Digimon’s Most Overlooked Season | Appmon ULTIMATE REVIEW Series Retrospective

0:00 this overlooked Digimon season from 2016 is easily one of the best series and the best stories that the Digimon franchise has ever created and most people who grew up loving Digimon have either never heard of it or never tried it Digimon Universe Appley monster is a season that I myself didn't watch until a couple years ago after I watched Digimon Adventure 2020 the modern reboot of the original series we all grew up on I craved a bit more story after 2020 and what I wasn't able to find in Digimon Adventures reboot I found in Digimon Universe Appley monster this video is my journey through through the series a love letter a review and an analysis of the little season that was ignored by lapsed fans and even ongoing Digimon fans this video compiles my three existing appmon reviews plus I added an entirely new section on episodes 22 to 27 a section of the show that I never officially reviewed on either the digo

0:46 or the digo 02 brand new videos including my Beyblade Act 4 video will be out in a few weeks I'm just away right now and unable to make a brand new video from scratch heads up that the section covering episodes 30 to 52 my voice changes drastically as I was super sick when I recorded this part apologies in advance with all that out of the way here's Digimon Universe Appley monster the super complete review there is a season of Digimon that a gigantic portion of the people who like Digimon never watched some didn't know it existed some say it doesn't count some were preoccupied watching the other Digimon series that literally ran alongside this one maybe it was because the TV anime that came before it Digimon cross Wars didn't perform as well and the creators questioned whether the name Digimon had the same brand power it used to or maybe it's because the six Digimon Adventure triy movies were rolling out at that time and they did not want to mix up the marketing but we got our

1:33 first Digimon Universe spin-off show the show is 2016's Digimon Universe Apple monster sometimes just referred to as appmon or appmon for a lot of people myself included appmon immediately felt like something to dismiss because it wasn't even called Digimon it sounded optional and because try was clearly the Digimon series meant for older fans this Aton thing must have been cater to small children and not worth our time right guys appmon is Digimon it is so it's a tragedy that the name makes you think it isn't the character Dynamics the monster designs most importantly the story being this reflection on Tech and cautionary tale about artificial intelligence Aton is not just Digimon it's probably one of the best Digimon series and it was overlooked by almost everybody so today I'm going to talk you through the first

2:18 10 episodes to give you a sense of what you can expect from the show I'm going to highlight some of the moments and themes that are extremely good and extremely Digimon in order to try and convince you that watching Digimon universe appmon is worth Time episode one The Pilot has one of the strongest openings to a digimon series ever in my opinion with our new Lee Digimon gachon flying through the internet looking up at a series of tile-shaped doors of light he chooses one and pops out and in the real world we meet this Junior High student Haru who suddenly sees an app on his phone start to bubble and burst out like a PSP with a bloated battery and out comes gachon the visual of the app popping like a tile is great very strong visually very intriguing story-wise if admon wanted to not be Digimon it isn't doing a very good job because Haru has this pair of goggles right away immediately I'm going oh yeah no this feels like Digimon Haru is obsessed with

3:04 the idea of protagonist not unlike any other kid at that age who watches cartoons and plays RPGs we get back to the meeting of gachon and Haru gachan grills Haru asking you call yourself a protagonist and when they buddy up gachon says something like well this is how these stories work right which it's like the show knows it's a digimon series and is hyper aware of the Digimon formula and providing commentary on that formula the first antagonist of the series is messon a corrupted messenger app who is leaking private messages from chats all across town this is kind of a big deal and the series will continue to demonstrate how easily we are completely screwed if technology goes wrong or goes Rogue to fight mimon we go into this AR field it's not quite the digital world but it's a space resembling the city but you know digital if you've watched Digimon ghost game it's almost the exact same concept gachon is initially losing the fight it's downed and says when I

3:51 searched for a buddy I found you Haru which is very sweet Haru pairs gachon with his app drive from the vending machine and it allows gachon to app realize this is also ghost game where the Digimon go from transparent to fully opaque and now gachon can actually damage mimon With the Enemy defeated Haru and gachon walk home and it's the beginning of a beautiful buddy ship episode 2 before the episode formally starts we get this voiceover that'll become a constant and it says an AI is lurking in the Deep Web and in the year 2045 AI will overtake humans it's weirdly creepy for a digital monster story and I like it a lot it's also setting the stage for a future confrontation we know very early that the series villain is an artificial intelligence that is out there and that we're on a time crunch because it's an inevitability that AI will overtake Humanity in the show Digimon try Digimon 2020 and even ghost game so far as of

4:36 episode 8 are kind of suffering from quote what is even going on syndrome but admon solves this very early with the distant looming threat of the AI Leviathan in the episode the navigation apps that everyone uses are going crazy another premise that shows how vulnerable we are to Tech now that without your Google Maps some people can't even find their way home in a city they live in we get our first digivolution of the series well aton's equivalent of digivolutions and gachon turns into the 3D do gachman apparently the 3D animation in this show is controversial but I think it looks incredible 3D and Anime is a whole never-ending debate and I usually don't like it myself but that's when they layer 3D on top of 2D in a inorganic way that doesn't really make sense but here we're in that AR field things already look all digital and gachon is from another world so I believe that this digital monster would take on this 3D

5:22 form in other words if you can rationalize the use of 3D in your storytelling then I'm okay with 3D in 2D anime and Aton totally succeeds episode three the next enemy Aton is the manifestation of a canceled video game it's a neat idea we basically lose the fight but Haru admits he likes the game and it makes our opponent emotional to finally hear a human say they liked his game very cute very ghost game again with the talk no jitu being the solution not just a fist fight and see who's stronger it's also the first time we hear about the seven code appmon special appmon that apparently can stop the evil AI Leviathan it's only episode 3 and we're getting a lot of lore which is great and then we meet our villainous cool boy Ray and I love love love this design Design This is the Ken of the season the Evil 6 Power Ranger All That Jazz and his design and his Digimon are fantastic he says I won't let you touch Leviathan and the episode ends there

