#(AND *02!GENNAI* IMPLIED Later on)

[hikari-m]

Digimon Adventure tri. (Japanese version) ~ Kōshirō Izumi {& bonus Jō Kido} + (Direct if Vague) Mention of {Koushiro}'s Biological line/relatives

(Narrator) is meanwhile Still {implied same/similar as Epilogue!Takeru}

"The SUMMER of 2001." {Pre '02!!} "Koushiro was {ON THE WAY to} (via Shinkansen) {visiting} Koushiro's {biological parents}' ["Ryōshin" is the term/word used for 'parents'; implying 'BOTH' 'parent's, which we know is Confirmed, thanks to information from the 3rd Adventure novel] {the Izumi}'s family GRAVE{s}..."

Japanese note: "Ryōshin" as a term is used elsewhere in the main Adventure series too. An example is in Episode 33's Japanese version, the episode with Pump{kin}mon and Got{t}sumon. In the beginning of that episode, Tsunomon verbally uses "Ryōshin" when informing Patamon about the current relationship state of Yamato and Takeru's parents {divorced}, (indirectly implying 'both' involved). Thus, it is not unusual the term 'Ryōshin' would apply in standard Japanese usage when being used for Koushiro's biological relatives.

{Clip'd by Me} {Do Not Copy} {Do Not Reproduce Without My Permission} {Do Not Reupload} (Please Ask to Use/Share!)

[shihalyfie]

The frustrating part of Adventure/02 is all the lore they did not put in the series, or extra material and we only discover through Kakudou's twitter or blog, or some recent interviews with SekiP or some old staff members.

Like, there's a ton of things we don't know!! And things released later in a drama CD or booklet which has the suspicion to being part of the backstory/hidden lore from production notes ._.

I think Adventure implied the eight digimon from Taichi's group were made with the kids' traits, so they knew who were their partners and even their names as well ... Meanwhile the new three mons from 02 had to introduce themselves, ask for their partners' names and such...

Meanwhile Wormmon... We don't know anything about him. Since Ken has a Crest, i suspect Wormmon is in the same camp from Taichi's partners -- made with Ken's kindness trait which also originated the Crest of Kindness.

Do you have any theory or headcanon for him and the said Crest?

I personally figure that the answer is probably really mundane, honestly. That's a recurring pattern with stuff in Adventure and 02; sometimes the answer is the simplest one, even if it's not entirely grand or epic. The Adventure and 02 kids were not a singularity; there were Chosen Children before and after them, all implied to go on their own adventures. We have no evidence the eight Crests seen in Adventure were the only ones made, just that they seem to be the ones that survived the attack Gennai was involved with. For all we know the could have been a part of a much bigger set made to correspond to a bunch of kids who all witnessed the Hikarigaoka incident in 1995, but only those eight survived that attack. So, likewise, there's nothing saying Ken's Crest wasn't also made around that time, or even later as an experiment afterwards.

Personally, since there are so many contradictions between Tag Tamers and the anime that you can't take them simultaneously at face value, I prioritize the anime and only draw from Tag Tamers as needed, so the version of Tag Tamers' events in my head could easily involve a Crest being involved in some way. It would explain why Ken had it on his person and used it as a power source for his base, unaware of or having forgotten its original purpose.

In the end, I think there are certain things that can only be explained by the fact Adventure and 02 were too obviously written as they went along -- even though I argue often that they had more thought put into it than they're given credit for, it doesn't change the fact that both series' plots are built on retrofits. The biggest example is probably the fact that the Adventure kids just all happened to simultaneously move from Hikarigaoka to Odaiba and attend the same school; Hikarigaoka's on the other side of Tokyo, so I can't stress enough how implausibly convenient this is. The real-life obvious answer is that the first movie and the TV series were developed separately and the TV staff had to come up with excuses to rationalize how they were in Odaiba when they used to be in Hikarigaoka, and in fact the staff struggling to keep up with contradictory movie and media mix compliance was exactly one of the reasons we didn't get a third Adventure series at the time. So the explanations are forced, and the staff knows it, so to a certain degree you just kind of have to roll with it.

That said, the Adventure novels do provide a suggestion that there is some kind of higher power beyond even Homeostasis's awareness (referred to as "God's territory"), which was responsible for pulling the strings behind things like everyone in Hikarigaoka conveniently forgetting the incident in 1995. As much as a cop-out as it may feel like to resort to that, keep in mind that the Adventure universe has always been very linked with Shinto concepts; this is of course brought up most prominently in 02 episode 33, in that Digimon and the Digital World may not be all that distinct from the world of youkai and the gods. In this case, this should not be taken as "gods" in the Christian or Greco-Roman definitions, but the Shinto concept of gods that exist in everything and could potentially be good or evil (Professor Takenouchi brings up the example of tsukumogami, or objects that become sentient after a hundred years of existence, and Survive parallels this by depicting the Digimon as "Kemonogami", or "beast gods"). So according to Adventure universe lore, the development of digital technology has allowed us to start seeing and understanding more of those things we never were able to before, but that doesn't mean we'll immediately understand everything about it as humans, and Koushirou's character arc wouldn't work if it weren't for the recurring concept that even Homeostasis and the Agents and Holy Beasts aren't entirely clear on what's going on with the world. This is also why "destiny" comes up so much in Adventure and 02; the world itself is guiding you towards something, but at the same time, it's up to you whether you want to actually fulfill that, and that's why certain "coincidences" seem to happen all the time to give the kids chances to make use of them.

[izzyizumi]

Digimon Adventures ~ Japanese version + IMPORTANT MOMENTS / DIALOGUES / QUOTES + PARALLELS / REFERENCES to other past Adventures media + THEORIES / {POSSIBLE} POTENTIAL / FUTURE CALLBACKS?

{Note: This post was published before the knowledge/announcement and later release of “The Beginning”’s existence, and also before “Digimon Adventure:” 2020 (Reboot series) finished airing. Regardless, please feel free to check out my past commentary, canon references referred to, and theorizing that may still work depending!}

Ryo Akiyama:

Hey, Agumon? Why am I here? You said something about help?

Agumon: It was supposed to be all over! Mugendramon {MACHINEDRAMON (in US)} {Adventure} and Chimeramon {02} became one! The Digital World's time axis slipped and revived the defeated Devimon and Etemon [into the current timeline]! [...] Agumon: So... The Network's time axis went screwy and made another world and Chimeramon and Mugendramon... [...]

Ryo: This is a computer world, right? Something's making it go strange and Agumon and his friends' venture, which was supposed to have ended, began again? Agumon (happy): That's it, you got it.

Gennai: Agumon did not explain to satisfaction. I'll have to explain. (full screen of SEASON 1 VILLAINS)

Gennai: Once, evil digimon such as Devimon and Etemon were trying to take over the world. However, from the world of humans came the Chosen Children who, together with the power of Agumon, Gabumon, Patamon, and others, brought peace back to the world. But that defeat would not last. (full screen of MILLENNIUMON)

Gennai: Chimeramon and Mugendramon. Originally, these two accidentally created an unnatural FUSION digimon. After being defeated by Taichi and the others, they {Chimeramon and Mugendramon} fused in order to survive and were reborn into something new and ABNORMAL *: *Two things: Gennai uses the masculine {form of Japanese} to refer to them, and it's implied that the fusion was mutually done. It's also implied that the result of the fusion is distinct from Chimeramon and Mugendramon. Ryo: That means they turned into a terrible digimon, right? Gennai: His name is Millenniumon! He is the root of all evil. Millenniumon's dark power is incomparable. His disruption of time is destroying this world!

Agumon: So, the evil digimon truly should have been defeated and it was all over, but now our battles have to restart! Gennai: By all rights, those Digimon who were defeated in battles should have stayed defeated. Taichi and the others are trapped. The only one I could warp here was Agumon. Agumon: In the hopes of finding someone, I used Taichi's name to access the human world. I needed someone with enough faith to touch the digivice. Ryo. What will you do?

Ryo: I see. I'm the substitute. Chimeramon and Mugendramon fused into Millenniumon, who remains undefeated and trapped Taichi-kun and the others, who need to be saved. Agumon asked for my help for this. Agumon (begging): Ryo! You're our only hope! Please! Help us!

Gennai: In the summer of 1999, Taichi, Yamato, and the others, along with Agumon and others, came to save the Digital World. The Digital World became peaceful AFTER the defeat of Apocalymon.

However, Mugendramon and Chimeramon, barely surviving, became a new Digimon. They became Millenniumon.

By going back in time, Millenniumon would throw the adventure of Taichi and the others into chaos. That you prevented.

Gennai: Millenniumon was destroyed by your power, but he revived again and again. However, through the efforts of you and the Digimon, he has been obstructed every time. That's right. You fought together with the Digimon Kaiser-- rather, Ichijouji Ken.

However, during the last battle, you and Millenniumon were blown away in an explosion. You to the world of the past, him to the world of the FUTURE.

{“TAG TAMERS” ENDING}:

(Millenniumon revives and a Dark Seed shoots forth. Ken shouts:) Ken: Watch out!

(Ken runs up and gets hit by the Dark Seed and collapses. Wormmon races to his side.) Wormmon: Ken!

(Everyone else rushes to Ken's side) Wormmon: Aaah! Ken! KEN!!

Millenniumon: Hahhahha... I cannot die... Your {*Ryo’s} holy power may persist. I too... my dark power too is eternal... Absorbed... spirit...

(Millenniumon disintegrates. There is a fade-out and the scene cuts to Gennai's house, where everyone surrounds a sleeping Ken. Wormmon monologues.) Wormmon: Ken... Ken... In order to save us, he... in order to save... Ohhh... Ken... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... Ken...

(Ken wakes up) Ken: Nn...

(Everyone is happy he's awake) Wormmon: Ken!

(Scene fades out to a series of full-screen images and Wormmon monologues again.) Wormmon: Thus our adventure was over. Through the courage and efforts of Ryo and Ken, all evil vanished. Taichi and Ryo went back to the real world. If something happens to the Digital World, they'll come back. Ken stayed in this world to rest until the wound he received healed. After a while it healed. However, Ken has changed a bit. The black mass that hit him that time... Ken became cold. But I believe, surely Ken will become gentle again someday. Ken was injured for our sake. Now I... I will protect Ken. I believe someday the three of us might go on an adventure again. I believe...

(The credits roll and then comes an epilogue. The only epilogue in the 4-game Ryo vs Millenniumon cycle. The scene: the Kaiser and Wormmon walk up to a cliff overlooking what's probably the Dark Ocean.) Digimon Kaiser: I have returned to show this world... I am different from Millenniumon. I am... I am... I am the Digimon Kaiser!

(The screen scrolls up to a starry sky and "The End" in English. *This is, however, only the second game in four.)

{Ken begins to hear DEVIMONS’ echoing evil laughter}

{Ken begins to scream in his terror after he looks}

It's said that Millenniumon ALREADY DOMINATES THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE.

{translation of Wonderswan games via site “Yesterday”}

{various cards depicting the various forms of MILLENNIUMMON. Note the middle cards showing him in the same form of a being with two heads and glowing red eyes encased inside a Crystal.}

But for complete dominance, the source of the Digital World, the ENIAC, must be completely destroyed so that he may remake history to his liking and achieve total domination.

“But... we shall wait for”

“THE NEXT OPPORTUNITY” “THE NEXT OPPORTUNITY” “The next opportunity” “The next opportunity.”

(Interviewer): –Incidentally, is Ryou Akiyama {Tamers} THE SAME as the Ryou from 02…? Hiromi Seki: Of course he is (laughs). Hiroyuki Kakudou: I’ve said this before in some other interview, but I was really shocked. Like, wait, really? (laughs) Kaizawa: He appeared in 02 based on what was going on at the time, right? Seki: He did, he did. Kaizawa: We cast (Junichi) Kanemaru-san as Ryou Akiyama’s voice actor. He had a really bright and refreshing voice, so as soon as we’d casted him, we ended up deciding to give him that kind of personality. Like, “oh, that refreshing guy” (laughs). Seki: If Ryou-kun had actually been in the 2000 summer movie, {*Hurricane Touchdown/The Golden Digimentals, as they had once originally planned for Ryo[u]} he might not have ended up with that kind of refreshing personality. Kaizawa: We had some kind of trouble with voice acting when it came to Ryou Akiyama. Cyberdramon was voiced by (Ikkei) Seta-san, so normally, when Cyberdramon evolves into Justimon, Seta-san should be the one to do the voice. But in actuality, Ryou Akiyama’s voice actor, Kanemaru-san, was the one to do it. The reason for this is that when Justimon shows up, he’s a really “cool” character, and he’s kind of like some kind of transforming hero…so we thought, if he’s going to greet them with that refreshing “hey guys!”, that’s more of a thing suited to Kanemaru-san’s voice. Seta-san was like, “why not me?…” It’s a pretty funny story.

