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pulaasul · 4 years

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Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

A Digimon Adventure Tri review.

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This review may be a bit late, but I didn’t watch the fifth movie because I was spoiled by a certain plotpoint and tropes and I really detest tropes of that plotpoint. Considering that I opted not to watch the fifth movie, I didn’t watch the sixth movie as well, I may get confused at the chronology of the events.

I had watched Last Evolution Kizuna, the review of which is linked here, thankfully the producers of Kizuna opted to have an original story as opposed to continuing from the plot threads that Tri left hanging over the course of six movies.

With the reason for this review’s lateness out of the way, let’s continue on with the Tri’s review.

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Despite the lateness, I am reviewing [デジモンアドベンチャーtri - Dejimon Adobenchā] Digimon Adventure Tri

As with some of the movies I had reviewed on my blog, I have an alternative title for Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole.

デジモンアドベンチャーtri 大輔たちわだれだ？or Dejimon Adobenchā Daisuke-tachi wa dare da?

Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?

TL:DR

Tri was an enjoyable watch. If you want more characterization of the OG chosen 8 and their respective Digimon, it’s a definite watch.

If you’re a big fan of the 02 kids, they do acknowledge them, but better not to expect anything on that front to avoid disappointment.

For me, Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole is a 6.8/10 for me.

I love the many things they did here, but both my bias for the 02 kids and the many things happening just left a bad taste in my mouth.

If that doesn’t hint my love for the 02 kids, this is your confirmation XD.

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I’ll start with the movie series’ art style. I still maintain my stance that I do not like the art style they chose for Tri. I will, however, expand on my reasons from the other review.

Tri’s art style is better suited for still images rather than animated. The best suited comparison I can make, and I’m sure a lot of people will protest, but it’s like the Pokemon’s Sun and Moon anime art style.

From what I heard, the new Pokemon art style focuses more on animation detail and flow. Tri’s animation and art style, while a major improvement from the fights seen in Adventure and 02, still come short seeing the ‘derpy faces’ and awkward poses found in the movie.

(Yamato has bulging pecs and it looked like both Taichi and Yamato skipped leg day)

The new art style does make the ENTIRE CAST absurdly attractive from Taichi to Himekawa even down to the background characters who have something unique in their designs despite just being one off characters.

The new art style does lessens the “cartoonish” vibes we got from the first two Adventure seasons of Digimon, so no extra-large heads, hands and/or feet. You could definitely feel that this was an updated version of the previous art style, although taken to extremes.

Although… Jiggle physics are seen on the Digimon.

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PLOTWISE...

Having watched the entire movie series, I can definitely understand why the 02 kids were given that treatment. However, there were plenty of instances to incorporate them into the plot organically than what we were shown.

The overall plot was heart wrenching, it delves into the themes of sacrifice and unchecked grief.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT! BE WARNED!!!

We’ll backtrack a bit, I stated above about how the 02 cast could’ve been incorporated into the plot organically than what we were shown.

There were many instances where they could’ve been mentioned by anyone of the cast: the appearance of the Digimon Emperor, Hikari and Takeru checking up on Ken after the Emperor’s appearance, even the instances where they welcome Meiko into the group by encouraging her in times of distress; among other things.

A simple muttering of “where are they?” or “how are they doing?” from anyone, especially from Hikari and Takeru who were a part of the 02 team, would’ve made their exclusion from the main events a bit bearable and understandable.

Them not acknowledging their absence is a very out of character: for Takeru and Hikari, as they were teammates; from Taichi and Yamato as they mentored Daisuke, the former passing the goggle-torch unto him; Mimi and Sora for Miyako; Joe and Koushiro who has commented how reliable Iori was and how his thirst for knowledge was an admirable trait.

all my cons bullet points are my salt towards the 02 kids’ absence lol

In other matters, another thing worthy of criticism, this is for the franchise as a whole, is the fact that there’s a Leomon death inserted in every iteration of Digimon. (01&02 have the original Leomon, Tamers had Juri’s Leomon, Frontier both had Ice Leomon and KaiserLeomon in Kouichi Kimura, Savers had BanchoLeomon.)

Leomon’s death this time around fails to have an impact considering it has become a meme nowadays. Anyone vaguely aware of the franchise would even joke about the Leomon’s screentime before he dies, which was the case in the Tri movies.

There are two events in the Tri movies that didn’t really needed to be there, which really hampered my score for the movie series. First one is how the Mysterious Person, using Young Gennai’s form, to lick Sora’s face.

Another event that didn’t need to happen was how the same Mysterious Person choked Meiko to the point of her losing consciousness, those events IN THE SAME MOVIE really put me in an uncomfortable state, as did a lot of people.

This may be my bias speaking, but I really don’t like how Daigo died in the movie series. I am sure his death potentially served to raise the stakes of the plot, but not really.

The stakes of the plot was already at an all-time high with showing the “deaths” of the 02 kids in the first few minutes of the first movie. It’d raise the stakes even higher HAD THE OG 8 CHOSEN CHILDREN ACKNOWLEDGED THE ABSENCE OF THE 02 KIDS.

Daigo’s death was unnecessary for the stakes were already planted, but they failed to sow those particular seeds hence his death was needed. That and I really love Daigo Nishijima.

Tri could’ve been a rescue movie on top of stopping the apocalypse movie, Meicoomon shenanigans included.

I will admit that learning of Taichi’s supposed death in the tri movies, turned me off from watching the movie series to its completion, back when this was first released. Learning that Daigo, my favorite character, dies in the next one really turned me off from the franchise. Watching it now, I still maintain my stance that he didn’t need to die.

Devimon’s appearance really felt tacked on, he would’ve been a great plot point for Takeru to overcome in the movie, instead we got a few seconds of appearance then nothing. Not even delving into Takeru’s psyche about Devimon’s appearance.

The entire last movie was needlessly dark and that’s says a lot.

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Considering this is a review, no review is complete until you state all the positive things you can say about the movie.

As with the debut season of the franchise, Character interactions are at the forefront of the movie series. In here we learned things about them, including Hikari’s teasing remarks towards Takeru or how Yamato is actually scared of ghost stories.

We also learned that the Teenaged Wolves broke up, due to musical differences as Yamato claimed and formed two new bands. “Knife of Day” and “World of the Knife”. The fact that the characters saying the band names have a Might Guy teeth shine effect on them was incredibly hilarious.

Koushiro being a blushing mess when it comes to Mimi was also great.

The viewers can really see the entire group’s dynamic with each other.

The digimon themselves aren’t just one-note characters. They may act as a foil to their human partners, it doesn’t change the fact that they weren’t one-note compared to what we’ve seen in both Adventure and 02.

Interactions aside, each human character having breakdowns and developing in the movie series was another thing I liked about Tri, tying them to digivolving to ultimate/mega level was a pretty neat idea.

It means that Taichi and Yamato aren’t the sole stars of the Adventure saga now.

Speaking of characters, the new characters in this movie-series [Daigo Nishijima, Maki Himekawa, Meiko Mochizuki] were introduced organically and were pretty great in their roles. The twist that the former two were Chosen Children before Taichi and the others was neat as well.

The three of them performed their roles pretty well: Daigo being a shady mentor, who’s loyalty is divided between his student and his work; Meiko being the new kid on the block really helped establish how out of place she really is, it does help that Mimi was incredibly welcoming towards her; Maki’s unchecked grief led her to taking drastic steps just to be reunited with her partner digimon, kickstarting the whole plot of Tri.

[I have a theory that Daisuke and the others were reporting to Maki, once she learned that they were aware of Yggdrasil’s plans, she led them to a trap that was when they were one-shotted by Alphamon.]

We go back to Leomon. It was nice to see a familiar face. Even his scenes were hilarious and awesome. Him being able to stave off the infection from various points in the movie he was in was also great. It makes sense in character as he does have incredible will power, going back to the Adventure days when he was possessed by Devimon’s black gears.

I also appreciate that the boys and girls had equal opportunities at being the eye candy. The boys were the eye candies during their time in the hot springs, while Mimi and Meiko had their chance as eye candies during the school festival.

Last and certainly not the least, were the new arrangements of the Original Sound Track of the Digimon Adventure themes from Butter-fly to Brave Heart’s orchestral version. They’re simply that good to listen in a loop.

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As for suggestions, I have a few. This is constructive criticism after all.

Acknowledge the absence of the 02 cast.

Explain why they were absent in the first place, or at least what the characters think why they were absent.

From vacation abroad

On Yacht

Even visiting people out of Tokyo would also work

Both Leomon and Daigo didn’t need to die. Mortally wounded characters are fine, makes us think they’re dead for a few minutes to delve into character development, as was the case for Taichi and Hikari.

Make the 02 kids’ lives as stakes in the plot.

Cut back on the flashback images.

Exposition is also good, even Taichi voicing out his hesitance would’ve made for a great character moment, instead of just glaring at the enemy.

D.R Gennai shouldn’t have licked Sora. That event really didn’t need to happen.

D.R Gennai should’ve just let Meiko bleed to the point of unconsciousness instead of choking her as he taunts Meicoomon to fear and give in to her infections.

Devimon should’ve been an earlier opponent that was later reused in the ending movie to show how much Takeru has grown add in digivolving to Seraphimon.

A video file of Daisuke’s and the others’ defeat at the hands of Alphamon should’ve been viewed after the reboot happened, that would’ve raised the stakes higher.

Daisuke and the others should’ve joined the last fight in the last movie. Escaping from the hospital through their Digimon before collapsing at the very end.

I have no problem with Daigo’s partner becoming Baihumon. I think it’d been better had it been Azulongmon, considering he was the goggle head during his time and thus the leader of his group.

We know that Azulongmon is the leader of the Four Digimon Soverigns.

I think it’d come full circle had Daigo been partnered with Azulongmon.

I think the movie would then end with everyone visiting Daisuke and the others, Meiko included, introducing her to them.

Overall, I give the movie series a 6.8 out of 10 rating. It was a good watch, but the plot fell once they delved into darker themes and darker events for the sake of being dark and without substance. There were a couple of events that didn’t need to happen but happened for the sake of being dark.

Daigo’s death was certainly one of those events. The stakes could’ve been raised higher had the 02 kids were integrated into the plot and not just relegated into glorified silhouette cameos.

These suggestions would still run the course of the plot we got in Tri, but it would’ve flowed the plot organically and didn’t go dark for the sake of being dark.

I wanted to be generous with my rating, but it just won’t do. Even my bullet points review had more Cons than Pros. Factor in my bias for the 02 kids, and you get a 6.8 rating.

#digimon adventure tri #taichi yagami #daisuke motomiya #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #yamato ishida #mimi tachikawa #joe kido #koushirou izumi #meiko mochizuki #daigo nishijima #maki himekawa #sora takenouchi #hackmon #alphamon #ordinemon #review

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whatisthisnonsense · 5 years

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Continuing where we left off here, so we’re not cluttering Sarah’s pretty art (bless u @yunisverse ), did you know canonically Digimon are emotion eaters? “But Lea!”, you say. “That was in SAVERS, not Adventure!” Wasn’t it though?