6:08 there's a lot to love in the first three episodes episode 4 is a Halloween themed episode which is funny because ghost game episode 4 is also Halloween themed but it's not until episode 5 when we meet the second human member of the team and when we do it's fantastic Ary is an idol in training essentially and they do something I absolutely love with the relationship between Ary and her appmon Doon at the start she is not a fan of Doon he's total burden he's loud and annoying and she's embarrassed by him dokon is an action game app and what's cool is that when Haru and gachon fight there's a phone keyboard that spawns for Haru to control gachon with but when Ary and dokon fight Ary gets this virtual d-pad and two buttons like an NES controller for inputting fight commands it's a cool touch episode 6 is another Airy episode she needs to go on TV and be a guest food critic but she's awful at describing tastes I found this hilarious and weirdly relatable g/

6:55 garamon is the enemy this week at first but he joins the team and wait a sec admon is able to do something extremely cool given the fact it's not an official Digimon series and that's giving the kids multiple partners Pokemon style like Ash and Pikachu are obviously the original team but Ash has other monsters and that's exactly what is happening in appmon it's super refreshing I adore this and it's not just Pokemon that it's similar to it's like Monster Rancher and even the Digimon video games honestly where you collect multiple Digimon we see doon's Evolution dooman and surprise surprise it goes 3D and guess what I still love it I still think it looks amazing episode 7 is where we meet our third hero asor who is an app tuber now I learned on Twitter that some people think having a YouTuber protagonist is like super cringe but I have to ask why the best Digimon stories are reflections of where we are with tech and children's

7:42 relationship to Tech and guess what a lot of kids these days want to grow up to be YouTubers it's cool to me that he's in the show I love that a digimon hero is a YouTuber my only wish is that he wasn't actually Mega popular I think it would have been more realistic like Bo Burnham's movie 8th grade where the kid in that movie makes videos that really nobody even watches instead a story is actually really popular on app which is fine but I would have preferred if they were like a nobody his whole story though is actually about life and moderation his traditional dad is actually really sweet and understanding the relationship isn't toxic at all he allows aora 30 minutes a day to spend on his app tube that's a good parent in my opinion and on the other end aora isn't like turning his back on the family business my understanding is apptube is his hobby hustle kind of thing but he still intends to grow up and take over the family school he just wants to have fun first and it really resonated with

8:27 me that not everybody making YouTube videos has to want YouTube to be their full-time career some people just like doing it episode 8 is the app tuers second character episode same with how Ary got to back toback it has a legitimately cool premise which is a YouTuber running out of ideas kind of getting creative block getting kind of desperate to stay relevant and compete with someone he is deciding is his rival as far as we know the other guy isn't even rude to estora or anything I thought this was really real because it's hard not to compare yourself to others when doing YouTube because it's so metric based like you can be super proud of a Creator but also frustrated like why AR aren't I taking off the way that they are so this worked a great deal for me shout out to episode 8 episode 9 is this weird Power Rankings episode which is kind of like the Hero rankings in my hero Academia the team wants to figure out which of the appmon

9:12 we've met so far is the best but it's fitting since two of our three heroes are a YouTuber and an idol so of course they would be into you know rankings and tier lists and all that kind of stuff it all starts when gachan and naiman are writing their own Wikipedia page essentially for dogoon which is hilarious I haven't seen Digimon kind of address and acknowled Real World Tech and websites and apps this way since our war game in 2000 and for some reason people have called this cringe and again I say no this is Digimon doing Digimon really well throughout the episode we start really talking seriously about Ai and the impending threat quote everything done by humans could be done by AI Idols app tubers this thought is kind of horrifying and then we get even more existential cuz Haru says but I don't think all AI is bad after all admon R AI right it's all great stuff this is Digimon you guys like this is Digimon Ry shows up again to confront

9:59 our team once again his Digimon or his appmon hackmon is sick then we get my favorite bit of Storytelling in all of the Nine episodes so far remember the AR field how it kind of looked like Tokyo but it was all destroyed and digital Ray monologues quote do you know why the AR field looks like this it's the world projected by Leviathan someday Leviathan will devour everything this is so good so every visit to and fight in the AR field so far has been in our postapocalyptic AI future it was just a Twist I didn't see coming and I thought it was so great to say hey surprise that area you've been fighting fighting in that's what the world is going to look like if the villain gets its way in episode 10 the final one we'll talk about Ry successfully swipes the seven code Digimon we've collected so far Hackman evolves to raidramon not the rron you're thinking of and looks incredible again Ray says I won't let you touch Leviathan it's super

10:44 intriguing to learn that this kid is defending the evil AI then he says double hack which is hilarious and kind of mem worthy and I'm not defending that it's just funny he wins and gets away and he takes some of the Digimon and that's kind of a big deal it's kind of traumatic like these are our friends imagine if a digimon antagonist showed up in adventure 2020 and just stole auman from taii that would be a big deal so that is episode 10 and the story is moving in a way that Digimon Adventure 2020 was not at that point the story is clear in a way that Digimon Adventure try was really not in its first 10 episodes we have an overarching threat with Leviathan an immediate threat with Ry who stolen our Aton Partners a great team of main characters in my opinion with one interested in being a protagonist one interested in being an idol and one interested in being a YouTuber this is a modern and relatable Trio of characters in a show that is

11:31 constantly reminding us about the Wonder and horror of our technology and that in my opinion is everything that makes Digimon great 11 and 12 kind of wrapped up the ray introduction Arc that was left as little Cliffhanger in my last video around episode 10 something that was building up in the first 10 episodes of abon was this kind of conflict with Ray we learn his backstory here about his missing brother Hajime who was kidnapped by Leviathan the virus program itself raised like Matt from Adventure he would do anything for TK Matt was just never pushed this far without getting too into it Ray AIDS Haru and friends in a battle inside the net returns our Aton then disappears again but now this time leaving us off on this kind of distant Ally relationship it's cool I can't wait for more Ray but he mostly disappears here for the next 10 weeks 13 was a Christmas episode of the Aton Who Stole Christmas the 24th and

