The Forgotten DIGIMON TAMERS MOVIE: A Multiverse Crossover?

0:00 there was a Digimon Tamers movie that a ton of fans back in the day probably missed given it never got a theatrical run like the first Digimon movie in terms of an English release it only ever aired on American TV in 2005 and never got released on home video for those English-speaking audiences in my last video covering Digimon movies we talked revenge of diaborum on a direct sequel to the middle part of the Digimon movie R war game where Dia Borman came back after the events of Digimon season 2. that movie was an epilogue of sorts of Victory lap for the zero two cast whereas this movie we're discussing today Digimon tamer's Battle of adventurers is meant to Loosely fit into the middle of the Digimon Tamers story that you remember premiering in Japan at one of toei's Summer animation fairs in July of 2001 only three or so months after Tamers began airing in April there was never a real chance that the movie might serve as an epilogue considering

0:45 the show wasn't even halfway finished airing instead we got this mid-season Side Story that doesn't exactly fit anywhere not unlike the Dragon Ball Z films that never quite fit perfectly in that series timeline so what is this strange 50-minute film why is omnimon here why are Neo pet looking virtual pets so involved why did they give it such a generic name and is it worth chasing down here comes my review of Battle of adventurers welcome to the did you know subscribe to the channel if you haven't already so you don't miss the next time I review one of these old and sometimes forgotten Digimon films 40K subscribers is so close and after that the next stop is 50 000 Digi Destin I know the algorithm is so good these days at just showing you the videos you want but just to support me please subscribe from The Jump the movie has one of the most mind-bending brain breaking openings before sort of nose diving back into very familiar mundane territory the

1:30 film starts with omnimon omegamon in Japanese battling The Reincarnation of apocalymon the final boss of the first season Digimon Adventure the appearance of two prolific Digimon Adventure characters immediately evokes a connection to that first series making you question if you're watching a Tamers movie or some kind of crossover special the question that has sparked debate on fan forums for over two decades now is this omnimon tie in maths omnimon and is that apocalymon the apocrymon from the end of that first series the movie refuses to confirm it but also doesn't go out of its way to deny it we know multi reversal Shenanigans were occurring in Tamers thanks to characters like Rio appearing in both the adventure and tamer's universe and later in the film omnimon will tell the Tamers cast that he comes from another dimension fans have pointed to this amiman's size as evidence that it's a different omnimon from Matt and ties but we've seen inconsistency with the size of

2:16 Adventure Digimon including Madden Thai's omnimon from how he appeared in our war game compared to revenge of diormon compared to try and even last evolution so that's not a real valid argument in my opinion but my honest feeling as much as it pains me is that this omnimon and apocrymon reincarnated aren't the characters we know from the first series but are here to give a sweet kind of non-committal wink to returning fans but again one could lean on the whole Ryo thing to make a case that there's a precedent of these two universes connecting that said we could get stuck here debating the first minute of this film all day so in the interest of time I'm gonna move on for now with the initial premise of this film is that takato is going to Okinawa the southernmost prefecture of Japan on a summer trip in the airport the boys meet two more key players for the rest of the film takato's cousin Kai and the president of the virtual pet Labs who gladly takes credit for the little virtual dog appearing on just about

3:03 every character in the movie's personal electronics this is a key part of the film these little on-screen assistants are kind of reminiscent of a neopet though I understand it's more of a Tamagotchi thing it's straight up referred to as a v-pet really the most I've seen Digimon integrate and acknowledge virtual pet toys into an anime storyline cool considering the franchise's origins as a v-pet it's also funny to hear the company president in this scene pitch his vision for the v-pets and how he sees them evolving into virtual personal assistants Not Just Pets on every electronic device in every home the man is essentially describing smartphones today with Siri and Alexa but imagining those Tech Innovations coming from the makers of Tamagotchi and Neopets it's a weird alternate history pitch that I'm kind of into this what if where Tamagotchi was the iPhone of today not long after leaving the airport Takata reveals Gilman to Kai and their grandfather neither character are particularly

3:49 surprised by gyomon which catches takato off guard the grandpa thinks this red dinosaur is just a weird looking dog which is comical but the more interesting reaction is Kai who explains that he knows that Gilman a digimon because he has a general understanding of what Digimon are he doesn't have like a digimon partner himself but remember this is the Tamers Canon wherein where Digimon was a popular media franchise like it is in our world Kai has this incredible line he says quote Okinawa has the Digimon games here too you know but I didn't know they really existed I guess that's Tokyo for you it's really charming and weirdly relatable like wanting to believe Spider-Man and the Ninja Turtles actually exist in New York City I continue to love the whole world building of Tamers and all of the weird fun scenarios that come out of the fact that Digimon is a brand in this story takata's crew meets a girl Minami being hunted by Digimon who seemed to want her laptop which contains the original copy

4:35 of the hot new v-pet that everyone in the film is currently obsessed with we learned that vpat was a gift from her dad coded by him and meant to help Minami replace a real world dog she had that died sometime before the start of the film we get more light action Eureka and renamon battle in Tokyo and another small island battle for takato and Gilman noteworthy in these fights card slash is actually integrated into the film which is how you can tell this movie was written and created earlier in tamer's production life cycle a new Digimon emerges from minami's laptop to help her and takano in one of the fights it knows minami's name and has a strong desire to defend her around this time a voice in the sky reaches out to Rika and Henry telling them they're needed and asks them to follow it into the light back on the island we learned that Digimon have somehow taken over the v-pet company taking minami's father prisoner this whole sequence is quite fun to me because Digimon like ponchomon and sepikman are here characters that