Think about it-- while they’re not necessarily feeding off it in the sense of sustenance, the digimon in Adventure all digivolve during a big influx of some form of emotion by their chosen child, usually related to the crest but not always (pants-shitting terror at Kuwagamon, for example). Normal, natural digivolution is usually a very long process of gathering energy and strength, with higher levels often taking decades if not hundreds or thousands of years (unless you suck, in which case you’re turning into a Numemon. Yes, that’s also canon.), so obviously the digimon MUST be feeding on something for those short bursts of energy, and since having the digimon feast upon their attached digidestined’s soul or lifespan is what we call bad, the natural source must be emotion. Following that thread, we see other digidestined in 02 (which I’m not going to go into for most of the lore it introduced because it is One Whole Yike, but Adventure itself introduced the concept that all you had to do to be a valid partner candidate is see a digimon and therefore this is valid) who ostensibly have the same bond as our actual Destiny’s Children without the Destiny bit, and we actively see Willis/Wallace/That Kid With The Two Bunny Digimon have his digimon digivolve. While Lopmon/Kokomon was out of his control for the most part and could arguably have been severed from the connection, Terriermon clearly wasn’t and also usually responded to emotion. As such, we can assume that this is a trait of all partner digivolutions. Why, then, are the Crests needed? Well, we find out they’re a bit of a magic feather, however they all still involve an emotion or state of being which the child exemplifies (besides Light, though that could be as in “the light in your heart that never goes out” IE Determination and Light just happened to sound more mystic and was also literally its attribute anyway, like how Honesty/Responsibility is Water and Sincerity/Purity is Plants) (Knowledge also isn’t a state of being or emotion, but the way they use the word I’m reasonably certain what they actually mean is WISDOM, which means Izzy in a state of being wise is what triggers it, not just him being a nerd). I would like to suggest, thusly, that the Crests show the emotion or mental state the digidestined represented by it has in abundance and thus what their digimon use to rocket up the digivolution ladder in ways faster and stronger than even normal human/digimon partnerships. The Crest associated with our hypothetical ninth duo? Kindness. Now, stay with me here. Allow my work-weary, sleep-deprived ass to switch from essay to narrative for a moment. Consider, if you will; Wizardmon has always been alone. Since he’s a chosen partner, Gennai dropped him when he was hit much like Gatomon, but velocity and angle meant he still hatched far away from her. He turned to magic for answers as to why he was left all alone when most are born and cared for in Primary Village, and he got good of it-- amazingly good, astoundingly good, impossibly wonderously G O O D at magic-- but he never found his answers. Eventually, he gives up, assuming he was simply not worth the effort. That perhaps, his presence was a mistake. He wanders, looking for obscure magic but no longer having any purpose to it, aching for something he doesn’t understand nor believes exist. He says he passed through unremarked, but in many places you’ll hear tell of a quiet, soft-spoken digimon who repaired something with the snap of his fingers. Sometimes a wall, sometimes reviving a well, sometimes even bringing another digimon back from a hideous illness. But he was always gone the next day. If anyone could ask him, he’d shrug it off; it wasn’t something special, he thought. It just seemed cruel to leave things as they were, and while he’s many unpleasant things, he’d like to think he’s not cruel. (He is kind, he is so kind, but he can’t fathom it without anyone else around him, and no one nor place can hold him against that unknown longing in his programming, so it passes by him without note.) Of course, between his idle wandering and his constantly giving and giving and giving of his magical energy without much time to recover, he eventually pushes himself past exhaustion and falls out of the sky on one otherwise unremarkable day. Those of you who’ve watched Adventure, of course, should recognize this as the event that caused him to meet Gatomon, and remember how absolutely baffled he was by her kindness-- he was already spreading himself thin, but he never had it returned to him mostly because he never stayed anywhere long enough for it-- and how fast he was to pledge undying loyalty for said shred of kindness. And this is true still, for he is still almost desperately loyal to her, but there is something else. Even when she truly forgets everything for the monster (ha) Myotismon turned her into, he can still see that longing for something she doesn’t know or understand in her eyes, and something in his chest tightens a little. It’s kinship, but he doesn’t recognize it-- he doesn’t have time, given how fast he parses the legends and figures out what she must be, as when he does that he out of hand assumes he could never be associated. Even so, they lessen eachother’s loneliness, and for a while that’s enough. Wizardmon does his best to play dumb, glide beneath the safety of contempt, and manages some tiny victories against the Dark Army’s, as after all he is never on Myotismon’s side. Some in-training digimon slipping out of the dungeon here, some misinformation there. In the end, however, he is mostly trying to give Gatomon the shot at a better life he is so certain she deserves, so every so often he has to get his hands dirty. It’s okay, though, really. It doesn’t matter what becomes of him, as long as she gets out. (Even so, when he’s forced to play evil minion to the hilt he tries his best to simply confuse or trick his target so he can leave them alive and unharmed, and if he can’t he does his damndest to make it quick. To do otherwise seems cruel, and he would still like to think he isn’t that at least.) As we all know, eventually seven dumbass kids with seven dumbass digimon who happen to also be the Digidestined turn up and Myotismon sets his plan in motion. Most of his minions just terrorize the town, but as ever Wizardmon is sneaky. He keeps his head down, and blends in, drawing children in and keeping an eye on Gatomon to see where and who she is most drawn to. He is being rather underhanded, he thinks, even though getting this gaggle of human children to watch in wonder and laugh isn’t actually necessary for his guise. He refuses to do otherwise, though. It doesn’t seem right. Naturally, Gatomon narrows what child is hers down without even realizing, but his own “patrol” draws in her and there is an almost uncomfortable snap in him as for a moment that ache, that eternal lonliness, is gone and-- no no, she just caught him flatfooted. He’s distracted and wasn’t expecting a compliment, particularly not one from someone clearly much older than the younglings he’s entertaining manipulating. The Tokyo arc is the same, but extended-- more red herrings and more time to convince Gatomon to remember that she is better than Myotismon’s lapcat, as well as scenes with Wizardmon and Minnie showing them drawing closer, albeit with Wizardmon’s denial or deflection on the subject pretty much even through his almost-death. Ah, yes. You didn’t think we kept most of that scene, did you? Of course Wizardmon gives his life for Gatomon-- by this point, it’s all he has left to give. It’s all he’s ever had to give, really. But remember how his body is still present in the show after his suppossed death? Well, that’s because he’s not quite dead yet; merely passed out. Minnie pulls him away and gets him to a relatively safe part of the building before he comes to again. He is defintely in the PROCESS of dying, though, but they refuse to let the kids know. It would be kinder for the kids not to see, at least for the moment, and thus the duo both lie through their teeth. And yet, when the kids leave to talk about what lies ahead next, Minnie turns and does her best to stop the digital hole in his chest from bleeding. He’s going to be fine, she tells him. It’s another lie, he thinks, but ah. “You’re...too kind...” There’s a faint glow from her pocket and for a moment his world is white and then he’s much more alive and terribly small. I’m gonna glaze over the rest of the Tokyo arc because we really need to get to the point in this fucking novel but I really need you to imagine a distressed Mokumon trying to wriggle out of Minnie’s arms as she tries to get him to fucking REST and then later him as a Candlemon accidentally setting the blankets he was tucked into on fire. Got that in your head? Good! Now let’s just--

There we go, see you in 02 asshole, moving on to the Dark Masters Ahem, anyway, as the group journeys through the reconfigured Digital World to forcibly scrub the influence of the Dark Masters away, Wizardmon slowly becomes a bit less aloof and a bit more on the awkward side. He’s gotten what he wanted-- Gatomon’s happy-- and he has a purpose, but that purpose doesn’t seem like something he should have, nor this group somewhere he should be. Nevermind he doesn’t really know how to handle a group out of his aloofness or various deceptions. And yet, ever so slowly, he begins to warm, and soften. Until that day in the desert. Minnie catches a lone and frightened younger digimon in the corner of her eye and diverts immediately to help it. The children and their partners are on board, of course, but before anyone can move, a Scorpiomon pops up and starts heading right for the young lady. The children shout, but Wizardmon can’t make out the words-- he’s already moving as fast as he can, even as he watches Minnie quickly turn to the younger digimon she found and hide them under a crevice, smiling before she moves away where it can’t see whatever happens. Even as she turns, pale and trying not to look frightened and moving AWAY from the kids a little so as to keep the arachnoid’s attention. Even as one of its legs connects with her cheek and knocks her away. That gentleness she was showing and his outrage and need to protect merges and twists and surges in a fountain of warmth in his chest, and he skids to a stop in front of her. Digivolving feels more like a soft blanket of darkness than anything resembling a change-- he barely even notices his limbs stretching or his clothing shift until it’s over and he’s...he’s... Myotismon. Minnie has the Crest of Kindness and he has turned into what is, objectively, the cruelest digimon to ever exist. Being Adventure the priority is Jokes, thus the immediate asking to tag out, but after this he is even more aloof than he was before, and not looking anyone in the eye. He is crushed, and once again come to the answer he always has for why he is why he is-- if he was ever meant to be here, then something must be wrong with him, and more likely he was never meant to be here at all. How interesting, do you think, it would be that it is not the Digidestined who has the huge, dramatic issue to confront, but the digimon? TL;DR, Don’t Blame You, essentially the jumping point for this whole narrative is, in a subversion to the usual “kid has to accept thing about self to slowly begin to heal from trauma and unlock potential”, essentially WIZARDMON is the one who has to learn here; the two-fold moral that he is allowed to ACCEPT Kindness and not just constantly give, and that the fact he is dark and spooky-- the fact his ultimate is the same as the mon who hurt him and the others-- does not make him less good or kind. And it only took about five novels to get here, amazing. If only I had this much energy for my actual writing.

#Digimon #Wizardmon #Myotismon #Gatomon #Digimon Meta #Boy this is sure a lot of bullshitting for an AU

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ahiddenpath · 6 years

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Bokura no Mirai Reaction

Important: I said reaction, not review. Please don’t expect anything remotely useful or sane XD And also, Tri Spoilers, obviously!

(Please don’t take me seriously, I am beyond the ability to be serious about Tri anymore, lol! There will be both praise and criticism, but mostly stupid jokes, I’m sorry).

First question: Did I somehow miss the completion to Himekawa’s story arc? Did they really not pan back to her in the Dark Ocean? I didn’t... accidentally skip a part, did I? Like, I really want to know what happened there. Wouldn’t her partner maybe have his memories back now? I’m not sure if I understood.

IMPRESSION BARRAGE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER HOO-RAH!

-GABUMON. I LOVE YOU. I think that moment with Gabumon promising to raise Yamato’s babies and take walks with him as a grandpa made this whole thing worth it??? I... I... (Also psst, I totally called it).

-Tentomon’s maid thing? Do I want to ask? No. No, I do not. Again, though, called it. We all know that Tentomon is obliged to act as a maid/mom/helper to keep Koushiro alive, though.

-Poor Daigo :/ You deserved so much better. (I hate to say that I ended up laughing instead of being sad, though, because TAICHI HOW DUMB ARE YOU TO FALL FOR THAT??? BLESS.)

-Oh my God, that’s all you’re giving us with the 02 kids? Some outlines and what I assume is Ryo, for some reason? No explanation for why they forgot about them for months and took the word of someone they had no reason to trust instead of investigating on their own? I’ll stop, because the topic has been done to death, but... There’s dropping the ball, and then there’s hurling it into a bottomless pit.

-Okay, so Team Yggdrasil Gennai? I made this face every time he was onscreen:

He was... Honestly? I’ve written over a million words of fanfiction, and I still find this beyond description. He just... ran around manic-laughing and spewing threats at a kindergarten level??? “HAHHAA STUPID HUMAAANS YOU ARE USELESS HA-Ha-Ha-Ha-HA-HA!” Then he switched to like... Emo Live Journal mode? “DANCE, MY PUPPET OF DESTRUCTION! WASH THIS USELESS WORLD IN DARKNESS!”

Dude, like... Find a hobby. And a therapist. Or at least read a book with threats that don’t make you sound like you’re either about to demand my lunch money or write the world’s worst emo poem.

So... Do we not get to see Yggdrasil or Homeostasis? At all? They just each have a spokes person to deliver exposition for them? And then Yggdrasil is deleted off screen by Homeostasis?

Satisfying (she said, sarcastically).

-Koushiro, the mighty. Koushiro, the hero. KOUSHIRO KICKING ASS! I’m still sad that he pulled through by running away from the others, isolating himself again in that damned office... Those of you who read the fever dream that is A Debtor’s Hell know my mixed feelings on Koushiro’s office. On the one hand, it is physical evidence of his skill, and that other people- people with a lot of knowledge and money- recognize that skill. On the other... He used to do his work out in the field, alongside the others, receiving new intel on the spot and adapting in the moment. Now, he seems to do so much of his work alone, isolated, cut off from support and sometimes resisting it when it arrives.

It’s not a huge deal; he did his work and rejoined the others, and I’m so proud of him for seeing his course and following it through. And seriously, let’s give him a huge round of applause for showing agency and decisiveness in a series riddled with indecision and inaction. Koushiro was amazing in this flick, and you guys know I’m all about that. I just... have this odd uneasiness about the office and him working in isolation so much.

I’ll take it, though! KOUSHIRO, THE FOREVER MVP!

