Digimon Adventure tri. 1: Saikai

The gate to the Digital World has been closed for three years. Taichi Yagami and his friends have since moved on, and now that he is in his second year of high school, it is time for him to grow up. While everyone else knows what they want to do with their lives, Taichi remains unsure. Meanwhile, the group drifts further apart as they follow their own paths.

One day, a rogue insectoid Digimon called Kuwagamon materializes and disrupts electronics all over the city. Taichi recklessly chases after it and ends up cornered by the attacking Digimon. Suddenly, the Digivice that he still carries—a digital device that serves various purposes including helping one's Digimon partner to evolve—glows, and Agumon appears. The two are able to defeat Kuwagamon, but why did the Digimon cross over to this world in the first place? What is happening in the Digital World, and how exactly does this involve Meiko Mochizuki, the new transfer student in Taichi's class?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yagami, Taichi Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Ishida, Yamato Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Yagami, Hikari Main

Ichimichi, Mao Japanese

Takaishi, Takeru Main

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Agumon Main

Sakamoto, Chika Japanese

Izumi, Koushirou Main

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Tachikawa, Mimi Main

Yoshida, Hitomi Japanese

Tailmon Main

Tokumitsu, Yuka Japanese

Takenouchi, Sora Main

Mimori, Suzuko Japanese

Patamon Main

Matsumoto, Miwa Japanese

Motokawa, Kouhei Producer

Arai, Shuuhei Producer

Motonaga, Keitarou Director, Storyboard

Ebina, Yasunori Sound Director

Reviews

Nov 20, 2015

Stark700

Recommended

Ah Digimon. Almost anyone who grew up watching anime will heard of this from somewhere. Even if you haven’t, Digimon is a series that was well-known when it first debuted. (and still is!) The franchise was introduced to the world that focuses on entities, known as Digital Monsters. These creatures are made of data that exists in their own parallel world known as the Digital World. However, their universe also crosses over the real world where chosen humans (known as Digidestined) are partnered with certain Digimon to fight against evil.

First things out of the way, this movie takes place after the second season also ... known as Digimon Adventures Season 2. Previous knowledge of the franchise is important to gain a better experience from watching the movie. This is because the kids that we’ve known from the previous seasons are back but also grown up. Their high school years takes them with a youthful development over their characters. And while all this seems normal at first, the story quickly turns abnormal.

The story itself is consistent with the premise and overall style of Digimon Adventures. Contrary to Digimon Tamers, it retains a lighthearted mood in the real world. Thus, expect some amusing comedy coming from the cast. We meet the main characters including Taichi, Yamato, Izumi, Mimi, Joe, etc. What I find appealing about them is that although they changed physically, they still retain their personalities and are the characters that we can continue to adore. Their relationships with one another implies there’s a growing feelings between a few pairs; in other words, beyond just childhood friendships. At the same time, the characters show what they’ve learned and are open minded with one another. That same can be applied to the Digimon partners as they still remember who they are and relationships remain strong despite the time skip. And that’s another prominent aspect of Digimon I really find enjoyable – the relationship between humans and non-human characters. It emphasizes how they can co-exist despite their different nature. And it also shows why exactly friendships can be so important between them no matter how long time has passed.

Despite the fine developments of the overall movie, there’s still problems I found that should be addressed. The introduction of a new female character is something that can be controversial especially since her personality isn’t anything unique. In the role of the movie, her presence lacks anything memorable for the role she plays. Speaking of characters, there’s some other prominent characters from the second season that seems to be omitted from the movie. The presence of a secret organization can be a fragment of what some fans can remember from Digimon Tamers. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be anything unique about them and in fact looks stereotypical. And finally, there’s a lack of coherence about the main threat of the movie. I mean, it’s hard to tell in the end what the characters are fighting for or against. Perhaps this could a better focus for the sequel.

Originally, I had some issues with the animation style after seeing the previews. However, I can say with confidence that the movie lives up to its promise to deliver action. Whether it’s in the real world or in digital style action, the performance is aesthetic and retains smooth choreography. In addition, the Digimon are also well designed with their original features. The parts with the Digi-evolution can be a mixed bag though when examined carefully but still is decent in overall terms of quality. The easiest part to notice is the different art style produced by Toei. It does have some lack of the old school feel when compared to the original series. After all, the kids have grown up and they have developed both mentally and physically. From my standpoint, the way the characters are designed can be easily attached to once you get into 10 or so minutes of the movie. It hardly is bothering as the movie itself retains the feel of what Digimon really was.

