Last time, on Digimon Tri. Tai and the others have grown up and actually look like actual humans. The world doesn’t know what Digimon are despite the fact that they’ve invaded the world on numerous occasions. Infected Digimon begin invading our world with the season 1 cast fighting them off. The season 2 casts is nowhere to be found and nobody seems to care. A new character named Meiko and her Meicoomon are introduced to the team. It’s hinted that she likes Tai, an obvious ploy to get us to overlook Matt and Sora getting together. Personal issues are explored with the characters as Ken returns as the Digimon Emperor and kidnaps Meicoomon. Mega evolutions are done to save Meicoomon who reveals that she’s the cause of the infected Digimon and kills Leomon. Won’t he ever get a break? Oh no~, Patamon gets infected and tells the others to kill him when the time comes. The Digimon receive a visit from the Digimon god who tells them that they have one last chance to stop Meicoomon before they initiate the reboot which will erase their memories. The Digimon fight Meicoomon and fail to stop her thus the reboot begins. The Digidestined return to the Digital World to find their friends and Gennai has gone evil on us. What changes have happened to the Digital World? Can the Digidestined stop Meicoomon? Why is Gennai evil and which baddies are back after the reboot? Find out, same Digimon time, same Digimon channel.
Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Welcome to the second part of my review of Digimon Tri. After the end of the third movie everyone had so many questions going through their minds about the reboot and what it meant. Was Wizardmon back? Was Leomon back? Was Devimon back? Myotismon? Were the Dark Masters here? There were so many questions that everyone had and some questions were answered while others were not. Let’s continue our review.
In the fourth movie we start off where we left off in the third one. The group has reunited with their digimon who don’t remember them at all and are actually a little bit afraid of them. Thus, everyone does their best and takes things slow so that they can re-establish their bond with their partners. This seems to work except with Sora and Yokomon, as Yokomon keeps her distance away from Sora and doesn’t open up to her at all (stop breaking up the band Yoko). They also come across Meicoomon who has retained her memories meaning she’s still infected and is looking for Meiko (she decided to be a lazy bitch and didn’t come). With the sun going down they decide to eat and make plans to find Meicoomon so that they can reunite her with Meiko. As they decide to do this, the digimon just spontaneously evolve into their rookie forms.
Back in the real world, Nishijima is looking for Meiko who has mysteriously disappeared along with Himekawa. He manages to hack into Himekawa’s computer where he discovers that she’s been researching the reboot for some time now. Why? To get back her partner, Taprimon. It turns out that Nishijima and Himekawa were some of the original original Digidestined who fought the Dark Masters in the past and almost lost. Before the Digidestined were defeated, Homeostasis appeared and evolved four of the five Digimon there into the Digimon Sovereigns (the Digital World version of the Four Saint Beasts) who sealed away the Dark Masters for the time being but in the process had to sacrifice Taprimon who unfortunately would not be reborn. After this event Himekawa became obsessed with trying to bring back Taprimon and thought that if she did a reboot it would bring her back (and in the process undo everything you set out to do). Returning to the Digital World we see Sora is still upset at how distant Biyomon has been. Tai and Matt try to cheer her up (that plan goes about as well as say Tai forcefully trying to evolve Agumon and getting Skullgreymon instead) but instead only upsets her more (you two don’t understand women at all). They then receive a visit from a familiar face, Machinedramon, who attacks the group and the Digimon can’t digivolve (https://youtu.be/KyoElzBhbXg). Just before Machinedramon one-shots the group, a distortion teleports them all to different parts of the Digital World. Tai, Gabumon, Kari, and Salamon are in a forest; Matt, Izzy, Gomamon, and Agumon are in a wasteland (where you can practically see the heat lines); Mimi and Tentomon are at Shogungeckomon’s castle (will we get to hear Mimi sing again?); Joe, Patamon, and Palmon are by the ocean; TK is in Primary Village; and Sora and Biyomon are in the dessert where they come across Meiko who somehow got transported into the Digital World (the power of bullshit knows no bounds).
