Welcome to Digimon Analyzer. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm a Digimon
Analyzer. Joining me as I talk about the relaunch of Odiaba Day, 25 years of Digimon
and my kids, and Liberator. Also the hope, not the plan, but the hope, and my books
and the connection with Digimon. So here we go. Why am I doing this? So just
to clarify, this is a relaunch. I started Digimon Chronicle last year, or two
years ago probably, whenever it was that Digimon Seekers was coming out. It was,
it was, it is an internet release, it's an e-book type thing, it's an online, it's a
web novel. There we go. It's a Digimon web novel that was made for the 25th
anniversary and I started reading it and I really hoped and I really thought that
I was gonna push myself to be consistent and read through the whole thing and I
didn't like it so I didn't read it and I feel badly that I didn't read it and I
kind of shamefully hid from all Digimon people for a while and now I'm back
because people were saying good things about Liberator so I checked it out. I
read it probably like the first issue like a month ago, actually first two,
about a month ago and I really liked them and I thought okay I'm trying to
do Ultraman stuff, I'm trying to do my books that I'm writing, I need to focus
on those so I can't get distracted and it's been all this time, you know, I got
work I got, home I got, writing, I got all these different things I need to do, I can't just get
distracted and talk about Digimon at the same time. So I decided not to and I thought I'll put
Liberator on the shelf and I'll do it later. However, over the past week or two
the official channels for Digimon, I think on YouTube mostly they're doing
like posts, they have like a countdown going and we're just a couple
days away from Otagbite, from August 1st, 2024 and I had all these ambitions and I
thought oh I'm gonna do all this stuff and I thought you know I'm actually not
gonna be able to do all that stuff, I'm gonna have to figure out something else to do
for Digimon and I thought about it and I thought about it and I was up in the night with a kid and I re-read
Digimon Liberator the first episode, episode zero and I thought this is pretty good, I think I want to talk about this.
So what I plan to do, what the hope is to do, is to talk about Liberator as the main focus for the relaunch of my Digimon podcast,
Digimon Analyzer. So on Otagbite, I plan on releasing this, if there's news that goes on Otagbite, I'll release little shorts,
I'll either release shorts or I'll release quick like five minutes or so videos talking about whatever they're talking about.
I recently listened to Otagbite, so Otagbite is pretty cool, it's in show, it's
referenced, it's when the kids are at camp on August 1st and everything happens, they go into the digital world, at least from the original series.
2020, I'm a little vague on what date it is that things are happening there, because like things happen, the Tokyo Digital Crisis happens
and then later they go to camp, like a few days later, is that August 1st when they go, I don't know, I don't quite remember the continuity of it all.
But anyway, I decided I'm gonna take another run at it and keep talking about Digimon, I'll start it on Otagbite, so I'll release this episode then,
this episode zero of Digimon Analyzer, I'll talk about any news that comes out that day, I'll do my best to record a quick post about it and then get that out.
And then also I'll release my first episode reviewing, well I have a few things planned for that day, and one of them is gonna be a Liberator review, so I'll start with that.
And I think I'll do, or my plan is to do whatever chapter, you know, number one is a half chapter, number two is a half chapter, I'll do those together so that it makes sense as a whole story.
I don't want to stop in the middle of a story with someone jumping off a cliff and then, oh what's gonna happen to them, I don't know, and then a few days later or whatever it's released.
I don't even know the release schedule for it because I haven't been following it but I did download Webtoon just for this so I have that now and I can go through it as I need to.
So anyway, that's interesting, but anyway yeah, so that's my plan, my hope is to go through consistently and stick with it this time.
I mean Liberator looks good, the chapter zero that I read of Liberator has me way more interested than the first chapter of, which by the way the first chapter was like, you know, like sixth regular chapter's length long of the Webnovel.
Which is like, I don't know if Webnovels do that or not, I'm planning on publishing something on Royal Road and I've checked out a few people's books over there and their chapters are like normal length.
Like they're like a thousand words, fifteen hundred words, five thousand at the most, but these Digimon Seekers Webnovel chapters were super long and it was like, you know, one dash one, one dash two, one dash three, like you know twenty, and that's a chapter.
That's just crazy, it's crazy. Anyway, so, anyway yeah, so you know Diaboday's coming up, it's been twenty-five years, so that means I've been watching Digimon for about twenty-five years.
I've probably never gone a year without watching any Digimon, even if it was just me starting adventure over again.
Because I've watched adventure several times, I've started it several times, and I've always kind of wanted to do something with it.
And that's what Digimon Chronicles was supposed to be about, but like I said that fell through.
So anyway, it's interesting, yesterday, yeah it was yesterday, my kids asked me, actually two of my dogs actually came down and said, hey dad, can we watch Digimon?
I was like, sure, I guess. And I put on an episode for them of 2020 and they liked it, everybody liked it, so that was interesting.
