Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie #3: Confession, Part 1
I did have to take a quick refresher cause by speed-watching the first two movies (Reunion and Determination, or if you prefer their Japanese names, Saikai and Ketsui). All caught up now in Meicoomon mystery and Taichi-Yamato angst-rivalry and dead Leomon and shady government teachers and evil-but-maybe-brainwashed Digimon Kaiser and school festivals and missing Zero Two protagonists. Okay!
Mind you, I previously did the Tri movies in a single review each, but this time around I'm going to do them individually. Because I tried fitting them all in a huge article and it's too unwieldy, so it's going to be a week-long daily review release.
One of the problems by having Tri play out over several movies, each movie released every six months, means that every movie ends up winding down near the end, and every subsequent movie has to build things up to gear up for the climax. While the first two movies make it a relative necessity to start off slow -- the first to reintroduce our old friends to us, and the second to showcase the bond that Mei has with the original Chosen Children, it's not going to be a formula that's particularly conducive to telling a really good story. And there are a couple of glaring issues -- like the brief scenes of Hackmon, or the missing 02 protagonists all the way from the prologue of the first movie (two years ago!) or Maki being suspicious kind of just... there and you're just waiting for the loaded gun to go off. Yes, I benefited from marathon-ing the first two movies before watching this one, but even a fan like myself had some trouble remembering certain details about the first two movies.
And the huge amount of cliffhangers from the second movie -- the Digimon Kaiser (or Emperor, if you prefer) is back, and Meicoomon is either infected and/or evil -- are grating questions that audiences had to wait half a year before it's answered. And so the slow burn approach doesn't really work that well in terms of crafting the world and the mystery around it. On the other hand, 'Confession' seems to recognize this problem and pretty much shoves aside all school festivals and high school fun times, quickly cleaning up the school storyline from the previous movie, but it's still the part of a movie that's building up to big revelations and setting the mood.
And this movie is a different beast. Like the original Adventures series and honestly all other DIgimon series, the first one-fourth or one-third of the entire runtime tend to be slower as the children are acclimated to the Digimon world and everything around it, as we set up who our protagonists are. It's not until near the halfway point of the series that the real threats start to get built up, and while the virus infecting the Digimon is still an enigma, this movie peels back a lot more of the mystery and gives us a lot more revelations. And a good chunk of it stems from this opening episode. There are scenes showing what Meicoomon's influence in the digital world is doing on the real world -- planes not landing properly and all that jazz. Daigo confronts Maki for withholding important information from him, though she brusquely brushes him off as 'we couldn't have done anything either way'. We also get introduced to Mei's father, who we never met before and is apparently a senior member in the organization that Daigo and Maki are working with. Not a lot get resolved in this part of the movie (or indeed this movie at all) but it's nice that we're taking more steps into peeling back the mysteries around the virus, around Meicoomon, and around the Digimon Kaiser.
The Chosen Children's scenes here are more relaxed as well, playing off the strength of their characters since they can't rely on 'Digimon action sequence every ten minutes go!' that the anime does. The two poster characters this time around are Koushiro and Takeru, and the movie actually plays out differently than how I feared it would after watching the second movie -- that the poster characters will be so thrust into the spotlight that it overshadows everyone else. Fortunately, in this movie, both Koushiro and Takeru, while prominent and go through the biggest character arcs, aren't as blatantly in our face as Jou and Mimi were in the previous movie.
All the other characters get some things going on, and Mei's distraught reaction to Meicoomon's betrayal and Leomon's death is still causing the poor girl to cry all the time. Team Mom Sora is comforting and even goes to Mei's house, the more analytical Koushiro presses her to remember anything at all that might tell him about when Meicoomon got infected, Mimi is defensive and pissed off that Koushiro is so insensitive and the conflict between those two is a pretty fun highlight. Taichi and Yamato resolve their conflict from the first movie almost peacefully and Jou's newfound cheerfulness and happiness is apparent as he tries to help Koushiro out. Oh, and Mei's father, mr. mysterious government agent, is a pretty crappy father that more or less ignores his daughter despite prodding from Daigo. Oh, and he definitely knows far more than he lets on -- he seems absolutely unfazed by any of the big revelations that Daigo is telling him.