(Also, I twitched in tandem with Koushiro when Hackmon mentioned the word “reboot.” Poor bb. BUT YOU DID IT, YOU ARE THE BEST!!!)

(Although really they were all champs!)

-MIMI. CANNOT. SPEND ONE SECOND. WITHOUT BEING IN PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH SORA. That is all.

-JYOU, DAMN SON, DEM SOME NICE GLASSES RIGHT DERE AT THE ENDDD BOIIII. (Also, lowkey sad that we didn’t see his girlfriend, but I wasn’t expecting it, lol).

-I... don’t understand Hikari’s speech to Taichi at the end, nor why it triggered her ultimate evolution. Was she saying that... Because killing Meicoomon is unforgivable, I have to participate to spread the blame so that I can’t be in a position of not forgiving you? (Ie, I did it too, ergo I can’t be mad at you)? Was it a... I’m opposed to this, but it’s the right thing to do? Sort of thing? So I’ll do it? But I’m mad?

????

-I don’t even know what to say about Taichi and Yamato. The screen panning between them five times when Taichi returns, THE FIST BUMP, all the stuff with the goggles... Get a damned room, you two.

And don’t think I’ve forgotten about your weird ass merman courtship dance. I saw. I know.

-Meiko... Lord. Poor girl. I wonder if Meicoomon can be reborn in the Digital World? Maybe not, since she died on Earth? It sucks so much how much Meiko and Meicoomon were targeted, exploited, and victimized. I’m not on board with most of Meiko’s decisions (primarily placing herself in harm’s way over and over, knowing full well from experience that the others would risk themselves to save her- which she did AGAIN here, this literally played a role in Taichi almost dying and Daigo dying a few hours ago, but HEY LET’S DO IT AGAIN), but damn. What an awful situation.

-SPEAKING OF BAD SITUATIONS, this was me when Devimon showed up:

Other than Gabumon’s speech to Yamato, this is probably the thing that kicked me in the gut the most. I don’t even know why. Logically, it shouldn’t be, but there you go. Takeru’s trauma is something I sympathize with on a level I don’t really understand.

Anddd I am on vacation and it’s like 4 AM in my time (although it’s about 10 PM local time) and I need to sleep, so that’s all, and I do apologize for that word barrage. I hope it was sensible. It will take me a while to get around to an actual review of the last installment and/or Tri, since I’m away. But I wanted to check in and watch the film so I could use tumblr without being spoiled. Feel free to message me/send asks about it, but please do be patient! It may take a while for me to see your messages.

I hope you all loved the film, or at least found something to love, like Gabumon and Koushiro being amazing!!!! Mwah!!!!

#tri spoilers #trispoilers #bokura no mirai reaction #tri reaction #tri reactions #digimon adventure tri

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keep-on-trying · 6 years

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Answering the Lingering Questions from the first 5 Digimon Adventure Tri. movies + Exploring new ones from Bokura no Mirai

I think I’m capable of doing this now. This is gonna be a whole new post. I’ll post all the questions and see if we did get answers. :D This is a pretty long post so, continue under the cut! Spoilers ahead, so proceed at your own risk!

Saikai/Reunion

What happened to the 02 kids?

Answer: They found out about Yggdrasil’s plans and were taken care off by Alphamon under the orders of Yggdrasil. Maki Himekawa was involved.

Who is Jou’s girlfriend?

Answer: Up for anyone’s imagination. We don’t know.

Is Alphamon behind the disappearance of the 02 kids? I don’t believe this has been properly answered yet.

Answer: Explained before.

How did the Chosen Digimon manage to come to the Real World? This isn’t that important of a question to me.

Answer: Wasn’t explained.

Theory: It’s just how summoning the Digimon work. It works when need be. : D

Is “the shadow of the real world“ meant to reference Dark Ocean in the beginning of the movie? I don’t think this has been answered yet. We only know the egg is Meicoomon’s and the black cube going inside of part of Apocalymon.

Answer: Wasn’t explained

Theory: I think it may have actually referenced Yggdrasil’s domain, or it’s view on the Digital World.

Digimon that die in the human world are supposed to stay dead? What exactly happened to Kuwagamons after being “killed off”. They dematerialized and went through a distortion.

Answer: Wasn’t explained :D

Theory: Whatever the case, the Reboot certainly revived them.

Alphamon is only after Meicoomon, doesn’t want to kill off the Chosen Children (even stops Kuwagamon from shooting the final beam at Garurumon). Yet he works for Yggdrasil. What was the goal here? O.o

Answer: Oh they just wanted to destroy the Real World, and Meicoomon happened to be the key. No interest in Chosen Children at all XD

Ketsui/Determination

What happened to the guns that were showcased during the first real world appearance of Ogremon? Will Part 6 showcase them more?

Answer: Bokura no Mirai showed the Army taking action against Ordinemon, possibly under the instructrions of Homeostasis, messaged by Hackmon. While the guns from this movie weren’t showcased, it’s safe to assume the Army had developed their weapons for such situation further at this point.

Who exactly sent the premonition of Ultimate/Mega evolution? I’m not 100% certain it was Maki.

Answer: It was indeed Homeostasis (thanks @jkdigi for correcting me :) )

Was the Imperialdramon here really the Jogress evolution of Wormmon and Veemon? It hasn’t really been answered. Or I’m just an idiot here.

Answer: Wasn’t explained really.

Theory: Considering we didn’t see the 02 digimons despite finding out about the 02 kids, I believe it really was. It could have been a random summoned Imperialdramon as well.

Kokuhaku/Confession

How did Maki get her hands on Ken’s D3 and the handheld communicator? Or is it some other D3?

Answer: She was in league with Yggdrasil, took care of the 02 kids, it is possibly why she got her hands of Ken’s D3 and communicator. Wasn’t directly explained, but it’s how I see it.

Why is Not-Gennai so obsessed with Digimon Kaiser disguise? We know his excuse on why he needs to use a disguise but, why Digimon Kaiser?

Answer: Wasn’t explained :D

Theory: He’s just a kid on the inside who wants to play.

Who is Not-Gennai really?

Answer: Wasn’t explained. !!

Theory: Either a split of Gennai who has the Dark Spore inside him, or it’s something else. Seen speculations of Milleniummon, Piemon etc.

Soushitsu/Loss

What is the symbol on Maki’s digivice? It’s nothing like we’ve seen before. This hasn’t been answered.

Answer: Wasn’t explained. It’s up to anyone’s imagination at this point.

Can Meiko’s digivice summon her to the Digital World? It seemed like she actually was brought to Digital World when the Digivice was glowing, and then we cut to the Trailer, that is making the sound that it does when someone crosses the gate! Or so it seemed to do.

Answer: Wasn’t explained :D

Theory: What I explained before seems like the probable case. The way original Digivices work with summoning is a mystery, ever since Adventure.

Were these Dark Masters the same one from before, or just mere puppets?

Answer: Wasn’t explained

Who are the other three Original Chosen?

Answer: Wasn’t explained. :DD

Kyousei/Coexistence

Balance is indeed the theme in the series regarding Meicoomon. Will it be Meiko’s crest? (crediting @citrus-cactus for suggesting this in the first place! Great eye!)

They talked hell a lot about how partners balance each other out. Meiko and Meicoomon are struggling with it right now. It’s the darkness of balance: chaos.

Answer: Meiko didn’t explicitly have a crest but, an animation sequence showcased the possibility of her having some sort of crest, that got tainted in fear, chaos, however you want to picture it.

Will Maki be saved? Will Daigo be saved?

Answer: No. Maki is either dead in Dark Ocean or stuck there as bride to Dagomon. Daigo died a heroic death while saving 02 kids and Taichi. ;_______;

Where did Taichi and Daigo fall into?

Answer: They fell to the place where 02 kids were held in capsules, sleeping.

How will Hikari overcome her conflict?

Answer: Beautifully. Strongly. Independently. It’s a great arc, go see it yourself!

Will Meicoomon have true evolution shown?

Answer: No.

WHY IS NOT-GENNAI UPSIDE DOWN ALL THE FREAKING TIME AND WHY IS HE INSIDE HIKARI’S MIND IN THE LAST PART OF KYOUSEI???

Answer: WAS NOT EXPLAINED!!!

Theory: I’m screaming I want to know I can’t for the life of me to think of any legit good explanation!

Yamato’s character arc? How will it be handled? Seems to revolve around him coming over the death of the dearest friend to him? (I’m not that good at analyzing Yamato)

Answer: It was definitely about taking over the duty of his best friend and dealing with Taichi’s disappearance. A character arc done well. Go see it.

Will Tailmon survive?

Answer: Yes ;_; Thanks Hackmon!

Will Meiko and Meicoomon survive?

Answer: Meicoomon died, thou she is at peace now. Meiko survived and moved back to Tottori.

Is someone fucking gonna die???

Answer: YES, THREE IN FACT!

DARK OCEAN????

Answer: FALSE ALARM!

Total of Questions: 29 Total of Answered Questions: 16

Rest of the questions have been given some own theories on what the case would be.

Now that the old questions I had lingering have been answered somewhat, let’s have a look at the new questions that are lingering from Bokura no Mirai.

Bokura no Mirai/Future

02 Kids are fine, but we don’t know what happened to their Digimon. We also don’t know what exactly happened before they were taken down by Yggdrasil’s forces.

Theory: Before the Reboot, Not!Gennai/Mysterious Man took control of their Digimon with the infection, thus the Imperialdramon appearance in Determination. I also think that Our 8 chosen were fine with killing them, because they were in the Digital World, meaning they’d get reborn.

Why did Yggdrasil spare the 02 kids? Why not kill them? Did Not!Gennai/Mysterious Man just want to play some sicko game? Maybe Himekawa didn’t want anyone to die, and managed to make the deal on keeping them alive?

Sequel hook was left with Mysterious Man/Not!Gennai teasing about wanting to play some more (he got away god damn it!) and wondering if it should be with Daemon/Demon or Diablomon next. I got chills. But like, will there actually be a sequel for this series, thus not answering all the questions?

The teasing of Daemon/Demon kinda leaves an open room for a comeback of Dark Ocean in larger scale. So, while it only showed for a short bit as a bad ending for Maki’s depression, it has a chance at being used in possible sequel.

Did Meicoomon have memories of just Chosen Digimons or did it have all of it?

My answer: It seems unclear for some, but I honestly intepreted it as Meicoomon having backup files on Chosen Digimons only. Thou, I admit that seeing the Digimon fly back to the Digital World after the memories had return from Ordinemon to the Chosen Digimons is sort of a confusing scene. It is possible that those memories reshaped the Digital World to how it used to be.

What happened to Alphamon? He didn’t appear in this movie at all.

Theory: Yggdrasil’s plan was already in a state where Alphamon wasn’t needed.

Courtesy of @tutomon: How the heck did Taichi manage to carry four unconscious teenagers (and Gennai?) to the hospital by himself?

Theory: I think he may have called for few Ambulances to pick them up? Thou Taichi’s Pod seemed to land in the Ocean, we don’t really see where the 02 kids’ pods landed. : D Although, I guess it could also be that some other people saw 02 kids + Taichi, carried them all to Hospital, and Taichi left early because world needs to be saved. : D Thus being late, according to Yamato. :D

It isn’t clear why 02 kids didn’t inform the 8 Chosen about Yggdrasil. It’s possible they decided to not want to involve them in this, or Himekawa explicitly denied them to tell them about it, with reasons that sounded plausable.

This post may get updated later on with questions I don’t remember right away but will at later date :)

People have been speculation quite a bit about lack of answers on some questions being due to development getting switched into taking a sequel into account. We have been given a teaser of a new project just few hours before Bokura no Mirai premiered.

Whatever the case, most of the important questions got answered.

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broken-endings · 6 years

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silly me

it’d been a year since I caught up on Digimon Tri

I assumed “it’s probably complete by now”

wowwwww

nope

the 6th installment isn’t out (and someone said it’d be SEVEN parts?)

i was watching the end of 5 being like “twenty minutes is not enough time for a satisfying ending to this series

well good thing that sure wasn’t the end

spoilers for everything released under the cut

i probably should’ve rewatched it for the beginning cuz there’s a lot I forgot.

but it’s interesting the elements they’ve dropped into it from both the previous series

I never expected Nishijima and Himekawa to be revealed to have been digidestined THEMSELVES!!

