Talking about kenyako headcanons... How do you think Ken and Miyako would be as parents? How do you think their dynamics with their family (Ichijouji and Inoue familys) would reflect on their relationship with their children and with eachother as a married couple? Also, do you have some headcanons about their children? (we have little to none information about the actual character of their kids, but i agree with you that this leave us with the challenge to figure out!).

I've said (both jokingly and non-jokingly) that the family had the average number of kids between the Ichijouji and Inoue families, so as much as people tend to be a bit startled at the choice of having three kids, I think having a big family was always on the table from day one (and I think the age gaps imply some degree of family planning). Of course, both of them came from super-affectionate families, so that's probably going to get passed onto their own family!

Actually, we get a few little hints from the very little amount of information the epilogue gives us:

Their son calls Miyako "Mama", which seems to be taken directly from the Ichijouji side (Ken was the one who used the "Mama" and "Papa" naming), and I don't know if Miyako would necessarily use the -chan from Ken's mother, but hey, maybe Ken would...

Said son also calls out Miyako for "panicking" all the time, so that hasn't stopped (it just seems that her family loves her all the same anyway).

Ken and Miyako still have a bit of PDA going on in that epilogue, so, yeah...affectionate.

We see their daughter a little grossed out by the diaper changing while their son is rather amused, so there's a bit of hint at their personalities.

As for headcanons, noting that Miyako's never actually said to be a full-time housewife, I do think raising the kids is going to need a bit more income than Ken can raise alone, but I also imagine she's probably the kind of freelancer who just takes up whatever she's available to do when she's able, because her commitment is more to her family than anything else, and since Miyako has so many siblings I imagine they visit a lot. Ken unfortunately is in a line of work that's really going to keep him busy, but the couple went into this knowing it was going to happen and make the most of all the family time they can.

I also think both parents really wanted to make sure the siblings got along. Personally I find them having differing levels of mom's emotional high-strungness and dad's insight, just from having those kinds of temperaments raising them. I also am not a huge fan of naming one of the kids after Osamu directly (it just feels too much like stripping them of their right to have a personal identity), but I'm not too against giving one of them the 治 kanji (usually "ji" or "chi") as a component.

I've read, somewhere in tumblr some years ago, about a rumor that the seiyuus that play Miyako and Ken (in the 02 anime cast) were close friends and that was the main reason why their characters ended up together. It was a post that was also saying that Sora and Yamato pairing development were been planned since Adventure. Do you know if this information is true? (probably not but i was curious anyway)

Believe it or not, it's actually true!

The part about Ken and Miyako's voice actors was revealed in the 02 DVD booklet, specifically in the footnotes (not even out of anyone's mouth directly!). It's a pretty fascinating, elusive fact that we've heard virtually nothing else about, and we also have no details on when exactly it was planned (because there are a lot of things regarding the two of them in 02 itself that would be some pretty bizarre writing choices if they weren't actively thinking of this at the time). The only other thing we know of that might have to do with this is from Park Romi and Takahashi Naozumi ad-libbing a little skit on the We Love DiGiMONMUSIC CD, where...well, you can read it for yourself (in any case, it seems like Park ships it...?).

The part about Yamato and Sora is known because Kakudou was liveblogging a livestream of Adventure in 2013, and said that he intended Sora changing her honorific basis of Yamato to be foreshadowing of their future relationship. He remarked this during the screening of episode 2, so it certainly implies that this had been on the brain since around that early (especially since said remark states that there were other plans or intended details that got lost in there).

Do you know the mbti from each member of the 02 team?

As much as I do find the idea of talking about whether the kids are more rational or emotional types appealing in general, the MBTI was made by someone who was really into eugenics and was using it specifically to influence the labor workforce under the idea that personality is genetic, and since then has been cheerfully used by so many employers to remove people from consideration based on the creator's racist, eugenicist beliefs, so...unfortunately my associations with it are just so uncomfortable that I really don't want to deal with anything to do with it. I'm sorry!

Also, another question (if you dont mind...): do you think there will be also a 02 reboot? Would it be a good ideia or is better to just let it the way it is right now?

I personally don’t want it, especially not if it uses the style of writing the current reboot has right now, in which its priority is far more about plot advancement than it is about characters. Mainly, for a lot of reasons:

I stress a lot that 02 wasn’t a great time for its characters themselves, and that a lot of what everyone striving for was to be happy after said events. Even if it only ends up being a mild rehash, I don’t want to see things like Ken suffering as the Kaiser again (not even in a different universe), because it was so important that everyone find a way to move on. In the case of Adventure, it’s much easier to make a reboot that’s only similar in surface details but is mostly something new because Adventure’s plot was relatively linear, and it’s possible to have the kind of relationship with the original series the current reboot has, but 02 has that kind of hardship as so intrinsically related to it that I’m not sure what you could do with it by taking its surface glosses.