Takeru and Hikari are the closest to the 02 cast and try to look for Ken... but he's missing. I'm not sure why they're not more proactive, though, especially since they saw the Digimon Kaiser last movie. And again, I'm not sure what Daisuke and the others told them, or even if they realize that the 02 kids are missing at all -- it's kept all so vague that I'm not sure if Takeru and Hikari are just dense, or actually being duped with a believable handwave.
The big moment that makes this not entirely boring setup is Yamato confronting Maki and Daigo about what the government knows, and they just give Yamato a pretty eh cover story about them investigating Ken and how the 02 kids are safe and the government are keeping tabs on them, not telling Yamato that the 02 kids are missing. Very odd and strange that Yamato would swallow this information wholesale, but I guess we want to move forward with the plot of this movie?
Yes, the movie does spend a fair amount of time showing Mei as this crybaby 'moe' character, but for once it really kind of makes sense. Every other member of the Chosen Children have literally fought wars against demonic adversaries as children (Hikari and Takeru were like, six, seven when Adventure happened), and while they are shocked, they quickly deal with the problems in their own way, even more emotionally fragile characters like Mimi (though mind you she did outgrow the crybaby phase in Adventure's Dark Masters arc) more or less shrug the event off. They're not moving as quickly as I like, but they're moving and investigating nonetheless. Mei? All of this is new to her, she's barely okay with letting her partner fight, and to see her partner go rabid, murder one of their friends, and then escape? Poor kid's absolutely broken, and it's important to acknowledge that, I think. Also, her moment with Sora or her looking at the photograph kind of justifies the importance of the hot springs and school festival bonding scenes from the previous episode. Yes, I still feel they ran on for way too long, but even with those scenes she's an outsider to the group as far as the audience is concerned, imagine if she hasn't had those bonding moments -- she would be as irritating as any anime movie-exclusive ally character.
Speaking of which, it's probably prophetic of what's going to happen later on this movie that the ending only features the eight Adventure Chosen Children, whereas the opening and the first ending features Mei among the Chosen Children.
Koushiro gets a couple of scenes where he just doesn't find much in lieu of answers. His 'interrogation' of Mei is unintentionally hurtful and pisses Mimi off, he doesn't take care of himself so much that it spooks Jou, the resident workaholic. It's not much, but it's going to play into Koushiro's character arc for the movie. Honestly, it's clear that while Koushiro's interrogation isn't useful when dealing with a distraught, crying teenage girl, Yamato should've brought him along to talk to Maki and Daigo, and pooling their information definitely would've worked so much better. This episode (or 'part', really) is mostly just setup, though my review does talk a fair bit regarding the structure of Tri and how this movie fits and compares to the previous two, which is why it's so long.
Another complaint is that the partner Digimon still don't get much screentime, locked in the digital room in Koushiro's office. Boo! They get better later on this movie, thankfully.
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Digimon Adventure Tri. Movie #3: Confession, Part 2
Confession runs for five parts instead of four like the previous two movies, so there's actually a fair amount more meat and storytelling in the movie than its predecessors. And part of it is how relatively quickly the conflict is set up. Part 1 of this movie is spent mostly catching up, setting up the government stuff and highlighting Koushiro going increasingly obsessed. Here, though, the bigger conflict presents itself, as Takeru and Patamon take the spotlight.
We have Patamon showing the signs of infection as Takeru hugs Patamon only for it to suddenly have his eyes turn white, and he chomps down on Takeru's arm so hard it bleeds. Takeru hides it from everyone, and, yes, there are moments where the other characters had a chance to ask. Joe is confused why Takeru's arm is bleeding, but doesn't push too much. Koushiro is too exhausted to really note everything. Hikari notes the abnormal reaction Takeru has when they talk about infected Digimon, but doesn't say anything. Yamato asks Takeru what's wrong, and Takeru gives an obvious lie about Yamato's band but doesn't push further.
It's not like a partner Digimon becoming evil is unprecedented (SkullGreymon in Adventure, plus the black-spiral-corrupted Agumon in 02) but those have a very obvious fix -- SkullGreymon is a temporary Hulking-out form, and the black spiral is something that can be blasted and destroyed to return Agumon back. But here Takeru sees Patamon go feral in a way that's inherent in his partner's basic form, and the talk that the other Chosen Children has about how they have to be prepared to attack their own infected Digimon (while it's all still hypothetical to everyone but Takeru, of course) makes Takeru absolutely scared shitless.