5:21 were featured recently in Digimon Adventure 2020 and in ghost game and it was cool to see how they were utilized in smaller bit Parts Henry Rika and their Digimon Partners catch a ride through Subspace with omnimon it's strange and cool to see the Tamers kids alongside omnimon the Ultimate Weapon of the adventure story quote I came from a digital reality in a different dimension from yours to chase after him the most dangerous Digimon there is again not committing to connecting the adventure story with the Tamer story directly here but very casually confirming this sort of Multiverse multi-dimension thing while letting viewers believe this could be the omiman we know if that's what they want thanks to Gilman's ability to sniff out Digimon we learned that spoilers the president of the v-pad company actually a digimon and not just any Digimon but The Reincarnation of apocrymon that omnimon has been hunting mephismon it's another Digimon that had

6:06 a standard episode in the adventure 2020 reboot where he crucified kabumhan I'll link to that episode review in the description if you want to know what on Earth I'm talking about if you thought Memphis mon crucifying gabumon was Nightmare fuel I've got something new for you Memphis month's body with the human president's face for a few short seconds in this film is really disturbing stuff as he taunts the Tamers and mortally wounds minami's new monster partner Memphis mon is now executing its master plan with the v-pets it's had installed on every computer system in the world now terrorizing the globe it's a very our war game scene and since revenge of the Borman was also very our war game this is kind of the third time in about two years that Digimon has used this premise so while I do love our war game with all my heart and I like the whole v-pad angle here I can't in good faith praise this angle it's a little too similar to multiple of the previous Digimon films omnimon shows up to deliver Rika Henry and their Digimon

6:53 Partners but he can't leave the digital space why mephism on can and he can't is not exactly clear but I understand from a writing perspective that if omnimon could come out there would just simply be no need for the Tamers cast to step up it's too bad that takato and giomon couldn't have a real moment to connect with omnimon like the other Tamers did though the final battle takes place in this cool underwater virtual space it's this red sky Tokyo underwater aesthetic that is very beautiful and very Tamers feeling Minami holding labrumon begins calling her injured partner May which was the name of the original dog she had that died it's kind of funny that this movie also has a new digidestin girl with the Digimon based off of a household pet that she calls Mei it turns out May was the key word that would initiate the vaccine program and cure all of the Rogue V pets of the virus that's been affecting them it seems Minami acknowledging her partner works and the real world disasters come

7:39 to an end but Takata questions wait if mephismon is defeated why hasn't the virtual space we're in Fallen apart and speak of the devil mephismon shows itself in a new form I guess the vaccine was enough to stop the virus v-pets but not mephismon itself so the Tamers team go to Ultimate to stand a Fighting Chance initially I enjoyed the three-digit Evolution sequences being kind of merged into one but they lost me in the final few moments when they threw it 2D rapidmon and 2D taumon animation on top of the 3D War grahamon Evolution we know it was pretty jarring and just didn't look great three ultimates kind of combine into a phoenix-like trinity burst which is a move never used in the show but that existed in the real world Digimon card game they form into a phoenix-like aura made up of red yellow and green light before we know it though the battle is over I didn't really care for this Trinity burst ending it all felt anticlimactic and like the real end

8:24 of the film was Minami acknowledging Mei and activating the vaccine program everything after that moment felt off I understand the desire to throw in a battle with some final Evolutions but it felt too fast and just like a beam struggle I suppose but without any struggle there's also no meaningful omnimon resolution here I didn't need him to come out and say hey you guys remind me of my human friends Ty and Matt or anything like that but it would have been nice to see him acknowledge the Tamers and their strengths especially for takato and Gilman who never got to speak to omnimon battle of adventurers is in my opinion one of the weirder Digimon films out there you would not be wrong to call it filler in Japan premiering at that film festival three months after Tamer started airing it was very much an advertising to get people to check out Tamers and that's exactly what it feels like with a dangling omnimon a beloved Digimon icon in front of the audience and telling a tamerous story that is pretty inconsequential and doesn't shake up the

9:10 status quo in any real way the things I liked about this movie are mostly just things I like about Digimon Tamers in general the new inclusions aren't anything to write home about besides the gorgeous animation and the fun v-pad storyline as it cleverly reconnected Digimon back to its roots as a tamagotchi-like electronic toy this sort of meta callback to what Digimon began as was kind of inspired and perfectly at home in Tamers I will say the non-tokato cast members got sidelined pretty hard in this film especially Rika which is unfortunate sure they got to hang with omnimon but they didn't do much else Battle of Adventures isn't the perfect little send-off to these characters like I thought revenge of diaborman was for zero two though that's partly by Design considering that it was released and takes place in the middle of the tamer's original run in that regard it's more like hurricane touchdown the third part of the Digimon movie and I think that comparison is apt in the two films quality there's one other Tamers movie

9:56 that is sort of the postseason epilogue story that we got in but for Tamers and I'll be reviewing that film next so be sure to subscribe if you want to hear my thoughts on that other Digimon Tamers movie of course let me know your thoughts on Battle of adventurers if you knew about it if you watched it as a kid or caught it years later thanks for watching have a great week and I'll see you in the next video