Oh SHIT I'm so sorry! I thought that was a shot of Regulusmon and Siriusmon from the episode, my eyes betrayed me. Let me pin and credit you in the description, I'm so sorry! If I can do anything else let me know!
I think TH-cam decided to delete your other reply for some reason, I appreciate you being okay with it! I try my absolute best to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen, I hope you can take solace that your art is so fantastic I thought it was from the actual episode! Huge apologies again!
100% agree my friend, Ghost Game started so strong and creepy but it never went above Stage 1 (Monster of the Week), painful because Digimon tends to be at it's best once it abandons that chapter.
@@pn2294 Personally, I like that is justified the "monster of the week" format for the *horror* anime. Seriously, the random Digimon they faced were *random Digimon* that caused trouble not as part of the main villain's plan but simply due to being alien.
@pn2294 Define Variety ? As Karn put it out. Its basically this digimon has an horror plot and the gang solve it at the end. Nothing in the series is affected with the digimon being around or impacted. They don't get awareness for this. In other series, if digimon were doing what they did, you would see some kind of human response or normal people learning about digimon. At the least our main characters would get save, but no the series went back to status quo despite saying it had a narrative.
@@Chalicodragon The gang are gradually integrating Digimon into the real world. By the midpoint of the series, Digimon have their own businesses and civilizations within the human world. By the end, there are even unofficial Tamers in their series. It’s like Digimon Survive’s ending in that regard.
@pn2294 You mean the ending where Hiro talks to the United Nations and everyone just accepts digimon despite this series having the most malicious day of the week digimon. The digimon are most of the time hidden from society , with only a few of them interacting with humans. Literally episodes end with the gang telling digimon to hide themselves. What unofficial tamers are you talking about ?
I'm convinced that *something* happened during Ghost Game's hiatus. If you look at the episodes up to that point--while very monster-of-the-week--they are slowly building up to something. Things are changing and progressing. Then the show comes back from that hiatus and all of that momentum stops _immediately_. It's as though they completely scrapped whatever plan was in place for Ghost Game, and then were just spinning their wheels until the end. Ghost Game had the potential to stand with Adventure and Tamers at the top of the franchise, if not even exceed them. The premise and early episodes were really that strong. Now? It's 67 episodes of mostly the same thing. There is no real reason to watch a second episode of Ghost Game, because it's the episode you just watched but with a different Digimon. I can rewatch 52 episodes of Adventure any time, and have multiple times. I can't imagine slogging through all of Ghost Game again.
I never actually realised that. I rewatch adventure 1 & 2 once every year or 2 but even 8 months after finishing ghost game, I have no real desire to rewatch it.
You hit the nail on the head! The problem wasn’t with the episodic format, but rather its execution. The formula got tedious and repetitive over time so the series started declining, especially its second half. Granted, its second half is still better than say, Adventure 02’s or Adventure tri.’s, but that’s because their second halves were convoluted messes whereas Ghost Game’s was the exact opposite: a stagnant plateau. Being better than 02 and tri. are low bars to clear, anyway. And it’s obviously better than Young Hunters because YH is this show on steroids: YH has all the same problems but amplified up to 11 because of its far shorter length. I’d still recommend this mediocre entry over other weaker entries like Frontier or 02, but that’s about it.
Yeah, I felt the same. something changed. I'm convinced it was actually going to be even more episodes than just how much we got. Which is why they were going so slow. But at some point they were told to finish it off. And they didn't have enought time, so they finished off their remaining monster of the week scripts and left the last 3 episodes for the finale.
Something happening in the middle of Digimon anime production? This must be the first one! (Bad sarcasm aside, Toei is infamous for messing up Digimon by being involved and changinf things on the fly)
I think some episodes had to be cut because of the hiatus as Digimon seasons only run for one year before moving onto the next season. Digimon wasn't the only one to suffer this another show of their Precure also had the same issues, it seemed they had some plans for the show but scrapped them and the show was just super slow after that.
I think the early part of Ghost Game being episodic was fine. Tamers did that because it was spending time introducing characters and developing them. The real plot didn't come to be until about halfway when the tamers went to the Digital World. Ghost Game teased quite a bit in those early episodes so it made the audience speculate what would happen. That in itself isn't a bad thing as long as there's a payoff that links everything together.
The problem I have with this logic is that story arcs are just extra long episodes. They’re not actually more important. The fact that GG didn’t revolve around a main antagonist meant that each episode was actually more important because none of them could actually be skipped
@@pn2294nah it meant that they could all be skipped because there was no importance to them such as a main story arc. They could have taken like 40 episodes out and been done with it. Just boring filler.
I was expecting a Digital World arc, but not in the last three or so episodes. There were also some villainous Digimon they deserved an arc like Piedmon, Dragomon and Millenniumon.
I loved the episodic nature of it, and a lot of the story seemed like it'd pay off in interesting ways, so it's a shame the ending stuff felt so rushed. I still really enjoyed Ghost Game despite everything
It made sense. In a dark take on the partner's dark side, Gulus was a viral threat that forced Quantummon to evacuate the Digital World, leading to random Digimon causing problems by just being otherwordly.
Love this video, thank you so much for referencing my reviews! It wasn't easy and some weeks there simply wasn't much to say, but I am very proud of my coverage of Ghost Game. As proud as someone can be about reviewing a cartoon ;)
Digimon Ghost Game felt like the creators had a strong idea for an overarching, serialized narrative, and chose to wait until the last 3 episodes to tell it. I don't mind the idea of a completely episodic monster of the week series, but the show kept sprinkling in little mysteries and subplots that hinted very strongly that it was going to do what most Digimon series do and eventually move into a more serialized format. Almost feels like a J.J Abrams work where the writers introduced questions that they didn't have answers to, but weren't super concerned about coming up with answers until they were just about out of time
@@Karn_EX That is definitely a possibility. My thing is like by Episode 40 out of 67 episodes I would think they would recognize that they should at least try to start addressing the mysteries they set up. Even if they didn't have the budget to make it as spectacular as they wanted with the best animation or the best script writers, you gotta figure that industry professionals would realize that the longer they pushed it off the more difficult it would be to make something even remotely satisfying. Perfection is the enemy of completion as they say
@@ML1399TheyStoleMyName Right, "being episodic is no excuse." Seriously, how many horror themed shows aren't episodic? Feel like there is a reason the genre had so many anthology shows. Karn: "Stop arguing its supposed to be episodic." Frankly did not address the genre.
Gulus being an alien, who turned himself into a digimon and Created an alternate persona to hide which ended up usurping the body is such an interesting idea that just goes nowhere. So much interesting character building left on the table without any resolution.
I feel that Myotismon, Lilithmon, and Millenniummon have unfinished plots. These three digimon in particular were full-on antagonists, but were never killed, or truly defeated. I kept expecting for any of the three to reappear again as a major antagonist, but that never happened. Especially during the last few episodes before they went to the Digital World, I actually expected for Hiro to take MoonMillenniummon with him since it kinda lingered on a shot of the apocalyptic digimon I also thought we would get a mini-arc of sorts with Pharoahmon thanks to some of the build-up with AncientSphinxmon and Mummymon. That being said, I find it funny that GulusGammamon never got a chance to go to his Mega form lol
@@Bezaliel13so is the show supposed to be episodic or have a main plot? You can’t say one thing and then defend the show by saying something that contradicts your previous claim mate.
Also, they had Dracmon vow revenge on ruli, show up 20 episodes later, and then get unceremoniously deleted by Myotismon. But there's a matadormon that escaped surely we'll finally see an animated version of Granddracmon and...nope. None of the vampires were seen again.
Apparently there's rumour that Arctusmon and Promixamon were just made as what if evolutions. Basically the anime staff and the BE Teamm just didn't communicate on it. Its kinda implied with thier "theoretical evolution". I still find it skeptical because the idea that the last Antagonist of Ghost Game was a ultimate still feels narratively off.
This is still one of the weirdest things... like it really feels like they have an OVA in the works where they want to use all these forms as a sort-of Omnimon moment, but it's also weird because they've never REALLY made a series with the intention to book-end it with an OVA before??? So it's just like......... What the crap happened here...???
Specially since Proximamon is a fusion between Regulusmon and Arctusmon, which fits perfectly into Ghost Game's ending of Gammamon making peace with his dark self and both of them working together
My biggest gripe about Ghost Game was how much mystery Kiyoshirou had surrounding him that just never went anywhere despite the series making direct note of it at many points.
This is interestingly put. I don't strongly agree or disagree with any thing, it's just a whole lot of "yeah, I can see that, I understand that sentiment". In broad general terms, Digimon either really needs a manga or a consistent series of mainline games if it wants to get out there and get the same kind of shonen treatment other series have. The toys are a respectable begining and they don't have to go away, but I remember as a child being really bummed out every time a game came out and it was mid, and every new show had nothing to do with the previous. I'm not saying "no new characters or settings" I'm just saying every seasons removes stakes by being a fresh start. Ghost Game, Seekers and Survive were all massively hurt by being all disconected and having a disjointed approach of going over seas. You spoke of corporate synnergy, but I think it's more than that. To me it's more akin to a sense of "oh, the new thing in that world" instead of "oh, it's the new world of that thing". Being really specific to Ghost Game now... I don't know how to feel about it. I watched it weekly and to completion. My interest did dwindle, but not in a catastrophic manner. I don't think episode caps and being longer or shorter really affects my enjoyment of the story as long as what is being done justifies its lenght. There are shows that couldn't be saved even if cut in half. PERSONALLY, I think around episode 25 the show should have "dropped" the weekly mystery and jumped straight into the Digiworld that they were teasing for way too long. The show teases a LOT of big baddies like Dagomon, Kuzuhamon, Manticoremon, Cthyllamon that could all be doing the exact same things but in the digimon world to smaller weaker digimon. The show also is the one that comes the closest to be able to show all Demon Lords and it could have been a great midshow plot beat still in the "horror theme". That's why I put the dropped in quotations, I think they could have shifted it a bit to other digimon in a different scenario. The show hurts for not having an extra Tamer, even though it had the opportunity to introduce a Herissmon. After a while I thought they were going to subvert the trope by giving each Tamer a second creature (Espimon, Ryudamon) and at some points we see Tamers giving others to each other's partners. ... But that didn't come through either. But I think the biggest bummer and the only thing I'd really consider a disappointment is the resultion of the conflict with Gulus. The whole thing of a meteor thing in a distant future is so underwhelming and makes everything seem so unjustified (specially considering in just about every media, time in the digiworld is faster than here, so 2000 years here would be like a billion in there), and it actually makes me think what the heck is going on in japan that this is a trend now (Pokémon SwSh had an alien creature coming from space and a power crisis hitting the Earth in the very distant future. Sonic Frontiers has the same "oh no, there's this huge meteor thing slowly coming over and you sped up it's arrival"), idk, I might be overthinking it, but I kinda see a trend of "not really impending space doom slowly approaching" In the end I was never really disappointed by Ghost Game, I was just always curious on why it made the decisions it made. ... And speaking of curious, I've always wondered why Hiro had a scar and Kiyo had a bandaged arm (implied to be some sort of soft cosplay) as such prominent design features and they never panned out as a flashback or character motivation or anything.
I loved Ghost Game basically the whole way through. I thought the horror stuff, particularly the body horror, was excellent and I enjoyed the episodic nature of it. The problem I had was with the last 4 or 5 episodes. They felt so rushed and out of nowhere. To me that is way they didn't feel satisfying. Because it was almost like the creative team had no idea the end was coming and had to scramble to tie up all the loose ends.
Pity Karn seemed to have forgotten that it was horror. Seriously, how many horror shows AREN'T episodic? Personally, I like the dark take on the protagonist's dark side. Having Quantumon evacuate the Digital World in response to Gulus and the horror throughout the series being from random Digimon unrelated to Gulus causing horror just from being literally otherworldly. Far better paranoia fuel than the usual "monster of the week" being a servant of the big bad.
