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.
Digimon Uncles chapter 2 was interesting. I find it very interesting the balance of slice of life with action in this because it really is kind of a slice of life thing.
And Gonkuman is like wowed by the human world. One of the things he says that's most interesting is that because in the digital world it's all about survival.
That the Digimon's instinct is to fight and to kill and to win and to digivolve.
That, I don't know, it's like kind of this really bleak place. And somehow he, so that being said, Digimon are always fighting with each other.
So seeing people just get on a train together and ride the train and leave each other alone and be peaceable with each other.
It's novel to him because that's not what Digimon do. You see Digimon, it's like Gen 1 Pokemon, right?
You see a Digimon, you walk eyes with him, boom, you start fighting and you hope to kill him and digivolve eventually.
And Gonkuman says that he's done that a ton and that he's, basically he says it without saying it, that I've killed so many Digimon and gotten this strong.
And he doesn't really seem to say it with regret, but or like a regret, remorse or like a negative feeling towards himself.
But he says that in his work with Hajime and these others who are working in the secret digital world migration thing.
That they're almost coming up with a way to like school or parent younger weaker, lower level Digimon.
So that they can learn what they need to and become stronger and be able to eventually mature and digivolve and grow.
And that puts, so does, you know, Ichigo Sota's representation or, you know, manifestation of the digital world.
He's giving us to something really bleak and kind of terrible because they're all just having to fight to survive and they're just like killing each other.
And it's like the only reason like Digimon only exists for other Digimon to kill them and become stronger.
But like what are Digimon growing stronger for? What's the point of them digivolving?
Is it just to hold the flower of the strongest? Is it just to, you know, be at a higher power level?
I don't know, but Gunkumon talks about them taking this initiative or this, you know, information, this new approach from Hajime and others to enable Digimon to digivolve as a society or digivolve as a species.
As opposed to just being a place where it's kind of this barbaric type of deal where they have to fight each other and kill and use that to grow and that to grow alone.
And I don't know, you know, Japanese politics are way different from American politics, but I'm almost thinking that this is harkening back to kind of a, not a feudal system, but like almost a, I don't know, like John Locke, you know, whose writings were influential to the founding fathers of the United States of America.
He talks about property rights in a lot of ways and how if there's this raw land and somebody goes and they mix their labor into the land that they take ownership of that land.
So it's kind of like conquest through cultivation or conquest through, you know, you claim a right to property by putting effort into it.
So kind of similarly these Digimon are claiming, I don't know, their right to be the elites, the leaders, the, you know, most important members of the Digimon society by fighting and killing and being the strongest.
And, you know, also it kind of goes back to a direanian thing of, you know, survival of the fittest. And like those are not good ways or specifically the survival of the fittest is not a good way to form a society.
You know, people do need to be strong. People do need to be resilient. But as Gonkaman says in this to Haruka, there are different types of strength.
And he says to him, hey, I don't know how to navigate around this world. Does that make me weak? No, it doesn't. It's my strength is fighting and your strength is for now navigating and you need to take your time and grow stronger and not worry so much about being able to, you know,
fight and I think it's interesting because it's setting up like a different kind of strength. And I do think it's important. There are different kinds of strengths. But and I think it's also important that each person, each individual tries to be as strong as they can be in their own way, in their own field, in their own area of expertise.
And of course, you know, because we're people, we're humans, we have morals that strength should not come at the expense of others, of violating others' rights or property or anything like that.
But, you know, it is good to be strong because, well, if you are strong, you live and if you are weak, you die. And that may be the way of this world, even though it shouldn't be. But we do live in a fallen world and we have to strive to make it a better world.
If you are so weak that you just die, then how are you going to have any influence on the world to make it more peaceable, more loving, more good, more kind, more moral?
And yeah, I don't know. It's like it's slice of life, but it's like weirdly philosophical and interestingly, it presents these issues, these ideas, these challenges just through this father son story.
You see that like Gankuman is a failed father and Hajime is a failed father. And yet Harukas says he can't say he hates his father, but he just doesn't know if he loves his father because he doesn't really know him because he's missing this crucial avenue or route to know his father, which is by them talking and having conversations with each other.
And he says he's so bereft of that, he just doesn't really have a chance to like his father and he certainly can't hate him because what's to hate about somebody who doesn't really interact with you in a very strong way.
I think I mentioned at the top that there's this nightmare that he has, which supposedly comes from whatever the sheep. Deva's name is that her arrows cause people to...I'm going to find her name. Oh, Pajiraman.
Pajiraman's arrows cause people to fall asleep and have nightmares and somebody, while she was rampaging or whatever in the digital world, took one of her arrows somehow and hit Haruka with it and he had this nightmare telling him that he had to grow stronger and he had to become obsessed with strength, I think.
And I think Vajraman and Pajiraman say they heard something similar before at some point and it caused them some sort of issue. Crave more power, become stronger.
Haruka's hearing from this nightmare voice, he didn't choose you because you were weak. And become stronger than that someone, than that someone, who you are now, and your father is sure to choose you. That's very wrong. That's very much not nice.
That's not a good way to operate that if only if someone has a certain strength or a certain value to offer you that you value them as a person. People have intrinsic value. But anyway, it's interesting that we don't really know what's going on and we're given this interesting story where we're seeing these different things kind of blend together.
