Crack the code.
"Don't you wanna know? The truth of the two worlds?"
— Professor Ryusenji
Released to coincide with the Digimon franchise's 25th anniversary, Digimon Seekers is a Web Original light novel series telling the story of code crackers and the forces that police them. Promising to tie in with the franchise's ongoing null canon, it aims to focus on aspects of the franchise that have always been in the background but never brought to the forefront in many of the series' anime.
In the near future, the Digital World is a cyberspace built onto the world's computer network, and is home to creatures called Digimon. They are sought after and used by code crackers using devices called Digimon docks, which allow them to capture and control Digimon for various purposes. For this reason, different kinds of Digimon users exist, including nefarious crackers and righteous hackers who oppose them. There is also the Digipolice, aka Investigative Unit Eleven of the Metropolitan Police Department's Cyber Crime Division, who put an end to Digimon crimes, and the Sons of Chaos, an extremist cracker group led by the enigmatic cracker named "TARTARUS".
Eiji Nagasumi, aka "Fang", is a loser cracker who earns money by doing dangerous Digimon-related work. One day, he is entrusted a new kind of Digimon dock known as the "Digimon Linker" by Professor Ryusenji of the Abadin Electronics Corp ("AE"), along with a mysterious Digimon by the name of Loogamon. Ryusenji asks Eiji to infiltrate the Sons of Chaos, where he learns the group is planning a large scale cyber crime event.
What is the secret of the Digimon Linker and its "Mind Link" ability? What is the truth of the mysterious Loogamon? And just as importantly, will Eiji manage to turn his life around?
Digimon Seekers's first chapter was released on April 2nd, 2023. Daily updates would follow for the first week, before switching to weekly updates onward. Each chapter would also be available on-line via YouTube, where they are narrated in Japanese by Miyuki Sawashiro. There will also be regular live action trailers in the vein of Digimon Project 2021 to coincide with each major chapter.
The Digimon Seekers website portal can be found here
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Digimon Seekers provides examples of...!
- A Father To Her Men: Yulin of the Digipolice is shown to be this in the first chapter's trailer, where she states that she doesn't want to risk her men losing their consciousness in the Digital World when Mind Link's time limit runs out.
- Adaptational Villainy: Usually Omegamon is an unambiguously heroic Digimon. However, when one shown up in front of Eiji and Leon when they were fighting, it was explicitly sent out of nowhere by the network as a security system to kill both intruders.
- All There in the Manual: It is a stated goal of the series that this story is meant to take elements of Digimon that were always this trope and take them out of the manual.
- Armored Dragons: The Digipolice's almost entirely consist of these. Thus far, we've seen Commandramon in modern military armor and Xu Yulin's partner Ryudamon, who wears samurai armor.
- Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Digipolice uses one called Cargodramon to drop its Commandramon soldiers onto the scene of a crime.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Unfortunately the English translation of the novel can be clunky at best and difficult to follow at worst, due to the official website's decision to simply machine translate everything instead of hiring a proper English translator. The easier-to-parse mistakes include being unsure how to translate certain words (Childhood, Growth, Maturity, Perfect, and Ultimate are the given evolution levels rather than the "Baby, Child, Adult, Perfect, and Ultimate" of most direct Japanese translations), original terms like "Hololize" have a number of alternate spellings within a single chapter or it forgets to translate or give context for words at all like "Machibuse" (with two different spellings), and grammar issues like "Digimon is alive" being used repeatedly when talking about them as a whole.
- The Chessmaster: Everyone, from the SoC, to the DigiPolice, to even Eiji himself, are all unwitting pawns to the true Big Bad of the story, Professor Ryusenji. Initially masquerading as a friendly professor, Ryusenji shows his true colors at the final act where it's revealed that he took advantage of his daughter's DMiA to manipulate Kosuke into helping him find the source Digimon so he could mindlink with it to become a god, while giving Kosuke, Yulin and Eiji his three Digimon so they could breach into the Digital World's depths and fulfill his plan for him, and he only prolonged the entire thing for fun. It slipped directly under the radar for so long, that nobody's really aware of it until he announced himself right in front of Kosuke, Yulin and Eiji. And even when he does fight Eiji (and Leon) with Kosuke's Dorumon, he fights inside his office by remote-controlling it, and the epilogue reveals that whatever he's doing there is completely legal as there's no law stopping it, and he got away scot-free as a result.
