Tag: Digimon

Digimon Adventure 2020 Episode 5, Holy Digimon, offers fans a whole new history of the Digital World for this show and sets up what looks to be the show’s central plot moving forward.  Mega level teases, strategic Digimon battles and a new Digivolution that is equal parts awesome and hilarious make for an essential episode.

Picking up immediately after the events of Birdramon Soars, Tai, Sora, Agumon and Piyomon reach this rainbow mountain and trigger communication with the statues of ancient Digimon after Tai reads and touches mysterious glyphs.

The kids learn about the history of this show’s Digital World and simultaneously, long time Digimon fans learn once and for all that the story of this world is in fact different than Adventure 01. Long ago the forces of evil and good collided. Six familiar mega level Digimon fought for the side of good and won the battle, before being reverted to eggs and more or less scattered across the Digital World like Dragon Balls.

It seems like the Agumon, Piyomon, and Tentomon that we’ve met this far are in fact the same Digimon who foughts as megas all those years ago, seeing as Agumon had an involuntary emotional response to hearing this story. Now, dark forces are back and it’ll take the power of human kids to help those old warrior Digimon get their strength back.

Overall, I’m pretty into this setup. It’s a little black and white for my liking — good and evil Digimon fought and now they’re fighting again — but we do have to remember that we’re adult fans of a new kids’ show. The plot isn’t made to wow us and it’s going to skew simpler.

I would love it if they went nuts and later revealed that this great war with mega level digimon was somehow a reference to the events of Adventure 01. Maybe there was a reboot of the Digital World or even somehow a reboot of the human world and that’s how we can explain how the events of 01 really happened in this universe even though this Tai is ostensibly a different Tai from the first show, living in a different time period. But this would all be super meta and difficult to pull off, and again I just don’t think a kid’s show is going to go for something like that. But I would love to see it. I digress. I’m spinning out into theory video territory here — I can definitely do a “my theories” or “how I’d write Digimon Adventure 2020” video if that’s something you viewers are interested in, but for now let’s focus on the content in front of us.

So after this exposition, the kids are ambushed by a small army of Digimon seemingly controlled by Songbirdmon — which, is probably a completely normal sounding name for Japanese viewers but comes across a little silly in English. Here is where something amazing happens though, in my opinion: the ensuing battle is not just a simple fight where whoever Digivolves first wins. There is strategy involved in this battle related to physical location as the Digimon intentionally pin down the kids, who can’t make a concentrated attack because they’re caved in and surrounded by all sides.

I did not expect something like this from Digimon. It felt like a tactics game, like Fire Emblem (or Digimon Survive maybe?) where your spot on the map is more important than your attack power alone. Team A (Sora, Tai, Piyomon and Agumon) conclude that they need Birdramon to pierce through the barrier so that Greymon can land a decisive blow from a better vantage point. It’s really smart and it was genuinely satisfying to see the chosen children contributing to the battle with their heads instead of just letting their monster friends do the fighting.

Elsewhere, Team B (Izzy and Tentomon) have an ambush of their own to deal with. Tactics takes a bit of a back seat here in favour of playing up an emotional connection between Izzy and Tentomon. I have to say, I don’t necessarily remember this from Adventure 01 but in recent years I’ve been loving the unique bond these two have, as seen in Tri and now here. There is a sweetness to Tentomon not observed in the other Digimon; Tentomon and Izzy both seem like outsiders of the group and Tentomon seems protective of Izzy in a way that is really endearing.

That protective nature manifests itself in a Digivolution, one that is absolutely hilarious to me: we get to see Tentomon midway through evolving to Kabuterimon, which is basically this swollen jacked bug man. It’s gross and I love it. It reminds me of the Ultra Beasts from Pokemon Sun and Moon. Kabuterimon kicks all kinds of butt, the kids confirm their commitment to the newly discovered mission, and once again the episode end shortly thereafter.

But not before two great teases! We get to see a series favorite villain, Devimon, as well as the iconic pink cowboy hat and the girl it belongs to, Mimi. Looks like next episode will see Mimi joining the party (which, side note, I’m now realizing sounds like we’re watching a fantasy RPG, and I’m okay with that).

Overall this episode succeeded in telling us a bit more about this world while building a path for our lead characters to walk down for the foreseeable future. It’s interesting to note that T.K. and Kari’s angel Digimon were NOT present in the flashback to the ancient Digimon battle that showed mega levels of the other kids’ Digimon. This makes me think there will be some exciting twists having to do with their roles in the story. I’m looking forward to seeing how the show deals with two holy Digimon joining the ranks of the 6 hero Digimon of the past.

8/10 – Digimon Adventure: 2020 “Holy Digimon” sets up what we assume is the end goal for the next handful of episodes, if not the rest of the series. With satisfying world building and smart action that goes beyond the “punch harder” trope, this episode succeeds.

