This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Digimon Chronicles, where I am continuing to make the audiobook of Digimon
Seekers one chapter at a time.
We are still somehow in chapter one, Agey Wolf of the Ninth Avenue.
And this is part 11 of chapter one.
Again, somehow.
This is a very, very, very long chapter.
I hope it gets rebranded and there's like an official US release with actual, you know,
very well done translation.
Maybe they can pay K-Kun for that.
Okay, so I'm going to get right into it and give a little commentary on this part of the
chapter after I'm done reading it.
This voice, it's you, the Lugaman, isn't it?
If possible, could you please explain?
Agey's tone comes across as more polite than usual.
Explain?
Explain what exactly?
I can't understand what's going on at all.
Where is this?
Why are the Digimon talking?
What happened to him?
Why isn't he in his loft at home?
Agee Nagasumi, didn't you listen to what Ryusenji told you?
Huh?
Ryusenji?
Agee is amused that the Lugaman refers to him without reference to his title of professor.
The Mind Link Explanation.
In order to infiltrate the SOC, he had to deactivate the function on his Digimon linker.
AE's and DDL's top secret D4 research results, a means to improve his skills as a codecracker
in one fell swoop.
The function that makes me into an elite codecracker, right?
He explained it in a way that was difficult to understand.
The fact that it is being so casual in its responses makes Agee a little uncomfortable.
Lugaman starts walking.
There's broken glass there, so be careful.
Agee notices it as he's speaking.
He sees the reflection of Digimon in the building's window glass, illuminated by flickering flames.
The first thing that comes to mind is that it's the Lugaman.
Am I not here?
Is Agee seeing the same world as the Lugaman?
Duh.
Chumon.
Just then, another rat goes rushing by.
Master, I can't believe I missed you.
Demon wolf of the Castle of Nine Wolves, I'm nothing but a Chumon, a lowly rat Digimon.
The Chumon that happened to be rescued greets it.
If you don't mind me asking, did you go somewhere?
I haven't heard about the likes of you in a very long time.
Rumor had it that you were changed into a Digitama by a human and captured by a human.
The Chumon dares to probe a little.
Who do you think you're talking to?
The Lugaman growls.
Choo!
So sorry.
Do you think there's an assassin who could turn me into a ball or someone who could put
a collar on me?
P-p-p-please forgive me.
The Chumon starts freaking out.
The Lugaman takes a deep breath and quickly raises its head.
Yes, I remember now.
The Dust Kingdom, you Chumon were servants of the Great Sukumon, ruler of the Fifth Avenue
Trash Heap.
Yes, I'll look after you from now on.
I like you a lot more than that stuffed animal from earlier.
Lugaman sniffs the Chumon and licks it.
Yuck.
Squeak!
I'll be of real use to you.
The Demon Wolf of the Castle of Nine Wolves, huh?
It's got a familiar ring to it, the Lugaman whispers.
Hey Chumon.
Yes?
You think I've been captured by a human before?
It was only rumor.
With the old man gone, Ninth Avenue is in the doldrums and deserted.
It appears Walslum has changed a lot in my absence.
Here, you can have this.
The Lugaman throws us some food.
This is real world meat.
As expected of a Digimon of your stature, you really eat well.
Until next time.
After gathering up the meat and cheese, the Chumon runs away, as if never wanting to have
this encounter again.
Um, were you finished talking?
Eiji speaks to the Lugaman timidly.
The Lugaman just sighs for some reason.
It's an explanation you wanted, right?
Yes please.
What do you humans say at times like these?
Seeing is believing.
The proof is in the pudding.
Whoa!
It was so sudden.
The Lugaman leaps through a broken window.
The first freefall Eiji ever experienced, the Lugaman easily lands from a height of three
to four stories.
They end up in a valley of buildings.
Among them was a dark skyscraper, a deserted pre-dawn sub-center of the city that had nothing
to do with glitz and glamour.
The windows were completely unlit.
Once he's attached to the tallest building in the area, the Lugaman runs up.
It's a vertical wall.
It runs with its claws digging in.
He feels the wind on its skin.
Eiji shares and feels the Lugaman's eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin, all five senses.
I see.
So this is the result of Professor Ryusenji's research.
This is D4's most confidential technology.
The digital world, which has a different structure from the world-world, cannot be directly perceived
by humans.
For example, a submarine relies on instruments and sonar, and a space probe travels into
outer space.
We can only perceive what is going on around us indirectly through observed data.
Is it possible to somehow experience the digital world through the five human senses?
After exploring this possibility, we transferred human mental data to the digicore of a digital
life form, a digimon to create a consciousness.
Mindlink is a technology that converts the human spirit into digital data and transfers
that human consciousness into the digimon digicore realm.
