With great effort, I slogged through the first few episodes. Digimon Adventure was a show that has the habit, or perhaps a distinct traceable form of likening character development to episodic growth, narrowing the characters to one episode full of growth, and then proceeding to plunge deep into the narrative without complementing its characters with the background. It’s not to say it’s necessarily a bad thing, as it had a more fast-paced storytelling that prevents the audience from dozing off, but that alone limits the development of several characters, Koushiro/Izzy was shaped to be an expository machine that could utilise a computer to its fullest capacity other than his own episode of having his partner evolved into Kabuterimon. Other than Taichi/Tai who was bestowed with a few layers of characterisation by having him possessing traits that are more fleshed out compared to his cronies and his peers within the team, and maybe Matt/Yamato who had some sort of family background about his parents divorcing, resulting in the separation between him and his brother, Takeru. Takeru was possibly the most believable character in the narrative, where he started as a crybaby and immature kid (as expected of his age) and how he tries desperately to catch up with the team, along with his companion Patamon, who was also equally immature compared to the rest of the Digimon. The inclusion of crests in the series is something I’m thoroughly skeptical of, its use in the series is perniciously evident throughout the series, to give each of the characters a discernible trait without confusing the audience, but the effect is the exact opposite, I was left underwhelmed by the classification of crests, which divides into courage, friendship, love, sincerity, knowledge……. It’s a dire move in my eyes, an attempt to distinguish the characters that displayed caricaturistic tendencies, but the effect is once again the complete opposite, it results in the show having threadbare characters that demonstrates the central personalities that the show attempts valiantly to focus for each character and that alone renders most of the characters to be walking caricatures that are used to emphasise the power of the crests, rather than the crests used to emphasise a particular trait among the others they possessed. The crests effectively limits their characterization, and perhaps even binding them from having a vivid caricature, as the show seemed content with just having a distinguishable trait for each character, instead of developing the ideas of the crests, how could the crests be juxtaposed amongst each other, how could they improve a character, or how could they strengthened their bonds by having their characters gaining personal lessons from each other’s greatest strengths (their most special trait showcased by the crests), but that seems too much of a request from my part, since the crest principally works as a sort of mirroring event for a personal experience. I do not have a predisposed dislike for these characters, but their distinguishable traits had first propelled me through the mundane episodes for me to check out whether their specific traits would have influences among each other, but it ultimately fails to do so, knowledge is seemingly mutually exclusive with courage, friendship is absolute and is not intersected by values of sincerity. It’s dreadful, and Hikari is probably the worst offender of all. The writers added this thinly characterised character among those that are at least imparted with a certain level of maturity while not advancing her, giving her a trait of ‘Light’? There are three parts of this story where Hikari shared three incarnations, each with really differing personalities, a time she was sick and she acted sweet and overly relying on Tai when Tai got transported back to the real world, another she became sly and unusually optimistic in the Vamdemon arc, the other she became completely silent other than having a silhouette and a puppet for Homeostasis in the Machinedramon portion of the story. We knew nothing too much about her rather than being given the information other than she is supposedly ‘kind’, which is something yet again, cliche and done trite and excessively.
Sage Hyden’s video on the movie Suicide Squad had also propelled me to look deeper into Digimon’s story structure problems, in which the characters had limited interactions other than labelling the 8 characters as ‘friends’. The first 7 episodes or so introduced us to the characters, but there’s that. It told us almost 90% about the characters, but the characters know nothing about each other. It's mentioned in other sources such as reference books of Digimon, but I don’t give a damn. Why should I read the reference books when it should've been shown to me in the series? It reeks of the stench of the greed of the company to lure me to buy supplementary materials to fill in those blanks, and it actively ruins something that could’ve been significantly better. It’s all about flashbacks that don’t complement the scene, the series had burned a lot of potential that could’ve served as story revelations that could’ve been peppered throughout the entire series. There’s 54 episodes, there’s no need to rush all of them at once. From the first few episodes, we know that Matt’s family is divorced, he’s separated from his brother. Izzy is a computer nerd who can solve everything through his intelligence. Sora is a loving person who cares about each other. Had they withheld some of the information or simply used visual storytelling to imply some of the possible personalities they have, they could’ve used the kernels of these backgrounds to draw parallels between characters and create compelling scenes where the characters discuss what matters to them. Or how they view their current predicament. I know Sora and Matt are supposed to be a thing together, so why there’s no scene where Sora and Matt bond with each other, they have one thing in common, they care about others subtly, just as Matt loves and cares about Takeru, Sora showers care toward Piyomon and the rest of the cast? Instead they shoehorn them in at the end of the second season and their scenes together are less than the fights Matt has with Tai. Tai is an overly careless but brave person who leads the whole team, while Joe had issues about being the eldest in the group and had a sort of responsibility to lead the team instead of rely on others, why isn’t there a scene where they talk about it and bond with each other instead of talking about how hungry or tired they are for the rest of the series? The rapid exchange of dialogue is evident throughout the series, and it’s clear that the writers want to have an exuberant atmosphere between the characters instead of them having dry conversations of expositions. But they’re doing it unnervingly wrong in a lot of places, truth be told. There are pairs of characters who never interacted with each other for an unbelievable amount of time. Did Matt talk with others actively other than Tai and Takeru? Did Hikari speak of a word with Joe and Mimi and Izzy? Where are the interactions between Takeru and Izzy, Mimi, etc?