I’ve been pretty blunt about the fact that most of us weren’t really watching 02 for the plot, and the reason the series has so much appeal is because of its character relationships and high thematic value. The bias towards that aspect is way more severe than it was in Adventure (where, again, the plot was mostly kind of linear and there was more emphasis on the “wonder of the Digital World” rather than so much human drama). I don’t want to see these specific characters recasted in a different context, and I also don’t think the series would have any appeal left if you did something completely different with a different style the way it’s being done with Adventure’s reboot.

This is a very personal thing, but one thing I noticed (and one reason I started writing very regularly for this blog) is that, when the reboot started airing, a lot of people would make comparisons with the older characters, but it turned out that people very often misremembered what actually went down in Adventure (ranging from minor misreadings to genuine factual errors). It’s something I don’t necessarily begrudge them for; Adventure is the kind of frustratingly subtle series that you forget a lot of if you haven’t seen it recently, and even more of that was lost in the American English dub, but it nevertheless led to a very frustrating experience where sometimes you’d see people take those reboot characteristics and talk about the original series characters like they’d always been like this or that, when in fact the original characters weren’t like that at all. This problem is bound to be multiple times worse with 02, where the characters are so often accused of being flat and lacking in development (they’re not!!), and 02 also had an even worse subtlety problem and an even more liberty-taking dub, and even the Japanese side of the franchise hasn’t exactly been delicate about handling their characters, and I am terrified that this kind of problem where people think of them inaccurately or badly might potentially get worse, because of a potential reboot take on them that would accidentally validate all of those misconceptions. You have no idea how relieved I was that Kizuna shows the 02 quartet at their best and in a way true to the spirit of the original, because I was really worried about how people would retroactively see them based on their portrayal there. (Also, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who pathologically hate 02 on principle, and even if a potential 02 reboot were the worst anime in the world, those kinds of people would be all too happy to yell “still better than the original!” regardless of anything, and I don’t think I’d have the patience to endure that...)

I honestly would just rather have new material than a reboot of anything. I’m not averse to the concept of a reboot per se, mainly in the sense that I do appreciate the fact that the current reboot isn’t just doing a “worse rehash of Adventure” and is clearly doing its own thing beyond the surface details, but I obviously would have vastly preferred doing something genuinely new. If they want to make a sequel anime to this reboot, why not make up some new characters exclusive to this universe? I think that’d be fun. I know a lot of 02 fans would see this as a dodge or spurn, but this is just my personal, very strong feeling as a 02 fan who thinks that the best thing that can happen with the characters I love so much would conversely be to let them move on. (I was already kind of amused at the fact they already made a few 02 references in the existing series, like Yamato’s bass guitar or Pegasmon.)

I know some people have suggested a reboot to “fix” 02′s plot writing issues, but I love it a lot as it is -- a lot of the things that were “problems” were conversely able to give it a certain flavor you’d never be able to get in a more conventionally written series -- and I think it’s indeed a very flawed series in the sense that there’s no such thing as a perfect Digimon series, nor a perfect piece of media at all, and even if you “fix” one flaw you’re inevitably going to get another. It’s been 20 years and I’ve come to terms with all of the things I didn’t care for as much, so I don’t think it’s all that productive to dwell or fixate on “we should redo this again” instead of appreciating what it did give us 20 years ago and producing newer content instead. I mean, if I want to watch 02 again, I can just rewatch it, and if there’s something I want to explore that canon didn’t give me, I’m happy being a fanfic writer, and this experience of writing this blog has made me realize that it’s incredible how much you can still extract out of this series even 20 years later. I think it’s much more productive to try and cover new territory with things rather than constantly trying to redo the same thing over and over again. I suppose I took the theme of the series a bit too seriously?...

Whether they will actually do a 02 reboot or not, I have no idea. I think they’ve certainly learned their lesson that 02 has a diehard fanbase that hates to see it treated badly (after, ah, recent events), but it just doesn’t carry the same notability and branding that the original series does, and its critically controversial status means that their names and faces don’t do nearly as much by itself. (Reboot merch can sell because people will project the original characters on them, but Miyako and Iori merch especially tends to sell abysmally poorly even now.) I feel like the actual Digimon from 02 sell better than the human characters, to be honest. And it’s a new universe; 02 fans get upset when the juniors aren’t involved in the lives of their seniors when those relationships were a big deal (series about relationships, et cetera), but if those specific relationships don’t exist in the first place, I don’t think most of us really care as much to the point of getting upset because of the omission.

