This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm a Digimon Analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com
Get ready for a next level discussion of those monster friends to the boys and girls.
Alright, so the latest chunk of Digimon manga or Digimon comic that I'm reading is Tenya Yabunno.
His mini Digimon story of the Royal Knight, I think is what it's called.
And Tenya Yabunno is the guy who is the mangaka from Digimon Dreamers, so not a fan who got the job.
I don't know how many other Digimon projects Tenya Yabunno has worked on, but I think it's been a lot.
And I'm pretty sure he's a professional mangaka.
And I kind of think he worked on Nekx and a bunch of other official Digimon projects, so that's cool.
And just like Digimon Dreamers was a gag manga, this is also a gag manga.
I would say it's even more of a gag manga, or perhaps I'm more comfortable with the idea of it being a gag manga after reading Dreamers, which I regrettably did not finish.
So I have more of an appreciation for this.
I also am a bit of a stick in the mud at times, and sometimes I don't like to have fun.
So it would be in keeping with who I am for me to push off reading a gag manga because, oh, it's not serious.
I want a serious Digimon story.
Also, this was at the time of Seekers where I wasn't turned off of Digimon, but I wanted to enjoy the current thing coming out.
And I wanted like a real solid story that I could really sink my teeth into, and I was not getting that at all with Dreamers.
I would say I am getting that right now with Liberator.
And even though I don't know what's going on, I know what the story is, I'm enjoying what's there, and I'm getting to speculate and think about what is going on in the world of Liberator.
And it's giving me something substantive.
And therefore, this light stuff, this gag manga, it's fun. It's enjoyable. I really like it. It was a lot of fun.
Wanyaman, who also features in Digimon Paradox, is here. He's a little, you know, I don't know what they call him, baby fresh? I'm not sure.
In training, I would say, with my dub-isms, he's a little in-training Digimon.
And he was getting kicked around, and Dinosmon, who was thinking about, he was deliberating, sitting on a gargoyle in the rain, thinking,
What is justice? If I'm evil, then does that make my enemy good? And if I'm good, does that make my enemy evil?
What is the nature of conflict? What is the nature of morality?
And then, like, the narrator says something, and he throws a chocolate bar or a drink, like a drink pouch type thing, I think, at it.
He thought he was vaping, I'm not sure. And then the story continues, and he meets a little Wanyaman who's being kicked around as a ball.
He thinks he sees these two Digimon getting together and playing, and he says something like,
Sports is a higher level of combat, because it allows us to conflict with each other through having rules, where we don't need to destroy one another.
And then it turns out these two Digimon, essentially like an evil one and a good one, are playing together, and they're kicking around Wanyaman as the ball.
And for some strange reason, Wanyaman was mesmerized by the ball and ran into its place, and so they decided to kick him around instead of the ball itself,
which is all really goofy and silly and funny. And there's a couple great moments.
So, like, there's a couple, like, so despite the fact that it looks like it's like individual, like, one or two pages, it's not like a four coma,
it's not like a four panel comic, comedy, you know, comic thing. It's like a page or two. I think it's spreads of two pages,
and each spread of two pages basically tells a joke or, like, sets up and tells a joke.
But, Yabunno, right, Tenya Yabunno is going a level higher than that, and he's seeding in,
he's got like a mini narrative running here where he's seeding into the jokes that he's telling on page one and two, jokes that he'll tell later.
So, Wanyaman is crying for some reason, I don't remember why, and in this pose, he's holding in his left hand three chocolate bars fanned out like they're cards,
and which is called champion chocolate. That must be from the games, I guess. I don't know.
And then in his other hand, his right hand, he's holding meat, like a drumstick looking thing with stars on it for some reason.
I don't remember the Tanamon's meat farm thing that they made from Digimon Dreamers. If those, if their meat had stars on it,
I kind of don't think it did, but maybe I'm misremembering or maybe he's pulling from something else for that visual reference, I don't know.
Anyway, he does that to Wanyaman, and I can't remember if Wanyaman gets upset with him. I don't think Wanyaman does get upset with him.
He's just like, something else happens, and everything's fine, and they move on to the next part of the story.
And then later on, he's crying, he's crying, and Magnamon does the same exact thing to him.
You want some chocolate? I'll have some meat for you! And he turns around and gets mad, he says, don't treat me like a kid!
And like, that was funny, and that happened at the, I think, at the very end, or like, a couple pages from the end.
It was like maybe 20 pages long, and that joke near the end was seeded all the way towards the beginning, at like the, you know, fifth or sixth page or something like that.
And I really like that. And then there's another thing, which is Wanyaman being mesmerized by the ball.
He asks Dynasmon to kick the ball for him, to kick a soccer ball, and Dynasmon's like, I'll show you how tough I am, how hard I can kick this ball.
And he winds up to kick it, and then he looks to his left, and Wanyaman is not there.
