Half-Masked

This is a follow-up to my previous post on the subject.

Eventually a 2nd season was commissioned, and to my amazement it had a brand new cast of characters in the same world and continuity. The original cast was still around, but they’d (gasp!) grown up! Well, a little bit at least. They were wiser, more mature, but not adults just yet. They were allowed to age, and see that things didn’t turn out quite the way they thought they would when they were younger and battling giant beetles. When was the last time that happened? “How many years has Bart Simpson been 10?” Rugrats attempted that years later and it bankrupted Klasky Csupo… Or was it Clasky Ksupo?

The 2nd season made some interesting contributions. The first season had 16 good guys to root for. This was reduced to 10, which meant they had to be extra careful. Fewer allies to come and pull their chestnuts out of the fire. And this time, they faced a lead villain who was also a human teenager like themselves. His devious plans involve making it impossible for the Digimon to assume their more powerful forms. He is a genuine prick for the first half, but it becomes apparent that he was a gifted young man unable to cope with teenage life, cracking under the pressure to succeed. All around him are gawkers obsessively boosting his ego until it reaches dictatorial heights. He decides, wrongly, to take out his frustrations on the inhabitants of the digital plane. If worse came to worse, the digidestined would have to kill the bad guy in the last season. But now they’re faced with a human being, and worse, someone they know is not merely a “villain”. It’s much more of a grey issue here. That’s what I call raising the stakes.

It also introduced two of my all-time favourite cartoon characters: “Yolei” and “Hawkmon”.

Before these two, the characters and digimon were paired by gender. This was the first girl-boy team. I don’t think I’ve seen a pair of characters like these two in anime since. At first glance, you’d expect the tall girl with glasses to be simply “The Nerd”, gadget-girl type of character. She even bears more than a passing resemblance to Lucca from Chrono Trigger, the poster-girl for gadget-obsessed characters. That’s the category typical animation would shoehorn her into. In the early episodes, this seems to be the way to get people initiated with the character. But instead of parading that out to be her defining(read: only) trait, the show makes it out to be but one aspect of this person as a whole. An unusual sight in a cartoon character. Beyond that, I’m not sure what archetype she fits.

She reminds me of a lot of the general aspects of the women I’ve met and seen, instead of fulfilling one niche subset of her gender. She’s certainly intelligent, but is in no way the brain of the group. Her solutions resemble common sense and wishful thinking. She isn’t uptight or elegant, nor what you would call a tomboy. She’s tall for her age and fiercely determined, but not threatening. She is concerned about her looks, even though she is pretty easy on the eyes. She’s hard on herself sometimes, but not all of the time. She’s not a perpetually happy-go-lucky or sugary character. She’s understated, but sometimes she is clever. Sometimes she overreacts or speaks when it’s best to say nothing, but she is not a blabbermouth. The closest she has to family baggage is existing in a cramped family.

Like any character in this series, she harbours real human weakness. She is brash, and first impressions are tricky for her. Her trust is the hardest to gain of the new team, but once obtained is impossible to lose. She is known to jump to conclusions. She is quick to crush on the boys, and despite her sarcasm is not above being a huge dork when appropriate. Smack dab between aloof and outgoing, she has genuine flaws that, in a strange way, embolden her.

Much of this came across for me through Tifanie Christun’s english portrayal of her. According to Wikipedia, she was in her 40’s when she played the role. That kind of thing impresses me(although not as much as knowing Chiyo-chan’s voice actress is about the same age). Never once does she veer the character into familiar territory. The wrong person for the job might have made her into something less, but which we know already. Yomi’s english representative in Azumanga Daioh was so clueless, she tried to make the mature and level-headed gal into a valley girl. I don’t recall this character ever being annoying, even when by all rights she should have been(there are moments where she whines and complains, but her voice and animation prevent it from hurting this character’s appeal. I’ll bet the staff at Toei had a lot of fun animating her and her puffy pants). Christun gave Yolei a sense of balance, a humility not often encountered in female characters.

