Digimon

[LumRanmaYasha]

Toei is working on a lot of different series and movies right now. They probably felt that doing Tri as a tv anime would be unfeasible after they decided to make Dragon Ball Super. I always took the original april premiere date with a grain of salt anyway. Sailor Moon Crystal came out like a year and a half late, after all.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think the big issue now is how we're going to get it since Saban isn't known for grabbing anime movies for overseas releases. Not to mention six films means a long wait to see the whole story and that's if it's done well enough for audiences to stick around.

I'm still not sure how to think of this.

[gunswordfist]

...Saban's still around?

[Spark Of Spirit]

http://www.sabanbrands.com/

Yep.

[gunswordfist]

 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, if this ever even does make it overseas, anyone who's attached to the Saban dub voice actors will be glad to know that Joshua Seth, who has been retired from voice acting for. Years, has stated that he would be willing to come back to reprise his role as Tai if Saban licenses Tri and asks him to play his old part.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh, it'll make it overseas. Digimon is too big here to ignore. The question is how it'll be handled.

[Rynnec]

Dat Alphamon tho.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I forgot to mention that I watched 02 subbed, and it was definitely an improvement for the most part. The only theme I really cared for was the second ED, though. The rest wasn't as good as the first one.

That said, it was fun watching the first two series over again. Guess I'll have to add Tamers to that sooner than later.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So Crunchyroll has the first four series (and Xros Wars) meaning that I finally was able to give Frontier a full viewing.

First, the positives. I get what they were going for here. Tamers got pretty dark and serious, so they wanted something more light and fairy-tale like. The atmosphere succeeds and leads to a lot of fun episodic moments early in the series (one battle on a cliffside village is pretty cool) while making it different from the last series.

The story is basic chosen warriors sent to battle the darkness. This is old school at its very core, which they were obviously going for. But the story (at least for the most part) isn't hampered by this. The main villains have motivations and the kids come from pretty typical backgrounds of Digimon characters. Frontier, for the most part, feels like a new attempt at Adventure.

Standalone episodes are probably the best since Adventure. They were very dull and formulaic in 02, and there weren't really any in Tamers, but they're all entertaining here.

The cast is also the smallest of any Digimon series. There are only five main kids and a handful of other characters. That's it. Everyone else is only seen in flashback form. But this is both a good thing (as I'm sure some people felt previous casts could be unwieldy) and a bad thing. More on that later.

On the negative side, I still think it's the weakest of the original four series just not to the extent I originally thought it was.

The first half of the series is better than the second half. The first reason for this is that the base character conflicts from the first half of the series are all but forgotten by the end. The second reason is that literally three things happen in the last fifteen episodes. And finally, the most interesting episode (21, which is a theme with Digimon) brings up a weird concept that is never brought up again.

The conflicts are never resolved because the main characters never return to the real world to deal with these conflicts. At the end of the series we're just told that they will get over it. But in Digimon, we usually get to see it happen. We're not just told what will happen outside of 02's crappy epilogue that will probably be non-canon by November. What this does (inadvertently, I think the writers were trying something different here but it doesn't work) is flatten the characters instead of make them deeper. We don't get to see how Takuya and his brother's relationship changes because they never meet while he grows. The same with Zoe and her awkwardness around the other kids. Tommy and his brother was a relationship that would have been far more satisfying had they met after he became a warrior. JP showing off how much he changed to the other kids in his class would have been a great character moment. But we don't see any of that happen.

This never happens, because the real world is never brought into the story. This ties in with my last point from before. Episode 21 has Takuya failing and nearly getting everyone killed. Out of despair he goes back to the real world, but it doesn't work out how he thinks it will. He changes into a weird human/digimon combo and comes back at the very moment he left the real world. What he does is sees things from a different angle which reveals a very important character that shows up later and teaches Takuya how expansive and wide the world is even from his tiny perspective. He eventually goes back to the Digiworld after learning more about how complex, yet intricate, the world really is. It also becomes a big plot point for how they turn the tide against their enemies.

