iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I still want to make the second post, but I'll only do it after finishing my next video. Before that, I also want to publish a subtitled video from an Ultraman Tiga interview to better explain my objective, hoping people won't think I'm looking for a lore fix when I'm actually discussing the themes.

But that is already an exaggerated position with an interpretation of mine. It goes together with one of the reasons why I didn't like Time Stranger, so you could say that Volvemon was mostly igniting the flame of what I didn't like in Time Stranger as well.

Personally, I think that if Volvemon's profile didn't call the pre-evolution programs "living things," I could have accepted it more openly, but by calling them living organisms, they are defining a living thing that doesn't change, which to me is impossible under Digimon's themes.

And of course, from outside the toys as well, which is why I mentioned things like Adventure and Tamers, that although they have some drastic differences, they still kept the same understanding of evolution being a natural consequence of being alive, so you can't have one without the other.

That was my question, trying to figure out what they meant by their recent changes, which to me was that they were going to work with a more man-made origin and limited importance of the hosts, which I didn't agree with as I feel like that undermines some interesting elements from the LCD Toys.

Which is why my objective with the thread was never to complain about lore for lore's sake, but to discuss what the change meant and the direction the staff was taking with Digimon lore in a thematic manner. They could easily reinterpret the lore to solve inconsistencies, but why would they do it?

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I later shared the way they retconned the lore in the 25th Anniversary book to give context for why I interpreted it that way. Although the fact that the book contradicts itself on it is quite funny, it goes on to show that at any moment they can retcon it again, or just say it was never retconned.

After making that thread, especially on the other website, the reaction I got was from people trying to explain how it could fit in lore and that I was likely misinterpreting it, which I think happened because I assumed the profile was clear about the change, but that wasn't the case.

This is why I ended the thread speaking about the Hosts. My plan is to make another thread and go over how the lore regarding the Hosts has been changing for a while, and it's the other context that recontextualizes Volvemon's profile with the negative connotation I was interpreting it with.

The current lore basis they are working with is that they are all man-made, and this also goes with the Host Computer, as they changed the lore for Yggdrasill in the 20th Anniversary Book and have created many Digimon with replacement roles for the world instead of having them born from Yggdrasill.

In fact, the only time they gave Digimon a proper origin in the LCD Toys was by stating they were created by Yggdrasill, which is somehow meant to tie in with the Prototype Digimon lore. Another thing that it is quite hard to work with it in the 25th Anniversary lore

Going by what Volcano Ota said, the original lore intent was that Digimon were a "naturally occurring entity born in the network", so it's closer to spontaneous generation. The role of humans was to provide information by creating files on the net and later set up the internet environment.

Since you touched on the whole Habu/Kakudou thing, there's also something interesting in there. I don't think Habu ever noticed that, in the LCD Toy lore, humans hadn't created Digimon. Even when Tamers did it, Konaka made it clear that it was a unique lore made for Tamers and wasn't the original.

And that is where I have a problem with it, because Digimon already evolving beforehand was the main big thing about Digimon and what set them apart from anything created by humans (There's even a whole classification of man-made Digimon that loses meaning if they are all man-made).

So Volvemon could be just what brought change to that world, so that Digimon could evolve again. But in the context of the 25th Anniversary book, Digimon didn't exist before the research, so Volvemon had to be created before Digimon first evolved, instead of later.

I could perfectly see that in the early lore, with Digimon already evolving on their own, researchers took a few of them to study, but when putting them into the virtual space they prepared, they couldn't evolve anymore because of a mistake the researchers made when creating it.

So the reason why I spoke about Volvemon like that is that the last time they spoke about the early days, they changed the Digimon from existing before the research into being created for the research, which gives Volvemon an entirely different context.

Although filled with inconsistencies, especially for a book meant to be the "ultimate resource of Digimon lore", I think that the most developed new content is the intended reading and that eventual inconsistencies are just an oblivious reuse of old text they didn't notice they contradicted.

Considering other inconsistencies like the book's usage of the Net Ocean and worlds, I think the easiest explanation is that when writing that section, they used the original lore as the basis without noticing the inconsistency, because that wording was used before the lore was changed, like here.

The biggest problem would be this section here that indicates the "Genesis of the Digital World" as the moment when Digimon migrated to the Life Simulation World, which indicates they weren't from there, even though the book started by stating that they were. Maybe they exited it and are now back?

But it still stated that the Proto-Digimon were "planted" with survival instincts, so I assume the explanation was that although originating from that research, the Digimon spread outside of it when they started being noted, and other researchers related to the study also continued on their own.

This explanation has its own type of inconsistency. The first text box implies that the "Proto-Digimon" were given survival instincts by the researchers, but in this one, it's implied that they were "discovered" due to their activity. The book has a bunch of inconsistencies, so this can be another.

But the lore, since the 25th Anniversary book, is that the programs were given survival instincts to simulate evolution in a stand-alone computer for the Life Simulation World app. Now the programs started there and were stimulated by data until they changed so much they became known as Digimon.

As I posted in the early Digital Monster lore, originally Digimon existed as computer viruses that lived on the internet and ate data to change and evolve, and piquing the interest of humans, they were studied until they were given textures and wireframes that made them proper digital monsters.

This has happened mainly since 2017, but it has become a main factor in the material for the 25th Anniversary Book and the Iliad/Shambala pages. More specifically, the 25th Anniversary book changed the origin of the Digimon to be more in line with them being created by humans.

