I was cleaning up the game room earlier today and figured I'd post an update on my collection -- my last post in the thread was 2017 with a blurry Instagram picture and before that I last posted in Summer 2010 (I think~). Premium Bandai really was a gamechanger and I'm so thankful!!!

The clear V1 was my very first Digimon! I found it (and another clear) at a Big Lots on the same day the Digimon anime premiered on Fox Kids, so it has a lot of sentimental value for me. I sold the other clear on eBay a while back because I had ended up with a lot more v-pets over the years.

There's a funny story with the boxed V1 pet: I was in East Lansing, MI for a cross county meet back in 2014 when I stopped by a Disc Replay to look for some video games. As I was checking out, there was a guy next to me who had brought in some stuff to sell and the clerk told him that they could take everything except one item...a CIB V1 v-pet! I couldn't believe it -- the ONE and ONLY time I visited this store was when someone was trying to trade in a Digimon! As soon as I finished paying, I waited outside for him to come out (I tried to be as NOT creepy as possible lol) and mentioned that I was a huge Digimon fan and that I thought it was FATE that he happened to bring it in while I was there! He worked for a local Fox station that was cleaning out some storage and said it was an old contest prize they never gave away, so he happily took $10 and I walked away with a ton of valuable games and a new v-pet. :)

I never got on the Pendulum train until very late in the game -- I got my original Deep Savers off Yahoo Japan Auctions while I was teaching in Japan and luckily the re-releases came out a few years later. When the Ver20 came out, my wife accidentally dropped one in the toilet (lol) so I bought an extra. The poor thing still works but it has no sound and the pendulum's a little wonky. I put a ton of time and effort into the black Ver20 so I'm happy I got to experience the awesomeness of the Pendulum even if it took a little longer than I had hoped. :)

The US devices are my childhood treasures...I grew up in a pretty rural area so I spent a lot of time walking around or shaking my Digivices while watching TV. A few good friends in elementary school were also really into Digimon so we'd play together and battle all the time -- so much so that my red D-3 got taken away by my 6th grade teacher once or twice. I wanted a Japanese D-Terminal for the LONGEST time and I finally nabbed the gold one while we were living in Hokkaido. There aren't many devices that I'm still interested in getting, but the red and yellow JP D-3s are gorgeous and I'd love to have them one day. The orange Digivice stopped working a long time ago and I currently have a broken blue battery cover on it right now...I broke so many battery covers back in the day! As a preteen I called Bandai USA support a few times and they sent me replacement battery covers for both the Digivice and v-pets...for free! They were awesome!

Tamers is easily my favorite season of the anime so I've always gravitated towards the D-Ark as being my favorite electronic. I only had the US D-Power as a kid and enjoyed it but I spent a lot of time on Megchan's boards drooling over the Japanese versions and the card slash mechanic. I picked up a lot of my Japanese D-Arks on YJA when I got my first job in college, but my Ver15 D-Arks are the crown jewels of my collection because they were wedding gifts from Chiaki J. Konaka! All I need now is a green D-Ark and I'll be happy with what I have. It looks so cool! I also included a cute Guilmon drawing that my wife did for me alongside a Culumon stamp that one of my fellow teachers in Japan made for me before I left. The Tukimon notebook was my version of Takato's Guilmon notebook that I made in 7th grade back in 2001. I'm glad I held onto it! :)

I LOVE the D-Scanners so much! My black one was purchased from Toys N Joys when I was in 8th grade and I got the blue one for cheap off YJA while we were in Japan. I think I got my US V3 here on WtW and my childhood D-Tector V1 got super corroded and I was stupid and chucked it in the trash a few years ago. I need a new battery cover screw for the US V3 so I really regret throwing it away for that reason alone. I found the Digiwindow during my first trip to my town's Hard Off when I got to Japan and it was the only Digimon electronic I found in Muroran -- I didn't see anything else until I hit up Mandarake in Tokyo before we left. I've only got one iC (the orange one) and the rest are the US Data Links/Bursts. I'd like to pick up a Japanese Burst one day...

I'm not the biggest fan of the Minis but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Neo and the D-Spirit. I guess the D-Spirit is the closest we're getting to a V-Tamer Digivice for now (please prove me wrong Premium Bandai). I recently made a friend locally who's really into the v-pets so once the COVID 19 stuff dies down I'm hoping that we can boot up the Twins and do a good run on those. I'm also a huge fan of the Xros Loader -- I'd LOVE to get a nice full color, backlit device from Bandai again...please...please!!!

