Did that bring some of you a sense of Nostalgia?
That was the Digmon Digivolution theme Brave Heart.
I watched the series growing up in dubbed, but damn do the Japanese songs bring instant
nostalgia and pulled me back to the early 2000s. I’ve always loved this series, especially
growing up with Adventure 01 and 02. I also really loved the Data Squad series playing
with slightly older characters; it was relatable to me since I was just starting Jr High at
the time. This may sound like just a rant video just for the sake of it, but it’s
out of love of the series. I want to give some constructive criticism. If you don’t
want any spoilers of the series I’d advise you come back to this video when you get the
chance to watch at least the 5th movie.
So, what has me making this video? The Digimon Adventure Tri movie series. It is a direct
sequel to the original Digimon Adventure, made to celebrate the franchise’s 15th Anniversary.
I’m writing this before the final 6th movie because I don’t think there’s anyway of
saving it. I think Digimon Tri is a failure of storytelling; I feel as though instead
of following the correct steps in creating a compelling story and commemorating the brand’s
years of success. It seems as though Bandai is using Tri as a quick cash grab to entice
older fans. This seems like a long running plan, since my last disappointment from them
was the Digimon All-Star Rumble game released just over 3 years ago.
I want to start with something superficial before I really get into my ranting mood.
I have a major problem with how they released the movies internationally. Instead of full
films, they split each film into 20-minute chunks that basically added up to an episode.
It doesn’t make sense to cut up what is meant to be the continuous plot of a full
length film to be chopped up into TV episodes. They even had ending themes to go with the
“end” of each “episode”.
The second thing I want to address is character design, I think it’s very important in visual
media such as animation. I am very angry at the character designs, because it seems like
they didn’t Tri hard enough.
Get it? Tri?
Ahem
If you take a look at the original series, each character
had a different design and you clearly knew the face of the character. Every character
was designed carefully to make each of them unique and recognizable at a glance.
For example,
I’m going to show you four colours and if you’ve seen any bit of the show you’ll
know exactly who I’m trying to portray.
You thought of Tai, didn’t you? How about
this one, four colours one character.
Did you think of Mimi?
So what was the point of that little game? to point out that the character designs in
Tri are awful. The first thing you’ll notice when looking at all our characters from Tri
is that there is a Saberface problem. If you take any of the male characters, swap their
hair and colours around you easily get the other. I know a simplistic character design
doesn’t break anything, but why move away from the unique character designs? I can think
of two reasons. One could be budget restraints or two, they want to plant the world of Digimon
more heavily into reality. If it’s the former, it would further infuriate me knowing Tri
was just a cash grab. At the least take our protagonists out of their school uniforms,
it’s been 3 movies since we’ve seen them in casual wear.
To introduce my thoughts on how the writing falls short, I want to touch on the characters
they introduced with Tri. To reintroduce some mystery for this movie series, they introduced
Meiko Mochizuki and her Digimon partner, Meicoomon. I know that character’s names are chosen
purposely, but damn is she too easy to make fun of. Why? I think she's quite the example
of a Mary Sue.
Get it
Mei-ry Sue?
Mei?
Mary Sue
She’s introduced in the third quarter of the first film.
She comes off as the shy girl that isn't quite sure of herself. You'd think that this would
be an opportunity for a character development arc like they have with Adventure 01. Each
character had to earn their Crests
but damn do I have no hope after 5 movies.
I cannot say I've seen any noticeable change from 1st movie Mei and 5th movie Mei.
She still has everyone assuring her it's not her fault or “Oh friendship will solve all our problems,
don't worry about it.”, while it's their Digimon partners are the ones
that are generally put in danger. And they present her as if she has no flaws.
everytime she's in danger, one of the other characters comes to save the day.
If you're going to introduce a new character to follow their development,
make it feel as though they've actually grown in some way.
My main gripe with the Tri series of movies is partly rooted in how it’s written and
paced. What I identify with the Digimon TV series is not being afraid of addressing more
serious issues, like depression and the awareness of putting others in danger. To kinda address
the ongoing “Mon” war, I feel like Digimon has a great animated series, but Pokemon has the better games
Change my mind.
Back to the writing of Tri.
How the first movie was presented seemed like the marketing team knows how to capture nostalgia.
A revised version of both the opening and digivolution theme; a great way of paying homage and setting the
stage for a new audience.
I really loved seeing their partners digivolve once again for the
first time and a hard to miss reminder that the Diaboromon attack on the world did in
fact happen.
I want to make a minor point about fanservice.
I've talked Fanservice in a previous video and the reason why I bring that up is the
digivolutions in Tri.
As a long time fan, it's really awesome to see a modern interpretation of the digivolution sequences that's so iconic to the series.