The problem with that is that it is literally the only time the real world comes into the current story. It's the most interesting episode in Frontier, but the series never really grabs onto it again.

This ties into my second issue which is that only three things happen in the last fifteen episodes. The first is an extended (and boring) battle with the main villain from the first half of the series lead by two characters because everyone gives their powers to them. Not only is this a battle that lasts far too long, but it also grabs on to one of my least favorite shonen tropes of everyone else getting left behind and stranded on the sidelines. That never happened in Tamers, or even both the Adventure series (even with clear strongest members, everyone else still did things), but outside of the last episode only Takuya and Koji do anything in the last fifteen episodes and no one else does anything at all. The second thing that happens is literally a repeat of the Destiny Stones arc from 02: yes, the worst part of 02. For about six episodes the same thing happens over and over, there is no character development, and nothing of value occurs. The last thing that happens is the final battle, which is the best part of the second half of the series as everyone else gets to participate again and characters have moments once more. Still, not much happens in 15 episodes which makes it the weaker half of the series.

At the end of the day, I will say that Frontier is a good series with a lot of good ideas and good intentions. It's just not great.

But I am glad I finally gave it a real shot. Now I can say without reservation that Tamers is the best, and Adventure is the second best. But at least they tried here.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It has a limited theatrical release on November 21, and the official release is December 18th. I'm still curious as to who will license this, because someone definitely will.

We also have information about the story now:

Digimon Adventure tri. Chapter 1, "Reunion"

It's been 6 years since Yagami Taichi and the Chosen Children went to the other world, the Digital World, in that summer adventure,
and 3 years since Yagami Hikari and the others' last battle against BelialVamdemon.

As peaceful days continue, the gate to the Digital World closes at one point. Time passes without even the Chosen Children knowing why it has closed...

Then, one day, a Kuwagamon suddenly appears in Odaiba. The town is destroyed and people flee in panic from its rampage. Taichi, who happens to see the Kuwagamon by chance, chases after it alone in order to stop it. But Taichi is powerless to do anything against the Kuwagamon by himself.

"It's no good... I can't do anything on my own..."

As Kuwagamon closes in on Taichi with a roar, his Digivice suddenly begins to glow bright–

"Taichi, you sure got big!"

At the sound of that familiar voice, the story turns largely once again.

Yagami Taichi, 17-years-old, high school.

The adventure evolves once again...

At the very least we can finally get rid of the silly assumption that 02 is no longer canon. It very obviously still is. The question is whether it disregards the epilogue, which I very much hope it does.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm assuming that Digimon will do the same thing as Dragon Ball has with its recent movies and Super in regard to GT, and just tiptoe around the whole thing by focusing on a time between the end of the main story and the epilogue. In that regard, they can pretend like the epilogue doesn't exist without outright calling it non-canon.

Personally, I'd be OK with Toei just downright admitting their fuck-up and telling people to disregard the epilogue (much like FOX did for some of the later Alien franchise movies), but for some reason Japan doesn't seem to like officially clarifying continuity concerns with any of their big franchises.

[Rynnec]

Battle of Gods and Resurrection of F basically render GT completely and utterly uncanon though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Technically they don't. While neither the SSG transformation nor Beerus or Whis are ever even mentioned in GT, that  still doesn't make the events of GT impossible to occur within the same continuity. It'd be contradictory as hell, of course, but the fact remains that neither Akira Toriyama nor Toei have made any official statement to declare GT non-canon. For the record, Toriyama did state that the pre-Battle of Gods films took place in an alternate dimension, so he would have said something similar to that for GT if he wanted you to know that it was non-canon, but obviously he wouldn't just throw Toei under the bus like that.

That said, most fans (including myself), don't consider GT canon, anyways. It's basically "The Goliath Chronicles" of the Dragon Ball franchise.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So, this is unexpected.