And yes, it's stupid and irresponsible for Takeru to bugger off with Patamon to his house. Maybe if he told Koushiro earlier, they could've tried looking for curative options instead of preventive ones. Maybe the big crisis at the end of the movie could've been prevented. But it's a human response, and most of all, it's something that Takeru understands. Out of all eight of our original protagonists, Takeru's the only one who has experienced the death of his partner way, way back during the Devimon arc, and he's not ready to lose his partner in a more permanent basis. Or worse, lose him figuratively as Patamon is consumed by his infection. Seeing how horrible it is for Meiko to lose Meicoomon, the pain and confusion is doubly so for Takeru as he seeps deeper into denial.
It isolates him from the group as he brings up silly excuses for bringing Patamon home, so much that the only one he can talk to is only Meiko, the outsider of the group (who herself is keeping secrets about Meicoomon). And in a nice bit of showing the Digimon partners some agency, Patamon realises what the shit's wrong with himself, and his cheery observation that, hey, he's glitching, and his very calm and still cheerful (yet tearful) way that he tells Takeru that he doesn't mind being killed if it means not hurting Takeru is a very, very effective scene.
Perhaps a sign of Koushiro's deteriorating state of mind in this movie is how he keeps quiet during the group meeting that ends up leading with everyone bringing their Digimon home. Koushiro is literally the only one in the group that would have the intelligence and authority to really put his foot down and say what a bad idea it is (which would later lead to other leadership-types like Taichi, Joe and Yamato enforcing Koushiro's opinion) but without Koushiro's voicing of his opinions, no one even thinks that it's a bad idea. After all, as far as they know, no one's infected yet, when Patamon's already gone berserk and unseen by anyone, Agumon's also infected.
Oh, and of course, there's the scene near the end, which shows just how freaking obsessed with his work Koushiro is. Tentomon has always been one of the more interesting Digimon from the original Adventures series due to his fun, ever-supportive attitude to Koushiro despite not understanding half the technobabble that comes out of Koushiro's mouth, and he's starting to get worried... but Koushiro's so consumed with his work that like Joe from the second movie he doesn't even realize that the partner Digimon pulled a runner literally in front of him. And when the whole virus thing is a bit of a problem that they're all dealing with, it's a bit of a fatal mistake on his part.
Koushiro, Takeru, Patamon and Mei get the brunt of the screentime, but the other Chosen Children continue to be developed, which is fun. As ineffective as he was (your friend has a bleeding arm in front of you, future doctor) Joe tries to be the supportive senpai to Takeru and Koushiro, a nice continuation after him being jarred back from his depressive flunk last movie. Sora calls everyone and embraces her Team Mom status after coming into terms with it in the later legs of Adventure, but Biyomon tells her to take care and worry about herself sometimes, a nice lead-in to the Sora-centric fourth movie. There are blackouts and cryptic electronic warnings about Digimon being released shown to the government organizations, hinting at bigger conflicts to come. Even the non-Patamon Digimon get some fun moments this movie, with Gabumon just literally not giving a shit about anything, dropping a couple of 'well that's true' one-liners to get Yamato flustered, or Tailmon and Agumon's interaction. I don't remember Agumon being such a dense blockhead in the original cartoon, but Tailmon is just an irritated older sister that's just pissed that her little brother's a huge dumbass. We don't really get much from this series of interaction other than a few Tailmon/Agumon barb-trading in this movie, but it's nice that the Digimon are starting to show agency beyond being an interchangeable group of 'yay fun yay fun protect our partners' companions that they have been in the past two movies.
Oh, and in a nice nod to one of the biggest unexplained mysteries of Adventure, Hikari gets possessed by a mysterious entity once more, which is an excellent cliffhanger. I'll talk more about this in the next episode, but I absolutely am happy to see that Tri is addressing some of the biggest fan speculations and unanswered questions that were raised in Adventure and 02.
It's a slow burn, but this is a very, very solid buildup part to the movie.
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Digimon Adventure Tri. Movie #3: Confession, Part 3
Revelations! Hikari gets possessed by the same entity that possessed her at least twice in the Adventures series during the Dark Masters arc, who identifies itself as Homeostasis. More rabid Digimon fans like myself probably knows what Homeostasis is, and all the backstory only alluded to in interviews with creators or short Japan-only text stories -- and even then Homeostasis has always been vague, but anyone who only watched the original anime only knows that Hikari gets possessed randomly in something that gets shrugged off as the Digital World itself being mystical and creepy, or Hikari's innate powers. Well, now Homeostasis presents itself as the guardian of balance in the Digital World.
