The second-half of Digimon Adventure tri. starts strong
with Sōshitsu (“Loss” in English),
the fourth installment. With Kohuhaku setting this movie up by
shifting the setting to the Digital World and the DigiDestined getting to “re-meet” their Digimon partners (who have reverted back to their baby
form and lost their memories after the world’s reboot), some expectations were
raised because of the “back to basic” feel it brought – expectations that Sōshitsu fortunately met. (Warning: this review is going be a little bit
spoiler-y than usual.)
The movie kicks off with a
“silent film”-style flashback, which is a lot of fun. The whole thing is engagingly stylish, and offers crucial information. I
actually wished that the entire movie could go on being like that.
After that intro, the movie
returns back to the DigiDestined trying to win over their Digimon partners once
again. It goes smoothly for everyone,
except for Sora and Yokomon/Biyomon.
This adds additional drama to the plot, but it didn’t do anything for
me. It doesn’t make sense that the
others quickly bonded except for these two, and the writing didn’t do a good job
of justifying it. It was pretentious BS.
 |
| Tanemon fearfully asking Mimi not to eat her is adorable and hilarious. |
Aside from the forced tension
between Sora and Yokomon/Biyomon, I never had another significant problem with
this movie (except, maybe, the fact that the 02 kids are still nowhere to be found). The pace still has a bit of dragging issues
early on, but after already experiencing the same thing in the previous three movies, I
kind of had braced for it, that it didn’t bother me anymore.
Things finally get exciting when
Machinedramon attacks them, and it’s a solid, interesting movie from then
on. The team gets separated. Familiar sceneries and Digimon are
shown. Thoughtful dialogues are said. Mei joins the party. Sora gets creepily licked by the bad guy
(!!!). The best “Marching Fishes” attack
from Gomamon happens. Some more kickass “Ultimate”
forms are revealed. And the movie ends
with another effective cliffhanger.
So four down, two to go. I’m still not yet blown away. But Sōshitsu
is the first time that I really felt Digimon
Adventure tri. is showing signs of being rewarding.
Now if only those 02 DigiDestined can appear in the last
two movies…
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