Brief Summary
The reviewer expresses deep disappointment with "Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning," stating it's potentially the worst Digimon release since 2015. The critique focuses on the film's failure to deliver on key aspects that make Digimon appealing: compelling character development, exciting evolutions, and engaging battles. The story is criticized for being weak and not justifying the absence of action and meaningful character moments for the original 02 cast.
- The film lacks meaningful battles and utilizes evolutions poorly.
- The story centers too much on a new character, Louie, at the expense of the original 02 cast.
- The movie doesn't offer a compelling experience for both longtime and new Digimon fans.
The reviewer traveled from Canada to America to watch "Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning" in theaters. Despite high expectations, the reviewer was significantly disappointed. The review aims to express these feelings without invalidating others' positive experiences with the film.
The reviewer clarifies that their issues with the movie are not related to timeline contradictions or canon inconsistencies, which have been problematic in the Digimon franchise for years. The core issues lie in how the movie fails its characters, actors, and fans by prioritizing a new character and neglecting elements that make Digimon special, such as evolutions and battles. The reviewer believes the film emphasizes story at the expense of action and character development.
"Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning" lacks meaningful battles. There's a brief action sequence near the end where characters navigate obstacles, but it doesn't qualify as a proper battle. This absence is baffling to the reviewer, who believes that the best Digimon stories integrate epic battles with emotional beats. The reviewer feels the filmmakers may have intentionally avoided scripting and animating battles to see if audiences would still support the film. There were opportunities to include action in the film to create a more well-rounded experience.
The reviewer's main issue isn't the absence of new Digimon forms, but the poor utilization of existing evolutions. In every instance, Digimon evolutions are merely used as transportation for characters, such as flying them to Tokyo Tower. This undermines the significance of evolution as a metaphor for overcoming obstacles. The reviewer contrasts this with other anime where transformations carry emotional weight and context. The use of Paildramon to simply transport characters is seen as nostalgia bait and a disservice to the form's iconic status.
The story is the strongest aspect of the film, but it's not compelling enough to justify the lack of action and evolution. The plot involves a new character who introduces a revelation that contradicts established beliefs, only for it to be revealed as untrue. While the new character, Rui (Louie in the English dub), is a welcome addition, his backstory is delivered through lengthy exposition dumps, leaving the 02 cast passive and uninvolved.
The reviewer questions whether "Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning" was suited for a film format, suggesting it might have worked better as a stage play, light novel, or audio drama. The film's limited locations and lack of visual spectacle fail to capitalize on the potential of animation. The majority of the movie takes place in only three locations: the computer lab, Louie's home in the past, and the area around Tokyo Tower.
The reviewer expresses surprise at the film's lack of interest in the core 02 cast, despite being marketed as an 02 story. The concept of DigiDestined around the globe is introduced, but their involvement is minimal. The 02 cast members are only slightly more involved, with little exploration of their lives as young adults. The reviewer found more character development for the 02 cast in "Last Evolution Kizuna," despite them being a B-plot.
The film delves into obscure Digimon lore, specifically the wish for everyone in the world to have a Digimon. While this exploration of deep-cut lore is interesting, the reviewer questions whether it was necessary or beneficial to the story. The reviewer was warned about the lack of action, limited evolutions, and focus on Louie, but was still disappointed.
The reviewer argues that the film doesn't benefit the Digimon franchise and may even harm it. While some may claim it's "for the fans," the reviewer urges a broader definition of fans, noting that both casual and hardcore fans in their viewing experience were disappointed. The reviewer contrasts "Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning" unfavorably with "Last Evolution Kizuna," suggesting it fails to satisfy both longtime and new players. The director's claim that the story was only possible with the 02 cast is disputed, as the reviewer believes it could have been adapted for other Digimon seasons or casts.
