Rewatched June 2nd, 2024
As a fan who grew up watching the original 1999 anime, I was excited to dive back into the Digimon Adventure world. When these films were first announced, I was ecstatic at the visual direction the series was going to be taking. Each movie in this 6 film series was accompanied by incredibly breathtaking illustrations. Needless to say, I was stoked.
The first film, Reunion, starts out on a rocky foot. Original Chosen Children are strangely characterized from their original iterations, almost feeling like hollow imitations of their former selves. The cast of the 2nd season’s original anime are nowhere to be found, despite having tight ties to the original casts’ Takeru and Hikari.
While the art is nice, the animation is not. A lot of animation looks choppy, with very minimal action. Very disappointing from a series with mythical kaiju creatures who battle each other. Digivolution scenes, once masterfully hand animated, are produced with soulless, 3D models of the partner Digimon. Many of the models do not look good in motion, which is the whole point of the evolution scenes.
The addition of new character Meiko Mochizuki and her partner, Meicoomon (who, both are called Mei and Mei-chan respectively. Just wildly confusing) feel like shoe ins to have something interesting happen to the cast. Any characters who actually keep their fun personalities are gutted from scenes and barely get any screen time.
The second film, Determination, focuses on the best maintained characters in these films, Joe and Mimi. It’s downright disappointing then, that after this movie, they are cast aside for the Meiko and Meicoomon plot. I found myself more captivated in the relationship between Mimi and Palmon, who are separated because of Mimi’s endeavors overseas, and Joe and Gomamon, the latter of which feels helpless as his partner would rather focus on studying rather than being together.
It was disappointing to come back to both of these films, and I don’t have hope for the rest of the films.
REUNION
My rating: ⭐⭐1/2
LETTERBOXD: https://letterboxd.com/film/digimon-adventure-tri-part-1-reunion/
TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ1HyoHXQ-c
DETERMINATION
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐
LETTERBOXD: https://letterboxd.com/film/digimon-adventure-tri-part-2-determination/
TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovYCdPC-rNY