'Digimon the Movies' Synopses Released
It’s time to actually tell what the stories of the digital friends are
“Digimon the Movies” is up and running for pre-orders on the Crunchyroll Store, and if you’ve been following along, you know what’s coming. But it occurred to me, up until now while the contents of the release had been described, headlined by the uncut versions of the Digimon films that made up Digimon: The Movie along with the latter itself remastered, with its rather unique soundtrack intact, the contents of the contents weren’t. Luckily, Discotek Media, which is the company handling the release, took to Twitter to detail several products including it.
While there are several fansites and general information compendiums that could summarize these 25-year-old films in English for you, or you may still have your back-of-VHS and DVD blurb, “Digimon the Movies” is the first release in the language to treat each of them as individual films. The first movie, Digimon Adventure, is the commonly-witnessed event by the original eight children who would be chosen as the DigiDestined, several years before the events of the series of the same name. The official synopsis reads “Learn the origins of the DigiDestined in the story of Tai & Kari's first encounter with a Digimon! Will Greymon be able to defeat the fearsome Parrotmon or will its squawks doom Highton View Terrace? Find out in this prequel Digimon adventure!”
The second film, Our War Game originally had its story recontextualized to create a throughline for all three stories, where Willis’s story reaches more indirect convergence before direct involvement in the third part. Here, the first story after the conclusion of the Adventure series, DigiDestined and Digimon reunite as “Spring break turns into a summer war when the evil Diaboromon wreaks havoc on the net, & Tai & Matt must achieve a new Digivolution to defeat him! Will Tai & the Digidestined save the world, & will Sora ever forgive Tai for giving her a hair clip?” In the Digimon: The Movie version, Willis was said to have accidentally created Diaboromon. This synopsis was especially cheeky, as director Mamoru Hosoda, who also directed the Adventure movie, would go on to direct Summer Wars, which largely lifts the plot but not the Digimon skin. Hosoda is on record as saying Our War Game is "plainly a prototype" of Summer Wars. that it "kind of started" the idea, that it "became the feature-length version" of it, allowing him to explore the stuff that went unexplored in Our War Game's 40 minute runtime.
The final film stars the Adventure 02 cast, taking place following Ken’s fall as the Digimon Emperor but before he could approach them with his repentance. It has a longer name in Japan that’s been shortened to Hurricane Touchdown here, and it has the most egregious edits. The official synopsis reads “After the older DigiDestined are taken by the mysterious Kokomon, the next generation of kids team up w/ American DigiDestined Willis to rescue them- only to discover that their enigmatic enemy has an unexpected connection to their new friend!” See that first part? That does not exist in the Digimon: The Movie edit. It’s entirely excised except to use the older kids’ moments before disaster as visual for their “Where are they now?” montage. In the Digimon: The Movie edit, Kokomon was corrupted by the same virus that created Diaboromon, and he was very open about Kokomon, now in its Champion form, Wendigomon, being one of his partner Digimon. The mission in that version was just to defeat it with reason.
The thread alludes to featuring the “classic beloved cast” That includes a character who had several voice actors in the projects since. Joshua Seth, who only ever missed Revenge of Diaboromon, as Tai, Michael Reisz returning to the role of Matt for the first time since that film, Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Sora, Mona Marshall as Izzy (and Terriermon), Lara Jill Miller as Kari, and Brian Donovan as Davis. All default-stage partner Digimon to Adventure Digidestined reprise their roles from the series, including Edie Mirman as Kari’s champion stage partner Gatomon after being voiced by Kate Higgins for the last decade of projects. Doug Erholtz as 02-era T.K. is in a similar position, having been voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch in them. Wendee Lee is back as Adventure era T.K. for the first time since that series ended. The Fahns Tom and Dorothy are back in their roles too, as is Paul St. Peter as Diaboromon and its earlier stages, as well as Kokomon’s Wendigomon and Cherubimon stages. Anyone who could come back is here! However that’s unfortunately not the case for Mimi, Cody, Joe, Greymon and MetalGreymon, Armadillomon, Gennai and Angemon. They have been recast due to such permanent circumstances like the deaths of Philece Sampler, Michael Lindsay, Joseph Pilato, Robert Axelrod, and Mike Reynolds and retirement of Dave Mallow. So now, there are “great fresher faces” joining the cast: Mimi is voiced by Elsie Lovelock, who also voices Matt and T.K.’s grandma, named Kinu. Cody is voiced by Madeline Dorroh, and Joe by Eli Farmer. The series’s regular Greymon is here voiced by Bradley Gareth, who also takes over Angemon and MetalGreymon. They also take a moment to acknowledge well-known voice actors joining the franchise here, namely Wayne Grayson, known moreso for his 4Kids resume, takes over Axelrod’s roles as Armadillomon and Upamon, while Bryce Papenbrook takes over his father Bob’s role as the Greymon, referred to Red Greymon that fought Parrotmon at Highton View Terrace in the Adventure movie.
Extras aren't ready to be announced, but they tease a solid selection with content ranging from 1999 to new material created for this release. “Digimon the Movies” is out December 17 on home media. The uncut versions will also have their original Japanese audio track and English captions/subtitles.
Source: Discotek Media