This is MJ. I'm an author. I'm an artist. I'm an analyzer find all my work at mg MJMunoz.com
Welcome to Digimon seekers. I'm continuing to make record build read the audiobook version of
Digimon seekers the web novel
Continuing with a G wolf of the 9th Avenue, which is chapter 1. This is part 14 of chapter 1
I will be reading the translation by K Kuhn and
I have links for it in the show notes so you can find the text yourself and read it for yourself
Here you're gonna have me reading it and then having some thoughts and reactions
To what I have read so here I go
Walsum, Santa, Avanilla
When AG went up the stairs out of the subway exit and stood agape at his surroundings
He wanted to turn right back around
What is this another country a real slum? He asked this is crazy. I'll lose my life here
The air was dank with soot
The abandoned building that he'd seen earlier was one thing but this place it was something else
If this place was listed in a tourist book AG was sure that it would say things like has the highest crime rate on the
Planet or don't go anywhere near here
What do you call this sort of place cool on city AG asked kabukicho in the Shoah era
He looked up the city block from below the densely packed buildings built on illegal construction a
Place that was like cool on city a slum that had once existed in Hong Kong
Before the reversion to China built by illegal immigrants on land that had been ungoverned by the government or
Like the Kabukicho district of Shinjuku in the Shoah era a city that never slept and was a light with neon signs for restaurants
brothels hotels and other establishments a
red light district
While slum is the boundary between the real world and the digital world Luguan explained real information is always flowing in through the network
So it's constantly changing because of that everything here changes from one day to the next
Luguan what?
Would you happen to be really intelligent AG said his eyes shining did you want our intelligent?
Maybe I'll have you help me with the hard stuff from now on AG said can I call you senpai quit it?
But I love you Luguan. You're so reliable
If AG had a tail he'd be wagging it right now. This is exactly why your dog looked down on you
Let's hurry up and get to work
With Luguan verbally whipping him back into gear AG launched the tool on his virtual monitor
He initiated the mapping now all they had to do was fill in the map by walking around
Mapping this red light district, huh?
AG was so overwhelmed by the visual absurdity of 9th Avenue that if he tried to describe it in words
He would lose his mind. There were no straight streets
Alleyways were nothing more than gaps between buildings
The width and direction of the streets were a mess and there was clearly no urban planning
There were no restrictions on the building coverage ratio
oblique restrictions earthquake resistance
Standards or any other legal regulations based on the building standards act
To add insult to injury not even architectural mechanics seemed to exist here
If one were to bring in realistic human sensibilities to the city that ignored all safety and construction standards
They would feel uneasy just being here and would forever walk around thinking of the inevitable collapse
That was sure to happen two seconds later
Like for instance if a sign hanging from a single screw fell the steel frame over there
Would snap and all the buildings around it would collapse like dominoes
AG checked on the map as he walked around
Looks like there did you want around here hiding though?
He could feel eyes watching him all over from the alley
9th Avenue is the worst neighborhood in wall slum. Lugamon said if outsiders
Walked through it. They'd be stripped of their clothes within 50 meters
And left for dead within 100 meters
scary
Our destination is the heart of 9th Avenue the castle of nine wolves
AG and Lugamon continued their work. It was a bit of a letdown in the end
But they were able to proceed with mapping without hassle
There was no Digimon to be seen anywhere. It was as if they were in the middle of nowhere
Although Lugamon insisted that he could sense them close by
A dead-end street
There was a tiled roof building
Including a small plaza surrounded by overhanging ramshackle buildings
It looked more like an imperial house in Chinatown than a castle
Is this the castle of nine wolves we need to map that and what's ahead of it
AG walked up to the imperial house
Lugamon stopped
What's wrong Lugamon? AG had gone ahead of him, but he couldn't go too far as he was hollowized
This is my home or it was
Did you remember something it has a faint smell
Markings that i'd left behind
But it's me and not me. It's much much stronger
Maybe it could be AG had an idea the Evolver's
Something's coming Lugamon turned his nose to the narrow strip of sky between the buildings
Wrap wrap wrap wrap wrap wrap wrap
It was a thunderous roar
Winds picked up the sound seemed to hit the ground and blew away the surrounding garbage data
AG was forced to his knees Lugamon dug in his claws
What is it AG cried? What is it?