@@Bezaliel13I personally think that Karn is correct in his analysis. He did acknowledge the darkness and body horror, but it's more how the show was paced that got under his skin (and mine). Ghost Game is one of those shows that have 1-3 episodes at the beginning that introduce a possible over-arching plot, then have a bunch of unrelated and self-contained episodes it the middle with a bit of teasing, before suddenly swinging back into said plot in the final 5-7 episodes and wrapping it up. The issue is that Ghost Game wasn't very satisfying with this formula. I'm reminded of Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, myself.
@@conspiracypanda1200 So, is that format typical for horror anime? Huh, i just thought of something. How would that work? To elaborate, it was a horror anime that averted the "Sorting Algorithm of Evil," so how would it work if they had fewer episodes with their lower Lv partners? I know that might, *might,* sound like i am questioning on Digivolution across a few dozen episodes, but I mean it might not really have been that scary if they grow too quickly. Horror needs helplessness, you know. Not to mention the plot being about Digimon refugees evacuate to avoid a viral infection contained in the Digital World. Be kind of lame to have that awesome premise of endless, random, and unrelated Digimon causing nightmares from being alien and no way of dealing with all of them in sight... merely to have only a few random Digimon of the Week, like the Infernals from Fire Force.
I know I treated Ghost game too harshly really fast since I dropped it on like Episode 3, though I loved the spooky vibe they were going for, I felt really weird about the characterization of the protagonist, my favourite part is the development and emotions of the characters, and when the kid sees again his Father who DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, and just reacts casually with “where have you been idiot?” I just felt that they were not going to be able to milk emotion out of the story
my main issue with ghost game is what I feel many others have issue with: the promise of something more. it felt like we were getting crumbs of story, little hints of "something bigger" that ultimately added up to very little. from the digitron Digimon being babysitters effectively to the Big Bad being something literally millennia away to gulus just kinda going "okay, let's be chill" it felt like there was so much more going on that just went nowhere had GG left all that out, and just had the fun monster of the week format, I probably would have kept up with it. but it was exhausting to be told "something big's gonna happen, just you wait!" and then having to wait until episode 67 for a quick recap that, at the end of the day, didn't amount to anything. having the villain be something so far away really made me feel like "well, why'd we even bother?"
I know! It was frustrating to wait so long, only to get little tidbits like “Black Tailmon is in contact with Hiero’s Dad” or “Gulus knows more than Gammamon about what is going on in the digital world”. I don’t think they even fully gave an explanation for why some digimon adapt to the human world better than others. Yes I know the “human emotion” blurb was given near the end of the series. But, digimon clearly had emotions of their own, so why would emotions affect digimon with no bonded partners? They should have gone all in either on “all digimon are somewhat dependent on human emotion for strength, even if some are parasitic about obtaining it” or “digimon actually don’t have emotions of their own.”
Nice job Karn; not just on your Ghost Game analysis, but for pointing out problematic things in fandoms like - the misunderstanding/misuse of the term "episodic" - the fact that something explained (or "has a reason"), doesn't alone justify it as a good idea - the problems with Digimon's overall lack of brand-synergy. All things that need more attention!
Let's not forget fans thinking there will be a follow-up season because of the whole Endbringer thing that will never EVER be touched upon due to Toei/Bandai and the director's incompetence with the whole series. Seriously, with the way Ghost Game ended and how it is now, why do people delude themselves that there will be a second season or a sequel movie?
I definitely have similar problems with ghost game tho i definitely did enjoy it. It was the first anime I've watched weekly since I was a kid so I could keep up with the community. Even with the problems ghost game will hold a special place in my heart because this is really the first community online i feel like I fit in
I have not watched the video yet, but here are my thoughts on it and want to see reactions to them. The ghost game had a good setup, but a failed planning and absolutely terrible ending will edit after watch of your video
I feel the trio of digidestined worked better with tamers as there were other side digidestined that had partners and I just feel this season was hiro was overused with him having 2 partners
I disagree with Hiro having two partners part. Espimon being Hiro's partner was more like Cutemon being Taiki's digimon. They had moments and developed thier relationship, but it doesn't go anywhere and you can literally take Espimon out of Ghost game. A digidestined having two partners and it being serious focus could be interesting, but Ghost Game did nothing with it. We already know that digimon in Ghost game can connect with their non-partners. Even Espimon's evolution episode feels off since it's so late in the series and it's made into an auxiliary digimon in its own epsiode. Heck, they got Ryduamon to evolve without a partner...why did Espimon need to ?
My problem is the fodder/irrelevant add-ons do nothing of value outside MarineAngemon. Savers handled its add-ons better than Tamers but they also still feel utterly pointless outside the old man. Kinda glad Ghost Game stuck to just Espimon and two fast travel guys (Airdramon and Ginryumon, and I feel the latter should've been a bit more relevant)
@TheDiscoGenre Airdramon was relevant ? I think all of the Ghost game adds on worst though. They didn't really need them. Heck, the characters not having fast travel could have added to the plot and the show could have tried to find ways to get around that. Though I agree with you overall. I think the only sixth rangers that have worked out well in digimon were the ones that were already there from the beginning of the story and had a role established. Such as Kairi and Gatomon, Ken and Wormmon, Impmon, Kouichi, Ikuto and Falcomon, Miuyki and Renamon, and Haru and Gabumon.
@@lucanigro7316 And that's still more relevant than (Hiro)Kazu, Suzie, or BUY WONDERSWANS Ryo sadly. Being a taxi is more relevant is more relevant than anyone who wasn't the Primary Colors or Impmon.
I love Ghost Game, but man do I have similar thoughts. They could have done so much with Gulus and Hokuto and they just…didn’t. I was also hoping for a sixth ranger. Hell, even that time where Ruri was able to sync with Jellymon. So much potential… And great point about brand synergy! A collective approach would help popularity!
I absolutely loved the serial nature and the slow burn build...and sorta hated how it completely fumbled the bag in the last section. It explored a lot of digimon lore that was underapproached or not thematically appropriate elsewhere, and i loved Hiro and Gammamon so much.
This show deserved better than what ended up being. I love the characters in this show, they had such a fun dynamic between the three of them. And yeah, it really felt like a whole season of “how would you make this better, viewer?”
Despite the issues the series has, this has still been the most fun I've had with a season of the series since Tamers. Ghost Game absolutely shot up to my number one, I just loved the characters, tone, music, and visuals, just so much that I really did like it once I realized this was going to be a mon of the week show
I liked every single episode up until the last three. Even if formulaic, "Digimon doing spooky stuff" can be drastically different just because each Digimon is different and they even added new gimmicks to Digimon so they gave a new spooky flavor. My only problem was that some Digimon needed more than 1 episode to actually build up their horror, and almost all plot hooks got either discarded or rushed, which is bad. So I didn't get tired of it, but the ending is bad and I recognise that.
Gotta agree. Ghost Game is far from perfect, and the final ep being one, long exposition dump soured a lot of the 66 eps preceding it. And yet, I still adored its weekly episodes, and how it slowly built up a cast of likable, dynamic characters. Still one of my favs for sure :)
I jump in and out of the frnachise every few years, and I remember hearing about ghost game at launch, gulusgammamon being something different from the usual chaos evolution, something about meko-something-mon going down the path of "I honestly believe that death and destruction will help my friends and make them happy"rather than just being evil. the big thing is that, just existing near anime and mangas, you get glimpse of the various storylines, but nothing when it came to this. making it episodic really castrated it's potencial
So I really think this is a fascinating discussion to have. Ghost Game was an interesting series to watch unfold at the start and I think that's mostly because with it being horror themed it lent itself to an aspect that Digimon didn't really explore too much in it's other series. That these are MONSTERS, they're CREATURES, and they have aspects of themselves naturally that occur that isn't done when they're just a foe for the week or something. Like one of the Gulus episodes with Oboromon, in any other season that Digimon would JUST be a villain for the Digidestined to face and be done with it. Here? It wasn't under some big boss or anyone else's command other than what IT and its kind do naturally. Which was very fascinating. But that fascination dies down over time when in the back of your mind there's mysteries being planted. Everything with Gulus I genuinely felt was changed or rushed. He had SUCH a strong start, and like you mentioned the threat of him showing up was massive. The looming threat of Proximamon since we knew what THAT was was so enticing. The whole time I could only think "If this is a DNA Digivolution of Gulus and Gammamon, how does that work when there's only one of them?" Then they split and I got excited, THIS was the moment! This was what was being built to! They're separated! They're two different Digimon now and CAN fuse...but then Gulus just stayed Regulusmon and fought Siriusmon and then we made it to Quantumon and her "friends" that...that's a whole other can of worms. But it just felt like there was more, but they dragged their feet with the "episodic" stuff and never fleshed out the meat that was there. That's just me though. This comment's WAY long but it is something I've discussed with a friend of mine. Wonderful video Karn, hope you and yours have a safe and Happy Halloween.
I'm glad you brought up Gegege no Kitaro because something I haven't heard said a whole lot in western discussion of GG is that the premise is essentially "Japanese ghost stories but instead of Yokai and ghosts it's digimon" and that that premise constructs those episodic weekly releases. For me GG became a bit bitter sweet and disappointing because I feel not only did they take their sweet time with the Gulus plot only to see it cut off early without Arcturusmon or Proximamon I felt almost I had waited for nothing. On reflection though I find myself revisiting episodes like the puppet girl, the dark fire digimon, Icy hell and Fujitsumon episodes because they're genuinely good ghost stories featuring digimon. I hope ghost games dub hits well with kids which I believe it will looking at the success of shows like Goosebumps and Tales from the Crypt in the 2000s
I liked Ghost Game a lot. All the kids and partners were great and I really enjoyed tuning in each week and see what horror theme they would use. Do I with the ending was better? Yes. Do I wish it had more plot? Yes. But that's just not the type of show it wanted to be. After 2020 it was just nice to have something decent to watch.
I loved the start that Ghost Game had, those first dozen episodes felt pretty solid to set up the series. It just fell flat trying to keep the plot relevant and the payoff was disappointing. Especially when considering we had Proximamon teasing us with it's very existence. Overall I just felt like it needed to cook a bit longer in development. Also unironically, if you do live action show characters get partners I will eat that shit up. Barney Stinson would 100% get the Lilithmon line and we all know why.
"Apparently there's rumour that Arctusmon and Promixamon were just made as what if evolutions. Basically the anime staff and the BE Teamm just didn't communicate on it. Its kinda implied with thier 'theoretical evolution'." - Chalicodragon v=QX30f_mkDLQ&lc=UgwXDMSmR4p_carm0sJ4AaABAg
As a Pokémon fan, this show made me give digimon a chance again, I had fun in the beginning, being able to theorize with a friend of mine, but little by little we both fell into apathy as the show was clearly going nowhere, we both knew the only thing keeping us hooked was a “mystery box”, and we also knew that by that point, what was inside was probably unsatisfying. When it ended we had a quick discussion, tearing the show apart, laughing at how ridiculous the ending was, than we never spoke of it again, at least I’m now interested in the franchise, and I’m now catching up with all the animes. But to me the time I invested was a waste of time.
Funny cus Pokemon does the episodic way better, and now with Horizons is doing what Digimon has been doing with a continuous narrative. To great success.
@@JayceCH.I’ve been a fan of Pokémon since I was a kid, but I’ve stopped watching the anime years ago, I’m more a fan of the franchise, I will try to watch the new one when I have the time
I did watch ghost game all the way through and my thoughts on it are like this. What it did good, it did very good, like the Gulusgammamon scenes and the designs for the characters, the epic evolutions all live in my head rent free. But it's lows were honestly not as bad as Xros wars lows, but were still not really remarkable. It had a lot of potential and interesting story beats, but as we all know didn't exactly pan out the way we hoped. I personally would like to see, or work on a good rewrite that feels similar to ghost game but gives a full story. There's just a lot of ghost game that could've been done better, but that could also be said for a lot of shows.
