn't disappointed by the season finale (or series finale, rather; one important trait of "Digimon" is that every season, radically different than each preceding one, is perhaps more accurately called a separate series). Without spoiling anything, it gave us our closure while still offering some unanswered questions to fuel next season.
The thing is, I can't expect next season to answer those questions. Looking back, that was my big criticism when "D-Tamers" kicked off. See I'm a loser among losers. "Digimon Series Two" (or Season Two, or D-0-2, or Big Gay Ichijouji's Big Gay Dark Spires, or whatever) had a reasonably good series finale. A finale with an epilogue that polarized the Adult Loser Digi-Fan community (made up of, well, anyone over the age of twelve who doesn't mind admitting that they voluntarily watch "Digimon"). It married off most of the major characters to each other (Please note that even Ken and Joli married each other even though they very obviously had the hots for Davis and Mimi respectively. Now THERE'S an issue I'd like to see pop up in the forums!), and indicated that the next adventures in the Digital Universe would center around their children. Naturally, when previews arrived of a new trio of characters, I assumed these were the pre-teen incarnations of the second generation of Digidestined seen briefly during the epilogue of series two. Logic 101.

Turned out that "Digimon Tamers" was similar to both series one and two in that the word "Digimon" is in the title.

But I gave it a chance, and it was really very well done. I have no idea what I'd think of it if I was the target audience (like, ten), because it took over three months for the main story arc to kick in. When it did, I was a little disappointed. Series one and two were heavy on both action and character development (with the mix getting exactly right in series two), and this one seemed more concerned with just throwing more and more mysterious stuff at the characters and having them react. Of course, we, the viewers, would react as well; we'd tune in next time just to see what the hell direction they were taking all of this in. But, in hindsight, it was a good series... now that I know what was going on. And like I said, the finale was okay except that it left a ton of unanswered questions.

Herewith, the Big, Big List of Unsolved "D-Tamers" Mysteries!
(NOTE: some spellings of characters' names are approximate)

* - How in the blazes did all the Digimon get into our world in the first place?
Here's the premise of Series Three, as far as I've figured it out. Sit down for this.
Sometime in the early 90's, a group of grad students tried to take all those funky life simulator programs that were all the rage at MIT back in the day to a new level. You know those programs; the ones where you have a bunch of little predator pixels and another, bigger bunch of predator-food pixels and, since they have a very simple form of artificial intelligence, you can watch as their populations fluctuate as with a real ecosystem. Well, these programmers, the Monster Makers, came up with a more complicated virtual ecosystem, the Digital World.
You with me so far? Somehow, their funding got cut and, to keep their experiment going, the Monster Makers sold out their virtual creatures as cyberpets and such; toys for kids and the kinds of 16-25 year old girls who buy stupid kiddie toys in an attempt to look so-stupid-I'm-COOL. And who instead end up going straight back to stupid again (like your humble narrator). Well, somehow, the Digital World became another alternate dimension. And four kids ended up with real, living Digimon.
Okay, fine. Well, HOW??? See, ever since the Digital World became real, there have been Digimon entering the real world around the Monster Maker's laboratory (now called Hypnos, but we'll get to them in a bit). I guess I buy this, but later on in the series, we learn that getting TO the Digi-World is a big, long ordeal. Getting out is a world of inconvenience. Once you get to our world, you have two things to worry about: whether Renardmon (she's the ass-kicking Kitsune Digimon... oh, go look it up!) is going to hand your cyber-tuckus to you, or if Hypnos is going to delete you. Which leads us to...

* - What's the deal with Hypnos anyway?
Ultimately, the most obvious "Digimon" / "Matrix" connection ends up being on the kids' side. Before our heroes start their journey to the Digital World, however, all Hypnos does is delete every last Digimon who ventures to our world (except, for some reason, the ones who have pet humans). It turns out that they're the new face of Monster Makers; the "oh sh*t, we've unleashed all these VR monsters; better kill them before anyone notices" face. And what was up with that weird episode where they capture some kind of dragon Digimon and do experiments on it?

