Something that keeps coming back and forth in my mind is that, since the Advverse has this concept of the digimon representing their human partner's heart (or being their "other-self")... And this can also be applied to Rui and Ukkomon, in my honest opinion.

Especially when it comes to how the human psyche also affect the evolution of a digimon, which is why you get Taichi being reckless and (according to the novel) a prideful idiot resulting in SkullGreymon back in Adventure'99 (and also why Daisuke lacking any strong negative emotion during 02 never forced him to dark-evolve V-mon)

I'm not very good at meta-ing things like these, so please feel free to correct me if I'm missing something out!

I'd like to talk about my views about DaiLui and why i feel like it could be mutual.

Like, i do believe in the Rui → Daisuke order because it's more accurate and cuter, even if a bit of cliché. But I also like Daisuke → Rui route, it has its own charm and comedy in it.

But Rui is not like Daisuke, of course, and they differ between how they react to people having romantic interests on them.

Rui might not be oblivious like Daisuke, he's pretty well aware of people's feelings so if someone ever confessed to him, he would be in denial due to his past experiences and awful trauma he had. He's still learning to socialize and to interact with others, he's not used to people really liking him. So it will be a bit hard but you can get there, Daisuke-kun!

Meanwhile, and as everyone is well aware, Daisuke has zero awareness when people like him if you don't tell him (or even, if you tell him, he might not believe it either). Since he's dense af, there's a lot of work to be done here in this relationship so good luck, Rui-kun.

... And then I realized that i just described mutual pinning for the first time in my life.

Some color palette funny talk, from an amateur artist who just likes coloring and study colors from time to time

[this is related to this post here]

Ok so a friend came talking about Daigo and Meiko's hair colors being depicted as black, but actually not being totally a black shade at all -- Meiko's hair has blue highlights and Daigo's green highlights. So she wondered if Rui's hair meant to not be purple but silver.

Her question was "Can you explain why you think Rui's hair is purple and not silver?"

And I found that curious, because Rui's purple is more pale than other characters like Miyako, Mirei, Sayo, etc... But my brain still interprets Rui's hair as purple.

To be honest, color is a thing that changes depending on the palette, what you have to be careful is what this user here pointed out about local colors and perceived contrast (something i didn't know UNTIL a couple of days ago! but i think i had some idea of that even without knowing its technical name!!?) -- so you can still be accurate to its palette even when drastically changing the color palette.

For example, Ichijouji Ken's hair had been depicted as either indigo blue, deep purple/blue and pitch black with gray highlights in many types of media, because in anime (gen) deep blue/purple/green hair usually corresponds to real life's black hair.

So, could Rui's hair color be translated to silver?

I think i know what exact day from March 2003 was the worst and most traumatic day in Rui's life.

It's associated with Diablomon's Revenge of course. But did you know that Diablomon's Revenge has a timestamp for its events?

[Spoilers ahead]

Can I write ONE MORE THING about Rui and that drama CD track? (I mean, this is not only my blog but also a blog dedicated to Rui-posting so...)

Rui is the kind of person who does not want to cause TROUBLE for others.

The reason he felt guilty and bad is probably because he was still under the mentality of not wanting to hurt anyone else. This may come from his own issues with his mother, who assumed that a FOUR-YEAR-OLD can act and behave like a mature child and process her vague instructions quite well, and then snapped at him for not doing it the way she wanted him to.

Since Rui may have been holding in a lot of frustration and faking smiles to avoid getting more bruises for refusing or disobeying her mother's orders, he had the vibe of someone who didn't want to cause trouble for anyone else -- no matter if it was his family or even random people he didn't know at all.

When Ukkomon explains to him that the digimon will fight to protect their human partners until the death, Rui's reaction is immediately full of regrets -- He didn't want that at all. He didn't want the digimon to fight and die for their partners, he didn't want Ukkomon to simply force them to be get this "terrible" fate.

