#ITS CUTE SO GAP MOE HE’S A PIECE OF SHIT

[shhhsoftnwet]

I can be ur angle 😇 or yuor devil 👿

[sincerepinkhibiscusrightear]

I finally watched Symbiosis

Short tangent about Loss with Symbiosis under the cut: I liked it better than Loss. Loss, for the most part, left me tired and irritated despite the good things I found within it. The negatives for the movie, for me personally, were too great to be balanced out with what I liked about it. Plots of memory loss for the sake of drama really irritate me. I hated the roller coaster we’d go through with something happening at the end of a movie only for it to slow down again at the start of the next one.  Yes, I know they’re movies. But the plot still unfolds like a regular TV series which means climax ending fights need to be shoehorned in to make the move worthwhile on its own.  What irritated me though was the loss of history. History that means a lot to not only us and the kids but the digimon as well. The digimon just go back to their roles and personalities exactly as they were before the reboot, so what does it accomplish other than padding out the movie and adding needless casualties (not in body at least). If the reboot wasn’t successful, then I would have liked for it to be reversed with the digimon, especially since their memory loss doesn’t just include their memories of being a chosen partner. It’s just my feelings on the matter since I feel like Biyomon’s needless hatred of Sora lasted far too long and the kids were just dicking around until they got attacked anyways. Time and effort could have been spent more on dealing with the Digital World and how it’s becoming unstable. Perhaps even a bit more than just a clipshow of locations we’ve seen in 01 just to say ‘hey, remember this? yeah that was cool wasn’t it? Wanna never see it again?’

I like that Symbiosis takes off where Loss left off. It was fresh from the slow pace the other movies took after Reunion. But it did slow down again as the Digital World started showing its newfound dislike of the kids. It made for an odd contrast. The Real World is going to shit. It’s panic and mayhem and chaos! The kids sit around a fire. Holy shit digimon are coming through the gaps to the real world! Meicrackmon is causing all sorts of trouble and is worrying everyone! The kids sit in a cave.

It’s jarring and slows down the pacing to a crawl, especially the first scene where they once again reiterate to Meiko she’s part of the team. As though Determination didn’t do that already. I don’t see the point of the second movie if in the third they mostly just forget about her other than the fact that they need to get their partners back (oh yeah and Meicoomon, too). Heck, *I* forgot about Meiko in the third movie. I can’t remember if I forgot about her existence entirely or had a ‘Oh yeah, she’s in this movie’ moment. 

That’s... not really good if you ask me. It’s not that I really hate Meiko, either. I was excited for the concept of a new digidestined. I loved the fact she was a girl. I loved that Mimi embraced her so easily and acted as a sort of role model to this otherwise polar opposite girl. But she isn’t balanced well with the others and her plot often overshadows development for the other children instead of working seemlessly with them. She isn’t treated like a digidestined when push comes to shove. It’s only after the fact when things get comfortable again do the kids remember she’s a thing and reminds her she’s one of them. They baby her and they also pep-talk her a lot after the danger is over. I’m fine with Meiko’s plot revolving around feeling inadequate as a partner. But it would have been nice to see more of her trying to fit in when it wasn’t just them doing cutesy things together instead of just stand off on the sidelines when the plot comes a-knocking. I hate that she’s just Hikari 2.0 and her digimon is just Monodramon/Guilmon with the whole ‘has a piece of millenniummon apocalymon inside and is now a digital hazard’ felt really lazy all things considered. It feels lazy and it doesn’t warm me up to her as her own person. She just comes off as a clone. She doesn’t have anything about her that feels unique other than her little moe quirks. Adding to the lack of iconic outfits to Tri as a whole, she drags Tri down to more ‘generic mass produced anime’ status.

Then there was her scenes with Taichi. They... kinda came out of nowhere, didn’t they? I mean sure, we could see Meiko likely developed a ‘he’s cute’ mentality in Reunion, but the way Taichi treats Meiko in 5 specifically is almost jarringly different from the other movies. There wasn’t really build up from what I remember because she was mostly AFK being mopey in Confession and was mostly focused with Sora/Biyomon for Loss. But the scene that stood out to me most was that one long shot with the questionable quality of Taichi and Meiko fighting. Y’know,

This one.

This scene where a good chunk of their actual argument was from this angle. Kind of makes you feel... detached from what they’re talking about, doesn’t it? Like you’re not involved in the argument.

