Digimon Adventure Tri M06 Review: Mostly Recapping

Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie 6 - Bokura no Mirai, Part 1

Welcome to my coverage of the final installment of Digimon Adventure Tri, "Our Future". Tri is such a bizarre beast due to the way it's released -- a plotline that would be perhaps better suited for a season of anime episodes is instead executed in a series of movies that spanned four years. I'm not sure if this was a series of storylines initially meant for seven movies instead of six or if they truly over-estimated how much of the screentime they would be given the time to discuss in this final installment. Whatever the case, though, my view towards "Our Future" is a lot more lukewarm than the rest of Tri. A good part of it is, of course, due to the fact that I've recently rewatched Digimon Adventure and a significant chunk of 02, and the sheer tone change is... pretty huge. Add that to a huge amount of mysteries that are built up and never truly solved... yeah.

Still, the fifth movie ended up setting up for a huge climax, and for all its faults, the fifth movie did its job admirably well with the unenviable job of having to wrap up a bunch of B-plots as well as also set up for the finale. And the sixth movie... basically recaps the climax of the previous movie with a lot of reused footage. Which is sort of unavoidable, I suppose, for a movie released nearly half a year apart from its predecessor, but it's definitely somewhat annoying considering just how much of the actual sixth movie's screentime is devoted to a recap... and then spends even more time setting up the whole "oh noes, we're desperate and it's our darkest hour" deal. Hikari spends a good chunk of this movie in a daze as she's coming to terms with the possible death of her brother -- it's annoying since it takes her out of a good chunk of the movie, but realistic.

And then we have way, way too many scenes of the apparent 'leaking' of the Digital World as it swallows the real world. The visuals of Ordinemon as this ungodly-ugly angel abomination is pretty neat, but when they keep focusing on the generic animation of "the corners of buildings are disintegrating!" it's way, way less impressive than what the movie thinks it is. Particularly egregious because even in Tri we've seen far more impressive scenes of Digimon causing destruction in the real world, to say nothing of other Digimon series. We've got Hackmon and Koushiro delivering some recap about who the elusive and unseen bad guys, Yggdrassil and Homeostasis, are. We also get to see some ominous scenes of Hackmon talking to Meiko's dad in the vague military building, but with Daigo and Maki out of the picture, this part of the plot ends up getting whole-heartedly dropped away. The episode can basically be summed up with "a bunch of recaps, the kids return, Ordinemon arrives ominously at the end".

Still, as much as the pacing and power-scaling impressiveness of Tri genuinely stumbles in this movie, Tri does what it does best with character interactions, and that's just about the biggest selling point of this series. The moment when Yamato takes charge, and then both he and Sora stops while the rest of the groups walks on, for them to try and come to terms with the fact that Taichi might be gone (he isn't and the movie doesn't really do a huge job to hide it), and the sobbing half-denial of Sora going "he wouldn't die, right?" is pretty well delivered.

(Meanwhile, Taichi's partner Koromon, is in full optimistic denial mode, and he just wants to nom on food.)

And as the Chosen Children/Digidestined arrive on the real world, we get a brief bit of downtime that... honestly feels genuinely filler-y and makes me really pissed that the Digimon are essentially just one-note joke delivery systems or action scene props, something that's never quite as blatant in the previous movies that at least allowed some focus for the Digimon. This part of the movie at least gives us a great scene for Gabumon, giving Yamato a much-needed hug. Gabumon doesn't pretend to understand the huge burdens of responsibility and conflict going around in Yamato's head, but he doesn't have to -- all he wants to do is just be Yamato's partner and by god he'll do whatever needs to be done to help Yamato. That scene is pretty damn powerful, and its the scenes like these that really make me appreciate Digimon Tri for what it is -- a series of very character-driven scenes of these kids approaching adulthood. Shame that the rest of the story suffers poorly for it. 

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Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie 6 - Bokura no Mirai, Part 2

The second part of "Bokura no Mirai" is basically a somewhat extended action scene, which is... actually pretty decently done. The digivolution montage to Mega/Ultimate form is pretty neat (if, as always, a bit repetitive) and really hammers in the desperation for the Chosen Children as they fail to really do anything to Ordinemon other than to get her cry in anguish and pain. As much as Ordinemon is basically just a screeching unstoppable generic anime monster, the animation staff makes it really look like a tortured soul.