This makes clear when he mistakes Miyako asking Hawkmon to stop him as Miyako ordering Hawkmon and Hawkmon blindly obeying such order with no hesitation. Rui just associated that digimon partnerships were bad because of how awful his connection to Ukkomon had been for years.

But hey, Ukkomon also wasn't that great at communicating either... Ukkomon himself admits his mistakes in the first convo he had with Rui after 9 years since their fight. And he was portrayed as just a normal and silly digimon -- he shows a more cheerful and friendly behavior/personality than what Rui depicted him to the 02 kids hours ago.

Still, Rui's reaction to Ukkomon's tricks was basically the same reaction his mother would have if he didn't do exactly what she asked him to do the way she wanted him to. And then he claimed that Ukkomon didn't understand him and didn't know what he wanted. The same claim is used against Rui later in the movie -- when Daisuke reverts the question as: "Do you know what Ukkomon wants? What Ukkomon likes?" and thanks to this trick (which may have come from Hikari's own comment about how pitiful Ukkomon was in doing all those pathetic things to help), Rui realizes the problem and decides to do what the 02 kids suggested to him, which was to go talk to Ukkomon and solve their 9-year fight.

So... why would he still feel guilty after those events?

Because he was still taking responsibility for the bad things happening in his birthday. Like, the giant Ukkomon DigiEgg and the "Eggcalypse" which later we learn it was just Ukkomon trying to call for Rui's attention and maybe he wasn't planning to force a mass partnership spree through the ENTIRE WORLD.

(Yeah, those two are really bad at communicating)

Anyway, I want to wrap Rui in a blanket and give him his favorite beverage, because I want this little boy to know that he's loved and that he can be himself, that he can like and dislike whatever he wants. And I want him and Ukkomon to have fun and enjoy life together in the healthiest way possible.

Still can't stop thinking about how the Drama CD track 3 depicted basically how some people (like moi) suffer with the depression + anxiety + denial combo.

Yes, I suppose all of those are what the Dark Ocean picked from Rui's brain.

Especially because he imagined Miyako, Iori, Takeru, Hikari and their mons condemning and judging him for making amends with Ukkomon. Something ALL OF THE 02 KIDS had suggested him to do.

So, do you see what was the contradiction there?

I suppose Rui spent years believing everyone secretly disliked him and those people only got to talk to him because of Ukkomon hijacking their minds with Liar Dream technique, so the moment the 02 kids were kind to him…

… he possibly was not expecting for that and then just had trust issues.

Because those people are not being controlled by Ukkomon, right?! Therefore they might be just being nice to him because they pity him, right?!

And he might have been thinking he only caused MORE trouble for everyone ALL AGAIN, so yeah… he was indeed feeling guilty for everything again.

Since Rui himself admits he had part in the bad things committed by Ukkomon, i do not agree with the idea of simply blaming on Ukkomon. Or claiming/joking that Rui hated him either.

Anyway, my point is if Rui had told the 02 group about this strange event he witnessed, they all would point out that "No, we definitely told you to go there and settle your nearly ten-year fight with Ukkomon, we wouldn't yell at you for making amends with him!"

I just remembered why the official subs/dubs might have messed up the final scenes pretty badly, because…

... Rui said he didn't want to change his past when Daisuke almost went to throw hands with his mom. And the reason he managed to talk with his mom in the end was because he knew that that world he was in was made by Ukkomon.

The reason that scene is there is in the most figurative form of the usual therapist "if this person was right in front of you, what would you tell them" reflexive exercise. It's there so Rui can move on, not to tell that he changed the past.

Also, the time-travel thing... is not real according to Taguchi, so...

In the end, assuming Rui changed the past would go against Rui's wishes to not change his story. So, what Rui wanted to do when he rushed to prevent his child-self finding the egg?

He wanted to ask Ukkomon to undo partnerships, and possibly the digi-eye as well. But not to change his entire story/life. Possibly in the present, and not in the past.

So Rui himself seemed to realize that this place was not real, and that's why he managed to do those risky things that, if it were a real time travel scenario, would lead to one of those time travel theories as result.