The way they use the evolution sequences is inappropriate.
It's pretty obvious that the writing and editing team was trying
to pad time with the evolution sequences, because it's too convenient that they all
forgot about Warp Digivolving. Don't even get me started on the opportunities for cool
split screen evolutions they decided not to do.
But instead
they opted to do every stage,
of each digimon
INDIVIDUALLY.
The idea of pacing is a joke at this point,
especially surrounding anime critics here on YouTube, but it really is the pacing of
Tri that really ticks me off. I’ve said in a previous video that I’m not that great
at critical analysis, but if something like this comes up and I notice it, I think it’s a huge problem.
It felt right that they took the first movie to capture nostalgia and then
use the rest of the series to introduce a new threat, new characters, and eventually a resolution.
Sounds really simple right? Unfortunately it seems like some people missed
out on the “show, don’t tell” portion of how to write. It’s way too often in Tri
that we have the characters sitting around just talking, so much time of still frames,
panning shots, and only moving mouths. If they had condensed all the boring informational
dialogue, they could have made these movies into a 3-part series or a 12-episode
run with two story arcs. One third could be used for nostalgia and a slight hint at the
new threat, while the remainder of the series follows our characters into resolving the
new threat and the struggles along the way. Similar to the current Star Wars trilogy.
The very last thing I want to talk about is the plot and continuity of Tri.
In the very first movie just before the title card and opening credits, there is a scene to reintroduce
us to the Digimon Adventure universe.
During that scene we have flashes of the Digi-Destined
from 02 falling to the ground as if defeated by something.
We’re able to recognize them due to their silhouette’s and distinct digivices that each of them had.
As we see the final
flash of their defeat with them on ground, the camera pans up, ominous lightning strikes,
and the silhouette of a Digimon appears.
Although cliche, it’s a very clear message to the
audience that there is a new threat to be dealt with. Compliments aside, what this has
to do with continuity is the four characters that were defeated are never mentioned again.
Except for Ken.
Because
“Hurrr durrr
I’ve been corrupted again and I will attempt to take over the Digital World,
but this time with passion”.
PLOT TWIST/SPOILER ALERT, it’s
not Ken! It’s evil Gennai!
Here to deceive our characters and make them forget about the 02 characters once again.
I’m not joking either, after it’s revealed that it’s not Ken, none of the characters show any concern for the real Ken.
Throughout all five films so far, no one seems to mention the other three,
even though each of them has interacted with
them in some way.
This is especially worrisome because Takeru and Hikari were the ones that
were with them the most. They’ve faced dangerous digimon, their partners have been infected,
and have reset the digital world, yet no concern for the 02 cast.
The way they’ve presented the five films has me very worried, because I thought even
if the first three films don’t fit my tastes, the writing or pacing is bad,
the last three could definitely save it. Two films later, there is no hope in salvaging or redeeming the series.
I can only see two ways of this series ending, but I don’t like either of them.
Prediction one, imagine we have our characters put in such a pinch that it seems
there is no solution. Suddenly a bright light and an attack coming from off screen hits
the big bad in front of them. The four thought to be defeated characters of 02 appear and
Daisuke cheekily says “Hey, did you forget about us?”
How horribly ironic and cringey would that be?
Prediction two, same cornered characters, but this time Mei finally realizes
the true power of friendship Meicoomon (or whatever form she is) is purified
and turns on the big bad she was fighting for.
With either end, everyone is that the Deus Ex Machina has saved the day
and that the power of friendship has prevailed once again.
I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again, there is no way of saving the series now;
whatever comes next is all too predictable because Bandai was not that invested into the production of Tri.
To what I can say is a lack of funding, the studio had to
play it safe, leaving little room to push the series forward into this decade.
Overall, I’m quite disappointed with Digimon Tri. I had really hope it would be something
that would rekindle my love my for the series. The writing had so many things that could
easily fixed, as well the format was wrongly chosen and used. I may be just one voice that
is throwing bad critique at these movies, but I really love this series and I want to
see it succeed. I wish that I didn’t have to make this video, but I wanted to voice
my opinion no matter how many people actually see it. With any luck I hope to see a revised version
some time after the last movie is shown in theatres.
For now, I’ll hold off on buying any blu-rays.
Hey guys, thanks for watching my video. I hope you enjoyed and thought it was an interesting thought piece
on the Digimon Tri movie series.
I've been working on it for a while actually.
I had a script for it for quite some time. I never really finished it until more recently.
Relatively recently.
Here we are with the final video. A little later than I expected to, because I wanted to release it just before
The final movie hit. I will be watching that soon.
Please do leave feedback down below about these kind of videos.
I do want to make more in the future.
Check out my other videos over here on anime discussion.
And I'll see you guys in the next one.
Boop