As it speaks, Lugaman runs up the skyscraper, not even taking a breath as it does.
The digicore is the data center at the core of a digimon.
It is the core of life, the area that shows that the digimon is an individual, the ego,
the soul of a digimon, so to speak.
Yes, the professor was saying something similar.
Once it becomes clear to Eiji, he is more intrigued than bewildered.
There is no tiny monochromel CD screen.
He is seeing it with his own eyes, the true state of the digital world and the state of
the digimon.
It is not a virtual monitor and observation data, but a direct perception of the digital
world with the five human senses.
Ryusenji has already perfected this technology.
This is the answer.
Mindlink.
It's like I've become a digimon.
Mindlink, this is the world that the best are seeing.
Eiji is immediately excited.
It's your first mindlink.
It's only natural that there'd be some confusion.
You'll get used to it soon enough.
I already am getting used to it, but when was my mental data converted into digital
data?
The digimon linker has been sampling your biometric data, brainwaves, and level of consciousness
24 hours a day.
Seriously?
You mean my personal info was being leaked?
What do you mean?
That's what the digimon linker is for.
The amount of data required to convert the human psyche into digital data is enormous.
Incredible.
Professor Ryusenji, so incredible.
Any other questions?
I'm getting so annoyed with all the noise in the digicore.
How can I talk to you?
You're a digimon.
What a stupid question.
It's because digimon are alive.
We always have been, and always will be.
Digimon are alive.
Lugamon, Pteranomon, and all the rest of the digimon.
I see, so digimon have been talking to me all along.
You're just getting to know us digimon a little better is all.
After climbing up the skyscraper, Lugamon finally stands triumphantly on the roof.
The view from there is...
And that's an abrupt ending to our reading.
That took about six minutes, I would say.
I stumbled and gaffed there a little bit.
My Lugamon voice was way off.
And getting into the commentary, some of the formatting on this, I could not tell that
Lugamon was talking.
Like, I didn't know Lugamon was explaining all that.
There was his dialogue as he ran up the building.
So anyway, I really want a cleaned up version of this.
I...
I'm...
Yeah.
Well, let me talk a little bit more about the actual content of the story that we got
in this snippet.
And then I will tell you about some stuff going on with Digimon Chronicle.
So I think it's cool that we're getting...
I don't like the choppiness.
The choppiness of this being divided into 1200 or so, 1000 to 1200 word chunks is less
than satisfying.
It's making it a little frustrating, a little irritating.
Especially because we're getting things doled out so slowly.
And I mean, some of the breaks are effective because it's...
It's like cutting off mid-sentence.
It's like those old serials where the guy would be in trouble.
He looks like he's about to fall off a cliff and then he'll find out what happens on the
next episode.
And then the beginning of the next episode, that's resolved very easily.
It's super easy, barely any convenience to get him out of that jam.
And then the story shifts and it goes to something totally unrelated to that.
So the way that it's ending, it's artificially goosing itself so that you're interested in
coming back for the next installment.
My frustrations with how the weekly format is being executed, I guess I'll say, aside,
I want to say that I like the idea and that it's brought up...
Because honestly, I'd forgotten that Ryu Senji had said this phrase, that he wanted to experience
the digital world with his own five human senses.
And this idea that through the mind link, the people are able to inhabit and be inside
of a Digimon.
They're literally linking with it.
It's different from a bio-merge because the Digimon retains its identity and is not altered
by the person.
But the person gets to ride along with and be inside of it's kind of like a Kamen Rider
double or I'm trying to think of another example of how that would work where a mind of one
person inhabits the body of another person and it's cooperative and I guess voluntary
to some extent.
Although I don't know that Lugomon was asked if they could do it and then consented to
have it done or what.
But I don't know.
That's interesting.
It's a really interesting concept.
It's very specific and it makes sense that he's experiencing things as the Digimon, as
Lugomon with his five senses.
He's getting to interpret them with his five senses being in Lugomon's Digi-Core.
And I guess that makes sense.
But it's kind of funny that Ryu Senji was specifically using that phrase with the five
human senses and that's what's here.
I mean I guess if that's what his intention was and that's what he worked for and that's
what he achieved then it makes sense logically that he would frame it that way and then it
would be brought up that way, recalled that way by Eiji as he's experiencing that.
But it just seems a little, I don't know, like a little, not thin or cheap but just
like you want, this is what you want and you're just saying it as opposed to showing it maybe?
I'm not sure.
I don't want to complain too much about that because I'm interested in the concepts and
the lore and the mechanics that are being brought up that Digimon have a soul, it's
their Digi-Core and that Eiji's within the Digi-Core and that Lugomon experiences that
as an internal something talking to him and he's saying that he doesn't want all this
noise coming from his Digi-Core anymore so he is just trying to give Eiji the answers
as quickly as he can so that he'll shut up.