* - Speaking of moral ambiguity (I swear, "D-Tamers" is a more adult series than "Bachelorettes in Alaska"), whose side are the Devas on?
The Devas are these big, big Übermon who represent the signs of the Chinese Zodiac (I'm an Earth Horse, if you were wondering). Their mission is to destroy all humanity so that the Digimon can take over. So they're bad guys, right?
Well, it turns out that their higher-ups, the Sovereign (even bigger, more powerful Digimon who represent the Four Sacred Guardian Animals of Far Eastern mythology), are fighting the D-Reaper. The D-Reaper is this big, big F-off computer virus created by Hypnos, and (naturally) it manifests itself as a big, big F-off 'mon-deleting demon thing in the Digital World. Later on, it invades our world and everything goes to Hell. The Sovereign want to destroy Hypnos in hopes that this will, in turn, kill the D-Reaper. So, that means the Devas are ultimately in the right, right?
So how come all but one of them wants to destroy the tamers? ARE they evil, or are they just terribly misunderstood?

* - Who else would bake Calumon into a loaf of bread and feed it to Guilmon the minute that insipid little furball first showed up?
I have to know that I am not alone. My other favorite way to kill Calumon? Give him to Cyberdramon as a chew toy. Bwahahahaha!!!

* - How come Jeri hasn't killed herself?
Really.
Jeri becomes the pet human of Leomon about halfway through the series. After some time in the Digital World, the tamers have a confrontation with Beazlemon (long story; basically, he's the Champion form of Impmon [think of him as the antithesis of Calumon] and he's got issues up the tailpipe because of his neglectful tamer). Beazlemon kills Leomon, and...
Wait, let me rephrase that.
BEAZLEMON *KILLS* LEOMON! Leomon DIES right in front of Jeri! He dies a long, agonizing death ON-FRIKKIN-SCREEN and Jeri gets to watch the whole thing and she ends up screaming crying while Beazlemon laughs maniacally at her!!!
And some of you still think this is a "Pokémon" rip-off.
Anyway, Jeri sinks into depression during which she is captured and enslaved by the D-Reaper. Or, perhaps more accurately, the D-Reaper is enslaved and powered by her despair. She's forced to relive her mother's death as a terrifying hallucination (and several of my fellow A.L.D.F.s have theorized that Jeri's mom was a suicide!) She barely responds to her father begging for her to free herself because, well, he's not quite parent of the year (see the episode where they return from the Digital World). Then the repentant Beazlemon tries to rescue her from the D-Reaper but she refuses his help NOT because she can't forgive him, but because she doesn't care if she gets rescued or not!
Later, she becomes the pet human of Calumon (some consolation prize, that) and the tiny glimmer of hope that gives her is enough to free herself and destroy the D-Reaper once and for all...
And then it turns out that all of the Digimon have to return to the Digital World and never see their pet humans again, or else the world will implode or something.
So after all this, why is it that, when we see Jeri in the epilogue, she's happily playing with her friends instead of bleeding to death in the bathtub?

* - Let's address this so we can get all the morbidity out in one shot. Who the heck is Amy?
Amy and Dobermon (clever) appear out of nowhere. Dobermon gallantly sacrifices himself in order to allow the tamers to Biomerge (a Digivolution technique that not only combines the tamers' DNA with that of their Digimon, but also relieves them of their primary gender characteristics O.o). Amy is sad about this for a while, and then she promptly vanishes from the series. What gives?
There's a scene from after Amy's disappearance that makes her even more mysterious. One of the Monster Makers is seen looking sadly at a photograph of Amy. Is she his daughter? Are she and Dobermon -as some A.L.D.F.s have theorized- ghosts? If she's still alive, why didn't she stick around and give Jeri some moral support?