The whole destruction montage of the real world, on the other hand, isn't super impressive, although the sight of the parents in a bunker (which brings to mind the whole parents sub-arc during the Vamdemon arc) is a neat way to hammer home the whole "oh no, characters that care about the main characters are in danger". Oh, and helps to drive in the whole Taichi is maybe-dead deal. Which, of course, isn't a thing, as we find out later in this episode.

Yggdrassil basically takes on the form of the Digimon Kaiser and Evil Gennai at various parts of this movie and honestly without a real concrete answer to what Yggdrassil is it's a  bit jarring to see this program taking the form of characters that don't appear here. We get Yggdrassil-Kaiser talking to Hackmon, the agent of Homeostasis, and it's basically the same order-vs-chaos argument we've heard before, although I suppose for those who don't rewatch the previous movies it's a neat reminder. The  Kaiser does raise a good point -- what good is Hackmon's vaunted order if he's just going to blow everything straight to hell anyway?

Hackmon also meets the Chosen Children after this conversation, at which point Koushiro figures out that Hackmon is Jesmon, and there was a bit where they are about to blame Hackmon for what happens to Taichi. (Whatever happened to Alphamon, I wonder? And why does Hackmon retain his memories after the reboot? Ah, the unanswered questions). Hackmon delivers this huge talk about just how the digital world's "grammar" is taking over the real world, and Hackmon/Homeostasis has basically decided to reboot the whole thing again -- this time on the side of the real world.

Yamato, whose character arc is perhaps the most solid in this sixth movie, sort of wavers, but concedes that Taichi would've wanted the path of least casualties. Koushiro ends up going for the opposition and leaves the team, because the whole world is run by electronics and rebooting them all would cause insane amounts of chaos. There's Koushiro's brief character moment for this movie -- and this movie basically shoves the other secondary Chosen Children like Mimi and Jo into the background, so it's nice that Koushiro gets a mini-mini-character arc in this one. Koushiro throws himself straight into work, just like what he did back when he's trying to figure out the reboot for the first time, but here he's grown from his obsessive one-mindedness and allows Tentomon to come in and drink some tea with him to take a break. Good job, Koushiro! Speaking of neat character moments, we get a neat bit with Meiko being a bit more resolute and agreeing with being the bait to lure Ordinemon to the ocean, Agumon being a bit more optimistic and just eating a lot to prepare for when -- not if -- Taichi comes back. The pacing, again, isn't good, because there's just a huge swath where they're just talking while Ordinemon is just vaguely rampaging, but the character moments are neat.

The final ten or so minutes finally stops dancing around and pretending that Taichi isn't dead, and shows that he and a very bloody Daigo have appeared in some base that belongs to... Yggdrassil? It's a neat enough storyline, I suppose, albeit if we're in somewhat obviously "let's deal with these side-quests" territory. We quickly discover the 02 kids, silhouetted and shoved into stasis tubes. Also among the 02 kids is the real Gennai, a fact that I didn't even realize until it was pointed out to me -- the actual movie never mentions this. We get a quickfire plot rundown, with Daigo basically confirming to Taichi that Maki's sort of dead after her complicity in bringing about the reboot... it's a bit dark, and I'm genuinely surprised that what we got in the fifth movie is just how we deal with Maki's character.

We also talk about just why the Zero Two Kids are missing, because apparently they were removed (by Alphamon, lest we forget) after they found out Yggdrassil's plan... and that's about all we get on that front. Maki ordered Daigo to cover it up. Again, it all sort of makes sense, although there is a lot of questions that remain in the air. Chief of which is just what happened to Veemon and the other 02 partner Digimon? It's also a bit irritating just why the 02 kids are kept in shadow literally all the time.

We then quickly get Not-Gennai, ranting like the maniac that he is (because, if you haven't figured out, Not-Gennai and Not-Kaiser are the same crazy agent of Yggdrassil) gives Daigo and Taichi a sadistic choice. Apparently Not-Gennai put in a Saw-esque timer, stopping the life support systems of the 02 Kids and leaving only a single pod available for Taichi or Gennai to send them to the real world. Of course, with Daigo being older, not a main character and also dying so that the choice isn't that hard, Daigo tricks Taichi into checking the empty stasis pod before locking him in and sending the 02 Kids, Taichi and real Gennai into the real world. It's... it's well-executed for sure, and quite tense, but honestly feels more of a distraction than anything.