–Ken’s recollection scene had a certain character named Ryou appear in it. Seki: I think it had some kind of relation to one of the second series’s movies. When we were working on the second series’s summer movie with (Director) Yamauchi-san, we actually had a lot of different proposals for the plot. One of the first proposals we came up with had Ryou-kun appear in it, and I’m certain the theme of the movie even had some slogan like “there’s a Digimon waiting for you.” Think of it like some kind of imaginary plot that’s since vanished. So we were planning to go with this until the beginning of February {2000}, but then it all eventually fell through. We figured, okay, this is probably too sad for a summer movie. Somewhere along the line there it must have ended up picking up a really sad aura…

[...] Terriermon’s popularity was incredible. I said earlier that “the plot with Ryou-kun fell through~”, but Terriermon was actually still planned to be in that one too. So Ryou-kun’s partner Digimon might have actually been Terriermon…

- above interview text from Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia — Interview with Hiromi Seki, Hiroyuki Kakudou, and Yukio Kaizawa {translation via and with credit to Digi-Lab Blog} (check comments for link!)

“Early morning in the small mountains of Turkey. Ryo is typing into his laptop while a native boy looks on.”

- Digimon Adventure: Childrens’ War Game Storyboards Book {translation via and with credit to Onkei of website Digital Scratch} (check comments for link!)

{from the Tag Tamers summary by site “Yesterday”}: At the end of New Year's Eve of 1999, two chimera-type digimon fused together to survive. The resulting digimon, Millenniumon, then generated a time slip that resurrected many of the evil digimon deleted in the summer of 1999 and captured the Chosen Children. In a last-ditch effort to rescue the Chosen Children and defeat Millenniumon, a young boy with no digivice or digimon partner of his own was summoned into the Digital World. With the aid of Agumon and the other Chosen Childrens' digimon, he defeated Millenniumon and released the Chosen. He was then sent back. Several months later, the game begins anew as he and his friend, Ken, watch the Omegamon vs. Diablomon battle of the Bokura no War Game movie. Once Diablomon is defeated, however, Ryo and Ken are called to the Digital World to take out a Diablomon clone. It soon proves to be a trap laid by Millenniumon to lure Ryo back into the Digital World, then the world splits in two and Ryo and Ken must tag team to defeat Millenniumon on both halves of the world. (Yes, in games, 02!Ryo was involved in “Our War Game” canon. Seki confirms he’s the same Ryo as the one in the games and Tamers.)

gifs by @izzyizumi, {DO NOT REPOST} {DO NOT REMOVE CAPTION}

{Additional note: this post is mainly intended SPECIFIC CHARACTER[s] SUPPORT / INFORMATIVE & also ADVENTURES CANON POSITIVITY-FOCUSED. please remember + RESPECT this when interacting (Failure to acknowledge interacting rules WILL result in a block)}

[Note: commenting/tagging positively/respectfully is ok!] (Please AGREE TO BANNERS BEFORE interacting) (Note: click on the images/banners to enlarge!)

[kazarinn]

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna commentary trivia

The Blu-ray and DVD for Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna contains audio commentary with producer Yousuke Kinoshita and director Tomohisa Taguchi. While I don’t currently have plans to translate the full commentary, I’ve written down some of the more interesting trivia facts from it.

Please note that there are major LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna spoilers.

The one who came up with the idea of using Parrotmon as the first enemy was Hiromi Seki (producer for the original Digimon Adventure and Adventure 02, and supervisor for this movie) -- everyone else had been fussing over what Digimon to use, only for her to quickly chip in “what’s wrong with Parrotmon?”

Taichi’s faulty prototype goggles were based off the original draft design by Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, causing them to think “well, we have to use this!” But they wanted to use the actual original pair of goggles in the story, so they weren’t sure what to do with said VR goggles, and in the end the VR goggles became a faulty prototype (after all, it’s a little early for VR goggles to work in 2010).

The evolution sequences are close to the original because Director Taguchi wanted you to feel “this is Digimon after all” (he particularly feels the rotating feeling is inherent to Digimon).

The part in the opening where Angemon rescues a potential victim is because “a real hero” would properly try to ensure that there were no victims (and in the end, there are zero deaths from this incident).

This is the Toei Animation building. They had to get permission from the owner to blow it up. Said owner was also a fan from the Digimon generation, so they were very happy to see it blown up.

Yamato's bike was one the director particularly liked and wanted to ride once.

The Japanese morning glory in the opening, according to Japanese flower language, represents “bonds” (kizuna), but also “I am entwined around you and will never let you go”, representing Menoa’s story.

The Digivice in the opening is Sora’s.

The woman sitting next to Yamato in class was actually the original concept for Yamato’s friend Abe (who discusses job prospects with him in the final version of the movie) -- it was changed because they were concerned about what Yamato’s closest friend being female would imply.

The real-life model for the izakaya Taichi and Yamato eat at in Asagaya apparently advertises that they were used in the movie. (The food there is also apparently very good and priced reasonably.)

The two women in the izakaya (Ayaka and her companion) are voiced by Miho Arakawa and Yukiko Morishita (the voices of Meiko Mochizuki and Meicoomon in Adventure tri.), who were brought on because they just really wanted to have them participate in some way.

Miyako and Hawkmon’s “Adiós” wasn’t in the original script, but ad-libbed by the voice actors.

The initial cyberspace fight with Eosmon was something Director Taguchi wanted to do in 8-bit (Famicom style), but it was too difficult to pull off in the actual animation. The final aesthetic used was the Virtual Boy.

Menoa’s reaction to seeing Omegamon is genuine -- it’s meant to reflect someone who’s heard about him in rumors, but never actually seen him.

When the ring is about to appear on Taichi’s Digivice and the voices are blocked out, the scene originally had voiced lines recorded for it (”Go!” “Take it down!”), but they were taken out at the very end.

This shot is meant to be foreshadowing that this is the fragment Koushirou would later analyze, resulting in him pinning down Menoa.

The countdown ring effect was apparently a huge load of trouble to make (both in terms of design and in terms of continually getting it in the shots). It’s not made with CGI, but with cinematography effects.

In the original storyboard, Daisuke’s ramen was a “normal”-looking bowl of ramen, but the animation director went all-out and made it “delicious-looking”.

In the script, the Digimon accompanying Daisuke, Ken, and Iori to the ramen shop were originally supposed to be Child-level, but they wanted them to sit on the their laps, so they became Baby-level in the final version.

Producer Seki was the one who came up with the idea of the pay phones and prepaid phones, advising them that if they’d used their normal phones they’d be found out (thus making it come off as more like a spy movie).

Gennai mentions “then it’s possible...” to imply that there’s hope, but the shot being on the window here is meant to indicate that Taichi was so in shock that he didn’t hear that part.

The Digimon greeting each other in the background is something Director Taguchi wanted to do -- he wasn’t particularly focused on doing so, but he felt that it was something Digimon would do if in a situation where they hadn’t seen each other in a whlie.

The idea with Sora’s first scene with Piyomon in the movie is that she does, in fact, know what’s going to happen.

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Tag Tamers - Entry #01

Well, here it is. The most relevant Wonderswan Ryo game as far as the Adventure timeline is concerned, and the backstory for Ken Ichijouji in Digimon Adventure 02. It’s also apparently the highest rated game of the series, along with Brave Tamer, so I’m excited for this playthrough.

Some context before starting: this game came out during the Chimeramon episodes of 02, the final part of the Digimon Emperor arc. As such, this was the very first time the digimon fanbase saw Ken Ichijouji as a hero, right as his villain persona in the series came crashing down and before we got to see his real personality.

As before, given the ammount of exposition in the intro, I’ll be covering the tutorial as a separate entry before going to a regular 1-entry-per-2-hours routine.

Special thanks to NikcDC and Ajora Fravashi from Romhacking net for translating the game!

First thing I’d like to mention is the music for this title card. It’s an 8-bit version of Break-Up, and it’s so much more hype-inducing than the one from the previous game. As you may have noticed, this game is in black-and-white, since the previous one was only in color because it was a later remake.

After an opening narration summarizing the events of the previous game, the story opens with Ryo visiting his friend Ken Ichijouji, who has asked him to come because his computer is behaving weirdly. It’s interesting because this implies Ryo is a relatively computer-savvy kid, which didn’t really come across in Anode/Cathode Tamer. Anyway, Ken says there’s a strange creature in his screen. Ryo looks at it and sees...

Yep, the events of Our War Game. Ken has been watching for a while, at least enough to know Diaboromon didn’t look like that before. The duo sees WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon be defeated, at which point Ryo panics and starts running around the room.

Ken is understandably confused as to why his friend is acting so emotionally to some video game stream, but Ryo tells him that those creatures are real, that they are in an actual fight. Ken still doesn’t quite get it, but asks him what they can do to help. Ryo gets the idea of sending an e-mail, presumably at the same time a lot of other children around the world do so too, and of course you know the result:

Omegamon defeats Diaboromon easily, and Taichi thanks everyone who helped. Ryo finally relaxes, after which Ken asks for further confirmation that all of that was real.

A day passes and Ryo visits Ken again. Once again, a digimon has appeared in his computer screen. There’s a sudden light as a D-3 flashes in the screen, and once everything returns to normal, this is what welcomes them:

Yep. After spending an entire game with a borrowed partner, Ryo finally gets his own partner, V-mon. The digimon immediately asks for his help, and Ryo answers very calmly that he expected this to happen, and asks if Diaboromon is still around. V-mon confirms this, and takes them all to the Digital World. Why Ken was included in this beats me.

Ryo greets Gennai, Pixiemon and Agumon. Gennai is far more amiable here than in the previous game, immediately complimenting Ryo. V-mon interrupts the greetings and asks Gennai to get to the point. Apparently this is a very common ocurrance, because Gennai takes it in stride, only remarking that V-mon is as impatient as ever.

According to Gennai, the flood of information from the internet to the Digital World is straining it and causing problems, initially only reflected as digimon devolving to Child-level, but increasing over time. Gennai and the rest believe this is because of a Diaboromon that escaped the previous fight, and has asked for the Chosen Children’s aid. They plan to wait for Taichi to arrive, but V-mon is impatient and tells Ryo they can’t handle it themselves. Ryo agrees, and the two go to look for Diaboromon against Gennai’s and Agumon’s wishes.

They also leave Ken alone in a new world with some people he doesn’t know, so... what an excellent friend you are, Ryo.

We cross a portal into the affected area, finding ourselves in the village from the first game, completely destroyed. It’s a low-key chilling moment, specially given the music used is the same as in the first game. Even the mountains have been crushed. Ryo and V-mon go to the same tree-cave where they fought Devimon, the only place in the entire area that hasn’t been affected in the slightest.

The combat mechanics have changed, this time around being far more traditional RPG, rather than tactical one. We are allowed a team of three that can be situated in 6 different positions, something that would be refined in the later Digimon Story games for the Nintendo DS. Anyway, we have two different fights with Baby-levels before facing Diaboromon. We manage to defeat him, except...

Except it was all a ruse, of course. Millenniummon, somehow still alive, was in control from the start, using the lone Diaboromon as a lure to get Ryo away from the others. Millenniummon uses an explosion on Ryo and V-mon, simultaneously affecting the group in the village right as Taichi and Agumon arrive (though both Gennai and Ken seem to feel something is off before it happens). Ryo and V-mon awaken in the village, where they find Pixiemon, Taichi and Agumon, but Ken and Gennai are nowhere to be seen. What is more, Taichi and Agumon appear to be frozen, as if they were stone.

Meanwhile, the explosion knocked Ken to the forest, unconscious. Wormmon finds him, and the boy soon wakes up. The digimon tells him that he’s looking for the Chosen Child, but the boy tells him that’s not him but Ryo. Wormmon asks him if he’s the Ken Gennai has asked him to retrieve. Ryo answers that he is, and asks him if he can lead him back to Gennai. They arrive at a tunnel in a tree, and Wormmon says they have nothing to fear because Ken is a Chosen Child.

The dungeons now have names, and it’s certainly interesting to have both the dungeons Ken has to go through have names that relate to, well, loneliness, which Ken’s flashbacks in 02 tell us is not an unfamiliar feeling for him.

Anyway, we go through both dungeons and arrive at the village, where they find Gennai and the frozen statues of Taichi and Agumon. The duo ask what has happened, and Gennai tells them his theory: Millenniummon has used his powers to split the world in two, with which he planned to separate Taichi and Ryo. Somehow, Ken was stuck on a separate world from Ryo, while Taichi and Agumon are somehow between worlds, frozen.

Upon hearing this, Ken is convinced he’s at fault somehow. Gennai, in true Gennai fashion...

Tells him that’s ridiculous and that this is no way Ken’s fault! I have to say, I’m liking him better this time around. He’s actually acting like the mentor figure he’s supposed to be.

Ken is comforted, at least temporarily, and the group start making plans to help Ryo however they can. Wormmon tells Ken he’ll join him, and Gennai tells him he’s truly one of the Chosen Children.