But it also raises an interesting idea that they are only able to mindlink because they
have a compatibility with each other which I think is artificially boosted by the D4
system that Ryusenji created.
Which by the way that's a great little piece of information, little nugget that Lugomon
doesn't regard Ryusenji as Professor Ryusenji, like he doesn't care that he's a professor
or that's his title or rank or anything like that, he's just another human to him kind
of even if he's an ally and he's worked with him or whatever, he's not like oh professor
Ryusenji, it's just yeah Ryusenji and Eiji doesn't feel that way, he's inexperienced,
he's younger, Lugomon seems very powerful, he's an alpha, he's like a leader, he's his
own person 100% and Eiji's still coming into that and part of that is reflected by him
showing deference to the title of Ryusenji but then again maybe that's also like a Japanese
culture thing and despite the fact that Digimon I'm presuming in this are also made by Japanese
people they didn't digivolve or evolve, develop whatever with the same exact culture which
makes sense because they were coming up in a different context and I think that's kind
of an interesting I know a bit of culture shock or difference in the way Digimon and
humans are from one another despite the fact that like we've seen in past shows Digimon
have friendship and love and affection and you know an affinity for children as Dolphin
would say from Tamers, that doesn't mean they're gonna express that in a way that's human so
that's good, I think that's a very good detail because they should be different because they
are and I like that so what am I getting to?
I just think it's a fascinating concept like these are very cool ideas and very cool concepts
that are being brought up in here and it's like just an interesting expansion and redefinition
of I guess the lore or what it means to be Digimon and I don't know just interesting
and yeah I'm at kind of a loss for what more to say at the moment so instead of struggling
and stammering I'm just gonna go and cut off my coverage of this episode and I'm gonna
tell you that I now have an official Digimon Chronicles podcast feed which you can find
linked at MJWindows.com and the show notes of the video where you're seeing this and
I have the different options for you to subscribe to different places wherever you like to get
your podcasts I'm gonna keep adding them to their complete and you can get on all the
podcast platforms basically but for now I'm slowly building up to that because I'm doing
a lot with a lot of different podcasts and speaking of which I think I'm gonna make a
first episode because it turns out I can like update the podcast episodes and keep the feed
the identifier the same or modified as I want to and I can keep changing the audio file
so I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make an ongoing like Digimon Seekers ongoing
and I'm gonna do when I have time I'll add one of the K-Kun chapters to that a week and
I'll even update it and add chapter breaks in there so that if you want to wait till
it's all done you can do that and you can skip through the chapters if you desire or
I will just if you want to as I'm updating it I'll make a little announcement that it's
been updated probably on the website or I'm not sure where and you can if you've listened
to chapters one two and three you can skip through to chapter four or five and I think
that'll be really cool and it'll be like a dynamic thing like this almost interactive
audio file that I can keep adjusting and I'll have it be you know Digimon Seekers ongoing
and then once I'm the plan is to get those done kind of quickly and you know like one
a week at least or maybe two week to catch up to where we are or two I need to catch
up to where what I'm saying is I'm gonna keep updating it as I can and then hopefully I'll
have it all assembled that by the time that K-Kun is done and has the translation 100%
complete that I'll be able to just have the file there and I can rename it to instead
of Digimon Seekers ongoing I can have it be Digimon Seekers complete or finished or whatever.
Anyway so in addition to the Digimon Seekers podcast I have other podcasts that are active
with this you know full legit you know hosted podcast thing that I have going and you can
find the links for all of that at MJMinus.com yeah you can find it all there and check out
the other stuff I do and subscribe to it and enjoy.
Yeah that's about it.
By the way so far the execution of this Digimon Seekers web novel is making me think I definitely
want to write something in the vein of Digimon in my superhero world that I'm creating I
already have an idea for doing something like this and I actually have a kids story that
bunch of stuff that's inspired by Godzilla and Kamen Rider and Super Sentai and Ultraman
and one of I have a fifth story that's inspired by Digimon that I have worked on as well and
I built as I was writing that all these ideas for this world came into my mind and I was
thinking oh I could spin this off into its own little Digimon story thing Digimon inspired
story so I don't know I might work on that but I've got to finish the children's picture
book and all the Toku inspired kids stuff first before I jump into another project as
far as writing is concerned.
So anyway that's it like I said go ahead and check out all my stuff and you know find the
links and subscribe and do all that good stuff if you want to keep up with this and if you
want to keep up with the better drafts or the better audio versions I'm going to do
with the more clear text that's easier to read because it's been more properly translated.
Anyway until next time folks this is MJ signing off.