Taken in a vacuum, this episode's pretty great. All the storylines executed are done well, but at the same time there's a huge chunk of additional subplots that sort of lead to a not-so-satisfying conclusion -- the Maki story and the 02 kids in particular. I suppose Daigo's story is okay, but not quite the best. Add the fact that Homeostasis and Yggdrassil never really develops beyond some vague idea of order-vs-chaos that operate mainly through proxies, and it's definitely a disappointment in some parts. 

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Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie 6 - Bokura no Mirai, Part 3

The first chunk of this part is just resolving the Taichi/Daigo plot from part 2 of "Our Future", which I kind of already covered in part in the previous episode. Again, it's a well-executed storyline taken in a vacuum, and it's the problems with Tri as a whole that bring the series down from what it could've been. The sacrifice is expected, but still done well with a definite "passing the torch to the next generation" moment between Daigo and Taichi. Again, though, there's a slight bit eye-rolling because sacrificing Daigo is pretty obvious from the moment Daigo's shown bleeding and half dead. And that's not counting the contrived coincidence of how the two of them apparently ended up in the same place as the 02 kids after falling into the fissure. And that Yggdrassil is willing to give a sadistic choice that actually works. Taichi stays out of most of the rest of this part, though, other than the offscreen confirmation by Koushiro to Yamato that "someone" sent the Zero Two kids to the hospital, basically concluding their minimal cameo-involvement here.

Meanwhile, while the Chosen Children get Ordinemon into the ocean, the partner Digimon, rightfully so, are far, far more worried about Tailmon and Meicoomon more than the whole world-ending stuff, which is a bit of a neat little thing. Oh, and Hikari also wakes up in response to... Tailmon, I guess? This episode feels way, way more like a 'get from point A to point B' moment, with a bunch of screentime taken up by repetitive introdumps and action scenes. We get to see more 'digimon wreak havoc in the real world', but this series clearly don't really have much time to focus on the supposedly main digimon, let alone for dudes like Phantomon and Kokatorimon, who basically have extended cameos.

We get the military doing generic missile stuff to Ordinemon and I think the movie misses a huge opportunity by not showcasing the only character involved in the military we care about -- Meiko's dad. We do get some neat giant-wing shadow tentacle-arms bit from Ordinemon, and the evolution sequences do a pretty neat job of showcasing just how dire things are -- apparently everyone only has energy to evolve into their adult forms other than WereGarurumon. It's a bit disappointing since their Ultimate forms ended up not doing much, but we do get some neat scenes with the Adults, so...

As with the previous parts, the makers of this series clearly puts more stock in the whole characterization thing. We get a conversation with Meiko and Hari ckmon, and I really wished Hackmon hasn't spent his entire amount of screentime in Tri insisting Homeostasis is neutral and very much neutral, otherwise this conversation would probably have more weight. Meiko does show a fair bit of growth, though, not running away or shying from her responsibility.

Meanwhile, Hikari and Takeru run through the streets, with HolyAngemon fighting a bunch of Evilmon (or Vilemon for English speakers)... and in perhaps one of the bigger showcases of poor power scaling, Evilmon is the sort of fodder character that HolyAngemon quite literally wiped out an entire army of alongside their master back in his first appearance. Really, did they run out of Vamdemons and Pinnochimons for HolyAngemon to fight? The Fake Kaiser pops up in front of Takeru and Hikari and goes through this huge spiel about how the fate of the world can't be handed over to humans who keel over and pass out over something as 'trivial' as emotions, before summoning Devimon against Takeru and HolyAngemon as the exact manifestation of said emotion. It's a shame this part of the episode feels so rushed and we don't quite get as much reaction to Takeru and HolyAngemon confronting mortality or the first villain that caused a death in Adventure, because it's all just brushed off as Takeru and HolyAngemon being super-mature and resolute.

The episode ends with Hikari going into one of her visions -- which honestly feels a bit trite at this point -- and seeing Wizardmon leading her somewhere... some deus ex machina, and as much as I do appreciate the Adventure callbacks with Devimon and Wizardmon (I am still a fanboy, after all, and I can't deny that I squeed like a little kid when those two showed up), they're so minimally used at this point that I honestly think why they even bothered. I appreciate not giving them huge spotlight-stealing screentime, but I don't think I appreciate not milking out these emotional gut-punches for what they're worth. 