There's a bit of technobabble in Homeostasis's monologue and introdump that I don't fully understand, let alone the childlike Digimon (everything flies over Agumon and Palmon's head, in particular) but what Homeostasis is telling them is pretty simple. How do you deal with your computer acting up? Turn it off and on again. And Homeostasis notes that the only way to save everyone is by a great sacrifice, something that Maki surmises is a Reboot of the entire Digital World. In a conversation that's only told to the Digimon and the mysterious Maki (who still acts as a concerned teacher/government agent to them) Homeostasis notes that the only way to really deal with the Meicoomon infection is to reboot the entire digital world. Only Tailmon really understand the severity of this, though -- every single living Digimon will get rebooted by the process, returning and regressing to their base state. To put it in simple terms for Agumon: all their memories? Gone.
But the infected Digimon are wreaking havoc in the 'quantum sea' that was created by real-world technology and in turn gave rise to the Digital World, and the continual infection will cause disastrous results to both worlds -- destruction to the latter, and inability to use electronics for the former. Possibly, the quantum sea is the weird eldritch space where the 02 protagonists were defeated at the beginning of the first movie, and the location where Vikemon and Rosemon fought Imperialdramon in the second.
But the fact is, as Patamon himself has shown with his infection, there really isn't much of a choice. Time is running out, and it isn't just a matter of defeating Meicoomon. They want to save the real world that their partners live in, and while Tentomon trusts Koushiro to come up with something, the threat of losing their memories looms large above their heads. It's not a fun moment for the partner Digimon, who spend half of this part just talking and getting bombarded with revelation after revelation. First, that Patamon is infected (and he also makes the request to the other partners to end him if he goes berserk), and then the revelation by the Homeostasis-possessed Hikari and the enigmatic Maki.
There's a lot of 'what ifs' and 'mights' and these partner Digimon are scared and confused. Agumon doesn't even understand half of what's happening, confusing big words with food and getting himself scolded by big sister Tailmon at least twice during the introdump sequences -- though seeing her partner possessed by an unknown entity probably got Tailmon quite jumpy. They don't even know what they should do -- stop Meicoomon before she triggers the Reboot? Allow the Reboot to happen to save their partners and to stop Patamon (and Agumon, and Tentomon...) to be consumed by it?
Whatever the case, though, the Digimon know what's most important to them now, and in a very touching scene that makes me not mind the slow pace (which was grating in the first two movies) at all -- all eight Digimon track down their partners and just... spend time with them. All of them save for Tailmon and Tentomon are still very childlike, and while they have fought and won wars they're as much children as their partners, and like Takeru hiding Patamon's infection last episode, it's a very human reaction.
It's a very melancholic set of scenes as the Digimon bug their partners for one last day, but none of them are pushy about it. Tailmon hops onto Hikari and asks her to go shopping, sharing an ice cream with her partner and taking pictures in a photo booth. Biyomon tries to get Sora to talk about the future. Joe and Gomamon talk about Joe's girlfriend and the running gag that no one other than Joe has ever seen this 'girlfriend', and Joe wants to introduce Gomamon to her in a way that's similar to someone wanting to introduce a sibling to a girl/boyfriend. Palmon listens to Mimi and her non-stop gossiping, not understand a dang thing her hyperactive partner is saying but says that her stories are funny anyway. Agumon bugs Taichi for games and fun, but Taichi quickly calls Agumon out on his evasiveness, and Agumon ends up spilling the beans on the reboot. Takeru and Patamon are the only ones who are really faced with the reality of losing each other, and are just hugging each other in tears.
Gabumon shows up at Yamato's solo practice session and asks him to play the harmonica, but then backtracks and asks him to continue practicing the guitar. Yamato, of course, takes out the harmonica, and it's easily the most touching moment of the eight pairs. He's just playing the harmonica, shy Gabumon just stands where he was standing before, there's no acknowledgement over Yamato humouring Gabumon's request beyond shrugs, but both know why he stopped the guitar and pulled out the harmonica. And Yamato talks about memories and how they might change once he grows up into an adult, and the normally passive Gabumon suddenly puts his foot down figuratively by raising his voice and insisting that their memories will never change.
And it's a set of very powerful scenes that lasted, what, ten minutes? They're very powerful, showing just the extent of bonds that these partner Digimon share with their human partners, and considering the threat that they're facing, even without knowing the ending of this movie they are really effective.
