Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
This ranking will use the characters English names, it will not include their Digimon and will be subject to change as I go through the Digimon Tri series, so let's begin.
Tai
The very definition of fiery leader and if he stayed that way, his ranking would be pretty awful but something changed at the beginning of Tri, he discovered the real weight and effect of the damage caused by the fighting Digimon, and while Matt was quick to call him a coward, it's a sign of growing up and in character for him considering that his selfishness has caused harm in the past, how Tai overcomes this will be interesting.
Matt
I've never liked Matt, he's so temperamental that you have to question why he has the Friendship crest, this hasn't exactly exited his system come Tri and throwing in a love triangle that involves Sora hasn't helped.
Sora
A lot of people didn't like her shedding her tomboy persona from season 1 but I'm in two camps with this one, her arc was reconnecting with her mother which was fully complete by season 2 but I also see her losing alot of her personality come Tri as her conflict is all romance with her friends.
Izzy
He hasn't changed at all, but I like how his social awkwardness is more on show in Tri, but yet his ability to produce tech on command is still a little too convenient.
Joe
He's somehow become the least reliable of the team in tri but at the same time, he's older and at a point where his actions have changes to his life, this especially prominent where he's actively failing exams, he brings up a good point about the whole Digi-Destined and why they have to be the ones to solve all these problems when adulthood is closer than ever.
Mimi
She started as the team Scrappy but is now hands down the most fun character in Tri, you could argue it's the American effect, but it works for Mimi as her arcs did nothing for her in the early seasons and this more expressive happier Mimi is very much welcome, her approach is rough but it works for Mimi and has made her the most evolved character.
TK
He went up massively in my estimation when he beat the crap out of Ken, now he's Matt's foil as he looks and acts way more mature than his older brother.
Kari
She's a fan favourite and a healthy balance of tomboy and feminine, she's largely unchanged in Tri but doesn't need it.
Davis
Worst protagonist ever, he's dumber than all his contemporaries combined, that includes people like Tyson of Beyblade and Ash of Pokemon, I've never seen a character so content with being that way, he's a waste of space and made season 2 such a weak series compared to even Digimon's worst.
Yolei
Yolei is at least salvageable, a balanced character with a hint of silly and brutal honesty, she's what Mimi is now in Tri and what Sora was in season 1, probably has the best traits of both those characters.
Cody
He's boring.
Ken
A villain turned hero was new for Digimon at the time, but I found that compared to his contemporaries, he really lost alot of his personality when switching sides.
Meiko
Meiko is an interesting one as there really isn't a shy girl amongst the Digi-Destined, so she fills a personality not been done before, however her role becomes redundant after Meicoomon is revealed to be causing all the disturbances.
Tai-8.0
Matt-5.8
Sora-6.3
Izzy-7.0
Joe-7.0
Mimi-8.9
TK-7.9
Kari-8.0
Davis-1.2
Yolei-7.1
Cody-3.0
Ken-6.0
Meiko-5.5
I'll be taking a break from this feature due to lack of decent hot takes.
"Demon Slayer is Overrated"
Story yes, animation no.
"Sword Art Online is actually good"
To begin with, it kind of crapped on itself.
"Higurashi: When They Cry is a twisted adult version of Groundhog Day"
Yes, yes it is.
"Lina Inverse is the best written anime character"
No I didn't write this but whoever did deserves all the likes.
"I watch Haikyuu for the Volleyball"
Sure you do.
Real talk, most male dominant sports anime will always put character motivation over the actual sport any day, characters make a sports anime not the sport.
"Serena is the worst of Ash's love interests"
Mostly because shippers are easy to bait with Serena's go no where romance subplot.
"Digimon Anime is better than the Pokemon Anime"
Digimon started off as better, it hasn't been for well over a decade now.
"There's too many anime coming out these days, so much so that none of them are any good"
Yes, but at the same time people are too comfortable with the popular stuff and refuse to take risks on other titles.
