Getting this together early even though we’re only recording Episode 129 in 12 hours from now!
EDIT: Extra Weekly Poll for Episode 129 here!
Two weekly polls this week!
Getting this together early even though we’re only recording Episode 129 in 12 hours from now!
EDIT: Extra Weekly Poll for Episode 129 here!
Two weekly polls this week!
Q1 – always vote for the dragon! (see Holydramon poll)
Q2 – definitely SkullGreymon! The only thing scarier was Chimairamon!
ShineGreymon Ruin Mode is the only correct answer to this poll! I have no idea why Megidramon is winning but it can only be because there are more Tamers fans than Savers fans and they’re being biased, which is unfair and shouldn’t be the case in the first place, because Savers is at least as good as Tamers, grumble grumble people’s nostalgia. I actually think you put up this poll too early, because the situation with ShineGreymon Ruin Mode has only just begun, and so if anyone’s watching along for the first time, they won’t have the necessary information to make an informed judgement on this.
What my reasoning basically boils down to is that: the motivation behind both Takato and Masaru going dark evolution is similar – they became uncontrollably angry, they wanted revenge – against someone who was at least at some point their friend – and this corruption of what they usually stand for caused the evolution. I enjoy this. (Taichi, meanwhile, is way less interesting because he was basically just being a bonehead.)
I personally prefer Masaru’s version of this motivation, because while I enjoy Takato getting so angry just on a basic emotional level, it’s difficult for me to /understand/ exactly why he suddenly snaps like this given that he’s usually such a sweet, kindhearted character. With Masaru, it makes sense – he’s a kind person at heart, but he also cares a lot about loyalty in particular and is very straightforward and hot-headed, so you can understand why a betrayal like this would make him snap.
Additionally, you noted that it was only Taichi and Takato who were specifically urging their partners to evolve and just wanted it for the wrong reasons, and that caused a dark evolution because something something vaguely-defined evolution mechanics in most series. Meanwhile, Masaru didn’t even directly want ShineGreymon to evolve – what he had was a huge mass of /out-of-control negative emotions/, which caused the dark evolution because of the very well-established effect of human emotions on Digimon. What this essentially is is an example of the phenomenon of Digimon being influenced into rampaging by negative human emotions that we saw in the first eleven episodes – just far more drastic and terrible because Masaru’s emotions are so strong and he has a connection with Agumon already. And this is the main thing I was thinking of when I told you to keep in mind the dub explanation of Digimon “feeding off” negative human emotions – it makes absolutely no sense for ShineGreymon to have deliberately decided to feed off of Marcus’s anger and hatred!
The second part of my reasoning, and the reason why I think this poll went up too soon, is about the /repercussions/ of each event. Taichi’s actually had decent repercussions in that he felt guilty and hesitant to evolve for a few episodes, and this led to a bit of a character arc with him. But Takato’s were almost nothing – he devolves Megidramon back to Guilmon through some vaguely-defined friendship stuff, and then, through more vaguely-defined friendship stuff, achieves Dukemon by the end of /the very next episode/, having not suffered in any way for his mistake, which he’s never going to think about again. Obviously I can’t talk in detail about Masaru’s repercussions yet, but suffice it to say that they are Great and last multiple episodes, and boy does he suffer and regret what he did and learn from it.
Bottom line: SkullGreymon had not-so-good motivations but good repercussions, Megidramon had good motivations but not-so-good repercussions, but ShineGreymon Ruin Mode had good ones of both, even regardless of my personal opinions that they’re even better than the good parts of SkullGreymon’s and Megidramon’s respectively, so this should not be a contest and I don’t understand why it is.
Meanwhile, I also don’t really understand why BioLotusmon is winning the other poll. She’s a booby human woman in a fancy fanservicey outfit. Just like so many other evolved feminine Digimon. It’s even worse than the other fully-evolved Digimon staple of “armoured humanoid knight dude”, because at least those ones aren’t drawn with fanservice as their primary purpose.