Oh, more mysterious Hackmon scenes in-between.
While the rest of the partners are bonding, Koushiro is the only one that's still doing work. He discovers that part of the data is being overwritten into an unknown operating system due to the distortion. He can't understand the distorted data and how to convert it into normal, or even how it's different than normal, because he can't process it with his computer which will become unstable in the process. The visuals seem to show that it's the binary system (0/1) is being replaced with a system with 0's, 1's and 2's... and anyone who's been paying attention to the Digimon's evolution sequences will see that from the first movie the effects are already using the 0-1-2 system (terniary, it's called, I guess?), so are they already infected from the first movie and just don't know it?
Koushiro's frustrated. He's hit a dead end, and just breaks down due to the lack of information. Tentomon, watching his partner self-destruct, notes that not knowing something isn't the worst thing out there. And Koushiro's been giving it his all, and Tentomon notes how Koushiro used to really be happy and enjoy doing research -- definitely not what he's doing now. Turns out that Agumon isn't the only one that tells Taichi about the Reboot, as Tentomon tells Koushiro about it and the chance of something that can save the world gets Koushiro working again. Yes, the specifics of the infection, and Homeostasis, and the reboot is very vague to both Koushiro and the audience, but if nothing else the incomplete information given to us really is a great way to show how Koushiro himself feels. The Tri movies have been unsubtly showing just how much the Chosen Children's respective traits have been crippling them somewhat due to over-reliance to them and Koushiro's thirst for knowledge is no exception. He spends the better part of this movie obsessed with his lack of knowledge, and it's not until he talks to Tentomon that he finally gets reinvigorated and goes from 'desperate' to 'I have a plan'.
This part ends with Koushiro reinvigorated while Tentomon puts nothing but hope and confidence to his smart partner, all the while he's glitching. Speaking of which, the episode really makes the glitching effects work absolutely well, yeah? Especially the pan of the Digital World with some parts of trees and mountains pixelated as if my laptop's just lagging in rendering them. I may or may not have rewatched the Digital World pan a couple of times just to make sure it's part of the animation and not my computer being a tit.
All in all, this part is easily the most powerful and strongest parts of the movie in general, and so far 'Confession' is my favourite out of the three movies. Between very solid work for all the Chosen Children and their 'last moments' with their Digimon and the bits of worldbuilding via Homeostasis, as well as setting up the Meicoomon and Reboot conflicts, it's a very impactful part that moves the plot forwards while giving some of the most heartwrenching scenes Digimon's ever done. It's poetic for Koushiro's plot arc, too. Yes, all the revelations about the reboot and the Homeostasis and the quantum sea and the huge plot points are all great things to know, but the part that hits home the most are the emotional ones. That's just human.
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Digimon Adventure Tri. Movie #3: Confession, Part 4
So while I praised the buildup parts of 'Confession' for being particularly good at answering questions, presenting great character moments and picking up threads from the first two movies (something that I won't say about the earlier parts of 'Reunion' and 'Determination', if I had reviewed the movie as separate parts) nothing much has really happened. And the climax of it all comes to a huge, huge head in this fourth part. It's easily the most epic of the action sequences in Tri so far, and far more brutal as to what it means.
And what happens in the fight really makes it look like your average Digimon episode -- hey, someone unlocks a new evolution, wins the fight, and everything gets stopped before it gets too dire. Hell, you almost expect Patamon to break through the corruption and go take the Ultimate form like the previous spotlighted partners in the past two movies, but he doesn't even get to evolve past Angemon. But the angst that Patamon and Koushiro have been building up throughout the last hour isn't wasted as 'Confession' buckles the trend and actually puts a twist on the Chosen Children winning their way to victory and instead presents another huge loss. Yes, 'Determination' ends with Meicoomon being corrupted and kidnapped by the Digimon Kaiser, and Leomon dying, but at the same time none of the original eight or their partners are really hurt. Not until now. The previous three parts focuses on the possibility of the Digimon dying, or if not that being irreparably infected or memory-wiped.
And, by the way, the memory wipe as a very real and possible loss that the Digimon might go through is something that you're actually afraid will happen. Killing them off is way too dark for Digimon, and in any case, all but Mei and Meicoomon are saved by the 02 Epilogue, which establishes all Chosen Children and Digimon to be alive and well. But memory loss? They could definitely play a role there.
