Digimon Dreamers Is Shockingly Good | Review

0:00 Digimon dreamers is weirdly good the newly available and free Digimon story that was up until now exclusive to Japan is infinitely better than I expected from what I was led to believe was a kids comedy series that old school fans wouldn't really need to pay attention to Digimon fans have been eating the last couple years in terms of narrative projects we've gotten the ghost game anime the survived video game and a Seekers web novel whether they've been eating good though is Up For Debate ghost game's lack of story disappointed some survive slack of gameplay chops despite a strong story disappointed others and Seekers poor translation and slow to get moving plot caused some readers to bail then there's Digimon dreamers a series by Digimon Legend Tanya yabino that has been running in Japan just as long as ghost game has been airing which recently got an official International release courtesy of digimon.net localizing and dropping releases every week initially I opted

0:45 not to touch Digimon dreamers for two reasons one because it was Japan only for about two years and while I respect and admire fan translation efforts I thought I'd wait for a potential official English release and the other reason was that from what I was led to believe Digimon dreamers was supposed to be a really simple comedy manga for tiny little kids like if on the Spectrum Digimon kid shows can range from Tamers to Fusion this was a fusion but with my first reason not to dive into dreamers that it was not yet released officially no longer an excuse and with 13 chapters fully localized in English as of the time of this video I decided to jump in to find out if my second reason for not reading that this is a skippable little kids story not meant for me if that reason was valid or completely off base so this is my honest review of Digimon dreamers aritsukoto is an average school kid an indoor kid hardly the adventuring type who was one day transported spontaneously to the digital world where

1:32 he meets pulsemon Pokemon and padamon though he doesn't understand where he is or how he got there he instantly IDs the creatures in front of him as Digimon establishing the world for this series remember some Digimon series have lore where every human in our world knows what Digimon are while other shows make it so that only the protagonists know about Digimon and have to hide them from the world Ritu knows Paul spawn in particular because it's a digimon he's been training in his video game that just won't evolve pulseman tells him he'll do whatever it takes to evolve and soon we learn that this little guy's real drive to evolve is to get stronger in order to protect his village of baby Digimon it's a noble goal and we end the first chapter not left thinking pulse one is just hungry for power even though that's what he wants ritsu and others to believe he's actually sweeter than he's living on Ritu will get summoned from the human world to the digital world not by his own will but whenever pulseman and Pokemon decide they need him this in

2:18 itself is a unique Twist on the rules of a digimon story he's not trapped in the digital world like Adventure 1999 and he's not calling the shots on when to go into the digital world like the kids in zero two also these random transports in the digital world are actually quite funny sometimes he's Midway through bathing other times he's at McDonald's seconds away from biting into a burger and of course the burger can't travel with him there's another great gag in chapter 3 when a tanimon from Cypress Village starts cooking meat for the villagers they all start saying things like tanamon's meat is the best we love tanamon's meat which is already funny for how weird that is by itself but then tanamon comments that it sounds like they're eating tanamon there's two things dreamer's sense of humor is reminding me of one it's kind of doing a Bridge series style humor the way its characters poke fun at themselves and the right writing almost like they're making fun of yabinov two the fast-paced visual gags remind me of Akira

3:05 toriyama's early Dragon Ball and Dr slump stuff when Dragon Ball was this action comedy hybrid and not this sci-fi combat epic we come to learn that the Cypress Village digimon's inability to digivolve isn't from a lack of trying as exhibited by Paul spawn who's been training non-stop with ritsu there's some kind of curse on the village that becomes a recurring mystery from chapter 4 onwards during a battle with an invading ogremon pulseman gets closer than ever to digivolving into a bulk mod but in a mixture of hilarious visual comedy and a genuinely fresh Twist on digivolution pulse mod finds it can only digivolve one body part at a time so he'll be a pulse mod but with a bulkmon's head or a pulse mod with a Pokemon's massive Arms This is used for Laughs successfully but it's something we've never seen in Digimon and I don't hate it as a fun Twist on an evolution inhibitor they also say pulseman has the full power of a bulkmon inside of him

3:50 when this happens so it almost feels like Deku in my hero Academia when he uses one for all in just a small part of his body like his pinky or his foot to kick we deduce that the curse on Cyprus Village is what's preventing pulse mod from evolving properly and we set a new goal of undoing the curse on Cypress Village now here's the thing I'm going to be comparing dreamers to ghost game even though I know ghost game's biggest fans hate when I compare it to anything and the reason I'm doing so is because both projects start at almost the exact same time and are even further related with tenure yabino doing concepts for ghost game characters we need to acknowledge here that seven chapters into a joki manga for kids Digimon dreamers has just as much if not more compelling story and twists on the Digimon formula than ghost game had in its first 64 episodes I've long since accepted that ghost game had no interest in telling one long overarching story but its first few episodes certainly led me to believe that was the plan dreamers