Now inside Gennai’s house, the human-like being tells them to go see Centalmon before they leave, since he can rebuilt the Armor Digimentals when given the necessary pieces. We go to his forgery and find:

That he can forge the Light and Hope Digimentals! These can increase our defenses against specific types of attack and, of course, enable Armor evolutions when paired with the right digimon. Armed with the two, we leave the village to start our adventure.

This is it for the prologue. I have to say, I like how they’ve set up the story in this game much better than in the last one, and every character comes accross as stronger here (except Agumon, who has like 1 or 2 lines before being statue-d). See you next time for the first part of the adventure!

[pulaasul]

Digimon  Adventure: Taichi and Yamato’s Last Adventure.

A Last Evolution Kizuna Review.

----------

Let’s continue my way of reviewing with dubbing the movie’s title in a way that completely summarizes what we saw. Like Avengers: Iron Grid for Endgame or Avengers: Thanos the Movie for Infinity War or even Ms. Marvel: Grand Theft Vers.

This time its

デジモンアドベンチャー LAST EVOLUTION 絆 -  Dejimon Adobenchā LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna ] Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution – Kizuna (Last Evolution – Bonds ).

I dub this movie as

[デジモンアドベンチャー :  太一 とヤマト の 最後のアドベンチャー - Dejimon adobenchā: Taichi to Yamato no saigo no adobenchā ] – Digimon  Adventure: Taichi and Yamato’s Last Adventure.

TL:DR – I love this movie for its pros but I have a lot of issues with this movie. I give this a 7.5/10 rating.

----------

 I guess, art style is as good as any to start the review for this animated movie. Frankly speaking, I did not like Digimon Adventure Tri’s art style. To me the art style looked like trying too hard for it to look modern with its weird angle shots and weird incorporation of rigid and angled lines.

The bolded outlines on every characters, especially during the digivolution sequences looked really jarring. It’s not deal breaking mind you, it just seemed like there was more focus on how to “modernize” the art style from the one used during Adventure 01’s first run.

Last Evolution Kizuna’s art style on the other hand was a neat blend between the 01-02 and Tri art styles with a dash of modernity and realism.

No oversized feet, head, and/or hands here folks.

Animation-wise. From what I have watched, I haven’t noticed any animation errors, like the derp face when characters are shown far from the supposed camera.

And there’s no jiggle physics.

So there’s that.

Plotwise…

Let’s see.

The movie is chuck-full of references from the first Digimon Movie, whether you saw the dubbed or original Japanese version. The very first scene we’re introduced to the Chosens was a Parrotmon appearing in the city and wreaking havoc in the immediate area.

That doesn’t mean that the ensuing battle didn’t cause destruction.

Angemon – Takeru – Angewomon – Hikari – Taichi and Agumon – Greymon – Garurumon – Yamato.

This was the order of how we were introduced to the Chosen Children and their Digimons.

This first scenes in the movie teases the viewers of what to expect in the whole movie

But…

---------

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

under the cut.

----------

That never came to fruition.

The promotion of the movie teased the viewers of everyone’s involvement in the movie. The 02 kids being combined in one trailer, while the others having their separate trailers, implied that the 02 kids had minor roles or outright non-entities in the movie.

 Here’s the worst part.

Sora doesn’t want to battle. She did literally nothing (wasn’t even put into a coma)

Joe and Mimi are busy with their jobs and occupation.

Takeru had more involvement but he shared the same fate as Hikari, getting kidnapped and going into a coma.

You’d think that they were going to have some more focus in the movie considering they were the first human characters we see on screen.

While Koushiro did go into a coma, he had more involvement in how things went through as opposed to the other members of the original eight chosen children

Really, Sora was demoted to a few cameos in the movie while the others, barring Koushirou, had glorified cameos where they get to join the fight.

Why do you think I dubbed this movie as Taichi’s and Yamato’s Last Adventure? The focus of the plot is more on the two of them, like really, they are the only characters who were given a huge amount of screen time and development.

----------

The conflict was good on paper, it had potential. But man its execution was sloppy. I get the stagnation of life as people grow into adults, especially in the Japanese workspace. (Sacrifice literally everything for the sake of work, work and more work.)

But man it was really sloppy.

Agumon’s and Gabumon’s disappearance was nothing but tragedy for tragedy’s sake.

----------

Let’s get to the positive side of things.

I love the fact that both Taichi and Yamato were doing amateur detective work, which was how the 02 peepz got involved.

I love how involved the 02 cast in the movie were. We were introduced to them on a ramen date between Ken and Daisuke and Iori. (We all know Iori’s the third wheel in this :p) In fact I loved how they were on foreign soil using the Digital Gate loophole to bypass customs and embassies.

The ramen date happened in New York if I’m not mistaken.

I also love the irony of “Justice! Do Good! Future Lawyer” Iori was the one who used Armadimon to bypass the security system. 

I love the fact that while Yamato and Taichi were battling the tragic – I will save you – villain, the 02 kids were in the real world holding down the fort.

Granted that they were fighting in New York, they were still shown to fight the army of digimon, saving the younger chosen children.

I learned to love the movie despite its issues, but the issues are still there. They do hampered my enjoyment of the movie, but I learned to look at the silver lining and take what I can get.

But in media we consume, we should also look at them with a critical eye. We should critique it and not bash it.

There’s line that separates both.

With my grievances out of the way, here are my suggestions on how the movie should’ve been imo

Fair warning, that these suggestions don’t really change the plot we were given, but rather its sowing seeds for a potential sequel that could “fix”, for lack of better term, the plot threads in this movie, like the adults shouldn’t have Digimon bit 

(Really all I’m remembering is Persona: Trinity Soul’s BS of Adults can’t have a Persona.)

With the warning out of the way, here are my suggestions.

The opening should’ve showed the other Chosen Children that’s not Yamato, Taichi, Takeru and Hikari fighting Digimon in their immediate areas with Koushiro guiding them. While Sora is shown doing flower arrangements.

With Hikari’s and Takeru’s kidnapping, they should’ve showed us how they were captured, while I have no problems with the reveal of their kidnapping, I think it would’ve been dramatic had we were shown how they were captured then cut to Yamato and Taichi going to their respective siblings while on the phone with Koushiro who can be seen looking at the images of Takeru and Hikari tied up on a chair.

I would even suggest that the image be on one window while his Digimon work would be shown on another window to foreshadow the things to come.

For the 02 peepz. While I don’t have a single ounce of problem with their involvement. I think it could do better.

Daisuke sees a child very close to being captured he catapulted himself and got taken instead, resulting in his loss of consciousness, which made Paildramon fade slowly but surely. (The form the Digimon takes what form they were when they disappeared.). Ken tries to rush to Daisuke’s aid but Miyako holds him back. A shockwave forces her to let go of him and rush towards Daisuke, but gets captured in the process, which resulted in him losing consciousness and Paildramon fading away.

Cue Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato vs. Paildramon, brainwashed Daisuke and Ken and Eosmon.

Then the nostalgic whistle happens.

It’s not enough to snap Daisuke and Ken (considering they don’t know its significance unlike the Original 8 chosen) but it does snap the others back to reality.

Cue Digivolving to Ultimate (Lilimon, Zudomon, Magna Angemon, AlturKabuterimon and Angewomon.) They fight Paildramon, who they fought to standstill.

Meanwhile, Hikari and Takeru work on trying to snap both Daisuke and Ken out of their brainwashed states with minimal successes.

Daisuke flickers back and forth from his state but Ken is rooted firmly in his brainwashing.

Sooner or later Hikari and Takeru became successful in snapping both Ken and Daisuke from the stupor they were in and joins the fight against Eosmon.

They made quick work of the clones but are powerless against the golden Digivolved Eosmon, reverting back to their child forms.

Cue in the new forms of Agumon and Gabumon.

Gennai has sowed this seed when he met with Taichi. The scene where Agumon and Garurumon digivolved into those new forms, the rings bars on their digivices should’ve been added. It showed that both Taichi and Yamato still had room to grow and don’t stagnate.

The scene cuts to Sora, hugging Biyomon while clutching her Digivice showing only one bar.

They won the fight.

As soon as the last of the memories were shown, we cut back to Sora crying as the last bits of Biyomon’s data disappeared.

Cut back to the fight, as Yamato and Taichi uses their digivices towards the villain, and that act subtracts the circular bars on their digivices to one bar.

The end scene happens, with Daisuke and Ken waking up from the streets, while the others wake up on their hospital beds.

The ending goes the same, but a credit scene shows an OG broken digivice glowing.

Overall, I give the movie a 7.5 rating, considering my grievances towards the movie. Don’t get me wrong, I like the movie, but there were a lot of cons that needed to be addressed, including the adults don’t have Digimon bit.

In fact, 7.5 is a little higher, its because of my love for the 02 kids that this was bumped above Endgame, solely for my bias towards Daisuke and the others.

And I reiterate, the “changes” I suggested are more on sowing the seeds for a potential sequel that still ties in the 02 epilogue.

Which is still deemed canon, considering the Ramen dates, Yamato and Taichi’s school, even Sora’s future occupation is still in place. Heck we’ve even seen the beginnings of both Koushiro’s and Joe’s 02 epilogue occupations.

[whatisthisnonsense]

Okay you know what I am gonna talk shit in a proper well-thought-out manner because I’m salty and stressed and I may as well channel it into something fun like yelling about anime in an over the top display of angery as befitting this cesspool of a social media platform. This being said I’m gonna do it under a read-more ‘cause most of ya’ll ain’t got time for no negative nonsense and some of you genuinely enjoy Tri, and you know what, I respect you, you’re valid.

Okay so to explain how much I want to throw Bandai into a dumpster, we first need to go back and explain Adventure and the fiasco that was 02.

Digimon Adventure came out in 1999 (March 6th in japan and August 14th in the states, which coincidentally means this show came out exactly on my sixth birthday!) and lasted for about a year, with 54 episodes. The plot was simple; seven punkass grade schoolers turned out to have been chosen by fate to defend the Digital World, an alternate plane of reality created by various forms of digital information (the wee baby internet of the era, for example), mostly to kind of justify Bandai’s V-Pet (Tamogatchis but they’re gross and can FIGHT) and sell toys. So like, Transformers but with more human characters and kickass monsters and sometimes a lesson about the Power Of Friendship. Later, they find out they were chosen because they saw their neighborhood get wrecked by two monsters and Inexplicably Forgot This, as well as the fact there’s actually a missing member of their group (which less than surprisingly turned out to be the leader character’s little sister, who had already been seen in a prior episode and had also been involved in that early monster attack). It was hokey, the english dub generally bordered on that of a proto-abridged series if not aggressively sanitizing things (turning sake into green chili sauce, for example) and it was just good dumb fun and in the end everyone was crying anyway because dammit, while it was dumb fun you still cared about these characters and loved how they grew up. And then came 02.

Hoo boy. Digimon 02 came out in 2000 (April 2nd in japan and August 19th in the states) and lasted for another year or so. While sometimes listed as a second season, in truth it was a sequel series and it had...some interesting ideas, lets say. And I mean that sincerely! They did have some good ideas! But it was pretty clear from the lack of direction and the constant roller coaster of serious and stupid that it was being a sequel for the sake of being a sequel. For example, a whole new super secret crest turned up out of nowhere, which brings up a lot of questions in the lore but is mostly used to prove Ken isn’t irredeemable because he’s a Chosen Child ,as well as the questions about how this Crest is still present and useable and then literally gets no use. No Ultimate Form Wormmon for you, folks, NORMAL digivolution is out! I think I and @yunisverse have made our opinion on how to use that crest better clear while we’re being salty over Wizardmon, ha People have said that it’s big draw was that it had a heavier focus on character development and...yes and no? On the one hand, Ken and Cody’s arcs were genuinely enjoyable, Kindness shenanigans aside, as was occasionally exploring TK and Kari’s trauma, something often brushed over in the original series. On the other hand, more or less the whole of Adventure centered AROUND character growth where in 02 it’s...sporadic. Sometimes even random. However the main two reasons everyone was mad at 02 were these;

The original digidestined that were not Kari or TK got shunted onto the backburner, usually using excuses as they had given up their crest powers sometime between Our War Game and the present (despite that A) this is otherwise disregarding the fact they were supposedly not able to enter the digital world again until 02 and B) the power is literally inside them as part of their core, not something the digiworld actually gave to them, and while it could be diminished it could never actually be removed) or that it was the New Kids turn, often with wildly out of character personality developments. (Looking at you, Sora’s new docileness and Mimi’s lack of involvement in most of the plot period.)

The epilogue, which not only gave everyone really weird future jobs (why is Matt an astronaut?!) but also seemed pretty much out to be as aggressively Happily Ever After without actually stopping to think about any implications or actual lead-ups.

02 usually gets a pass from riding on the Adventure coattails, but everyone still tended to be at least disappointed in what had occurred. Also, more serious takes on Digimon, such as Tamers and some of the games, had been growing in popularity.

