The Parents Although Digimon Tamers ended up with a strong focus on the tamers' parents and family, I had not intended to do so at the start. However, I had been moved by the scenes involving Yamato (Matt)'s parents in Digimon Season 1, during the battle in Odaiba. I felt that I would also need to address the question of the parents' position in Digimon Tamers. In episode 7 ("Now you see it, Now you don't"), I depicted Takato and his parents' relationship in quite some detail, to lay down a basis for Episode 24 ("The Journey Begins"). It appears that this episode changed the course of the series. Henry's father Jiang-yu was a character who had played a large role in the backstory, and thus was in a special category all his own. But the rest of the parents are not exceptional people; how would regular folks deal with their own children going off on a dangerous adventure? This was the question I wanted to explore. However, I proceeded very hesitantly. In the real world, few parents would ever want their children to participate in a life-or-death battle. Every episode would be a struggle of the wills. That said, I didn't want to portray children who would lie to their parents, or go out behind their backs. Each of the parents' reactions to and interactions with their children were made unique and believable by the script-writing team for the episodes in question. In particular, Mr. Hiro Masaki did a wonderful job of portraying the true feelings of Mr. Kato (Jeri's father) in episode 47 ("His Kingdom for a Horse"). In episode 42 ("Homeward Bound"), I made Mr. Kato appear as a cold and unfeeling father figure. I was hoping to briefly address this in a later episode, but I was very moved by Mr. Masaki's script, in which he took that small point and expanded it into the core of the drama.