Some may find my fastidiousness to be overtly geeky and view me as an uncouth guy who frets over the tiniest of the details, but I’d still like to point out a few major character writing issues these shows from the past tend to have, especially with Digimon. Digimon has a primitive sense of reliance on focusing the products of character advancement on evolution, a concept popularised by Adventure and has since been a normative routine for character growth in the Digimon franchise. It makes sense for me as a child, but it no longer does such wonders for me as an adult, it’s offensively banal by characterising our beloved Digimon partners as nothing but product pieces of a formula, the growth of a character. The Digimon had demonstrated a discernible sense of personality, but alas as the series slogged on with its narrative, the lovely Agumon and Gabumon were stilted, they had no potential rather than being a token of moral support and a mere tool of fighting. They are actively quelled to emphasize their partner’s growth, and they’re there for the sake of being there. They are staunchly faithful to their partner, never questioning and more of a fantastical company than an actual friend that follows you side by side. The Digimon may serve as a sort of innuendo as our childhood, stoutly faithful to us but never actually abandoned us, but innuendo is not enough, the writers seem to be wanting to trade in big ideas by having a relationship between partners and how they actively complement each other, but their faithfulness to each other is neither earned nor rewarded. Their Digimon are automatically a product of the writers’ determinism to have them mingled up with their partners from the start and was doomed to remain so for the rest of the series. It’s clearly shown in the first episode, Koromon immediately recognized Tai as his sole partner without any reason whatsoever, other than being ‘destined’, which has fundamentally destroy any possible chance of a full fledged character than a mouthpiece of moral support and a milkily bland character that is not separable other than a few mottos or type of dialogue they use.
Though I would definitely sharply criticise the choice of writers being satisfied by only adding a layer of personality for each character for simple distinction for the audience rather than actually featuring them as real humans, while it’s easier said than done, it could’ve done more merits for the characters that I’d still adore even if I questioned their status as a fully fledged character. For the lighter side of things, I’d praise the causality in the show, the characters made decisions, and those decisions beget irrevocable consequences which alter the outcome of an event. There are not many scenes that are wasted in the series, but wrapped neatly in a chain of cause and effect. Tai’s initially conceited and bratty attitude caused Agumon to be digivolved wrongly into the insidious SkullGreymon which greatly harmed the then-Koromon and this incident renders Tai to be afraid and cautious - fearing that he might hurt his partner due to his tendency to rise up and went straight for it rather than thinking twice. It thrusts him into this conflict when he has to choose to either confront his insecurities to save Sora who was captured, or step back and be unable to save his friend. These character-reviewing decisions are in line with the chain of cause and effect which creates compelling scenes that are meaningful to the central themes of the story. I am genuinely elated to discover that Digimon Adventure had managed to utilise it to its fullest extent. But underneath the wonderful seam between causality and character motivations, something deleterious hides behind a facade of a nice intention to develop characters, but eventually turned our beloved characters into a mouthpiece to voice opinions toward social issues, those comprise mostly of adolescent problems or social complications which include parent’s divorce (Matt and Takeru), being adopted (Izzy), being pressured into pursuing an undesired career (Joe), kid having a spoiled attitude as a result of parents that overly coddle them (Mimi), being forbidden to do something they loved (Sora).The attempt essayed in including or incorporating such themes are amiable to be said, but sadly, it’s grotesquely oversimplified in the large sense, those issues are brought up out of nowhere within an episode, and is then resolved in the same episode, often in sudden realisation. That’s to me, an ambitious brain that wants to tell the audience some meaningful lessons, but the body ended up collapsing due to the incredible weight of inquiries and solutions in the brain that coalesced together to form an ugly lump of blob. It suffers constantly from trying to add depth with discussing issues that are faced by the characters, but they’d have the characters resolving it internally and instantaneously, often utilising inner monologues and flashbacks, but when they’ve finally met their parents, the issues are no longer a matter, they did not gain the perspectives enough to discuss the problems in a serious tone with their parents, but resort to solving them in an episodic manner, as if growth are acquired in a time frame of two minutes. That’s not growth, but the illusion of growth, the illusion that similarly trapped them in predicament before this sudden realisation. It’s not earned, as it’s quickly resolved, the problems have not yet taken deep root within the characters and how they’d be making problematic decisions, why would it be considered ‘depth’? Is it not needlessly stiff and trivial (treated solely as an interesting background) in the larger narrative sense?