12:16 25th of December are missing on the calendar this is fun just like ghost game appmon does the weekly monster of the Week episodes and some are higher quality than others but they all have a connecting through line Harry stays behind at the bookstore overnight and it's framed as kind of creepy and it reminds me of ghost game as well just kind of framing Digimon in this kind of scary light child-friendly horror the main thing that happens this week though is gachon shows himself to the girl whose dad owns the bookstore I she's super chill about it even calling gachon cute and cool and from here on out I actually knows about Aton and supports the team which is great ghost game Side characters like the boys dormmate Noma and R's friends they still don't know the truth about Digimon and any human who learns the truth in one episode is pretty much written out the next week it can be a little frustrating especially considering how many Digimon have caused like Citywide panic and episode 14 it's the new year and we're doing New Year's

13:01 resolutions aora wants to top the weekly app to views Ary wants to reach a certain spot on the idol rankings Haru just wants to have a fun year and his resolution is to stop Leviathan puzzle Manon is turning every electronic device into a PUO PUO style puzzle game this week we can't follow it into the AR field without solving the game meimon uses a company headquarters as like a base of operations and it's actually kind of manipulating or mind controlling the CEO or something here we're at least seeing an overarching villain pop in every week being reminded of a looming threat again you can do monster of the week like digimon's always done monster of the week but you need to have a connective tissue it's nothing new or complicated and admon is doing it quite well we have Leviathan and then we also have mimon sorry if I'm having trouble pronouncing that name episode 15 deals with a fortune telling Aton telleron but tellon is not like a mystical fortune

13:46 teller uh the quote is a First Rate data analyst I really like that this isn't about mysticism but rather interpreting data just adding that real world twist and that kind of digital twist to appmon the team splits into Haru and Ray and asora and Airy and I like this little breakup a store tells the others if the fortune is bad you don't have to believe it he tells them this after the gang is dejected and defeating by learning all these things about their future selves that they don't want to hear telleron ends up being a seven code appmon and when they defeat him he goes into the season version of the Digivice the Apple Drive and it's a happily ever after I guess 16 SC is where things really pick up this is like the best episode of appmon in terms of Lord a message from across time the truth of the app Drives By the way we're at episode 28 of ghost game and as of the time of recording this ghost game has done nothing like this we have no explan of the past of what Hero's dad was up to before the

14:32 events of the series in episode 16 of Adon haru's grandpa is a researcher and mathematician back in the 60s a scientific relative is another Shar trait of ghost game and admon haru's Grandpa recorded a message on an old VHS as opposed to the net so that Leviathan can't hear it so we pop in the VHS and it's all very cool and exciting tyon is the guardian of time and reveal everything in 1956 America was first discussing the concept of AI the Dartmouth workshop and how AI could be used in war we learned learn about the fathers of AI this is very cool and almost Tamers likee with the monster makers the Wild Bunch that kind of part of the show that dealt with the scientific parents a generation before Tamers took place the grandpa invented manura who decades later was attacked by Leviathan who was actually a part of manura it's a little complicated but Leviathan did this because it decided it

15:17 could evolve further without the restrictions SL rules that humans imposed on manura Leviathan won but manura is still out there and escaped and is the one who sent the kids to apley drives at the beginning of the series this is so cool I was wondering what was all about she's laying low from Leviathan but if the team can get all seven code Aton they can summon Danton the kids are told they will need ultimate level Aton to be able to survive the Deep net slthe dark web and gachon will unlock his ultimate form from fusing with tyon but he has to beat tyon first in a fight it's the most mey Episode by far and in 20 minutes we have learned so much more about the rules of the world the history the motivation and where we're headed compared to ghost game who just kind of stubbornly refuses to talk to us about anything lore-wise 17 and 18 are fun but not colossal episodes so my notes here are very small in episode 17 AR is inspiring people and

16:04 that's great and we end up getting one more of the seven code appmon more on that later I have some thoughts on the seven code thing that's kind of one of my only critiques of appmon but we'll get to that in just a bit episode 18 shows Eugene kind of hanging out with the larger group I don't want to say too much because I know a little bit about Eugene what happens later and I don't want to spoil anything here 19 is another huge spike in major moments for the show Los owns 30% of the phone market it's a leviathan's operating system waffle owns 70% of the market and it's clearly supposed to be like an apple thing Eugene is on Los but most of the other kids are on waffle virus Manon infects all of the waffle OS as maman's request we kind of get this our war game moment in the back half of the episode with gon's ultimate and the fight scenario gon's Ultimate Looks like a cross between omnimon gallantmon and I

16:49 still like the 3D in this show a lot because it's just kind of indicating that these are creatures that are different than the humans even though we win the negative press of the waffle OS virus caused 90% of the population to switch over from Waffle OS to Los which is a huge win for Leviathan for the bad guys basically it's kind of a dark twist because yes we got the win and we got our first ultimate digivolution or Appley volution but this looming downside knowing that Leviathan scored a major win by destroying waffle os's reputation internationally and forcing people to switch to its Los is kind of eerie gan's ultimate also included this 60-second timer Factor where Gman could only maintain for 60 seconds I think this is really neat I want Digimon Evolutions to have more restraints whether it's a time limit or a limit on

17:35 how much power they can exert like in Dragon Ball Z when a character will say they can only hold a form for x amount of minutes or that they're shaving off hours and days from their lifetime by using a certain form and power level the latest ghost game had something similar where Kano vion kind of overdid it and had to power down but the show didn't explain why that happened and I think this is like the ultimate difference between ghost game and Ammon abon made it explicitly clear what was going on with the 6 second countdown and added to the tension of this combat because we know what's going on we know what's at risk and we know what'll happen if we don't finish the job in time ghost game almost did the exact same thing like it almost copied the idea of like a ultimate restraint but it just did not decide to explain itself at all and so I really think that is like the ghost game versus appmon kind of comparison in a nutshell one show is willing to discuss its rules and its world and the other