And the fact that this is Digimon has kind of lulled me into a sense of complacency as I'm just shrugging it off. HerculesKuwagamon and Seraphimon will show up as this movie's Ultimates (or Megas if you prefer the English translation -- the WarGreymon level, anyway) and win the day. Or Koushiro will show up with some technobabble. Or it's just a cop-out off-screen hey they actually survived deus ex machina. Or the simple tried and tested power of friendship. And make no mistake -- they all play a part in this climactic battle. All of them just failed.
This part's conflict plays out more or less predictably at first. Meicoomon appears out of the distortion, and the Chosen Children, plus Daigo and Maki, all gather. Adult forms are unleashed upon Meicoomon -- first just Greymon and Ikkakumon, and then Togemon, Birdramon and Garurumon join in the battle. But Mei's arrival and her attempt to reason with the feral Meicoomon is stopped by Yamato, because what if she gets hurt and Meicoomon goes even wilder? and then Meicoomon evolves into her Perfect form (Meicrashmon, according to supplementary material, though she's called Meicoomon throughout and so I'll call her that).
Tailmon joins in the battle and evolves into Angewomon... and so apparently Perfect evolutions are available to the kids and the lockout they experienced in 02 isn't around anymore? I mean, yeah, we did see Agumon, Gabumon, Gomamon and Palmon turn Perfect and Ultimate in the first two movies, but then why the reliance on just Adult forms in the first movie (the second one at least has the excuse of the others bar Palmon and Gomamon locked out of the fight)? Oh well. Minor quibble. It's still a pretty awesome rousing battle. Yes, Meicoomon is tough, but everyone is back to their well-oiled team status. Joe and Taichi are the first to show up, despite being reluctant to even be involved in the previous movies. Perfect evolutions are a thing to combat Meicoomon. Koushiro's working on something. There aren't any sudden interruptions by Alphamons or Imperialdramons to fuck shit up.
The battle in the distortion void is amazing, with the various large Adult forms failing to even stop Meicoomon. Takeru, however, hugs Patamon tightly and refuses to let him join the battle. No one there knows about Patamon's infection other than Takeru, and he just tells Takeru that he's off as he flies out of Takeru's hug and evolves into Angemon and for a brief moment we get an old-school Angemon/Angewomon team-up as they hold the line against Meicoomon in the distortion's gate. And ironically, Takeru's refusal and overprotectiveness of Patamon is very much reminiscent of how Takeru himself was treated throughout Adventures, where Big Brother Yamato refuses to let Takeru really be anywhere near danger out of concern for his safety, disrespecting Takeru's own wishes to help out. It's the same thing for Patamon now, where Takeru's overprotectiveness is well-meaning, but not very respectful of Patamon's wish. The presence of the Meicoomon infection is definitely a factor, but still, it's a bit of a nice, twisted parallel there.
Meanwhile, Tentomon and Koushiro are still in their office, and Koushiro makes some discoveries -- all the distortions began when Meicoomon and Mei arrived, and Koushiro theorizes that Meicoomon was infected deliberately... by Meiko? Koushiro's wording is a bit ambiguous.
Meanwhile, things go south in the battlefield as Angemon gets infected, and evil Angemon is horrifying. Since when can he beam spam the Heaven's Knuckle? While at first it seems that only Angemon is succumbing, everyone gets infected one by one. It's left ambiguous if it's triggered by Patamon entering the fray, or their proximity to Meicoomon, or whose fault is it really, but they do get infected. Togemon's soulless eyes and Ikkakumon's pupils shrinking are absolutely terrifying. Greymon's the last man standing, and while he evolves into MetalGreymon (with a brand-new stock footage sequence!) and gets a cool action sequence it's clear that he's outmatched. Especially with the doomsday clock of a Reboot happening -- something that everyone bar Taichi and Koushiro has only heard of right now.
It's literal chaos, and only the uninfected MetalGreymon and Kabuterimon have any hope of stopping their memories from being lost. Koushiro manages to whip up a backup field, and tasks the two uninfected partners to gather everyone there, but they are outnumbered and outgunned, even without Meicoomon wreaking havoc. When all seems lost Koushiro asks Tentomon to enter the field alone, so at least he'll be spared, but Tentomon refuses. He notes how MetalGreymon (who succumbs to infection right there) is fighting for everyone's sake, can he do no less? He gives a short farewell speech about how it's been a fun time, tells Koushiro to enjoy discovering new things and all that... and goes Perfect. AlturKabuterimon manages to grab Meicoomon, but the image of all the other partner Digimon infected, and then freaking WarGreymon rising from the screen with evil glowing eyes is a huge 'o shit' moment.