It’s more than a nostalgic trip. Digimon Adventures Tri: Saikai (Reunion) is here to remind us that the franchise is still going strong even after all those years of childhood memories. The Digidestineds are back from who they were before and their partners are here to kick some ass as well. What can be improved for the continuation (Chapter 2) should be the storytelling about the antagonists. And in addition, the new female character needs a bit more of characterization. But for now, this is definitely worth waiting for. After 15 years of Summer vacation, the kids are back.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 20, 2015

TsukineHime

Mixed Feelings

Maybe I was expecting too much, but the truth is that I'm pretty disapointed. I think by now we all know that Toei animation has been doing a very mediocre job with their animation, but this time they managed to hit a new low. Digimon seems to be suffering from a worse fate than Sailor Moon Crystal and Dragon Ball Super.

SPOILERS AHEAD, IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE MOVIE THEN STOP READING NOW. Unless you don't care about spoilers, that's fine too.

So lets start this and see why.

Story: 7

Seems pretty average so far and I was actually disapointed with some scenes, said scenes should have made ... use of the nostalgia factor and made for some great emotional moments, like the digidestined reunion with their partner digimons, it would only be logical, right? After all, they spent so much time without seeing them, WE spent so much time without seeing both digimon and children so it should have all been an emotional reunion for us lot.

But aparently not..
The characters and digimons seemed overly casual about it and there was hardly any emotional factor there, it left me apathic and disapointed on how they wasted such a great oportunity.

Then we have Taichi and Yamato clashing, a classic indeed, it's just how we all remember them, except this time around Taichi has changed and is no longer the corageous and impulsive leader he once was. Completly fine here, room for some good character development, however it can be a bit confusing why Taichi is having second thoughts about it sometimes. Yet he manages to pull himself together and realise he needs to fight in order to protect others, something he seems to have forgoten by the end of the battle agaisnt Alphamon, considering his apathetic and unsure atitude again.
So far the best thing out of Digimon Tri has been the love insterests and such, those were actually fun to watch.

I must say though, the addition of a new character seems interesting enough, firstly because of her digimon who seems to be hiding? And also because of her Digivice, the way it looks seems to imply she's from the same time as Taichi and the others, unlike Hikari and TK who have different digivices from the rest. This is something I'm curious about and looking forward to the explanation later on.


Art: 4

Oh boy where do I start, Toei did it again guys, terrible lazy animation, a lot, and I'd like to give emphasis to the word "A LOT" here, there's a lot of stills and camera panning across the screen on Digimon Tri, really a lot of stills of characters not doing anything. Ocasionally we have a character saying "yeah" and their mouth keeps shut too. The animation is just, poor, very blocky, you could sometimes count the amount of frames they used to animate something. For a movie this sure is disapointing. Aren't movies suposed to have better quality because of the bigger budget and deadlines?
The characters also looked very weird sometimes, they looked dowright deformed on some instances as they werent drawn properly.

Another thing I that dissapointed me were the digivolutions. Yes, the most important and iconic thing about digimon and they managed to screw it up, now the normal digivolutions are fine, no where as much action and eye candy as the old ones but they're okay. Now what's beyond me is how the rest of the digivolutions weren't animated, so Garurumon and Greymon just suddenly appear digivolved again, out of nowhere, and it happens again and again, untill suddenly they digivolve into Omegamon. If this isn't being lazy, then I don't know what it is.
It was horribly anti-climatic and downright ridiculous. Not to mention it makes you think, if they they could easily get past their first digivolution in order to get stronger, then why didn't other digimon do the same? Surely it would have made their lifes easier.


Sound: 7

While it wasn't amazing, it wasn't bad either, it was just right. The new versions of the old opening and ending were very nice touches, if they wanted to give us some nostalgia, they sure nailed it there. I also noticed some of the songs used throughout the movie were from the old digimon soundtrack, so the feeling of nostalgia was there throughout the whole thing and I give them props for that.