There's a lot of mention of Sword Art Online being the anime that made Isekai but back in the 90s it was a mostly Shojo Genre.
How far back does it go?
Rumiko Takahashi in 1985 released a short anime called Fire Tripper in which a girl is gas exploded back to feudal Japan, alot of elements were later reused for InuYasha, more on that later. Any anime adaption of Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz counts as well.
What are the Main Anime?
Four big names of yester year spring to mind, Vision of Escaflowne, Fushigi Yuugi the Mysterious Play, Magic Knight Rayearth and Inuyasha, all four feature a female heroine drawn into another world either through dimensions, a magical book, summoned by a preist or dragged backwards through time respectively.
How does Digimon fit into the equation?
Digimon by definition is also an Isekai by the fact that a group of 7-8 kids get sent to the Digital World but has more roots in the monster trend alongside another well known title, Monster Rancher.
Staying on topic how good are these four female led Isekai?
Escaflowne has argubly the most beautiful score ever composed for an anime.
Fushigi Yuugi was instrumental in establishing the Josei genre.
Magic Knight Rayearth put the artist team of CLAMP on the map as one of their best work.
InuYasha is yet another stellar work by Rumiko Takahashi and her best selling series by far.
What went wrong?
Escaflowne had a botched dub release and is widely forgotten next to stable mates Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star, not to mention the plot made no sense and the manga is infinitely different.
The others out stayed their welcome, Rayearth had a dreadful 2nd season, Fushigi Yuugi has not aged well and has been out of the spotlight for two decades now, InuYasha kept going and going and became the punching bag in the awkward era of the 00s where anime was struggling with a hangover, it's also aged the worst of the four shows.
As for Digimon, each season was getting less and less returns until they decided on Digimon Tri and a season 1 reboot.
Did Sword Art Online save Isekai?
Kind of, it's premise added elements that weren't available in 90s Isekai and took inspiration from harem, shonen and even thriller in some cases, Sword Art Online also took inspiration from Dot Hack Sign.
Now we can't get rid of Isekai
Blame covid, Japan's abysmal birth rate and Sword Art Online outstaying it's welcome, on the bright side, female led Isekai made a return with Saints Magic is Omnipotent and to a lesser extent Bofuri, we also have enough try hards to keep anime interesting and it's not devoid of having it's formula mixed in ever more dangerous ways, it's not like the tail end of the early 2000s where anime actually stagnated.
I touched on this briefly with Mai, Hilary and many times with Chloe, the point being that alot of popular anime don't do their opposite gender justice. No order for this list.
1. 90% of Harem anime
The lead male is dumb, the lead female is oblivious.
Get the obvious one out the way first, a typical male is frequently beaten up, a loser, accidental pervert; while the typical female is completely oblivious to her situation and has no concept of red flags. Harem is kinda out of fashion thankfully, so it's not really a factor so much anymore.
2. Dragonballz
Bulma dominates the female cast too much.
For much of Dragonball history the very few female fighters we do get were limited to Android 18; Super and FighterZ bridged the gap but even now, Bulma still dominates as the female representative.
3. All Digimon seasons bar Tamers
Female digi-destined were kinda just making up numbers.
It started with Tai and Matt getting all the attention, then it was Davis despite the fact Kari and TK were meant to lead, Tamers did it right but then it reverted back to old habits with future seasons. While Kari provided actually plot relevance, Sora and Mimi didn't.
4. Medabots
They did Samantha dirty.
The sad thing about Medabots is that they had a really good female character in Samantha but they cut her relevance to the plot so much that she may as well have left the anime.
5. Beyblade
It took three seasons to get a decent female blader.
Mariah and Emily were strong bladers refused to be allowed any actual battling. The less said about Hilary the better. Took until G Revolution to finally fix this issue.
6. Pokemon Galar Season
Chloe had nothing to do.