22:59 Maann Gegege no Kitaru also hit a breaking point for me halfway through it's run when the big Story Arc villain turned out to be a sad dumpster fetus who just needed a damn hug....it was really unsatisfying...😅😅😅
Eh, they could do a movie at some point. The big bad that Gulus warned about shows up way too early, and Arcturusmon debuts. Ultimately, Hiro would probably DNA Digivolve Arcturusmon and Siriusmon to get Proximamon to put down the big bad once and for all.
I have a theory about Arcturusmon and Proximamon: they are planning to release either a sequel series or a movie that brings those two in. Let's say, The Endbringer shows up way too early, Arcturusmon comes out and isn't enough, leading Proximamon to save the day. As for the episode length, long episode counts can work; FMA Brotherhood comes to mind.
The dark themes that I thought would grow never did, and most of the episodes didn't develop into stronger elements that connected. I mean Phelesmon I thought was going to come back, but didn't. And honestly wanted their to be a risk at all times. But every issue that occurred were fixed super easily.
I don't know if they would be as popular as there were when we were kids but I would love to have tie in figures like we had for adventure and tamers. I loved collecting the figure I saw in the latest episode
I think the length was fine I just wish rather than in the last 3 episodes, Gulus and plot starts to matter with last 20. Also so many digimon peaced out at the end of their episode never to be seen again, even just having them in the background of a shot would be enough.
So I was hoping that gulis was gonna be a sort of anime origin for Black-Digimon as they kept appearing after it’s appearances. And with our first look with BlackWargreymon, the more violent demeanour fit well. But I fell flat on that. But I do think know we know about an impending disaster approaching, Ghost Game can definitely have a season 2 to improve on what it lack with this season, gives us a better look on what the protags do with the time and maybe new foes trying to speed up that 2,000 year gap!
Vital Bracelet and Ghost game brought me back to being a Digimon fan again. They had Arcturusmon and Proximamon but just decide not to use them, is the biggest waste they could ever do. I hope they would make a movie to give them some showtime. And the merch department. Seriously, only the trio rookie got released in "The Digimon" cage toy line? I would definitely buy the other stages in a heartbeat. But it never happened. And surely they have model kits releasing. But still only ponder to nostalgia like Angemon. If only they made model kits or sh figuarts for Canoweissmon / Regulusmon / Siriusmon / Arcturusmon.
Yeah... that pretty much sumarizes how I feel about the whole thing. And it is the same as how I felt about Digimon Hunters back in the day as well. It seems to me they made the exact same mistakes again... aside from the massive episode count. Heck, even my favorite episodes from both were the penultimate episode, where they were finally getting into something before rushing to the finish line in the final one.
I have mixed feelings about Ghost Game. Coming right after Taichi's show, I don't have high expectations, but first 25 episodes were magnificent. Plot was there and that was Gulus. My main problem with GG is how it ended - ridiculously rushed. Arcturusmon and Proximamon's complete abscence was crime, seriously. In the end, nothing was really solved and that makes GG somehow unfinished. So, in the end, GG was better than Tri or Xros wars, but worse than Appmon. Pucchiemon to Meicrackmon Vicious mode will be one of the weridest evolutions in the whole time of Digimon. 🤣
I only watched about half of Ghost Game but my feelings are: "Whenever Black Tailmon Uver is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "where's Black Tailmon Uver?" (No lie I love that mon)
Ghost game occupies a special place in my heart, because it's the media that my friends were able to share with me to get into Digimon. It opened my eyes to the idea that digimon was its own entity with its own fascinating ideas...but Survive was the one that really went all in and secured my interest. As much as I love Ghost Game, it is hard to deny that it might not have kept its hooks in me if i hadn't recently played survive, which gave me a strong taste for digimon.
Another example of books not growing in the modern era without other media the witcher a series of books that while popular in Poland the country of origin it had a niche audience elsewhere until the games especially the Witcher 3 and the Netflix series.
If I remember correctly the person whose responsible for the action scene for the show was overworked by the end of the show. That may or may not be the reason why it was sort of rushed
For me ghost game actually made me angry, when watching I was mainly just sticking around to see Proximamon at the end but when it just ended all I felt and even said out loud was “THATS IT!”
I literally just stopped trying to watch episodes, because the horror aspect doesn't hit , when it resets every episode. Doesn't help when I played Survive and saw how traumatized the digidestined got there and how characters changed due to the horror that happened in the series.
I personally enjoyed Ghost Game start to finish, mainly because Gulus and his storyline was the least interesting part about the series to me. The character interactions, the slowly building up digimon society in the human world, the series willing to stretch the standards of human/digimon relations, the episode by episode body horror and mysteries, those were what I enjoyed the most. As for the finale of the show, I feel like the show mislead the audience too much. The series finale was never about saving the digital world, defeating a great enemy, or solving a mystery. It was about two brothers, a human and a digimon, coming together and getting along. Which is very much on brand for a series with so many episodes being solved through talking, but the misdirection was way too extreme.
While I did enjoy Ghost Game in the beginning, it let me down with it's conclusion after setting up so many good story beats. I feel we all can agree that they did an marvelous job presenting Gulusgammamon.
The finale of this show coming out on my Birthday was a mood. I really loved the show but even I felt the formula has run it's course and was a slog by the 50s. That final episode was the perfect representation of the franchise. 13 minutes of some of the best animation and choreography of the franchise and 10 mins of the lamest and confusing plot put on paper.
It was a really simple plot. Gulus appeared, was an infectious threat to the Digital World, Quantumon evacuated the place, and random Digimon refugees caused horror from being literally otherworldly.
i was SO excited for ghost game i would stim each day after an episode finished, and i slowly lost excitement for it, until one day where i realized i wasn't enjoying it and ended up crying at how sad that made me from HOW happy it made before it got SO grindy. it felt both rushed and like it slogged spinning its wheels while nothing actually happened...
I think ghost game would've worked so much better if it had multiple seasons instead of one long run, there's a reason most anime have become more seasonal as time has gone on, while some series like one piece can work weekly, splitting it into multiple smaller seasons has so much more benefits, smaller seasons with gaps means it overall lasts longer, it gives the studio more time to work on episodes and therefor the series will most likely have higher quality art and animation, having gaps between seasons can also help prevent people like me from getting bored in the middle while also building up hype for the next season, I really hope when we eventually get a new digimon anime it goes for a seasonal approach. I did enjoy the 30 or so episodes I watched of ghost game but after falling behind knowing we were probably only halfway through the series I just never ended up even trying to catch up and still haven't finished it, ghost game personally marked the point where I kinda fell out of digimon, I still love the franchise but there's nothing that personally excites or interests me right now, well apart from Karn's videos of course
But how would that work with the "monster of the week" format. Seriously, the horror came from Digimon clashing with humanity due to being literally otherworldly. Yeah yeah, "Digimon doing spooky things with humans"... in this horror anime from Digimon. *Would each season end with a red herring?*
You know, currently playing Survive on my stream and... you're right on the money- It not having *any* sort of Ghost Game tie-in is certainly what you might call a "vibe..." Even just having Gammamon as an exclusive or recruitable, with the other two lines being shoehored into viable lines (everything evolves into everything else eventually, when it comes to this franchise...), would have certainly been a decent idea. (Oh, but if you've ever *played* Survive, you'd already know: Survive has some hecking *problems.* It is, as I have already exclaimed, multiple times, "worthy of study.")
Problems other than it not being properly marketed as a visual novel? (Something it clearly has in common with Seekers, with it not being properly marketed as a web novel) Because that's the only complaint I've ever heard about that game.
@@MattwosRandomNonContent And if that *were* the only issue it had, it would be a fantastic game. But the game isn't very fun, it's riddled with QoL issues, and the visual novel component of it is... Honestly, quite bad. Characters are inconsistent, not just between *routes* (which I might be able to excuse), but even between *chapters,* and, sometimes, between *scenes.* It's a messy, weird game where, yes, the poor marketing brought it low, but there's many issues at play, here...
I wish they focused more on continuing the story then the monster of the week events. I really wish we got to see what was going on with both the vampire counsel mons and lilithmon and the black digimon doing something. at all. we had a lot of potential that was left untouched.
this series its feels its not over yet there are alot still more mystery secret plot about it this story about gammamon he's secret final digi-evolution and what gulusgammamon talking about mysteries endbringer that destroy he's world and what lilithmon create a her army what is her goal is and what will hiro gonna do zeedmillenniummon
Sorry Karn_EX, 20 eps only really tend to work for Slice of Life style anime. The only reason the original Digimon Adventure got as far as it did was because people wanted to see new evolutions and character development (which wouldn’t be a thing if Toei ended the season at Devimon or Etemon’s demise). As for Ghost Game, I think it’s best to think of it as a prelude to a potential “Tamer’s Union” type season. We Know GulusGammamon was running from some world ending entity that destroyed his home world (that was in the same dimension as Earth) then slipped into the Digital World to escape it. This season implies the Digital World’s multiverse is starting to expand into the real multiverse (possibly like an invading parasite trying to overtake its new host). Maybe this world destroyer is trying to keep the two multiverses from interacting with each other.
Besides all the hanging plot threads (still mildly sad we never got that “vs Vamdemon’s Court” mini-arc), I wish they had showed more of how the bond between a digimon and human partner works. To me, some of the better moments in digimon (besides epic battles) were moments that showcased the human/digimon bond in action, wether working together through some difficulty, or just a slower moment that let the audience see more of who the characters were as people. Think Rika and Renamon’s conversations about strength, or Ken trying to navigate his partnership with Wormon after his time as the Emperor. Ghost Game had hints of some of those moments, like Hiero trying to figure out how to deal with the Gulus and Gamma situation. But they never really went anywhere long term. The fact that digimon can apparently “force” strength from people was a nice set up for an exploration of what makes a partner bond with a digimon healthy vs. unhealthy (such as the partnered digimon becoming worried that they might be “draining” their humans). Especially if they leaned into the “the door swings both ways” concept that kind of existed with even unbonded digimon being able to influence humans. The few “pseudo-partners” we saw would have aligned with this as well: Why do “alliances” work to a degree, and how is that different from a full partner bond? Yes, I know we have this info from previous seasons, but it would have been an excellent time to introduce new fans to what is technically a series wide world mechanic. Plus, less world building left on the back burner.
@@Maswartz226yep. Every time a Digimon is seen or product is made and was created by a fan, Toei- Bandai would have to pay up. I mean, look how the comic book industry has changed on royalties. They have in contracts now “if you create a new character, we own it 100%”.
@@usdutchkitty Not exactly. Japan has a whole entire different legal system when it comes down to that. A whole lot of franchises, including Digimon do content like this where fanart is either exhibited, acquired or adapted. The contests more or less go about by acquiring the thing or making participants understand that in the end they are "donating" the designs even if they don't take the first prize. Just about the entirety of the roster of characters in Classic Megaman is like that except for Megaman 1. There are over 30 digimon, including fan favorites like Angemon, Birdramon, Kabuterimon and Cyberdramon, that were developed from contest fanart. Even Pokémon, even though they never use fandesigns, had a bit of a snafu recently by using a fanmade theme/remix and not getting into trouble because it was technically done on something owned by them. "Fan content" in Japan is wildly different legally, and paying up for a fandesign could be as cheap as giving the winner a Vital Bracelet or something.
@@jpcsdutra it depends on the contracts. I mean, KarnEx has talked about how fan made Digimon have never really been seen in media like anime or games so there has to be a legal issue there.
I wish it could great if someone can make "what if ghost game,but that's bad ending by their digimon partner is dark/corrupted evolution"? Can be great.