I read a poem named The Sea by Borges arranged in John Updike’s Picked Up Pieces before I made this review, and it sparked me in an instant, what is the world for Digimon Adventure? Me, having a predilection for character writing over minutiae details of worldbuilding might have galvanised me to write more of the characters than I cared for the world, but there is something hazy and obscure about the Digital World. Digimon Adventure sets up a world that should’ve had the wealths of rich lore mixed with a wide variety of background stories that are complementary with our digimon -- yet they glossed through the riches of the Digital World and had a dismayingly implicit way of showing the world, often relying on superficial aesthetics, a desert, a lake, a village, telephone booths out of nowhere, and a restaurant that uses US dollars for no apparent reason. A lot of the parts of this world are absurdly constructed, seemingly stitched together whatever the writers could think of, resulting in an unintentionally exulting comedy that had me chuckle a couple of times. Occasionally it’s mildly infuriating for me to see a world so reductive, where its inhabitants had only ‘popped’ into existence and the social structure of a community of Digimon is ludicrously unbalanced. But maybe I asked too much from a children’s series, but children’s series like Avatar: The Last Airbender had reached sublimity by delivering us a world of rich lore and a detailed world that complements our characters in the story. The Digimon’s physiology is also left unexplained, with Koromon having metabolic activities while the others don’t, some sleep while some could live without rest. I’m a fan of Tolkien with his inventive spin on preexisting races in mythology and how he incorporates them into his fictional settings, but I’m also a fan of M. John Harrison, Michael Moorcock and Mervyn Peake, who prioritised atmosphere, beauty of aesthetics and scenery. I need not a world that is so detailed like Orion’s Arms or Middle Earth, but having such scant regards for the world is definitely not something I’d laud for, considering Adventure’s tendency for reused footage and a wobbly artstyle (Joe’s face can literally change 5 times in an episode), pretty cheap directing skills that relies heavily on reused cinematography that are largely insufficient as well. The music of the Digimon, however, is close to perfection, I’d say. The integration of different types of pieces of music spanning several genres, including classical music: Bolero and Concierto de Aranjuez. Koji Wada was constantly outstanding, and I still loved him for that (May he rest in peace).
Digimon Adventure emerges from the strain in the viewer's imaginative sensibility for fantasy stories, a valiant attempt in crafting a fantasy story that is woven with well-written characters (a doubt from me), whether it touches the sublime or approaches the boundary that separates the crude and those that share a common excellence within storytelling is still a doubt for my part. It had achieved a notable quality, that is levelled by its horrible precursors and uplifted by its inferior contemporaries, but Digimon Adventure by itself is not a work that shares the same vein of quality as the great works of children’s fantasy series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, My Neighbour Totoro, the animated Batman series and The Wind in the Willows. Digimon Adventure itself, though I criticised much of its choice of storytelling, still possessed an imagistic strength that constitutes greatly to the heaping up of events that would eventually create gigantic images that leave us with a connection to the characters, even though some of them are thinly developed. And when the hat was blown away by the gust of wind that surged across the valley as the train took off which left the world temporarily, so did myself, feeling drifted away as the series ended, with sadness that the story I had grown up with did not age well but had still filled me with a sense of contentment after the eclipse ended and the characters parted ways, saying goodbyes.