And then he looks in front of him, I think he looks in front of him, and then he looks to the right, I think it's the right order.
It's on the thumbnail, and he sees the ball is still there, so he must have kicked Wanyaman.
And it turns out that Wanyaman has gone up into the clouds, where the, I don't know, is that where the Olympus 12 are, or whatever?
Is that where the Royal Knights are? I don't know all the lore behind it to say that's definitely where he went, that's where he was, where he went up to.
But then he's like crying into his beer at a Digibar, and it says something that translates to Digibar, and that's when Magnamon comes up to him and is talking to him and whatever.
And then he finds out that there is a Wanyaman causing some trouble, and he goes over, and all that stuff happens.
So they get together, and he'd played with Wanyaman for like two hours, doing the same thing over and over and over again, like little kids will ask you to do.
And they'll randomly jump from one thing to the next to the next to the next, which is very true to life.
So that's cute and fun.
And then they're up there with the other Royal Knights, and Wanyaman asks him if they can go collect Royal Knights, and he makes a joke.
He says, don't treat us like, don't talk about us like we're acorns, because they've been collecting acorns earlier in the Mawgmawg.
So, I mean, I kind of recapped, I didn't really recap, because there's too many, there's a lot of gags I didn't mention.
But I just gave a brief overview of what happened, and like it was all really enjoyable.
I enjoyed talking about it, I made myself laugh just recalling, or it made me laugh in the recollection, or it was in the recollection.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
So, yeah, it was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it, and it's nice to have fun with things, especially things that are cute and fun.
I would, I don't ever foresee myself telling a gag manga, first of all, because I don't have his level of skill, which by the way, all the designs are pretty much TV designs, and they're pretty adorable.
Little Dinosaur looks super cute.
I was looking at it and thinking like, wow, how do you condense, like how do you know what to chibi-file, and like what to leave out, and what to condense, like what are the, how do you know what the core things are to keep in a chibi design, and how do you know what to throw out?
I don't know, I don't know, it's like a different skill set, something I don't have, I'm not a great artist.
Oh, that reminds me, I gotta talk about my art, I gotta talk about my night.
And my, yeah, once again, anyway, I'll get to that in a minute.
So yeah, very skillful mangaka, very cool stuff going on, and I really enjoyed it, and I just marvel at his level of skill, and what he's doing, and how funny it is, the writing, as well as how good the art is, because both the art and both the chibi art and the slapstick gag comedy is really enjoyable, and I'm thoroughly having a good time with it.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, something I would never see myself writing, just because I lack the skill and the, I don't know, the depthness or the aptitude for that kind of stuff, but it'd be cool if I could write that, because I mean, this guy's, you know, he's winning me, this is great stuff, absolutely great stuff.
All right, so I do not have my artwork in front of me. I will talk about it though, because I remember it because I've looked at this drawing lots, and anyway, once again, long before Digimon Frontier had aired, I believe I've confirmed that Digimon Frontier is the genesis of the Royal Knights, or it's rather first featured.
Anyway, so prominently, I'll say that, the Royal Knights are prominently featured in Digimon Frontier, that was the first time that happened, however, I had already come up with the idea of a Royal Knight, and I can give you two instances of that, my King Antmon, and also my Rose Knightmon, which is what I called her, or Vampire Knight, or Vampire Rose, I can't remember what she was going to be called, like Vamp Rose Knight, I think is what I ended up calling her at some point.
Anyway, she starts off as a little bat, kind of like Demi-Demimon, except way cuter and less obnoxious, so she starts off kind of like a bat like Demi-Demimon, and then in her Champion form, I actually kind of stole the idea of the Windigomons, or what would people know him as.
He's Windigomon in the, whatever, Will is just Digimon, the Champion level one, with the weird bunny hat thing, Gargomon's cousin, Gargomon's brother, Gargomon's sister, I don't know, whatever, Digimon from Digimon the Movie, from, I can't remember what it's called now, we've got Digimon the Movie coming out, we've got, Our War Game is the first one, it's Digimon Adventure, then it's Our War Game, then it's,
Hurricane Touchdown, that's what it is, yes, from Hurricane Touchdown, that Digimon with the, like, you know, is it Mazinger? Mazinger? I don't know.
Anyway, with the arm that he shoots off, she's got these giant arm brace thingies, because as a weird vampire goth girl with like a Miotismon type mask and a dagger, she has the ability to do upfront melee attacks, which I like pulled a lot of evil, like, I kind of gave her Miotismon's mask, I kind of gave her Piedmon's daggers, I gave her like kind of Piedmon-ish proportions, and her bat wings turned into like a skirt for her, which I think is really cool, and she's got stripey leggings and stuff like that.
And stuff like, I was trying to go real hard and like, Gothic Lolita meets Wendigo-mon, I guess, at least for that attack part, like meets Piedmon. Yeah, that's what I was going for with her for this design.