It got me hooked from the start and I hoped deep down that we were going... SOMEWHERE? Maybe exploring this new digital world in a planet Earth so far into the future, maybe we'd see the power of darkness (the gulus line) being used for good and what could result from it not just being a jumpscare in the middle of the show. But it all went downhill (or nowhere) after a while. It still had INCREDIBLY high highs (Thetismon and Siriusmon debuts are by far the best episodes of the entire show imo) and a "nuking the fridge" (maybe two, looking at you Quartzmon and Zeed Millenniumon )
You make a very good point about Digimon (and to an extent its wider fan community) often focussing on older existing fans over trying to connect with young new fans
the ending of ghost game was the perfect set up for a much more interesting story, and its one we'll never see. I'm actually shocked at how much the status quo change of having gammamon share a body with his edgelord counterpart consciousness would have shook up the character dynamics for the better, and they just can't do anything with it. I also legitimately wanted to see how the characters and the small community they accumulated over the show would go about creating this new "digital country" they alluded to.
This was a great breakdown of the series’ overall reception. When Ghost Game first came out, I wanted to be into it since I already love Digimon as a franchise. However, being such a different kind of story combined with the episodic nature of it made me put it off for so long. I finally started watching again at the beginning of 2023. Having multiple episodes to binge made it easier to take in the story, and over time those overarching stories drew me in more. Gulusgammamon, the dark digimon that would make small appearances, all of it seemed to lead an amazing direction for the franchise. By the end, though, I was disappointed by what it all led to. I never would’ve expected to say that Appmon was just as good as Ghost Game and even better in some instances.
Happy Sunday Karn EX! I too feel the same way about Ghost Game. I love the characters and designs and the horror aspect of the series. I just wished it had more character development and a better storyline.
I enjoyed the show, and I think it's the best produced season of the show we've gotten along with having some of the best writing, but I also understand the frustrations with it, especially the ending. I couldn't help thinking "this feels rushed," or "this doesn't feel like it was the original intent," and even by the end I was getting a little tired of the formula, even if we got some pretty cool episodes, like Milleniumon or BloomLordmon. It's definitely a show where you wish you were a fly on the wall for some of its decision making. Also, I just realized the Toei Ani logo is the cat's hat and not an apple, and I feel silly.
I have been tempted to make a what if/fanfiction project to rearrange episode orders and reshuffle a few plotpoints and add a few to fix the pacing issues of the anime but still highlight the cool episodes that we have. I adore ghost game a lot and I believe if just a few points flowed better then it wouldnt be as decisive for the audience to keep the episodic formula but continue to build on the ongoing narrative.
I mean yeah, Ghost Game had its flaws and it did had some potholes that made me scratch my head at times. I feel like in my opinion, Covid had a part to play, cause some episodes were delayed due to it. Not just Ghost Game was affected, but other animes were affected as well to either postpone or even cancel animes. Pokemon Journeys was one of those animes that was delayed during that time. The first half was great, but the second half was like "okay, so where's the plot?" I feel because of the plot unsurfaced, the final episodes kinda felt rushed. Despite all these flaws, I still liked Ghost Game for what it was. I liked the characters and the Digimon and it's a series I'll come back to once in awhile.
Your thoughts mirror mine. I was so disappointed by Ghost Game even though there is so much I enjoy about it. I still haven't finished it despite watching over 40 episodes. Way too much.
Talking about anime and how it makes a franchise is so accurate. Lately, the thing killing series for me is accessibility. Both digimon 2020 and ghost game took way too long to be dubbed and still nearly impossible to stream with legitimate methods. Now i dont want to watch neither. The vital bracelet de-branding basically killed it as a toy.
0:20 And then there's me who thought it was just okay overall but didn't like the way it ended at all. Seemed like a very rushed ending like "oh crap we forgot to include the actual plot in this show!" and just crammed in into the end with some weird BS about aliens that could have only come from the ravaged psychology of the crunched AF writers. Also RIP Espimon and Pulsemon.
I enjoyed it a lot but hate the fact they basically rushed the ending by forcing it all to the end by suddenly taking care of gulusgammamon then being all like everything fixed got a threat but the big bad wont arrive for 2000 years
Despite being your emotional response, this was still an incredibly well structured and organized video! Probably my favorite video you've made in a while because it echoes almost all of my sentiments with the franchise right now. My main takeaways from Ghost Game are how iconic and loveable Gammamon was, and how good of a mascot role it's playing for the franchise right now. Like how can you not buy merch of that guy haha. Other than that, really only thought the episodes with GulusGammamon were hype and memorable as a whole. The first minutes of each episode setting the horror elements into play were excellent, but the fact that the stakes never seem that high when getting to the climax of an episode really sour the overall experience. and the new singer (Yoshimasa Masukura) of the digivolution tracks is reaaaally good. First Riders and Makuake are iconic tracks wasted on a show without many properly motivated digivolution scenarios, but they're good enough on their own to be among the best in the franchise so far.
I think you nailed it saying that Ghost game started promising but never lived up to the full promise of what it could do. The random appearance of Canoweissmon during a Ruli focused episode was the first sign that made me worry about the quality of the story. And it sadly went downhill from there. Another issue I ended up having is that Ghost Game didn't sell me how important the connection between human and digimon was, and for all it's flaws I still feel that Adv: 2020 did a fantastic job of building and showing the value of the connection. I *wanted* ghost game to be good, but all ghost game did for me is making me appreciate Adv: 2020 that much more.
I completely agree with everything you said. I like to compare Digimon Ghost Game with Digimon Frontier. But whereas I hated Frontier AT FIRST and the GREW to love it more and more as the series went on, with Ghost Game, it was the opposite. I thought it was awesome for those first 20 something episodes but my enthusiasm gradually petered out. Also, THANK YOU for explaining what episodic ACTUALLY MEANS! There are a ton of television shows that I love that are episodic. In fact, my sister and I are currently re-watching Adventure Time. Adventure Time actually has somewhat self-contained episodes that anyone just getting into it can enjoy it, but it also has an overarching narrative! We learn of Ice King’s and Marceline’s back stories for example, how the Lich came to be, etc. It has an overarching narrative AND it is an episodic show. Great video! I agree with everything that you said. And the reason that I stopped liking Ghost Game are for the same reasons you gave.
I do remember reading that Ghost Game was suppose to be even longer than the 67 episodes it ended up beeing but since ratings dropped pretty hard after a while(misssing 6 weeks thanks to the hack really didn't help) it was cut down to the 67 episodes and that is why so much stuff was left unanswered and the ending was just rushed in like 3 episodes with the ending feeling more like a setup for something rather than an actual conclusion. That would also explain why the main plot felt so extremel fragmented throughout it as it was supposed to take much more time to actually unfold. But to me the old seasons with around 50 episodes have always worked great and only getting some plot and Gulus roughly every 13 episodes was just not the way to go about it.
8:23 there is one thing that I think was definitely abandoned and it was whatever the hell was going on with Kiyoshiro’s arm. There were hints that some sort of resolution for his fear of his arm being exposed was coming but then they just didn’t go anywhere with it.
"It was episodic..." Yeah, so was Secret Saturdays, so was Ben 10, so was Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, all shows that could have been a nice blue print for Ghost Game. The episodes could be watched seperately (until the few final episodes) but they often feature those small details that hinted at a larger plot afoot (just like Ghost Game) and especially Secret Saturdays and Scooby Doo: MI, worked towards a satisfying finale. If you want to go pure episodic: Martin Mystery would have been a fine blue print for that but (and I say this as a fan of MM) you can't do it for 60 episodes. The thing that killed MM, was lack of ideas in the third season but also the feeling it all didn't matter all that much as there was no real overarching story.
I dunno about Barnie, but Niel Patrick Harris's partner is Agumon Expert due to his breakthrough as Doogie Houser M.D. Then Gawappamon due to his joke roles. Then Blossomon and Bloom Lordmon as his coming out and seriousness of his career.
You hit the nail on the head here. I wanted to love Ghost Game but it was just lacking. Any elements they built up were just deflated by the end. Maybe there were plan's for a better story but elements were changed due to the hack and it stuffed like 2020 did
I was let down by what could have been. It should have rolled with the mystery and been more focused on storyline. It probably won't happen because they don't seem to know what they have with Digimon, but I want a season two with thirty minute episodes, about 25 of them, whch are just all Gulus, Gamma and the larger threat focused, with several moments to shine for the rest of the cast.
22:41 It's actually worse than that, Gegege no Kitaro 2018 aired alongside the 2018 anime Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside, which not only didn't try to hide the Kitaro influence but straight up had Kitaro (albeit not the 2018 version who hadn't debuted yet as the movie came out in December 2017) appear in the movie that served as the pilot for Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside, alongside some of the yokai from the Kiaro franchise. (also confusingly the movie had a modern design for Kitaro but he had silver hair, which the anime adaptations haven't had him have since the 1960s (while the anime was in black and white, I found a colorized version on a magazine cover, his outfit hasn't changed much over the years) when he looked more like a gremlin. Also one of the yokai from the kitaro franchise was the historical yokai Ittan-Momen which Yo-Kai Watch made a modern version of, Ittan-Gomen but there is not a Classic Yo-Kai version of Ittan-Momen, in spite of the Kiaro version appearing in the mobile game Youkai Watch Puni Puni (but not Yo-Kai Watch Wibble Wobble as it was shut down before the dub of the third season of the first anime) and Yo-kai Sangokushi: Kunitori Wars (a Yo-Kai Watch version of Koei's (and now Koei Techmo's ) Romance of the Three Kingdoms series))
I haven't watched GG so I can't weigh in on most of this video, but as a teacher the one thing I'll say is that kids (in the US at least) are obsessed with horror stuff right now, so a horror-themed Digimon series could be the right thing to grab them. Guess we'll see when the dub hits, since kids are largely not going to go out of their way to find subs.
Oooh 9:09 my arcturusmon and Siriusmon fanart about what if regulusmon evolved at that moment 😊😂
Oh SHIT I'm so sorry! I thought that was a shot of Regulusmon and Siriusmon from the episode, my eyes betrayed me. Let me pin and credit you in the description, I'm so sorry! If I can do anything else let me know!
I think TH-cam decided to delete your other reply for some reason, I appreciate you being okay with it! I try my absolute best to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen, I hope you can take solace that your art is so fantastic I thought it was from the actual episode! Huge apologies again!
@@Karn_EX thank you I try my best to be good artist ^^, thank you so much I loved seeing my fan art in your video :3, no need to apologize
100% agree my friend, Ghost Game started so strong and creepy but it never went above Stage 1 (Monster of the Week), painful because Digimon tends to be at it's best once it abandons that chapter.
No it doesn’t. Once it gets serialized it tends to just drag out. By contrast, we got a variety of different plots
@@pn2294
Personally, I like that is justified the "monster of the week" format for the *horror* anime. Seriously, the random Digimon they faced were *random Digimon* that caused trouble not as part of the main villain's plan but simply due to being alien.
@pn2294 Define Variety ?
As Karn put it out. Its basically this digimon has an horror plot and the gang solve it at the end.
Nothing in the series is affected with the digimon being around or impacted. They don't get awareness for this.
In other series, if digimon were doing what they did, you would see some kind of human response or normal people learning about digimon. At the least our main characters would get save, but no the series went back to status quo despite saying it had a narrative.
@@Chalicodragon The gang are gradually integrating Digimon into the real world.
By the midpoint of the series, Digimon have their own businesses and civilizations within the human world.
By the end, there are even unofficial Tamers in their series.
It’s like Digimon Survive’s ending in that regard.
@pn2294 You mean the ending where Hiro talks to the United Nations and everyone just accepts digimon despite this series having the most malicious day of the week digimon.
The digimon are most of the time hidden from society , with only a few of them interacting with humans. Literally episodes end with the gang telling digimon to hide themselves.
What unofficial tamers are you talking about ?
One funny thing i want to point out is that, both appmon and ghost game had dedicated Halloween episodes, and they were both the 4th episode
The Japanese death number
Good job even tho i have seen both i didnt make the link
The black digitron digimon worshipping gulus as a dark god would of been such a cool plot point
I'm convinced that *something* happened during Ghost Game's hiatus. If you look at the episodes up to that point--while very monster-of-the-week--they are slowly building up to something. Things are changing and progressing. Then the show comes back from that hiatus and all of that momentum stops _immediately_. It's as though they completely scrapped whatever plan was in place for Ghost Game, and then were just spinning their wheels until the end.