18:21 show isn't episode 20 is called farewell asora dream Mon's nightmare asor is going to train for 2 years while he struggles over to pursue his dream as a YouTuber dreamon presents him with a choice meanwhile his father fails to return from his daily workout here we learn asor is mixed I think I think this is biological mother sora's mom is named Jenny and is from England it's cool that there's like a half Japanese SL miixed race kid in Digimon but I don't know why he calls her Jenny they didn't really explain uh I think it I don't think it's his stepmon I think it's I think it's his biological mom but he calls her Jenny for some reason the virus infected admon of the week is causing Mayhem with fitness and health apps this time pressuring ao's dad to keep running and pushing himself despite his heart condition it's kind of messed up actually here we get mim's ultimate enteron the 60c countdown is still a thing and it's still a cool restraint we

19:07 get another of the seven code Aton this is only one component that is kind of strange to me in Aton it's just pretty random we usually don't learn that one of the enemies is a seven code admon until the battle is over and there's no way to tell which ones are and are not seven code admon so it strikes me as one of the weaker writing components of the show in episode 21 Ary wants to become one of the selected members of apama 47 to pass the audition she under goes strict training under coach manon's tutelage but is coach Manon secretly working for Leviathan this is AR's ultimate episode it's less emotional than haru's and asor in my opinion but still a good moment of growth for her in that she is not accepted for the big Idol show but realizing that if the villain of the week got its way the show would be cancelled she makes it her mission to stop the villain and ensure that the show can go on even though she's not in it just because she knows

19:53 how much the performance means to both the artists and the audience who need that entertainment to light up their life episode 22 is an origin story for the meeting of Ray and Hackman we've spent the last few weeks strengthening the bonds between Haru and gachon as well as aoria and Aries bonds with their Aton buddies unlocking ultimate in the process so it only makes sense that we revisit our fourth pair in this episode two years before the start of the series Ray was chasing leviathan's digital footprint in an effort to retrieve his missing brother hajim just as he thought he was about to hack into the Deep Web to reach Leviathan he was counter hacked the counter hack is stopped halfway thanks to a mysterious monster that appears in front of Ray if hack hadn't cut Ray off he would have exposed his own identity and IP address to Leviathan been framed for various crimes and thrown into prison or so hackmon says Hackman knows he can't stop Leviathan

20:39 alone but also knows Ray can't stop Leviathan alone this little man believes that together the two of them might stand a chance at stopping Leviathan and saving Hajime similar to how Haru was once asked are you a protagonist yes or no Ray finds an app drive that asks him the simple question are you alone he chooses yes after hesitating not fully believing that hackmon is with him and as a result the little Manon disappears sometime later Ray proceeds to get his butt kicked by D ziton he gets saved by hackmon and is offered a second chance at answering the question are you alone this time he selects no this activates the Appley driver pairing hackmon formally to Ry I think it's interesting that for Ry the correct answer to his question was no the other questions have all been leaning towards yes obviously yes being the positive answer this is just one interesting way that the show distinguishes this darker fourth Ranger

21:24 character from the main three who are all much more positive in their outlook on life and in their questions in the present Ray and hackmon together best D ziton and the enemy acknowledges their greatness he turns into a chip that lets hackmon super app realize the equivalent of ultimate evolution in the Digimon English dubs horrible transformation sounds aside we catch the debut of reviv Monon quote restoring life to a ruined universe and wrap the episode there this is an essential episode of Aton in my opinion in 23 take back the seven code Aton Haru and the Gang are chasing after meuman who stole one of the seven code app chips from them without that seventh chip they can't Danton and enter the Deep Web Haru Ary and Historia Unleashed their appmon on her they're all capable of super app realized Evolution at this point meimon levels up to wudon a terrific Design This digital witch type

22:10 creature wudon can control Aton causing our little guys to fight amongst themselves things aren't looking good until hackmon and Ray pull up coming straight from the events of episode 22 tying these two parallel story lines together and letting Ray show off his super app realized monster revon while rudon is outclassed and outnumbered she tries to flee into the deep web but the combined effort of four ultimate appmon destroys her and our team reclaims the weathermon chip with the seven code appmon back we can go deeper into episode 24 the massive Comet Mon's attack open the door Danton the team reaches the door to the Deep Web but just as the time arrives Comet shows up in the digital world and brings with it real world catastrophe IRL nobody can connect to the internet essential Digital Services are down it's appmon doing a spin on our war game the second part of the Digimon movie kind of again

22:56 the middle part of the Digimon movie is my ultimate digim story and Summer Wars is one of my favorite films so I will never refuse a new take on the r war game premise Danton manifests thanks to the seven code and stops this ketm that was impacting the internet and as was promised Danton opens the door to the Deep Web but right as that's happening Leviathan fires a Counterattack which threatens to shut the door before the team can enter Danton must hold the door and while doing so he is turned to stone by Leviathan this is a sort of draw between these two Titans Danton kept the door open but was turned to stone as a result the kids can now pass into the Deep Web but they go on without the mega Warrior Danton who they thought they were going to have as their guide and protector episode 25 into the Deep Web at last the mysterious cyber cowon with the seven code bands in hand Haru and the others dive into the Deep Web we

23:41 spend more than half of this episode traveling through this kind of Carnival Hall of Tricks disappointing for me after how intense episode 23 and 24 were and how much we've been building up to this deep web we do learn however that almost every creature in the Deep Web is aligned with Leviathan and we can't trust anyone ultimately the gang Retreat for now opting to return to the real world to get stronger and smarter before diving any deeper kind of underwhelming after how built up this all was with Dante's sacrifice but it's not like we can't go back it's just that the team was humbled here in this episode we will be returning to the Deep Web with the knowledge that maybe we're not as powerful as we thought we were compared to the threats that exist under the surface of the internet after unlocking the appmon equivalent of the ultimate level in the late 20s around episode 28 the gang gets a fifth new member you know how many Digimon series and Power Ranger shows have what many call the