- The Cracker: The main protagonist is one of these for a living. This also covers Deuteragonist Leon Alexander, aka "JUDGE", who hates malevolent hackers like the Sons of Chaos, who are the evil version of this trope.
- Darker and Edgier: The initial few chapters are not that bad and seems to be only a typical tale of a wannabe Digimon-wielding hacker infiltrating a notorious cybercrime group with a more mature atheistic, with the risk of death and catatonia only mentioned in passing. Come the second half of Chapter 2, and things get very dark quick. Not only it's revealed that Eiji only went to become a Code Cracker because his parents were murdered in a terrorist incident where a Machinedramon shot down a plane they were in, at one point he had to fight his friend Leon for the sake of gaining the group's trust, something that led to the latter sacrificing himself to save Eiji from an intruding Omegamon and the former spending the entire intermission chapter being horribly depressed.
- Deconstruction: Of the Digimon cyber-fantasy seen since Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. The Digimon hacking business is treated way more seriously than it did with previous works, with all the catastrophic consequences of Digimon-related cybercrimes laid bare for the reader to see. Infiltrating a code cracker group dealing with Digimon is also seen as a dangerous ordeal where you'll have to betray your friends to secure loyalty for the criminals you're working with, and each operation has to be short and precise to prevent your soul from being harvested by the Digital World itself.
- Fictional Social Network: Seekers has one in the form of "GriMM", which crackers use to pick up jobs and receive payment for their services in the network's own cryptocurrency, "Digicoin". It's stated to have more revenue and thus more global power than some nations.
- Final Boss: The final enemy in the story is Kosuke's Dorugoramon, which was being controlled by Ryusenji from his office. It also evolves into Death-X-Dorugoramon, but when Fenrirloogamon merges with Leon's Pulsemon and becomes Fenriloogamon: Takemikazuchi, it was swiftly taken down in one hit.
- Fighting Your Friend: At one point, Eiji was forced by the Sons of Chaos to defeat Leon in order to prove his loyalty to them, causing Loogarmon to Dark Evolve and go out of control in a desperate attempt to take out Leon's Mega-level Kaizuchimon. The fight was interrupted when an Omegamon shown up from nowhere to kill both and dragged Leon and Pulsemon into the Vortex with it.
- Fusion Dance: Through their bond of friendship and sheer drive to put a stop to Dr. Ryusenji, Eiji and Leon cause Fenriloogamon and Kazuchimon to Jogress Evolve, becoming Fenriloogamon: Takemikazuchi.
- The Infiltration: Eiji is tasked to do this with the Sons of Chaos, which is what causes him to run afoul of the Digipolice.
- Hollywood Chameleons: A group of Espimon, presumably belonging to the Sons of Chaos, are shown engaging their cloaking devices in the first chapter's trailer when surrounded by the Digipolice's Commandramon.
- Hour of Power: Yulin states in the chapter 1 trailer that the Digimon Linker's "Mind Link" has a time limit.
- Karma Houdini: Because Ryusenji's manipulations are not illegal by the definition of law, he gets away scot-free. However, he moved from Japan to America, likely to avoid reprisal from Kosuke, Leon and Eiji.
- Living Macguffin: A BlackAgumon is being hunted, the Sons of Chaos offering a 1 Million Digicoin reward for its capture, Tartarus being obsessed with capturing it. This is because this specific BlackAgumon was the partner of Tartarus'/Kosuke's fiance, Saya, whose mind was fused with its Digicore as a result of Mind Linking for too long, leaving her body comatose before eventually dying. Kosuke wants to catch it in the hopes that he can bring Saya back, having been tricked by Tomonori into thinking her body was still alive.
- Mon Tech: Digimon Docks are devices used by Hackers to modify commercial electronics, though they are shoddy and sold on the Dark Web. Docks are used to store Digimon and raise them even from a Digitama. Problems can arise from their memory issues, which may cause problems with Digimon.
- Digimon Linkers can store Digimon and project it as a Holoize Digimon while monitoring Tamer's health. It can also perform a Mindlink with a Digimon, where their body in the real world falls unconscious when a Digimon is sent to a digital space. This allows for mental communication between Tamer and Digimon. It can also Digivolve a Digimon when their Tamer is Mindlinked, but it lowers the time limit.
- No Hero to His Valet: Eiji is shown not being very courteous or even friendly to the Tyrannomon he uses prior to receiving Loogamon, berating one for its failure and opting to simply send in a fourth when that one is incapacitated.
