Man, it was such an awesome ride. I really enjoyed the animation and event he character designs worked better for me than I thought they would initially. The Tri version of Butterfly was already wonderful, but I absolutely loved the Tri version of Brave Heart. The instrumental version of both songs were also terrific. The evolution sequences were so cool and I really liked how the Digimon were surrounded in an egg before merging in their forms. It was a nice touch that tied back to the opening narration.
They did a pretty good job with setting up the characters with some relatable problems before they brought back the Digimon. The Adventure kids are still friends, but you can tell that they are drifting apart a bit. Not enough to where it affects their friendships, but it was enough to show how their lives were going in different directions. They all have different interests and obligations, so that would make it harder to join up as a group. Not to mention they're all at an age where they have to deal with figuring out their futures and that's tough for anyone.
I loved Taichi and Agumon's reunion. Taichi sounded happy for the first time in the movie and just seeing them hug each other was so sweet. Seeing the humans hug their Digimon partners was so adorable that I want to see more of it. It was too bad that we didn't see everyone's reactions to seeing their Digimon friends again, but the action scene we got was great. The animation was just great and they clearly put in a good amount of money into the fights.
The government agency being aware of Digimon was a nice twist. I imagine even with most of the world seemingly forgetting Digimon appearing from the previous two series, the government set up organizations and agents to keep an eye on activity like this so that they can stop it. I kind of liked how people responded to the Digimon attacks. It seemed pretty realistic compared to the epilogue of Adventure 02 where everyone is seemingly happy with Digimon and humans living together. Granted, the Infected Digimon going on a rampage and causing a lot of destruction would cause more distrust among the general public, but those kind of reactions would be kind of reasonable even if the two worlds basically came together. It adds some more realistic conflict to the series.
Taichi's conflict also seemed pretty realistic to me. He's a more mature person now, so seeing a Digimon cause massive destruction on a city would potentially shake him up more now than when he was a kid. It might be more intense after having peace for so long too. Plus, he was worried about whether or not his actions would lead to people dying, which was reasonable given how much destruction their fights against the Infected Digimon resulted in. Granted, not doing anything wasn't a reasonable solution since that would make it more likely for people to die, but I could understand the conflict and I thought it was handled pretty well all things considered.
The group dynamics among the group were really good. There were obvious changes due to the characters getting older, but they all still felt like a group of childhood friends. The relationship between Taichi and Yamato felt the most unchanged. They're still good friends, but they can get into some intense disagreements due to their attitudes and emotions. The way they were interacting throughout the movie reminded me a lot of how they bounced off each other in Adventure and Adventure 02, which was a good way to present their relationship.
While the bulk of the movie was mainly focused on Taichi and Yamato, most of the characters got a chance to shine. Takeru and Hikari were talking about Takeru's potential girlfriend and had their Digimon team up tin the fights. Mimi's return showed her upbeat personality and I especially liked how happy she was to see Jo again. Koshiro's crush on Mimi is also surprisingly a thing. I thought that was going to be a one-off comment, but they're apparently going for that being a one-sided crush at least for the time being. I liked how Koshiro was trying to look at a ton of different possible outfits for him as well. Jo's reunion with Gomamon was really sweet and the reactions to his apparent girlfriend were hilarious. Sora trying to decide between Taichi and Yamato at the beginning of the movie showed how much she cared about both of them.
I really liked how Yamato was able to help Taichi take action during the last fight. As I mentioned before, it worked with their dynamic from previous series and showed their friendship pretty well. As for how their Digimon were able to form Omgeamon, I believe that most of the convoluted reasons as to why the Digimon couldn't evolve past their Champion forms were undone by the end of Adventure 02. I know that they were given the power to get the Ultimate forms back and Agumon could Mega Evolve at least. That last battle was so cool and intense. I liked that even though Taichi was able to work with Yamato to form Omgeamon, his conflict wasn't entirely resolved, which made sense. This is still the first movie.
Meiko being a DigiDestined wasn't too surprising, but she didn't really stand out to me besides that point. Granted, this movie was about getting the Adventure band back together, so a brand new character wouldn't get much attention, but she just seemed like a shy obviously important character for later more than anything else. Her Digimon partner looked cute and I'm sure she'll get more attention later on in the series. Jo didn't have much attention after the gag about his girlfriend. That also made sense due to how Jo was never an active fighter in the group. It's even worse when he's clearly struggling with exams, but it felt like he didn't get much attention. It also had difficulty with remembering more scenes about Sora that didn't tie back to Taichi and/or Yamato.
The Adventure 02 kids are obviously not dead. They wouldn't kill off main characters, especially not primarily off-screen. At the very least, they aren't going to stay gone for good. Adventure 02 is clearly canon. Even Takeru and Hikari had their D3 Digivices, which surprised me since I thought that there would be some reason to transform them back to their original forms so that all eight characters would have the same kind of Digivices. That all being said, I was honestly surprised that they weren't mentioned in a conversation during the movie. The opening scene with each of them falling in battle was to explain why they weren't involved, as well as to possibly tie in the with the plot for later on in the series, but I thought that there would be some other mention of them during the movie by the characters. Throughout the movie, the characters say that this something only they can do, but they never consider checking in on Daisuke's group to see if their Digimon partners returned as well. It was so weird that a part of me wonders if the Adventure 02 kids were erased from their memories/existence in general. I'm not sure how that would work due to Takeru and Hikari's D3 Digivices. I'm not sure how they'd explain those without remembering the Adventure 02 kids. I'm sure it will be covered down the line, but it was a detail that caught my attention.
The movie was all around really solid. The characters were fun, the conflicts were interesting, the animation was great and the music was beautiful. It's basically a huge treat for fans of Adventure and for long time Digimon fans in general and I loved it. I just wish that this was a regular TV series. We'd lose the amazing animation unfortunately, but we wouldn't have to wait a year for each installment. Waiting until next winter for the second movie is going to be pretty tough. I'm pretty pumped for more of Digimon Adventure Tri after seeing the first movie.