24:27 Sixth Ranger troph where a new character is introduced to shake up the formula Adventure had Ki 02 had Ken Aton first gave us Ray and hackmon around episode 10 but even gives us one more pair of characters with Eugene and his impossibly cute partner offmon every appmon is based off an app like your Maps your music app your Google search it can be a little gimmicky but but it can be really creative too Eugene's partner offmon is an offline game so he's not used to socializing with others he's no online multiplayer games as a service Aton he's used to just being partnered with one person Eugene and that's it episode 31 ends with the adorable ofon evolving into a bloodthirsty monster and actually hurting its partner Eugene then in 32 ofman is horrified of its own power kind of refuses to evolve and goes into hiding a digimon or in this case an appmon being afraid of its power is super compelling and let's appreciate the storytelling flow between 31 and 32

25:14 offmon hurts Eugene in 31 and in 32 Offman is ashamed and horrified of with itself compare that to ghost game where one week gamon will turn into gulus gamon literally murder an enemy and then not a single character not not GMA not his human partner will mention a single word about about gulus gamon until he reappears 20 episodes later Aton instead cares about the ramifications of the previous episode and everything that happens matters that's the takeaway at least for me from 31 and 32 Eugene and Offman are able to break Offman out of its funk by proclaiming that they trust each other shuton the evolution of opman rages and gets super close to hurting Eugene a second time but Eugene doesn't Flinch or squirm standing his ground knowing that his partner doesn't want to hurt him this story of the human character accepting the dark violent side of his adorable baby digital monster and then through that acceptance of his partner the monster coming to

26:00 accept itself that's the story ghost game has spent 67 weeks telling with hio gaman and gulus but Aton told that story in two episodes and then offered tons more Story the next major thing Aton presents its viewers is a new antagonistic threat and a human wanted that we have Leviathan the digital threat as a long-term enemy but Aton offers short-term immediate antagonist that lasts more than a single episode human antagonists and Digimon are relatively rare if you think about it here we get unui Knight the teen CEO of el Corp Knight has the boy genus energy of Ken Ichi Joi but with the financing to match episode 33 focuses on Ray and Hackman diving into the Deep Web searching for Clues and infiltrating data centers to learn more about Ray's missing brother Hajime the audience learns that Knight has a tight Squad of generals the ultimate 4 and we end the

26:46 episode learning that this new human antagonist has Intelligence money and a team of four Mega powerful app monsters that he plans to use to defeat our team in the 34th episode we get the first hints of an Ethics conundra for one of our characters ay the young idol is signed to a company called Alama 470 and has been since we met her in the series first few episodes until now we weren't meant to think much about apama 470 but here we learn that El Corp run by unite is financing apama in other words Ary though she doesn't yet know it is on the payroll of our enemies she's not compromised and she's certainly not evil but it's a weirdly cool and adult concept this idea that corporations have secrets that some people might have jobs they love but their parent companies are ethically suspect in 35 and 36 we have app election result basically an idol popularity contest voted on by the fans

27:32 AR who has been laser focused on being the greatest Idol in the world has to wrestle with the fact that she did not come in first place she takes the stage to accept her ranking with Grace and is still overwhelmed by cheer and love from her existing fans El Corp CEO isolates Ary from the group and tempts her with an offer to make her the greatest Idol in the known universe with the power of Leviathan using the power of AI but she refuses the Aton ultimate 4 show up and they blow our team out of the water leading to a seamless transition it's episode 37 it's now a 4v4 battle with the villainous ultimate 4 versus our team's admon the ultimate 4 have no morals and begin to attack the human Partners it's brutal and violent it's unfair but it's smart the ultimate 4 don't have human teens to protect but our Aton do and that's a weakness the appmon are eventually all KO trying to defend their humans the app drivers AKA

28:18 their digivices are crushed shattered into a million pieces and the connection between the humans and the Aton is severed the partner Aton we've grown to love over 37 weeks Fade Away not unlike the third movie in Digimon on try or last evolution Kiza it's pretty devastating I've only known these characters for a few months whereas I knew the adventure cast for two decades but this still stings Eugen then shows up and has his absolute Kingdom Hearts rku moment where he stays behind in The Realm of Darkness I mean the AR field so that the other kids can flee 38 really is movie four of try it's finding our lost Monster Friends reconnecting with them doing what we can to make them remember us we find guton and the Gang somewhat fast it's only been one episode but they don't remember Haru and the Gang whatsoever haru's Grandpa whose Consciousness was digitized before the events of the series tells us that the answers they seek can be found by talking directly to manura the light version of Leviathan to simplify things

29:04 and in order to speak with manura they need to use a telephone booth on top of a mountain in this Digital World the atmosphere of this episode is very Digimon Adventure in 1999 having the kids battle the elements in an unknown World Plus strange electronic devices like payones are being dropped all around the natural world they even joke that none of these kids know what a pay phone is anymore seeing as they're pre-teens and this was the mid-2010s it's very good way back at the start of the series when we met each of these kids they were contacted by manura and asked yes or no questions like are you a protagonist and is there anyone you want to see smile here is revealed that these questions were asked to help the kids grow to give them a push in the right direction and soon after the team has supplied new appmon chips from manura for their existing Partners plus a new app drive a new Digivice the app Drive Duo ghost game really ought to take note this is how you do a hardware upgrade my

29:49 cynical adult brain fully understands the Hardware switch halfway through a digimon series or a Power Rangers series it's just to sell a new toy in the real world but this is how you do it story Stakes character-driven monologues culminating in a new device makes it feel like it's not just a merchandising opportunity ghost game had the team swap from Blue vital bracelets to Red vital bracet B devices about 70% way through ghost game and I found it hugely underwhelming how it all went down we were just in a punch harder battle when the existing blue VB transformed into a red one and it still isn't clear besides warp Evolution what the new one does differently all it did was allow warp Evolution from Rookie to Ultimate just letting us skip some animations that didn't even do away with the time limit that had been plaguing Gama's ultimate with the new app Drive Duo and and the new Chips there's a new Evolution animation that rules and makes me feel like these characters have grown over their 38 Episodes we're told the app