It’s things like this that actually hinder caring about Meiko in any capacity other than the fact that she exists. But it doesn’t help that the characters don’t really emote with the exception of only a couple of comedic or dramatic scenes. They’re pretty glassy-eyed. The animators seem to be too afraid to break model or make the characters un-pretty by giving them any big expressions. Maki’s are pretty great as a contrast but she’s pretty coo-coo for cocoa puffs at the moment (where did she get those weapons? What DID happen to Tapirmon/Bakumon? Last I remember she was shaking the poor things’ shoulders screaming at it. With her general behaviour, I almost want to say she killed it and was too deluded to realize what she’d done, just continuing to look for her ‘real’ partner.

We don’t see a lot of Hikari in this movie despite it supposedly being about her. Sure, she gives us exposition during those slow scenes, but that’s a dump. The movie doesn’t quite focus on her like the previous ones did to the other children. It’s mostly Meiko and Tai sucking up the screen time. Which, considering what happens, I am okay with Tai at least doing so.

Speaking of those quiet scenes, I know they were important but... I think something tense should have been going on other than sitting around a fire or in a cave. Yes, there was plot-related reasons why they didn’t leave those spots. But here’s the thing for me:

The scene in the school was meant to be a point of levity. A reprieve from all the tense things happening around us. A way for the audience to catch their breaths. But the thing is... we already did that by the fire, and again at the cave. Yes, they were important scenes for small plot things and exposition dumping, but they were still quiet scenes. They were scenes we were allowed to breathe. Especially the fire scene where once again we have to retread ground, reminding Meiko things they already told her. The tension wasn’t as wound up as it should have been for the scene to be effective. Still, it was a good scene where we got to see some good characterization from all of them.

Ophanimon Falldown Mode’s appearance time was laughably pathetic for something on the poster. I mean, she didn’t even do anything. Without Ordinemon, she was an intimidating force to be reckoned with but she just posed pretty before reverse-mitosising with Raguelmon.

Slurp.

Tai’s ‘death’ would have had more impact if 02′s epilogue wasn’t a thing. Just plain and simple. We know he’s going to be fine. There’s no need for us as the viewer to get invested in this when we already know the outcome. Which is a shame, because for Digimon to do this is ballsy but even without the epilogue I doubt Digimon would be ballsy enough to pull a Primeval.

He’s perma-dead.

They have to stick to strict guidelines for the epilogue as well, despite the fact that I specifically remember it saying the kids grew up in obscurity because Natsuko and Hiroaki used their special reporter powers to keep their kids out of the public eye. Guess that’s not the case anymore.

One thing I have to ask that maybe might be answered if I looked deeper into Digimon lore but... Why does the power the kids have still work? The digivices are created by and to an extent powered by the will of the Digital World, which currently both sides of that power wish for the digidestined to essentially fuck off. The digivices are amplifiers, sure. But the power for digivolution itself I'm assuming is a power that comes from the Digital World.  I'm making the assumption that the power of the digivices isn't self-contained, but even if it was if there's the power to change the entire Digital World to be against the kids, switching off a device created in the world would still be just as likely and seems to be ignored for the sake of the characters still having power just because. It's still unclear to me whether or not the Digital World itself is a separate sentient entity in and of itself or if it's merely a conduit for Yggdrasil and Homeostasis. If the latter is the case then it's curious why Yggdrasil was fine with the kids running around before all those other times if it cares nothing for people and now for mysterious reasons seems to actively hate humanity to such a degree it corrupted its inhabitants to feel the same (Gennai). Meta-wise we know that Yggdrasil wasn't really a concept until at earliest 2003 from what I can gather. It was our understanding until Tri that instead of Yggdrasil, it was Homeostasis who filled that role if the Digital World itself wasn't a living sentient entity with her being another sentient program like digimon and the Gennai entity(s). There's evidence for both and neither at the same time, with both Yggdrasil being the technical host computer, thus the one in ultimate control of it, but Hikari also speaking as if the Digital World was sentient apart from Yggdrasil but still under its or even Homeostasis' control. This seems to change only slightly from series to series, though their actual roles stay mostly the same. Yggdrasil is almost always an entity that goes insane, and Homeostasis when appears, replaces Yggdrasil as a more benevolent being but with a heavy emphasis on justice, but that doesn't seem to be the case with the kids being suck in the middle of a power struggle between two 'gods'.

One movie to go and as far as Tri being here to explain how the kids got their jobs as adults, it seems only Tai really has any leg to stand on. In all, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t as bad as I feared it was going to be. Hopefully now in the last legs of the series we’ll get a really epic end to Tri that nearly everyone can love.