The film is a disappointment, even more so than Digimon Ghost Game. The reviewer cannot defend or recommend it to anyone who isn't a hardcore Digimon fan. They will only rewatch it for reference in future video essays. The next video will be a spoiler discussion, followed by an ending explained video. The reviewer encourages viewers who enjoyed the film to not let the review diminish their happiness.
Summarize any YouTube video in seconds
Get summaries like this one for any video, in your language, with the free Summ app.
Transcript
Full transcript of “An Honest Review of Digmon Adventure 02: The Beginning | No Spoilers”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 I drove over 300 km crossing the Canada to America border to catch one of the two night only us screenings of the brand new Digimon film Digimon Adventure 02 the beginning I wanted to see this thing in a theater with fellow Digimon fans witnessing what Digimon had to show to the world in 2023 on the biggest screen possible I bring up my road trip to say that I went out of my way to watch this movie that I went in wanting to be wow and amazed this isn't the review I expected to be writing if you watched and loved 02 the beginning I'm extremely happy for you and I'm not here to invalidate your positive feelings but for me this is possibly the worst Digimon release I've engaged with since getting back into the franchise in 2015 there are things I like about 02 the beginning but they're outweighed and drowned out by my disappointment with the final film let me be clear that none of my issues with this movie are with the Canon the timeline how it relates to previous origins or how it relates to
0:46 the 02 epilog the gimon adventure Cannon has been a nightmare for decades and that's not a problem for me personally if those things do bother you I think that's fair but the negative elements of this review are not because I'm hung up on some timeline contradictions that's not what this is as a Digimon 02 story I think the movie fails its characters its actors and its fans by robbing them all of compelling material giving all of its focus to a brand new character as a digimon story in general I think it fails to deliver on all of what makes people care about the series it strives to give us one thing and that's story certainly an emphasis on story and mature stories is what created a lot of lifelong Digimon fans and kept them around but we would be lying to ourselves if we said we didn't hope to see evolutions and Larger than Life battles in a digimon story especially a theatrically released one which is extremely rare occurrence for the purpose of this video Let's Loosely
1:32 agree that the things we like about the Digimon anime are three-fold one the characters SL storytelling two evolving monsters and three battle SL combat after all this is a Shonen toi monster battle franchise I think it would be dishonest to say that Digimon fans don't come to the series for evolutions and battles in addition to story so let's talk all three factors of what make us love Digimon starting with the battles 02 the beginning has no battles there is some light action with something resembling a battle in the Final Act in which the characters race to reach a Destin destination and face what I would call light push back from something resembling an antagonist here they swerve and Dodge slice a few obstacles to clear a path and a couple beams are fired but these three-ish minutes of action are all you can expect I found this to be utterly baffling and I've had over 3 days to find a way to rationalize this decision but really can't at least
2:18 not for me I can already see the comments saying that this film was focused on story and therefore battles weren't necessary but to that I would say that the best Digimon stories of all time are told in between epic battles or in tandem with battles with major emot beats being tied to the combat either in symbolism or timing I almost want to say it's bold that the movie denied its audience any meaningful combat but to me it felt more like the filmmakers testing to see if they could get away with not scripting in choreographing and animating battles to find out if audiences would still support and praise the film I don't want to get into spoilers but I can think of at least three locations where action could have fit into the film for a more well-rounded Digimon experience and Movie goinging experience next onto Evolutions my real issue was not with whether or not brand new forms were included though I do think that's an issue 2 but rather how poorly the Digimon Evolutions we did get were utilized in literally every instance of