Seeing that flashback where they were fighting the dark masters and four of the five digimon became the 4 guardians, azulongmon and them.

In the original series, before the kids faced Apocalymon, Gennai spoke of the darkness on the other side of the wall of fire: “the digimon knew they didn’t have the power to defeat it,” so they worked together with children from another world.

We only ever see their silhouettes but there were 5 of them.

And here in this flashback there are 5 of them. 4 became the digital world’s guardians who were sealed away by the dark masters. The fifth, Himekawa’s digimon was destroyed? To the point that it would never be reborn?

So does this mean that Azulongmon started out as a partner digimon???

I never would’ve expected that one brief summary of the original digidestined in season 1 to come into play but i’m SO GLAD it did. the world building!! AND combining it with the creation of the four guardians that were introduced in zero two?? YES

So does that mean Nishijima’s partner could be Azulongmon?? YES yes it could.

So the Gennai looking guy is creepy beyond fuck. He said he looks like Gennai. On two occasions, in the season 1 flashback courtesy of homeostasis, and the world tour arc in season 2, we’ve known that there were other humanoids that look like Gennai. He is just one of many. I don’t think that’s him. I think he’s one of the others.

Before it was actually revealed to kind of be the truth at the end of the fifth installment, I voiced to myself the idea that “what if the real big bad of this series is the one who chose the digidestined to begin with??” which is the homeostasis entity right?

If their enemy is the one who originally chose them, then it’d make COMPLETE sense why everything began showing us the assumed destruction of the zero two kids. It would be getting rid of the kids it chose in reverse order.

I’m not saying this homeostasis was always bad. But it’s the enemy right now. Kind of like the digimon emperor was, or blackwargreymon.

I think this all began because of Himekawa’s obsession with finding a way to bring Tapirmon back to life. To see her partner one more time. Everyone and everything told her it was impossible. So she spent her whole life trying to make it happen.

Whatever she did to try to make that happen, corrupted one of the Gennai people OR, the darkness that exists to balance the digital world took advantage of her obsession, using her to achieve its own ends.`

It sounds like Himekawa might’ve been part of Meicoomon’s creation in order to achieve the reboot. Ylsdir? or whatever it’s called? wanted it for a different reason.

She was obviously created after season 1 if there’s a shard of apocalymon contained in her.

Maybe Himekawa’s vendetta allowed Ylsdir?eruehj to corrupt Homeostasis. In the flashback, it looked like Himekawa was the vessel Homeostasis used to communicate with the original digidestined, just like it uses Kari. So for a chosen vessel to be corrupted, perhaps allowed the corruption of the entity who uses them as a vessel?

Either way. I have a feeling wherever Tai and Nishijima went. WE MIGHT SEE DAVIS AND THE OTHERS!!!!

yeah. no way he’s dead. When he disappeared i was like “of course he’s the one to disappear. He’s ALWAYS the one to disappear”

The battle at the end of installment 5 gave me vibes that something similar might have happened with the other 4 digidestined right before the beginning of installment 1. That however Tai disappeared and wherever he disappeared to, that’s where they are.

I was ALSO shocked to see the dark ocean. Himekawa is in the dark ocean. Another thing that her and Kari have in common. Both were the voice for Homeostasis, both were snatched by this other world.

It always felt like the dark ocean episode was a dropped plotline in zero two, so i’m not sure where this is going is going to make it make more sense, or less sense. I fear the latter but we’ll see.

The vibes I’m getting from Himekawa feels a lot like Jeri’s arc in Digimon Tamers. She was forced to watch her partner destroyed, for no reason. She folded away from the world and became the target of possession from an entity that almost consumed both worlds due to her despair over her loss.

Jeri had Takato and her friends to help her snap out of it and move on. Himekawa doesn’t seem to have had the same experience. It’s slowly consumed her. In fact, she hasn’t even gotten to the loss and despair part because she’s convinced if she does the right thing she can bring her partner back. Sure tapirmon is back after the reboot, but...is it still your partner if it doesn’t remember you? The other digimon have proved otherwise, but that’s cuz the kids are close enough to who they were when they first met. Himekawa can’t be. She’s a jaded adult driven by obsession.

She was chosen as a digidestined and given a partner digimon. But she was the only one of the five who wasn’t chosen for their digimon to become an all powerful guardian. Instead her digimon was sacrificed. She was chosen, and then she wasn’t chosen. She was chosen twice, both to be digidestined and have a partner, and to be the vessel for homeostasis. Then she wasn’t chosen and lost her best friend.

#digimon tri #digimon #my commentary

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triangulumlights · 6 years

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Bokura no Mirai thoughts

Spoilers, of course!

This is going to be rambly and terrible since it’s 4 AM here BUT I had to get some thoughts down.

The Good:

• I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie! It didn’t wrap everything up (more on that later) but the actual main plot didn’t feel as rushed as I thought it would be with only one movie left to go.

• Daigo and Maki, omg. I had a feeling Maki was dead (I think I have comments on my tumblr about that, actually) and I’m actually pretty glad because I think it was a symbolically fitting end for her. I’m also pleased with how Daigo’s death was handled; he went out the opposite way, not in despair but in hope, and did so while protecting Taichi and the 02 kids. Very appropriate hero’s death for him, just as Maki’s death was appropriately tragic. I loved both of these characters, and thematically I think their plots may have been the best in Tri.

• Koushirou!!! Standing up to people, figuring stuff out, coordinating multiple plans, just generally being awesome. Figuring out the prophecy and all that was fantastic but it was to be expected from him, and so what really stood out to me was that he refused to accept rebooting the real world and decided he would come up with another way, no matter what anyone else said.

• Yamato and Gabumon’s scene on the balcony, man. That was feels central. Yamato in general was great this movie, actually, and he did a lot of growing up at once; it was really well done how he started to truly understand Taichi’s point of view, while still remaining himself and not just emulating Taichi.

• Devimon vs Angemon? NOT EXPECTED BUT SUPER COOL.

• Hikari was straight up fantastic. I’ve never been more proud of her than when she told Taichi she might never forgive him, but chose to fight anyway. She was so brave and strong while still being kind and loving, and it was glorious to see.

• I was a little surprised, in a good way, that Meicoomon didn’t survive. Again, thematically it’s the right ending, but it’s still quite shocking as far as Digimon Adventure goes. I think it was handled really well, though.

The Bad:

• So many unresolved side plots! Who ended the reboot? Was Homeostasis, or did Hackmon/Jesmon act on its own? WTF is up with dark!Gennai; is it real Gennai, or someone else? WHAT WAS WITH THAT COMMENT ABOUT DAEMON AND DIABOROMON??? This is all stuff that seems like great setup for more content, but who knows.

• THE SHADOW CHILDREN~ I was so hopeful for a moment that was might actually see the 02 kids, though I knew logically there was no way they were doing updated character designs and casting voice actors just for one movie. Alas. At least someone rescued them; that’s something, right? Right.

• Sora, Mimi, Jyou, and more or less Takeru got kind of shoved out of the spotlight this episode. That’s pretty normal since Taichi, Yamato, and Koushirou tend to drive plots, and Hikari and Meiko were directly plot-involved this time, but still. It was less ensemble-y than I normally like from Digimon.

• The actual mechanics of the real world reboot confused me a lot, honestly; was it just rebooting all the digital, electronic systems and basically overwriting them all? That’s the impression I got, although that’s quite different an effect on the real world than it was on the Digital world, where the whole thing basically started over. I was a little unclear on that whole thing.

• Why so many ass shots of Ordinemon? I mean, at least they were making it very clear she was meant to be disturbing and unnatural and grotesque, but it made for a weird juxtaposition with the “sexy” angles.

• Gennai, why. He was suitably scary in Loss, but in this one he kind of went full Joker and seemed somewhere between over the top ~crazy~ evil and an offensive stereotype. Not the most intimidating or easy to take seriously villain ever, in this latest movie.

In Conclusion:

• Generally I was happy with this, and thought it pulled things together about as well as it possibly could. Of course, if other changes had been made in earlier movies (like, you know, the dreaded bath house scene) there might’ve been more time to wrap up, but still. Overall good effort.

Still holding out some hope for more content in the future (maybe Diaboromon Strikes Back Part 3?) but for the most part, I’m going to be seeing how much fun fanfic will be popping up in the wake of all of this. I’m so ready for it. ♥

#digimon adventure tri #spoilers #digimon adventure tri spoilers #my posts

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rockthistowninsideout · 6 years

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Bokura no Mirai Recap

After the second episode my internet was cut off so I will deliver my opinion on the remaining three episodes all in one go:

~ It’s a bit of a pity that we didn’t get to see the 02 kids for real, just their silhouettes and glimpses in the very first movie, but I’m happy that they are going to be safe. I still cannot exactly draw a line between the rise of Ygdrasil and their capturing but I guess that Ygdrasil wanted as little enemies as possible.

“You’re late.” ~ Yes, Yamato, that would have been my first reaction as well when my best friend since and for forever comes back from the dead. *sarcasm off* But seriously, I think this statement and the look he gave Taichi conveyed all the emotion that had bursted up earlier and the happiness Yamato felt when Taichi showed up. And I was happy as well to see them reunited again.

~ HolyOmegamon, or whatever his new name is, was massive! I wasn’t sure how all super evolutions (not refering to the actual evolution state here) from previous seasons could be topped but Toei did it! And once again it’s great that all Digimon contributed to it and that even Meiko could help, that she even basically initiated the whole thing.

~ Talking about Meiko: she did great in that last movie, she has really grown into a full-fledged DigiDestined. It took me three movies to warm up to her. But it took me even longer to like Meicoomon. Only in Bokura no Mirai could I feel for her - that might sound heartless - but before she just seemed whiny. Now I get that all she’d ever known was Meiko and that she clings to her because of this, that she got locked away behind bars and the shard of Apocalymon has probably also done its damage. She got her redemption arc when Koushirou revealed that all the back-up data of the other Digimon was stored inside Meicoomon and that she could release this data and help the other Digimon remember.

~ Which brings me to the scenes where I cried. Namely the scene where the Digimon finally became their older selves again. I’m very happy that Toei found a way to solve the problem of the memory loss and restore the ‘old’ order. I mean, it would have worked, too, if they had to start their bonds anew but this way it’s better for my old Digimon loving heart ;)

Now we’re already into the last sequences.

~ What has been pointed out before: Sora’s new haircut! Which I need a bit of getting used to as it makes her look older and even more mom-ish (has a bit of soccer-mom-vibe to it, sorry). But it probably reflects that she has grown even more mature after this adventure. The funny thing is that Takeru notices first, and even calls Yamato out for not noticing. I don’t know if that implies that Sora and Yamato are already a couple, but I can see that they’re at least already dating at this point.

~ In this scene it is also mentioned why Taichi chose the ‘new’ career path in the Epilogue. And now I can see it, too. In my opinion, it truly needed Tri to explain why the rash and outspoken leader would choose a career on the slippery and brittle diplomatic area. But now it all makes sense, from him having a conscience to fulfilling a prophecy/order/wish of a person he’s grown fond of. This is such a Taichi thing to do, honestly.

~ And that wish was voiced by a dying Daigo and that was, wow, a little unexpected. Digimon has never shied away from killing important and embosomed characters. Still, it was heartbreaking, especially since he died in such a bloody way (though a nice contrast to just dissolving into data) and not knowing where Himekawa has gotten. Which I don’t know, either, but when she’s been swallowed by the Dark Ocean that probably equals death.

~ In the same scene that we get to know Taichi’s career path, Yamato also brings up his. For me, this still comes as a little out of the blue but it seems more fitting now.

Okay, I have three more notes in my book, so take a deep breath and then we’ll get to the last bit.

~ I was a little anxious when Hikari suddenly said that she would be going to hate her brother when he would agree to give Ordinemon the final blow. (Btw, Ordinemon is such a tragic character. So big, and so many conflicting souls live in her chest, yet she’s so deadly and dark. I couldn’t really hate her as I did with the four Masters of Darkness.) But then she said she would hate herself, too, because she would fight at his side. I raised my fist when she said that and we finally got to see Magnadramon, the only Mega Level we hadn’t seen before. I’m on board with @rainbow09‘s (?) theory about Magnadramon having now altered data because of her part in Ordinemon which is expressed in her changed tail ends. (If that isn’t your theory, then I’m sorry I remembered that wrong).