Also, it would go against Taguchi's wishes to not mess with the timeline. He didn't want to show what was the truth, he didn't want to invalidate any past material within the Advverse with this movie or Rui's story.

In other words, there was no changes in the timeline at all.

I hope i'm not the only person who realized that Rui's personality is not like gloomy and sad... He's very gentle, bubbly and snarky at the end of the movie and the drama CD track 3. The depression part was that he was living an unhappy life fueled with trauma and possibly grudges.

It might sound like i'm assuming things, but i'm not... The way Rui breaks the news to Ukkomon that he hated those things the mon listed (cake, baseball, burger steak) is a cute sassy tone. And then they just have this little "friendly fight" which both laughs in the end.

And the drama CD has him just doing a snarky remark on Daisuke, very playfully and teasing the other. So, in other words, Rui is pretty much different from the angsty sad potato he is when you meet him first in the movie.

Ok so, 02TB spoilers -- But this is mostly about the cold opening of the movie. Which you can still watch on YT because Toei posted it. I refer to this:

The thing that I just noticed last night when I was skimming through my copy of the movie is that... It does not seem that Rui was just casually wandering around when the egg appeared. He was there BECAUSE of the egg.

He had the digivice in hands in the last minutes of the cold opening, and his reaction to the egg is different from everyone else -- he's kinda... indifferent about the egg. It's more likely that he had seen the egg (or, uh, "sensed" it) and went immediately to the Tokyo Tower.

In other words, he had been planning to climb the damn Tokyo Tower since Feb 21, when the egg was spotted for the first time.

i noticed something very sad in Ukkomon-Rui relationship when shit hit the fan and it made me kinda... upset

you know when you're doing things for someone you fucking loves to the point you start to destroy yourself in order to make them happy?

yeah

i think the fact Ukkomon gave his eye to Rui was... yeah

not that Rui hated Ukkomon for real, it's just thanks to his abusive mother he might not even get the right to reject stuff so this probably made him kept accepting everything Ukkomon was giving to him, even when Ukkomon went insane and started thinking he must keep Rui happy and never let him experience sadness again

Ukkomon was reaching the point of simply destroying himself in order to keep Rui-kun happy 

i guess this is why Hikari spotted that Ukkomon was being pathetic and then pitied him

Rui might not have realized that before though

The audio drama probably takes place on Summer if the kiddos are going to the beach… Ukkomon is not present with Rui at the end of the track… which means… Ukkomon might hatch later, and the post-credits scene might be late 2012…? and not on the same day (Feb 29)

(ignore the bully, i kicked him out of the pic, he's not allowed to be here)

So, the idea is something the server and I had been cooking yesterday. Last night. When we noticed those two kids are too similar to the kids going to Rui's party on his 8th birthday (Feb 29 2000) and we thought...

"Well, it doesn't seem like Ukkomon was controlling everyone 24/7 like Rui's parents... What if those two legitimately were Rui's friends at school? They seem to always have been his classmates since kindergarten..."

(※ I know there's a 3rd boy in the b-day party scene, but I don't think he's the bully, or the kid in the scene where Rui is greeting a girl in red backpack while they go to school together?)

And knowing that Rui was living in denial, believing that everything that had happened in his childhood was fake, or created by Ukkomon… Friends and I suspected that not everything was in fact fake or manipulated by Ukkomon. So this means, there would be legit connections Rui made while his self-esteem was boosted by Ukkomon doing “this and that” around. And you can see that in the kindergarten scene, Ukkomon is facing the bully. He’s not even controlling the other two kids in-scene.

If this girl and boy depicted in those two scenes kept being in touch with Rui before things went south… This means they would be… concerned with him suddenly disappearing from nowhere, or cutting bonds with them. They possibly heard the news of him getting hurt, parents suddenly passing away and him having to be taken by relatives.

And since the part of relatives in-movie is very very VAGUE, I took the idea that this doesn’t mean they were bad as his mother, but at the same time he was completely avoiding people in general. Because of “you know what” hidden under the eyepatch and his bangs.

