On July 12, 2006 I had the opportunity to interview with The Digimon Encyclopedia's McFeely! Here's the Interview.
Hey Chris how have you been?
I think the answer there would be "busy!" Any visitors to the website
will have noticed that it hasn't been updated in a few months, now, which is mostly down to the fact that my time has been occupied working on a
recent series of Transformers DVDs coming out over here in the UK. Subtite proofing and quality-checking, and recording audio commentaries, stuff like that.
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Well here's the question we all want to know, how did you get into
"Digimon"?
Well, the series itself premiered on Irish TV in January 2000 (that is,
a few months after it started in the US), but I wasn't really "into" it
then. Most fans often say that at first, they thought the series was just
going to be a Pokemon clone, and I admit, I was exactly the same, but my younger brother was denying it, saying that it was quite different (not that
he'd SEEN it, or anything, but he'd read about, while I hadn't). But, there
wasn't much else on at 5pm on Mondays, so I plugged myself in, and
followed it on-and-off. The fact that they actually defeated Devimon and the story then moved off in another direction caught my attention, but then the series briefly aired daily for a two-week school holiday period, and I missed almost all of the Etemon arc. Discovering that, I tuned back in in time to see the final few episodes - when Sora was captured at the end of
"Prisoner of the Pyramid," I made a point of tuning in the next day to see what happened, and when "The Earthquake of MetalGreymon" the ended with Tai and Koromon going back to Earth, that was it - I had to see where the series would go next.
That said, I still missed "WereGarurumon's Diner," but once the
Myotismon arc truly kicked in, I couldn't get enough of the show. The irony being that by 02, my brother didn't care about it anymore.
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How long have you been a fan of Digimon?
If we take the Myotismon arc as when I truly became a fan, that would
be the late-spring early-summer of 2000. Fanfic followed in the second half of the year, which birthed the website in September of 2001.
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How is your favorite human character on Digimon?
Well, I think that visitors to the site from way back would remember
that I was very fond of Sora. As the universe has grown, I think she's slipped down the list a bit, but I don't know if I could pick one singular favourite character... Davis, though, would definitely be VERY high up the list, as would Kazu.
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What is your favorite Digimon?
Oh, too hard! Even from the beginning, I've never been able to pick out
a favourite - if you set a gun to my head, though, I might say Tamers
Terriermon, purely because of his personality. He's that little voice
in the back of your head, all the things that you're not supposed to say, and he says them anyway. Plus, he turns into Rapidmon. Rapidmon's cool.
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What villian do like the most?
Oh, that's definitely Myotismon. His arc was when the show truly hit
"epic" storytelling, and was when I got truly pulled into the show, so he
definitely has burned himself into my mind as my favourite villain. His
return in 02 jazzed me to no end.
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What do Mega level Digimon do you think is the coolest?
That'd probably be Omnimon.
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Now on a Digimon, which episode made you laugh a lot, and cry a
lot?
For laughs, "Kazu and Kenta's Excellent Adventure" was a great one.
Frontier as a series, however, would have got more laughs-per-episode, because of Bokomon and Neemon, who I LOVE. Nothing in the series ever truly made me cry, but the closest I got would have been Oikawa's sacrifice from "A Million Points of Light," because it was so shocking to me. His emotional speech in "Oikawa's Shame" had a similar effect. But Tamers got more "emotional responses" out of me per-episode - there was something that hit me in the gut in most episodes of the last arc.
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You have did a total of 14 interviews. And that is incredible.
Is there any more interviews coming for us to see in the near
future?
I don't have anything else lined up right now, but I always hope to be
able to do some more interviews in the future.
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Did you actually met any of the voice actors in person?
I've never met any of the actors I've interviewed - they're done
through e-mail, except for Dave Wittenberg, who I interview through AOL Instant Messenger, which would be the closest I ever got to doing one in
person, since it was in real time, at least. The Colleen O'Shaughnessey
interview, hough, began with a phone call - she was an actress I'd wanted to interview or a long time ('cause of the Sora thing), and when I finally stumbled across a contact number, even as it rang, I thought, "No way is it this easy." And then the message service clicked on, and it was, like "HOLY CRAP THATS SORAS VOICE OMG!" Had to calm down very quickly to leave a message there.
Had I been able to attend Anime North in Toronto this year, though, I
COULD have met Jeff Nimoy, since he was there and asked me to stop by if I was. But alas, I was not.
I did, though, just have the pleasure of meeting ADV's Tiffany Grant
and Matt Greenfield in person this past weeked at Tomo-Dachi 2006, a
convention held in my town. They never worked on Digimon, of course, so I didn't think I'd be geeking out over it, but holy crap, did I ever (for those that don't know, Grant has done about a million things, but is best known as Asuka from "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and Greenfield is the co-founder of ADV who writes and directs a vast amount of their output). I don't think I *showed* it too badly, but I'm still coming down off the geek-high as I write this. I mean, I got to chat to Matt Greenfield for ten minutes about the animation industry! Aaaah!
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Now to the my questions which are off topics. I always ask these questions about game shows so here we go.
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Have you actually tried out for a game show if you did tell me and
how was the experience?
No, I have not. Sorry, don't have an answer any more interesting than
that.
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What is your favorite game show?
Not a big game show fan, actually. Can't think of one that I watch regularly at all.
Now off with the game show topic.
What is your favorite anime other than Digimon?
Oh, Excel Saga, definitely. Hail Il Palazzo! On the manga side of
things, I'm currently reading that, GetBackers (vastly prefer it over the
anime) and Cromartie High School (bust-a-gut funny). Oh, and EVERYONE should read DRAMACON. You all got that, out there?
DRAMACON.
Brilliant book - central character is a writer who goes to her first anime con with her boyfriend to promote their manga, but he turns into a jerk
and she falls for a mysterious cosplayer. I don't generally like the shoujo thing, but this manga grabbed me by the heart and tugged really, really hard - it's an excellent, touching, funny, GENUINE book. READ IT.
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What are you hobbies other than Anime?
I collect Transformers, and related media like comics and cartoons - as I mentioned above, I've recently been fortunate enough to be able to work on the DVD releases of the Japanese-exlusive Transformers animes.
I also read comics - used to be all about Marvel, but when I started working in a comic shop last year I got pulled into DC's Infinite Crisis and started reading some of their books. Currently, I'm reading Fantastic Four, New Avengers, Civil War, Civil War Frontline, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Thunderbolts, Moon Knight, Nextwave, Ultimates, Ultimate Fantastic
Four, 52, Wonder Woman and the Flash. I aslo collect Supreme Power/Squadron Supreme and Cable & Deadpool in trade paperback form.
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Well I need to start dubbing so I have a question, what do you have
to say to all of us fans of Digimon and Anime?
Thanks to everone who's visited the website for their support, and to
everyone out there for just keeping the fandom alive in the dark and
lifeless period between Fronteir and Savers - I genuinely thought that
was the end of the online community, but it's great to see that Savers has
pulled things back together again. Fingers crossed for the dub!
Well you have a nice day.
And thank you too!
Chris