Digimon Adventure tri. 2: Ketsui

One year ago, the Digimon fan base believed that Digimon Adventure tri would become a TV anime rather than six-part film series. It seems to have managed to accept this fact now and a lot of fans are looking forward to whenever a new part of tri is airing. While the first film, Saikai, served as a re-introduction and focused on Taichi and his relationship with Yamato, this one was advertised as being about Mimi and Jou. However, at the beginning of the film, we first see how the new character from Saikai, Meiko, is integrated into the Chosen Children's group. We do not hearmuch about her past but we find out what kind of character she is: a great addition to the Chosen Children. She is not a character you have never seen before but she certainly is a charming fresh breath of air. Meiko is introduced during some truly entertaining slice of life scenes. However, these scenes not only serve as her introduction, but also as a great method of hinting at romantic feelings between several characters. Moreover, due to the nature of slice of life scenes, there are quite some funny bits you do not want to miss. There are also some cleverly disguised references to events that took place in the past and it is a nice feeling when you are able to understand them. Ultimately, this light-hearted start is a great beginning to the film, especially since the previous one ended quite dramatically. After that, the film does start to focus on Mimi and Jou. In the TV anime, the children were sometimes separated into pairs so that two characters who have not interacted with one another could do so. Mimi and Jou have been in a pair before, so it is understandable why the creators have chosen to use this combination. Both of them experience great character development throughout the film and despite their huge differences in character traits, the issues they have to face are quite similar. Fortunately, they do so in an amazingly realistic and adult manner without being cheesy. Their issues are quite relatable – even though probably none of us has ever had to deal with being a Chosen Child and having a Digimon partner, there certainly are a lot of people who cannot accept their life for what it is. The moral that it is important to accept one's own life is conveyed properly in this film and Mimi and Jou were the perfect individuals for this kind of story. Luckily, the two of them are not the only characters who experience development. Of course, there is Meiko who – as stated above – is integrated into the Chosen Children and consequently loses some of her shyness. But also Gomamon has some issues he has to face: Due to Jou not wanting to fight, he has to question their relationship. It is often criticised that in Digimon Adventure, the Digimon do not mature and simply serve as triggers which help the children's development. This may even be the case, but in this film, it is different. Gomamon's character does develop through Jou's changes and due to the doubts his partner has, Gomamon manages to become more independent. Next to the children, there are also the members of the organization who deals with the Infected Digimon. Both Himekawa and Nishijima have enough screen time to establish their characters and to hint at their past. They reflect the problems the children have to face regarding growing up with their own personality, which shows that becoming older is not easy for anyone. It is also shown how the organization deals with Infected Digimon, which once again shows how much more mature this show is than its TV anime prequel. Weapons and tanks have not been used before in any of Digimon Adventure's versions and thanks to this being different in this film, we not only see a more realistic approach but also how powerful and terrifying Digimon can be. Additionally, the viewer learns more about Infected Digimon and how they turn evil but, of course, not all questions are answered. However, this is not the only aspect of tri's world that is explained more thoroughly. Thanks to some excellent world building, we are able to understand what the new threat is and what methods can be used to overcome them. Moreover, the fear the general public has is justified by some events that happen in the film. However, this leads to a problem the first film already had. Normally, the public should be aware of Digimon due to the events in the TV anime. Nevertheless, they do not seem to remember what had happened back then, which is quite unbelievable. Sadly, this is not the only continuation error and it is improbable that they will be fixed. In comparison to the first film, the animation has slightly improved. It still is nothing outstanding, especially considering the fact that this is supposed to be a film, but an improvement nonetheless. However, the actions scenes are an exception. The battle scenes are choreographed in a superior way than in the TV anime but the animation lacks a certain impact. Fortunately, the evolution sequences' animation has improved slightly but the TV anime's way of handling it nonetheless was much nicer to look at. Not too much can be said about the soundtrack as it is great as ever. However, there is one change: The ending theme was changed to Wada Kouji's Seven, which had only been an insert song in Digimon Adventure before. There was no reason to do this, but it was a nice change and a new version of Seven exists now, which definitely is not a bad thing. In the end, Ketsui is an improvement over Saikai. While the first film was good as well, the story could have progressed in a much worse direction. I am more than happy that the film managed to exceed my expectations and I am honestly looking forward to the third film, which is supposed to focus on Takeru and Patamon. The cliffhanger at the end only causes my desire to become stronger and thanks to this film, I am confident in Toei Animation's ability to deliver great content.