Ghost Game had the potential to stand with Adventure and Tamers at the top of the franchise, if not even exceed them. The premise and early episodes were really that strong.
Now? It's 67 episodes of mostly the same thing. There is no real reason to watch a second episode of Ghost Game, because it's the episode you just watched but with a different Digimon. I can rewatch 52 episodes of Adventure any time, and have multiple times. I can't imagine slogging through all of Ghost Game again.
I never actually realised that. I rewatch adventure 1 & 2 once every year or 2 but even 8 months after finishing ghost game, I have no real desire to rewatch it.
You hit the nail on the head! The problem wasn’t with the episodic format, but rather its execution. The formula got tedious and repetitive over time so the series started declining, especially its second half. Granted, its second half is still better than say, Adventure 02’s or Adventure tri.’s, but that’s because their second halves were convoluted messes whereas Ghost Game’s was the exact opposite: a stagnant plateau. Being better than 02 and tri. are low bars to clear, anyway. And it’s obviously better than Young Hunters because YH is this show on steroids: YH has all the same problems but amplified up to 11 because of its far shorter length. I’d still recommend this mediocre entry over other weaker entries like Frontier or 02, but that’s about it.
Yeah, I felt the same. something changed. I'm convinced it was actually going to be even more episodes than just how much we got. Which is why they were going so slow. But at some point they were told to finish it off. And they didn't have enought time, so they finished off their remaining monster of the week scripts and left the last 3 episodes for the finale.
Something happening in the middle of Digimon anime production? This must be the first one!
(Bad sarcasm aside, Toei is infamous for messing up Digimon by being involved and changinf things on the fly)
I think some episodes had to be cut because of the hiatus as Digimon seasons only run for one year before moving onto the next season. Digimon wasn't the only one to suffer this another show of their Precure also had the same issues, it seemed they had some plans for the show but scrapped them and the show was just super slow after that.
I think the early part of Ghost Game being episodic was fine. Tamers did that because it was spending time introducing characters and developing them. The real plot didn't come to be until about halfway when the tamers went to the Digital World. Ghost Game teased quite a bit in those early episodes so it made the audience speculate what would happen. That in itself isn't a bad thing as long as there's a payoff that links everything together.
Definitely, I think they could have found a way to kinda do both
Tamers actually had no filler nor episodic content tho. Savers kinda did
The problem I have with this logic is that story arcs are just extra long episodes. They’re not actually more important.
The fact that GG didn’t revolve around a main antagonist meant that each episode was actually more important because none of them could actually be skipped
@@pn2294nah it meant that they could all be skipped because there was no importance to them such as a main story arc. They could have taken like 40 episodes out and been done with it. Just boring filler.
I was expecting a Digital World arc, but not in the last three or so episodes. There were also some villainous Digimon they deserved an arc like Piedmon, Dragomon and Millenniumon.
I loved the episodic nature of it, and a lot of the story seemed like it'd pay off in interesting ways, so it's a shame the ending stuff felt so rushed. I still really enjoyed Ghost Game despite everything
It made sense. In a dark take on the partner's dark side, Gulus was a viral threat that forced Quantummon to evacuate the Digital World, leading to random Digimon causing problems by just being otherwordly.
Maybe 10 episodes would have been enough but 3 was far to short.
Love this video, thank you so much for referencing my reviews! It wasn't easy and some weeks there simply wasn't much to say, but I am very proud of my coverage of Ghost Game. As proud as someone can be about reviewing a cartoon ;)
Thank you for fighting the good fight bud!
@@Karn_EXGood fight?
Digimon Ghost Game felt like the creators had a strong idea for an overarching, serialized narrative, and chose to wait until the last 3 episodes to tell it. I don't mind the idea of a completely episodic monster of the week series, but the show kept sprinkling in little mysteries and subplots that hinted very strongly that it was going to do what most Digimon series do and eventually move into a more serialized format. Almost feels like a J.J Abrams work where the writers introduced questions that they didn't have answers to, but weren't super concerned about coming up with answers until they were just about out of time
Yeah and maybe ran out of time/budget to fully make it satisfying? idk
@@Karn_EX That is definitely a possibility. My thing is like by Episode 40 out of 67 episodes I would think they would recognize that they should at least try to start addressing the mysteries they set up. Even if they didn't have the budget to make it as spectacular as they wanted with the best animation or the best script writers, you gotta figure that industry professionals would realize that the longer they pushed it off the more difficult it would be to make something even remotely satisfying. Perfection is the enemy of completion as they say
@@Karn_EXnah the so called ending was the most important part of series to begin with
@@pn2294just bugger off you’re only here to argue and say everyone else is wrong so since you’ve got nothing to contribute kindly go away
@@ML1399TheyStoleMyName
Right, "being episodic is no excuse." Seriously, how many horror themed shows aren't episodic? Feel like there is a reason the genre had so many anthology shows.
Karn: "Stop arguing its supposed to be episodic."
Frankly did not address the genre.
Gulus being an alien, who turned himself into a digimon and Created an alternate persona to hide which ended up usurping the body is such an interesting idea that just goes nowhere. So much interesting character building left on the table without any resolution.
They definitely dragged things out instead of letting the plot take center stage when it needed to.
I feel that Myotismon, Lilithmon, and Millenniummon have unfinished plots. These three digimon in particular were full-on antagonists, but were never killed, or truly defeated. I kept expecting for any of the three to reappear again as a major antagonist, but that never happened. Especially during the last few episodes before they went to the Digital World, I actually expected for Hiro to take MoonMillenniummon with him since it kinda lingered on a shot of the apocalyptic digimon
I also thought we would get a mini-arc of sorts with Pharoahmon thanks to some of the build-up with AncientSphinxmon and Mummymon. That being said, I find it funny that GulusGammamon never got a chance to go to his Mega form lol
What about never finishing Phelesmon’s plot thread?
@@leonardofarias8843 Ah right that one too. I kinda forgot about him lol
But none of them had anything to do with the main plot.
@@Bezaliel13so is the show supposed to be episodic or have a main plot? You can’t say one thing and then defend the show by saying something that contradicts your previous claim mate.
Also, they had Dracmon vow revenge on ruli, show up 20 episodes later, and then get unceremoniously deleted by Myotismon. But there's a matadormon that escaped surely we'll finally see an animated version of Granddracmon and...nope. None of the vampires were seen again.
Apparently there's rumour that Arctusmon and Promixamon were just made as what if evolutions. Basically the anime staff and the BE Teamm just didn't communicate on it. Its kinda implied with thier "theoretical evolution".
I still find it skeptical because the idea that the last Antagonist of Ghost Game was a ultimate still feels narratively off.
This is still one of the weirdest things... like it really feels like they have an OVA in the works where they want to use all these forms as a sort-of Omnimon moment, but it's also weird because they've never REALLY made a series with the intention to book-end it with an OVA before??? So it's just like......... What the crap happened here...???
Specially since Proximamon is a fusion between Regulusmon and Arctusmon, which fits perfectly into Ghost Game's ending of Gammamon making peace with his dark self and both of them working together
My biggest gripe about Ghost Game was how much mystery Kiyoshirou had surrounding him that just never went anywhere despite the series making direct note of it at many points.
This is interestingly put. I don't strongly agree or disagree with any thing, it's just a whole lot of "yeah, I can see that, I understand that sentiment". In broad general terms, Digimon either really needs a manga or a consistent series of mainline games if it wants to get out there and get the same kind of shonen treatment other series have. The toys are a respectable begining and they don't have to go away, but I remember as a child being really bummed out every time a game came out and it was mid, and every new show had nothing to do with the previous. I'm not saying "no new characters or settings" I'm just saying every seasons removes stakes by being a fresh start. Ghost Game, Seekers and Survive were all massively hurt by being all disconected and having a disjointed approach of going over seas. You spoke of corporate synnergy, but I think it's more than that. To me it's more akin to a sense of "oh, the new thing in that world" instead of "oh, it's the new world of that thing".
Being really specific to Ghost Game now... I don't know how to feel about it. I watched it weekly and to completion. My interest did dwindle, but not in a catastrophic manner. I don't think episode caps and being longer or shorter really affects my enjoyment of the story as long as what is being done justifies its lenght. There are shows that couldn't be saved even if cut in half.
PERSONALLY, I think around episode 25 the show should have "dropped" the weekly mystery and jumped straight into the Digiworld that they were teasing for way too long.
The show teases a LOT of big baddies like Dagomon, Kuzuhamon, Manticoremon, Cthyllamon that could all be doing the exact same things but in the digimon world to smaller weaker digimon. The show also is the one that comes the closest to be able to show all Demon Lords and it could have been a great midshow plot beat still in the "horror theme". That's why I put the dropped in quotations, I think they could have shifted it a bit to other digimon in a different scenario.
The show hurts for not having an extra Tamer, even though it had the opportunity to introduce a Herissmon. After a while I thought they were going to subvert the trope by giving each Tamer a second creature (Espimon, Ryudamon) and at some points we see Tamers giving others to each other's partners. ... But that didn't come through either.
But I think the biggest bummer and the only thing I'd really consider a disappointment is the resultion of the conflict with Gulus. The whole thing of a meteor thing in a distant future is so underwhelming and makes everything seem so unjustified (specially considering in just about every media, time in the digiworld is faster than here, so 2000 years here would be like a billion in there), and it actually makes me think what the heck is going on in japan that this is a trend now (Pokémon SwSh had an alien creature coming from space and a power crisis hitting the Earth in the very distant future. Sonic Frontiers has the same "oh no, there's this huge meteor thing slowly coming over and you sped up it's arrival"), idk, I might be overthinking it, but I kinda see a trend of "not really impending space doom slowly approaching"
In the end I was never really disappointed by Ghost Game, I was just always curious on why it made the decisions it made. ... And speaking of curious, I've always wondered why Hiro had a scar and Kiyo had a bandaged arm (implied to be some sort of soft cosplay) as such prominent design features and they never panned out as a flashback or character motivation or anything.
I loved Ghost Game basically the whole way through. I thought the horror stuff, particularly the body horror, was excellent and I enjoyed the episodic nature of it. The problem I had was with the last 4 or 5 episodes. They felt so rushed and out of nowhere. To me that is way they didn't feel satisfying. Because it was almost like the creative team had no idea the end was coming and had to scramble to tie up all the loose ends.
Pity Karn seemed to have forgotten that it was horror. Seriously, how many horror shows AREN'T episodic?
Personally, I like the dark take on the protagonist's dark side. Having Quantumon evacuate the Digital World in response to Gulus and the horror throughout the series being from random Digimon unrelated to Gulus causing horror just from being literally otherworldly. Far better paranoia fuel than the usual "monster of the week" being a servant of the big bad.
@@Bezaliel13I personally think that Karn is correct in his analysis. He did acknowledge the darkness and body horror, but it's more how the show was paced that got under his skin (and mine). Ghost Game is one of those shows that have 1-3 episodes at the beginning that introduce a possible over-arching plot, then have a bunch of unrelated and self-contained episodes it the middle with a bit of teasing, before suddenly swinging back into said plot in the final 5-7 episodes and wrapping it up. The issue is that Ghost Game wasn't very satisfying with this formula. I'm reminded of Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, myself.
@@conspiracypanda1200
So, is that format typical for horror anime?
Huh, i just thought of something. How would that work? To elaborate, it was a horror anime that averted the "Sorting Algorithm of Evil," so how would it work if they had fewer episodes with their lower Lv partners? I know that might, *might,* sound like i am questioning on Digivolution across a few dozen episodes, but I mean it might not really have been that scary if they grow too quickly. Horror needs helplessness, you know. Not to mention the plot being about Digimon refugees evacuate to avoid a viral infection contained in the Digital World. Be kind of lame to have that awesome premise of endless, random, and unrelated Digimon causing nightmares from being alien and no way of dealing with all of them in sight... merely to have only a few random Digimon of the Week, like the Infernals from Fire Force.