~ Then came the moment where my hopes where suddenly raised and my imagination started running wild: when the Digimon Kaiser/Gennai/whoever said that just because Ordinemon is defeated doesn’t mean Ygdrasil is and that there are still Daemon or Diaboromon left who could wreak havoc and be turned into Heralds of Destruction. Which meant to me that there is the slight chance of a new season. (Seriously, why did they forget about him? He would have certainly deserved being decked in the face. Takeru, where are you when you’re needed the most?) Alas, this hope was mostly crushed when, in old Epilogue manner, Takeru told us the story of the three months after. There he said that Homoeostasis shut down Ygdrasil (and for the sake of both worlds hopfefully for good, if not for me). Though I wouldn’t mind a new mini series for next year’s 20th anniversary of Adventure *coughs*.

~ Anyway, the epilogue of Tri may also have confirmed Meichi? As always, Toei stayed very vague but I don’t mind. I don’t mind if Meichi is canon or not. It would be just hella cute if Meiko ended up to be Taichi’s wife/partner when we stay in the rosy bubble that is the Epilogue. I’m also already in fic mode again, I’m in the mood for a slowburn Meichi fic.

~ An additional note: It was absolutely great to see a dumbfounded Hackmon and therewith Homoeostasis. Their self-assuredness had been so smug and saying “Homoeostasis is the one who desires harmony and stability” for the umpteenth time didn’t help.

So, here we are, at the end of my analysis/rant and at the end of Digimon Adventure Tri. Those three years have been a wild ride of emotions, I lived again through my childhood and I’m so happy that this dream came true.

#digimon tri spoilers #digimon tri bokura no mirai #bokura no mirai spoilers #digimon adventure tri

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jolteonjordansh · 6 years

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Thoughts on Digimon Adventure tri.: “Our Future”

So… I really needed some time to ready myself for writing this last post. This is going to be a tough one, folks. Probably one of the tougher “Final Thoughts” posts that I’ll be writing. But I wrote one for the last five movies. It’d be a crime for me to skip out on the finale just because there’s a lot of tough things to deal with here. This is all my opinion, as all of my final thoughts posts are. So take it as that and nothing more.

I’ll also be more or less putting together my overall thoughts on Digimon Adventure tri in this post too, as well as its potential future. But that’ll be towards the end. For now, let’s get to talking about the last of the Digimon Adventure tri movies, from the beginning…

So if you’ve been around me long enough since I’ve started re-watching Digimon as a whole (and really getting a better introduction to it than I ever did in the past), you probably have a vague idea of the things I do and don’t like. One of these things I have not liked has been Kari Kamiya, the 8th DigiDestined in Digimon Adventure and also in Digimon Adventure 02. Her character always felt extremely artificial and barebones to me. She often was merely used as a plot device in the series and a Purity Sue. And somehow, she was even worse in Adventure 02. Despite having a whole series, she pretty much has no actual development as a character to me, and don’t even get me started on the Dagomon episode that decided to introduce that wretched Dark Ocean nonsense that never seems to die.

But if there was anything I felt Digimon Adventure tri did generally right, they actually made Kari a genuine character. An actual believable character with actual personality. Sure, she remained soft-spoken at times, but she had actually started to become more social and talk to her friends and keep legitimate conversation with them, she often set them straight many times throughout the series, such as with Tai and especially Joe, and she stood up to fucking Homeostasis. Yeah, that Digital World god-like entity that has possessed her several times now? She finally had something to say in protest. If that’s not one of the greatest moments we’ve had from her ever, I don’t know what is. And by the end of “Coexistence”, we got to see her crack. She was silent, but traumatized and filled with despair. Basically, she got to express actual human emotions besides her usual generic nonsense. I addressed all of this in my final thoughts on “Coexistence” (which I’m just putting down here for the sake of review), and I’m still bitter that said movie really didn’t give her an actual focus and it all turned into the Meiko show again, but I’ll get to some of that later.

We do get some make-up for that. While it’s still not as much as I wanted, Kari deals with a lot of despair throughout this movie with Tai’s “death” and feeling at fault for it. And Dark Gennai rubs it in her face later on, really hammering it in for her. To see this character I just could not care for actually be given a human personality was just incredibly rewarding to me. I know some people have complained that a lot of it is just her going “Oni-chaaaaaaan~!”, but you have to keep in mind that her brother is basically her world. We’ve seen very little of her social life (the only things I can recall are the birthday party in Our War Game and some moments in Adventure 02), but it’s always been clear that Tai has been a very important part of her life. It’s not even just the fact that she potentially lost her brother that’s upsetting her either. It’s the fact that she truly believes that it’s her fault. And that’s probably the hardest part about it to her, as Dark Gennai rubs in. So even if Kari didn’t really get as much as I wanted, she got enough of that development for it to be satisfying. And I really began to feel that her relationship with Gatomon was more than just the whole destiny schmuck they forced down our throats in the Myotismon arc of Digimon Adventure.

After Kari breaking from the start though, it almost feels like there’s some serious nonsense filler throughout the movie despite that a lot needs to be addressed in this final movie. Ordinemon is shown to be stupidly OP by taking out six Mega level Digimon in one hit and reduce them back to In-Training forms, there’s more Meiko crying, a lot of exchanges of “We should do something!” and “Should we do something?” and the military trying to fight Ordinemon. Because, you know, it’s worked so well in every other past Digimon series. It’s a shame the Adventure universe doesn’t have their own Hypnos to even stand a chance.

There is, however, a really good scene with Matt and Gabumon. Matt is clearly dealing with the loss of his boyfriend best friend Tai and how to be a leader for the rest of the DigiDestined, and Gabumon comes in to give an extremely supportive talk with him, as well as a wonderful bond moment with him. This kind of harkens back to Matt’s darker moments towards the end of the Dark Masters arc and even sort of rhymes with the scene of Patamon and T.K. in “Confession”. I found it extremely effective and honestly a necessary moment for Matt. I feel like if there had been more moments like this, T.K. and Patamon’s coping scene, Joe and Gomamon’s argument, and Tai and Agumon’s own coping scene for all of the DigiDestined throughout these movies, there would have been a stronger impact from them overall. But I guess they all can’t be as strong as one another.

Now, I’ve said both Matt and Kari are both dealing with the loss of Tai in this movie, as well as a bunch of the other DigiDestined (Sora has a moment, and it leads to a hilarious scene of Piyomon thinking Matt made her cry and basically I just love protective Piyomon in general what a good birb), but… You all know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. And we all knew it before this movie was even announced and the moment Tai “died”. Tai never died, and he was never going to die. One of the biggest problems was how much they played up Tai’s death (or return if you’re Agumon), when you know damn well he’s fine between things like trailers and even elements as simple as the movie poster. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if this whole thing didn’t last for nearly the entire movie. It takes well over 30+ minutes for us to see that Tai is alive and well, and the Adventure crew doesn’t even see that Tai is, in fact, alive until the last 20 or so minutes of the movie. It makes the whole thing so dragged out and forcing unnecessary tension. It’s wasting time because we already know what the outcome is going to be like, and all of that wasted time could be used for making tri a better story, which spoiler alert: it isn’t.

When we do get finally see Tai though, we get two things: 1. Nishijima’s inevitable death, because he was one of the good characters in tri imo and of course they have to kill him off to explain why he wasn’t in the Adventure 02 epilogue (for some reason I guess), and speaking of Adventure 02… 2. The fate of the 02 kids. Even to people who hated Digimon Adventure 02, almost completely ignoring their existence throughout the series was absolutely maddening for just about everyone watching this series. And what’s their excuse for their absence? It’s about as disappointing as you would expect. The scene from the beginning of tri where it looks like they’re being killed? That was Alphamon defeating them as the 02 kids apparently found out what Yggdrasil was up to, so they were “silenced” and then put into some pods in a sort of cryogenic sleep to keep them from getting in the way.

The whole execution of this is just… so lazy, put-together and insulting on so many levels. Even when we find these damn kids, we don’t get to see them do anything, let alone actually get to see them! They’re silhouetted still for whatever reason, are sent to the hospital immediately after being brought back to the real world, and for some reason aren’t even around in the flash-forward towards the end of the movie with the rest of the DigiDestined three months later. Maybe whatever they went through warranted them being in the hospital for three months, but I really find that to be a flimsy excuse at best. We don’t even know where their Digimon are or what happened to them! They’re probably fine, but it’s called explaining Toei! It’d be nice if your writers could try it in this series rather than just constantly piling up more mysteries than this plot ever needed! And just so I can say my piece for all of the needless speculation going on in the fandom: No, that 5th silhouette is not Ryo. It’s clearly the actual Gennai since he has the ponytail. But then again, I can’t entirely blame the fandom because the writers of tri literally explain next to nothing and it leads to all of this freaking speculation when they could just easily answer it! God, and I thought we were done with The Problem with Ryo…

I get the whole 02 kids debacle has been talked about and discussed to death, and what I’m going to say really isn’t going to add to anything that someone else has probably already said, but I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have the 02 kids involved. I mean, I have a good idea of why, and I’ll get to that at the end, but was it really so hard to have an Adventure series where both the original Adventure and Adventure 02 kids got to go on, dare I say, an adventure together? Not with the original cast in the background like in Adventure 02, not like in tri where the 02 cast was pretty much nonexistent, I mean actually having them work together like a freaking team for a change? Or how about using any Adventure 02 elements in general? Even T.K. and Kari utilizing their Armor Digivolutions like Pegasusmon and Nerfertimon would have been neat! What the hell was stopping them? It’s not like the Armor Digivolutions are completely useless. As someone who enjoyed Adventure a lot and can accept Adventure 02 as a passable follow-up, I just don’t understand why we can’t have the whole Adventure universe. It either has to be the original Adventure, or Adventure 02. It can’t be both. It’s just really disappointing that both have to feel so segmented when tri would have been the perfect chance to make those series feel cohesive for once. But I guess Revenge of Diablomon was our only chance at anything like that.

Alright, so the 02 kids were handled poorly, blah blah blah, this has been talked about to death by everyone watching tri ever… How about along with the fact that Nishijima was killed off, Himekawa was nowhere to be seen in this movie? Her fate is left open after what happened in “Coexistence”. It’s possible she is still alive and it was left open on purpose, but at this point I’m going to personally maintain the belief that she died in the Dark Ocean because none of these writers can leave that stupid plot element alone for five seconds. But color me disappointed when we didn’t get to see anymore of insane Himekawa. What a tease. And you know who else doesn’t appear in tri? Alphamon, who seems to have just fucked right off after “Coexistence”. At this point, his only purpose in tri was just a plot obstacle for the main cast, which is just a really lame way to utilize him. He didn’t even get to talk for crying out loud!

Yggdrasil gets no real physical form in the Adventure universe, which honestly just left me empty. I get that Yggdrasil is a digital being, but it’s really hard to fear Yggdrasil as an antagonist when he basically ends up being all talk and no real action in this series. Dark Gennai, Alphamon and by extension Meicoomon did everything for him. Why should we be scared of a guy who we see no real action from? At least in Digimon X-Evolution and Digimon Savers, we get to see how much he has a true grasp of control over the Royal Knights and eventually that amazing climactic battle in Savers. In tri? Everyone just talks about him and what he wants to do. We see no action from him. Sure, Homeostasis is never seen either, but it has always been established as a sort of mysterious being with a lack of physical form—more like a force that keeps the stability of the Digital World. Yggdrasil is just an antagonistic force that we know pretty much next to nothing about. It’s all just extremely disappointing how much is built up and how little payoff we get in return for it all. If Yggdrasil is meant to be a sort of exact opposite force to Homeostasis, then establish that! But they don’t do that either. Really, it feels like both Yggdrasil and Homeostasis are similar beings and it’s almost hard to distinguish them in this series when it really shouldn’t be.