Today was aired the second part of Digimon Tri and I have some bad things to say about it. While I didn't make a review about the first part, I can say I was left unsatisfied and afraid of what could become this sequel. To our bad luck, my fears came true. The story is easily the weakest point of this show. It focuses more on banal situations as the typical visit to the thermal baths or the thousand times seen school festival rather than developing the plot itself turning out what should be action and adventure in a generic slice of life. The pace is stillanticlimactic and crucial moments as the appearance of Rosemon and Vikemon end up as forgettable. And even though it makes interesting approaches through the characters, instead of deepening on them in an analytical way, they end up more dramatized than a Mexican novel. To all this, at least was good to see again to the charming Lillymon even for a few seconds. The characters aren’t much better than the story. While is interesting to see the different ways of thinking of the now grown 'Chosen Child' most of these are too dramatized (As I stated before) and makes it annoying to watch. The group lacks the chemistry of the original series and Meiko is just a shy girl that fails to add something new. Until now none of them has had an important development or a revealing backstory and the entire repertoire falls flat. I consider that there has been an improvement in the visuals, with a much more vivid colors and more defined design of characters. Unfortunately, the animation is still deficient and tends to look slow and forced which makes the action scenes unexciting and dull. The sound section is worse with generic instrumental tracks and only being saved by the nostalgic OP. The voice actors are average at best with nothing remarkable. Toei is ruining our childhood which is really irritating, but most of us will continue to see what's next by pure nostalgia. However, if you're not an early fan of the series, I recommend you not to waste your precious time on this hot mess.

SPOILERS! Just saying. This time around, the focus shifts from Taichi and Yamato to Joe and Mimi (Mei as well I guess). And I have to say, I always find myself surprised on how on point the character development is in Digimon. ~Characters~ Joe got the most out of Ketsui. Being older than the rest of the crew, he finds himself in a lot more of a difficult situation than the others; he has university entrance exams right around the corner, so he never really goes out to help. What Joe goes through in Ketsui is something I believe many highschoolers especially in Asia have to gothrough: becoming an adult. In Joe's case, rather than being forced to become an adult, it seems more like he feels the responsibility to become an adult. Clashing with this responsibility is his responsibility as a DigiDestined and his friends. To continue studying to become an adult or be a reliable pillar of support like he used to be for his friends. His self-felt responsibility to become an adult roots him in place, making him unable to support his friends and digimon (as pointed out by Taichi), he needs (well more like he wants) a reason to fight again. Ultimately, he is using this responsiblity as an excuse for running away even if his true desires lie somewhere completely else. On the other hand, Mimi has quite the opposite problem. Being an overly bright person, people label her as Jikochu or something meaning self-centered and annoying. This is portrayed in the overly stereotypical and much too overused cultural festival in highschool. Of course both Joe and Mimi get over their problems in one way or another. Seeing their conflicts directly clash when they met and how the other Digidestined still had complete trust in them (example Taichi in Joe) or gave them slight pushes to confront their conflicts and solve them was very welcome in my opinion. So the Digidestined are growing up, that's all nice and dandy but what about their digimon? I feel like they regressed back in time? They are absolute babies in Ketsui. Considering what they went through in Adventure and just how much time has passed since then, you'd reckon they would have also matured mentally. It's obvious they were trying to make them all cutesy and stuff but it was a bit of a turn off. ~Setting~ Additionally the setting of Ketsui wasn't too great in my opinion. Cultural festival? Bathhouse? The things that happened there, felt just so absolutely unnecessary. If it was to build up the connection between Mei and Meikoomon with the other Digidestined, I am sure they didn't need 80% of the movie's time to do that, or it could've at least been done better rather than in such a stereotypical way. And the cultural festival was purely there to portray Mimi's conflict, which isn't bad but so much of it could have been cut out cause it was just absolutely nonsense. ~Animation~ Talking about things that could've been cut out of the movie, all those still frames and motion tweeks in the movie could've also been taken out. Heck I was surprised at how blatantly they are using still frames and motion tweeks. This isn't using technology to make things better, this is being lazy. And the animation, what the hell. In Saikai, it was still somewhat passable but man, Toei really outdid themselves for shitty animations this time around. If they are using so many still frames it means they must be saving up for SOMETHING right? Well I for sure didn't see WHAT they were saving up for in Ketsui. Was the animation smooth during fighting sequences? Absolutely NOT. In fact, the animation quality was so shitty I couldn't even ENJOY the fight sequences, not like the cinematography and choreography was any good anyways during these sequences. Now to the drawings/character designs. Last time I said it is something you get used to if you give it a chance but I take that back now. MAN it just looks HORRIBLE sometimes. Leomon makes an appearance and I swear he doesn't look majestic AT ALL in some frames, he looks stupid if anything. During the evolution sequences, Ikkakumon's pose was just plain stupid and Rosemon just looked soooo awkward at times. At least, this time around they showed the evolution sequences from champion to ultra and to mega unlike Saikai. Buuuut the evolution from ultra to mega wasn't that exciting although I guess if the evolution sequence is too long, it would take away from the fighting sequence. Did I already mention that their reuse of particle effects is made painfully obvious in Ketsui? The particle effects are pretty shitty/childish to begin with but now the reuse them? Big blow in the animation department. Furthermore, due to the poor animation quality and drawing, facial expressions were SEVERELY lackinng, no impact at all, the Digidestined are horrified? Well not even a close up to their faces really convey that very strongly. Get it right Toei, first you say you'd make an anime series, then you suddenly change it to a 6 part movie series, then you delay it etc. They must be having some reaaally heavy budget and planning problems if they need half a year to make this sort of crap animation. And the next one is coming out in november! Well I am no expert in the animation industry so I wouldn't know but man... the future for tri isn't looking very good production wise. ~The End...~ Story wise, there wasn't progress other than the first and last 5 minutes of the movie, it was more concentrated on the Digidestined, which is fair enough I guess, it's Digimon, character development was always a big thing. Reference to Plato's theory of form was present, albeit little and very vague but at least they are sticking through with it. Music was ok, nothing STELLAR compared to Saikai. I think I heard some of the bgm from Adventure but I may be just confusing it with the music from Saikai. In conclusion... the movie itself felt very lackluster this time around, very slow and the fighting sequences didn't make up for it. But the character development was on point such as you'd expect from Digimon and that part was quite welcome.