3:05 evolution featured in 02 the beginning the partner Digimon are simply used as taxis to transport characters to or from the top of Tokyo Tower we saw pyron's flashy evolution in the trailers for this movie so it's not a spoiler to tell you pamon is in the film when I was sitting there watching the first red flag I really had in the film was when pelron is first summoned in act one simply as a means to fly some of the team up to Tokyo Tower in the best Digimon stories evolution is this epic metaphor for overcoming some obstacle for persevering really in any of these shown in battle anime involving Transformations the context matters if Goku's hair just turned gold one day it wouldn't matter the way it did when the Frieza Saga Crescendo with Super Saiyan unlocking after immeasurable loss and struggle with pamon I understand that Ken and Davis already had access to pyron based on the events of the original series and that struggle and perseverance occurred there but to
3:51 summon and call on this iconic form only to fly three kids up to Tokyo Tower felt like the kind of nostalgia bait fan surfice that I've seen some fans of this movie praise it for not relying on if you've seen the other Evolutions from the trailers you've seen them all and sadly they are literally all used to get the human characters to or from Tokyo Tower so although this film has some story chops which we'll get to next as a digimon packaged product this thing is not well-rounded it has story and a dark one at that but deliberately brings nothing to the table as far as action and evolution are concerned the story is easily the best thing this film has going for it but even then I'm not as hot on this story as some others appear to be in short I don't think it was so strong that it warranted the total de emphasis of the other elements of what make Digimon special I'm simplifying here and forgive me because again this is spoiler-free but the story is essentially that a new character's
4:37 introduced tells the characters and the audience something that goes completely against what they believe and have seen to be true then it turns out the new character and this Revelation weren't true after all so what we believe to be true in the first place is still true that's really reductive I know but that's more or less what happened underneath the flashbacks the exposition and the multiple trips up and down Tokyo Tower the thing we believed at the start of the film is still the thing that's true ruie or Lou in the English dub is genuinely a welcome addition to the adventure Universe I don't have too many problems with this character and out of the new digid Destin introduced in the last few of these films like minoa in kiz and moo and try Louie is my favorite movie exclusive newcomer though still behind Willis from Hurricane touchdown Digimon the movie his backstory is dark and compelling but the problem is that we learn it through Louis spending roughly 45 minutes of the film just telling it to us while the 02 cast sits
5:23 in the dark largely silent interjecting only on rare occasions to say wow that's unreal or how can that be there's a lot of talking in this movie part of me feels like 02 the beginning would be better off as some kind of stage play maybe a light novel or Audio Drama on podcast Services frankly the Media Matters and I just don't believe this story is a good fit for film bizarrely there are about four locations in the movie The Glory of Animation is Limitless potential you can go anywhere show anything but if you've seen the trailer you've seen every local in this movie if you exclude the opening which cuts to the gang living their lives which was put up on YouTube by the way and if you exclude the Ramen Shop which is only there for the opening there are only three locations in in this movie the computer lab Louis Home in the past and the area around Tokyo Tower be it day or night for a film that advertised itself as a 02 story to get Butts in seats I was surprised at how little
6:09 interest it had in the core 02 cast and in the surrounding tertiary 02 cast a big part of 02 and the plot of this film is the idea of Digi destined all around the globe you know the world tour Arc in early promo materials and in the film we cut around to reaction shots of Digi Destin from around the world some that we met in the 02 World Tour but their involvement in the movie is limited to them looking at screens and then there's the core cast the 02 cast of Davis canol Lee Cody plus Ki and TK are only slightly more involved in the plot than you or I am sitting in our seats watching they have some involvement in the finale sure in the sequence I mentioned resembling a battle but not quite being one but the movie has almost no interest in them in terms of seeing what these characters are doing in their late teens and early 20s all we get are the tiny check-ins during the opening that you can again watch on YouTube I
6:54 never in a million years expected this but I genuinely think I got more from the 02 cast in last evolution kiz than I did in 02 the beginning in that film though they were clearly the B plot we saw the boys eating Ramen we saw their reunion with Yoli outside the museum and them doing detective work around the plaza TK and car's Dynamics with their siblings and then of course the 02 crew actually fighting in the climax of the film that was weirdly a lot compared to this movie which was supposed to be their movie to this day I think about the scenes in last evolution kizuna where Matt stares into a music shop window before continuing to walk on where Tai is working his dead-end job at a Pachinko Center and when the two of them are getting beers at an ezekiah later there's nothing resembling that for the zer2 kids in this film nothing to humanize them or give you a sense of life after their magical childhood as a massive fan of 02 I couldn't help but feel robbed of a real check-in with