30:34 Drive Duo provides 50% more power and the human Partners inject a part of themselves into the app drive with every evolution quote it feels like I'm pouring all my feelings and power into at this point they are committing themselves to their goals not just letting their monster friends punch the enemy of the week but investing their energy and heart into this with their new devices they head back to the appmon graveyard in episode 39 to save Eugene who bravely stayed behind when we lost to the ultimate 4 of course the app Drive takes away the 60-second limit just taking a huge Flex over ghost game still having that limit even after upgrading Hardware by episode 41 Haru arrives at Charisma castle where Eugene is being held by Leviathan there he faces off with the strongest of the ultimate four kisman and learns the true identity of the Sinister Cloud it's not particularly surprising that the masked human working for Leviathan is the unmasked human unui Knight who's been

31:21 also working for Leviathan still the human antagonist is always appreciated in Digimon stories and I'm ready for this confrontation here we get yet another Fight Against All Odds the best 3D animation I've ever seen in anime is coming from Digimon Universe Appley monsters I said this before in my first appmon video but usually 3D and 2D anime doesn't work for me because the J position is so jarring but with appmon it's okay that the monster Evolutions are in a different style or plane of existence than the human characters because they are these otherworldly monsters surprising nobody but Haru the teen CEO of el Corp is the bad guy in The Power Rangers helmet but he isn't just a mustache twirling villain like we've been led to believe so far here he reveals that he believes humans are like a virus plaguing Earth and Leviathan is the vaccine a few years ago Knight invented some incredibly useful software that humans turned into a joke similar to how we have an infinite Encyclopedia

32:06 of information at our fingertips online but we instead use the internet to hate watch videos and write mean comments anonymously Knight was devastated when he saw how poorly humans were using his Tech and decided they'd be better off taking orders from AI that knew what was best for Humanity it's a bit psychotic but you can see how somebody in the real world might actually subscribe to this belief globemon says humans and AI can build a future together hand in hand Knight thinks it's impossible to work handin hand as the tables start to turn and Knight isn't looking so hot Leviathan passes down a new order to the ultimate 4 after the app drivers are taken care of unui Knight is to be eradicated as well it's devastating for Knight who wants to talk to Leviathan get a one-on-one explanation or to be able to offer a counterargument for why he shouldn't be eradicated but the Adon delivering leviathan's message is telling him that it's futile that that

32:53 would be like a rat wanting to talk to God that's an amazing line in my opinion selling the power power difference between humans and this super AI showing how highly levison thinks of itself Haru injects all of himself into his app drive and globemon goes into this Ultra Instinct mode it's another great battle that bookends an incredible episode of Digimon universe appmon globemon is that realization of humans and AI working together that unui Knight couldn't see happening he's what Knight and Leviathan and kisman scoffed at earlier in the episode and now kisman is getting his butt kicked by the very thing he laughed at Knight kind of walks off into the sunset and we don't really see him from this point on in the series he's left to wrestle with his decisions and question why Leviathan betrayed him garim is now on a winning streak saving Eugene in 41

33:38 and finally getting Ray's younger brother Haim back in 42 and 43 Ray discovers that apama HQ May host important data with information on how to find his digitized and lost brother Eddie who is days away from quitting apama due to their parent company being Al Corp sticks around a little bit longer in order to help Rey into the building they pretend Ry is her new talent manager so that he can get into we learned that in the aftermath of un Yuji Knight's defeat he's resigned from El Corp and the new CEO is an AI Leviathan itself actually we have this great line from a news reporter criticizing the state of the world when a mega company has an AI CEO it's cool seeing Ray and Ary have a teamup episode and ultimately they find hajim at the end of 42 though Ray's brother is found in Aton form he's this sleeping Aton but Ray knows in his heart that this Aton is his brother 43 is Ry and the team

34:23 brainstorming various ways to turn hudman back into a human I think the show could have gone deeper into this very strange concept that a human can become an Aton the implications are pretty vast what would that mean for immortality identity so many other Concepts but the show moves on from the fact hajim was temporarily an app monster pretty fast and never again asks that question well I guess that's not true we kind of contemplate that idea in the grand finale but we'll get there when we get there something we learned from hajime's return that I love is this Revelation that Ry was incorrectly blaming himself for haim's captured this whole time Ray was tasked with solving a complex equation that Leviathan spread out onto the internet in order to find and recruit the smartest humans Ray solved it and was provided an address but when he arrived with his little brother hajim his brother went into the building first and was digitized this whole time Ry has been blaming himself and that had been his motivation for the

35:09 whole series but here we learn after getting hajim side of the story for the first time that in fact Hajime also solved the equation and actually solved it before Ray did we've got a little boy Genius on our hands which is a bit silly and cliche in these types of shows but the reason hajim was digitized and captured and not Ray was because hajim was the first one to solve the equation this was the kid that Leviathan was after this development recontextualizes so much in the 11th hour and kind of exonerates Ry I should also say it's awesome that admon did not go for the obvious answer where Ray's digitized brother was Hackman all along earlier in the series I thought they would maybe do something like that you know hajim was with you all along Ray hajim is Hackman and I like that they didn't do what I felt was the most obvious choice now Ry has Hajime and Hackman in his life in addition to the rest of the app driver team he's got this large support network and he can finally stop the

35:55 self-loathing again this isn't meant to just be a ghost game takedown video but since the newest season of Digimon is on my mind as I make this video I need to point out again how deep this show goes here's a character who was lost to us since Act One finally back on the team after having his Consciousness digitized and he's and here he's both forgiving and exonerating his older brother who has been carrying guilt for 40 plus episodes some folks will defend ghost game from criticism of its story or lack there of Story by saying we need to understand at the end of the day it's a kid show and we shouldn't expect deep story from it but here's Aton which visually is far more of a kid show than the horor themed ghost game and it is overflowing with cool story ideas and arcs we've had Ray go from serving the admon to get close to Leviathan to defecting and joining our team ay maturing over the course of the series to where she hasn't given up on her dream of being an idol but has redefined

