Your Favorite Anime is Secretly Horrifying: Digimon

Norbert Daniels Jr. November 21, 2015

Welcome to Your Favorite Anime is Secretly Horrifying. This is a recurring feature here at Otaku USA where we look at your most beloved anime and ruin them for you. When you have a nasty habit of analyzing cartoons like we do, you start noticing some strange things. There are details that, when you think about them, reveal disturbing implications. These are in no ways criticisms of the works and we in no way imply that these analyses are anything close to the intention of the creators. It’s just fun to tear apart your favorite anime. This week, we’ll be breaking down the ending of Digimon Adventure 02.

Digimon Adventure 02 is the second television show in the Digimon franchise, picking up a few years after the first series. There is a lot of overtly scary stuff in this show like kidnapping and slave labor, but what we’re looking at today is the ending. At the end of the series, Digimon companions are given to all the people of the world and they live side by side. What could possibly be wrong with that ending? A lot. A lot could be wrong with that.

Your Favorite Anime is Secretly Horrifying: Digimon

Let’s first look at the fact that there will be a lot of households waking up to a new family member in the morning. Earlier episodes made it clear that Digimon need to eat to survive. And just because they’re digital doesn’t mean you can simply plug them into an outlet. They need real food. One in six Americans face hunger, which means that a large number of families will not be able to support their new Digimon. Sure, Digimon can forage for their own food, but with so many of them having little choice but to do it, how long can they keep it up before there are serious ecological consequences?

The other problem is that there will be plenty of Digimon who will be abused and exploited. According to The Humane Society there were 1,212 documented cases of dogs being abused in 2012 in America. Since animal abuse is a problem in the real world, we can expect plenty of Digimon to get the same treatment. Ken—one of the heroes—is already guilty of verbally and physically abusing his partner, Wormmon, for an extended length of time. In addition, a lot of selfish humans will take advantage of their Digimon. Modern militaries are always looking into new ways to wage war. I see no reason why they wouldn’t try to make use of giant dinosaurs that can shoot missiles. And let’s not forget what criminals will do. In the Pokémon universe, Team Rocket uses Pokémon to commit crimes on a daily basis. Why should we expect anything less from the Digimon universe?

Your Favorite Anime is Secretly Horrifying: Digimon

So what did we learn today? That after the end of Digimon Adventure 02, the monster friends to the boys and girls are abused, neglected and exploited. Have fun thinking about that next time you watch the show! Next week, we’ll be talking about the terrible secret behind Yami Yugi in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Have any more examples of secretly horrifying anime? Leave them in the comments section.

Norbert Daniels Jr. is a freelance writer who enjoys treating his Digimon well. Read more of his writing at TheLateNightGamer.com and follow him on Twitter.

This story was originally published on June 13th of 2014.