And it's like slice of life, there's this weird nightmare, there's this existential or this horrible...the digital world itself is in an existential crisis because it's all about killing and becoming stronger and there's no fostering of strength and there's no different ways to find strength and have strength and be valued.
You're valuable if you are lethal and that's not good. And Gankuman saying specifically that, that's not good for you as a human. That's not what we want and we're hoping to improve the digital world of society in a similar way.
And then there's this kind of interesting tangent. You can say that the watch, the gadget, as Gankuman calls it, that Hajime left for Haruka, it has...it's like a scrapbook sort of of all his experiences, his adventure in the digital world, and it has data from the different Digimon that he encountered there.
And Haruka can use that to summon those items or tools of the different Digimon that his father dealt with or had experience with in order to...although Gankuman harvested them, so I don't know, was he killing the Digimon and taking it from him or he helped him transfer that stuff? I don't know.
Anyway, and that's kind of a weird, dark, complicated thing to think about, but it seems like he could have just killed these Digimon and helped Hajime isolate their data in order to have it be transferable to his son, to these devices, which is kind of grim.
But yeah, it's interesting because it's like, yeah, this is like a love letter, or a scrapbook type of deal from your father to you, and he wants you to be able to share these experiences with him, or like, he wants to share this adventure with you somehow, even though he's not here to do that directly, and he sent me in his stead.
So it's like a really interesting story, and it's interesting how deep you can link with it, or just how surface level you can engage with it, because it could just be, oh cool, you know, Digimon fight, Digimon win, Digimon something. I'm thinking of a song from the dub, but I can't remember it right now.
So anyway, I really liked it. I thought it was pretty cool. What did you think about it? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Digimon Knuckles Chapter 2, and what you think of it overall.
I think the artwork is very nice. There's some bits where it's like, kind of, you know, different from what I would expect. But that's not bad. I think the art is very like, it has a very good motion, it has a very good sense of, I don't know, it just has a very good sense to it. It's very good quality art, and I like it, and I hope that Ichigo sort of continues to work and become an even better manga car, because this is cool stuff. I like it a lot.
The other thing that I want to say is that I invite you to go to grobugs.com, G-R-O-B-U-G-S, where I have, well, I have a newsletter there for my books coming up that are about magical bugs battling monsters. In particular, I have a young boy who goes on an adventure in a sort of digital world, and he goes on this adventure and he almost chooses the wrong path, but a magical bug who gets into that digital world with him helps him to veer off and make the right choice and
save himself and give himself a chance to save his family who are also going to be falling into peril as well. So it's a really interesting story. It's not necessarily, well, the magical bugs battling monsters are very much inspired by Digimon, so if you like Digimon levels, if you like Digimon in general, hopefully you'll enjoy this story.
And I'm not copying Digimon, but I'm very much, I have Digimon etched into my brain, so as I'm writing things, certain stuff comes out. Anyway, I think you'll enjoy the story if you enjoy Digimon, and I think you can, or I know you can learn more about it by going to growbugs.com and checking on the email newsletter type deal, subscribe to that, and you can get not only updates on the story, but also you'll get some bonuses.
I have some free story content so you can check out what my writing is like before you actually get into the actual book before that gets finished and published. So yeah, I encourage you to go there and check that out and check the show notes too for links to that website as well as links to my main author website as well.
Until next time folks, take care, be well, and I was gonna say never stop Digimon, but I can't say that because that belongs to somebody else, but be, what is it? Be strong and show me your brave heart, I think is what I've been saying for Digimon stuff.
I do love that, that how, just to veer off of my closing and go back into this story, something warm and loving and special about Gonkoomon saying you don't have to physically be strong, he almost says you have to have a brave heart at some point in here, almost, almost, almost, almost, he says that.
And it's true because like, even if you are weak, if you can face things with courage and if you can face your demise with courage and with, I don't know, composure or resolution or something like that, like that in and of itself is worthy and that in and of itself is honorable and that in and of itself is beautiful.
Even if you perish, just like is the way of all flesh.
Because even if you don't believe that there's something beyond there, something beyond us like I do, at least you'll be, you'll, you can find comfort in knowing that your actions at the end were legendary, that you faced death, and you didn't blink and you went ahead and pressed forward anyway, doing your best to survive and to live and to do good in the world.
That's a beautiful thing and I feel like, I don't know, like, it's funny, it's digivice, it's a thing made to sell, you know, little keychain digivice things but like there's something so beautiful at its heart and at its core, and I love it.
Actually, here's what I was thinking of, it's like the idea of, and this is from the negative spirit, you know, the evil nightmare that he was having, that he was saying like grow stronger, like crave power, but Gankoomon twists that around and says, like, find your own strength and like, keep going and don't rush things and find out who you are and become who you're meant to be, kind of.
And that feels very much in line with the spirit of the song Braveheart from Digimon, Digimon Adventure, so anyway, I like that, I think it's very cool, and yeah, again, I hope you enjoyed this, I hope you enjoyed this manga, I hope you enjoyed this review, and I hope you'll go over to growbugs.com to find my stuff, and hopefully you'll enjoy the stuff that I make because it's very much with this heart and this spirit of Digimon that I'm trying to make these stories.