AG was forced to his knees Lugamon dug in his claws. What is it AG cried? What's coming?
A winged monstrosity cast a shadow over the castle of nine wolves
AG had shut his eyes to protect them from the billowy dust
But now he held up a hand over his eyes and squinted up at the sky
Is that a bird a dragon?
No, neither
That's the thing had engines on both wings
It was a machine-type Digimon based on a tilt rotor aircraft that was capable of vertical takeoff and landing
Cargo Dramon perfect level machine type virus species
On its fuselage was the word police in intimidating letters
It's the Digi-Police AG shouted the police. What are they doing in wall slum?
Digimon affiliated with the Digi-Police descended off the hovering Cargo Dramon from a rope
They were Commandramon
The Helleborn squad spread out quickly securing the base
An alert rang
At the sound AG looked at his map on the virtual monitor
Markers indicating Commandramon appeared in the vicinity of the castle of nine wolves
The castle was being surrounded
They're demanding that we open up voice chat on the Grimm channel
AG cried out he had received a warning notification from the police in the operation channel
Grimm was not a service that belonged to any particular company
So if you didn't comply with police demands that wouldn't be an immediate criminal act by itself
However, it would mean that you have taken a defiant attitude towards the state power
What did we do? Lugamon asked
It doesn't matter one way or the other that interview was the only one with administrative power over this operation channel
AG didn't have the authority to open it
The hell don't ignore me you shitty codecracker
boom
A shrill voice came from the Cargo Dramon above
The voice was loud and shrieked like a cartoon character. It rang directly through AG's mind-linked
sense of hearing
And that is the end
so
Huh, i'm not exactly sure how to feel about this I uh, i'm gonna do a quick live check to see
If Keikun embellished by throwing the uh, the s word in there
um
And why uh, you know, i've been around different fandoms for a while
i'm into tokusatsu and
that is uh,
You know, it's no secret that there are different groups who provide subtitles for tokusatsu stuff and
You know while toei and other companies don't like that it is a fact it's a fact that they know about it's a fact that they try
to hide
and um, it's something that they don't want uh,
uh to be admitted i'm sure but it's the truth and you know, you cannot
Plug your ears and shut your eyes and hide from the truth
and
oh
Some subtitle groups will put uh, you know kisama
I will translate things in a more adult tone. They will put cuss words into them and
they
Some kind of do it willy-nilly and some do it where it feels appropriate and sometimes uh
Uh, actual english language curse words do appear in the original japanese. Uh, I think in revise they did that and
um, i'm pretty sure in common rate or kiva one of the shirts that um
Oh, man, I love this guy, but I can't remember his name at the moment uh war
had some sort of curse words on it and
Anyway
I'm an adult. I can handle it. I've said these words before I don't wish to say them as much as I do
I well I say them more than i'd like to uh, but it looks like keikun took a little bit of liberty here and
Decided to throw the s word in here because the line from digimon web
The translation I have there says come on. Don't play dumb with me codecracker
But then it continues boom shrill voice, but then it says it's a suffocating voice
Um, and then it calls it cartoony, which is why would it be suffocating and cartoony? That's a little bit weird
I guess the feeling of it is
Suffocating because it's right in his ear through his mind link. I don't know. That's kind of weird. But anyway
Uh, so i'm not mad. I'm not gonna try to cancel keikun
I'm not gonna say that you know, he shouldn't do that or whatever. It's up to him. I read it
I saw it was there and I read it and that's fine with me. Um
And uh, yeah, i'm just gonna roll with it. It's not that big of a deal to me. Um
But maybe that says more about me than I would like it to anyway, uh, so
So
What did I think about this episode? What did I think about this chapter?