@@Bezaliel13 You definitely have not watched horror anime if you actually think it is episodic by nature.
@@JayceCH.
I *asked* a *_question._*
I know I treated Ghost game too harshly really fast since I dropped it on like Episode 3, though I loved the spooky vibe they were going for, I felt really weird about the characterization of the protagonist, my favourite part is the development and emotions of the characters, and when the kid sees again his Father who DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, and just reacts casually with “where have you been idiot?” I just felt that they were not going to be able to milk emotion out of the story
my main issue with ghost game is what I feel many others have issue with: the promise of something more. it felt like we were getting crumbs of story, little hints of "something bigger" that ultimately added up to very little. from the digitron Digimon being babysitters effectively to the Big Bad being something literally millennia away to gulus just kinda going "okay, let's be chill" it felt like there was so much more going on that just went nowhere
had GG left all that out, and just had the fun monster of the week format, I probably would have kept up with it. but it was exhausting to be told "something big's gonna happen, just you wait!" and then having to wait until episode 67 for a quick recap that, at the end of the day, didn't amount to anything. having the villain be something so far away really made me feel like "well, why'd we even bother?"
I know! It was frustrating to wait so long, only to get little tidbits like “Black Tailmon is in contact with Hiero’s Dad” or “Gulus knows more than Gammamon about what is going on in the digital world”. I don’t think they even fully gave an explanation for why some digimon adapt to the human world better than others. Yes I know the “human emotion” blurb was given near the end of the series. But, digimon clearly had emotions of their own, so why would emotions affect digimon with no bonded partners? They should have gone all in either on “all digimon are somewhat dependent on human emotion for strength, even if some are parasitic about obtaining it” or “digimon actually don’t have emotions of their own.”
Nice job Karn; not just on your Ghost Game analysis, but for pointing out problematic things in fandoms like
- the misunderstanding/misuse of the term "episodic"
- the fact that something explained (or "has a reason"), doesn't alone justify it as a good idea
- the problems with Digimon's overall lack of brand-synergy.
All things that need more attention!
Let's not forget fans thinking there will be a follow-up season because of the whole Endbringer thing that will never EVER be touched upon due to Toei/Bandai and the director's incompetence with the whole series. Seriously, with the way Ghost Game ended and how it is now, why do people delude themselves that there will be a second season or a sequel movie?
Now I'm just wondering if the new 02 series is bringing back and actually addressing abandoned plot points in the original 02 show.
Crawler. :P
I definitely have similar problems with ghost game tho i definitely did enjoy it. It was the first anime I've watched weekly since I was a kid so I could keep up with the community. Even with the problems ghost game will hold a special place in my heart because this is really the first community online i feel like I fit in
Totally vibe with that, I think just HAVING an airing anime is such a boon to a community
@@Karn_EX absolutely! Can't wait for the next one!
@Karn_EX omg really!? I thought it'd been like this for a month or so , hadn't noticed it before ig lol
But still excitedly wait for all your videos
HAPPY SPOOKY SUNDAY, NOTIFICATION GAAAAAAAAANG! Really hope you enjoy this one and remember it's JUST my opinion, not objective
I have not watched the video yet, but here are my thoughts on it and want to see reactions to them. The ghost game had a good setup, but a failed planning and absolutely terrible ending will edit after watch of your video
Ladydevimon ... you know what I'm referring to.
I feel the trio of digidestined worked better with tamers as there were other side digidestined that had partners and I just feel this season was hiro was overused with him having 2 partners
I disagree with Hiro having two partners part. Espimon being Hiro's partner was more like Cutemon being Taiki's digimon.
They had moments and developed thier relationship, but it doesn't go anywhere and you can literally take Espimon out of Ghost game.
A digidestined having two partners and it being serious focus could be interesting, but Ghost Game did nothing with it.
We already know that digimon in Ghost game can connect with their non-partners. Even Espimon's evolution episode feels off since it's so late in the series and it's made into an auxiliary digimon in its own epsiode. Heck, they got Ryduamon to evolve without a partner...why did Espimon need to ?
My problem is the fodder/irrelevant add-ons do nothing of value outside MarineAngemon. Savers handled its add-ons better than Tamers but they also still feel utterly pointless outside the old man. Kinda glad Ghost Game stuck to just Espimon and two fast travel guys (Airdramon and Ginryumon, and I feel the latter should've been a bit more relevant)
@TheDiscoGenre Airdramon was relevant ?
I think all of the Ghost game adds on worst though. They didn't really need them. Heck, the characters not having fast travel could have added to the plot and the show could have tried to find ways to get around that.
Though I agree with you overall. I think the only sixth rangers that have worked out well in digimon were the ones that were already there from the beginning of the story and had a role established.
Such as Kairi and Gatomon, Ken and Wormmon, Impmon, Kouichi, Ikuto and Falcomon, Miuyki and Renamon, and Haru and Gabumon.
@@Chalicodragon airdramon was just used as transportation with somewhat pridefull personality thats his entire character
@@lucanigro7316 And that's still more relevant than (Hiro)Kazu, Suzie, or BUY WONDERSWANS Ryo sadly. Being a taxi is more relevant is more relevant than anyone who wasn't the Primary Colors or Impmon.
I'll always love the cast of ghost game but I can't ignore that the series had so much unused potential.
Its just toei/bandai not loving digimon lmao
I love Ghost Game, but man do I have similar thoughts. They could have done so much with Gulus and Hokuto and they just…didn’t. I was also hoping for a sixth ranger. Hell, even that time where Ruri was able to sync with Jellymon. So much potential… And great point about brand synergy! A collective approach would help popularity!
Glad to hear that! I hoped this video wouldn't alienate people who like Ghost Game so this is good to hear!
We almost got a "6th ranger" in the episode where hiros friend befriended a pucchiemon.
It was a missed opportunity to make her just leave.
I absolutely loved the serial nature and the slow burn build...and sorta hated how it completely fumbled the bag in the last section. It explored a lot of digimon lore that was underapproached or not thematically appropriate elsewhere, and i loved Hiro and Gammamon so much.
Oh God I forgot about espimon. He's literally my new scrappy-doo
"Slow burn," no, it just didn't build.
This show deserved better than what ended up being. I love the characters in this show, they had such a fun dynamic between the three of them. And yeah, it really felt like a whole season of “how would you make this better, viewer?”
Despite the issues the series has, this has still been the most fun I've had with a season of the series since Tamers. Ghost Game absolutely shot up to my number one, I just loved the characters, tone, music, and visuals, just so much that I really did like it once I realized this was going to be a mon of the week show
I liked every single episode up until the last three. Even if formulaic, "Digimon doing spooky stuff" can be drastically different just because each Digimon is different and they even added new gimmicks to Digimon so they gave a new spooky flavor.
My only problem was that some Digimon needed more than 1 episode to actually build up their horror, and almost all plot hooks got either discarded or rushed, which is bad. So I didn't get tired of it, but the ending is bad and I recognise that.
Gotta agree. Ghost Game is far from perfect, and the final ep being one, long exposition dump soured a lot of the 66 eps preceding it. And yet, I still adored its weekly episodes, and how it slowly built up a cast of likable, dynamic characters. Still one of my favs for sure :)
I jump in and out of the frnachise every few years, and I remember hearing about ghost game at launch, gulusgammamon being something different from the usual chaos evolution, something about meko-something-mon going down the path of "I honestly believe that death and destruction will help my friends and make them happy"rather than just being evil.
the big thing is that, just existing near anime and mangas, you get glimpse of the various storylines, but nothing when it came to this. making it episodic really castrated it's potencial
So I really think this is a fascinating discussion to have. Ghost Game was an interesting series to watch unfold at the start and I think that's mostly because with it being horror themed it lent itself to an aspect that Digimon didn't really explore too much in it's other series. That these are MONSTERS, they're CREATURES, and they have aspects of themselves naturally that occur that isn't done when they're just a foe for the week or something. Like one of the Gulus episodes with Oboromon, in any other season that Digimon would JUST be a villain for the Digidestined to face and be done with it. Here? It wasn't under some big boss or anyone else's command other than what IT and its kind do naturally. Which was very fascinating. But that fascination dies down over time when in the back of your mind there's mysteries being planted.
Everything with Gulus I genuinely felt was changed or rushed. He had SUCH a strong start, and like you mentioned the threat of him showing up was massive. The looming threat of Proximamon since we knew what THAT was was so enticing. The whole time I could only think "If this is a DNA Digivolution of Gulus and Gammamon, how does that work when there's only one of them?" Then they split and I got excited, THIS was the moment! This was what was being built to! They're separated! They're two different Digimon now and CAN fuse...but then Gulus just stayed Regulusmon and fought Siriusmon and then we made it to Quantumon and her "friends" that...that's a whole other can of worms. But it just felt like there was more, but they dragged their feet with the "episodic" stuff and never fleshed out the meat that was there. That's just me though. This comment's WAY long but it is something I've discussed with a friend of mine. Wonderful video Karn, hope you and yours have a safe and Happy Halloween.
I'm glad you brought up Gegege no Kitaro because something I haven't heard said a whole lot in western discussion of GG is that the premise is essentially "Japanese ghost stories but instead of Yokai and ghosts it's digimon" and that that premise constructs those episodic weekly releases. For me GG became a bit bitter sweet and disappointing because I feel not only did they take their sweet time with the Gulus plot only to see it cut off early without Arcturusmon or Proximamon I felt almost I had waited for nothing. On reflection though I find myself revisiting episodes like the puppet girl, the dark fire digimon, Icy hell and Fujitsumon episodes because they're genuinely good ghost stories featuring digimon. I hope ghost games dub hits well with kids which I believe it will looking at the success of shows like Goosebumps and Tales from the Crypt in the 2000s
I liked Ghost Game a lot. All the kids and partners were great and I really enjoyed tuning in each week and see what horror theme they would use.
Do I with the ending was better? Yes. Do I wish it had more plot? Yes. But that's just not the type of show it wanted to be.
After 2020 it was just nice to have something decent to watch.
I loved the start that Ghost Game had, those first dozen episodes felt pretty solid to set up the series. It just fell flat trying to keep the plot relevant and the payoff was disappointing. Especially when considering we had Proximamon teasing us with it's very existence. Overall I just felt like it needed to cook a bit longer in development.
Also unironically, if you do live action show characters get partners I will eat that shit up. Barney Stinson would 100% get the Lilithmon line and we all know why.
"Apparently there's rumour that Arctusmon and Promixamon were just made as what if evolutions. Basically the anime staff and the BE Teamm just didn't communicate on it. Its kinda implied with thier 'theoretical evolution'."
- Chalicodragon v=QX30f_mkDLQ&lc=UgwXDMSmR4p_carm0sJ4AaABAg
As a Pokémon fan, this show made me give digimon a chance again, I had fun in the beginning, being able to theorize with a friend of mine, but little by little we both fell into apathy as the show was clearly going nowhere, we both knew the only thing keeping us hooked was a “mystery box”, and we also knew that by that point, what was inside was probably unsatisfying.
When it ended we had a quick discussion, tearing the show apart, laughing at how ridiculous the ending was, than we never spoke of it again, at least I’m now interested in the franchise, and I’m now catching up with all the animes. But to me the time I invested was a waste of time.
Funny cus Pokemon does the episodic way better, and now with Horizons is doing what Digimon has been doing with a continuous narrative. To great success.
@@JayceCH.I’ve been a fan of Pokémon since I was a kid, but I’ve stopped watching the anime years ago, I’m more a fan of the franchise, I will try to watch the new one when I have the time
I did watch ghost game all the way through and my thoughts on it are like this. What it did good, it did very good, like the Gulusgammamon scenes and the designs for the characters, the epic evolutions all live in my head rent free. But it's lows were honestly not as bad as Xros wars lows, but were still not really remarkable.