Back with Nishijima he comes face to face with Hackmon (and for those of you wondering it’s pronounced ‘huck’ not ‘hack’. Like Huckleberry Hound) who explains that he’s a messenger and overseer of Homeostasis acting in place of Gennai (who to be honest should have been the first choice. I mean let’s be honest, Gennai did a terrible job overseeing the Digital World. Imagine, Devimon causing trouble. Hackmon shows up and evolves into Jesmon. Sword to the brain! Followed by Etamon, Myotismon, the Dark Masters, and especially Myotismon). Gennai has gone evil on us and Himekawa is working with a being called Yggdrasil (who I’m going to assume is the digimon devil) who wants to create a new world order where digimon and humans don’t interact with each other. Returning back to the Digital World, Sora, Meiko, and Biyomon make it out of the desert and into a forest where they find Meicoomon who is pissed about Meiko abandoning her (to be fair, you ran away first) but Meiko manages to calm her down. Their touching moment gets ruined with the arrival of Gennai and Machinedramon who try to capture Meicoomon. Using the distortions, everyone reunites and rescues the three where they make their way to a ship (the S.S Digitanic) where they can’t get it to run so they have no choice but to make a stand here. Tai, Matt, and Hikari along with their partners go to distract Machinedramon while the others get to safety but Gennai sees through their plan and calls in Metalseadramon who knocks them into the ocean, and Machinedramon goes after the others who are hiding in the glacier. As we approach the end of this movie Tai, Matt, and Kari strengthen their bonds with their digimon where they’re able to evolve once again. Agumon and Gabumon digivovle to their mega forms and defeat Metalseadramon while Salamon evolves into Gatomon. Back with the others, Sora and Biyomon are able to bond with each other and after Sora saves her, she evolves into her mega form which is Phoenixmon (wow, she went from a bird dragon to a straight up bird of fire). Now, many people felt this evolution was rushed but personally I don’t think so. Most of the movie focused on Sora and Biyomon’s relationship and Sora having to come to terms that the Biyomon she sees now isn’t the same Biyomon she once knew and has to accept that. If we’re talking about rushing things than look no further than Patamon. Herculeskabuterimon and Seraphimon the mega evolutions of Patamon help Phoenixmon take down Machinedramon and save the others. Now this was rushed. While it’s cool to see Patamon’s mega evolution the build up to it was done horribly. TK and Patamon barely had any scenes where they could talk with each other and barely had a role in this movie. I guess it’s to make up for the last movie, but it could have been done better. Despite everyone’s best efforts, Gennai still manages to attack Meiko and this in turn infuriates Meicoomon.
At the start of the fifth movie, Gennai chokes out Meiko which causes Meicoomon to go berserk and digivolve where it infects other Digimon and opens up distortions all over the world (well this won’t end well). The infected Digimon enter our world where they don’t do anything they just stand around (still loading. Ready in 10 seconds. 30 seconds. 1 minute. 10 minutes. Error has occurred please restart download). We find out from Hackmon that Meicoomon holds a shard of Apocalymon’s data which is what gives her this tremendous power. Homeostatis sent Meicoomon to Meiko in the hopes that having a partner would suppress the dangerous powers within Meicoomon. At first, that did the job but her tremendous power slowly started to leak out and once it did it was all downhill from there. Homeostatis had to move on to plan B which was the reboot but not even that was able to save Meicoomon and now Homeostatis is left with no other option but to destroy Meicoomon (the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few). Back with the Digidestined, they try to make it back to our world but have no luck. On top of that, the Digital World is starting to reject them (can’t say I blame it, you failed. You had one job). They eventually do make it back to our world where the public has turned on the Digimon and consider them dangerous (oh now acknowledge their existence. Was that before or after they started attacking?). They get chased by the police but hide the Digimon in Izzy’s pocket dimension before they get brought in for questioning. Nishijima takes custody of them and hides them at the school (ugh, going to school in the summer. It’s like a nightmare).