Thus Bandai, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to cash back in on Nostalgia by focusing on the Adventure kids, making them closer to 02 so they’re older and they can therefore do more serious mature takes like Tamers, while also trying to rectify how they would even begin to come around to their epilogue jobs. They do this by killing the 02 cast in the first two minutes.

Welcome to Tri folks! Okay, so the 02 cast isn’t actually dead, but we don’t know where they are for six movies. Six movies!! The most we know for a few years is Ken, for some reason, has reverted to evil! And he has Imperialdramon, which implies Davis is brainwashed too!

He is basically doing this most of the series (which was initially going to be a mini-series before becoming a series of movies which then proceed to often be cut up into episodes, which that alone should tell you the problems BEHIND the scenes much less on screen) and we find out what he is (not actually Ken but an evil Gennai clone which is also out of nowhere) and what he’s doing (apparently bringing Yggdrasil, long time lore big bad of various digimon continuities and also god, into the Adventure storyline) not by efforts of the kids. Oh no. They’re too busy playing with their new friend Mei!

God I wish I was joking. The original squad literally shows no concern for where the 02 gang is until halfway through, and it’s a handwave at best and quickly moved on from. Hell, they barely react to “Ken” and CHEER on defeating Imperialdramon! More gravitas was given to having to kill the plot coupon of the day, Meicoonmon, than someone they actually know and should be upset about. Also making Tai NOT want to rush into a fight (what?), Turns Out Homeostatis Is Also Evil Or At Least Amoral (why), a reveal one of the backstory five original digidestined went mad with grief (no), and also I guess for some reason the kids and digimon were separated again given their reactions despite 02′s ending? That’s. That’s not even keeping your own continuity. Why are you like this. Also connecting to the epilogue just seem to be on a whim (not metaphor, Matt decides to be an astronaut on a whim), the general lack of gravitas in most moments followed by moments of SEVERE gravitas (which is the 02 problem but Worse), and bad jokes. I don’t mean Good Bad Jokes like Adventure, just really not funny jokes. And the real bitch of the matter? It had a few things that should’ve made it AWESOME! Like listen, I miss these idiot kids a lot, and the concept of a virus forcing a reboot on the digiworld and thus having to explore, finally, the digimon as characters and what they would be like without the kids? That’s cool! The idea of undoing all the Perma Digideaths (like WIZARDMON goddammit, and in this own show friggin’ Leomon again) with said reboot and thus having a pretty legitimate reason to allow it? Also cool! Worldbuilding about the previous five digidestined? Neat! And lets be real, you all cried at the cast version of Butter-Fly. You know you did. But the thing is they didn’t DO anything with most of this, or did it in a sloppy way. Example; the virus was basically a means to an end for waking up Yggdrasil (I’m not calling him King Drasil, that’s stupid), right? Why? When the Adventure-verse, often to it’s own detriment, is actively tied to the Milleniumon mythos, you could just pull in that eldritch horror and finally have Ryo make sense everywhere not japan. Or heck, the Dark Ocean! Remember the Dark Ocean? Where literally cthulu is and also Daemon now? Apparently neither do the script writers since that would’ve been a golden opportunity.  Of course, this would be asking for continuity, which Tri has issues with within its own narrative. Remember when I said the reboot should’ve undone all permadeaths? Yeah, Wizardmon still shows up as a ghost later to lead Kari out of trouble. No lines or anything, just pops up facing away from the audience and leads her out, and then vanishes, despite the fact that according to the rules they made up for the reboot, he should be a cute little Mokumon in Primary Village at the moment who remembers nothing. Also it kind of low-key has the vibe that growing up is terrible and results in having to make awful decisions? Which I’m not sure is what they meant to do, but it does pretty much have that end result. And that sucks! Even Tamers didn’t do that! Growing up is HARD, sure, but there are GOOD things about it too, and being Adventure one would think that would be the main focus! Nope. I just. This should have been good and when it was announced I was super excited and now I’m pretty much exasperated by its mere existence. And now we’re getting a sequel after ANOTHER timeskip.

Bandai if this is how you give us a nostalgia feels trip, do us a favor and let Adventure die. You’re just making the sugary memories of childhood have a bitter aftertaste. Or, if you must, just do a proper reboot. Tie up things that actually WERE wrong with the original series and do some clean ups but otherwise leave it untouched. We all know you’re trying to capture the magic twice, guys, you’re not even trying to hide it now. TL;DR, The only parts I like about Tri are Butter-Fly (cast version) and the fact Tai and Matt are gayer than ever

[seventeenlovesthree]

First impressions on “Digimon Adventure Tri: Soushitsu“ (Spoiler Warning)

Admittedly, I just came home from a 10 hour shift and that may influence my perception greatly in this aspect, so I’ll be sure to write a more detailed, in-depth analysis on this again soon, but for now... I have to be a party pooper - once again.

Positive points: 1.) Takeru’s interactions with Tokomon/Patamon and Elecmon were simply terrific, they felt so natural and, for once, wonderfully in character and well paced. I didn’t like Takeru very much in 02, but adored him in Adventure and even though I don’t really like “the playboy route” in Tri, his genuine moments with Patamon and the teasing between him and Yamato are really worth watching.

Positive points: 2.) Hikari and Tailmon. It was just a small moment, but we all knew what Hikari meant when she said it was a better outcome for her partner. Tailmon’s backstory was one of my favourite parts of the Adventure series and even though it still kills me to know that the whole Tailmon/Wizarmon story was basically erased (for) now, I loved Hikari’s genuine relief here. And even though I would have loved to see more interaction between the Yagami siblings, Hikari’s wise words definitely caused something in Taichi (and, probably, helped him understanding Sora’s reaction a tiny bit better, but that was only implied, I guess).

Positive points: 3.) Jyou and Gomamon. Yes, Jyou is still used as comic relief character, but that’s okay, because it felt more like HIM this time (whereas I sometimes feel like Tri!Mimi says and does things Adventure!Taichi would have done. It’s weird).

Positive points: 4.) I also have to praise the portrayal of Maki this time; the two flashbacks as well as her - obessed/maniac - joy that turned into despair were such a good turning point and one of the few things that felt conistent. I would have loved to see more of that, same with Daigo’s part in all of this. Well done.

Positive points: 5.) Yamato and Gabumon (as well as Koushirou and Tentomon, but I’ll come to that later) were adorable and I thoroughly enjoyed the “Yamato-kun” scenes.

Negative points: 1.) The pacing is still terrible. I’m sorry, but all the mindless running from a to be while having pointless mini conversations in between just doesn’t work for. Especially because many conflicts that COULD have been meaningful simply DIDN’T happen. Everyone was looking forward to see the children interact with different Digimon partners, but, aside from maybe Taichi/Gabumon and Yamato/Agumon, we didn’t get to see much. The small part of Mimi and Tentomon was a nice throwback, but there was so much MORE potential. Let’s be real, we know it’s hard to give everyone an equal amount of screentime, especially if there are so many characters involved. God, I would have loved to see a more detailed scene about Koushirou showing photos to Agumon and Gomamon, this was adorable. Koushirou’s enthusiasm in all of this was surprisingly refreshing anyway, because you could simply TELL how much the relationship to Tentomon always meant to him; that he’d so what it takes to re-establish that and THAT was one of the things that really made me smile (and is another positive point).

Negative points: 2.) I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND THE EVOLUTION LOGIC AND HOW TRI STILL FAILS TO CREATE A FEELING OF SUSPENSE. Yes, I shrieked when Sora was attacked by Gennai first and later by Machinedramon (still wondering how the heck she survived the latter), but it didn’t feel... Important when Piyomon FINALLY evolved. Yes, she and Sora had finally made up and she realized how much Sora cared, but... The cinematography simply couldn’t communicate that to me. Why on earth was that exact moment enough to make her evolve to ultimate level? Same with Takeru/Patamon; heck, his focus was supposed to be in the last movie and, yes, as I said, I loved how he and Patamon moved close to each other so easily and naturally, but... WHY NOW? With Taichi/Agumon and Yamato/Gabumon it was slightly better - but also pretty damn predictable, even though the “diving scene”, which reminded me of “Our War Game” again (and was as gay as it could be just like everything between them here), was kinda well done. Still. Koushirou’s and Tentomon’s relationship, as I said, was built up too, but it still didn’t feel enough. I don’t know how I should explain this, but... They LOST THEIR MEMORIES. I know, I do remember Sora’s and Meiko’s conversation, implying that they’ll always have that connection, but Tri simply couldn’t deliver it well.

Negative Points: 3.) How exactly did Meiko get there??? This is not how a story works, you cannot just make someone APPEAR somewhere without even giving the viewer one hint about it? I know that because I personally SUCK at trabnsitions when it comes to fanfiction. Yes, her Digivice was GLOWING, but... That was it? Maybe I was missing something and I’m ranting for no reason here. Meicoomon was kinda getting on my nerves, because it’s still not clear whether she acts/thinks at free will to me, but I loved how Meiko stood up to her, no matter what. “I didn’t love you because you were good” was a very strong line and that’s definitely a positive point.

Negative Points: 4.) CAN THEY STOP REDUCING AGUMON TO BEING HUNGRY? Seriously, was there a single line that DIDN’T revolve around him talking about food? Yes, I KNOW that’s ONE defining aspect, but it CAN’T BE EVERYTHING.

Negative points 5.) ... The almost-rape scenes with Pseudo-Gennai? What the hell was that supposed to be? Of course we’ll get an explanation later, but the all around outcome of how he was portrayed just felt not very satisfying and shows why Tri works better as an episodic anime and not as a movie series. The pacing was just... Ugh. Same with Machinedramon and Metalseadramon attacking out of nowhere again and again and again AND NOBODY WAS HARMED. That - and the sudden ultimate evilutions - just felt too “deus ex machina” to me.

Negative Points: 6.) NOT ENOUGH SORA. I’m sorry, Sora has always been one of my favourite character in Digimon Adventure and yes, the parallels between her relationship with Piyomon and with her mom were definitely there, but a little bit more exposition would have been needed. I thought Piyomon warming up to her again didn’t feel... Smoothly. It went on with her treating Sora with dismay and even though Sora’s braveness and kindness DID make her realize that she actually worried about her, THERE WAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE, I WANT TO SCREAM. The whole build up, everyone talking about how Sora should take more care of herself... It felt wasted. I actually got teary when she FINALLY said something to Taichi and Yamato, mirroring her attitude from the Adventure episode in which her crest of love glowed for the first time, but... THEY DIDN’T ELABORATE. The entire scene between Taichi, Yamato and her didn’t lead to ANYTHING, really, it was just bait for the Taiorato fans and it gave neither of them a true development in terms of their relationship. Yes, it’s nice to know the boys care about her, but if they always end up with “Ugh, men are so stupid/women are so complicated”, how will they EVER evolve? I KNOW THEY’RE JUST 17, BUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP SEEMED MORE FLESHED OUT IN 02 THAN IT DOES HERE?! And it was all resolved by Sora saying all is well... NO, IT’S NOT WELL. I want them to have meaningful conversations, not having them walk or one of them running away to pass a few more minutes of sceentime. Sora deserves better than that. They all do.

Edit: Negatuve Points 7.) Plotmon’s evolution to Tailmon looked awful. Stop ruining that gorgeous cat. Enough said.

Sorry if that was a tad too negative, but I just find myself expecting so much more every time and it hurts. :(

[shihalyfie]

The difference between the Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective relationships with their Digimon

Kizuna very prominently depicts a difference between the older six Adventure group members (Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Koushirou, Mimi, Jou) and the younger six 02 group members (Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, Iori) in terms of how they interact with their partners, and part of it is because of the strange relationship between Kizuna and 02′s themes, but, in fact, there had always been a rather subtle difference between said dynamics even since all the way back in 02, just exacerbated by the 02 group being the only ones to be able to open Digital Gates via their D-3s and the fact that the circumstances of the plot were a bit engineered to make the 02 group a bit more functional during its duration.

The image of “every human-Digimon partner pair hanging together all of the time even through mundane daily life events” is certainly romantic, but, in fact, the older Adventure group is not portrayed as a group that necessarily longs for such an arrangement, and the 02 group doing so is something they specifically do because of their own personalities. This is something very tied to the distinction between the Adventure and 02 groups’ respective ways of life and internal dynamics, and what it says about each individual group’s preferences of independence vs. mutual support.

Once Adventure’s finale hit and the Adventure group had their first bout of “separation” from their partners, thus began the “two-and-a-half year break”, in which the Adventure group had to suddenly accept separation from their partners after (what had been to them) months of being together all of the time. It’s an understandable feeling of loss! You “took something for granted” when it’d been with you all of the time, you made an incredible, important friend and suddenly had to part. That said, there are some nuances to this that need to be taken into account here:

Takeru and Hikari (who turn out to later become involved with the 02 group and take on their mentality) are the two most confident about their parting on the note of “we’ll definitely meet again, don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay,” which is a pretty obvious meta hint at 02 airing one week later, but also does say a bit that they’re the ones most hung up on the possible reunion.