On the note of Homeostasis, Ordinemon’s destruction starts to get so terrible that Homeostasis wants to do another reboot. But now it requires a reboot of the actual real world. At first, I thought there would be an actual more complex way of describing this; hell, maybe it was even timeline/worldline jumping to a more stable version of the universe. Nope, they literally want to reboot the real world in more or less the same way (and try to explain it with science, but we all know when Digimon tries to use actual science, it comes across as incredibly stupid). This would basically mean all manmade technology would be rebooted from the start and cause a huge catastrophe for mankind with them being so reliant on technology. This basically comes down to Hackmon responding with “Tough shit,” and Izzy naturally being upset and wanting to find a more proper solution.

Okay, to be fair, Hackmon is actually a little more complex about this than I describe. While he is carrying the will of Homeostasis as a sort of agent, he has his own agenda in mind, actually believing the bond between humans and Digimon to be extremely important and the key to survival for both worlds, more or less. He describes this in a conversation with Meiko, and honestly… it actually makes him one of the more interesting characters, especially for a lone Digimon with no human partner on hand. But much like Alphamon, after he actually convinces Homeostasis to stop the second reboot and lays a devastating blow on Ordinemon as Jesmon, he also fucks right off immediately afterward. But hey, at least he actually did something.

There are also two “returning” characters I’d like to bring up since they’re serious elephants in the room for a lot of people. Let’s get our favorite dead buddy out of the way—No, not Leomon. I’m talking about our good friend Wizardmon who appears in this movie for a maximum ten seconds tops. Now, to be fair, literally the only thing we had to go off of was his hat being sneakily hidden in the last movie poster in a corner. However, my counterargument: You cannot bring back such a cult favorite character only to not only be so brief but also be so utterly pointless. Kari needed Wizardmon to bring her attention to Gatomon? Why not have her hear Gatomon’s voice calling out to her to bring in that attention? It’s not a reach for a character like Kari at all, who seems to have serious intuition and is sensitive to supernatural events in general. This is the kind of bringing back of a character that falls into the lowest levels of pandering. Even if it hadn’t been teased on the poster and fans had not hyped this up, I still think this as a “surprise” would have been just as disappointing. Having Wizardmon show up for something so brief and so little to do with him means nothing in the end, and comes out as a cute nod at absolute best, but also an outright disappointing inclusion at worst. Remember Wizardmon’s appearance in Digimon Adventure 02? It actually meant something because he guided the characters towards a destination in the plot. Here? He just appears and fulfills a purpose that could have easily been done in any other way. And when Adventure 02 has shown technical better writing skills considering the mess it can be, you have really, really screwed up.

Now the other “returning” character? Devimon. But of course, it’s not the same Devimon we know from the original Digimon Adventure, which is exactly what I expected. It was an easy but also cheap attempt at bringing in viewers and nostalgia pandering through trailers. It’s an easy way to garner up hype culture, which many people know I tend to dislike as it is. But honestly? This Devimon being a different Devimon isn’t really my problem. What is my problem is how it affected everyone else involved. T.K. has the briefest among briefest reactions to Devimon—the same kid who was absolutely traumatized over losing Patamon to him during Adventure 02. I get that T.K. has already had his character arc in tri and he has probably grown more or less out of his fear of Devimon especially, but I would have expected a bigger reaction than what we got. And on top of this, Devimon—a Champion level Digimon—beats MagnaAngemon—an Ultimate level Digimon—down to an absolute pulp. I have mentioned how I like that Digimon levels do not always necessarily matter in battles with the right amount of training, but this was just inexcusable and insulting. Look back at Adventure, where Angemon was able to beat a Devimon fairly early into the series (even if it was at the expense of dying), and Angemon could even stand up to Ultimate level Digimon himself at times, while MagnaAngemon was able to finish of Piedmon. Adventure 02 was very inconsistent about how powerful Patamon was in general, but whatever. Here? This was honestly absolutely pathetic to watch. I would have been fine with an actual decent one-on-one battle where both actually put up a good fight, and maybe MagnaAngemon does end up losing, but MagnaAngemon gets kicked around like nothing more than a freaking soccer ball. I feel like, if anything, that should have definitely gotten a huge reaction out of T.K., but it was nothing out of the usual. The whole moment was just so poorly executed and felt like cheap and horribly done fanservice, much like Wizardmon.

Speaking of characters being overly hyped due to trailers, a lot of fans were ridiculously excited over Magnadramon as Gatomon’s official Mega (the 02 movie is still not canon). And while I’m personally a fan of Ophanimon because I think it just fits the line better, I personally didn’t mind Magndramon being there. However, the moment they revealed Omegamon form #34—Omegamon Merciful Mode—I immediately knew that Magndramon would easily get overshadowed and have her thunder stolen away by Omegamon. And surprise! That’s exactly what happens. Magndramon gets her Digivolution animation and a total attack scene count of one before Omegamon uses the powers of the other Megas (And Meiko I guess) to achieve Merciful Mode.

And really… I’m not too keen on it. Don’t get me wrong, Omegamon is a cool Digimon, but not only do I just think there are cooler Mega level and even Ultra level Digimon out there, Omegamon is just kind of overrated to me in the same vein Mewtwo can be in Pokémon. Not to mention, it just feels like Adventure’s version of Gallantmon Crimson Mode, which just makes Omegamon needlessly more powerful and once again, continues to ignore Adventure 02 where they had Imperialdramon Paladin Mode. It also just shows how unbalanced the fights were in this movie when Ordinemon was so overpowered that Omegamon needed a new mode to actually defeat it.

But I guess before I get to some of my biggest gripes with the movie itself and what it did rather than some of what it didn’t do, I should cover the technical aspects. I don’t have much to say on the music—it was all fine and good. A lot of it was reused from earlier movies, but there was that really awesome guitar cover of Butterfly when Gatomon Digivolved and finally achieved her Mega form. And of course, there is the Butterfly cover done by all of the DigiDestined and their Digimon as the final ending theme. And I think I did like it, but at the same time it didn’t really break me to tears like I was hoping it would in a similar way the use of Butterfly did at the very end of the original Digimon Adventure. I think a lot of that has to do with me being sort of bitter towards tri and how it ended overall, but I don’t want to get into the rest of those details until the end.

When I watched “Coexistence”, I expected all of the series’ best animation to be saved for “Our Future”, but ironically… it almost seemed like the opposite. Now, “Our Future” did not have the worst animation of the movies—there were actually some really good moments, such as pretty much every moment with Magnadramon and a few of the fights and some of the shots with the Digimon. But at the same time, “Our Future” really began to show just how flawed some of the animation in Digimon Adventure tri is. I certainly don’t think it’s the lowest tier of animation in all of anime, as there are definitely so many worse examples out there. But there are moments where the cheap budget of it can stick out. Still shots, choppy animation, off-model characters, or just weird scaling were all present throughout the movie. There was also the reuse of animation, specifically for Digivolution scenes, but those don’t really bother me. I mean, if every other Digimon series does it, what’s wrong with tri doing it? I only wish MetalGarurumon got his Digivolution shot in fullscreen—he sadly never did. Though I can agree by a certain point, having Warp Digivolution scenes for the Digimon would have certainly sped things up and given time for other moments, though at least they learned to box the animations together. Otherwise, I feel tri’s animation is average enough, but I do wish it had really excelled in this last movie rather than just being more average. Oh yeah, did I mention that “Our Future” is filled with ass shots of Ordinemon throughout the whole movie? And I mean filled with ass shots of Ordinemon (What, were you guys expecting me to actually deliberately search and hotlink examples? Hell no).

Now, getting to the worst parts of the movie unfortunately involves me talking about my favorite characters in this whole series. Who’s ready for me to talk even more about Meiko and Meicoomon? No one? Too bad! This whole damn series revolves around them! I specifically avoided talking about them because I know plenty of people complain about Meiko and Meicoomon (moreso Meiko), and a fraction of people do like them, so if you want to get out of me talking about everything wrong with them in this movie and how much they hurt this series as a whole, you best step out now. Otherwise, I have a lot to say, so buckle up.

So remember how the Digimon lost their memories after the reboot in “Confession”? Some of you might have forgotten, because by “Coexistence”, it almost feels like the reboot had no other effect on them. They don’t really focus on how much the memory loss affects their relationships, or at least how much it hurts. They kind of just blankly mention “Oh, you don’t remember this,” but that’s about it. But regardless, when the memories were lost, I was worried about multiple things: A. The Digimon never getting their memories back or B. The Digimon getting their memories back, but in a really convenient way. When moments like this happen in storytelling, I’m the kind of cheap person who wants my happy ending. But at the same time, I want that happy ending to be warranted. I don’t want it to be cheaply earned—it has to be worked for. So, what did I say in my final thoughts of “Confession”, in quotes?”

Whether the Digimon actually retrieve their memories or not, I think that either way, the writers are going to have to handle things very carefully from here on out. They can’t just pretend that everything is the same once the DigiDestined form new bonds with their Digimon, and they can’t just give the Digimon their memories back without some good explanation.

Meiko only continues to feel further shoved into this entire world, and Meicoomon somehow retaining memories unlike the other Digimon partners definitely gives the “special snowflake” feel, unless they have a damn good explanation for it.

Well, Past JJ, I have great news for you! Not only is Meicoomon still an absolute special snowflake, there is no actual good explanation for the Digimon retrieving their memories or how Meicoomon kept hers! It’s about as forced, contrived and convenient as you can imagine! In fact, maybe even worse than you ever imagined! You wanna know why? Because it all relies upon those gosh darn wonderful special snowflakes of Meiko and Meicoomon!

Turns out, the memories were never erased at all! In the reboot, the memories of literally every Digimon were somehow stored within Meicoomon (except Hackmon and Alphamon I guess, because fuck, let’s make them special snowflakes too) and are locked inside Meiko’s Digivice! And if they can figure out a password Meicoomon would have for these memories, they can restore every Digimon’s memories! And of course, what else would that password be but “DanDan”/“Ta much” which was that first thing Meicoomon said in the first movie? Meanwhile, Izzy is a kid genius who can crack codes, develop his own servers and technology such as ways to actually preserve the Digimon’s memories himself, but could not brute-force a ten character password? But who cares about logic? Once that password is in, everyone’s memories are back! Man, I sure feel like that loss in “Confession” was worth all of this strife only for the memories having been right in front of their faces to easily just put back all along! Everything about this was so rightfully earned back! /s

Yeah, let’s put that overly optimistic sarcasm aside for five minutes. Because I hate, and I mean absolutely hate that such an important loss from the third movie—one that was made absolutely touching, heartbreaking and built up to such a degree could be easily put back into place with just a simple phrase, like all they needed to say was freaking Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. I get that Digimon has always had its own fair share of plot contrivances, but after going through three movies of this and executing this tragedy in such a way that takes the viewer on such an emotional ride, I just feel cheated. Like what I felt basically was for nothing and I cried and worried over nothing. You know how when you have seemingly devastating situations in real life, like you lose an important item or document that could mean a life-changing moment for you, like earning a job? So you panic and cry over losing it and potentially ruining your own life, but then it turns out, whatever you lost was in the backseat of your car the whole time, so your crying was for nothing and you feel like a big idiot for panicking over something that had a very simple solution? That’s more or less what this whole situation feels like, except there is really nothing to laugh off because I feel like I was cheated out of a good story just for a throwaway character to have her spotlight.

“But Meicoomon’s not a throwaway character if they spent all six movies focusing on her and Meiko!” maybe you might think. Except she absolutely is a throwaway character by the end of the movie. You know how Meicoomon was basically the cause of all of this grief for all of her going berserk? And how everyone knew that they could kill her to stop all of this, and back in “Coexistence” Meiko even begged for the DigiDestined to do it, but they couldn’t because “she’s our fwiend!!!!”. Guess what they do by the end of the movie? They kill off Meicoomon with Omegamon Merciful Mode, literally the whole reason they made up that new form.

Now, part of me is trying to do my absolute best to understand what the writers were trying to express with this. The whole message seems to be that “sometimes you have to make hard decisions”, and honestly? That’s not a bad message. But I have two major problems with this being in Digimon Adventure tri, as there are a number of moments this whole message is contradicted. When the kids lost their Digimon’s original memories to the reboot, they thought they had to make the hard decision of moving on with their lives and letting go of an important part of their childhood. But in the end, they didn’t, because they realized they could still hold onto that childhood if they wanted to, but they had to hold onto it. They couldn’t give up on it.