- He repeats the same rudeness in Chapter 1 part 2, in which he's very informal or outright unhelpful to Ryusenji's secretary through tone, being overly familiar, and outright ignoring some of her requests for information.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The series features the armored, militaristic Commandramon as the primary foot-soldier Digimon of the Digipolice. The police also have the Perfect/Ultimate level Cargodramon to carry them into battle.
- Parental Abandonment: Eiji's parents were stated to have been vanished a year ago, and a recurring topic in Chapter 2 is the Flight 626 incident where a Digimon, later explicitly revealed to be a Machinedramon owned by X country shot down the eponymous plane and killing everyone in it during a terrorist attack. An exchange between Leon and Eiji reveals that the latter's parents was inside that plane when it get shot, killing both of them and forcing Eiji to drop out of school to become a cracker for money.
- Palette Swap: Eiji having to tell the difference between a ModokiBetamon and a Betamon is a minor plot point in chapter 1-3. His treating it like a normal Betamon is implied to be why he had to use three Tyrannomon to capture it.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Technically, Eiji's mission to take down Leon to secure loyalty for the SoC was a success, and they treat the operation as such. However, Eiji did not actually win the duel, and all he saw was a tragedy where not only his partner Dark Evolved into a horrific beast because of his desire to win at all costs, his friend ended up DMiA after seemingly sacrificing himself to save Eiji from an Omegamon who was interrupting the duel trying to kill both humans.
- Production Throwback: It has been stated by staff members prior to release that Seekers is one to Digimon Chronicle, the manga and prose story that was told through virtual pet manuals and web-site resources that was used to tell the story of the X-Antibody Digimon. Not only is it a web-series, but it features a Prototype Digimon in the form of Loogamon, a throwback to Chronicle's stars, Dorumon and Ryudamon.
- Prop Recycling: Used in-universe. Eiji is seen using a Digimon Accel in both the trailers and first chapter prior to his receiving the Digimon Linker. This is meant to show how fallen on hard times he is, in that he has to use a Digimon dock from the mid-2000's.
- Single-Stroke Battle: The Final Boss, a Death-X-Dorugoramon controlled by Ryusenji, was taken out in a single hit by Fenrirloogamon: Takemikazuchi.
- The Sociopath: Dr. Ryusenji is this in spades. He took advantage his own daughter Saya's death to manipulate her grief-stricken fiancé Kosuke into helping him with the false promise of reviving her. What's more, when Eiji finds out their plans and is rightfully pissed off he let Leon die while declaring his and Loogamon's intent to stop them, he had the audacity to say Eiji betrayed him, before saying that he would forgive Eiji if he lets them resume hacking into Loogamon and joins him, fully solidifying how he cares about nobody but himself.
- This Loser Is You: When we first met Eiji, he's barely keeping his head above water financially, and reminiscing that just a year ago he was an Ordinary High-School Student before he had to become a cracker for money. This would be instantly identifiable to the young adults of today. There's even a bit of subtext from his use of the Digimon Accel in part one, where he has four Tyrannomon. The only version of the Accel that Tyrannomon appears in is the Nature Genome, where it's the Digimon evolution you receive if you fail to meet any other requirements. Eiji isn't just losing out financially, he's also extremely poor at raising Digimon! Any beginner to raising Digimon in the device toys could relate to this.
- Tragic Dropout: A year prior, Eiji was just an ordinary high school student. After his parents was killed in a terrorist incident where a Machinedramon shot down Flight 626 and killed everyone in it, he's forced to drop out of school and was forced to do code cracker jobs to survive.
- Toilet Humor: Digipolice officer Satsuki Tamahime's partner is a Numemon, one of the franchise's infamous poop throwers.
- Savage Wolves: The main protagonist has one for a partner, named Loogamon. It is shown evolving into an even more Savage Wolf named Loogarmon at the end of the first chapter's trailer, and Dark Evolves into an even more hellish-looking wolf Digimon called Helloogarmon when Eiji is forced to evolve to stand a chance against his duel with Leon's Mega.
- Worf Had the Flu: Right at the start, Eiji and the Sons of Chaos were tasked to capture a Machinedramon, an Ultimate-level Digimon that was used as a terrorist weapon by a dictatorship and allegedly shot down an entire plane worth hundreds by itself, despite none of the hackers even have a single Digimon on its level. Thankfully, it's restrained for that operation and is thus less of a valid threat than a Curb Stomp Cushion before Leon's Kazuchimon makes short work of it.
- Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: As in Digimon Project 2021, the Pulsemon line uses green lightning.
