Plot: Daisuke has a match against the reigning champion soccer team for elementary level students, lead by the boy genius, Ken Ichijouji. Daisuke gains a great deal of respect for Ken during the match, even if Daisuke’s team got thrashed, and looks forward to seeing him again on the soccer field.
Meanwhile, the Digimon Kaiser has created another Dark Tower in the middle of nowhere, and the Chosen Children decide to take it down. However, Hikari, Takeru, Miyako and Iori as well as their Digimon fall into a pit trap set by the Digimon Kaiser. He has them held hostage in front of a hungry Deltamon and gives Daisuke some mercy. He will spare his friends….well, only one….and Daisuke has to choose the survivor.
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Title Screen:
This one shifts between two to show how there are two sides to Ken. I think it’s a damn cool title screen.
Title Change: “The Digimon Kaiser’s Loneliness” is changed to “Ken’s Secret”. I’m not sure which I like more because, on one hand, the original title is poking at how, despite Ken’s actions, there might be a softer more human side to him. On the other hand, this might be a tiny bit too early to get emotionally bonded with Ken, so the dub’s might be more fitting for this point in the story.
The web page for Ken is translated and painted.
Subbed:
Dubbed:
Yolei incorrectly pronounces Ken’s last name. It’s Ee-chi-joh-gee, not Itchy-joo-gee.
Taichi mentions that Ken’s goal record is twice that of the previous record. Tai says Ken might be even better than he is.
Takeru just says that Daisuke’s team never made it to the finals last year. TK says they got knocked out early and didn’t even make the playoffs. Also, yet another instance of Davis calling TK the wrong name – this time T.E.
Daisuke’s attitude is much different from Davis’. Davis is all about beating Ken and belittles him a bit early in the conversation by saying he’s not so tough. He says he’d be made a legend even if he just made it a close game with Ken, and “chicks dig living legends.” In the original, Daisuke is way more excited about simply playing against someone who is so good. He does say everyone on his team wants to be like him, but he doesn’t say he wants to, nor does he want to ride on Ken’s coattails for the sake of girls.
Iori asks Miyako why she wants Ken’s autograph since she said she doesn’t like younger guys. Miyako points out that Ken is only one year younger than her, and her mother is three years older than her father. In the dub, Cody does the ‘Yolei and Ken sittin’ in a tree’ thing, and Yolei combats that by saying she doesn’t want to kiss him, she just wants to marry him. I get the ‘joke’ but even the marriage ceremony involves kissing.
…..Also, yeah, this is foreshadowing.
I have another question, though….why is Miyako acting like she’s just now learning of Ken? She saw him on a news report a while back and didn’t show any crush or any other emotion towards him other than jealously.
So Daisuke does later shift his stance slightly to wanting to show Ken what he’s made of, but that doesn’t necessary mean he’s going on an ego-trip and belittling Ken. Whereas Davis is claiming he’ll “wipe the floor with Mr. Perfect and show them who’s the man.” From watching Digimon Adventure 01, I can say with certainty that either Matt or Gabumon is ‘the man’.
There’s no dialogue or inner monologue when the team is getting off the bus. In the dub, Davis thinks about how he’ll be ‘king of the world’ when this game is done.
Kari: “Where is he?”
TK: “Izzy? No. We’re waiting for Ken.”
Yolei: “We know that.”
That was a very painful joke, Saban. Like, pulling teeth painful. Please don’t do that again. It didn’t even work because, if you take the pun, TK thought Kari said “Where Izzy?” Last I checked, Kari isn’t a caveman.
I know Poromon’s probably not in any real pain, but it bugs me how Miyako just flippantly squeezes and pulls on Poromon like he’s silly putty. You can make the argument that she doesn’t realize she’s doing it sometimes, but she can’t not realize it most of the time, and other times she’s looking right at him when she’s doing it. It just seems mean.
Daisuke says he’ll still do his best even if Ken’s not there. Davis is amped up because he’ll still be a hero and a living legend just for competing against their team, win or lose. Uh….winning against them, sure, but let me ask you something there, Davis. Do you know the names of any other team or any other person who has gone up against these guys and lost? Chances are, you don’t. And there have probably been dozens considering they’re the champions. Also, I hate to be a soccer Grinch, but it’s a middle school soccer team – you’re aiming a bit high.
New vocal song this time, and of course it’s replaced in the dub. However, they do use “Let’s Kick it Up” in a very fitting situation.
Hikari took a photo, hence why Daisuke says she caught him at the perfect moment. In the dub, Kari has taken video and freezes it on the shot.
Both Taichi and Tai warn Daisuke/Davis to not get ahead of himself before the second half, but their advice and tone are different. Taichi offers Daisuke advice in not continuously taking the defensive as the other team will start to take notice and take advantage of it. In the dub, Tai says the game is still wide open and Ken could still show up. Taichi seems more positive and is trying to help Daisuke whereas Tai seems more pessimistic and seems more like he’s warning Davis to not get overly confident. Technically, the change isn’t that bad because it goes along with the changes they’ve been making to Davis, but still.