My second problem is that this whole conflict of “not killing our fwiends!!!!!” with the DigiDestined just feels wasted and pointless if they were going to end up killing her anyway. Yes, people do have to make decisions like that, but to have to develop that for five full-length movies for over two years? The execution is just awful. And this is so much worse when, again, the DigiDestined have only known Meiko and Meicoomon for only a few months at best, giving them all of the care and catering in the world, meanwhile they couldn’t care less about the 02 cast whom they experienced whole adventures with and have known for three years at this point. Once again, the logic and execution here flies straight out the window. This all hurts this decision even more when the scene does come up, it feels extremely out of character. Sure, Tai has his new resolve, yet Kari immediately goes into the spiel of “You can’t kill Meicoomon or I’ll never forgive you!” but then ultimately decides she’s going to help in killing Meicoomon. I get the logic behind it, that she’s essentially bearing the sin of doing this with the rest of the DigiDestined, but going from “not killing our fwiends!!!!” for five movies to ultimately making this dark decision makes it feel out of character for not even Kari, but just about everyone. No one else really disagrees with it in the end. They just accept it so easily despite having fought over it for the course of several movies. It feels like all the struggle the DigiDestined went through of not killing friends, especially when the infection was rampant in “Confession”, was wasted.

So Meicoomon is killed off, they make a farewell scene for her and Meiko, yada yada, and I find myself trying so hard to care about this in the moment. I was genuinely trying to feel bad for Meiko, despite how much I have come to hate her character as well as Meicoomon’s. But by the time it came to all of this, I was just outright empty. I couldn’t feel anything for them. I simply didn’t care. If there was anything I thought? It was simply “Good. Fucking. Riddance.” And while I realize me hating Meiko is simply my opinion, watching “Our Future” made me seriously realize something about Meiko. Not just that she’s a poorly written character, I easily came to that conclusion by the time I watched “Confession”, but she’s honestly a terrible person. No, not just a terrible character. I mean, a really, really terrible person when you consider so much of her behavior.

There’s the saying that a bad person can make a great character, but the problem here is that the writers are trying to convince you that Meiko is a good person. Yet she is anything but a good person based on all of her behavior. She has her social awkwardness, sure, but that’s just her Mary Sue flaw (which is only so much of a flaw with these kinds of characters). She is honestly an extremely selfish, pitiful person with hardly any ability to feel empathy for anyone but herself. She has a legitimately messed up mentality. Don’t believe me? Let’s go over some of her actions.

So after Meicoomon Digivolves into Meicrackmon Vicious Mode, she’s obviously in despair. Fair enough. I think anyone with a Digimon partner would feel that way, even to the unhealthy degree that Meiko does. But let’s flash-forward to the point where T.K. confesses that Patamon is infected. He trusted her with that information because she would understand it better than anyone. She should be supportive to him for such a tough situation, right? She is… for a couple of seconds. Immediately after, she quickly starts to throw her own pity party how about it’s her fault that it happened, which naturally makes T.K., being the nice guy he is, start tending to her instead of himself when he is in a damn tough position. She forces him out of his own grief to tend to the sudden mood swing of her own, and leaves him to feel sorry about it when she runs off. In the same film, when T.K. tries to convince her to go to the Digital World to meet Meicoomon, she has a hissy fit about not wanting to see Meicoomon and actually being glad the reboot happened so she doesn’t have to worry about Meicoomon and the Digimon anymore. I mean, fuck how the rest of the DigiDestined not just among the original eight, but the rest of the world feel, right? I addressed this in my final thoughts on “Confession” and I think to be fair they kind of point out her behavior is wrong by dragging her to the Digital World in “Loss” with an unexplained distortion, but this still is a display of her extremely unhealthy character.

This doesn’t even stop there. While “Loss” might have been the best display of her character where she actually tries to do things on her own and even stands up to a stupidly bratty Meicoomon, she’s coddled by the other DigiDestined and she immediately regresses back in “Coexistence”. The whole movie ends up being her own pity party over Meicoomon (again, fuck how everyone else is feeling), and in “Our Future”, she has yet another instance of directing grief away from someone else and towards herself. When Kari starts blaming herself for Tai’s death, it doesn’t take long at all for Meiko to immediately start pushing the blame on herself and for the other DigiDestined to feel pity for her over it. Also, compare their reactions to both of them. Kari, who has every right to feel as upset as she is about losing her brother, the most important individual in her life is taking on the blame of the situation, and everyone quietly feels sorry for her, as if knowing coddling will not help the situation. Cut to Meiko doing the exact same thing, except having honestly much less reason to be feeling the kind of position Kari is in, and everyone coddles Meiko and tries to reassure her that it isn’t her fault. When you break it down, Meiko is an extremely unhealthy individual who is always desperate for attention when she feels bad over something. Sure, you might argue that she sometimes locks herself away so not to get this attention and the writers probably didn’t do this intentionally, but there are some legitimately bad implications going on here. It’s like the writers didn’t even read their second or even first drafts.

On top of all of this, Meiko never truly develops as a character. If anything, Meicoomon’s death is the only thing that actually changes her because she finally stops crying over her every five seconds. But she never gets to advocate for herself because the other DigiDestined are constantly diving in to save her (again, “Loss” was pretty much the highest point she ever had and it wasn’t even anything incredible), she never gets over Meicoomon or stops thinking about her until finally making peace at the end of this movie, and her general behavior never really changes otherwise. No one even calls her out on her behavior because she’s perfect and can do no wrong in everyone else’s eyes. Honestly, when you really think about it, everyone should be mad at Meiko in some form. Maybe not hate her, but not once does anyone deal with any frustration with her. It’s almost like because Kari was made an actual character in tri, in exchange they had to make an awful clone of her. There is truly nothing to compare Meiko to other than a horribly written Mary Sue self-insert fanfiction, all perfectly topped with the writers trying to pull off ship teases with her and Tai. Awwww, I think I’m gonna be sick.

And… I don’t know what else to say about “Our Future”. Honestly, as many complaints as I have about this movie, it has its good moments. It’s not even the worst of the Digimon Adventure tri movies. It just that it has its good moments, but also so many bad moments that it honestly makes it hard to enjoy. And really, I think that sums up tri for me in general. I don’t think it’s the worst thing ever. I don’t even think it’s the worst Digimon series ever. I would still consider others I’ve watched like Digimon Frontier were written worse overall. I want to enjoy Digimon Adventure tri, but the team working on it makes it extremely difficult to enjoy tri. It certainly has its good moments. And when it has its good moments, they’re really good moments, but the opposite is also true. When its bad moments are bad, they are really bad. They can be downright awful even, and it’s really a shame that the second half of tri really dropped off after it hit such a high with “Confession”. Do I regret watching it? No, not really. But… it was definitely hard to sit through at times. I can say I will definitely look back at it for the good it brought to the table, but the bad will certainly stink like rotten food in the fridge for a long time to come.

Now, comes the inevitable question and topic… the sequel hook of Digimon Adventure tri. By the end, Dark Gennai disappears into the Digital World and babbles on about bringing in Daemon or maybe Diablomon, and we hear the Digivice beep at the end of the film, much like the end of the original Digimon Adventure. And on top of this, the tri Twitter account posted an announcement of a new project, as well as the English Toei Animation Twitter. The wording of it implies something related to the Digimon Adventure universe.

From my perspective, based on all of the open ended plot points like Dark Gennai still running around, Alphamon, Himekawa’s missing status, the Four Sovereigns being ignored after the reboot since they’re a pretty important part of the Digital World, the whole “Digimon who died in the real world are brought back to life after the reboot” nonsense that was just dropped in out of nowhere (Was that a mistranslation? Because at this point its lack of mention or being addressed makes me wonder if that was ever a plot point that existed and if I just accidentally made it up), and the 02 kids just being ignored in general… makes me believe we’ll be getting a sequel focused more on the elements of Adventure 02. And with all that’s happened… I’m really torn on it.

On one hand, I really want these plot points to actually be resolved. I want the 02 kids to get a true chance to actually develop as characters. I want to see their Digimon again. And honestly? I would love for each 02 kid to have a full Digivolution line for their own Digimon, all the way to Mega form. But at the same time… Digimon Adventure tri has really tired me out. If we were to get a sequel, I want the writers to actually be competent. I want them to write an actual series that can stand on its own without relying on future sequels. Hell, maybe even a new team of competent writers if necessary, because at times it really feels like the writers for tri just didn’t have a proper grasp of Digimon Adventure and its canon. And part of me wants Digimon to just move to a Digimon Tamers sequel after the recent drama CD and Chiaki Konaka’s interest in writing a sequel series. And knowing the depth of Tamers, I know it could be pulled off extremely well with the right treatment. So I’m truly, legitimately torn. I guess for now, I’ll just wait and see where Digimon moves from here, and enjoy what we have of the franchise. After all, I really need to get to the Digimon video games.

So ultimately, if I had to grade the Digimon Adventure tri movies in order:

Confession > Determination > Reunion > Loss > Our Future > Coexistence

And with that, this finally closes the doors on Digimon Adventure tri… I mean, I wish I could say that with true satisfaction, but its open-ended nature and reliance on a sequel really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth… Maybe, we can at least get a better sequel in the end. If you guys want to bring up something I didn’t mention or have a discussion, feel free to send an ask I guess? Because I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something about tri, good or bad. And hey, at least Digimon Adventure tri gave me this adorable shot of the Digimon as a parting gift.

#Shut Up JJ #Final Thoughts #Digimon #Digimon Adventure tri #Our Future

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groundramon · 6 years

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Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here! I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing. ok. alright. cool. Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon. just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like. They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality. I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish. This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids. What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him. I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet. No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is. Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one. They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like. Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed. The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it. Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me. alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible. Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected. Was very invested during it. ‘Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out. Where are the 02 kids. You should’ve brought them in to save the day. That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun. Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps. Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty. I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development. He’s basically an entirely different person. Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe. He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE. The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back. They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei??? Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much. It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters. Whatever. AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk? This entire time??? Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends??? Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried. Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao. God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely. Would I have still been bitter? Yes. But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise. It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults. These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining. They do not work when placed into an adult setting. Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world? I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like. Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure. It doesn’t work. Digimon Tri is basically that except real. Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience. It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that. Like! Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL. Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life. I want bad puns and emotional characters. That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be. Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars. It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better. You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead. If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series. Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS. I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri? But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish. Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies. Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit. I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons. It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments. If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it. It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept. And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up. It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon. It raises interesting questions about the timeline too. We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project? (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over) But what about Diaboromon? I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well. Could Diaboromon still be out there too? It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction. Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil? Like ? That’s a pretty important thing. The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02. And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still. It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened) MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so. God there’s just. So much wrong with Tri. I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care. There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me. I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

#stormy speaks #digimon

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hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat · 7 years

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So yeah, Digimon Tri Part 5 was...a thing.

And I’ve finally figured out the main thing that was bugging me about this show, and it’s come to a head in this series right here. So here goes...

SPOILERS BTW

I don’t hate Meiko. She had potential, and was different enough from the other eight children. But all through the first few parts she just felt extra and detached, which I guess was supposed to be her character, but it’s hard to get immensely invested in her when we’re actually getting excited about seeing our childhood characters all grown up.

But here’s the thing. Meiko herself isn’t really a problem. What is a problem is her story arc.

She’s shy, detached, and depends on Meicoomon, who it turns out is an anomalous existence which is hazardous to the Digital World

(first off, hi Guilmon, nice to see your concept being shamefully ripped off)

but Meiko’s presence helps to dampen it down. but when Evil!Gennai!