You mentioned X-Evolution movie on my last question and i would like to say that it is probably my favorite digimon movie so far! Have you ever thought of doing a analysis/meta on it?

It's a fun movie, isn't it? Glad to see more fans of it! That poll apparently got a lot of people surprised that it ranked so high, but while I was initially also a little surprised, it wasn't that surprising when I thought about it; the "modern phase" of the franchise takes a lot of cues from it, like the prevalence of the Royal Knights, Yggdrasil, and Alphamon, and there's at least one Japanese wiki that refers to it as a "well-praised work” (it being directed by Kakudou himself probably helped a lot of people be more amenable to it). Among the fanbase that's stuck with the franchise for so long, I imagine it really had a huge impact on many of us.

I...will take the idea of doing a meta on it into account due to your request, but I unfortunately can't make any guarantees ^^ It's a short movie that doesn't have a lot to work with, especially since my personal specialty is in human drama and behavior, which unfortunately is not a huge topic in there (it's more of a war narrative in a Digital World setting). I think it's a fabulous movie, but because of that, I'm afraid that something I could do probably wouldn't do it justice!

Favorite 02 episode?

Depends on what day of the week it is!

Hi! First of all, zero two is my favorite season, so i would like to thank you for all the attention you're giving to these series with your posts! And, second, i don't know if you already did a post about it, but what are your thoughts/analysis about the Inoue familly, their realtionship with Miyako and if this says something about her character?

Thank you! I love 02 and I love hearing that others love it too!

I have not done a post about it yet! I do happen to be cooking up a comprehensive Miyako meta in the same vein as the other ones I’ve done for the other eleven Tokyo Chosen Children; if you look closely, you’ll notice she’s the only one I haven’t finished yet. I saved her for last because there’s a certain high level of complexity with her that I want to make sure I get right, but rest assured it is on the way and I do plan to cover this topic in detail once that one’s done.

That said, I think it’ll be quite a while before I finish it due to the above reason, so I’ll kind of give a short version here: we don’t know too much about the Inoue family as individuals, but we do know that it’s big (four siblings!) and that Miyako’s the youngest, which puts her in a similar situation to Jou in terms of being “the baby of the family” who’s recast in the role of the oldest within their own group. If we’re to believe the official 02 website, she actually has a bit of a similar profile to Mimi -- she’s a bit spoiled by her family due to having been a bit pampered (presumably due to being said “baby of the family”). So in other words, she’s grown up constantly surrounded by loving affection in a similar way to Mimi (she’s clearly comfortable enough with her siblings to consult them about her troubles in 02 episode 25), and it’s why she’s able to be so all-loving and fond of everyone and everything, but it also means that she’s not used to having tons of responsibility on her, which is why she ends up so easily cracking under pressure after being exposed to the stress of fighting.

Not a meta or analysis question, just curiosity! How many times have you watched Adv 02 entirely? Again, love your posts!

Thank you so much! ^^

I have no idea, to be honest. I started off watching the American English dub like many Americans did, and then when the Japanese version started getting translated from various sources I got into that. (I also own the Japanese Blu-ray box now, because I'm that much of a sucker for it.) I'm also pretty sure I've seen individual episodes for both this blog and fanfic writing so many times that they ended up constituting a full rewatch on their own combined. My most recent one was last year as part of a pandemic-related group watch (which I heard there was a lot of going on that year, due to a combination of that and Kizuna/reboot hype). So the answer is probably just "too many"...

Will you also do a timeline of Ken getting back to his real self after the Kaiser's fall? Also, i don't want to rush you, so... Take your time and rest well, please!

Thank you so much! I probably am going to be winding down (I keep saying this, but am I really?) just because I’ve run through so many topics in Adventure and 02 that I’m honestly kind of running out of material I trust myself to be able to speak eloquently about, so I hope people do forgive me as I take a bit of a break...

To be honest, there’s not that much to unpack from the 02 timeline in terms of real-world stuff because up until Christmas, the events depicted in the series roughly match up with the approximate real-life month the corresponding episode aired, and then episodes 38-50 spanned the period between Christmas and December 31. I say “approximately” because said episodes obviously took place on weekdays (when they were airing on Sundays) or spanned multiple days, and in the case of 17 we had a very concrete August 1-3 range, but following this rule is how I've generally been able to extrapolate what events in 02 took place at what time.

Episodes 18-21 get a bit weird because the Kaiser’s base stakeout definitely didn’t span a whole month, but I think you can safely say that it happened in August 2002. This means that Ken started getting back into action (in response to Archnemon) in around September 2002, bonded with the kids between September and Christmas, and the rest is history.