The two-and-a-half year break is characterized not so much by a permanent and unbroken separation as much as the lack of ability for Taichi and his friends to meet up with Agumon and the other partners on a regular, controlled basis. They weren’t completely cut off from contact -- Taichi receiving a message from Agumon in the above-linked drama CD, Koushirou keeping in contact with Gennai regularly, the entire events of Our War Game!, the Adventure mini dramas (yes, those are canon), the 15th anniversary drama CD, and the reunion depicted in 02 episode 27′s flashback. Moreover, the way Koushirou approaches the Digital Gates in the early episodes of 02, along with Two-and-a-Half Break itself, makes it clear that the gates still did open sporadically, it’s just that, since there was no real rhyme or reason to them opening, meetups with partners weren’t something that could be coordinated smoothly. Given that, it’s not that surprising that Taichi met up with Agumon without altogether too much fanfare in 02 episode 1 -- it certainly wasn’t something he could have done often, but the two had met up a handful of times during the last two and a half years, so it’s understandable that it doesn’t necessarily merit a massively dramatic reunion, especially when there’s a crisis going on at the exact moment.

Once the events of 02 kicked off, the Adventure kids started having some touching reunions with their respective partners now that the 02 kids’ D-3s could provide reliable standbys for going in and out of the Digital World, and, of course, it’s natural that they’d be a bit emotional after their contact had been so disjointed (even though, as with Taichi, it’s not actually nearly as dramatic as one might expect), but once that’s out of the way...

Practicality suggests that the Adventure kids’ Digimon partners would choose to spend most of their time in the Digital World for the duration of 02...but, in fact, even that considered, the older Adventure kids really don’t seem that bothered to not get to see their partners every day of their lives. Granted, they of course presumably don’t want to constantly bother their juniors all of the time to open the gate for them, but Sora demonstrates in 02 episode 12 that she will grab them and go in if it’s urgent, so there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t recruit the kids to open the gate for them if they wanted or needed it that badly. Moreover, the juniors being able to consistently open and close the gate means that constant communication and occasional meetups with their Digimon partners are more than possible -- recruiting one of their partners to do something on the other end isn't too hard anymore, given the events of 02 episode 32 or such -- and so, the “inconsistent, fleeting contact” that spanned the “two-and-a-half year break” is no longer a problem.

All things considered, if the older kids really wanted to create some kind of pipeline or arrangement so they could hang out with their partners on the daily like the 02 kids do, you’d think they (especially Koushirou) would try a little harder, but they don’t actually seem to treat it with much more urgency than having a really good friend who might be a bit of a slightly inconvenient bus ride away. The fact that they actually have reasonably consistent methods of access to see each other if they really want to is comfort in itself. Of course, when Christmas comes and the juniors arrange a situation for all of their seniors to see their partners again, it really is a Christmas gift, because of course there’s the joy of getting to see an incredibly treasured friend you don’t normally get to see in a while!...but even then, Taichi says that Agumon should at least stay for the holiday, with a completely casual tone that suggests he has absolutely no qualms or emotional hangups about the idea that Agumon’s going to have to return to the Digital World soon and they won’t have day-to-day contact anymore (it’ll just be nice if Agumon can stay for the rice cake soup).

In the end, this is actually...probably a pretty normal thing to expect. Digimon partners are “best friends” in ways that are a bit unusually beyond your average so-called “best friend”, in that they’re somewhat psychologically linked to their human partners and thus “get” them in ways an average human friend wouldn’t, but nevertheless, it’s not like everyone constantly wants to have their best friend with them every single moment of every single day; boundaries and independence are a thing, and even Miyako felt that it was appropriate to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip in 02 episode 33. (In fact, if you squint carefully, there are times when even the 02 kids’ Digimon occasionally don’t accompany their partners; Patamon and Tailmon didn’t attend the soccer game in 02 episode 8.) Or, if you want to take this all the way back to Adventure, “needing space” from one’s own partner once in a while was lightly addressed when Tentomon deliberately recused himself from Koushirou having a heart-to-heart with his parents, because he understood Koushirou needed catharsis on his own terms (and we see Hawkmon and Tailmon even do the same for Miyako and Hikari in 02 episode 31). So when those best friends were placed in dubious places of contact and it became difficult to tell when they’d ever meet again, it was emotionally difficult in the same way being forcibly cut off from a treasured friend and not being allowed to see them regularly would hurt -- but once some degree of regular, guaranteed contact was established, and it was understood that they could meet up when they needed to, they could schedule that easily (and in fact there’s no evidence that the older Adventure group never made use of that during days in the year that weren’t depicted in 02 proper).

Not only that, the Digital World is also treated as having its own “will” and letting Chosen in as needed in 02 episode 22, thus implying that, even without the 02 kids’ D-3s as a fail-safe, it was getting more receptive to open gates in general; Koushirou had been keeping track of them and alerting other Chosen to whenever they opened naturally (including Mimi in 02 episode 14), allowing contact to continue on a more regular basis.

So why are the 02 kids and their Digimon so different? Since the incidents depicted in 02 didn’t impact the real world itself until late in the series, why didn’t they make an arrangement like their seniors where the kids would meet up with their partners in the Digital World after school, thus avoiding the trouble of having to hide them in school and pass them off as plushies everywhere? Well, the thing is, they almost had that kind of arrangement...and it lasted only one episode. It was made a prominent point in 02 episode 2 that even after meeting V-mon and barely getting to know him, Daisuke couldn’t get him out of his mind. Then, Miyako and Iori met their own partners, and when they all emerged, the 02 group’s partners themselves came out with them, with Tentomon and Piyomon being the ones to say that they’d rather stay behind for the time being. In other words, it wasn’t a question of practicality surrounding the territory war with the Kaiser -- the 02 group’s Digimon and humans themselves actually wanted to stick to each other this badly, even if it meant that the Digimon would be staying in in an unfamiliar world long-term (after all, the Digital World is still every Digimon’s natural home, so it’s possible that the older kids’ Digimon aren’t too enthused about the idea of staying in the real world for so long themselves).

In the end, the real reason the 02 group and their Digimon stick to each other so constantly through any and all situations has to do with their mentality. In the case of the Adventure group, while being trapped in another world gave them a sense of necessity in sticking together all of the time and thus created a bit of extra shock when sudden separation occurred, either way, said older group was a bit more independent-minded and was ultimately able to mentally adjust to returning to a status quo where they couldn’t expect to see their partners all of the time, and managed to build proper lives around that assumption. Even when their partners were regularly accessible, they were able to live their lives somewhat independently from each other (especially due to the difficulty of integrating Digimon into the real world at this stage), with the understanding that they still could meet each other whenever necessary for anything ranging from a dangerous incident to simply just wanting to get together and have a nice heart-to-heart. The 02 group, on the other hand, consisted of a group of slight misfits with some degree of socialization problems prior to the start of the series, who have mentalities based on “their relationship with others” moreso than independence; their group dynamic was based on a slight amount of dependence on mutual support rather than necessarily being able to sustain themselves on their own, and it thus follows that they and their like-minded partners would be a bit clingier as a result, because they’re more in need of that emotional support and company on a day-to-day basis.

Look at Daisuke, whose entire character has a lot to do with his need for validation and support from others; it’s very easy to imagine that prolonged separation from V-mon might outright cause them separation anxiety before long (remember Daisuke’s reaction to getting briefly separated from V-mon after only knowing him for less than a day in 02 episode 2!). Or Takeru and Hikari, who still are parsing a lot of really unresolved issues that weren’t actually properly addressed in Adventure (remember: they’re the ones who were only able to accept the idea of parting if they had certainty that they’d meet again, and Tailmon especially associates Hikari specifically with a life she couldn’t initially have). These kids dislike being separated from each other for too long, so it stands to reason that they’re going to dislike separation from their respective partners even less. 02 being a story about relationships means it’s a series about how people who have difficulty finding their answers by themselves find it through the support of others, and so, more latently, it’s only natural that it’ll extend to their partners, and that their partners, being somewhat like-minded, would reflect that by willingly choosing to leave the Digital World to cling to their partners, even in an unfamiliar world.

Of course, you could potentially chalk this up to sheer practicality, in that the 02 group had access to D-3s and were simply making use of their time together, or that the nature of the Digital World territory war eventually getting brought out into the real world guided their actions this way...but, in fact, Kizuna continues to double down on there being a distinct difference between these two.

Because Kizuna only gives us very “limited context” by showing us limited snippets of a few days instead of the whole eight months 02 spanned over, we’re forced to extract from only a very small “sample size” of interactions, but one thing the movie does make clear is that the Adventure and 02 groups are both roughly in the same boat in regards to what they can and can’t do regarding their partners and the Digital World. The “advantage” the 02 group had over their seniors in that they could easily open gates is no longer in play, because travel can happen at leisure even with the older group thanks to the smartphone terminals Koushirou’s made (the deluxe Blu-ray booklet confirms that it’s the smartphones doing it, so it’s not like Yamato’s referring to the ability to grab one of the 02 group members here). On top of that, Digimon have some degree of recognition in society, so it’s not too much of a big deal to have them in real life, and all of the Digimon partners are probably much more used to going back and forth and being familiar with both parts of society. And yet, despite that, there is a difference.

The main reason I so often urge people not to take the question of “who has partners present in the credits and who doesn’t” as a definitive statement of who’s lost their partners like Taichi, Yamato, and Sora have is that the opening does the same thing -- none of the Adventure group’s partners are depicted in the respective characters’ vicinity, even though we know at this point that none of them have full-on disappeared yet. Rather, when you think about it, it’s more that the point being made is that their partners aren’t with them all of the time -- just because the gates are easily opened by anyone in this cast now doesn’t mean that the Adventure characters decided to bring them home to live with them the way the 02 group did. Tentomon is not shown to be in the proximity of Koushirou in the movie’s initial scenes, nor in the opening, nor during his company negotiations, and it’s only during later events when he’s seen in the office. Palmon not being on the plane with Mimi may well mean that she’s not actually with her all of the time, mainly just working alongside her every so often, and Jou’s memorial short indicates that there’s a certain degree of partners acting independently now (especially now that they can operate in the real world without too much issue). Obviously, said Digimon partners are still hanging around and reasonably well-involved in their lives, but they’re not always next to them, and may be hanging around elsewhere in the real world or killing time in the Digital World -- but meanwhile, the number of times any of the 02 group is physically seen in the movie or To Sora without their partner totals at zero.

In the end, the distinction between the older Adventure group’s and the 02 group’s respective behavior may have been somewhat exacerbated by the gate-opening issue at first, but even when that was taken away, the 02 group’s tendency to cling to their partners and vice versa was just something endemic to themselves.

Again, since Kizuna gives us a very limited frame of reference, it’s not to say that the 02 group is always stuck to their partners for every breathing moment of their lives; remember, even all the way back in 02 episode 33, Miyako was willing to leave Poromon with Koushirou for the duration of her Kyoto trip, and the memorial shorts also depict V-mon hanging out with Gabumon in a setting that we assume doesn’t involve Daisuke in the vicinity, and photos of Takeru and Hikari without their partners are seen on Imura’s board, and there certainly must be instances of need for privacy or busy moments of adulthood that couldn’t be depicted in the limited range of the movie -- but the point is made, and there is a massive contrast between the Adventure group living independent lives, and the 02 group playing around and doing mundane things and actively involving their partners in their conversations and interactions in ways far beyond that of their seniors. And, by extension, the fact that the drama CD depicts them going out of their way to meet up with each other in a setting where their seniors aren’t doing anything of the sort; the 02 group’s mentality, shaped by the events of their series, involves treasuring their personal relationships and gaining emotional support from each other as a bigger priority over individual ambition, and it’s applying even to eight years later in Kizuna to the point where it takes very little to recreate the aura of yet another average 02 episode.

Fundamentally speaking, neither group is in the wrong, and the “difference in mentality” between the two groups is reflected all the way into the 02 epilogue, so this is not a narrative that praises or condemns people for aligning more with being independent-minded and ambitious and not necessarily needing company most of the time, versus being the kind who needs company and emotional support from others and excelling better at giving that kind of support in return. Kizuna’s narrative doesn’t cast the more ostensibly distant (less so “distant” and more “more capable of independent action”) relationship the Adventure group has with their partners in a particularly negative light. I’m sure many reading this post will probably identify more with one group or the other here in terms of their way of living life and maintaining relationships. However, it does cast the concept of “abandoning one’s partner” as the reason for partnership dissolution -- not physical abandonment, but rather, emotional abandonment.