Uh, I liked it a lot more. Uh, I liked that it was so much more clear. I think
I'm not sure if the dialogue tags were actually done better
uh, I don't know if you noticed but I deliberately read it slowly and there were a few places where I fumbled but
For the most part. I think I did a pretty good job with the reading
And not that it's super difficult, but i'm just saying you know in the context, I think I did fine and
I deliberately took the approach before I started reading it that I was going to slow down because I had so many mistakes last time
and I was just going to
Let myself read and
And not rush through it so that I could see the words absorb the words process the words before saying the words and
I'm gonna say that definitely helped my performance my reading the understandability of what was being said there, which is good
um, but I also think that it had a
I also think what that has a positive effect on the reading. Oh, it may have had a secondary effect of helping me to
better understand what I was actually reading as I was reading it because
I did scan up ahead a few times to look down and see if it was lugamon or ag because I am trying to affect voice for them
but also
Just in regular reading
It's frustrating when you think that you're
I mean if I'm reading quietly
I think oh, this is uh thron. Oh, no, it turns out it's Pelleon. Oh, I thought this was uh Mara. No, it's actually Luke
That stinks that doesn't make sense that you would leave it up to interpretation for the reader to to mess it up
I know it's not a screenplay
Or like a you know, Shakespeare play where it breaks down and says each character's name and then you know colon
And then it gives their line, but I don't know in some ways. Isn't that kind of better?
Even as it from a reading experience. Don't you want to know who it is?
if it's a very personal like depending on the
the format or or the
I guess part of the plot the presentation of it being first person or whatever it changes things up
And it makes it more or less easy to understand but I know you want it readily understandable
So I thought this was a lot more understandable
I thought it was weird that there were no other digimon encountering them
And I wonder if that I like I wonder what that's about. Maybe they had a sense that the cops were coming
So the digi police, uh that they were on their way so they knew to stay away
I mean that could be the case that would be kind of interesting if that was what happened
and I like this whole thing with the cops coming in and messing things up and
Well, I just like I said, I think that's interesting and
I'm not mad at the
I'm not mad at it for portraying like this
How do you say?
I'm not mad at them for portraying it
I'm not mad at them for portraying a less than rosy estimation of the cops because
Uh, I don't know. It's kind of weird the way they're framing the police here. Um, I don't know
that I think it doesn't feel like the cops are super noble just yet and
I don't know. I find that kind of curious. I wonder
What is going on? We've got a group called the sons of chaos
and you know chaos is associated with lawlessness and and bad things and
uh, you know
I'm not denying that, you know, I'm not saying I want a chaotic life because chaos is wonderful
but I am saying that depending on how you define things
Chaos can be exciting
and you know free
and
You know not oppressive or it can be this awful terrible thing that people endure. So
Like I said, it depends on how you
Uh on how you interpret it and it definitely seems like we're not getting the rosiest interpretation of
Of chaos to some extent, but then again, you know aji's comment about how he
has to be
Careful like it almost talked it almost seemed like it was talking to me about like a social credit score thing
Like grim doesn't belong to any one group, but he'll be seen of you know his refusal to
respond or to reply or to
Work with them or his refusal to respond on the grim channel
Will lead to
Problem for him basically, but it's not an outright illegal act. It'll just be defiance against an authority or a state which
made me a little uncomfortable because
Sometimes you want to avoid
Sometimes you want to defy an authority or a state because they're not always
uh doing what's right or they're not always doing what's in the best interest of people and
Uh, you know, I like the idea of people being free to to choose
but this actually does
kind of
lead to focus on
something interesting which is the fact that or the idea of
This uncensorable technology and different ways that theater networks and I would say that
It looks like grim is working on some sort of protocol where it's actually
uh like a
It's an open system
And it's not really tied to any one platform and that's kind of an interesting idea
There's this protocol called no stir, which I've been meaning to get into I've heard about it for a little while and like I said
I want to get into it, but I just haven't done it. I haven't done it yet and
It seems really interesting because basically it's like an uncensorable
uncensorable
protocol so
You could
uh
Well, and two it'll it'll like distribute to multiple
Channels, let's say so let's say you're not satisfied with uh,