The scene where Ken notices Daisuke as one of the Chosen Children is mostly silent barring some dramatic sounds in the original. In the dub, Yolei is gushing over Ken throughout the whole thing and Davis is thinking to himself that Ken doesn’t seem as intimidating as he thought. I really don’t like it when dialogue inserts ruin important and dramatic moments like that. Yeah, we all know who Ken and Davis really are, but the big ‘oh hell’ moment when Ken makes the realization is supposed to focus specifically on that revelation, not be ruined by Yolei being annoying and Davis being full of himself.
Also, why is Davis acting like this is the first time he’s seen Ken? He’s seen him on TV and on the computer. How much different did he think he’d look in person?
Davis: “Hey I’m cool!”
Tai: “More like lukewarm!”
Davis: “Haha! That was so funny I forgot to laugh.” But you did laugh, Davis. Also, this scene is eerily quiet outside of Ken’s footsteps in the original. Yet another good moment ruined….
Ken’s never referred to as ‘the rocket’ in the original.
Taichi says he’s just another elementary student just like Daisuke, a line that got transferred to Kari in the dub. Tai tells Davis that he can do it, but if he can’t they won’t think any less of him.
Here’s a change I don’t quite mind. Miyako gushes over Ken as he scores a goal, and Iori brings up that she shouldn’t be cheering since he tied the score against Daisuke’s team. Miyako then responds that Daisuke’s nowhere near as cool as Ken, so I guess that makes it alright to betray her friend.…
In the dub, while Yolei does gush incessantly over Ken, she doesn’t mention anything about Ken being cooler than Davis, Tai gets Iori’s line about the tie (hehe) and Iori’s line is changed to asking Yolei if she wants him to pinch her again. Miyako and Yolei are being insanely annoying in this episode between the Poromon abuse and her lust for Ken, and that line about Daisuke was just making matters worse.
Taichi talks about how Ken is on an entirely different level from the others and that he doesn’t even play like an elementary student at all. Takeru then points out that he has amazing field awareness, meaning he knows where everyone is, on his or the opposing team, at all times, making it easy for him to score goals on them since they aren’t doing or haven’t yet learned how to do the same thing. He notes that it’s the same thing that people do in basketball (Takeru/TK plays basketball, but it hasn’t really been established yet.)
For the most part, the group just marvels at how good Ken is in the dub while the biggest contribution in matching the original is TK comparing Ken to a general leading an army.
I can’t understand what the girls in the audience are saying in the dub (sounds like “Go, jouji, go!”) but in the original they’re yelling “Score the tenth” as in tenth goal.
Taichi just says Daisuke’s sliding tackle wasn’t a foul and congratulates him. In the dub, Tai tells Davis it was a good tackle while also saying “Have a nice trip, Ken! See you next fall!” Ya know, I would let smack talk go if this were Davis, but Ken hasn’t done anything to warrant smack talk from Tai.
Daisuke tells Ken that Ken lives up to his reputation and that he can’t compete with him. Ken then says Daisuke made a great play at the end and that he assumed Daisuke would come from the opposite side. In the dub, Davis gloats about how awesome he was doing before Ken arrived, and Ken says his teammates might’ve mentioned some decent plays that Davis’ team made before Ken’s arrival. And just as Davis is still being made into an egotist, Ken is also made to be slightly more conceited in the dub. He repeatedly says that he was too focused on scoring goals to either notice the pain from his injured leg or notice that Davis was gunning for him.
Also, Ken’s dialogue is a bit too heavy on villainous words in the dub. “Well, my worthy adversary, until we meet again in battle.”?
I know these things seem really minor, but it does change the scenes just enough to drastically affect the weight. In the original, Daisuke seems to really admire Ken. He doesn’t seem like he really cares too much about beating him. If anything, he just wants to see how much he compares to Ken and maybe earn a spot of respect in the eyes of someone so skilled and famous. It’s sorta like how he views Taichi. Ken is putting on a good show in being a good sport and even somewhat befriending Daisuke while still staying on friendly rival grounds.
In the dub, Davis keeps belittling Ken while building up his own ego. While he does seem to realize that beating Ken is out of the question, he won’t let that show around other people and instead claims how he’ll show everyone who ‘the man’ is and nearly tells Tai he’d wipe the floor with Ken if he arrived at the game. He also won’t back down and be more humble when talking with Ken post-game and instead blows his minor pre-Ken victory and moves out of proportion in order to make himself seem more impressive than he was with Ken on the field. He couldn’t even keep his ego in check when talking with his friends after the game, adding that Ken said he admired Davis, which he didn’t say.
Ken’s also not doing as good of a job in masking his more devious nature. As if that final line wasn’t bad enough, he has to keep covering his own ego as well by not admitting that Davis downright outplayed him and instead was too distracted by scoring goals. He even has to repeat this when he says the line about the formation never failing.
In addition to all of this, the tone shifts from a more valid friendship or at least respect being born (which is mostly just from Daisuke’s side as Ken is just playing Daisuke mostly here to keep up appearances) to a bit of a dick-measuring contest.
