Playing next 0rder for the first time. I'm having an absolute blast. But I also know that knowing what I was getting myself into before hand is probably a huge portion of it. I've watched playthroughs of the original World, and review videos, as well as a playthrough of next 0rder itself and Re:Digitize. And also just knowing about how de-evolution is a near constant in this franchise probably also helps. I definitely probably couldn't recommend it cold, because who in their right mind would intuitively know that the cycle of "restarting" is part of the appeal and progress is marked more by the progress of the city than your monsters, which in turn helps you get better at raising your monsters. But as someone who also enjoys her 20th anniversary Digimon V-Pet this is just the same thing but faster with more options. It's great. Anyway the characters may not be super in depth (which is fine I'm here for my digimon partners and helping them grow big and strong). But Himari, despite her limited characterization has my attention. She's her sister's primary caregiver? It also feels like her sisters are her only family to her, she probably has a dad who in true anime dad fashion is busy with work. But she still acted like she was leaving her sisters completely alone, so what degree of responsibility is she taking on for her sisters. Definitely being parentified to an extent but to what extent? Does she have a proper support network? Also the wording "doesn't have a mom" could be anything. Is she dead? Digimon's never shied away from that before, so why wouldn't they just say it. Did her mom leave, or is the vagueness just to leave it to imagination? Also her sisters are 2nd graders? So, 7 or 8, which means they would have been babies at the time of the tournament 7 years ago. Was the tournament a last happy memory for her before, whatever left her motherless happened? I'm definitely overthinking it but there is just enough character there to be interesting enough for me to chew on for a bit. Also "Mameo" being a teacher is great. He really showed up trying to do his protaganist thing and then now has to mentor these new teen protags when he's been doing this since he was younger than them, for as long as they've been alive. So now he's basically this old wisened mentor despite being in like. His early 30s at most. And also it contrasts with analogman. An adult man who is the only human there with experience with the digital world. Mameo grew from an analogboy into a more benevolent analogman of sorts.
As a former Warrior Cats kid, I just want to say something warriors anon didn't mention but helps their case, but in the book Firestar's Quest they have dreams/visions about sky clan (telling him to help restore it), and that Clan leaders along with medicine cats can receive prophecies or omens (they are kinda like visions sometimes). Which could relate to dragons rising Lloyd with his visions.
Also I think Zane would be either a med cat or leader, due to they're future vision dreams.
hey, this is warriors anon. sorry this is a bit late, but snowtuft is one of the dark forest cats that didnt remember why he was in cat hell. like he had no memory of his crimes but was just constantly pushed sround by the others and stuff, ended up helping the protags in the seventh arc. (i assume jay, even if he does have a villain arc, will eventually be redeemed)
AS FOR FIREHEART = LLOYD—
bold of you to assume fireheart didnt fail his apprentices?? like bluestar was obviously less tgan perfect, and both she and yellowfang (who wasnt his mentor but fulfilled a similar role in the story) messed him up quite a bit. but her flaws were mostly about her being haunted by past mistakes and questioning her faith in her ancestors, which id argue is more in line with wu.
but fireheart?? he has a total of three apprentices, all in the first arc. and. he fails them. he doesnt mean to, oh no, he means so well. and he truly does care about them. but he constantly overcompensates. he idolizes bluestar and works so hard to embody what she was to him before her madness took over, and goes about it all in the wrong way bc he cant accept the fact that blue was less than perfect before, no no she was good, not like tigerclaw who is B A D. he sees them through a very b&w lens and when he starts off w/ cinder his method is the complete opposite of tigerclaws w/ raven (which isn’t necessarily bad, he sucked)
but speaking of, hes very encouraging with cinderpaw but not very attentive and doesnt do much to curb her reckless behavior, constantly urging her to try harder snd push beyond her limits (sound familiar?) and later when she has her accident he blames himself. she can never be a warrior and its his fault and hes too sshamed to even go talk to her in the med. den.
hes stricter with cloudpaw, but doesnt really sympathize with him. he distances himself emotionally and later blames himself when cloud runs away. and with bramble he obviously has that initial mistrust that we KNOW causes a lot of self esteem issues w/ bramble bc we get his pov in the next arc.
and its not just his own apprentices, part of it is about failing all the young cats in his clan, despite being extremely young himself. swiftpaws death, brightpaw being mauled by dogs, tawnypaw running away, s n o w k i t
and hes also dealing with prophetic dreams/visions/nightmares while all this goes down?? like bros so tortured???
so we have:
enemy is an evil tiger
idolizes absent mentor (who was less than perfect
prophetic dreams/nightmares abt future
struggling as a mentor
i could probably find more but im honestly tired rn. thoughts????
snowtuft: i didn't realise he had amnesia!! that's so funny you're right he can be jay
firestar: ogh you have made a VERY good point. the part about him idolising bluestar is huge. i didn't remember the details of cinderpaw's apprenticeship before her accident but you're right in drawing the parallels there. i do picture lloyd as a somewhat ignorant character which is inline with firestar's perception of bramblepaw, and bringing it back round to just the general failing of thunderclan's youth has made me really want to reread the books... damn.. maybe after exams... you've made a really good argument! fine, i am swayed. lloyd gets his main character syndrome after all. (and as another point, i'd say his presence was to fulfill a prophecy; for fire this is 'fire alone can save our clan', and for lloyd it's the green ninja prophecy.)