The Digimon Tamers EPILOGUE MOVIE | Runaway Locomon Review

0:00 a few videos back we reviewed Digimon tamer's Battle of adventurers a strange Tamers film that released in Japan Midway through the show's original run which served as a light Crossover with Adventure 1999 and 0-2 with omnimon and apocrymon being major players but it was ultimately a story that didn't feel all too consequential in this video we're talking about the other Digimon Tamers film out there which feels significantly more important as chronologically it's meant to take place after the final episode of the anime making it something of an epilogue story for Digimon Tamers it's no revenge of Dia Borman it's certainly not a six movie series like try or even a last evolution kizano with a Time skip but runaway locomon is the Digimon Tamers Encore Victory lap that many fans craved especially after the heartbreaking but hopeful ending of the original series So today we're discussing and reviewing this short and sweet film asking how it does as a

0:46 standalone Digimon story and how we feel about it as the final animated Adventure in the Digimon Tamers timeline welcome back to the digital thank you for helping the channel get to 40 000 subscribers if you haven't subscribed yet but you like Digimon and you like what's going on here please do me the favor of hitting subscribe because the next next Milestone is 50k it takes just one screen tap or button click but would absolutely make my day alright with that out of the way let's talk runaway locomon I've been having a great time exploring these Legacy Digimon films I'll link to my reviews of Revenge of diorama on the zero two epilogue film and battle of adventurers the Tamers sort of Midway summer vacation film in the description of this video runaway locomon takes place sometime after the events of the Tamers series finale characters like Gilman and terriermon have been reunited with their human Tamers despite the tearful goodbye in the final episode but characters that were lost in the series like Leomon are

1:31 still permanently gone it's rika's birthday and the cast of Tamers have orchestrated a birthday celebration with Jerry leading the party planning at the heart of our epilogue film is a story about Rika the most distant and walled off character from Tamers responding to love from her friends her family her Digimon it's a charming and unique setup for one of these post series epilogue films Adventure fans who are used to Modern Adventure sequel stories focusing too heavily on Tai don't have to worry about the Tamer sequel focusing too much on takato only Rika is the Crux of this film and I would argue just about everyone else still gets time to shine the first of the Rika birthday celebrations comes in the form of a mother-daughter Museum day that Jerry and takato planned seeing Rika and her mom who simply don't mesh but keep trying regardless it's instantly more Charming than Battle of adventurers and seeing our characters in this peacetime era after the D Reaper defeat has that

2:18 nice Victory lap feeling that I enjoyed from Revenge of dioramon just like in that film we're seeing these characters at the end of their character arcs though because this is Tamers and these are still young teens they aren't completely at peace more on that later the birthday plan goes off the rails immediately though we meet local man a hulking train Digimon just barreling through Tokyo causing total Mayhem Tamers was always great at its depiction of real world Tokyo Shinjuku in particular and here we once again get a love letter to Japan's biggest city in the form of tamer's already true to life art style now with the movie quality attention to detail Rika and renamon board locomon sodas takato yamaki from the network Administration the designer of hypnos is alone in Tokyo seemingly trying to figure out what to do with himself after the events of the main series when he becomes aware of the runaway locomon he takes command of a rail traffic controller station as the

3:04 foremost adult Authority on apprehending Rogue Digimon this is a fun flip of the script that I enjoyed he's no longer in hypnose HQ but here he is again in a room full of computers directing system admin workers and coming up with a plan to stop a renegade Digimon from terrorizing the human world it's what we know but a little bit different everyone's boy bielzemon shows up on his bike just an epic entrance where he takes a crack at stopping locomon himself before promptly eating it is so sad one of the coolest monsters in the franchise and a real highlight of Tamers getting ko'd 20 seconds after first appearing on screen not everyone can be the star of such a short film but his role in this film was a huge bummer still I can't lie and say this fake out slash failure wasn't immensely funny there's also this funny bit where when it's time for Henry and terryerman to get involved in the action they can't because Henry is actually with lotmon In

3:50 This Moment the two got mixed up Henry grabbed the wrong Mon and terriermon is back with Susie and is super pissed on board the train Rika is infected with something and has visions of her apps father to this day we don't know much about the character he has presumed alive but rika's parents are separated and he's not the primary caretaker it's also clear that rika's mom had her quite young but not much else is known about the father his age his occupation here Enrique's mind we get a song coupled with the vision of a young Rika on a swing set playing with her father before he disappears leaving her again it's heartbreaking vulnerable haunting and a little bit creepy here is a character who has hid so much of herself from the other characters in the fictional world and from the viewers and we are kind of forced into her mind it almost feels invasive because you know Rika wouldn't be cool with sharing this Vision this memory with anyone at least not at this