4:37 was quite the opposite I expected nothing more than a silly story of the week style manga but found after only six chapters yabino said nah I don't want to do the same thing every time let's build to something bigger it's still light and it's still comedic but dreamers is working towards something and is taking steps towards it every week like in chapter 7 when they explore a nearby Shrine hoping for Clues on how to undo the curse or in chapter 9 when they meet another human Tamer the goggle-wearing Joe wakamiya and ask him what he can tell them about their evolution curse we were so close Joe could have so easily been V Tamer Tai Chi but yabino seemed to make the choice and realistically probably the right call so as not to confuse the timelines but to make our cool older Tamer here an original character he rides a winged Ramon into battle which again could have been Tai Chi and zero with Ritu and Paul Swan hitching a ride to experience what a real Digimon and Tamer battle looks like Joe inspires pulseman who now wants

5:23 to join his quest but the older Tamer tells them this is my own adventure I can't pull you two in but I'm sure a time will come when you two need to go on an adventure of your own and we don't have to wait long for pulseman and ritu's own adventure to begin as soon after anestheimon arrives on the scene having heard about the village that is home to a mysterious pulseman that evolves only one body part at a time the espyman wants to understand pulseman's condition so that he can sell that information to Dr vadamon Who is currently researching and developing super chimeramon if this is set up for a later sequence I'm all in but for now it's a fantastic two-chapter battle with espion full of great battle art and laugh out loud jokes it ends with espyimon recommending the pair Dimension hop to which for more information on the village curse hardcore Bandai vpet enthusiasts know that this is the home world of magical witches the less successful virtual pet series behind

6:09 Tamagotchi and the digivices it's also canonically the Homeworld of wizardmon again dreamers which I was thinking was a silly comedy manga is now talking about Dimension hopping to solve an evolution curse we also hear Espy mom provide a definition of magic in the world of Digimon that I completely love quote I've heard there are Digimon there that use Magic based on a high-level programming language I like the idea that magic is really just high-level programming that is so hardcore that the average person and even the average programmer couldn't understand it it would feel like magic to someone who hadn't trained in this level of programming in the next two chapters readers meet wizardmon dreamers take on dagomon who you may remember from the dark ocean in zero two and even agatomon and Leomon from the world of witch and Lee who are shown to us saving wizardmon in a flashback and pushing him through a portal into the digital world while they hold off a terrifying threat the art in

6:55 these later chapters is stunning showing that yabino can bring it when he needs to he's not just a guy who draws funny comic strips this is detailed artwork chapter 13 wraps with wizardmon uniting with ritsu and pulseman over their shared goal of reaching witch and Lee and this is where things wrap for me too as the English version of the manga stopped the chapter 13 as of the time of making this video there will be new chapters but not for me as of September 24th there's no getting around it between the village curse the weird one body part Evolution the inclusion of witchingly in this plot and the dimension hopping to save wizardmon's allies there's more interesting story occurring here in 13 chapters in all of ghost game which was presented to us as something of a darker Digimon story with its horror light influences I'm very pleasantly surprised with what's offered in Digimon dreamers compared to Seekers English release there's no contest this is a far more enjoyable experience it's

7:41 much less try hard not attempting to be an edgy dark story and its localization effort is much cleaner than the first 13 releases of seeker's word that I struggled to make any sense of continuing the comparisons comparing it to survive a story that I generally like dreamers doesn't feel weighed down by a council of stakeholders deciding what this thing needs to be you don't feel multiple creatives or business people pulling in different directions arguing and having that argument seep into the product dreamers feels like one person's vision and that's because to the best of my knowledge it is simply Tenya yabino telling a relatively straightforward but surprisingly fresh and unique Digimon story it feels like the only person yavino is trying to appease with Digimon dreamers is yabino himself who seems to be operating with the philosophy that well I'm going to be creating in this world for however many chapters may as well have fun with it that makes this project feel incredibly special I'm so glad I checked out Digimon dreamers and

8:27 I hope you will too after reading the first 13 chapters this Monk Is skyrocketed to the top ranks of my modern Digimon project tier list I still have to call survive my favorite Digimon story of the 2020s because to me it was the whole package the art the music the story the voice acting and all the interactive elements but dreamers is and I can't believe I'm saying this now my second favorite Digimon narrative series of the 2020s overtaking last evolution Adventure 2020 reboot ghost game and Seekers don't sleep on Digimon dreamers I'll leave a link in the description of the video to where you can read it completely free officially translated I hope you'll check it out so that the folks in charge of Digimon see that one giving us free Digimon stuff is working and that too Digimon dreamers is working thanks so much for watching subscribe to the channel if you enjoyed this and you haven't already have a great week and I'll see you in the next video

9:12 foreign