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Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie 6 - Bokura no Mirai, Part 4

The first chunk of this story is... kind of expected, what with the focus on Hikari and her visions. As Koushiro notes, it's just kind of Hikari's power and you just kind of have to roll with it. Hikari basically gets led by Wizardmon through the weird white space where she meets the crying spirit of the Meicoomon and gets to talk with Tailmon, confirming that, yes, their partners are still alive and conscious within the huge pool of madness within Ordinemon. It's a neat scene, although one that I wished had a bit more buildup. It does kind of end up being the catalyst for Hikari's growth, though, into a more resolute person as opposed to someone that relies a lot on others. It's a character arc that has been inconsistent throughout both 02 and Tri, but there we go.

That said, I really do like just how much Koushiro just takes Hikari's vision and shrugs it as very logical evidence. He's a smart, science-y man, yes, but he's also seen a lot of shit. Empirical evidence! I liked that bit. Of course, the reboot doomsday countdown happens, because you have to have a countdown. Yamato gets a scene where he looks like he's about to bash Hackmon's face in when he pops up just to inform the Chosen Children that, hey, the reboot is about to begin. Yamato gets a cool line saying that the Chosen Children aren't doing this for any sort of balance or saving the world, but are just going to end this on their own terms.

Meanwhile, it's around this point that the action scenes genuinely feel pretty awesome, with Togemon being the unexpected MVP, getting the most impressive action scenes out of the five partner Digimon that hold the line against Ordinemon. We get some fun acrobatics from WereGarurumon and some neat fireball animation from Birdramon, but it's Togemon and her insane jumping around and spinning around, pretty unlikely considering how all the other partners are kind of in their element. Good show, Togemon. Good show.

Ordinemon, meanwhile, continues to show off more crazy anime-final-villain powers, like having her feathers transform into shadowy Devidramons. The military apparently has a military cage that actually does something. It's not quite as impressive as the... Shoggoth or Yuggoth that they used in Digimon Tamers, and it's honestly a bit irritating to have the military sort of take so much screentime with repetitive shots of tanks firing, but eh.

We get the revelation from Koushiro that apparently all the Digimon World's data (or the partner Digimon's data? It's not quite made clear) is saved within Meicoomon during the original reboot back in Movie #4, which is... pretty damn convenient and honestly I wished we had some foreshadowing. It does take a bit of fiddling -- with the hints that the kidnapping of Meicoomon by Not-Kaiser is the reason that Meicoomon's memories got locked away, and the other Digimon and/or the data backup field apparently transferred their memories into the same mental box within Meicoomon, it's kind of a reason to get a way to restore everyone's memories. There's a neat little emotional base in Meicoomon recovering her own memories, and a bit of a cheesy-but-somewhat-heartwarming bit that it's the Kansai dialect "Dan-dan!" thank you that is the password. It's done well, again, but I really just wished that the continuity from point A to point B was done better, and that there were some better foreshadowing and a hint as to the fact that the backup field actually worked.

We also get a brief cameo of the international Chosen Children (although not specific ones that we saw in 02... or at least none I remember), and a montage of everyone's memories being restored -- although it's all in silhouette form because it's too expensive to reanimate Adventure moments. We do get a Yukidarumon cameo, though.

And as the newfound emotion and information causes Ordinemon to fight a war within herself, apparently this causes all the random faceless, personality-less Digimon that have been apparently rampaging off-screen to get sucked into the big giant portal she creates? Tailmon is straight-up fighting to get back to Hikari, and ends up being freed by Hackmon/Jesmon, who swoops in to surgically slice Tailmon out of Ordinemon, before disappearing and letting the Chosen Children handle the rest of the conflict. Again, it's a cool moment, but at the same time I really wished Hackmon had more time to grow as an actual charater as opposed to just being a plot device that gets touched by Yamato and Meiko's speech.

Of course, as Tailmon gets freed, apparently Ordinemon continues rampaging because Yggdrassil has taken over the space vacated by Tailmon, leading to the final fight and final part. 