The first Digimon Tri movie was overall interesting and was a promising beginning for this series of movies with a more introspective, subdued and adult tone, but had a few issues that kept it from being truly great, mainly the sloppy construction of the Taichi dilemma and the conflict between him and Matt (not to mention the stupid cell phone flashback being repeated ad nauseaum). This second movie has a problem which the first didn't, in that it starts off much more slowly. The first movie had the advantage of novelty and being an introduction to the older kids and their day-to-day lives, meaning it wasautomatically interesting. The build-up to them meeting their Digimon was very well done and it had a great payoff. However, we don't have that in this movie because obviously everything's already been introduced. The first 20 or so minutes are mostly slice-of-life shenanigans with the kids and Digimon; it almost feels like a filler episode in some ways, there are some funny bits and small glimmers of characterization present but it isn't THAT engaging. Fortunately, the film eventually gets on track, by starting to focus on the interpersonal drama and conflicts, with the stars this time being Jou and Mimi. Their drama is much more cleanly written and constructed than the stuff with Taichi in the first movie, which made sense on some level but was a bit silly when you thought about it and focused on the wrong things. This means that it is possible to be truly invested in it without being distracted by glaring flaws. I will also say that the comedy and character interactions was spot-on for the most part. A few things like Leomon's disguise had me laughing out loud. I will also say that despite what feels a bit like shilling, this movie made me alright with Mei and Meicoomon who I was a bit iffy on in the first movie. I don't love them or anything, but Mei in particular grew on me a bit after this film, so I'm ok with her now. Without spoiling much, the final fight scene is pretty nostalgic and finally provides fans with what they've been wanting for years (you can guess from the poster what happens). It ends with a dark cliffhanger that makes me eager to see what other things they have planned. As far as the film's production/technical aspects go, I don't have much to say. The animation didn't really impress me at all, but I certainly didn't find it bad. I actually noticed that they used a BGM from the first two series in the final fight scene, which was a small detail that I appreciated. I will say that the final "plot twist" scene has a problem in that it was easy to see coming, but was executed and staged reasonably well which means I'm alright with it. Overall, while not having the same novelty as the first movie and having a slow beginning, I would have to say that in some ways this film is better-constructed. I'm not sure which one is better atm, but I do feel comfortable saying it's a worthwhile follow-up.

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