The timing of the partnership dissolution is the key, because the movie puts a huge spotlight on it not happening to Koushirou and Takeru for the time being, which means we’re obligated to look at Taichi and Yamato to see why it’s happening to them and them specifically, and what they have in common. Well, one day prior, they’d dumped their partners on their siblings with very few words, and then, over dinner, had outright scoffed at the idea of bringing their partners to school with them. Again, it’s not the issue of bringing them or not when even Koushirou doesn’t seem to be hanging out with Tentomon all of the time, but rather that they have such a condescending and cold attitude about it, as if their partners are “in the way” of their adult lives. Taichi doesn’t necessarily have to have Agumon live with him as a roommate, but he’s portrayed as horribly lonely and yet hadn’t even let Agumon visit once because he was so willing to shut him out. In other words, Taichi and Yamato had taken their partners so much for granted that they were basically yanking them out once in a while whenever they needed them for Digimon battles, and then tossing them aside flippantly to get back to whatever their lives were, rather than working on maintaining their relationships or allowing for emotional support. For the early duration of the movie, their conversations are not quite there, and are a bit stilted. Partner or not, it’s a cold way to treat a friend who just really wants to be there to support you.

And when you look at Sora, or Menoa (who’s revealed in the novel to have also been emotionally drifting from Morphomon for the sake of her studies), their abandonment of their partners was hardly physical -- Piyomon was there to watch Sora’s flower arrangement work, it’s just that Sora was coldly turning her away and snapping at her for the sake of her work, and Menoa was most likely still living in the same house as Morphomon back when she was studying in Colorado, but nevertheless, she hadn’t been talking to her anymore. Meanwhile, on the other hand, while Koushirou doesn’t seem to be with Tentomon all of the time, he still has a proper heart-to-heart with him in a way that wouldn’t be completely out of place in Adventure, so you can see why he’s not nearly in trouble as Taichi, Yamato, and Sora are at the time of the movie.

So, the take-home is that it’s not necessarily a requirement to be with your partner every single breathing moment of the day like the 02 group is; of course, them being more on the clingy (for lack of a better way to put it) side means that being emotionally in-tune with them is just a fact of life, but Koushirou, Mimi, and Jou all seem to have figured out comfortable ways of interaction and boundaries with their own partners even despite occasional distance, and that’s why they’re not in danger of losing their partners at the time of the movie, despite all of them technically being adults and Jou being a year older. (Well, there’s also the secondary metaphorical meaning of a partner meaning one’s own personal dreams and aspirations and how that factors into Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Menoa’s actions, but we’ll leave that as a separate topic for the time being.)

One interesting thing about the epilogue is that, because the meeting depicted takes place in the Digital World and we have a very limited amount of information, we don’t really have evidence that most of the adult Chosen actually live with their Digimon partners on a day-to-day basis -- the only thing concrete we have is a strong implication that Hawkmon lives at home with Miyako’s family, which is reasonably par for the course with Miyako and Hawkmon’s respective characterizations (and although it’s not shown, you can also imagine that the very clingy Wormmon would likely prefer living with “Ken-chan” and his family). Otherwise, the only other “home” scene we get to see is that of Takeru and his son, but their partners aren’t shown in the real world.

The Character Complete File does add some implications depending on how you want to read certain ones, and Armadimon’s lack of presence in Iori’s attorney scene could conversely mean that he’s more likely to be a presence in Iori’s home life than he is in his work (which is also reasonably consistent with their characters), but either way, the take-home is that the nature of each Digimon partner’s involvement in each adult’s day-to-day life is ambiguous. So you can really make any kind of extrapolation about whose partners are involved in their lives to what degree; it’s been 17 years since Kizuna, relationships and day-to-day life needs have changed, and things like “career partner” and “family member” (or both) don’t necessarily have to entail a Digimon partner constantly clinging to their head and witnessing every moment of their life, as long as the understanding is still there that everyone still has a clear amount of emotional involvement and connection in each other’s lives to some degree.

It’s also interesting to note that the epilogue actually picks a slightly unusual way of phrasing the Digimon partnership phenomenon spreading globally: “a Digimon partner exists for everyone in the world.” In terms of sheer technical meaning, it’s not altogether that different from “everyone has a Digimon partner,” but such oblique wording brings more to mind the idea that, even now, not everyone may have met their Digimon partner yet, or may be living separately from them between worlds, or, with retroactive Kizuna context, being in a bit of an existential crisis or loss of self and having your partner not currently manifested for the time being -- but that doesn’t preclude you from having a partner, as long as you’re capable of maintaining some kind of relationship with them.

[shihalyfie]

Shihanne’s Kizuna meta -- Part 1: The meaning behind Kizuna, and the actual cause of partnership dissolution

Kizuna is a very easy movie to misunderstand, and it’s not helped by the fact that the official translation kind of sucks. (Seriously, I highly recommend you check out the translation of one of the novels -- the Dash X or the Shueisha Mirai version -- because of how badly the official one sucks.) On top of that, a lot of its information is packed in the subtleties of a lot of its lines, which means that, without paying very close attention, you can walk off with a completely misleading interpretation of what the movie is trying to say. A lot of times I see people talking about how the movie’s message is about adulthood sucking, or partnership dissolution being an inevitable thing...when the movie actually makes multiple indications that this is not the case.

(The rest of the post contains major spoilers for the movie, so be warned.)

Do note that the below is only my personal interpretation, and because there is a lot to unpack with this movie, please feel free to disagree with or disregard any of my interpretations here.

Kizuna has a lot of things to say about adulthood, but the most obvious theme is, of course, “don’t be too trapped in nostalgia” -- represented by Menoa’s desire to trap everyone in Neverland so they can never move forward, and, on a meta level, the ridiculous amount of Adventure imagery associated with people who can’t move on (yeah, they weren’t really subtle about that part...). But as a result, the idea behind the movie is often taken the wrong way -- does this mean that they’re trashing on the very series they’re meant to honor? Is the movie about people having to swallow adulthood being painful? After all, the movie says that partners disappear when you become an adult! Isn’t the movie saying we all have to accept that (even though the sheer existence of the 02 epilogue should imply otherwise)?

Nope! The movie actually does have another inner layer about what it means to become an adult, and how to develop a healthy relationship with your adulthood that isn’t just violently cutting everything away -- in fact, it considers that to be another unhealthy extreme that it warns against. It’s just that this theme is a little more latently hidden, and you have to connect the dots a little to figure that out.

I think a lot of the reason so many people miss this is predicated on the fact that you are not supposed to take Menoa’s statement at face value. It’s her statement as presented in the official trailers and a lot of the advertising material, so it’s easy to think that she’s supposed to be the deliverer of the movie’s message, but that is very much not the case! Understanding this is key to understanding the core theme of the movie, and what it’s trying to say in terms of a lead-up to the 02 epilogue.

Menoa’s statement on adulthood, which is what the concept of partnership dissolution is supposedly predicated on, is the following (quoted from onkeikun’s translation of the Dash X Bunko novel, which uses the movie script):

Do all of you know why it’s children who are chosen to be partners with Digimon?... It’s because children are full of possibilities... The future is rife with limitless choices. You grow as a person by making those choices. “Growth” and “possibilities” together produce vast energy. As I’m sure you guys are already aware, the evolutions of your Digimon partners are triggered by your growth... When that power is gone… Your partnership with your Digimon ends.

Keep in mind that Menoa has built this “theory” based on her own experience. She’s convinced that her “choice” to become an adult was what took Morphomon from her. She’s convinced that Adulthood is Bad, and that Choices are Bad. Menoa is very much biased from her own experience, and her theory is not reliable. Seriously, do you think someone who eventually decides that forcing everyone into an eternal loop of their childhood is an excellent idea is a reliable source for these kinds of things?

Not only that, she’s also claiming that this is supposed to apply to all adults just because this happened to her. Although she claims that this is part of her research, there clearly have not been enough cases of partnership dissolution for this to be a well-known issue. Given that she lost Morphomon at a young age, and she’s one of the oldest Chosen Children, it’s natural that she might think that this might be a universal phenomenon and that it might not have “kicked in” for everyone else, but nevertheless, she’s committing a major no-no in scientific research -- extrapolating based on a painfully small sample size, and letting her own biased perception of events manipulate what she sees as the result.

When Gennai supposedly “confirms” the partnership dissolution phenomenon, note that he does not actually confirm Menoa’s theory.

Unfortunately, you are experiencing the case where your partnership is dissolving... But if you guys still have infinite possibility…Then it’s possible…

The fact that Gennai refers to it as a “case” is very important (it’s very clear in the Japanese line too, jirei). This is a thing that may happen. It is not a thing that is guaranteed to happen, and it’s not necessarily a thing that comes with adulthood like Menoa thinks. What’s more, he even acknowledges that “having infinite possibility” is still possible for adults -- something that doesn’t fit with Menoa’s theory on Adulthood Being Bad and how it diminishes possibility.

As the movie eventually goes into Menoa’s plan for “saving” Chosen Children, she justifies her motive by saying that losing partners is “fate” (shukumei). She thinks that losing partners is an inevitability. She thinks that this is just something that comes with adulthood, and that unless she forces everyone to stay in their childhood, their only recourse will be to suck it up and to be miserable.

This is why the climax is dedicated to Taichi and Yamato proving her wrong.

“What you’ve chosen wasn’t a mistake!” “But no matter what waits for us after making that choice…!” “We have to live with the decisions that we make!”... “We might not be able to change our fate. But!” “We can change our destiny!”

In essence, Taichi and Yamato are disproving both parts of Menoa’s theory on Adulthood Being Bad. It’s not that choices are inherently bad, it’s just that sometimes there are consequences of said choices...but it’s not like said consequences lead to dead ends. Taichi and Yamato, in contrast to Menoa’s belief in “fate”, believe in “destiny” (unmei) -- the difference being that they believe in being able to change that predetermined fate by their own efforts.

The concept had come up earlier in To Sora, too --

Hey, Sora-san. I think it was destiny that we became Chosen Children. But I don’t think it was fate.

It’s a completely different conversation, but Mimi is basically talking about the philosophy that pushes the Chosen Children forward -- that sure, some things seem to be predestined and beyond simple luck, but also that they’ve had choice in manipulating the events and changing what seems normally inevitable.

So if Menoa’s theory about partnerships dissolving in adulthood is questionable to begin with, then what does cause partnership dissolution? Again, it’s not actually established that this is something that happens to everyone. We only have four confirmed cases within the scope of the movie: Menoa herself, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora. So what do they have in common?

Well, the night before the ring appeared on Taichi and Yamato’s Digivices, they had this conversation:

“You should take Gabumon with you to your classes,” Taichi said jokingly. Yamato smiled wryly. “Don’t be stupid. Why don’t you take Agumon to your classes?” “It’s not that simple. I have my own life to live.”

And during the events of To Sora -- which presumably happened right before the ring appeared for Sora -- this happened:

When Piyomon had come to inform her that Koushiro had sent a message, Sora had said to her angrily, “Don’t bother me!” The distress and irritation of her practice not going well had caused Sora to take it out on her. But even when lashed out by that irrational anger, Piyomon had been the one who apologized. When she saw Piyomon hanging her head apologetically, Sora had felt a surge of regret but no room in her heart to apologize as well. “I need to focus on this right now…” She had said as her excuse, and looked away.

And in Menoa’s case, a certain something shows up in the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of the novel -- it’s implied in the movie itself, but the novel itself says it pretty explicitly:

Waiting in front of the swing at her family’s home, where they’d always played together when Menoa was a child, was her beloved friend. Lately, she’d been studying so much that they hadn’t been talking to each other at all, so she wanted Morphomon to lavish her with praise. She wanted her to say, “Menoa, you’re amazing!”

See a pattern? All of the known cases of partnership dissolution involved neglect of their Digimon partners in pursuit of “adulthood”.

Taichi and Yamato ditched Agumon and Gabumon at the start of the movie and left them with their siblings. Agumon hadn’t even been to Taichi’s room before, even though Taichi lives by himself and is clearly lonely -- his reaction when Agumon finds his AVs, “you have to be an adult -- “ tells all, because he clearly thinks of Agumon as “a child” who shouldn’t be near his New Adult Life. Sora may have apologized later, but it sounds like there’s been a constant pattern of her starting to focus so much on her studies that she’s emotionally neglected Piyomon. And, of course, Menoa herself rushed so much to become “an adult” that she neglected her beloved partner in the process -- they weren’t even talking anymore! And the fact that the swing is discussed in past tense, when Menoa was a child, indicates that Morphomon may not be the only thing Menoa had tossed away in pursuit of “becoming an adult”.

(Note how Menoa constantly talked through the movie about the fact she and Morphomon had “always been together”, as if Morphomon had been ripped unfairly from her suddenly and for no reason...only for the revelation that Menoa was guilty of neglect to drop at the end. I repeat: Menoa is not a reliable person to be taking words at face value from.)