(who spends most of this episode upside down for god knows what reason)

decides to shake things up, Meicoomon goes bananas and starts wrecking shit, to the point where the kids’ partners are rebooted. Meiko is understandably freaking out and blaming herself, and feels constantly like she doesn’t deserve to be a partner. The others are supportive, but especially Tai, who starts to build a relationship with her and tries to support her as best he can, while going through his own struggles, culminating in him sacrificing himself, Kari giving into the darkness and the world reaching its ultimate peril (i.e. smashing the Digital World into the human world hi Savers nice to see your plotpoints being shamefully ripped off here)

(All the while this is happening, Yggdrasil is trying to help the kids only its not, Hackmon is actually Jesmon and is actually Homeostasis which is kind of Yggdrasil only its not, Gennai is...still hanging upside down, and Himekawa is gallavanting around in the Dark Ocean in a far more interesting story than the one we’re watching)

And Agumon makes a boobs joke.

Oh and I guess we see Ophanimon Falldown Mode which is cool. For about 10 seconds. Before she fuses with Meicoomon and becomes this...charming thing...

by which point I was about ready to give up.

It’s not a bad story arc. I like the idea of the ‘tamer’s dark side’, and while it’s not quite the way I’m doing I’d do it myself, it has potential, and can lead to interesting development.

The problem is, this story arc in its entirety doesn’t belong to Meiko.

It belongs to Kari.

Let’s go through this arc again, but instead of Meiko, let’s put Kari in her shoes as the ‘central’ character:

- Kari came into the group late, and was forced into her role really due to her relationship with Tai. She never really had any growth in the original series, only showing her value as a Digidestined after Wizardmon’s sacrifice.

- Even in 02, there’s a distinct lack of presence to her, partly due to having little development...but if you watch the Dark Ocean episode, its clear she has anxieties that can lead to her being detached and easily corrupted.

- Even her Crest, Light, seems to have no real dark side on the outset, so wouldn’t it make sense for her to feel inadequate in wielding it? She is, and will always be, the ‘eighth child’; while she may have been chosen at the beginning, she didn’t go through the hardships and relationships the others did. And given that she’s always so quiet and polite, to the point where she collapsed as a child because she didn’t want to let her brother down, there are clearly some self-destructive tendencies there.

- Gatomon was also an outsider, and actually started off as a villain. While holy in nature, she spent a lot of her life alone, and I could imagine her gaining some resentment towards the Digital World for keeping her and Kari apart. Again, more openings for a corruption to dwell inside her, rather than Meicoomon. When the real-world attacks begin again, causing mroe damage and threatening the people she knows and loves, those feelings come back and trigger the corruption, unlocking her Falldown Mode (or Ultimate equivalent)

- Kari was also very in tune with the Digital World to the point of becoming its proxy; yet another thing influencing her and rejecting her own being. That would have been quite fascinating; trying to deal with Gennai and the dark influences through her partner, while trying to fend off Yggdrasil and the ‘justice’ of the Digital world through her own mind.

- If it was Kari who was central to all this, then Tai’s own arc would make a lot more sense; just replace the potential-romantic relationship they’re pushing with a familial one - one that’s already present - and suddenly his own fears of powerlessness make a lot more sense; they call back to the arc he went through during the Machinedramon battle. Now Tai and Kari are both adults, both fighting very different demons, and both are willing to give up far more than they should to keep the other, and their Digimon, safe. So when given the choice between saving himself and saving Matt and his sister, Tai goes for the latter, trusting in Matt, and having the courage to make the choices he couldn’t earlier in the story.

- By which point Kari sees all this, and finally loses hope, the corruption taking her over as well as her partner, who then morphs into Evangelimon up there, and that’s where we leave off.

I’m not saying it’s perfect - I’m only a fan writer after all - but I feel it would solve an awful lot of Tri’s problems if it had made use of the characters it had rather than focusing all this attention into a new tamer.

Kari needed this story arc, not Meiko.

Kari has, and always shall, deserve better.

Can’t wait to see the end of this implosion of frustration, wasted potential and whatthefuckery in part 6. If nothing else, it’s been enjoyable.

#digimon adventure tri #digimon tri part 5 #symbiosis #meiko mochizuki #meicoomon #kari yagami #kari kamiya #gatomon #hawk rambles #i'm not saying i have better ideas than the official series buuuuut #i don't know #maybe i'm just old and jaded now

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adventure-hearts · 7 years

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tri. Chapter 5 - Recap, Analysis, Review [ part three ]

(part one) (part two)

Watching the Chosen Children brainstorm as a group is always interesting, but I’m particularly fond of how tri. has played with the Koushirou/Takeru dynamic, making the latter constantly ask relevant questions that point Koushirou to the right answer. After deliberating, group comes to the conclusion that Meicoomon may have been used as a "switch" by Ygdrasil, in order to bring these digimon to the real world and exterminate humans.

That is to say, at this point, the Chosen Children think that “Yg-something” is behind all the strange things that are happening in the world, and that it’s somehow against them. However, they still can’t quite understand Homeostasis’s agenda.

This is interesting because they still assume that Homeostasis is on their side but just not helping them; which shows that at this point they’re still seeing things from a narrow enemy/ally prism.

The “horror story” sequence comes next, because this was getting a bit too serious and needed some room to breathe. Let me start by saying that humour is one of the things I value the most in all kinds of stories, and the type of humour tri. has used (often very meta, poking fun at characters and specific running gags) has been right up my alley. Moreover, I think tri. is often at its best when it moves away from the plot for a bit and just shows us light-hearted character interactions and funny hijinks.

Yet, although I loved this scene and I think it serves a purpose in the episode, it does feel slightly out of place in the middle of a battle for the two worlds, when the characters are pretty much hiding from the media and maybe even the authorities. Sure, it’s Takeru’s idea, and Yamato immediately points out that it’s stupid, but everyone goes along, especially when Takeru enters full-on Troll Mode.

"Oh, he’s just being hopeful”, you may say. “All he wants is to cheer everyone up!", you might say. Let’s be real, he's 99% trying to piss off his brother. (Yamato being afraid of ghosts and playing air bass when he's afraid is two bits of information I NEEDED IN MY LIFE).

Jou tells the first story, because he’s The Eldest (TM) and, obviously, the funniest character in the group. Of course, down-to-earth Jou’s idea of a horrifying experience is very different from the others.

(This was an hilarious moment that reminded me of Hermione’s boggart in Prisioner of Azkaban reflecting a similar fear - but it also indicates that Jou’s preoccupation with school didn’t just vanish after his epiphany in Ketsui.)

Then Meiko gets central stage, and we see a repetition of a familiar pattern: she is amazing at something, apparently out of nowhere (see also: drawing and lighting fires in the woods). It’s the kind of thing that could come across as forced and a bit too convenient, but mostly it just shows that Meiko has talents and a personality beyond her current tragedy.

And, anyway, isn’t it bizarre to see these kids all terrified of some stupid, vaguely scary horror tale? The same kids who have faced literal demons, Vampires, evil clowns, ghosts, and darkness? Frankly, Takeru is the ONLY one who has a normal reaction to Meiko’s story.

His smile is sweet but, like always, you wonder what’s behind it. Is he happy to see Meiko come out of her depressive state and join the fun? Is he just happy to see Yamato's reaction to the whole thing? Is he glad to see the group forget about their troubles just for a while? tri.’s Takeru is a bit of a cypher, and that’s great.

On the whole, I'm still ambivalent about this segment. On the one hand, somehow it also feels slightly out of place and it’s hard to understand how the kids can forget what’s happening out there to play games in the dark. On the other hand, it delivers in terms of laughs and characterisation, and it is nice to have a little break in the middle of all this tragedy. Maybe the point is just to remind us that these are normal kids, who somehow manage to find some solace with each other.

In contrast, the " Phone Home" scenes are a terrific depiction of the characters and relationships, via “show not tell”. Mimi and Sora supporting each other; how Koushirou can't leave the computer even for a second; that Yamato still doesn't want to talk to his mum (suggesting the dynamics in that broken family are still complicated). And Taichi's mother trusting he'll be all right and joking about his animated Summer is kind of a gut-punch in retrospective.

It’s always nice to see tri. remembering that the kids’ families exist, so I wish they can make room for actual cameos eventually!

The conversation between Taichi and Meiko, and its aftermath, is in many ways one of the most interesting moments in this movie. In it, Taichi and Meiko’s dilemmas in the face of what’s going on are explored, setting things up for later.

When Taichi overhears Meiko admitting she's not okay, expressing her love for Meicoomon, and pretty much questioning all that talk about "hope" the other kids have been feeding her, it has an impact on him. There’s some flirting kind words between them, while the Digimon spy on them from afar (I half-expected them to start singing Kiss the Girl).

Now, any shipping considerations aside, it's clear there's a mutual respect and empathy between these two. (See my previous comment on Taichi/Meiko). Taichi tries to comfort Meiko once again, by sharing his own doubts about growing up and how he trusts his natural connection with Agumon. It’s an interesting moment when Taichi opens up and is willing to show vulnerability.

However, Meiko contrasts his arguments with Mystery Mans's words. She still blames herself for Meicoomon going bad.

At this point, Taichi snaps at her. Is he getting impatient, after hearing her repeat the same doubts, when everyone keeps telling her her the same old stuff about partners and hope? Regretting his bluntness, Taichi walks away, but tells her she's wrong.

Still, you have to wonder if he’s wrong. Is it Taichi (and the Chosen Children) who can't put themselves on Meiko's place and relate to her unimaginable situation? Meiko sure envies them, the bonds they have with their partners, and their absolute certainties. As far as comfort goes, Agumon's simple advice about partners loving each other (from the Digimon's perspective) is more effective and it allows her to finally break down.

We get Taichi's side as well. It seems he's starting to see things from a different perspective. He recalls Hikari’s words earlier, about people being unable to understand what doesn’t happen around them.

Taichi’s inability to relate to Meiko’s situation – that is, not understanding why she simply won’t believe – is frustrating for Taichi, but it also forces him to question his own approach. This reflects the overall conflict in his story: He wishes he could go back to being a carefree child, but it’s too late; he’s already grown up. Now, he can’t not worry -- he can’t help being introspective and reflecting on things instead of jumping blindingly into the fight. His identity is changing, and the way he responds to problems is, too. Old Taichi may have ignored Meiko’s words, but this Taichi listens.

Next morning, Meicoomon shows up again. Despite her previous failure, Meiko has listened to her friends’s advice. Once again, she tries to reach out to her partner, to understand why she’s acting this way. In an attempt to share Meicoomon's burden, Meiko asks her to direct these feelings towards herself, for not being a worthy partner.

However, Meiko then tries a different strategy. For the first time, she tells Meicoomon the suspicion she’s been harbouring throughout this episode – the possibility that the partner bond between them is gone.

The other kids decide to follow through with their plan and try and stop Meicoomon again, despite the risk that the digimon may become infected again.

Meiko senses that Meicoomon is scared - just like she was back in Tottori and in the lab. Daigo points out that fear seems to increase Meicoomon’s powers.

Then Jesmon (who’s on Homeostasis’ side) shows up, presumably to execute Meicoomon. In response, Meicoomon turns into a new form: Raguelmon, a Fallen Angel Digimon.

Mystery Man, who is back in Digimon Kaiser cosplay (could it be that he needs to use this form in the Real World?) is ecstatic with this development, because everything is going according to Keikaku.

Not only is Homeostasis trying to destroy Meicoomon, but Meicoomon’s powers are increasing to the point when Meicoomon's very existence is destroying the human world.

Slowly the Chosen Children are starting to realise what’s happening: Homeostasis isn’t kidding around, and it’s determined to eliminate Meicoomon, without them.

So the truth soon becomes apparent. This isn't just “Ygdrasil's will” - this is Homeostasis working against them!

Taichi’s words express their surprise at this revelation. Until now, they’ve always faced a more clear division between “enemies” and “allies”. They always found themselves playing in Homeostasis’s team. But now, not only has (the man they think is) Gennai gone evil, but Homeostasis is trying to kill their friend and is willing to push them aside, regardless of what they want. The Reboot, let’s not forget, was suggested by Homeostasis.

The situation is a bit too complex in comparison to what they’re used to, and this drives the kids crazy. But this is the point where the Chosen Children’s childlike naïveté becomes a problem. They were wrong to assume that just Homeostasis helped them before, it’s always on their side. Above all, they were wrong to assume Homeostasis cares about bonds and friendship as much as they do. The very reason why they’re fighting is about to be challenged.

#digimon #digimon adventure tri #kyousei #review / recap #meta

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