It was one of the early episodes, I heard 2020 gets weird, but I haven't seen it yet and I'm going to judge it for myself, I'm not going to let other people set my opinion of it, and that's my plan there.
So that's interesting, it's interesting that it's something I can pass on to my kids.
I told them last year about how I was all excited, was it November or October, somewhere around my birthday, that I was going to go watch a Digimon movie in the theater.
And I had to go by myself because it was too late and they couldn't go and they were kind of bummed.
But I'm glad I didn't take them, it was 0 to the beginning and that was not a good movie, it was very sad that that was part of the 25th anniversary of Digimon.
And it's just a shame because it's not a good movie, I didn't like it at all.
Anyway, so like I said, I did like Liberator, the first chapter, chapter 0.
I thought it was good, it's interesting, I'll save more of my thoughts for it when I actually talk about Liberator in that episode, so I won't go on about it here.
But yeah, so you can expect the episodes to be short, I'm trying to keep stuff at 10 minutes or under.
Recently, talking about Ultraman, I've gone like 16 minutes in my story over everything or Fortress Fiction podcast where I'm talking about books, classic books that I'm reading through.
Middle grade fiction like Anne of Green Gables for example or Rony of the Robber's Otter, let me try to pick a boy one.
Tom Sawyer, boy books that I've read so far? I know, I'm going to read The Chronicles of Verdane, the first one anyway, that's a boy book, nice boy book.
Anyway, I'm reading through that stuff, those are kind of like, they're whatever length they end up being.
A couple of them have been like just a few minutes and one went like 20 or 30, but these Digimon ones, I can't put that much time into each episode so I'm going to do as little as I possibly can.
I'm going to give you, hopefully no fluff, and I'm going to give you the good stuff and I'll do that in 10 minutes or less, that's my goal.
So anyway, I will talk about this for a couple minutes and then I will let you go because I will be right around the 10 minute mark.
I'm writing books. The books that I'm writing are middle grade books, which is why I'm reading middle grade books and talking about them, reviewing them, analyzing them, because I'm a middle grade analyzer as well as a Digimon analyzer.
And the reason I'm bringing them up here is because it's relevant, because I am writing a book series, one right now, and I have a second series, that's a sister series to it, that the series is very much inspired by tokusatsu.
And I count Digimon as a tokusatsu offsuit for reasons I will get into in a later episode. Look at that, I'm plugging, this is episode 0 of Digimon Analyzer, I'm plugging episode 1 in episode 0, so I'll talk about that later.
But anyway, one book series just focuses on the Growbugs, who are my characters in these stories, in the Growbug books.
It focuses on them being raised and growing up, they're magical bugs who battle monsters, and they're being raised in a fort where they are trained, and they change from little wiggly worms into bigger bugs and then bigger bugs who have different powers, and they use those powers to battle these monsters.
I know this sounds unfamiliar, but this is all happening in the Growbug world, which is our world, it's just our world, but it's hidden, they're hidden in nature, they're in underground tunnels, they're in trees, they're in abandoned buildings, they're in the walls, they're wherever they need to be.
I'm going to write those books first. But, in all the crazy planning and developing I've been doing this over the last two years or so, I also came up with another side of other Growbug stories, but where there's a boy and a Growbug who are partnered with each other and who fight these evil creatures.
So that sounds a lot more like Digimon. The Growbug lives with a boy in his house, and they have their adventures, and there's an arcade, and the boy gets Eastkite into a video game with his sister, so there's another Digimon connection there.
So it's relevant, and as I get these books out, I will be sharing them with you, as long as I'm covering Digimon and you're around, I'll be sharing them with you, and hopefully you're interested and you'll check them out. And I'm going to be posting about them, updates on my website, you can find a link to in the show notes, it's mjmunoz.com.
And yeah, I think that's interesting. I very much want to capture the spirit of Digimon, because it's so beautiful. I started watching 2020 like two months ago, probably, and I watched the first five or six episodes, and I liked it a lot.
I really liked the theme song, I liked the theme song and the end song, the English tabs of them, they're beautiful songs, and I looked them up, and they're basically just translated from Japanese, and I called one of my kids and I said, read these lyrics, and I had them listen to the song and I said, what right does this show about this dumb anime, this dumb Japanese cartoon that's meant to sell Digimon video games, Digimon merchandise, whatever.
What right does this toy commercial have to have these beautiful songs with such beautiful and inspirational lyrics? And I just think there's something magical to the marketing of a lot of Japanese media, but specifically Digimon, the stuff built into the shows themselves is so beautiful and so good and so noble for the most part, except for Skimpy Angel, Skimpy Lady, that's trash.
But there's so much good stuff in the stories and the characters and their struggles and everything, they're just so beautiful and inspiring, and that's why I'm still talking about this 20 years later. I'm not talking about the Pokemon anime, I'm not talking about Metabots, I'm not talking about whatever.
Covering San Diego, but I am talking about this because there's so many beautiful and good, and I want to talk more about that. So until next time, take care, be well.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.