* - More mysterious characters! What's with Mezuno (sp)?
There's a strange episode where all the tamers are in separate "worlds" within the Digital World. Henry, Takato, and Terriermon randomly meet another human trapped in cyberspace. Turns out that he's Mezuno, one of the Monster Makers, and in the real world, he's apparently in a coma. We're never told that you can simply enter the Digital World through dreams (and it doesn't seem fair either, seeing all the trouble the tamers had to go through to get in), so unless his hospital bed is Matrix-compatible, how is this possible?

* - Last mysterious character-related question, I promise. I know I'm not the first to address this one, but it bears repeating-ah! / La-na-na-na-na-na-na!!! / La-na-na-na-na-NA-na!!!... sorry. Okay.
WHO THE @#&% IS RYO???!!!???
The Tamers meet another human in the Digital World. One who is also the pet human of a Digimon, Cyberdramon (think Darker Mad-Ness and you have the idea :). Cyberdramon is b*tchcakes insane, so Ryo went back to the Digital World with him to calm him down.
Wait... what? HOW??? But wait, it gets worse!
Later Ryo and Cyberdramon join the tamers on their way back to reality-land. When they get home, the series almost completely forgets about them (we don't even get to "meet" Cyberdramon's In-Training form... you know, if you don't know what that means, I'm in no position to help you). ALMOST!
After a few weeks of D-Reaper battles, along comes Justimon! Justimon = Cyberdramon + the neutered Ryo in a Biomerge. THEY CAN BIOMERGE WITHOUT... uh... WHATEVER IT WAS DOBERMON DID TO THE TAMERS???!!!???
Mommy, my head hurts!
I suppose, then, that I ought not to mention that Ryo -by all accounts, the SAME Ryo- appears in Series Two [which takes place in an entirely different universe than Series Three, mind you] where he came ascloseasthis to becoming the Digidestined recruited by the Dark Side. If you want to be able to sleep after this, just put that out of your head, mmm-kay?

* - So, why, if they're little glowing fairy fish things, are they called Digi-Gnomes?
That's just weird. They don't look or act like any of the approximately fifty-million gnomes in my sister's collection (you don't even want to know). They look like flying fish that glow. They act like little guardian angels or good fairies (or, say, Plot Mechanics) for the tamers. Unless this is some kind of "Take off all ZIG!" type comical mistranslation, I can't figure that one out.

* - Finally, do you really think Jean-Yu's kids are going to forgive him?
Jean-Yu, the leader of the Monster Makers, uploaded some kind of D-Reaper deleting program into Terriermon as a last ditch effort to destroy it. There was a considerable risk involved, that it would also send the Digimon back to their world rather suddenly.
Jean-Yu chose not to tell this to the Tamers until literally the last moment.
The poor kids and the Digimon were saying goodbye to each other *while* the 'mon were getting drawn back into cyberspace. Now, take a look at that last look Henry gives his father.
Ouch.

Now, don't get me wrong here. Really, questions like these are actually the mark of an excellent series. My point is, suppose it was a week or two before the finale of "24" and you read somewhere that the next season is going to take place in Assbangalore, Vermont and chronicle a day in the life of a dairy farm. The season finale -and I only have this to say for it: Sequel Set-Up- would then have p**sed you off to no end, wouldn't it? Same thing here.

Well, here are some Related Links!

The "Digimon Tamers" / "Neon Genesis Evangelon" Connection - An essay at the wonderful "Digi-Pedia" website. Now, I haven't seen any "EVA" episodes (does anyone NICE in the forums want to tell me where to begin, hmm?) so I can't verify this, but a lot of character designs in both series are rather similar. Evidently the connection is much deeper than that cause one of the writers worked on both series. Ooh, creepy! And speaking of creepy...

The "Digimon" Erotic Fanfiction Archive - Repeat: the "Digimon" EROTIC FANFICTION Archive!
Okay, lest you think me freakier than you did before, let me assure you that the only reason I know about this crime against nature is because "Something Awful" had it as an Awful Link of the Day recently. We learn two important lessons from it:
1) Davis and Ken are definitely gay, and...
2) With that in mind, a Hawkmon / Biyomon pairing makes much less sense than a Hawkmon / Palmon pairing.
I need a really strong drink now.



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