Daisuke is excited that Ken merely remembered his name. Davis is excited that Ken called him “his worth adversary” since he believes that meant that he is nearly as good as Ken is.
The shot of the doorway after the commercial break is not present in the original.
The area that the new Dark Tower is in is called Death Valley or Shi no Tani as Iori puts it. In the dub, Upamon calls it the Forbidden Valley of No Return.
Kari makes a joke about why bad guys always feel the need to name places like that while Hikari just asks what the tower is doing there. I only bring this up to nitpick that Ken didn’t name the place. Since Upamon knew the name, it’s most likely that that’s merely the name it had the whole time.
Ignoring the silly “bad guys have bad breath” joke because Cody’s joke was actually pretty funny, in the original, Iori responds to the question of why a Dark Tower would be in the middle of nowhere by saying it’s probably a foothold to expand his territory. Takeru and Hikari decide that they have to take it down to stop him in his tracks. In the dub, this explanation is not given and we’re just told that they have to take it down immediately before the Digimon there get controlled.
Hm, the Digimon Kaiser had a good idea in luring the kids out with a new Dark Tower…..but surely they haven’t destroyed all of the other Dark Towers yet. Why would they go out of their way to a place reeking of ‘trap’ to destroy one tower in a location where there probably aren’t even many/any Digimon to control?
Small detail, but in the original there’s sad harmonica music playing when Daisuke is forced to beg and choose which of his friends gets to survive. In the dub, it’s the usual suspenseful music. Tone ruined, mostly.
Veemon does recite the names of the Digimon correctly, but he says them out of order. When Halsemon flies by he says “Pegasusmon”, with Nefertimon he says “Halsemon” and with Pegasusmon he says “Nefertimon.” Really, writers, pay attention, both to the script and what’s on screen.
I don’t quite get Ken’s plan. Unless he was putting all of his chips on Daisuke sacrificing himself for his friends, Davis would eventually realize that Ken was playing him. Did he really just want to make him suffer emotionally for a while? Actually, while petty, that is a pretty good plan. Damn cruel, and one of the more emotionally impacting scenes of 02.
However, I have to ask, how did Takeru and the others get out of that purgatory-like place? They never give an explanation.
Dub!Ken: “Bakemon, attack! Not me, them!”
I don’t know why this line was changed to this. Originally, Ken is directing the Bakemon like he was directing his soccer team. Despite no visual shot of the Bakemon attacking Ken, they still give this line. Not only is this line nonsensical, but it makes the next lines nonsensical as well.
In the original, Takeru sees how Ken is organizing the Bakemon and references what he said earlier in the soccer match – that Ken takes note of where all allied and enemy forces are and makes attacks accordingly. In the dub, TK says Ken’s using the Dark Rings to control the Bakemon and, in reference to what he said earlier, is ordering them around like a general leads his army.
There are a couple things wrong with this line.
1) We’re lead to believe, in the dub, that the Bakemon attacked Ken. That’s a pretty crappy general if his army acts like that.
2) We already know that the Dark Rings do this to Digimon. They’ve been controlled and directly commanded since episode one. Why is TK bringing this up and being amazed by it now?
Fladramon says they’ll never give up. Flamedramon asks why they’re leaving so soon since the party is just starting….Uh, Flamedramon, no one said or implied that they were leaving.
Despite the fact that there were no actual explosions, they still remove the shot of the tower falling over, I guess because there’s a spot of smoking on the tower that may be considered too high up for comfort post-9/11. This was restored in future releases of the show.
What’s weird is that you can still see the tower (very slowly) falling over in the next shot, it’s just very far away so….*shrug*
Dub!Ken: “I can’t believe the same person made me look like a fool twice in the same day.” Exactly one day has gone by since the soccer match, Ken. Nitpicky, but still.
I really don’t know why Ken would just flippantly reveal that he’s the Digimon Kaiser. Keeping his identity a secret would only benefit him, especially seeing as how he just now learned who the Chosen Children were and where they live. He just kinda screwed himself over a little for the sake of, what, gloating?
Daisuke yells “Why!?” as his final line. Davis says “You can keep your crummy autograph!” Again, changing the tone and meaning of the scene from devastation at someone you admire turning out to be evil to making a joke about how the pretty prefect boy turned out to be a jerk.
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I honestly don’t know how I feel about this episode. Original-wise, it’s pretty good. We get some legit bonding between Daisuke and Ken even though it’s not legit on Ken’s side, and we get a really emotionally tearing scene with Daisuke in his decision. We also get a really good shot of Daisuke’s devastation at losing his, for lack of a better term, hero.
Dub-wise, it loses a lot of impact thanks to silly joke inserts, several changes in tone for the worse and a joke replacing the most emotional line of the episode. I will say that they did the decision scene right, but that’s about it.
Miyako is never not annoying in this episode. Every single one of her lines is irritating mostly because they’re either her gushing over Ken or her complaining.
Next episode, Ken fires up his ultra cool Dark Digivice and puts an Evil Ring on Greymon. Using his Dark Digivice, he forces Greymon to evolve, creating an old face that no one ever wanted to see again.
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