Eon musk on twitter, right? You're upset with him. You can with this
You can with no stir you can
Basically make it so that you're not tweeting anymore
You're making these no stir notes or whatever and then you're sharing them to multiple places
Because it's open like that
That's pretty cool. And that means that you don't have to be forced to be in a place that you don't like
Uh just to communicate with people and you can even be off of that and still
Communicating or talking to people who you are interested in talking to or following
And seeing their stuff and sharing it with them and it's like a cross platform
Um, it's a cross platform protocol that makes it so that you can use
Social media in a way that's tailored to you and not dependent upon these big tech companies
Allowing you to do things a certain way. So
That's pretty cool. That's what it seems like grim might actually be like which is pretty interesting
But i'm getting distracted talking about the technology instead of the story, which I do mean to talk about the story. So
I think that
I like what's going on here. I like this idea that
They are going to a place that lukemon knows it was his home that he's sensing that that's I think that's pretty cool
um, i'm, you know curious to see where they go with that because uh, I don't know they're just uh,
I I did not expect this to turn into like a you know, video game character has amnesia
We have to find out you know who he is and where he's going and whatever
I and I especially did not expect that with the digimon. Although
Uh, yeah, I did not expect that with the digimon, but
I'm not mad at it. It's just it's kind of interesting
um, so i'm
I don't know
I like it overall. I like the description description of ninth avenue
It's like the school on city, which I don't know anything about but apparently it's something from hong kong, which is pretty interesting
and uh, I did think the atmosphere
Of it was good. The descriptions were good and you know, i'm engaged in this this world
It's just uh, I think we could have edited out a lot of the beginning stuff
You know, we didn't maybe didn't need 14 chapter parts chapter. We maybe didn't need 14 chapter one section so far
maybe we need like, you know seven of them and
Like leave the stuff with leave the stuff with leon out leave the stuff with the cops out
And just get more directly into this because I think this is a little cooler and more exciting and you can almost have like a debrief
uh going back with ag like reviewing things after he gets into some trouble or I don't know something like that, but
You know overall this isn't the way I would tell this story
but i'm still interested and engaged and i'm gonna keep going because
I don't know. I like it. I like how lugamont keeps dogging on ag and uh,
He wanted to call him senpai and stuff. That's all so weird. So funny. Um
I mean he's I hear he's supposed to be this loser and you know
Sometimes he feels like a loser and sometimes he doesn't this uh chapter section. He definitely felt a little bit more like a loser
So that was uh, I don't know kind of interesting kind of fun
but uh
That's all I have to say for now. I am going to come back with uh this
Next week and uh, you can you can expect for me to continue with this and after seekers is over
Who knows what i'll do in the world did you want maybe nothing maybe something maybe it'll be wonderful
Who knows but you have to stick around and find out anyway go to the show notes if you want to
Find out more information like the word count and how about how long it took for me to to read it
And things like that and find the links to keikun's uh releases as well as like the japanese video version
of this if you want to
and uh all that sort of stuff anyway, check out the show notes at mjwindows.com and uh look for
my
Well, actually you might I was gonna say you might want to check out my ultraman inspired children's uh picture book story idea
That I have there on the website
Because it's related but but because it's related ultraman. I thought well, maybe it's not pertinent to mention right now. However
If you've seen the original ultraman if you've seen the original did you want to adventure the japanese version of it?
the style of like the
Credits or like the intro for the episode the little splash screen or whatever very similar very reminiscent
I consider did you want to be a weird?
Descendant of ultraman and godzilla and other stuff in the tokusatsu world
So it feels very appropriate to me
And I think you might like that story if you're enjoying or if you're a fan of did you want because I kind of
Made it to be like digimon as well as ultraman and other tokusatsu stuff that I enjoy so much
Anyway, uh go ahead and check that out over at the website. There will be links everywhere. You can look for
Uh, there's an author. Well, anyway, you look around and find it and maybe i'll even include it in the show notes themselves for
This episode of seekers. Anyway, until next time folks. Take care. This is mj signing out
I hope you enjoyed that go to mjmunoz.com to leave any questions comments or other feedback you might have
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