AlturKabuterimon turns into HerculesKabuterimon, his final Ultimate form... yet unlike Vikemon, or Rosemon, or Omegamon from the previous two movies, it's not a moment of 'oh yeah the bad guys are fucked!' HerculesKabuterimon is still outnumbered and outgunned, he gets dogpiled and pushed out of the distortion. It's not a big badass 'oh yeah new form saves the day' moment, but rather something desperate. HerculesKabuterimon manages to shake everyone awake not because of his strength, but by asking them if this is the way they want to part with their partners. Grabbing Meicoomon, HerculesKabuterimon gets the rest of the partners dogpiled onto him as he makes a lurching charge towards the distortion field as the Reboot timer goes down.
Yes, the group enters the distortion field before the Reboot timer finishes, so they don't die in the real world, but that's definitely not enough time for HerculesKabuterimon to get everyone into the backup field. And as the Reboot finishes, this part closes with our heroes in desperate tears, and Takeru's narration blaming himself for hiding the truth that Patamon was infected from everyone.
It's an amazing last stand on Tentomon's part, but spoiler alert for the next part: our heroes don't actually make it. It's a cruel, cruel way to show the hope -- Tentomon reaches his final evolution! Koushiro sets up a backup field! It would just be like an average episode of Digimon, where the emotional conflict turns out to be the catalyst for the plot device that saves the day. But no.
And really, the sad thing is? It could've been prevented. As I pointed out before, lots of the other Chosen Children have had the chance to talk to Takeru. Takeru, Mei or even the other partner Digimon could've told the others about Patamon's infection. Tentomon might've told Koushiro about the Reboot a bit earlier. Maybe Yamato letting Mei run to Meicoomon's side might've calmed her down, because this is Digimon and there's definitely precedent for that. Maybe if Patamon had not flown in the infection wouldn't have spread that quickly, and the Reboot wouldn't have been triggered. Hell, none of the kids even realize that the memories of their partners were at stake until like right during the battle. Yes, Koushiro manages to cook up the backup field thing, but as good as his efforts were, it was too late to accomplish anything -- maybe if he had more time to prepare, then the partner Digimon would've been able to enter it before literally all but one is infected.
It's a very shocking end, one that didn't end the way the first two movies ended, as not only do they fail to stop Meicoomon, but they might've lost all their partners altogether. Fortunately, this movie isn't only a four-part affair and we still have one more part to go.
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Digimon Adventure Tri. Movie #3: Confession, Part 5
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| The April's Fools version of the poster |
Well, that was certainly a huge cliffhanger that part four of 'Confession' ended in. It would be a real ballsy move to leave that as the cliffhanger for half a year before movie four answered the question if the Digimon partners survived or not. As it is, though, there's twenty minutes of the movie left. It takes a bit too much time in my opinion, but it works fine as an anime episode. Kind of like those episodes after huge explosive arcs where the heroes take some time to reflect before kick-starting the next one. Digimon Adventures itself has some of this, a particularly memorable one being the one after the Etemon arc with Taichi and Koromon sent to the real world for a day.
Here, we get a depressing montage of the Chosen Children like a week after the loss of their partners, just... walking around, milling around, and their sadness and loss are definitely felt very, very well. They're trying their best to get back to life, but none are finding enjoyment when all their favourite activities feel hollow. Hikari tries shopping. Taichi kicks a ball without energy. Takeru is just full of self-loathing. Mimi tries changing her hairstyle (a nice nod to how anime women like to change hairstyles to 'move on' from something) but changes it immediately back. It's all set to a somber piece of music and minimal dialogue other than the brief conversation between Koushiro and Takeru.
But damn it, they collectively decide that they're the fucking Chosen Children, and they'll return back to the Digital World to meet their buddies if they have to. And as Joe points out, they're older and more experienced, and they survived giant devil-men, demonic vampires, giant mutant bugs, brutish ogres, creepy puppet manchildren, giant robotic cannon-faced sea dragons, evil clowns and monkey Elvis impersonators when they were like twelve, they're older, more experienced, and fuck that noise. They're going to get their partners back.
