Digimon Adventure Tri Complete Series Mini Review: Disappointing

With the release of the final Digimon Tri movie, Digimon Tri Our Future, I decided to sit down and talk about my overall thoughts on the Digimon Tri series of films. Were these films worth it and are they worth watching as a collective? First of all, I want to make it very clear I am no Digimon expert. My knowledge of Digimon comes down to watching it dubbed Adventure through Data Squad as a kid. Because of this, I will be going back and forth between the English and the Japanese names because I do use both due to my exposure to the Japanese dub when watching Digimon Tri. So overall, were these movies worth it? I would honestly say no. Obviously, yes, if you are a really hardcore fan of this franchise, go watch these, I'm sure you will enjoy it. But for a casual fan like myself, they're just not made for casuals. As these films go on, they get really deep into really Digimon lore heavy stuff that wasn't really explored very much in the original Adventure series. So people like me who are casuals and don't know all the extra Digimon lore that wasn't in the show, really had a very hard time following these films. In general, there were a lot of plotlines that are less open-ended like what was up with the Dark Jedi. I was very displeased with how they basically ignored the Adventure O2 Season 2 whatever you want to call them cast by Davis and all of them. None of the O2 or Season 2 DigiDestined are shown at all in this series of films, besides for a brief silhouette. The exception to this of course being T.K. and Kari, who were members of the original DigiDestined from Season 1. These films are also unbelievably padded. Every time I watch these, I end up being massively bored for a duration of them to the point where I almost want to stop watching. I'm only watching these because I'm a huge fan of the original source material. It feels like the story that they want to tell could've been conveyed in like three or four films as opposed to the six films we got. I found Mako as a character and her role in the narrative and her introduction to be incredibly forced, and they didn't really spend time developing her and making her likable. They simply failed to make me care about Mako in any way whatsoever. And of course, the plot revolves around her, so that definitely hurt my enjoyment. I understand what they were going for with the DigiDestined growing up and realizing how much damage they do in their battles and thinking about things differently and how they're not the chosen children anymore because they have grown up. But it just wasn't an engaging plotline with the way it was executed. It felt very forced and retroactively made the plotline very uninteresting and unenjoyable to experience. I think really hardcore fans will enjoy seeing this lore that had never been explored in animation before be explored, but overall, for casuals, it's just not interesting. In general, I think the concept of a Dark Jedi is kind of lame. It's the same as, like, Evil Goku and Evil Naruto. It's just a lame concept. Of course, these films do have some merits of their own, though. It was great to see all the other DigiDestined partner Digimon obtain mega-level evolutions. So it was nice seeing everyone obtain their mega-levels so they can all contribute to the battles. Also, I will admit, I did have a nostalgic fanboy moment when Agumon reappeared in front of Tai and transformed into Greymon for the first time again in the first episode or first film. I can remember that moment very, very clearly, and that was about three years ago, but I can remember that exact moment perfectly because I fanboyed so hard and I was just so happy, which is weird because I was never the biggest Digimon fan. Like, I was still interested in where they were going to go with this, but I wasn't, like, a fanboy of Digimon. But when I saw Agumon come back and the music kicked in, which I wasn't even used to the song, and he transformed into Greymon, I really liked it. The next thing I want to talk about is weird because I liked it the way some things were handled in this regard, but I also didn't like the way some things were handled. Um, the romance in this! I did like how they kind of explored T.K. and Kari's relationship very vaguely, but overall, they kind of didn't explore anything. Like, they had some T.K. and Kari moments which were great, let's be honest. The whole- it's obvious that T.K. and Kari end up getting together. It's never directly stated, but it is pretty heavily hinted at that they do get together in the epilogue. But all the other couples that were said to have happened in the epilogue aren't really hinted towards at all. So yeah, besides for T.K. and Kari, which was, while nothing overtly romantic, was kind of built up a little bit more, they had some moments. There was that moment in the final film where when Kari was sick, T.K. walked over her. But besides for that, they don't explore any more of the couple really. It is mentioned Joe has a girlfriend, but it's heavily implied he may have been lying about it because we never see the girl. It's hinted at that there is something kind of going on between Izzy and Mimi, but that is also never really goes anywhere besides being used for the sake of comedy. Because it's an easy joke, Izzy's like the nerdy, geeky little kid that likes to go on his laptop all the time, and Mimi's the popular hot girl that all the jocks wanna get with. It's easy to write a romance between these two and build it up while also making it really comedic, so they did it decently with that, I guess. But besides for those two things, none of the other couples that were in the epilogue were alluded to. We got nothing. Like, there were a couple opportunities where you thought they were going to go with something with Matt and Sora or Ty and Sora, but they didn't. They just stuck with writing the three of them platonically as friends, which is weird because they've already set up the fact that Matt and Sora get married. Like, this isn't a will-they-won't-they kind of situation with writing romance. This is a you-know-it-isn't-going-to-happen, why-not-just-write-for-it-so-it-actually-makes-sense I just think it's a waste of an opportunity because, of course, you could've built up the relationship more and made it make even more sense narratively. Nothing in the epilogue was alluded to at all in this, besides for the fact that Matt told Sora he wants to go to space one day, which is obviously a reference to him becoming an astronaut in the epilogue. So I liked the way they handled TK and Kairi, but that's about it. There is this little thing they kind of hinted toward going on where Ty has a crush on Mako. But of course, this doesn't really work because Mako isn't a very interesting character. So you have Ty, who everybody cares about because he was built up a lot in Adventure 1 and Adventure 2 and he's really interesting. And you just have Mako, who is brand new and nobody really cares about, so it doesn't work. It's also filled with really weird issues like nobody in the real world remembers Digimon. Nobody remembers how Myotismon took over an entire city or the events in the end of 02. We do get some backstory for the original DigiDestined, which was cool. This did put the theory that the Frontier Gang were the original DigiDestined to rest, which is kind of unfortunate, but I actually like that theory about the Frontier Gang. Being the original DigiDestined is more than what we got in the film. Maki and Daigo were fine, there's nothing special about it, it's just fine. So overall, is Digimon Tri worth it? Not really. Is it great? Not really. Is it terrible? No, I'd say it's a solid 6 out of 10. I think if you're a really big Digimon fan or you were a big fan as a kid, it's worth sitting down and checking it out. It's 5 movies, you can watch them over the span of a couple weeks and have fun with it. So I feel really comfortable giving it a 6 out of 10. Nothing special, nothing revolutionary. If you're a big Digimon fan, you can check it out. But honestly, if you're a casual fan and you were a casual fan as a kid and you were never that into it, don't watch these. They're just not worth your time. If you enjoyed the video, leave it a like. Tell me your thoughts on Digimon Adventure Tri in the comment section down below. Follow me on Twitter, which is of course linked in the description box down below. Subscribe for more videos. And above all else, guys, have a great day.