But back to those two kiddos here… Yeah, we suspect they did like Rui with or without Ukkomon’s influence. And if they lost contact with him after that incident… One day they would simply get to meet him again. Maybe… Because they spotted a GIANT egg singing “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR RUI~” and hatching into something that looked like that funny sea butterfly critter which was always with Rui?

Yeah... Yeah. And considering the idea of “not everything in your childhood was Ukkomon’s byproduct, or an illusion”… The server and I, while I was going on a spree of “HEY LET’S MAKE OCs SO THEY CAN BEFRIEND RUI AND LET HIM HAVE HIS OWN CIRCLE LIKE THE 02 KIDS!” (because if he were just attached to Daisuke & co, Rui’s entire character arc & growth would’ve been pointless) and tagging some cool friends for ideas and teamwork on building– i mean, introducing new friends to Rui again… We made this discovery and thought: Well, why not use those background characters instead?

You might remember that I adopted the Maki-Daigo’s team back in time, and then Shai named those three kiddos based on Daigo’s name and their assigned Holy Beast partners, right? And then quite recently, i think last year (?), Shiha and I were talking about this same group and imagining a whole fanmade prequel series exploring those five’s potential – which led me to do a new version of my ol’ redesigns for them + do a soft-redesign Maki & Daigo too to follow the style/aes, and i gave them personalities + roles!

Today, we got to do the same thing again. And we cooked something for post-movie events for Rui & Ukkomon ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ 

A recent convo with a friend had us talk about Rui “forgiving” his mother in the end of the movie, and I feel like this will be misinterpreted and going to be blown up into the wrong directions enough to call this movie “bad”.

And my memory of that scene is that: No, he did not say he “forgave” her in that scene.

And that whole scene is not about “forgiving” her, it’s Rui coming into the terms of understanding him being non-confrontational and always letting his mother (and others) decide what he likes and what-not (and what he wants) was wrong.

His line was, in the BR dub, something like: “I know you’re having a hard time, but please try to pay attention to what Lui is trying to tell you.”

It wasn’t supposed to be him “forgiving” her. It was exactly what I was thinking since I watched the movie: You can even see her side, that she was struggling a lot to maintain the house, keep her husband alive and then raise Rui, BUT THIS DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE CHILD ABUSE RUI WAS SUFFERING THERE.

Besides, this is not even the past. It’s Rui’s memories generated by Ukkomon, as some sort of invitation to talk with his beloved human partner and make amends with all the “bad” things he caused to Rui. This is supposed to show Rui doing it more for himself than to “forgive” his late mother.

This is what a ton of people didn’t get in 02 too, and why Iori not “forgiving” Ken was not wrong. To be honest, i think one of my friends explained to me that none of the 02 kids had “forgave” Ken for what he had caused to them and to the digimon, but they came to accept him because he was showing that he was trying his best to become a better person and take responsibility for the damage he caused.

Therefore Iori taking time to accept Ken in the group, and befriending him, was very realistic and natural. A person who has done a ton of awful things to you and your friends is trying their best to change and make amends with you, so you start to slowly accept them and even befriend them, right?

The most fricked up and terrifying part of the Ukkomon lore in 02TB is not his powers, or him being linked to some sort of greater being.

It's the fact if Rui-kun was a bad person, a mean spirited kid... This could've ended really REALLY BAD FOR EVERYONE.

Can you imagine a vile person discovering that Ukkomon can hijack people's minds, and also that he can "grand wishes"?

Yeah... Rui-kun is really a soft, nice, kind boyo and also lacks malice. Why are some of the 02 characters getting something very dangerous or powerful that could've been the end of us if it were in wrong hands?

I mean, remember what is in Imperialdramon's profile?

And i'm glad Daisuke and Ken are not evil for realsies because :)

Do y'all know that if it weren't for Ukkomon's intervention Rui would've died sooner?

Like, i get it, Ukkomon definitely had done wrong things. Ukkomon "may" have killed Rui's parents as well...