And then after I did those two things, then I thought, you know what, an interesting direction for this Digimon evolution line to go would be for her to become like a mystic, like a witch almost, and I'll make her like a real refined one, I'll give her a cane and this like hooded robe.
I hadn't seen Margaret from Persona 4 yet, but it is really like, it's kind of like a Margaret, and I realized that afterwards, and I gave her like these cool shoulder thingies, I was just trying to make her mystical and magical and very different from the other forms.
And I don't know where I got this notion. I like there being like a connection between a wizard and a knight. I mean, I guess like King Arthur, you've got Merlin, who's a wizard who oversees Arthur and helps him be a knight and stuff. Knight and king.
But for whatever reason, I just gave her like, I want to give her like a cool, simple, like mystic form, and it's like very magical and very much like kind of an evolution of a vampire, because vampires have magic, sensibly.
I said, I'm now I'm going to go another way, and she's like this refined, you know, wizard like aloof kind of form, and then she's going to become this absolute brawler. And I had originally made this design for a guy, a male vampire guy, and then I just flipped it because I thought, why can't a guy have a girl Digimon?
Originally, so the cat Digimon that I made that's a guy, he was originally my Digimon and this bat vampire guy was girl was actually my sister's Digimon. And I went ahead and flipped it. I swapped our Digimon partners, because I thought it would be cool. I thought it'd be fun.
And anyway, I did that. And I can't remember all of the stuff I did for his design. His face was exposed. He was in armor. He had like a cool pauldron type thing. And from his right arm, he had a cool pauldron, like almost like a robotic arm. And he had like these claws and he had this thing on his arm that would shoot stuff out of it.
Like there were slits for like shooting like moon crescent stuff because why wouldn't you want to shoot crescent moons? I mean, come on. Anyway, so then I gave that stuff to her for my vamp rose knight mon or just I was originally going to call her vamp rose knight, but I just decided to call her rose knight and that's it.
Leave the vamp out. You know she's a vampire. You see the roses on her shoulder and I think they're on her shoulder and they'll go to her breast armor as well, I think. And then she's got like the savage claws. So like, I wanted to make it like she's like a feral vampire knight lady and like how does she fight? She fights, I don't know, I guess by scratching and by shooting.
Like to me, like did you want to always have like an up close attack and then a melee attack? Like I think that's the structure basically that they all follow. I think. Pretty sure. Anyway, so I wanted to give her a cool, yeah I'm surprised that she's a knight, but I didn't give her a sword.
I did give her the cool, you know, claw hand thingy and actually stole that for a superhero design. Like I took him under the ideas for a rose knight line and I like, let me get this on like a gauntlet thing for this lady to have this vampire or this, yeah, basically like a vampire bat, energy vampire bat lady to have and that'll have to be posted another day.
It's not Digimon related so I won't do that here. But anyway, it's, it's, I love this design. I took so long in this design. I don't like, you know, the Hoochie Momma design so I gave her, you know, the skirt, the butt flap kind of thing to like cover up her crotch and things like that.
And like, you know, I think I gave her reasonable size breasts and I think they're, you know, nicely contained in the armor so it's not like, you know, spilling out or anything or anything like, you know, it's nothing for you to, to admire, except for how cool it is like I gave her the chainmail, I gave her this, you know, this awesome claw, I gave her the thing on her arm, like I think it's a very cool design and I think it's like super dope and I don't know, I love it. I love the visor too with the ears on it and everything like this. I really love this design and I worked on this one a lot.
And I've drawn it a lot and I think I have a pose of her standing up too.
But yeah, anyway, that's it for my other Royal Knight who I made. And I think, no, I came with the King Ant at the same time I came up with her essentially, essentially and she used to be a guy but then I flipped her to be a girl.
But yeah, that was really cool. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, I was drawing that guy, the guy version of it. He was like a magma vampire guy and he had like golden orange armor and I remember I drew it with markers or colored it in with markers and stuff.
So that must have been in the early 2000s I drew that. So definitely it was before Frontier came out.
Like, I think I remember being like eighth, ninth grade or eighth grade drawing that and I don't remember when this particular drawing is from but it's a...
I want to say it was before the time I met my wife. I met my wife like sophomore year in high school.
Anyway, but that's it for now. I really enjoyed the gag manga. More of the Liberator manga is out. It's ready to be read. I have one more.
Probably next week I'll end it. I think all the... if all the episodes are out for me to do Liberator 6, Episode 6 in completion, I will do that. But if not, you can expect me to be covering the Wuling 2.
It's the Seekers manga. I'll be covering that otherwise and then it's Crossroad Witch. Is that what that one's called? I think it is.
Anyway, so it'll be one of those two next week and then I'll be getting into the debug novel which I'm really excited about. So, until next time folks, take care, be well.