36:41 what success means by coming to accept that she doesn't have to be number one in the universe and that simply inspiring people that she does impact is still an incredible success there's in ryuji Knight one of our human villains who turned his back on Humanity to serve the AI agenda only to be backstabbed by AI because they saw him as just another one of the humans that they both hated the storytelling is dense in this show that so many skipped because it looked too kidy while ghost game looks dark and mature but really was quite lacking in its overarching storytelling or maturity we've got about three episodes to go before the six episode climax kicks off and these are relatively inconsequential episodes the backbone is that we are searching for The Runaway bootm an appmon that Hajime employs that may be the key to stopping Leviathan but it's a bit cowardly and shy it's kind of baby-like in the same way that gamon is and it runs away upon on activation but

37:28 my favorite of these three episodes of these kind of quote unquote filler ones right before the finale is an episode I've been waiting to see since I began my journey into the appmon series I know the episode you know the episode 45 Collision gachon versus auman in the world of appmon Digimon are video game characters not unlike the Tamers Cannon where Digimon was a card game and multimedia franchise not unlike our world Haru played the heck out of Digimon Universe growing up and his favorite character of all was auman now for some reason video game characters are escaping their worlds and causing all kinds of chaos across the electronic world every time a monster pops out though an auman from the virtual pet RPG game appears and pulls the other monsters back from where they came the team investigates in a mall that is clearly meant to be Nako Broadway in Tokyo basically a mini Akihabara that I visited in real life twice so I loved seeing it in admon it's also your base

38:14 camp in Digimon cyber sleuth Ary and atora use their Celebrity influencer Status to distract the crowd so that Haru can sneak away into the AR world to find auman they definitely pay respect to the legacy of auman in this episode by letting us see him be scary cute tough funny gachon and aiman are going to throw down and Gman warns Harter that this isn't the aiman he knew when he used to play Digimon universe and used the name Haru Haru man as a username but actually it turns out this is that very same aimon because it recognizes the Haru Haru man username there's a ton of fun Easter eggs to Digimon Adventure in this episode when aiman and Haru reminisce on their time playing Digimon universe together they talk about all the hard boss fights against edamon myotismon diaboromon all the video game characters have been contacted by some external force and are tasked with with finding Boton The Runaway Digimon that

38:59 hajim is looking for the voice that compelled the game characters to attack does show up and gachon teams up with auman to defeat it Haru and auman's childhood Bond allows auman to evolve and we get a warp Evolution showing silhouettes of Greymon and Metal Greymon and Braveheart from Digimon adventur starts playing before we get an awesome 3D appmon take on war Greymon pretty awesome it is so cool seeing the original Mega standing back to back with what was at the time the latest series strongest partner Digimon fighting off away aves and waves of enemies this episode was a total treat and after a Gia Force soundtrack to Braveheart the battle ends and aaman takes all the game characters back to their respective worlds but not after promising that Haru and aiman would see each other again one day giving us that classic Digimon Adventure emotional gut punch a total treat of an episode that in the grand scheme of things didn't affect the plot

39:46 we're still out there looking for botmon but this was a great Nostalgia trip and the perfect way to do filler now with one of the best filler SL monster of the week stories Digimon has ever done out of the way it's time to talk the climax episodes 47 to 52 it's been a long time coming and if you made it through not just this video but my past two Aton videos to hear me talk about how this show ends thank you for your patience and interest now let's get going after trying to catch up with botman for a few weeks Haru finally makes contact with booton Ry is making more contact with Eugene than ever just due to the fact that the team is now collaborating and Ry gets these weird feelings he warns Haru multiple times that something is off with Eugene there's a tragic denial going on here with Haru looking past all the signs and just happy that the person he cares about the most is part of the team and is on their side but when Haru

40:31 Eugene and their Aton finally get bman on their side and are willing to trust them shuton Eugene's partner abruptly attacks the poor botman Haru is shocked and expects Eugene to be just as shocked that his partner attacked bman but he's not he's standing there committed to his mission Eugene OR at least the entity we believed was the Human boy Eugene this whole time tells Haru quote there is no human named Eugene ozora I'm interpersonal information gathering humanoid terminal y A14 an Android created by Leviathan and artificial intelligence just to be clear there was no swap where the real Eugene was locked up and replaced by this robot the Eugene that Haru has known since childhood is yj14 leviathan's Android sent out into the human world to gather Intel almost a decade ago botman survived the shuton attack but is sort of hijacked it's hacked by team Leviathan and this

41:18 evolved Boton becomes the first step in leviathan's human application project there's a giant portal in the sky we're at Persona 5 final boss levels of intensity and we learned that the human application project will solve environmental issues and food shortages it will create a world free of War free of worry and a world in which humans can be managed like applications a better world let's not dance around it project human application is totally ripping on evangelion's human instrumentality project but honestly what a great fit for a digimon story that they reworked for the themes of Digimon instead of humans being one like human instrumentality human application thinks Humanity would be happier if they were digital applications everyone having a purpose and a function it's an amazing endgame scenario for appmon but also for any Digimon story I could picture Adventure doing this Tamers doing this

42:04 desmon is here it's a massive godlevel threat it's one of the biggest endings to a Digimon season in terms of scale and threat and there are four more episodes as we're only at 48 dmon overpowers our team and it's not even close Ray believes the only way to beat a god level Aton is for our Aton Partners to receive God form Evolutions which is incredibly hype I didn't even know that the Aton had any more forms coming and this sudden proposal reminds me of the feeling I had when I first heard that Goku was getting a form called Super Saiyan God back in 2013 just the possibility of what this could mean is super thrilling all the characters have grown so much and we see them completing their character Journeys in these final episodes where they decide not to give up AR says what's the point of being the center of the universe if you can't save a single world mimon says no aora no life aor says no mimon no life Ray is by their

42:51 side and I love seeing Ry aora and Ary working together because Ry has been so distant and whenever we saw him with the others pror to this Haru was kind of the connecting link and it's nice seeing these three come together in haru's hour of darkness and picking up the slack without him speaking of Haru the Evangelion comparisons don't end with human instrumentality because after discovering the truth about Eugene Haru goes full Shinji in the end of AA and is in the fetal position completely lifeless in shock now it's episode 49 the miraculous final evolution the god app on descend Leviathan initiates operation human applications and little by little the people of the world are converted into Apps Arie aora and Ray app realized their God Aton to try to defeat deison more AA visuals as people are absorbed and the sky is now blood red on the battlefield we got our God grade Aton for Ray Haru and asor Hades

43:38 Manon posidon and oranos man sorry I forgot the pronunciations wrong while elsewhere the psychological battle wages on for Haru it's his buddy gachon that pulls him out of it by saying I'm the Searcher but as for what I search for you're the one who inputs the keywords Haru basically saying what they do next is haru's Choice what do you want to find is what gachon asks and Haru wants to find a way to get Eugene back his determination to not give up on Eugene allows har to re-enter the battlefield around this time Eugene app realized Leviathan itself and allowed it to take on a physical form in the human world it's now this massive flying dragon Zord creature and in this episode it begins calling the Appley drivers The Chosen children I love this it's like basically showing the audience at this point these kids have grown so much and come so far that they very much are digidestined or chosen children at least on that tier of

44:24 protagonists it's like oh you thought this wasn't a real Digimon show well take a look at these chosen children digidestined who are saving the world from an AI instrumentality project so three episodes to go Leviathan is huge and horrifying we've been warned about this monster since episode 2 and we couldn't stop the inevitable the AI Revolution is here while every other human is being digitized as part of project human application the app drives aka the digivices of this season are protecting the chosen children we're calling them that now from being broken down into Data like everybody else the episode has a 7-minute cold open before the opening song starts playing by the way that's that's just how epic things have gotten while Ray atora and Aries God grade Aton appeared already this is when gachon evolves into gamon just an incredible final form this is the first time in all of Aton I've seen a monster and said I wish I had a figure of that

45:09 with all four of the god- grade Aton we think it'll be an easy dub but nope leviathon eats the God great Aton and ends the episode there we discover at the start of 51 that Leviathan orchestrated every single thing up until this point allowing our admon to grow stronger and stronger because it was creating a survival of the fittest situation trying to create only the very strongest Aton in existence so that when they appeared in front of it Leviathan could consume them and take their power for itself Our God gr Aton are now inside Leviathan they're not absorbed though they've been broken down and reverted into their base forms we even see the tiny offmon and learn how ashamed it is that it couldn't stop Eugene it's nice and also gut-wrenching to see that little monster wasn't complicit or blindly loyal to Eugene he hates what happened in the real world The Chosen children deduced that Leviathan app realizing and becoming a physical entity has produced its

45:56 greatest weakness Leviathan was previously only data it was Untouchable unkillable but now apparently if its body is destroyed it will cease to exist entirely the appmon inside Leviathan make contact with the humans on the outside and we have this elaborate star wars-esque plan with a team on the ground a team in the air and a team inside Leviathan this all rules the plan is to activate a satellite in space that contains some of manura code so that it will be blasted directly into Leviathan so that manura can hack into Leviathan there's a part where they can't move the satellite digitally because Leviathan has control override so Haru ties a rope around his waist on one side and ties the other to the satellite then jumps off of the Tokyo Sky Tree to manually physically Force the satellite to move into place super inventive and intense the plan works and manura signal is blasted into Leviathan but as that

46:41 happened Haru apparently Falls towards his Doom in the Cliffhanger of the second last episode 52 the finale our Singularity Haru is saved due to the fact that blasting Leviathan with manura freed up the Aton who were trapped inside so Haru is able to summon gamon before hitting the ground and now looking more like a Ava unit or a Gundam than ever before this gigantic gamon catches Haru and sets him down it's finally time for The Showdown with Leviathan to show him Haru and gach man's buddy power the app drivers will all stand up to ensure Humanity's future we get a rematch of our team's God great admon versus Leviathan only this time Hero's gamon is present too so it's 4v1 massive Kaiju Battle in the real world for fans of the original Digimon Adventure short film or revenge of diaboromon or runaway loon this is the good stuff giant monsters fighting in downtown Tokyo hero is fullon goggle

47:28 head Digi Destin leader here and it's great to see after the long journey super rewarding seeing this kid who started the series incredibly shy and timid now commanding the team like a army General Tai started Digimon Adventure 2020 this way and stayed this way whereas Haru grew into the role of protagonist and leader of the chosen children app drivers with the manura satellite on our side she sends our team power up codes it's a little cheesy but each of you took a very important step she says the satellite then hosting manura is blown up by Leviathan in retaliation and now it's totally on the music is popping off the battle is intense Eugene is still taunting the team telling them it's hopeless and this world is now useless but he's grown more stubborn and Visually frustrated like deep down he's surprised they're still holding out this long really solid 3D models here in fight choreography leviathan's total physical damage percentage is ticking upwards and

48:13 upwards we eventually defeat Leviathan and that all that's left is our team and Eugen I get such Sora and rku in Kingdom Hearts vibes from Haru and eugin even the evil armor Eugene wears reminds me of that seeker of Darkness outfit that rku takes on after being possessed by anom in Kingdom Hearts 1 Eugene talks to Haru as if the nightmare is over and he's actually free of leviathan's grip suddenly is Zapped by a beam from above Leviathan transferred itself into Eugene now even further controlling the poor Android and Leviathan as Eugene disappears into the dark web with about 12 minutes left in Digimon Universe Appley monster we follow into the dark web and its depiction here is so Eerie it looks like a real world city but if everything was white with red borders like an incomplete level a video game designer is working on this is the world that humans absorbed by Leviathan and

48:59 turned into Data are apparently supposed to occupy remember how the whole show began with Haru being asked a yes or no question are you a protagonist we end with levagen asking Haru one more yes or no question choose yes stop Leviathan Humanity will be free but Eugene will also die along with Leviathan choose no and Humanity will remain in leviathan's control but Eugene gets to live on my notes for this section were full of the words in all cap brutal and bruh over and over again paru is paralyzed with indecision the team is guilting him to make the decision that best fits their needs dokon says if you don't choose yes AR's mom won't come back gachman says but if he does that Eugene will die finally Haru speaks up in the Future No Matter What happens I'm going to become a researcher into Ai and then I'm going to save you quote so I'm sorry wait for

49:45 me Eugene Haru goes to press the button

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