4:36 moment in her life this is a bit of an aside but it was at this point in the film that having recently watched Digimon ghost game the anime that ran from 2021 to 2023 it dawned on me that this movie's structure is not dissimilar to an episode of ghost game a lightning fast monster of the week story with no real introduction to locomon other than that he's here and he's fast and a team working to stop that week's monster while learning a bit more about the monster only here we actually get the luxury of learning a bit more about the Hero characters we get more of rika's inner thoughts and feelings in this short film than we did for really kyoshiro or Hiro combined in all of ghost game honestly this is of course a top level writing decision but I will always admire tamer's willingness and effectiveness at really interrogating and exploring its unique characters something that ghost game decided it wouldn't spend time doing but I'd

5:21 digress back to Runaway locomon proper we come to learn what's possessed Rika and locomon for that matter turns out this runaway locomon is something of a victim as it's being controlled by a parasymon that has latched on and now controls its host the locomot evolves into Grand locomon and although Rika is separated from her parasymon and regains Consciousness she's briefly captured I don't love her getting tied up and held captive here it's way too tropey to have the girl in the squad tied up so that the boy leader can save her and it hurts especially hard when this is Rika we're talking about getting the Damsel in Distress treatment this was 2002 it's a film that's over 20 years old so I'll cut it some slack but a weird call for Rika fortunately it doesn't last long because again this movie moves at a Breakneck Pace there's something here I kind of like with Rika asking for takato's help I'm a bit torn because it is Trophy and tired but I never thought

6:07 I'd hear Rika asking a friend for assistance like this so the fact that she trusts takato to help her carry this burden is somewhat effective we start the Matrix Evolution train here with dukemon or gallimon having a sick fight with parasymon all of its organic tendrils and weird Parts wiggling around it's wonderfully animated I jumped around between the English dub and the English sub with the Japanese vocals and in the Japanese version I loved masuko nozawa's dukwon voice it's distinctly not guiomon whereas in the dub I always thought gallantmon still having that mix of dicado and the goofy Gilman voice was kind of weird nozawa is also not doing Goku or Gohan here it's distinctly a dukeman voice which sounds great and shows what a talent she is now a bunch more parasymon begin manifesting in the real world the closer lookamon gets to the digital Zone destination we pull out all the Tamer stops here with the Matrix Evolutions not just of our main three

6:54 pairs but also just Iman shows up Rika is still a little flustered presumably by Rio again a little bit cheesy but I'm a sucker for the Rio Rica Dynamic so I liked seeing it one last time here before Tamers said goodbye forever but yazamont bounces back too he has a chance at redeeming himself for his major L earlier in the movie he saved Susie and lopmon dukemon Crimson mode is brought out one last time to finish the battle for good and things move so fast that I can't exactly say I loved the final minutes of the battle he throws a javelin Into the Heart of the digital Zone above town and with that the parasymon that were overwhelming sakuyaman just Iman and the others all just fade away it was fine it could have been better certainly being the final Tamers battle to be animated lookamon rides off the moment he's free of the parasymon without thanking or acknowledging Our Heroes once again this feels incredibly ghost game finally with the runaway locomon crisis resolve we go

7:40 back to rika's grandmothers for the birthday party promised at the start of the film this is a short but rewarding and even emotional little scene allowing us to see the Tamers cast together one last time the Digimon are with them unlike in the final episode of the anime minus Leomon of course they're doing karaoke imman is there Rio is here too wearing his Adventure outfit not his Tamers gear you know like the metal Gauntlet thing seeing Jerry with the gang and smiling so wide even without liaman is also quite sweet considering the trauma she went through in the second half of Tamers and the fact she's able to not just tolerate being in the same room as ipman but celebrating with him is a beautiful demonstration of forgiveness and Redemption we don't leave things on a purely happy ending though Kazu says something that rubs Rika the wrong way she leaves the party to go be alone in another room takaro tries to pursue gets close to having a one-on-one moment that I would have been

8:25 interested in seeing but renamon stops him believing that it's best to leave Rika alone at this moment by herself Rika watches the sunset thinking of her father and the film Fades to Black it's that Melancholy weirdly real thing that made so many of us fall in love with Tamers we end the entire series with the team United stronger than ever Rika supported by nearly a dozen friends at this point but Tamers pulls the Tamers and reminds us not every struggle can be solved with the Digimon punching another Digimon I appreciate and prefer that this movie with its 30 minute run time didn't have the false confidence to try and resolve rika's complicated relationship with an absent father although we end the film without happily ever after send off we leave with a deeper empathy for a character that has been incredibly walled off for the entirety of the series us being allowed into that character's heart and mind is the rewarding epilogue that I didn't

9:10 expect but I really treasure runaway locomon isn't the perfect tamer's epilogue or send-off but realistically even Tri and last evolution which marketed themselves much more as sequels and endings have their own share of critics who would say those are far from perfect endings what runaway locomon is pretty perfect at is being a small slice of what made Digimon Tamers so beloved we get one more battle with all of our favorite characters one more Matrix Evolution sequence one more creepy bio-organic parasitic Digimon villain latching on to a vulnerable and troubled young girl one more Melancholy finale where even the happiest of moments for our favorite characters is weighed down by an intentionally unresolved trauma it isn't the time skip where are they now type of epilogue but it is very much that other term I've used once or twice in this review runaway locomon is

9:56 Digimon tamer's Victory lap