Digimon Adventure tri.

So how'd little ol' me, one of the main Digi-guys on dA think of it? 

Well.

I didn't hate it. 

I didn't like it as well as I thought I would've either.

It IS the first "episode" though, and those usually have a bit of a slow start, so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Slice of Life is far from my favorite thing, so seeing the kids do typical teenage things wasn't that exciting to me. The same goes for a lot of the awkward shipping fluff that permeated the film. I think the only time I sorta liked it was when it was Mimi trying to ship herself with Izzy or Sora with Matt and Tai. For that matter, I think Mimi was the character I liked the most. 

Anyway, I thought the start up was absurdly slow. When Crunchyroll split it up into episodic chunks, the "first" episode was incredibly dull to me. Not a lot happened, and it was sort of a chore to slog through it. I got hopeful when Kuwagamon Realized, but the "episode" cut abruptly before anything actually happened. If tri. were actually a proper TV series, and THAT was the first episode? I personally would be very cheezed off! 

Thankfully the action picked up on the "second" though and I started to enjoy it a bit more. 

I've seen a lot of people nitpick the animation, and while I can see what they mean, I thought it was pretty good for what it was. I mean, I wasn't expecting Miyazaki level quality, and it there were times it seemed to be animated by some of the B-Teams, but still I thought it was  impressive. 

The same can't really be said about the Digivolution scenes. I kind of wonder if the limited animation in spots was to recapture that good ol' G1 stiffness, because if so, they really captured the cheesy CG of the old Ultimate evos. 

The Champion stages got an upgrade, looking more like Tamers-Savers style evolutions, which is kinda neat. Just.... Cell Shaded 3D never looks especially good, and here it looked ... kinda bad. Some Digimon looked better in CG than others like Greymon and most of the Rookies... the others... Eugh. Birdramon looked like a formless blob, Kabuterimon didn't look fully rendered, and Angemon's abs looked sprayed on. 

Again I wasn't expecting Pixar level quality, but good grief, when the Savers CGI sequences look way better, that's saying something.

Still, one thing I did like was the emphasis on the Digimon's digital nature such as the Kuwagamonz choppy resolution and pixels when they Realized, the Rookies hopping in and out of digital TVs like Bugs Bunny does paintings, and even a brief shot of the Digital World made it look more...digital than it ever was. Izzy even went so far to build a rudimentary DigiFarm like area on his computer for the Digimon to hang out in. 

Izzy's always been a bit of an odd duck, but it seems the film goes out of the way to make him odder. For some reason, he's socially awkward and is now the DigiDestined's Agent Q, passing out handy gadgets like the Watchmaker passed out Xros Loaders.

For example, one notable gizmo being MegaMan Star Force style Visualizer goggles for Tai to observe digital disturbances in the area. It's neat, but ... well. To be honest, I expect Digimon Zone Izzy to come up with that. Not canon Izzy.

Izzy also has bizarre tastes in clothing. I'm beginning to see why his mom picked out his clothes.

I'm assuming his new found social awkwardness might be an attempt to appeal people like that. I'm certainly socially awkward, but even I find it a bit bizarre forcing it on Izzy more for the sake of it. Then again, maybe it's less general social awkwardness, and more the stereotype "nerds are afraid of girls" thing. *scratches head* Oh well. Teenagers. Gotta love 'em. I guess. 

Alphamon's portrayed as the main villain, though as the first episode, his motives are not made clear. 

Huckmon appears too, spying on everybody, and it appears he's working for Alphamon, but neither Digimon have any lines and we only really have appearances to work with. It seems Alphamon's targeting Maverick Digimon, particularly Meikuumon, and isn't afraid to blast anyone who gets in his way like Meiko and the DigiDestined. Perhaps this was the fate that befell Davis' crew, but with Imperialdramon slated to appear in the next film, the mystery of the 02 crew only gets more (needlessly?) complicated.

And that's another thing. The movie seems sorta keen on erasing 02 from the narrative, with the gutsy move of the 02 crew getting curbstomped by Alphamon right from the get-go. None of the kids ever bring up what happened to Davis and they don't seem to really care (but to be fair, their fate probably wasn't that relevant to the topics at hand). But with D3's still being a thing, Imperialdramon coming back, TK chatting on a DigiDestined message board, and the most damning, the government keeping tabs on all DigiDestined (Davis' crew being labeled AWOL), it sorta makes me wonder what exactly they're trying to do here. And I guess that's a good thing. Keeps ya guessing. Though seeing as how gutsy moves rarely play out, I almost think going the Bakugan Carbonite route would've been more dignified.

As for Meiko. With the removal of Davis' group for the time being, everything else really hypes up Meiko and Meikuumon as a honorary ninth DigiDestined kid. There's nothing too extraordinary about Meiko herself starting out: new shy, awkward, mystery girl moves into town and integrates with the group. She has a sneezing quirk, which some theorize that she's allergic to cats, real and Digital. Pretty standard stuff. Meikuumon stands out more, being more plot relevant and carrying the Maverick virus apparently, but we don't really learn anything about the species yet. No level, typing, or attacks, although Meikuumon does apparently know Defense Curl. Presumably more will be learned next episode, but still, I was kinda hoping to have learned a little more about Meikuumon. I find Meikuumon's design kinda funny, in that asthetically she doesn't fit at all with the simpler designs of the other Rookie Digimon (and Gatomon). I mean you could drop Shoutmon in with the group and he'd fit, but Meikuumon, not really, lol, she sticks out like a sore thumb. Still that's not a bad thing.

One little nitpick about designs though, I really don't like WarGreymon's retooling. You don't see him that much in the movie, but looking at his new character model. Ugh. He looks cool, don't get me wrong, but a rule of thumb should be not making a ultra complicated design for the sake of it. I kinda see why all the cuts of WarGreymon have him sitting still. It's not detail heavy as WarGreymon X, but yikes. I'm not attempting that. 

All and all, I thought it was okay. It didn't wow me, and I don't have a lot of nostalgic attachment to Adventure to begin with. It's the first time I've felt kind of indifferenet towards a major Digimon anime project. I'm honestly more interested in Next Order, and I'm not nostalgic about Digimon World either. I never played it. But I'm still gonna see where tri. goes, as I'm curious to see where they go with it. It's not bad by any means, don't get me wrong. I can't wait to get a copy of Butterfly tri. and Brave Heart tri. though. That was probably my favorite part of the whole film, lol.

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