It had a lot of potential and interesting story beats, but as we all know didn't exactly pan out the way we hoped.
I personally would like to see, or work on a good rewrite that feels similar to ghost game but gives a full story.
There's just a lot of ghost game that could've been done better, but that could also be said for a lot of shows.
And I think a digimon partners for sitcoms like HIMYM, big bang theory, and friends will be awesome
22:59 Maann Gegege no Kitaru also hit a breaking point for me halfway through it's run when the big Story Arc villain turned out to be a sad dumpster fetus who just needed a damn hug....it was really unsatisfying...😅😅😅
I really wished we got to see at least Arcturusmon, although considering how strong Regulusmon was, perhaps it was for the best of our heroes lol
Eh, they could do a movie at some point. The big bad that Gulus warned about shows up way too early, and Arcturusmon debuts. Ultimately, Hiro would probably DNA Digivolve Arcturusmon and Siriusmon to get Proximamon to put down the big bad once and for all.
I have a theory about Arcturusmon and Proximamon: they are planning to release either a sequel series or a movie that brings those two in. Let's say, The Endbringer shows up way too early, Arcturusmon comes out and isn't enough, leading Proximamon to save the day.
As for the episode length, long episode counts can work; FMA Brotherhood comes to mind.
The dark themes that I thought would grow never did, and most of the episodes didn't develop into stronger elements that connected. I mean Phelesmon I thought was going to come back, but didn't. And honestly wanted their to be a risk at all times. But every issue that occurred were fixed super easily.
I don't know if they would be as popular as there were when we were kids but I would love to have tie in figures like we had for adventure and tamers. I loved collecting the figure I saw in the latest episode
I think the length was fine I just wish rather than in the last 3 episodes, Gulus and plot starts to matter with last 20. Also so many digimon peaced out at the end of their episode never to be seen again, even just having them in the background of a shot would be enough.
So I was hoping that gulis was gonna be a sort of anime origin for Black-Digimon as they kept appearing after it’s appearances. And with our first look with BlackWargreymon, the more violent demeanour fit well. But I fell flat on that.
But I do think know we know about an impending disaster approaching, Ghost Game can definitely have a season 2 to improve on what it lack with this season, gives us a better look on what the protags do with the time and maybe new foes trying to speed up that 2,000 year gap!
Vital Bracelet and Ghost game brought me back to being a Digimon fan again.
They had Arcturusmon and Proximamon but just decide not to use them, is the biggest waste they could ever do.
I hope they would make a movie to give them some showtime.
And the merch department. Seriously, only the trio rookie got released in "The Digimon" cage toy line?
I would definitely buy the other stages in a heartbeat. But it never happened.
And surely they have model kits releasing. But still only ponder to nostalgia like Angemon.
If only they made model kits or sh figuarts for Canoweissmon / Regulusmon / Siriusmon / Arcturusmon.
Yeah... that pretty much sumarizes how I feel about the whole thing. And it is the same as how I felt about Digimon Hunters back in the day as well. It seems to me they made the exact same mistakes again... aside from the massive episode count. Heck, even my favorite episodes from both were the penultimate episode, where they were finally getting into something before rushing to the finish line in the final one.
I have mixed feelings about Ghost Game. Coming right after Taichi's show, I don't have high expectations, but first 25 episodes were magnificent.
Plot was there and that was Gulus. My main problem with GG is how it ended - ridiculously rushed. Arcturusmon and Proximamon's complete abscence was crime, seriously.
In the end, nothing was really solved and that makes GG somehow unfinished.
So, in the end, GG was better than Tri or Xros wars, but worse than Appmon.
Pucchiemon to Meicrackmon Vicious mode will be one of the weridest evolutions in the whole time of Digimon. 🤣
I only watched about half of Ghost Game but my feelings are: "Whenever Black Tailmon Uver is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "where's Black Tailmon Uver?" (No lie I love that mon)
I appreciate the subtle sniper shade.
Ghost game occupies a special place in my heart, because it's the media that my friends were able to share with me to get into Digimon. It opened my eyes to the idea that digimon was its own entity with its own fascinating ideas...but Survive was the one that really went all in and secured my interest. As much as I love Ghost Game, it is hard to deny that it might not have kept its hooks in me if i hadn't recently played survive, which gave me a strong taste for digimon.
I loved Ghost Game and enjoyed to see who would show up.
Another example of books not growing in the modern era without other media the witcher a series of books that while popular in Poland the country of origin it had a niche audience elsewhere until the games especially the Witcher 3 and the Netflix series.
I would genuinely watch you give partners to casts from popular sitcoms, bring on the Barney partner video haha
Hahaha thanks!
Hahaha this would be super weird but fun!
If I remember correctly the person whose responsible for the action scene for the show was overworked by the end of the show. That may or may not be the reason why it was sort of rushed
For me ghost game actually made me angry, when watching I was mainly just sticking around to see Proximamon at the end but when it just ended all I felt and even said out loud was “THATS IT!”
I literally just stopped trying to watch episodes, because the horror aspect doesn't hit , when it resets every episode. Doesn't help when I played Survive and saw how traumatized the digidestined got there and how characters changed due to the horror that happened in the series.
I personally enjoyed Ghost Game start to finish, mainly because Gulus and his storyline was the least interesting part about the series to me.
The character interactions, the slowly building up digimon society in the human world, the series willing to stretch the standards of human/digimon relations, the episode by episode body horror and mysteries, those were what I enjoyed the most.
As for the finale of the show, I feel like the show mislead the audience too much. The series finale was never about saving the digital world, defeating a great enemy, or solving a mystery. It was about two brothers, a human and a digimon, coming together and getting along. Which is very much on brand for a series with so many episodes being solved through talking, but the misdirection was way too extreme.
While I did enjoy Ghost Game in the beginning, it let me down with it's conclusion after setting up so many good story beats. I feel we all can agree that they did an marvelous job presenting Gulusgammamon.
The finale of this show coming out on my Birthday was a mood. I really loved the show but even I felt the formula has run it's course and was a slog by the 50s. That final episode was the perfect representation of the franchise. 13 minutes of some of the best animation and choreography of the franchise and 10 mins of the lamest and confusing plot put on paper.
Huge agree!
It was a really simple plot.
Gulus appeared, was an infectious threat to the Digital World, Quantumon evacuated the place, and random Digimon refugees caused horror from being literally otherworldly.
i was SO excited for ghost game i would stim each day after an episode finished, and i slowly lost excitement for it, until one day where i realized i wasn't enjoying it and ended up crying at how sad that made me from HOW happy it made before it got SO grindy. it felt both rushed and like it slogged spinning its wheels while nothing actually happened...
I think ghost game would've worked so much better if it had multiple seasons instead of one long run, there's a reason most anime have become more seasonal as time has gone on, while some series like one piece can work weekly, splitting it into multiple smaller seasons has so much more benefits, smaller seasons with gaps means it overall lasts longer, it gives the studio more time to work on episodes and therefor the series will most likely have higher quality art and animation, having gaps between seasons can also help prevent people like me from getting bored in the middle while also building up hype for the next season, I really hope when we eventually get a new digimon anime it goes for a seasonal approach.
I did enjoy the 30 or so episodes I watched of ghost game but after falling behind knowing we were probably only halfway through the series I just never ended up even trying to catch up and still haven't finished it, ghost game personally marked the point where I kinda fell out of digimon, I still love the franchise but there's nothing that personally excites or interests me right now, well apart from Karn's videos of course
But how would that work with the "monster of the week" format. Seriously, the horror came from Digimon clashing with humanity due to being literally otherworldly. Yeah yeah, "Digimon doing spooky things with humans"... in this horror anime from Digimon. *Would each season end with a red herring?*
You know, currently playing Survive on my stream and... you're right on the money- It not having *any* sort of Ghost Game tie-in is certainly what you might call a "vibe..."
Even just having Gammamon as an exclusive or recruitable, with the other two lines being shoehored into viable lines (everything evolves into everything else eventually, when it comes to this franchise...), would have certainly been a decent idea.
(Oh, but if you've ever *played* Survive, you'd already know: Survive has some hecking *problems.* It is, as I have already exclaimed, multiple times, "worthy of study.")
Problems other than it not being properly marketed as a visual novel? (Something it clearly has in common with Seekers, with it not being properly marketed as a web novel) Because that's the only complaint I've ever heard about that game.
@@MattwosRandomNonContent And if that *were* the only issue it had, it would be a fantastic game.
But the game isn't very fun, it's riddled with QoL issues, and the visual novel component of it is... Honestly, quite bad.
Characters are inconsistent, not just between *routes* (which I might be able to excuse), but even between *chapters,* and, sometimes, between *scenes.*
It's a messy, weird game where, yes, the poor marketing brought it low, but there's many issues at play, here...
VERY surprised you didn’t mention how rushed and unsatisfying the last few episodes were. The lack of the Gulus’ mega is only the tip of the iceberg
I kinda did?
@@Karn_EX Not nearly enough! I need to be vindicated for my feelings of disappointment!
Jkjk
I haven't watched Ghost Game, but from the clips I've seen I really like Jellymon and her evolution line.
I wish they focused more on continuing the story then the monster of the week events. I really wish we got to see what was going on with both the vampire counsel mons and lilithmon and the black digimon doing something. at all. we had a lot of potential that was left untouched.
this series its feels its not over yet there are alot still more mystery secret plot about it this story about gammamon he's secret final digi-evolution and what gulusgammamon talking about mysteries endbringer that destroy he's world and what lilithmon create a her army what is her goal is and what will hiro gonna do zeedmillenniummon
Sorry Karn_EX, 20 eps only really tend to work for Slice of Life style anime. The only reason the original Digimon Adventure got as far as it did was because people wanted to see new evolutions and character development (which wouldn’t be a thing if Toei ended the season at Devimon or Etemon’s demise).
As for Ghost Game, I think it’s best to think of it as a prelude to a potential “Tamer’s Union” type season. We Know GulusGammamon was running from some world ending entity that destroyed his home world (that was in the same dimension as Earth) then slipped into the Digital World to escape it. This season implies the Digital World’s multiverse is starting to expand into the real multiverse (possibly like an invading parasite trying to overtake its new host). Maybe this world destroyer is trying to keep the two multiverses from interacting with each other.
I'd like to see this kind of post mortem for Digimon Survive as well.
With the similar reactions to their finales the comparison to How I Met Your Mother was very appropriate.
Haha and weirdly I didn't hate the HIMYM finale
Besides all the hanging plot threads (still mildly sad we never got that “vs Vamdemon’s Court” mini-arc), I wish they had showed more of how the bond between a digimon and human partner works. To me, some of the better moments in digimon (besides epic battles) were moments that showcased the human/digimon bond in action, wether working together through some difficulty, or just a slower moment that let the audience see more of who the characters were as people. Think Rika and Renamon’s conversations about strength, or Ken trying to navigate his partnership with Wormon after his time as the Emperor. Ghost Game had hints of some of those moments, like Hiero trying to figure out how to deal with the Gulus and Gamma situation. But they never really went anywhere long term. The fact that digimon can apparently “force” strength from people was a nice set up for an exploration of what makes a partner bond with a digimon healthy vs. unhealthy (such as the partnered digimon becoming worried that they might be “draining” their humans). Especially if they leaned into the “the door swings both ways” concept that kind of existed with even unbonded digimon being able to influence humans. The few “pseudo-partners” we saw would have aligned with this as well: Why do “alliances” work to a degree, and how is that different from a full partner bond? Yes, I know we have this info from previous seasons, but it would have been an excellent time to introduce new fans to what is technically a series wide world mechanic. Plus, less world building left on the back burner.
They need a show based on Fanart! Let fans send in their art(custom or commission), winners get their art on the show!
That would be a legal nightmare.
@@Maswartz226yep. Every time a Digimon is seen or product is made and was created by a fan, Toei- Bandai would have to pay up.
I mean, look how the comic book industry has changed on royalties. They have in contracts now “if you create a new character, we own it 100%”.
@@usdutchkitty Not exactly. Japan has a whole entire different legal system when it comes down to that. A whole lot of franchises, including Digimon do content like this where fanart is either exhibited, acquired or adapted. The contests more or less go about by acquiring the thing or making participants understand that in the end they are "donating" the designs even if they don't take the first prize.
Just about the entirety of the roster of characters in Classic Megaman is like that except for Megaman 1. There are over 30 digimon, including fan favorites like Angemon, Birdramon, Kabuterimon and Cyberdramon, that were developed from contest fanart. Even Pokémon, even though they never use fandesigns, had a bit of a snafu recently by using a fanmade theme/remix and not getting into trouble because it was technically done on something owned by them.
"Fan content" in Japan is wildly different legally, and paying up for a fandesign could be as cheap as giving the winner a Vital Bracelet or something.
That would be such a mess
@@jpcsdutra it depends on the contracts. I mean, KarnEx has talked about how fan made Digimon have never really been seen in media like anime or games so there has to be a legal issue there.
OH SHIT KARN STABBED MY NAN
well off you go.
i lost it at that so funny
😂
I wish it could great if someone can make "what if ghost game,but that's bad ending by their digimon partner is dark/corrupted evolution"? Can be great.
It got me hooked from the start and I hoped deep down that we were going... SOMEWHERE? Maybe exploring this new digital world in a planet Earth so far into the future, maybe we'd see the power of darkness (the gulus line) being used for good and what could result from it not just being a jumpscare in the middle of the show. But it all went downhill (or nowhere) after a while.
It still had INCREDIBLY high highs (Thetismon and Siriusmon debuts are by far the best episodes of the entire show imo) and a "nuking the fridge" (maybe two, looking at you Quartzmon and Zeed Millenniumon )
You make a very good point about Digimon (and to an extent its wider fan community) often focussing on older existing fans over trying to connect with young new fans
the ending of ghost game was the perfect set up for a much more interesting story, and its one we'll never see.
I'm actually shocked at how much the status quo change of having gammamon share a body with his edgelord counterpart consciousness would have shook up the character dynamics for the better, and they just can't do anything with it. I also legitimately wanted to see how the characters and the small community they accumulated over the show would go about creating this new "digital country" they alluded to.
This was a great breakdown of the series’ overall reception. When Ghost Game first came out, I wanted to be into it since I already love Digimon as a franchise. However, being such a different kind of story combined with the episodic nature of it made me put it off for so long.
I finally started watching again at the beginning of 2023. Having multiple episodes to binge made it easier to take in the story, and over time those overarching stories drew me in more. Gulusgammamon, the dark digimon that would make small appearances, all of it seemed to lead an amazing direction for the franchise. By the end, though, I was disappointed by what it all led to.
I never would’ve expected to say that Appmon was just as good as Ghost Game and even better in some instances.
Happy Sunday Karn EX!
I too feel the same way about Ghost Game. I love the characters and designs and the horror aspect of the series.
I just wished it had more character development and a better storyline.
I enjoyed the show, and I think it's the best produced season of the show we've gotten along with having some of the best writing, but I also understand the frustrations with it, especially the ending. I couldn't help thinking "this feels rushed," or "this doesn't feel like it was the original intent," and even by the end I was getting a little tired of the formula, even if we got some pretty cool episodes, like Milleniumon or BloomLordmon. It's definitely a show where you wish you were a fly on the wall for some of its decision making.
Also, I just realized the Toei Ani logo is the cat's hat and not an apple, and I feel silly.
I have been tempted to make a what if/fanfiction project to rearrange episode orders and reshuffle a few plotpoints and add a few to fix the pacing issues of the anime but still highlight the cool episodes that we have. I adore ghost game a lot and I believe if just a few points flowed better then it wouldnt be as decisive for the audience to keep the episodic formula but continue to build on the ongoing narrative.
I mean yeah, Ghost Game had its flaws and it did had some potholes that made me scratch my head at times. I feel like in my opinion, Covid had a part to play, cause some episodes were delayed due to it. Not just Ghost Game was affected, but other animes were affected as well to either postpone or even cancel animes. Pokemon Journeys was one of those animes that was delayed during that time.
The first half was great, but the second half was like "okay, so where's the plot?" I feel because of the plot unsurfaced, the final episodes kinda felt rushed.
Despite all these flaws, I still liked Ghost Game for what it was. I liked the characters and the Digimon and it's a series I'll come back to once in awhile.
Your thoughts mirror mine. I was so disappointed by Ghost Game even though there is so much I enjoy about it. I still haven't finished it despite watching over 40 episodes. Way too much.
Talking about anime and how it makes a franchise is so accurate. Lately, the thing killing series for me is accessibility. Both digimon 2020 and ghost game took way too long to be dubbed and still nearly impossible to stream with legitimate methods. Now i dont want to watch neither. The vital bracelet de-branding basically killed it as a toy.
0:20 And then there's me who thought it was just okay overall but didn't like the way it ended at all. Seemed like a very rushed ending like "oh crap we forgot to include the actual plot in this show!" and just crammed in into the end with some weird BS about aliens that could have only come from the ravaged psychology of the crunched AF writers. Also RIP Espimon and Pulsemon.
I enjoyed it a lot but hate the fact they basically rushed the ending by forcing it all to the end by suddenly taking care of gulusgammamon then being all like everything fixed got a threat but the big bad wont arrive for 2000 years
Despite being your emotional response, this was still an incredibly well structured and organized video! Probably my favorite video you've made in a while because it echoes almost all of my sentiments with the franchise right now. My main takeaways from Ghost Game are how iconic and loveable Gammamon was, and how good of a mascot role it's playing for the franchise right now. Like how can you not buy merch of that guy haha. Other than that, really only thought the episodes with GulusGammamon were hype and memorable as a whole. The first minutes of each episode setting the horror elements into play were excellent, but the fact that the stakes never seem that high when getting to the climax of an episode really sour the overall experience. and the new singer (Yoshimasa Masukura) of the digivolution tracks is reaaaally good. First Riders and Makuake are iconic tracks wasted on a show without many properly motivated digivolution scenarios, but they're good enough on their own to be among the best in the franchise so far.
I think you nailed it saying that Ghost game started promising but never lived up to the full promise of what it could do. The random appearance of Canoweissmon during a Ruli focused episode was the first sign that made me worry about the quality of the story. And it sadly went downhill from there.
Another issue I ended up having is that Ghost Game didn't sell me how important the connection between human and digimon was, and for all it's flaws I still feel that Adv: 2020 did a fantastic job of building and showing the value of the connection.
I *wanted* ghost game to be good, but all ghost game did for me is making me appreciate Adv: 2020 that much more.
I completely agree with everything you said. I like to compare Digimon Ghost Game with Digimon Frontier. But whereas I hated Frontier AT FIRST and the GREW to love it more and more as the series went on, with Ghost Game, it was the opposite. I thought it was awesome for those first 20 something episodes but my enthusiasm gradually petered out.
Also, THANK YOU for explaining what episodic ACTUALLY MEANS! There are a ton of television shows that I love that are episodic. In fact, my sister and I are currently re-watching Adventure Time. Adventure Time actually has somewhat self-contained episodes that anyone just getting into it can enjoy it, but it also has an overarching narrative! We learn of Ice King’s and Marceline’s back stories for example, how the Lich came to be, etc. It has an overarching narrative AND it is an episodic show.
Great video! I agree with everything that you said. And the reason that I stopped liking Ghost Game are for the same reasons you gave.
I do remember reading that Ghost Game was suppose to be even longer than the 67 episodes it ended up beeing but since ratings dropped pretty hard after a while(misssing 6 weeks thanks to the hack really didn't help) it was cut down to the 67 episodes and that is why so much stuff was left unanswered and the ending was just rushed in like 3 episodes with the ending feeling more like a setup for something rather than an actual conclusion. That would also explain why the main plot felt so extremel fragmented throughout it as it was supposed to take much more time to actually unfold. But to me the old seasons with around 50 episodes have always worked great and only getting some plot and Gulus roughly every 13 episodes was just not the way to go about it.
8:23 there is one thing that I think was definitely abandoned and it was whatever the hell was going on with Kiyoshiro’s arm. There were hints that some sort of resolution for his fear of his arm being exposed was coming but then they just didn’t go anywhere with it.
No there wasnt. It was his gimmick of being a chuunibyo. Jesus christ, people believe the weirdest things.
Ghost Game is the only watchable entry in the series. I would kill to have one more year of it.
"It was episodic..." Yeah, so was Secret Saturdays, so was Ben 10, so was Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, all shows that could have been a nice blue print for Ghost Game. The episodes could be watched seperately (until the few final episodes) but they often feature those small details that hinted at a larger plot afoot (just like Ghost Game) and especially Secret Saturdays and Scooby Doo: MI, worked towards a satisfying finale. If you want to go pure episodic: Martin Mystery would have been a fine blue print for that but (and I say this as a fan of MM) you can't do it for 60 episodes. The thing that killed MM, was lack of ideas in the third season but also the feeling it all didn't matter all that much as there was no real overarching story.
EXACTLY. Ghost Game defenders completely ignore this fact.
Mystery Incorperated was cringeworthy. And no, Jayce 'Defenders' don't ignore this 'fact'... 🙄
I dunno about Barnie, but Niel Patrick Harris's partner is Agumon Expert due to his breakthrough as Doogie Houser M.D.
Then Gawappamon due to his joke roles.
Then Blossomon and Bloom Lordmon as his coming out and seriousness of his career.
You hit the nail on the head here.
I wanted to love Ghost Game but it was just lacking.
Any elements they built up were just deflated by the end.
Maybe there were plan's for a better story but elements were changed due to the hack and it stuffed like 2020 did
Damn, there's a dub on the way? I wish the only the way I got news relating to my interests was on my youtube recommends
I was let down by what could have been. It should have rolled with the mystery and been more focused on storyline.
It probably won't happen because they don't seem to know what they have with Digimon, but I want a season two with thirty minute episodes, about 25 of them, whch are just all Gulus, Gamma and the larger threat focused, with several moments to shine for the rest of the cast.
Still not forgiving Toei for letting Matadormon get away and never bringing him back
I loved it all. The writer was honest from the start what it was so I still don't get why people expected more.
Did you watch the video haha
@@Karn_EX I did 😁. Sorry my comment was a general response to certain comments I see rather than to the video.
This video nails my problem with Ghost Game.
Wow, glad to hear that!
22:41 It's actually worse than that, Gegege no Kitaro 2018 aired alongside the 2018 anime Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside, which not only didn't try to hide the Kitaro influence but straight up had Kitaro (albeit not the 2018 version who hadn't debuted yet as the movie came out in December 2017) appear in the movie that served as the pilot for Yo-Kai Watch Shadowside, alongside some of the yokai from the Kiaro franchise.
(also confusingly the movie had a modern design for Kitaro but he had silver hair, which the anime adaptations haven't had him have since the 1960s (while the anime was in black and white, I found a colorized version on a magazine cover, his outfit hasn't changed much over the years) when he looked more like a gremlin. Also one of the yokai from the kitaro franchise was the historical yokai Ittan-Momen which Yo-Kai Watch made a modern version of, Ittan-Gomen but there is not a Classic Yo-Kai version of Ittan-Momen, in spite of the Kiaro version appearing in the mobile game Youkai Watch Puni Puni (but not Yo-Kai Watch Wibble Wobble as it was shut down before the dub of the third season of the first anime) and Yo-kai Sangokushi: Kunitori Wars (a Yo-Kai Watch version of Koei's (and now Koei Techmo's ) Romance of the Three Kingdoms series))
I haven't watched GG so I can't weigh in on most of this video, but as a teacher the one thing I'll say is that kids (in the US at least) are obsessed with horror stuff right now, so a horror-themed Digimon series could be the right thing to grab them. Guess we'll see when the dub hits, since kids are largely not going to go out of their way to find subs.