There was a chance in the way Digimon were introduced for a while, so if it was just an odd wording in Volvemon's profile, it would be fine for me to reinterpret it in a way closer to the original. But changes have been made in the lore for the early days since about 2016.

Data Ravel @dataravel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It's funny that when discussing what the protagonists have in common, Daisuke is concerned about not having a "Ta" in his name, only a "Da", but Takeru happens to have two "Ta"s in his name (Takaishi Takeru). Reminded me of posts saying Takeru should have been 02's protagonist.

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Data Ravel @dataravel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Seeing these characters together reminded me of "Digimon: One Night Stand", a crossover reading drama written by Masaki Hiro for the Memorial Concert in Odaiba 2003. All I have are these images from his 1st draft, including the characters discussing the shared traits between the protagonists.

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Data Ravel @dataravel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

At least, I feel like something like "The Origin of Digimon" is easy to call attention to. But what about "When Digimon Became a Pendulum" or "Beyond the 1st Digimon Version"? I'm thinking on the thumbnail for the next video and I'm unsure on it.

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Data Ravel @dataravel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The reaction to this video has been beyond all my expectations. It's a broad enough subject that I think even non Digimon fans might have been interested on it. So I wonder how my videos on Version 2~5 and Pendulum would compare. But there's still something smaller before that.

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Data Ravel @dataravel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The fact that one of the Digimon submissions credited with inspiring Kabuterimon is just a drawing of Gravity Beetle from Mega Man X3 is somewhat funny considering how fanart contests was such an integral element of old Mega Man games, and even now they have done it again.

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These extra Oremon were Angemon, Kabuterimon, Birdramon, Vegimon, and Yukidarumon, and both V-Jump and Weekly Shonen Jump featured different sets of inspirations. Some of them kept the same names as the finalized Digimon, but many of them had completely different names.

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The grand winner was Kujimon, a whale with a 9 o'clock theme, which inspired Whamon. Although only 1 Digimon was intended to be made for this contest, they decided to include 5 other Oremon-inspired Digimon, but those used multiple submissions as the basis.

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The "Oremon Great Recruitment" was a special contest for the 2nd Digital Monster, where fans could send postcards with their own original Digimon to have it become official. Oremon means "Monster I Came Up With", and they included examples like Tsunomon, Kamamon, and Piyomon.

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About the Digimon anime rerun, I don't have any interest in a cropped version to fit the old 4:3 anime into 16:9, but they also revealed new artwork for the new opening and that is something I can get behind, even though I would prefer the anime itself to be kept 4:3.

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Angemon didn't have a specific Perfect back then. Holy Angemon only became a thing later in the V-Tamer manga. And it wasn't Watanabe. He did the official illustration, but the art showing the movement and attacks was mostly done by other artists. In this case, Rika Saitou did that.

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Among the 3 polls, Garurumon was the only non-Perfect Digimon that was in one of the Top 3, and together with Angemon, the two were the only cases of Adults who were more popular than one of the Perfects in their version, with both being more popular than Vademon.

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And to finish it, this was the Digital Monster Ver.3 V-Jump Popularity Ranking. 1) Etemon 2) Giromon 3) Andromon 4) Orgemon 5) Drimogemon 6) Centalmon 7) Unimon 8) Patamon 9) Bakemon 10) Scumon 11) Tokomon 12) Shellmon 13) Kunemon 14) Poyomon

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What about the Digimon after the original? The V-Jump Digimon Ver.2 popularity ranking was: 1) Metal Mamemon 2) Skull Greymon 3) Garurumon 4) Angemon 5) Vademon 6) Whamon 7) Yukidarumon 8) Birdramon 9) Gabumon 10) Punimon 11) Kabuterimon 12) Vegimon 13) Tsunomon 14) Elecmon

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I was surprised they actually considered the Digitama

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Regarding the original Digimon roster, this was the first V-Jump Digimon Popularity poll. 1) Metal Greymon 2) Mamemon 3) Monzaemon 4) Meramon 5) Numemon 6) Airdramon 7) Devimon 8) Greymon 9) Betamon 10) Tyranomon 11) Seadramon 12) Agumon 13) Koromon 14) Botamon 15) Digitama

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I'm surprised by the positive reaction to this video. I want to release the next one (Old Strongest Digimon philosophy) next week, but I might not be able to because this weekend is Election Day in my country, and I need to travel because my parents are voting in a different city.

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Digital Monster - The Origin of Digimon

Naturally, I'm referring to projects that aren't just ads. "Let's Go With Dog Eyebrows" is a bit close to just being an ad, but since it's the manga's objective to feature what the author is playing, I think it fits. You can check the video here www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqAq...

youtube.com

YouTube video by Digital World Archive

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When I added this on my latest Digimon video, I remembered similar trivia where characters appeared in places before the release of their first "actual" project. Like how the 1st Sonic The Hedgehog game wasn't the first appearance of Sonic.

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So my worries aren't just about a random lore from a random Digimon profile that can be ignored just as easily as it has been written, but what that can mean for the future as part of a constant development for these settings that I feel are going in a direction I don't like.

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So even though Volvemon's profile might be contradicted later on, I think that the general direction of the lore (If they even do something more with it) shares the same feeling, even if I think Volvemon's profile is an outlier in presentation for a Digimon profile.

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So it's not even just Volvemon's profile in standalone that I'm complaining about, but a whole development with the setting that has been slowly taking place for almost a decade, directed by a certain group of individuals (And, with a lot of contradictions even inside of this).