Skipping straight to the end, they find Tokomon with Hikari's whistle, while the rest of the partners are reduced to their baby stage. But while it's hopeful and beautiful and promises a fourth movie set in the Digital World (so we don't have to see 'Japanese schoolkid drama' for the fourth time) and have the fourth movie potentially start off with a bang... it still doesn't undo the bleak ending that the partner Digimon's sacrifice did. Yes, Koushiro does what he recently learnt from Tentomon to break the ice, showing a full circle character development for him, but the partners are still without their memory, and perhaps more relevantly without their fighting powers.
The road to the Digital World is a bit... bumpy, though. Takeru tries to get Mei to come, but Mei just locks herself in her room and blames herself for everything. Considering Mei's personality it's a bit ambiguous whether it's literally her fault and she did something to cause Meicoomon to get infected, or she's just being a self-blaming moe. Takeru and Mei are guilty of the same thing -- knowing their partner is infected and not telling anyone -- but the difference is that Takeru admits his mistakes and is willing to fix it by going back to the Digital World and starting anew with Tokomon. Mei? Mei cries in her room and is full of self-loathing.
We also get a flashback to Mei's first encounter with Meicoomon, which... really shows that the two met not recently, but a fair while back. The fact that her father's apparently a part of a Digimon research team and the fact that the infections only began recently raises all sorts of questions.
Also raising questions are the big revelations we're bombarded in the finale. Yes, the Digital World isn't quite right. There are sparks and pixelated parts of trees which may just be stylistic choices or a sign that the Reboot didn't quite go well. But most importantly are the Royal Knights (which would be significant for those who's familiar with the Frontier and Savers series, as well as the Digimon games) Alphamon and Jesmon being thrown in front of us. The fact that two Digimon reached Ultimate forms so quickly after the reboot is worrying, but it's a bit weird and honestly this might be better served shown as part of next movie's opening scene. It's one thing to have the two just fight and all, but to have Koushiro straight-up boot up his laptop to look for Jesmon information just kind of makes it an odd transition between their determination to reach the Digital World, their journey back there (with shades of the original episode, too!) and meeting their partner.
Side-note... Jesmon is such a freaking awesome-yet-weird design, isn't he? Alphamon is basically a big black-coloured Gundam, but Jesmon, in addition to being a humanoid gundam with blades for arms, legs and tail, and a red cape that keeps wrapping around himself, is also surrounded by three flying fire-orbs with claws. Of course, he's the Ultimate form of the Hackmon that lurks mysteriously in these past three movies, but at this point the dude's like Thanos in the MCU -- he gets like five or six seconds of screentime per movie that counts as buildup and we're just waiting for him to really be relevant. In any case, though, we know Alphamon and Jesmon is going to be important but it's not addressed at all in this movie or the next, so it's... irritating.
Meicoomon's seen briefly and she still remembers Meiko, so definitely there's something absolutely wrong with Meicoomon that's not fixed by the Reboot, so tragically whatever the sacrifices the Chosen Children and Digimon made, and the manipulations that Homeostasis and Maki makes might just be for naught if Meicoomon's going to fuck everything up with her infection again.
Oh, and Maki's in the Digital World, too. Her motivations are murky. She's definitely using the Chosen Children for her own purposes, but she doesn't really feel that evil, and she really encourages more than manipulates. She goes out of her way to help Hikari when she gets possessed by Homeostasis, she's cooperating with Koushiro to open the Digital World gate... and later shows up unseen in the Digital World to meet with the Digimon Kaiser from the second movie... who shimmers and reveals himself to be Young Gennai. Which raises all sorts of questions. Are Maki and Gennai villains? Are Maki and Gennai helping the Chosen Children... which involves wiping the partner Digimon's memories... for some reason? It's all confusing, and half the audience probably don't recognize Young Gennai either. I certainly didn't -- I remember old Gennai and had to look up who the Kaiser transformed into.
Worth noting that yet another plot point that Adventure and 02 never really covered is the black orb that Piemon shoved into Gennai's neck during a flashback to the creation and rescue of the eight chosen Digimon, so it's likely that Young Gennai might just be evil.
Also, Maki has a black D-3 Digivice... that the Chosen Children find curious but doesn't question? Wait, what? Come on, now. Also, this movie marks the first appearance of the D-Terminal, though that, too, belongs to Maki.
Still, seeding seeds for future movies isn't really a huge black mark and it adds substance that makes this less of a drawn-out epilogue and it's still easily a very strong ending to easily the best movie in Tri so far.
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