It really, really doesn’t seem like coincidence that Taichi and Yamato’s Digivice rings appeared the day after they flippantly laughed at the idea of taking Agumon and Gabumon to school because it would get in the way of “having their own lives to live”. Recall that Digimon in the Adventure universe have always generally been taken to represent an alter ego, or a part of oneself. (They were literally developed to represent part of the human soul in physical form.) On a symbolic level, your partner disappearing is representative of you losing touch with yourself -- and your own childhood innocence -- because of some arbitrary, societally-enforced standard of “becoming an adult”.

Fun side note? As mentioned in the movie, Eosmon is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn, who also has another interesting story about her: she fell in love with a mortal man and, not wanting him to die before her, requested that he be given eternal life, but neglected to ask that he be given eternal youth, and was forced to watch as her lover kept living on and on and withered further and further with age. Neglected the concept of youth, huh.

That’s why partnerships seem to dissolve with adulthood, but it’s not from the simple act of becoming an adult -- it happens when you take that adulthood and decide that you’re going to reject all of those “childish” things about yourself in pursuit of that goal, and lose yourself in the process. And sure, they may have tried to fix it right away, but these things aren’t just momentary moments of weakness; they build, and build, and build, and build, until you’re at the point of no return and need to take drastic measures to get it back.

And in fact, if you inspect the staff interviews (which have been, presumably, deliberately vague about this in the hopes of having the audience figure it out), they hint at it, too:

For this movie, we had the concept of "separation from their Digimon", which means being able to completely separate yourself from your past self, or rather, wondering if it might be better to cut yourself entirely from your past adventures in becoming more like an adult.

Not only that, but this explanation tracks much better than what Menoa claims is the case. Under Menoa’s explanation of choices diminishing possibilities, characters like Daisuke and Jou who had their paths already determined from an early age should have lost their partners a long time ago, and conversely, Taichi and Yamato, who weren’t sure on what to do with their lives at the beginning of the movie, should not have lost their partners. But “emotional neglect from the obsession with growing up” tracks even with our “outlier” cases -- Menoa “forced” herself to become an adult at the very-not-adult age of 14 and lost her partner, while Oikawa also didn’t actually get to “meet” Pipimon until he accepted that exact same thing -- that he needed to embrace the “power to dream” instead of considering himself a “tainted adult”.

(Ichijouji Ken, who could be argued to be guilty of emotional neglect of Wormmon in some sense, initially seems like a violation of this principle, but closely observing the Kaiser’s behavior during 02 indicates an often paradoxical thread of behavior implying that he seemed to have been rejecting and yet wanting him nearby at the same time, which is part of the reason Wormmon’s death breaks him so badly. In fact, it often feels like he goes out of his way to acknowledge Wormmon for the specific purpose of rejecting him. In a metaphorical sense, knowing that Wormmon is representative of Ken’s own inner self, the metaphor of Ken being in perpetual internal conflict of constantly trying to outwardly reject his own heart for being “weak” yet never truly being able to escape it until he’s finally forced to accept it for good is not lost. It was not a positive relationship with Wormmon by any means, but it was, nevertheless, a conscious and active relationship, for which “neglect” does not feel like an appropriate word.)

When you look back at Menoa’s life and backstory, it then becomes clear how she made her mistake in her theory. Menoa basically threw away her childhood in order to become an adult, and she never learned to embrace the happy medium between having an unhealthy attachment to the past and violently cutting it off. Late in the movie, she claims that there’s nobody else who understands how she feels, and we also learn in her flashback that she had an obsession with doing things “on her own”, or in other words, she cut off any potential friends or people who could help her (Morphomon seems to have legitimately been her only friend and confidant). So in her mind, “losing touch with your inner self and having no connection to the happiness of your childhood” is fundamentally synonymous with becoming an adult. That’s how she develops her mentality of “adulthood is drudgery and has no value, and we’d be better off never getting there” -- and that adulthood strips people of possibilities and therefore provides no recourse from losing your Digimon partner, and that the only way to reclaim anything from your childhood is to just shove yourself back into its box. Her own life had no such hope in it, so she projects that lack of hope onto everyone else.

With that in mind, the two major questions that come from this:

Will this happen to everyone? Hard to say, but I don’t think it would necessarily. Remember, even though Menoa is one of the oldest Chosen Children and had this happen to her at an abnormally early age, not everyone has such an unhealthy relationship with adulthood, nor is as likely to neglect their partners nearly as much in the process of figuring out what adulthood means to them. That doesn’t mean that those it does happen to made some “mistake” or “messed up”, though -- press materials and the BD commentary made it clear that this was not a movie intended to endorse “one way to live”, and sometimes the degree of introspection and experimentation with what adulthood means to you does result in momentarily trying to cut things away until you figure your life balance out, especially if you want to take on a challenge with as high of a hurdle as Taichi’s road to becoming a diplomat.

So what’s the solution? Although it’s still left to everyone’s imagination to figure out the details, at the very least, figuring out yourself and snapping yourself out of this very unhealthy relationship with “growing up” and holding yourself to arbitrary, false standards is probably a great start! Menoa had her “vision” of Morphomon the moment Taichi and Yamato’s words reached her within Eosmon. Gennai specifically says that partnership dissolution will cause the Digimon to disappear in terms of losing their “form” (sugata), but given that Digimon in the Adventure universe are supposed to represent a part of yourself, they’re probably still there (just not there)! In that light, getting them back...is probably not actually all that hard, if they can sit down and take some time to figure themselves out. That’s why Menoa never figured it out this whole time in the last eight years; she was so busy focusing on “scientific” ways to get Morphomon back, and staying perpetually stuck in a twisted nostalgic version of her past, that she never actually sat down to think about herself and what she was doing. And that’s why the movie’s climax is about Taichi blowing the whistle to wake everyone up -- it’s still about moving forward, but it’s about using your past to move forward, instead of gravitating to the extremes of either latching onto it eternally or attempting to abandon it outright.

So really, the solution is for everyone to get some damn therapy.

Given that, the path to the 02 epilogue doesn’t actually seem that particularly difficult compared to how Menoa made the problem initially sound like. It’s not like every adult is going to inevitably have this happen as a process, and thus it’s not like everyone has to find some magical technical solution that’ll rectify one of the laws of the universe. The solution is really more somewhere between the unhealthy extremes presented in the movie -- Menoa’s fixation on nostalgia and the past being the only good thing in her life, and Taichi and Yamato (initially) rejecting said childhoods in favor of “adulthood” -- and figuring out how to use and cherish your childhood, past experiences, and inner self to move forward.

And given Sora’s revelation in To Sora about taking care of herself more, and Taichi and Yamato starting to settle on their career decisions for real by the end of Kizuna, they’re already on their way to figuring things out. Or, in other words, it’s likely that they’ll get their partners back simply through the natural course of making their way to the epilogue. Taichi’s starting to value his childhood experiences as important in his future work in diplomacy. Yamato, according to the Shueisha Mirai version of the novel, is becoming an astronaut to entertain the “romantic” dream of going to space with Gabumon. Sora, as per the 02 epilogue, will end up known not for being an iemoto heir but a kimono designer -- a skill that she’s presumably going to be discovering on her own, and not under obligations to others. Gennai himself said that there was hope as long as they still had “infinite possibility” -- something that Taichi, Yamato, and Sora were closing up on themselves at the beginning of this movie, but were starting to re-open the door to again once they started reconnecting with themselves and embarking on some proper paths by the end of it.

“We’ll definitely come to see you” -- indeed, they will.

(Next is the sequel to this meta, where I discuss Kizuna’s relationship with not only 02′s epilogue but also 02 itself as a whole, and the reason the 02 group has such an unusual position in this movie.)

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Tag Tamers - Entry #03

Previously: Following Millenniummon dividing the world into two and separating Ryo and Ken, Gennai manages to build a machine to establish communication between the two mirror worlds, starting a plan with both boys to free each area of the digital world on both sides of the divide. A Greymon, agent of Millenniummon, opposes them, having somehow gained the ability to travel between the two worlds, and evolving into MetalGreymon later on.

Now: I learn how many areas I must clear, explore the jogress mechanics of the game and face up against an old favorite of the Adventure 02 fanbase.

Special thanks to NikcDC and Ajora Fravashi from Romhacking net for translating this game!

Last time around, I cleared a Tropical Islands area and half of a Mountain area (on Ryo’s side of the divide). By returning to talk with Gennai before clearing the Mountain area as Ken, I learn how many areas there are in this game. They are as follows: File Island (cleared during Ryo’s part of the prologue), Remote Forest (cleared during Ken’s part of the prologue), Sea Islands (cleared during the previous entry), Mountains (Ryo’s side already cleared), Machine area and Millenniummon’s continent.

Going by the above, I’m two and a half areas away from facing the final boss. Lore-wise, it’s strange for there to not be a desert area, considering how long the Chosen Children spent in such areas during the anime. Perhaps this is Millenniummon’s continent? I’ll see when I get there.

Anyway, before going to face MetalGreymon’s forces, I check if I can pick up new digimon. I have 3 options: Gabumon, Botamon and YukimiBotamon. I initially pick the Child-level, thinking it’ll be more powerful, only to find it has just one attack, which consumes its energy points and would eventually leave him useless in a long-term mission. I decide to instead pick up the YukimiBotamon and train it, hoping to see it evolve into Tailmon. After all, I already have the Digimental of Light, so might as well use it.

The enemies in the mountain area of this world are much the same as in the other: primarily teams of 2 Baby II level digimon with 1 Child level digimon as the main threat. While Wormmon and Patamon can easily handle that, YukimiBotamon is very vulnerable, so I end up having to revive it mid-battle.

It’s worth it, though, because fighting such relatively high-levelled opponents means my Baby level digimon very soon evolves into the Child stage. Plotmon is adorable here, and will be very useful for this area.

Clearing the first dungeon of the mountains opens up the DigiCave, where a sign can be read, bearing the above inscription. This is digimoji, and translating it (with the handy guide provided by NikcDC in the patch), it turns out to be a particular jogress evolution: LadyDevimon + MarineDevimon -> SkullSatamon.

While exploring the final dungeon of the area, the Death Chasm, I come across a piece of the Digimental of Darkness. Given how much focus there is in the Adventure series to darkness as a corrupting force, I was expecting this to be handled differently from the others. It is a bit interesting, though, that it is Ken and not Ryo the one who finds the pieces.

Anyway, the dungeon is pretty long, but manageable for my team, and soon enough I’m face to face with MetalGreymon again. As before, he boast of having stolen my skills, but given I don’t normally use tricky moves against him (I prefer straight-forward offense unless I can’t help it, you see), it doesn’t really mean much. Defeating MetalGreymon for a second time opens up a portal in the village, though, this time leading to the “Machine Continent”. Gennai tells us that this continent has been corrupted by a great evil, and that we must go face the source.

With my Wormmon-Patamon-Plotmon team, I go face the first dungeon. It’s harder, the teams now consisting of either 2 Childs/1 Adult, 1 Child/2 Adults or even 3 Adults. I manage to defeat them, but it’s clear I won’t be progressing much with my current team, which shows no sign of evolving anytime soon. I remember the message regarding jogress, though.

There’s a particular building in the village that is centered around fusion, as well as a “fusion counter” in the digimon information when you look up your team. Assuming that jogress is the way to new evolution, as it often was during this era of the franchise, I decide to use it on my team, namely on Patamon and Plotmon.

I did not expect to receive a Baby I level again, but that just means I can train it. Going back to earlier dungeons, I start to clear them with my inappropiately powerful Wormmon by my side, and these efforts pay off very fast.

Soon enough, I repeat this process with the Gabumon I mentioned at the start and an Elecmon I trained from a Punimon, gaining another Punimon that evolves into Centalmon. With a team of 2 Adults and Wormmon, I go face the dungeons.

While still harder than the previous areas, it’s much more manageable this time around. The Digimental of Light means Tailmon gains access to a Nefertimon move, which heals me much like the Pegasusmon one did. Still, I end up having to restock my healing items in the ocassional mid-battle shop frequently enough. Finally, after what frankly felt like much, much more fights than in any of the previous dungeons, I come accross MetalGreymon.

Can’t see him clearly? Don’t worry, I have a zoomed-in view for you.

Don’t let anyone tell you the Adventure 02 writers didn’t know what they wanted to include in their series.

Still, this BlackWarGreymon is much different from the anime one, being a willful servant of evil rather than a lost soul looking for answers to his existance. He implies Ken is quite scared during this battle, which is a bit of a change from Ryo, for whom this has never been implied.

I manage to defeat him, after which the perspective once again changes to Ryo. Piccolomon confirms that BlackWarGreymon is the powerful digimon controlling the Machine Continent, so he’s not just coasting on his master’s power here, but exerting his own. Coupled with a plan, one to test the power I can get from the jogress facility before facing up against Millenniummon’s agent, I leave Piccolomon’s house.

But that’s a story for next time. See you soon for what I assume is the conclusion of our conflict with BlackWarGreymon, as well as our arrival to Millenniummon’s Continent.

