Junpei

Victim of Diversity

Poor Junpei. He was supposed to be a symbol of hope... or tolerance... or something, but he turned out to be a vicious stereotype. The gentle giant, kind but dumb, pervy, cowardly, with no luck with girls and no friends. Poor, poor Junpei. How I wish I had some tomatoes to throw.

Giving hope and positive role-models to kids is all well and good, but stereotypes are for after-school programs, not Digimon (whatever its time slot may be). Where's the individuality? So he doesn't have friends. So what? That's not a unique problem. He's a boring old loser who wants to feel like he's so special because he has to overcome so much. He needs a reality check.

Closest he got? Getting reamed by Izumi and Tsunomon for trying to bribe the digikids with chocolate. As far as I could tell, that was the only honest advice he got during the whole season. Other than that, he just found "real friends" by having met the right kids -- i.e., those in a life-or-death situation where they couldn't just politely decline his company. Real friends? Well, if you walk up to an ally and ask them, "are you my friends," do you think they're actually gonna say, "no, but hope you'll still help us fight"? I'm not saying he was being used -- he wasn't all that much help in the beginning -- but I don't think the Digidestined would be his new best buddies if they hadn't had to fight side-by-side.

Junpei said that he didn't know what real friends were like before coming to the Digital World. You can't learn that overnight. He clings to false hopes, believing that each new group of people he meets are real friends. Of course, Takuya, Izumi, and the rest are honorable people. But even honorable people can't be friends with everybody in the world. To think that five random people he met will have compatible personalities and interests is a fool's fancy. He'll be telling the next group about his new re-envisioning of the word "friend," and yet another theory to the group after that.

Finding good friends is a trial-and-error process, but Junpei isn't willing to do that because it would mean admitting that he doesn't have any. To be twelve years old and not even know what a friend looks like has to be embarrassing. Of course, to be thirty and still have no clue has to be much worse.

But of course, to a stereotypical character goes a stereotypical answer, so...

"Hi, Kouji, Zoe, Takky! How are my new best friends??"