But he saved Rui from dying soon or later by the hands of that woman.

"So is killing someone okay?" I don't think that's the message, though. I think it's more in the sense of "if you witness someone abusing a child, please find ways to intervene and save their life."

If you watched the movie, you will notice that Daisuke was ready to intervene as well, because he witnessed Rui getting abused. He did not do anything because Ken stopped him, in the fear of them "changing the course of the events", but i think there's also that it could end bad, Rui's mom would've called the police on them if he tried to go argue with her without a plan or idk, reporting to the police i think?

Anyway, Ukkomon did bad things, but it was in order to save Rui from dying. And the 02 kids noticed that by themselves, even if Rui was (sadly) framing Ukkomon as the villain of his entire life.

Ansd Rui was open to criticism: He heard the 02 kids' suggestion of going there and talk with Ukkomon. He wanted it too, deep down he liked Ukkomon. Deep down he knew Ukkomon meant no harm, and was just a baby like him.

This is why Ukkomon and Rui made amends and came to understand each other. This is why Rui gets a tiny Ukkomon egg so they can restart from zero, again.

Like, i get it. I get you can side with Rui and think Ukkomon is the worst and deserves no forgiveness. But i don't think everyone who watched the movie understood Ukkomon or his intentions.

Ukkomon is not your regular "coldhearted villain". There's no malicious intent in Ukkomon's actions. Yeah, he did bad things but he wanted to help Rui and in the end Rui was able to realize those thanks to the 02 kids.

Ok so i keep thinking and re-thinking about this... If you read my rough Rui-Ukkomon fact checking post, there's a few things that sound unclear actually.

First one is

1- Rui thought he killed Ukkomon, but according to the OG anime & 02, anything related to a digimon (be part of its body, getup or weapons) vanishes when they're destroyed/killed. The Audio Drama #3 implies that Ukkomon did not die, but also didn't explain where Ukkomon was, or why didn't he appear before Rui turned 20 (the Japanese's legal age in 2012)

While talking to a friend today about a bad take i saw regarding Rui “hating” Ukkomon, i realized that maybe Ukkomon and Rui had broken their partnership, maybe something similar to what Kizuna presented to us. In the scene we witness Rui discovering Ukkomon’s secrets, Ukkomon melts and the melted parts get gathered into an egg which disappears immediately. But Ukkomon’s eye didn’t, and was still slapped in Rui’s face.

This sounds off, right? Maybe this means Ukkomon lost his physical form and not that he was “dead”. Which means Ukkomon was still around but couldn’t interact with Rui and anyone else… Until Rui turned 20.

Which leads us to the question:

If Ukkomon and Rui’s partnership has broken, then… How did Ukkomon come back in Feb 21 2012?

Well… considering that Ukkomon is said to grant wishes, and Rui’s wish was to have friends around the world when he grows up (in which Ukkomon took it… literally…), Ukkomon’s power was activated once Rui was about to turn 20. 

2- So is it true? That Ukkomon can grant wishes?

Possibly yes, but i don’t think he’s like a got-tier wish maker creature able to grant EVERY wish. Maybe Ukkomon does not even know how to use those powers. I suspect his “magical” powers are limited, and this is why he had to do some… unethical things – because he does not know what human morality is, and couldn’t grant such wishes because his power cannot like, cure people or turn them good without having to… uh… do that.

I’m actually speculating things here. But I do think Ukkomon is connected to a greater being like he claimed in a flashback – mostly because his defeat in the climax battle resulted in the digivices not being needed anymore: Because humans and digimon can form bonds WITHOUT a device connecting them. Basically the same story for the Adv’99 crests and tags – just a tool to raise their digimon properly and awaken those powers within their hearts.

Is Ukkomon connected to Homeostasis and the Holy Beasts? Maybe? I think maybe Ukkomon is connected to Homeostasis, or to the same higher-ups Homeo and the Holy Beasts have.

Anyway, i want to rewatch this movie so i can see if i remembered stuff correctly! And see if i can discover more stuff hidden in it~