[o-w-quinlan]

Game Journal: Anode/Cathode Tamer - Final Thoughts

Having finished playing the first of the Ryo games, below are my overall thoughts on its gameplay, its story and characters. Generally speaking, I enjoyed my playthrough but found the game severely flawed, and I don’t expect to play it again.

Recommended for: Digimon Adventure completists. Non-completists will be better served by the PSP game, general digimon fans by too many games to mention, and it wouldn’t cross my mind to recommend this to non-digimon fans.

Gameplay

This game is too simple. You know the game has a problem when you can repeat the exact same strategy with a random super-mook and the final boss of the game, with the only difference being how many times you heal. Most of my initial difficulty with this game came not from it being difficult, but from me not knowing how to access my items.

Even the layer of variety added by the environments are diminished by the flying-types being effective in any kind of environment. While the enemy digimon get stronger the further in the game you get, the environments and thus strategy remain the same, so while there is joy in learning what kind of combinations are better, once you know them its basically impossible to lose, or even be too challenged. Flying-types are overpowered, healers are overpowered, combine the two and you’re invincible in the main game (no idea what multiplayer was like). Basically, I don’t see this game having any replayability value.

In its favor, there is basically no grinding in this game, unlike in the vast majority of digimon games. Your improvement in the game is not measured by a number on your digimon’s profile, but by how well you know to stategize and corner your opponents. The raising-sim Digimon World games sort of work like this too, but this game takes it even further by not even having an evolution system.

The game has additional content that can be accessed by having a V-Pet or a Digivice, but given I don’t have a WonderSwan or the original version of those toys, I can’t comment on them.

Story and characters

The story is pretty bare-bones, which isn’t surprising for an anime tie-in game (if anything, it’s more surprising that its sequels went beyond just an excuse plot). The most interesting part of it is how it implies that the Chosen Children were able to return to the Digital World very soon after the events of the anime and went on further adventures. Otherwise, not much to say about it.

While character interactions weren’t too present, there were some nuggets of interesting things in them, even though a couple times they’re only interesting because of how they contrast what we know of them in other media:

Ryo: Our main hero is pretty much a blank slate for most of the game, silent while Agumon does all the talking. Beyond the normal goodness every kid hero is expected to have, Ryo is very aware of his situation in the Digital World, asking Gennai if he was also brought to it against his will and seemingly assuming that he can’t go back home until he defeats Milleniummon (something that no one ever tells him). He quickly grows very attached to Agumon, and seems almost too distressed when he has to say goodbye, even though he’s apparently very aware that Agumon has never truly been his partner. In general, not particularly interesting here but with plenty of stuff that could be fleshed out in further games.

Agumon: Due to Ryo’s status as a silent protagonist, Agumon is the one who actually engages in conversation during cutscenes. In a way, this makes him look like the actual hero of the story, calling for help, gathering allies, comforting Hikari, guiding the new Chosen Child and generally acting like a leader, being recognized as such by the Chosen Children and the other digimon. It’s a very clear change from his behaviour in Adventure, and while I can’t truthfully say this is reflected in 02, it is true it makes his maturity while talking with BlackWargreymon in it seem more fitting.

Millenniummon: The new villain has basically nothing to him besides cockiness and power. He’s better characterized through his minions, the resurrected villains, whose threats are more explicitely violent than in Adventure and seem weirdly subservient to him given what we know from the rest of their appearences. This could be argued as indirectly characterizing him as a vicious brute forcing his minions to be as subservient to him as possible.

Gennai: The game adds a layer of grumpiness to a lot of his earlier dialogues, making him constantly and subtly dismissive of Ryo through the early portions of the game. Later on, he returns to a standard passive mentor figure.

That’s everything I have to say about this game at this point in time. I’ll soon be starting a playthrough of Tag Tamers, which I will be giving my thoughts on in this same “game journal” format. From what little I have played of it thus far, it looks like at the very least the narrative massively improved from this game, so I’m excited to see what the game team learned from this one. See you next time!

[izzyizumi]

Digimon Adventure(s) x 02 x tri AMV ~ x Kagerou Project “ OUTER SCIENCE ” AMV [ music ( C ) Jin, singer: IA / Vocaloid ] featuring CHARACTERS / IMPLIED: KOUSHIRO(U) IZUMI + TAICHI YAGAMI (w/bonus background Taishiro) + the rest of the main 8 Adventure Chosen + DIGIMON ADVENTURES VILLAINS ENSEMBLE ( this amv initially completed on January 11, 2019 )

PAST AMVS / VIDEO EDITS IN THIS SERIES: Kagerou Daze (Heat-Haze Daze) / Children Record / RED / Additional Memory and Imaginary Reload music edits for KageDaze / Days (short edit) / Lost Time Memory / Yesterday Evening / Summertime Record / Shounen Brave ( * It’s ok to start on/only watch this current AMV “ Outer Science ” ! ) [ *You may understand the story/implied timeline of things better if you begin from “Kagerou Daze” though it’s also not required! “Children Record” is also recommended as a starting point/upbeat song! ]

- part of my Taishiro [Taichi x Koushiro] REPEAT?_ ficverse (please note any and all notes/trigger warnings for said ficverse!!) [seriously, please note the warnings, the plot is kinda heavy] (please note any and all warnings for Kage-pro’s plot too if you look into that!!) - no, it’s NOT a direct parody (but v[ERY] inspired) (if you can’t tell) - WATCH THIS IN HIGH DEFINITION ( click the ‘HD’ / 1080p on the player !! )

- THIS IS AKA " NIGHTMARE FUEL: THE SONG " - IMPLIED PSUEDO CHARACTER-DEATHS ABOUND BUT TAKE CAUTION - SCENES USED AKA: " DIGIMON ADVENTURES WAS ALWAYS NIGHTMARE FUEL " - IF YOU THOUGHT OTHERWISE YOU WERE FOOLING YOURSELVES

- DIGIMON 02 IS HERE - TRI IS HERE ( SPOILERS THROUGH TO “BOKURA NO MIRAI” END ) - PIE(D)MON IS HERE ( VERY HERE ) - OH HI BACKGROUND DIABOROMON, MUGENDRAMON, DEVIMON, VAMDEMON [MYOTISMON], ETEMON ----- - THE REST ARE PROBABLY IN THE BACKGROUND TOO - HI DIGIMON KAISER ! KEN ICHIJOUJIIIIIIIIIII OH YOU’RE HERE TOO - HI NOT ! GENNAI WHOAAAAAA WHY IS HEEEEE HERE --------------

- AND THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT " REPEAT " DIGIMON ADVENTURE'S 1ST SERIES

- TOEI IS VERY MUCH NOT LISTENING TO ME RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT - OK THEY'RE ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO ( M A Y B E ) HAVE A FIGHTING CHANCE - YOU MIGHT SEE THEM RESISTING - CAN THEY DO IT - WHO KNOWS - BUT I REALLY LIKE THEIR    FIGHTING SPIRIT - ( I’m bad at keeping spoilers vague ) - DO THE VILLAINS KNOW - DO THEY - D O T H E Y

- I'M STILL WORKING ON THIS ACTUALLY - THIS IS THE UNEDITED 1ST DRAFT - I MIGHT TRY TO FIT THE REST OF THE VILLAINS IN TOO - I also need to replace some small subbed scenes etc - might fix some transitions later and replace filler placement scenes

- " OK TBH WASN'T PUPPETMON THE ONE WITH THE-------- " - " ok no I'm not gonna go there " - “ MY VERSION IS NOWHERE NEAR THAT ----- ”

- DO NOT WATCH THE KAGEPROS ORIGINAL VERSION UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE MUCH MORE GRUESOME IMPLIED “"DEATHS"” - DIGIMON ADVENTURES IS ACTUALLY SAFE IN COMPARISON

- Lyrics / Translations under the ‘ read more ’ !

LIVING A LIFE IN SLIGHT MISERY The dead are knocking on the door, aren't they? The small master cannot watch indifferently,

" It's an unpleasant story "

THROATS AND BODIES THAT SPLIT OPEN AND WIDEN

IN ORDER TO MELT

A DEAD HEART

Leisurely SWALLOWING UP LIFE

I GOUGE OUT EYES .....

HEY

YOU WISHED FOR IT TOO ,

DIDN'T YOU ?

AS YOU GLARED AT ME

THAT KIND OF TRAGIC SPIRIT IS

MY FAVORITE FOOD , YOU SEE ... [ 1ST CHORUS ]

WELCOME TO THE INTERIOR OF MY WOMB

THE ENDING PLACE for BOTH   LOVE AND EGO

EVEN YOU WILL SOON BE REBORN

INTO A MONSTER

WON'T IT BE FANTASTIC?

SAYING THINGS LIKE " AA, GOD, WHY "

CRYING, " I DON'T WANT THIS "

JUST ACCEPT IT , THIS IS YOUR FATE , AFTER ALL

LET'S TOIL AWAY for  THE NEXT, THE NEXT, THE NEXT   MASTER

MYTHS and LIVES and PEOPLE and FATE

... And even THOUGHTLESSLY , FALLING IN LOVE ...

THE SNAKES   LAUGH AT IT ALL   SILENTLY,

" SUCH IDIOTIC THINGS "

AAH, WHAT'S THIS, WHAT'S THIS, I CAN'T COLLECT ANY MORE

Can't lick up any more DARKENED SPIRITS

POSSESSING A SMALL LIFE

AAH, IT'S RESIDING IN YOU, IS IT NOT ?

THE POWER TO COMBINE THE EYES TOGETHER

YOU ARE THIS TRAGEDY'S " QUEEN " [ 2ND CHORUS ]

ENJOY IT , THIS LIFE OF YOURS !

WEAVING TOGETHER LOVE AND EGOISM

THE SWAYING DAYS are BEGINNING TO CRUMBLE

MATCHING OUR STEP to THE "FIRST TRAGEDY"

LAMENTING, " RETURN IT "

SOBBING, " I DON'T WANT THIS "

DO YOU THINK I CARE ?

THIS IS YOUR FATE AFTER ALL !

THIS TERRIBLE, PETTY AND FRAGILE STORY

IS " THE REAL THING " , YOU SEE

[ POST-INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE ] YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOTIC EXISTENCE, YOU KNOW ?

HOWEVER MANY TIMES   YOU KEEP OPPOSING

BUT IT'LL ALL GO BACK

TO THE SAME STORY

RECKLESSLY, CLUMSILY

CRYING, CRYING, CRYING, CRYING

AAH, WHAT AN UNSIGHTLY EXISTENCE

BUT BEFORE YOU ASK, " WHY ? "

YOU ASKED FOR TOO MUCH

AND NOW SERVE TO SIN

THE HOLLOW MIRACLE IS

BURSTING OPEN AND CRUMBLING

SAYING, " OH, IT'S STILL FINE ? "

NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU JUST CRY

EVEN THE END

WILL FADE AWAY IMMEDIATELY

AND THE NEXT,

THE NEXT

THE NEXT

THE NEXT TIME IT COMES

THE NEXT, THE NEXT DAY

EVEN THE NEXT,

THE NEXT,

THE NEXT -

I'LL     LAUGH

original translation inspiration from one of the 1st subbed uploads here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wg2OgJgSQ0 ^ THIS IS THE ORIGINAL KAGEPROS VERSION [ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED IF YOU COMPARE / WATCH IT ]

redone/updated translation with Japanese lyrics for easier following from here: https://kagerouproject.fandom.com/wiki/Outer_Science ^ I basically combined both translations, using lines I felt fit better from the 1st and 2nd versions while comparing them to the Japanese lyrics * The last line is one I’ve also seen thrown around in other translations over the years!

- I’M SORRY

- I PROMISE THIS SERIES GETS BETTER

- WATCH THE OTHER AMVs ( PARTICULARLY “ SUMMERTIME RECORD ” )

- OK BUT YES TAKE CAUTION WITH THE KAGEPROS ORIGINAL

- IT’S A TIMELOOPS SERIES FOR A REASON

- I ALMOST DIDN’T POST THIS THING OUT OF FEAR MAYBE IT WAS A BIT TOO VILLAIN-Y .................................................

- OK BUT THE MUSIC IS REALLY COOL / CATCHY LOOK. LOOK. YOU HAVE TO ADMIT IT

* The lyrics are also HILARIOUSLY chuunibyou and others in the original fandom this song came from have described it as such too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%ABniby%C5%8D

- I MEAN - “ WELCOME TO THE INTERIOR OF MY WOMB ”

- THUS I WOULD LIKE TO THROW FORTH THE IDEA THAT NOT!GENNAI

- IS A CHUUNIBYOU-LIKE VILLAIN TYPE BECAUSE HE SEEMS - VERY VERY SIMILAR IDEK ...

- i’m sorry

- TOEI I STG YOU DO NOT WANT TO “ REPEAT ” DIGIMON ADVENTURE - YOU DO NOT WANT TO YOU DO NOT . YOU DO NOT . YOU DO - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT