Hypothetical scenario question: Let's say Toei is planning to do a sequel movie to Kizuna, and at some point in said movie the Chosen (or at least Taichi, Yamato and Sora) get their partners back after the separation rule, what king of Adventure stories the creators could give us before said movie comes out?
It would depend on the timeline of this hypothetical film. The way I see it, you have three options, each leading to very different products.
the post-Kizuna years (2010-2015?)
A movie taking place not too long after Kizuna would need to pick up where that movie left off. More specifically, this means that any “pre-movie stories” ought to focus how the chosen reacted to their loss (something Kizuna didn’t touch upon, except for Taichi and Yamato) and of course give us more clues about how their path towards their epilogue lives. The characters being in their 20s means that they could still continue to play the angle of “becoming an adult”.
My ideal medium for this period would be short, character-based slice of life stories, maybe something similar to the Memorial Drama CDs that filled the gaps between Adventure and 02. Basically, letting us know how everyone is doing in a period of (presumable?) peace.
In addition, this would be the perfect timeline for a 02-centric story. After all, the younger kids still haven’t lost their partners. With the older kids unable to fight, you have a justifiable reason for Daisuke and co. to take centre stage and get a proper sequel (maybe a miniseries), leading up to a movie where everyone gets their partners back.
But there’s a very small window where this could happen because...
the baby boom years (2015—2025?)
The Epilogue implies all the 02 kids had children really young — mid 20s at most —, which means that from around 2015 there’s a few years everyone is just busy getting married and raising babies who are still too young to make interesting characters themselves.
While us fans could probably make fantastic scenarios about our favourite Millenials dealing with parenthood, something tells me the Digimon franchise wouldn’t want to go in that direction.
Also, the pandemic. Unless they give us a lockdown CD drama.
This means that, in my opinion, this era wouldn’t be very appealing for official stories in any medium or even a movie.
the “distant future” years (2025?—2028)
They could also wait until we’re a bit closer to the Epilogue in 2018, by which point:
a) everyone would be established in their careers, at least enough to make them work plotwise;
b) “everyone has a Digimon partner” can become an established reality, so you’re already deep into the World of the Future;
c) the second generation is old enough to actually become players in the story (infants are adorable, but hard to write into stories). They could actually have their own independent storylines.
Again, any kind of “a day in the life” story set in this period, leading up to a movie filled with action and battles, would be compelling.
Putting the “everyone gets their partner back” decades later raises stakes a lot, but has its disadvantages as well. Do people actually want to see a Digimon film where the characters are pushing 40? Would people embrace new characters who are the children of Taichi and co.?
TL;DR There’s an infinite number of possibilities where they could set an hypothetical “the Chosen get their partners back” film. Any gaps between Kizuna and this period could be explored in interesting ways, especially if the franchise didn’t feel restricted by genre or medium. I believe the first and third options I presented would be the best scenarios!
