Digimon Adventure tri.: Loss Review

This Digimon Adventure tri. review contains spoilers.

Digimon Adventure tri. Movie Four

I always welcome the chance to return to Digimon‘s Digital World. As much as some of my favorite adventures in Digimon’s history took place in the real world (Tai’s room in the second segment of Digimon: The Movie amirite?), the Digi World is where it all really started. Where everyone first met their partner Digimon.

After the end of Confession, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d be starting right back there with our team but nope. We get an extended near silent movie esque sequence where Himekawa and Nishijima are fighting in what looks like the Digi World with the Dark Masters. The four sovereign Digimon are there (am I crazy or did they all have human partners?) and Himekawa and Nishijima have a Digimon of their own who sacrifices itself to save them.

It’s a crazy sequence that seems right out of someone’s fan fiction, but it thankfully gives us some clues to what the hell is up with Himekawa. Throughout the movie we learn that her partner Digimon, Tapirmon, sacrificed itself to save everyone and she’s been trying to get it back ever since. It’s strongly implied that Himekawa caused the reboot of the Digi World solely to get Tapirmon back. Did the evil Gennai mislead her? It certainly looks that way. We’ll come back to how this ties into the main plot in a bit. 

After that crazy sequence, Loss brings us back to the Digidestined trying to get reacquainted with their Digimon. For some it goes pretty smoothly, like TK and Tokomon. For Sora, Yokomon (and soon Biyomon) refuses to get near her.

This whole sequence lasts the entirety of episode one and while it does drag in places, it’s nice to get some chill time with everyone. After the heartbreaking sequences in Confession, everyone deserves a little bit of fun time with their Digimon. They even get a chance to joke about Joe’s girlfriend again! Poor guy, I hope we get to see her by the end of this.

Things finally kick up in episode two when Machinedramon (someone should make a shirt outta that guy) attacks the team and the Digimon can’t digivolve to their champion levels. Yeah, in case you missed my last review, I use English dub terms.

After an intense attack, the team is separated. It’s in these sequences of the team wandering around we return to Tai’s angst from Reunion. In that film, Tai was restless. He couldn’t move forward in his life. He wanted the gang back together. He’s gotten what he wished for, but it came with a cost. 

Not being able to make Agumon digivolve rocks him to his core. Things won’t be as easy as they were when they were kids. He accepts that not everything can go back to the way it was. He can’t ignore what’s happened.

Kari, being the wisest kid of the bunch, thinks they should accept the Digimon as they are. They can’t keep trying to make them remember who the kids are or what their relationship was. They have to start again. This idea may take Tai some time to accept, but he’s on the right path. He can’t live in the past; he has to look toward the future. (Season four dub theme reference, eyyyyyyyyy!)

Sora has a similar problem. She wants to get along with Biyomon like she did before but Biyomon isn’t having it. I wish these two had gotten a little more focus time in the movie, but Sora ended up sharing quite a few of her scenes with Mei. It’s a shame that this was supposed to be Sora’s big movie but she’s more a secondary player to the main action.

The story really ramps up when evil Gennai appears. This isn’t the same Gennai we knew and loved, this guy is screwed up. HE LICKS SORA’S FACE AND TRIES TO STEAL HER DIGIVICE. WHAAAAAT? Also, quick note. Gennai says without her digivice Sora is a kid. I thought the season one finale made it clear the kids didn’t need the digivices at all; that it’s what was in their hearts that mattered. Eh, whatever.

Oh yeah, the Digimon Emperor wasn’t Ken, but merely an avatar. That’s good to know but HEY. GUYS. Somebody mention the season two kids, seriously. What the hell? We’ve only got two more movies! Come on.

So as is the Digimon way, we get an info dump (at least this time its during an action scene) where evil Gennai says he’s a Digimon supporter and that Digimon are enslaved by humans. There’s clearly something going on here that ties into the opening sequence and Meicoomon is the key to all of it.

Meanwhile, Himekawa comes across Tapirmon and they don’t remember her. Unlike Kari who tries to be friendly or Sora who keeps her distance, Himekawa is not having it. She grabs Tapirmon and, in the creepiest way possible, says, “Tell me you remember me.”

This is the most intriguing part of the episode for me. While most of the kids accept what happened (even TK lets Patamon fight) and have moved on, Himekawa can’t. Is this the ultimate lesson of Digimon Adventure tri.? That you have to move on? You can’t keep going back to the past and getting back what you lost? I think that would be pretty damn powerful, especially for a series of films that are banking on nostalgia. I wish they had tied in that lesson with Sora more in this movie, but I’ll take it.

Oh yeah, part four of this movie has a no joke six-minute non-stop digivolution sequence. They played Brave Heart twice to get through them all. I guess I could be nitpicky and say it was a bit much but screw that, who doesn’t love digivolution sequences? We even got to see some new mega level Digimon! Hell yeah! The fight sequence with all of them is brief, but great. The movie once again ends on a cliffhanger with Meicoomon ready to raise some havoc.

Digimon Adventure tri. Loss isn’t exactly the triumph that Reunion was or even the gut punch of Confession. Thankfully it was much better than Determination and started finally giving some much-needed answers. Hopefully they can work out the pacing of the final two movies so we don’t end up with a whole info dump episode in the last movie. Although when I think about it, isn’t that the Digimon way? 

Stray Thoughts

– Why did the Digi World open portals so the team could all come to Sora’s aid? Is there another larger force at play here?

– Biyomon really wants Sora’s meatballs. Nuff said.

– This movie contained the most useful application of Gomamon’s marching fishes attack ever.

– For real, those rookie attacks should have done nothing to the megas.

Shamus Kelley is ready to save the world from a digi-disaster. Follow him on Twitter!