Digimon Ghost Game provides a fantastic dark-toned Horror Mystery Series

Digimon Ghost Game is a thrilling episodic story featuring horrific curses, digital mysteries, and fantastic combat. The recent installment of the Digimon franchise followed the Digimon Adventures reboot and included the use of the Vital Bracelet as a Digivice. Introducing new Digimon and Characters to fans, life in the real world is warped by the sudden appearance of hologram ghosts, within a town integrated with Hologram technology. A fresh new take on Digimon, this episodic experience highlights how invading Digimon can influence humans in the real world with terrible consequences.  

Digimon Ghost Game premiered on October 3, 2021, and featured three brand-new digital monster characters, and a whole new story for fans of the franchise. Digimon Ghost Game is the tenth anime installment of the franchise, featuring a darker tone compared to past anime releases.

The series integrated the Vital Bracelet series as an official Digivice for the series after its popular success as a Digimon fitness device, with the Vital Bracelet Digivice-V released a day before the premiere. The mascot Digimon of the series was Gammamon (Miyuki Sawashiro), a Rookie-level Ceratopsian Digital Monster that is partnered with Hiro Amanokawa (Mutsumi Tamura). 

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This new series also includes new digital monsters Angoramon (Kazuya Nakai) and Jellymon (Yū Shimamura) as partner Digimon for additional protagonists, Ruli Tsukiyono (Yû Kobayashi) and Kiyoshiro Higashimitarai (Akira Ishida). The story follows the trio as the urban legends arise regarding mysterious events caused by Hologram Ghosts, which have been caused by Digimon that have entered the real world. Although mostly unseen by humans, these hologram Digimon cause havoc and cause unnatural afflictions that the team attempts to stop and resolve.  

Digimon Ghost Game Features an Episodic Ride with Dark Afflictions 

Digimon Ghost Game is mostly set in the real world similar to another franchise series, Digimon Tamers. The recent anime series was simulcast on Crunchyroll and concluded with 67 episodes in March 2023. The story followed Hiro and Gammamon, Ruli and Angoramon, along with Kiyoshiro and Jellymon as they uncover the mysteries of urban mysteries related to hologram ghosts that cause paranormal phenomena. The confused digital monsters begin attacking humans in various and horrific ways, with Naoto Takenaka adding greater gravitas to his narrations.

General Story of Ghost Game

Digimon Ghost Game mostly follows the protagonist Hiro as strange things happen around him, and his father disappears but leaves him with three Digivices. By using one of these devices, he discovers Gammamon and a message from his father saying to treat him as a younger brother. In each episode, Hiro comes across digital monsters that begin inflicting people with horrible conditions as their confusion often warps their intentions. Gammamon helps fight off each one giving off ‘bad vibes’ in an attempt to help save people from their physically corrupting influence. 

The story of Digimon Ghost Game is episodic but perfectly introduces each character and has a fantastic horrific tale in each episode, but still ensures there are moments of character progression and gradually adding answers to the disappearance of Hiro’s father. The show throws more curveballs by revealing a dark side to Gammamon, Gulusgammamon, and the random appearances of Blackgatomon. There are also fantastic debuts whenever the episodic story starts to feel stale, such as the introduction of Espimon and Ryudamon, along with Digimon never seen before.  

Unrivalled Horrors and Drama Infused into Mysteries 

There are so many dark twists in the series as different Digimon cause various paranormal phenomena that will leave anyone fearful. From mangled bodies to unnaturally debilitating conditions, many freaky phenomena are caused by Digimon in various episodes. The series also gives similar vibes to the Goosebumps series from 1995. Some of the brilliant yet worse examples include the Mushroomon pulling off mushrooms from people, Digitamamon eating people, and Bastemon’s creepy cats training people. The screams created by Tamura and Kobayashi still haunt my memories, showcasing on impactful the Mushroomon episode was. 

There are many drawn-out mysteries related to Gammamon and Hiro’s Father, Hokuto Amanokawa, who was later revealed to be traveling the Digital World. The Darkside to Gammamon was an impactful addition to the series and even provided a violent aspect to the series, especially with his relentless attack on Sealdramon. The drama involved with the death of Bokomon created a massive change in the vibe of the series, showing that the anime can present themes of despair and sadness. 

The Featured Characters and Digimon 

There was a lot of character growth featured in this anime series, but most of these occurrences happened in specific episodes. Kiyoshiro has the most recognizable character development, especially regarding his bond with Jellymon. The multi-evolution was a fantastic feature for Gammamon in early episodes but left the other two to appear simplistic. Despite this, the stories for ultimate and Mega evolutions demonstrated the best character growth moments. The trio of monster partners are by far some of the strongest characters of the Digimon franchise, leading to a desire for their return. 

Variety of Action and Use of Digimon 

Along with incredible combat, there was a brilliant mix of digital monsters from the entire franchise featured in the series. This includes the use of new and non-series digital monsters such as Herissmon, who was originally from the game, Digimon ReArise. Fights became more intense when the Ultimate Levels entered the scene, with foe Digimon often requiring a matching level to beat. The mysterious phenomenon also diversified the combat as specific Digimon present unique challenges to overcome.  

The two later additions, Ryudamon and Espimon, were good additions to the story but did not include new Tamers as fans hoped. However, it was great to see that some digital monsters ended up becoming allies, rather than promoting a seek-and-destroy scenario in every episode. This includes Clockmon and Mummymon as the best allied Digimon featured in the series, who first started as foes in early episodes. It was great to see such horrifying Digimon become valuable friends as the anime progressed. 

The Final events Completing the Series 

Although it barely features a story outside of the episodic format, the series finale demonstrates how the overall tale was leading to a general concept. As there were little pieces that meshed the episodes together, it was difficult to establish significant arcs that could link episodes together. The overall finale utilized everything previously hinted at and emphasize the hidden dark side, with a powerful final boss fight. The series concept was a fantastic journey but was just missing the use of defined arcs for connecting episodes.

For such sinister stories and an overall episodic format with a brilliant finale tie-in, I give Digimon Ghost Game a rating of 7 out of 10.

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About Digimon Ghost Game

Release Date: October 3, 2021
Director: Haruka Kamatani, Kimitoshi Chioka
Writers: Masashi Sogo, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hiroshi Yamaguchi
Publisher: Toei Animation
Cast: Mutsumi Tamura, Miyuki Sawashiro, Yû Kobayashi, Kazuya Nakai, Akira Ishida, Yû Shimamura, Naoto Takenaka

Synopsis
On social media, rumors of a mysterious phenomenon, known as “Hologram Ghosts,” are spreading. Hiro Amanokawa, a first-year junior high school student, activates a mysterious device left behind by his father and encounters a Digimon called Gammamon.

What did you think about Digimon Ghost Game? Did you have a favorite character or Digimon in the series? Which episode was your favorite in the Digimon horror series? Let us know on social media and keep following The Illuminerdi for more anime.

SOURCE: Crunchyroll

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