Can I just say that I LOVE the design of the Applidrive? The DUO is very stunning visually but it feels a lot like a toy and very plastic-y...but the original is a nice solid device. It sucks that it doesn't have much you can do with it, even if you've got chips.  I'm loving the DMXs and really can't wait for my X3s to get here...they're so beautiful and I'm happy we're still getting new Digimon devices in 2020. There were some rough spots where it felt like the end was near but we keep trucking on as a fandom. :)

Thanks for looking and this website and all the people on the forums have kept this passion alive for me nonstop since I was a preteen. Now that I've hit 30, I'm so extra thankful that I've had this hobby and people to share it with. Going back into this thread, dead images and all, is a treat and cheers to all the fellow Digimon fans and collectors out there! Keep it up!

(originally posted in the "Your collection (pictures)" thread on the Digimon Electronics board at With the Will)

Matters of the Heart: Transcending Time with Clamp's "Wish"

Even if I don't consider Cardcaptors, Clamp was one of my first real introductions to the world of manga and anime. I started picking up the Chobits manga when I was a teenager and it was the first longish series that I actually finished -- I can still remember how it felt to finally pick up Volume 8 and see how everything ended! I think that's one of the strengths of manga as a serialized format; even though American releases usually didn't follow the same weekly/bi-monthly/monthly schedule used in Japan, it still forces you to take in a story over a longer period of time. I think that sensation really adds to the heart and emotional weight associated with many manga/anime because, especially now in an age of streaming and bingeing, you have time to reflect on each release before the next one comes out. For example, the first English-translated volume of Chobits came out in April 2002 while the final book was released in October 2003, meaning you'd have to wait a year and half to go from the beginning of the story to the end. That's actually pretty similar to the Japanese release timeline (even though reading through the 8 volumes straight might take only an afternoon or so)! By the time I got to the final chapter, I felt like Hideki and Chii were a part of me. I was so emotionally invested in the series! I mean, how could I not be invested when I had spent a year and a half (and numerous allowances) getting to know everyone in the series while remaining unaware of what would ultimately happen to everyone in Chobits?

I still have my Atashi plush from Chobits, purchased from the former anime mecca known as Suncoast Motion Picture Company.

It's funny I had that whole walk down memory lane about Chobits because I just read Clamp's 1997 series Wish in the completely opposite way, going through it all in a day and a half. We had to do laundry yesterday and one of my favorite things to do at the laundromat is read, so I picked up the somewhat-recently-purchased (for cheap! $3 a pop) 4 volume Tokyopop release and got to work. Even though Chobits was my first real Clamp adventure, I went through Tokyo Babylon, X/1999, and the original Cardcaptor Sakura in 2019 -- meaning I have a deeper sense of Clamp's style and oeuvre now than I did in 2002. Because of that, I think I could better appreciate elements of Wish like the Yue-reminiscent angel designs or the big twist in Volume 4 that reminds me so much of the final volume of Tokyo Babylon, but more subtle and effective when it comes to foreshadowing and execution. That kind of storytelling growth from Clamp makes sense since Tokyo Babylon was released in the early 90s, but that element couldn't be properly appreciated in English since the translated version of Wish came out in 2002 while Tokyo Babylon didn't come out in America until 2004 -- so being able to appreciate the growth of a manga artist (or a collective of them) in the context of their bigger publication timeline is something I really value in 2020 *oops, I almost typed 2019! lol*.

I Googled to see if I could find old LJ posts I had made about Chobits when I came across my manga collection posted on Serebii.net's forums -- literally 14 years ago today. Freaky!

I guess one of the big reasons Chobits immediately came to mind for me while reading Wish was because both series are so concerned with loving someone and trying to understand and articulate one's feelings. Even as a teenager, I could recognize that Clamp valued authenticity and truly understanding (and being honest about) our wants and desires, especially when other people are involved -- so now, as a married 30 year old, I can relate with stories like Chobits and Wish in a fundamentally different and experiential way (my only romantic relationships as a 14 year old were unrequited lol). Considering that the main characters of Wish include angels and demons, I think the series is also really interesting because it paints love as something distinctly human (something also present in Chii's identity as a robot/persocom). In order for these characters to fall in love, they have to sacrifice their divine/demonic powers -- but, as a result, they gain something (I'd argue, both personally and thematically) much more powerful and fulfilling. :)

Lastly, I really enjoyed reading through Wish because the last few chapters bring up some interesting questions about destiny. As I mentioned, angels and demons (and other spiritual beings) interact with humans in Wish and that also implies the presence of God and Satan. Even though neither is specifically seen in the series, they're often mentioned and their actions behind the scenes make up a lot of what happens to the cast. I think the last volume in particular brings up the question of agency: who's really in control of our lives and does God care about our wants as individuals or the bigger picture? I won't spoil the ending (the presence of a twist is hinted at repeatedly, but I honestly couldn't predict the revelation itself) but between the final conflict and an event witnessed through an act of time travel, I'd argue that the series places a huge emphasis on looking forward and maintaining hope. Just because things may look bad in the moment, you never know what's waiting in your future -- just be true to yourself and try to do the right thing.