They gave Goh a mission to catch Mew, Ash is the lead so enough said, Chloe had one Pokemon contest and advice from previous female leads, that's Chloe's entire contribution to the anime.
7. Non UC Gundam
It's taken about 30 years for a decent female pilot.
Nothing really against female casts of the non universal century Gundams as they all have strengths in their own way, but the only really decent female pilots we've had are Allenby of G Gundam and this seasons Witch from Mercury, that's pretty poor from a franchise with well balanced gender casting.
8. Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters
Female duelists get a bad rep.
I've covered this already with Mai, other than Ishizu, every female duelist is average, terrible or get through with hand holding, future seasons fixed this.
9. Naruto
Female ninjas are pretty terrible.
Much has been said about Sakura's history, Ino has a poor move set for combat, Hinata is in the wrong anime, Temari lost much of her role after marrying Shikamaru. The adults fair much better but they are not main characters. Oh yeah there's Tenten, what did she do again?
10. Pretty Cure
Despite promoting inclusiveness, there's still no official male Precure.
Hugto Precure broke the mold with the now legendary line "Boys can princesses to" this followed with the first ever male Precure and a season devoted to the message of everyone is Precure, young, old and any gender. That was Season 15, Season 20 is next year, and were still no closer to the elusive male Precure, current season discount Tuxedo Mask does not count.
As a little side project following up to Easter weekend I'm going to discuss some anime toys. Today's subject will discuss Virtual Pets with the next few episodes discussing Card Games, Models, Classic Toys and ending the week with Mini cars followed by a review of Dash Yonkuro.
So let's begin.
Raising a Japanese Alien Blob
The Tamagotchi craze began in 1996 invented by Aki Maita. The design being an egg shaped electronic toy smaller than a pager. The concept has always been the same, an alien drops an egg onto Earth and you have to raise it to adulthood through a number of tasks such as feeding, exercise, studying, playing, cleaning poop, pretty much anything you would do with an infant. How your Tamagotchi looks all depends on how well you raise them, although judging by the basic shapes of these creatures, there was alot of limits in what you can get.
I had a Black Tamagotchi myself.
Tamagotchi is still around but it doesn't pull as bigger sale as it used to, even with the advances in technology, but most point to what happened the following year and our next entry as the beginning of the end.
The Birth of Pokemon's most worthy Rival
A year on from the Tamagotchi craze came Digimon. While the concept was pretty much the same, the difference came in the fact that you could battle each other by connecting two together, also the smarter use of pixels meant more unique creatures could be produced on screen. The first generation Digimon only used the Agumon line along with a few select creatures from the early series with future models sporting more characters using all the Digi Destined monsters, this would continue through much of the anime seasons that followed.
I owned an original Digimon and a first gen Digivice.
Most people would know that the anime far outlived the original toy.
Your Very Own Super Fighting Robot
A brief mention on this, during the run of Megaman NT Warrior they actually made the Net Navi device used by the characters along with the battlechips used to power them up. It didn't sell as well as the video game but did okay enough but it was partially inspired the next innovation.
Raising Bugs and Dinosaurs with Cards
Sega took the idea further with Mushiking which takes everything learned from the early days of virtual pets and combining it with trading cards of insects, this would also lead to the later Dinosaur King which uses Dinosaurs instead. It had a fair go at it but it's what this turned into that still exists today.
Raising a Kawaii Pop Idol by Collecting Cute Outfits
Sega clicked further with the idea of cards with Hime Otogi Lilpri which led to the creation of franchises such as Aikatsu, Pretty Rhythm and PriPara. It was the most natural transition of the idol franchise who had struggled to claim back it's popularity following a slump in the 90s and 00s. In these games you collect and match cute outfits for your idol to wear. This is still going on today with no signs of stopping.
We started with Alien Blobs now were at Kawaii Pop Idols going through Monsters, Robots, Insects and Dinosaurs along the way.
End