7:40 these characters again not going into spoilers I want to say it's fascinating what this movie does and does not decide to care about in terms of wider Digimon lore the wish that may everyone in the world have a digimon this is all digging deep into a lore concept that's quietly existed for decades this is admittedly very cool but the film's Devotion to this deep cut lore tidbit one that I believe most casual Digimon fans aren't even aware of I'm not sure if I'll ever agree with the film's desire to explain this so intensely I just don't know if we needed this story in other words I'll start to wrap this up with a few final points I was warned ahead of time about the lack of action in this one not to expect Grand new evolutions and about to focus on Louie over the 02 kids I was still baffled disappointed and listen I like weird dark stuff Digimon survive is my new favorite Digimon video game I was the kind of kid who liked Majora's Mask more than Ocarina of Time because it was
8:27 weird as hell comparing 02 the beginning to last evolution kiz because they were made by the same Animation studio and Sher a director it's like kiz is the okarina of time and 02 the beginning is the Major's mask but imagine Majora's Mask had no gameplay and was just you pressing the a button to move through the dialogue boxes frankly I just don't think this movie helped the Digimon franchise at all if anything I think it hurts it die hards will say it's for the fans but I'd invite you to reconsider and broaden your definition of fans there were people in my theater who were excited to see Digimon on the big screen again who were incredibly disappointed when exiting the theater the person I saw this was with considers themselves a casual fan but watched the first four seasons of Digimon growing up watched try and last evolution Kiza and thought this was the worst Digimon thing they'd seen in years that's a casual fan feeling that way and me as something of a more hardcore fan I also thought it
9:12 wasn't very good I know we're only a small sample size but if this Lou story was one of many Digimon 02 stories we were getting all the time I could see the beginning being a really unique Dark Horse fan favorite but sadly I do think the Media Matters context matters and as the only Digimon film in over 3 years the last anime project we currently have announced and the only dedicated 02 check-in we've had in over 20 years to me this was a total misfire and a massive disappointment I often think about long running IP like live service video games when you put out a Content update obviously you want to make your longtime late game players happy but it's not enough to Simply cater to existing players without enticing and astonishing new players otherwise your player base will slowly diminish and your game dies your update needs to make late game players happy and also welcome new players in the door Digimon 02 the beginning is uninviting to new players
9:58 and it's divisive amongst longtime dedicated players lastly I want to say this in the theater before the film started there was a nice short greeting from the film's director uchian he inted the film a bit and said that the story they wanted to tell was only possible with the 02 cast I really couldn't disagree more there is an interesting Louis story here that could have been inserted into many other Digimon seasons and Digimon casts while it's may be true that the 02 kids were best suited to back up Louie here given Ken's history with darkness and the way that the zero2 Digimon hang out with their kids so often this premise could have been massaged a little bit and easily fitted into a Tamers movie an adventure 2020 movie even a ghost game movie honestly I think Louis and ukan maybe would have been a better fit for the ghost game Universe this is sadly an even bigger disappointment in the Digimon ghost game to me a series that I still enjoyed
10:43 watching most weeks despite critiquing a lot of its structure and story decisions this film I really can't defend can't recommend to anyone who isn't a hardcore serious Digimon fan and I'll only go back to watch this if I need to reference scenes for future video essays because the idea of watching this again does not entice me at all the next video will be a spoiler discussion so I won't have to dance around plot elements like I did here it'll also be nice to have a few days to read some of your thoughts and respond if something is really thought-provoking I also plan to do an ending explained video since I think the last few minutes of the film are quite interesting and actually worth discussing thanks so much for watching please remember that if you enjoyed the film my review should not take away from the happiness you feel I wanted to like this I really did take care and we'll talk spoilers in the next video
