#I'm honestly more excited about this than about the 20th anniversary movie

[adventure-hearts]

comments on the third adventure novel!

In case you’ve missed it (like I did), the lovely onkei-kunhas begun translating the long-awaited third volume of the digimon adventure novels! 

All the novels are truly worth a read, but here’s some parts I found really interesting.

NOTES: Some events happen differently than in the show. Overall, character motivations/transformations post the events of Vamdemon arc are written in a very direct, clear way in the novels, clarifying things that in the show are more “suggested” than told. The novelisationhave the benefit of hindsight, so they are able to connect the different arcs and 02 in a smoother way. Additionally, you can tell the people behind tri. paid a lot of attention to these books.

There are brief cameos from Daisuke, Iori and their respective families during the Vamdemon arc. It’s confirmed that Daisuke and Taichi knew each other before Adventure.

We get some insights about the Takenouchi family dynamics and few interesting theories are confirmed: Takenouchi is actually Yoshiko’s family surname, and Sora’s parents have a somehow complicated marriage (or, at least, it’s perceived like that from the outside). Sora rebelled against her mother as she felt she “treated her apprentices highly, but her own husband frivolously”.

Natsuko’s backstory also gets more developed. It’s explicitly confirmed that her father is French (something I called years ago!) and that she used to live in France. She works as a translator and as a non-fiction writer who starts investigating the Hikarigaoka attacks. While investigating this, she was contacted by Oikawa, but he stood her up before they could meet.

Natsuko is so cool, man. No wonder she married Hiroaki freaking Ishida:

Most of her work involved being a reportage writer for physics and chemistry research. Although she couldn’t say that she was paid well for it, she felt that this suited her better than a regular desk job. Among her normal jobs, a side project that she was working on involved investigating the “Hikarigaoka terrorist bombing incident” four years ago. It was an incident that occured in the very place where they had lived. Not only did it capture her interest, but as she kept investigating it, she found many aspects about it that weren’t acceptable explanations to her. 

Mimi’s father is a “freelance audio mixer for rock music” (makes sense why he moved so easily to America).

We got more details about where each kid lives:

Taichi’s family lived in a four-unit condominium that was partitioned by a road from the condominium of Sora and Koushiro’s families. Yamato lived in yet another unit that was closer to Fuji TV station.

It’s confirmed directly that Vamdemon, Etemon, and Devimon were working under the Dark Masters. In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, the novels tie all the different arcs together in a more coherent way.

You also get an explanation about how the Holy Beasts were sealed by the Dark Masters.

The argument around the graveyard plays in a somehow different way from the show, and motivations and feelings are made much more explicit. The ideological positions of Taichi and Yamato are given a lot more nuance here.

Yamato is really nasty in this scene, but conversely, you get to really figure out what is going on with his head, and why he is losing confidence in Taichi as a leader and feeling dejected that Takeru is growing up.

Taichi’s evolution into becoming less impulsive and reckless are explicitly linked to the fact that Hikari is now a part of the team and how it made Taichi more empathic with other people.

Koushirou directly and empathically tells Yamato that he’s too emotional to be a good leader. 

For example, Yamato reflects how he went from blocking his emotions to being an overly emotional mess:

Ever since coming to the Digital World, even Yamato was surprised by how much emotion he expressed. All of the emotion that he’d held back while at home, at school, had come bursting out without pause. And this Yamato was the only one that Koushiro knew. That was why Koushiro’s view of Yamato was “an emotionally unstable upperclassman.

Actually, Yamato’s feelings during his whole “breakdown” arc are so well done here. You’ve got to read the whole thing.

Jou offers to accompany Mimi instead of Sora because he felt that it was his job.

Sora understands Yamato going away because she felt the same way when she left the group earlier.

There is actually no MetalGarurumon vs WarGreymon battle at this point.

“Ogremon took a moment to imagine everyone living together as friends, but it made him feel ill.“ (No comment, I just found this line funny).

The reason why MetalGarurumon defeats Pinnochimon so easily is that he is powered by the hatred on Yamato’s heart (after he witnesses Pinnochi murdering his own soldiers).

Yamato goes really dark in this part and thinks allowing himself to bask in merciless hatred will allow him to kill the Dark Masters on his own. This leads directly to him being taken by a “dark gas” (the rough equivalent of the Dark Cave).

Many mentions of Idea — probaby where tri’s writters came up with some ideas... they really went through these novels!

The equivalent to the Dark Cave scene is. SO. GREAT. (Though Sora doesn’t get to be a victim in the novel)

OMG 

“As the gas thinned out around them, Yamato saw the shadows of other people ahead. It was Takeru and Sora, but to Yamato, Sora looked like someone else. Mom…”

(As a shipper, I honestly can’t tell if this is sweet or really messed up.)

To be continued as the translation is out… meanwhile, do yourself a favour and read it! And, while you’re at it, check out onkei’sko-fi page because honestly, we do not deserve her.