Autumn 2021 First Impressions – Digimon Ghost Game

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Digimon Franchise

Episode Summary: The internet is abuzz with rumors regarding a Sewn-lip Man; a hologram (or perhaps a holographic ghost) that terrorizes people and steals their time, leaving them as aged husks. Hiro Amanokawa brushes them off as urban legends, but the previous mysterious disappearance of his father has left him somewhat unsure of what might be real or imagined. When Hiro and his friend break into their school auditorium to investigate the rumors, they soon discover just how real the chatter about the Sewn-lip Man actually is.

As Hiro returns to his dorm room in the aftermath of being attacked, he discovers a set of strange flash drives that appear to be compatible with a set of digital wrist devices left behind by his father. When he plugs them in, he finds himself face-to-face with an image of his father, who’s somehow managed to convert himself into a digital entity. Hiro’s father provides Hiro with Gammamon, a digital monster that Hiro is asked to consider as his “brother.” Gammamon turns out to be handy when the Sewn-lip Man, who reveals himself as “Clockmon,” appears in Hiro’s dorm room. Gammamon turns out to have some specific resilience to Clockmon’s time-stealing attack, and along with Hiro’s support is able to defeat Clockmon – for now.

Impressions: Admittedly I stayed away from this series until now because I thought it was simply a sequel to previous Digimon incarnations, and when it comes to monster-collecting franchises I have little-to-no experience with Digimon. That said, I’m glad a little bit of research set me straight, because this opening episode of Digimon Ghost Game is actually pretty good!

My favorite anime series is Den-noh Coil, which is the story of a group of children living in a future world filled to the brim with digital technology. The characters investigate urban legends and eventually uncover important, tantalizing, and somewhat frightening secrets pertaining to said technology. It’s ostensibly a science-fiction series that often strays more into the realm of the supernatural, and I love it dearly. Digimon Ghost Game seems to make some tentative steps into this same area, although its tone and mood seem a little lighter, a little more simplistic, and more straightforward. This isn’t a bad thing by any means, but it does make the episode feel a bit smaller than it might with some more thematic “oomph” behind it.

This episode has some low-level spookiness going on, which I dig. I find it interesting that, in a world that seems to be a couple levels more technologically advanced than our own, whispered hearsay about mysterious otherworldly beings still has the same sort of hold on the populace as it does now. I suppose that’s appropriate; as much as some of us might wish for a world where facts and scientific inquiry are more respected, I think it speaks to some element of human nature that, with every new advance in technology, there almost immediately exist urban legends that build off of fundamental misunderstanding about said technology. I just purchased a 5G cell phone recently, reminding myself that there are people out in the world who legitimately believe that the government is using 5G towers to infect the populace with brain worms, or something like that. In some cases, willfully misunderstanding something new and strange can be a little bit funny in hindsight, but on the whole it has the potential to cause a lot more trouble that the few chuckles it might provide.

Digimon Ghost Game seems mostly cute and fun, with a decent understanding of the way that technology can interact with our lives for good or ill, at least at this early point in the story.

Pros: Proving itself to be a much different entity than my initial confusion about it assumed, this seems like a decent entry point for people who are unfamiliar with Digimon. I was definitely more on the Pokémon side of things back when both franchises were sort of competing with one-another for the attention of kids in the United States; I was aware of Digimon but it never really caught my interest. This seems like a good way to indulge one’s curiosity without immediately committing oneself to previous TV series and movies.

There are some fun little moments and sight gags built into this episode that gave me a chuckle. One item was the fact that the cell phones seem to operate on a “7G” bandwidth, which not only is kind of funny, but gives a decent impression of how far in the future the show might be set (15-20 years, perhaps).

Cons: The series has a good handle on its subject matter, but it still has the smell of a series for younger viewers. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but it’s a trait that kind of messes with the overall tone for me and has the feeling of toy tie-ins and such.

Content Warnings: Mild body horror (rapid aging of children). Non-graphic violence.

Would I Watch More? – Kudos to this series for its handle on internet urban legends, but I don’t know that I’m interested enough to follow up on it in any capacity. My slate is pretty full as it is.