Digimon Ghost Game 1×2 Review – “The Mystery of the Museum”

‘The Mystery of the Museum’ showed Hiro that he will run into Digimon that aren’t trying to deliberately harm the human world. The second episode of the Digimon Ghost Game anime series also gave us the debut of one of Gammamon’s Champion forms.

‘The Mystery of the Museum’ opened with a man being kidnapped at night by Mummymon. I enjoyed the horror tone in the debut episode and I liked seeing it continue in the second installment. I hope the horror/creepy theme sticks throughout the first season of Digimon Ghost Game.

There have been reports about how a tall person in a mummy costume was kidnapping people in the Ueno area, near the museum. Some people were calling Mummymon a Hologram Ghost. So, of course, paranormal-enthusiast Ruri decided to visit the museum with her two friends in hopes of finding something exciting. She was quite disappointed to learn that the museum exhibit only had normal-looking mummies. However, one of her friends ended up seeing Mummymon’s eye for a quick second.

I liked how the creative team handled that particular scene. With one of Ruri’s friends falling behind, I thought she was going to get kidnapped by Mummymon and that would lead to Ruri learning about the existence of Digimon. It would be similar to how Hiro encountered Clockmon when the crazed Digimon attacked Hiro’s friend Nomura.

Even though Ruri’s friend didn’t get kidnapped, I still enjoyed how intense the entire sequence came across in the anime. I get that Digimon Ghost Game is primarily a kid’s show, but the creative team’s doing an impressive job of making grownups like me worry about the fate of certain characters whenever something creepy begins to happen.

Also, I’m not mad at the fact that our three co-leads didn’t get caught in the strangeness of the Digimon World together. As of now, only Hiro’s met his Partner Digimon. And going with how ‘The Mystery of the Museum’ ended, I think Ruri will be the next to meet hers.

Hiro got involved in the Mummymon situation because he wanted his questions about the Digimon World answered. Gammamon had been no help to him. The little Digimon had no idea how to enter the Digital World. Hiro wanting to present his question to Mummymon made sense, even though it was a bit reckless to try and face a potentially dangerous Digimon alone. But I guess Hiro’s desperate. He wants to gain access to the Digital World to reunite with his father.

The current episode also had some cute scenes showing Hiro and Gammamon bonding over food. Hiro making notes on his cellphone to help understand Gammamon’s vocabulary better was some good thinking. Due to wearing a DigiVice, we also got to see how the world had changed for Hiro. He was now able to see random Digimon walking around in the real world while other people were oblivious to their existence. However, other people were able to see Gammamon being carried in Hiro’s backpack because Gammamon had an actual physical body in the real world due to the DigiVice.

Coming to Hiro’s interactions with Mummymon, kidnapping a bunch of people turned out to be a huge misunderstanding. Apparently, Mummymon fancied himself a doctor. His nature urged him to help humans. However, he ended up gaining knowledge by listening to the museum’s presentation on the mummification process. Mummymon thought that he could help humans ease pain and find peace by mummifying them. He wanted them to be reborn anew.

Mummymon’s methods were undoubtedly harmful to humans, but due to his heart being in the right place, Hiro was able to make Mummymon realize his mistake. Not every battle or problem should be (or can be) handled by force. Hiro realizing Mummymon was a doctor was impressive. I like main characters that are intelligent. Not every boy-centric anime protagonist has to be the “Punch-first-ask-questions-later” type.

With Hiro suggesting Mummymon go and learn about modern medicine from nearby hospitals, I just hope it works out well for Mummymon and the human population in the long run. Mummymon couldn’t tell that the techniques mentioned in the presentation about mummification weren’t supposed to be used in current times. Who knows how he will interpret modern (or even older) medicine and how it should be applied to help humans in pain. Again, I get that Digimon Ghost Game needs to operate within certain storytelling limits, but Mummymon doing horrific medical procedures on unwilling humans could be used to create another horror-centric episode.   

Hiro’s confrontation with Mummymon also gave us the debut Gammamon’s fire-related Champion-level Digivolution. There’s a cool factor to Betel Gammamon’s design. And I’m looking forward to seeing more of Gammamon’s Champion-level Digivolutions. Also, I appreciated how Gammamon’s new form wasn’t really able to harm the Ultimate-level Mummymon. I get that DigiPartners are supposed to be more powerful than Digimon not bonded to humans. But Betel Gammamon not knocking out Mummymon (an Ultimate-level being) with a single ‘Sorshot’ attack was nice to see.

‘The Mystery of the Museum’ showed Nomura being discharged from the hospital. Apparently, his mother found out he was hitting on a cute nurse so he was forced to leave. I don’t know about you, but seeing Nomura always bringing up girls in front of Hiro doesn’t sit right with me. With everything happening in his life, Hiro’s not into having crushes and talking about girls. So, why does Nomura keep bringing girls up in their conversations? I could be reading too much into it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Nomura ends up being a queer character who has been talking about hitting on girls to cover up for something else. Again, I could be totally wrong here. But Nomura’s characterization has been giving me certain types of signals.

The highly popular Naruto/Boruto franchise has queer representation. So, Digimon Ghost Game opting for such a route wouldn’t be anything too drastic. The anime has already made a major change by giving a boy co-lead a “female” DigiPartner. But, yeah, let’s see if my hunch about Nomura is right or not.

I also enjoyed Hiro’s little interaction with Kiyoshiro about how Hiro should opt for reinforced glass when repairing the window Clockmon broke in the previous episode. There’s certainly something going on with Kiyoshiro. Due to Angoramon following Ruri without her noticing the presence of her DigiPartner, I have a feeling that Kiyoshiro’s DigiParther, Jellymon, has been playing pranks on him.

The Digimon series has always had the concept of DigiDestined or children selected for a bigger cause. I’m looking forward to learning more about why Hiro, Kiyoshiro, and Ruri were selected and what major threat are they supposed to defeat.

What did you think of ‘The Mystery of Museum’? Do you think we will get to see Mummymon again?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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