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The final part of Digimon Adventure Tri is... serviceable. It deals with the plotlines that "Our Future" has chosen to focus on, doesn't really elaborate much on much of any of the secondary storylines that the movie has sort of gently but unsubtly pushed aside. We quickly get the honestly somewhat overdramatic return of Action Hero Taichi as he swoops in to save both Agumon and Meiko in a single move, and after a bit of a bro-nod with Yamato, they quickly bring out Omegamon as the Chosen Children's literal biggest gun faces off against Ordinemon. It's cool, of course, as much as it is predictable and something that's sort of a given.

The confrontation between Hikari and Taichi is an interesting one, though. Hikari is the optimist in this one, asking for Taichi to try his best to save Meicoomon. The way the scene is done isn't with tears or the sobbing of Hikari as the youngest member of the group or a little sister, though, but it is delivered like a conversation between equals in a team. It's a neat but subtle maturation on Hikari's part. Likewise, Taichi's reply to her, telling Hikari to 'stay that way' and that she can 'hate me all you want', but as the leader, he doesn't waffle anymore and knows that he has to make a resolute decision to save their future. (Hence, the title of the movie). It's a bit harsh, but also shows just how much Taichi has matured compared to his waffling around in the first movie. Arguably it's still a bit of a headscratcher considering how resolute Taichi's been in both Adventure and 02, but within the confines of Tri Taichi gets a pretty neat character arc resolution as the sacrifice of the partner digimon -- and more obviously Daigo -- has apparently caused him to mature a lot.

And then Hikari decides to fight alongside them -- she doesn't like the decision, but she acknowledges that it's best if the team fights as one, and Tailmon evolves into her final, true Ultimate form -- Holydramon. As someone who's been with this franchise from way back when, I've always thought of Tailmon's final evolution as Holydramon first and Ophanimon second, despite everyone wanting Ophanimon to be a humanoid angel parallel to Patamon's Seraphimon, but apparently the anime staff shares my love for this fat dog-faced pink blob dragon. (In any case, it is sort of established that both Ophanimon and Holydramon are definitely 'canon' for Adventure's Tailmon).

And the mass Ultimate battle between Ordinemon and the Chosen Children's Digimon is pretty neat, with Holydramon flying straight into Ordinemon's face to blast her. Meanwhile, the shots of the Chosen Children are those of pretty resolute adults -- not everyone is stone faced, because we've got Yamato flustering for a moment before that fist-bump, we've Takeru and Hikari clearly being more troubled, but they're resolute, and even Meiko realizes what's to be done. Her digivice turns white in response to her cry, which prompts Omegamon's new Tron-Angel form. Omegamon's Mercy Form or whatever it's called slices off Ordinemon's wing-arms before bisecting Ordinemon herself, leading to a final goodbye with Meicoomon via the white dimension. It's actually pretty well-done moment as Meicoomon says goodbye to Meiko with a cheerful but melancholic "dan-dan" as she disintegrates... and unlike most Digimon material, we don't get an epilogue showing a Digimon egg being reborn (yet, anyway) or something along those lines, driving home the more mature sensibilities of Tri.

Of course, it's not over yet. The victory is less of a triumph and more of a tired responsibility for these older Chosen Children. The public still absolutely hates the Digimon, Meiko has to return back to her own home, and the Not-Kaiser/Gennai entity is still on the loose, juggling his corrupting black box and wondering if he's going to bring out Daemon or Diaboromon next. If it's any consolation, though, Homeostasis has apparently shut down Yggdrassil and Koushiro's made a portal for the Digimon to visit, and we get a fun bit as Yamato considers becoming an astronaut and Taichi calls Meiko.

Ultimately, though, it's far from the perfect sequel to Adventure or 02. Many of the side characters end up being more or less just exposition pieces (Hackmon/Jesmon in particular), Homeostasis and Yggdrassil never really develops beyond a vague concept of ideas, the mysteries behind Not-Gennai is laid on too thick, the constant and almost-memetic hiding of the 02 Kids, the lack of exploration of the actual digital world beyond the 8 partner Digimon, the sheer over-reliance on stock footage... yet Tri still ends up being a pretty fun, if unexpectedly melancholic, entry in the Digimon franchise. I wouldn't count this among my most favourite of Digimon fiction, but it's pretty good, all things considered.