Hawkmon I like for his striking design, his colours, and his responsible demeanor. And I could listen to his perfect, “thesbian birdy” voice forever. I’d nearly forgotten it. I had to stop and listen to it again and again when I re-introduced myself to this series a few days ago. His is a welcome presence. His patient tutelage and nurturing acts in accordance with Yolei’s headstrong nature. He instructs and encourages Yolei to better herself, but does not -impose- his advice. He wouldn’t offer it if there weren’t some unspoken desire for improvement from his partner. He does not come off as pompous or overly sophisticated. He has an air of britishness to him, but I don’t recall him ever being too… butlery. He is certain, not arrogant. He even feels a little older than the other Digimon of his rank. And even then, I don’t think he ever had all of the answers either. An odd pairing, but it is made quickly apparent that no two characters in this show are more right for each other.

A damn fine team.

I am going to disclose something about myself that I have told only a handful of souls before. It is a subject of no small embarrassment that Yolei, that celluloid creation from a far-off land was the target of my first-ever crush. I know how silly this sounds. My little heart was ravaged by the shocker in the season finale that she grew up to marry Ken, the reformed Digimon Emperor. Devastating. I was melancholy before that, but that was the closest I’d ever been (and will most likely ever be) to a dreaded First Breakup. That damaged my outlook and attitude more than anything else I’ve endured. It is what made me the cynical bastard before you. That was the catalyst. Now you know.

You don’t have to tell me there was no hope for a meaningful relationship there. Can you imagine the complications that would arise in the bedroom? Have you ever tried to fuck a television? But logic be damned, it took me years to get over it. In the most unfortunate and disgraceful scene of my life, I was still recovering from this blow when I had encountered a wonderful gal in real life. Let me tell you, she blew Yolei out of the water. We met in high school, and she quickly became the first vagina-carrier I would call an acquaintance. I don’t know if she was interested in me, but whether or not she was sending me those signals, I certainly sent mine. It was not a pleasant transmission, but I was once-bitten, so…

Actually, I wasn’t bitten. But it sure felt like there were tooth marks. I don’t think there was ever a chance for something more, for me and my friend to become something closer to “us”. But I can’t help but wonder. If I weren’t such a depressed douche at the time, maybe…

Well, you get the gist. I moved on from Ms. Inoue(later Mrs. Ichijoji), and I discovered too late that I much prefer a lady who can actually respond to me. Or, you know, who actually exists.

Although I was surprised that she picked Ken, of all of the cast. Didn’t see that one coming. Seemed like it was chosen just for the purposes of shock value(I’ve heard similar befuddlement over the Matt/Sora pairing from the first season). Especially since I don’t remember them interacting with each other very much, and I could have sworn the show was nodding her in the direction of other characters. She did have a crush on him early on, but then, she is swiftly smitten. Rare is the episode where she is not pining for some new teenage heart-throb Digidestined. Not to mention Ken’s stint as the Digimon Emperor does not look easily forgivable. And if fmylife.com is any indicator, anyone who has a crush on anyone else NEVER ENDS UP WITH THAT PERSON. Ours is a sad, sad world, so I can’t blame ‘em for not making their kids’ show completely realistic like that…

[Not that I'm the first to suggest the writers made up that show as it went along. There was an entire episode where Kari escapes from a strange, Lovecraftian, shadow-world cult who swears revenge against her. It seemed pretty important. This is never, ever brought up again in the show's run. I guess Elder Ones are all talk.]

The thing about me is I am starved for new sights and experiences, for art and entertainment I have never seen before. I had never before heard of anyone or anything like Yolei in my youth. I’d never seen a character like that in any other cartoon, movie, or video game. She was unlike anything I could imagine at the time, and she’s still a rare sight today. I treasure the characters like that, those wholly original or underutilized character designs. I could not believe that Yoleis weren’t more common in cartoons. I don’t think there’s a single cliche involved with her or her avian companion. They represent the very best visual designs in the show’s run, and my favourite members of the cast.

I don’t reserve those heavier feelings for works of fiction anymore, but on a different level I greatly admire and respect what these characters are about. It’s so easy to stick to the road oft travelled than to branch out. Many character designs do not take risks and are a display of desperate ignorance on the part of their designers. Not here. Toei and Saban/Bandai knew exactly what they were going for. Hawkmon is delightfully instructive without overstepping his bounds, and brimming with respect. Yolei is a breath of fresh air from what we’ve come to expect from females in children’s shows. Together, they’re an invaluable force in the show. Sometimes a character works for all of the things they don’t do, or what they do instead.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 11:20 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.