Why no images in this article? Consider this review an experiment. Since April 2020 someone is issuing DMCA takedowns on all of our articles related to Digimon. This means all ads are removed from the web page, and we are removed from Google search results. We can only assume it is due to the use of screenshots from the episodes, which should be completely safe under fair use rules. It is very likely the license holders issuing these takedowns, but it is completely unjustified. We intentionally did not include screenshots from this episode to see if this article still gets blacklisted. If so, we’ll be able to confirm the entity issuing DMCA takedowns is simply scrubbing our site for the word “Digimon” and demonetizing all content covering the series. It’s extremely unfortunate. 

After what feels like ages, Digimon Adventure 2020 is back in business. The Digi train has left the station and finally viewers get to explore the new Digital World teased  at the end of Episode 3.

Birdramon Soars finds itself in a tricky spot as far as expectations go. It is the first episode after a two month hiatus that was unplanned and out of the studio’s control. It is also essentially the first episode of a new mini arc, meaning the events of this episode were never going to reach the highs of Episode 3, which was the conclusion of mini arc 1.

With all that said, Birdramon Soars mostly impressed me with its realization of the Digital World, a jaw dropping Digivolution sequence, and time for Sora and Birdramon to…well…Soar.

Animation Concerns After The Hiatus

I do have one concern with this episode, though, and that was with some moments of animation that didn’t feel all that animated. Let’s just rip the band-aid off and cover that before exploring what I loved.

Early on viewers are treated to sprawling shots of this shiny, bright Digital World, which I adored as establishing shots…until Digimon in motion were included. For some reason these monsters didn’t feel like they were moving in a space — they felt like PNG files dragged across a background in Photoshop. I don’t consider myself an animation snob, but there was little to no animation on the creatures themselves and it was extremely hard not to notice.

Later on in the episode the same thing happened to Sneimon – the Digimon flies out of the shot but instead of flying it looked like clip art was dragged out of the crop area.

I’m curious to see if we’ll get more of this in future episodes or if it will prove to be an anomaly. Is this the first time we’re physically seeing the side effects of the mandatory work from home period animation studios were forced to take? OR, was episode 4 always going to take a hit? It’s always possible and fairly common for shows to pour their budgets into the first few episodes and the final couple episodes of a season to grab audiences from the start, so maybe episode 4 was always destined to look a little worse than episode 3.

Agumon Shinka

One thing that didn’t look worse was the phenomenal Digivolution sequence that Agumon is treated to in this episode. Between the original 01, Tri, and this, I think Adventure 2020 may have just given us the best evolution sequence we’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to see the other partner Digimon get this treatment, and I’m even more excited to see what Champion to Ultimate will look like!

As for the episode’s plot it’s fairly straight forward, and honestly a nice slowdown after the dramatic heights of the Tokyo Digital Crisis arc. The kids have 72 hours before a region wide blackout hits Tokyo, and have to work their way towards a colourful mountain that seems to hold the answers. Sora, Tai, Agumon and Piyomon craft a raft, and in a delightful moment Sora justifies why she wears that helmet-hat thingie, deeming it necessary to wear a helmet for this dangerous raft ride.

Taichi and Greymon fight an enemy in the water while Sora and Piyomon fight the Sneimon in the sky. Sora demonstrates courage and love climbing up the Sneimon’s leg to free Piyomon, and their connection results in the birth of Birdramon. We’re treated to a killer bit of music by Takayoshi Tanimoto, and the episode more or less ends.

Conclusion

Birdramon Soars was a fine addition to the new canon of Digimon Adventure 2020 episodes. It presented concerns in the early half with clip art level animation at times, bu redeemed itself shortly after with an unbelievable transformation scene and a stellar fight with Birdramon. Episode 5 teases a bit of world building with Holy Digimon that looks promising; we’ll see next week if the history of this Digital World is similar to the original shows, or if they’re going for something completely new.

7/10 – Digimon Adventure: 2020 “Birdramon Soars” takes things slow, letting viewers soak in the new series’ Digital World, and allowing Sora and Piyomon to form a believable connection.

Why no images in this article? Consider this review an experiment. Since April 2020 someone is issuing DMCA takedowns on all of our articles related to Digimon. This means all ads are removed from the web page, and we are removed from Google search results. We can only assume it is due to the use of screenshots from the episodes, which should be completely safe under fair use rules. It is very likely the license holders issuing these takedowns, but it is completely unjustified. We intentionally did not include screenshots from this episode to see if this article still gets blacklisted. If so, we’ll be able to confirm the entity issuing DMCA takedowns is simply scrubbing our site for the word “Digimon” and demonetizing all content covering the series. It’s extremely unfortunate.