They all find out what’s going on and just try to relax until Meicoomon shows up again. It’s around this time that they actually have more Tai and Meiko scenes (as they’re trying to build a connection between the two. Should have done that sooner in the earlier movies). Meicoomon finally returns and once again they try to talk to her and get her to calm down (please let us help you?) but it doesn’t work (okay, good cop over). Jesmon shows up and begins fighting against Meicoomon where she digivovles to her mega form which begins erasing everything around them. As the fight goes on the Digidestined begin fighting both Meicoomon and Jesmon with Homeostasis telling them to stop acting foolish (which I have to agree. It’s too late to save Meicoomon. If you let her live she’ll destroy the world. Stop acting like kids and make the sacrifice to save the world). Alphamon soon joins the fight and eventually comes down to Omegamon, Alphamon, Meicoomon, and Jesmon fighting each other. Meiko finally does something and tells the group to destroy Meicoomon (in order to save her, we must destroy her). Tai says okay while the others object to this resolution from Tai. As the battle goes on, Jesmon fires a beam which opens up a fissure in the ground which swallows up Tai and Nishijima as they fall off a cliff. In the aftermath of the fight, Kari becomes engulfed with corrupt data code which transfers over to Gatomon and forces her to digivovle into Ophanimon falldown mode (honestly, they could have just called it Medusamon and I would have totally been okay with that). Ophanimon creates a dark portal and merges with Meicoomon to become Ordinemon (and we’re fucked). Ordinemon causes a universal blackout in the real world which prompts the infected Digimon to start moving (and we’re fucked hard). Soon the real world will be swallowed up by the Digital World (at least we’ll have free wi-fi 24/7). As everyone loses hope, Matt grabs Tai’s goggles and rallies everyone to keep on fighting to end the movie (I love how they play this scene out like Tai is really dead. They honestly expect us to believe that Tai, the leader of this series is dead and not coming back. You aren’t fooling anyone).
In the final movie, we begin with the rest of the Digidestined returning to the real world but not before Sora admits to Matt that she might possibly have feelings for Tai (sorry Matt. I was rooting for you). Once they make it back, they rest up in the Izzy cave where Kari collapses from exhaustion and the possible loss of her brother (who she may have a crush on. Yeah, it’s barely touched on but it’s rumored that Kari might possibly have an incest crush on Tai. Whether this is true or not is up for debate though it is understandable why she would develop feelings for her own brother. Whenever she’s been in trouble or lost, she could always depend on Tai to save or guide her. Throw in the fact that he’s their headstrong leader who has saved both worlds on multiple occasions and you could understand why she’s got the hots for her brother). As Gobumon comforts a sad Matt who is still worried about his best friend Tai possibly being dead, Meicoomon reappears in the real world and Digidestined fight her only to fail (horribly). Hackmon approaches them to let them know that Homeostatis plans on rebooting the whole freakin’ world (reboot us back to the 90s please. That’s a good starting point for society). Izzy gets to work trying to find a solution better than the reboot.
Meanwhile, we see that Tai is still alive and okay (awesome). Nishijima is also alive but is covered in a lot of blood (not awesome). They find themselves in some lab where Tai (finally and I mean FINALLY) discovers Davis and the S2 Digidestined asleep in some capsules. Nishijima says he was ordered by Himekawa (who is now in the Dark Ocean. Sorry, I forgot to mention that last movie) to keep this a secret from the others and supply them controlled information. It turns out Davis and the others discovered Ygdrasil’s plan and got defeated and captured by Ygdrasil and Himekawa who was working with him to reclaim her partner. Gennai appears and halts the life support systems on the pods of Davis and the others (the only real loss will be Ken). The only way to save them is to transport them to the real world but once they do the lab will explode. There’s an extra pod left which means someone will have to stay behind to send the others back to the real world (man, just when you think Digimon couldn’t get any darker). Nishijima tricks Tai into getting into one of the pods and transports him and the others back to the real world sacrificing himself and leaving all his hopes to Tai. Back in the real world, they lure Meicoomon to the ocean where the military attacks her (yeah because missiles can do wonders on giant monsters. Haven’t you guys watched Godzilla?). Kari wakes back up and she goes to join the others with TK where they get surrounded by infected Digimon. Patamon does his best to fight them off while Gennai appears and says that this is all Kari’s fault and this somehow takes her to another dimension where she follows Wizardmon (hey, how come he didn’t get reborn from the reboot?) and somehow winds up in the mind of Meicoomon and Gatomon who tells Kari that all answers lie within Meicoomon (speak in words that we can all understand! Now is not the time to be poetic and mysterious). Kari returns and tells TK this information who passes it on to Izzy who discovers that the reboot will happen in less than 10 minutes. Izzy figures out Gatomon’s cryptic message and discovers that the Digimons’ data was saved into Meiko’s digivice. This is why despite the reboot, Meicoomon still had her memories intact because she saved their data which means the memories of all the Digimon can be restored (well that’s a good thing but how does this help us in our current situation?). Izzy also discovers that somebody sealed away Meicoomon’s memories which might have been the cause for her going berserk on us so if they can unlock them she should be able to respond to them (we might just survive this after all). Meiko figures out the password which unlocks all the data and all the Digimons memories return. The memories of Meicoomon and Gatomon returns as well which gives Gatomon the strength to separate from Meicoomon and return to Kari and Hackmon stops the reboot. Now all that’s left is to deal with Meicoomon who gets flooded with corrupted data and starts going on a rampage. Tai finally shows back up and they all combine their powers to defeat Meicoomon once and for all. We do get to see Meicoomon say goodbye to Meiko before disappearing (scene here: https://youtu.be/XjxPxqCjDck, that’s a real tearjerker). We fast forward 3 months later where it’s Christmas time and things have turned out for the better. Meiko moved back to the country with her family, Homeostatis shuts down Ydgrasil, Davis and the others are recovering well, and Izzy is working on a method to access the two worlds with the D-3s. On Christmas eve Tai calls up Meiko (still trying to get that ship to sail. I’m sorry but it’s not going to distract us from you screwing up Tai and Sora) where Agumon interrupts and says they’ll always be friends to end the movie where as the credits roll they hint that the story will possibly continue (scene here: https://youtu.be/kHSv9QMJNmw).