Character: 8

This is the part I probably liked the best, some characters changed, some didn't, others not so much, but they're still the same old characters we grew to know and love, their personalities and relationships are still there, but they've also grown and we're able to see that. It's always satisfying to see your favourite characters again after some years and noticing that their personalities are still there, so you easily recognize them. For example how cheerfull Mimi is, or how Taichi and Yamato often clash due to their personalities. We know all that too well and personaly, I'm glad to see it all again, it's nostalgia all over the place in that sense.


Enjoyment: 5

Even though the movie had its good points.. they werent the right ones, so I can't say this was very enjoyable. Unfortunately good music and good characters don't make up for bad art and average story telling. If one of those two had been good, then surely my opinion would differ.

Overall: 6

It's fair, it's average. It's not too bad but it's far from being very good too.
It was a very disapointing experience in overall, this was something many of us grew up with and longed for, obviously that created a lot of hype and expectations, except that was all taken away quickly. I honestly expected a lot better considering the franchise we're dealing with.

But then again we too expected a lot better from Sailor Moon Crystal and such, and those expectations fell way short. A shame really.

However I must say I'll keep watching this, not only because of the story, but mostly out of nostalgia. Had I been new to Digimon, I'm not sure if I would stick around for the next one.
So here's to hoping the next movie will be better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 20, 2015

Defunctional

Not Recommended

I can't express my disappointment in this. Maybe my expectations were too high coming into this, although I lowered it after hearing some bad things about the studio that produced this, but it's unbelievable how some aspects seem to be WORSE than the show from ~15 years ago.

The story is interesting so far. We start out with the re-introduction of our characters excluding the Digimon 02 characters. (What happened to them anyways? What were those scenes in the beginning supposed to mean? We still have a few more parts left so I won't comment on it for now) Anyways there's also this secret agent ... group whom we'll hopefully get to know more about. We don't have a lot of information about what's going on and I think it's okay to leave it like that since this part is probably supposed to serve as an introduction for the main plot.

In contrast to this part's title "Reunion" which is supposed to be impactful for us viewers since the characters make a return after over a decade, the reunion I saw here didn't give me personally any feels. I also disliked how they only showed the reunion between 3 pairs and left out the rest. Anyways, the kids are teenagers now and of course a change in their thinking can be expected. Taichi, who used to be the courageous one and always lead the group into new battles, falls in an inner conflict which is totally fine. But then the final scene just completely nullifies Taichi's development as a character as he seems to show little emotion about the city's partial destruction and even letting Alphamon escape. Well if there's something interesting about the characters it would probably the potential formation of love interests.

The visuals in this show is also very appalling. A lot of still frames are to be seen and the characters' faces sometimes are weird. However, what disappoints me the most is how they didn't even bother animating the digimons' evolutions beyond the champion level. Like what were they thinking when they made this decision? I don't know if it's only me, but a big part of the nostalgia comes from the EPIC evolution scenes. Nevertheless, I think the battle scenes were pretty good although the lack of sound annoyed me a little bit. (just lots of boom & crash sounds) HOWEVER, the final battle was just absolutely trash. The build up was very nice with Taichi trying to overcome his inner conflict and you'd expect a really cool battle between our villain and Omegamon, but nah Agumon and Gabumon just digivolve one stage after another (WITHOUT BEING ANIMATED) after seeing that their attacks have no effect on Alphamon. Anyways we finally come to the battle between Alphamon and Omegamon! Sword and axe crossing each other 2 or 3 times and cannons being shot around 3 times and then Alphamon makes his way out and that's it. Yeah. No comment.

As for the sound, they used a remake of the original OP and some of the OST from the original show if I remember correctly and I found it very positive. The usage of instrumental of the song as the OST was also pretty nice.

All in all, though, it was still very disappointing and I hope to see something better in the upcoming parts of the movie.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Digimon Adventure tri. Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Nov 20, 2015	344 replies	by nando3d1 »» 8 hours ago
	Poll: Do you like the character design in Tri? ( 1 2 3 ) cro3 - Feb 20, 2015	106 replies	by JVskunkape »» Aug 28, 2023 12:48 AM
	Why does everyone hate the 02 characters? 12ylie - May 12, 2015	22 replies	by JVskunkape »» Aug 27, 2023 11:42 PM
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	Plot holes in 02? cro3 - Mar 16, 2015	29 replies	by Ducksama14 »» Apr 2, 2022 9:25 PM

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