Final Thoughts
So that was Digimon Tri and yes, it has a lot of problems. The series presents a lot of questions but never really answers them. They present some really compelling character arcs but hesitate to dive in to some of them. They present romantic feelings for each other but don’t explore them. They present the Dark Ocean, which was a major key point in the second season once again but. . .don’t explain it. Probably the biggest fault of this series is that instead of focusing on Tai and the others they focus on Meiko and Meicoomon. While these two aren’t bad characters per se, they’re not the characters we wanted to focus on. We wanted to focus on the growth of Tai and the others. We wanted to see them interact off each other more, mature more through their experiences, and see where their relationships go. Throughout the series they hint that they’re trying to set Tai and Meiko up with each other as an obvious ploy to help us get over Matt and Sora getting together (which they don’t address in this series for some reason) but they never go all the way with it. If you want them to get together than put them together. I also didn’t like how they treated the season 2 characters. While I know fans had problems with these characters the fact that they were kept out until the last movie and the others didn’t care to even look for them is very disrespectful and upsetting. Also, where did Alphamon go? He just disappears after the fifth movie never to be seen again. Whose side was he on? Was he working for Ydgrasil or someone else and how did Gennai become evil? I know there are other Gennais out there so why didn’t they step in to help?
So with all these problems and questions the series sucks right? No. For all the problems and unanswered questions the series has, there are some things they get right. For starters, the animation is way better. Tai and the others look like actual humans and the detail on the Digimon was also great as well. The fight scenes are a lot more intense and action packed. Each attack looks and feels dangerous and seems like it does some damage to the other Digimon. When they do decide to go all the way with the characters arcs they present some great results. Seeing Tai mature as a leader and see how their fights affect the world and everyone around them was great and shows us how he’s no longer a child anymore. Mimi, who was considered a spoiled brat by a lot of fans quickly became one of the most loved characters with her arc in the movie and Joe’s arc was an arc you could relate to as he’s stuck between doing what he knows he should do and doing what he has to do. Seeing Matt putting on a strong act to keep the team moving while hiding his pain from the others was really good and totally fits with his character. The interactions between the characters are great. I was happy to see how each Digimon had a different personality such as Agumon being naïve and simple, Gabumon understanding Matt better than anyone, and Gomamon caring for Joe so much that he would go so far as to keep his distance from him. It warms my heart and only makes their interactions and relationships with each other all the more enjoyable. It can be emotional and hits you in the feels sometimes such as Meiko making the hard choice and telling everyone to destroy Meicoomon in order to save her or T.K feeling helpless and sad that Patamon has become infected, there’s nothing he can do to save him, and the fact that there’s a chance that he’ll lose his best friend again. This movie did present the Digimon series that I found as I got older and didn’t get to see as a kid due to localization. The series made us laugh, smile, cry, kept us entertained, and kept us wondering what was going to happen next all the way till the end.
Final Score
The final score for Digimon Tri is a 6.5/10. It’s has problems but I still think this movie series is okay. I don’t regret watching it and encourage fans of the first two seasons to check it out. I’ve heard that this story will continue but I haven’t heard or seen anything new yet. Honestly, I would like to see this series continue as I feel like there’s a lot of questions they can answer and character arcs to explore more. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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