I was letting the Beatbreak episodes pile up because I knew a big Loredrop was coming. But I wasn't prepared for episode 40.
GhostGame played around with the possibility of death here and there before moving on to humans becoming food for trees (Jyureimon) and spiders (Arukenimon).
this majestically horrifying slug has become one of my favorite megas in digimon, its giving elden ring. Another one that will stay on tumblr for a while.
I just got home from seeing the Japanese audio/English sub. This is not a review, and I doubt I'll feel the same way about it in a few days, because I'm all up in my emotions and I haven't had a think on it. So here is nothing more or less than my visceral, 100% subjective reaction.
Extreme spoilers beneath the cut, spoilin spoilin all day long. Also cussing and blaspheming, apparently I like to keep it classy.
My head is a boiling vat of pudding.
As the film ended, someone screamed, "Toei why you gotta do us like that?!" Someone else yelled, "Jesus Christ I did not need that in my life." As we filed out, another gem: "They had a digital god in this one, and they still didn't unfuck Kizuna." (That last one, I think, while funny, was not relevant. This wasn't about the older kids, they had their turn and several more, lmao).
Some notes:
-Genuinely I was not prepared for a horror. Or child abuse. I love horror games! I watch them nearly daily! Did you know I have only once been more upset/disturbed by a horror video game than I was by this movie?
Did people take their kids to this? Like, that seems totally reasonable to me, taking your kid to digimon!!! Jesus cHRISt!!!!
-I thought my bar of, "I want to see the 02 kids grown up and interacting," was so, so low. I thought my bar could not be lower. But this was Lui's story, not theirs. And this is Toei's story, not mine, so I have to accept that... They wrote what they wanted to. But yeah, the bar I thought was low was not cleared.
-SOMEONE HELP ME, Himekawa is older than Lui. Himekawa's group, they were the first Chosen. Right??? Does the time line not shake out here??? Himekawa was probably about 10/11 when she was Chosen, and she's a full ass adult in Tri??? So, like, I guess the question is, how much older is her group than Lui at age 4? Are they at least 6 years older???? But- God what age would that make- God damn let me get the chart. Shit, I'm lost. Help??????
Shit I liked:
-Lui's second birthday scene
Not the original scene where Lui meets Ukkomon. This is the second birthday, his 8th birthday, where they sit in a dark room full of presents and treats. Ukkomon mentions Lui's parents and friends. They enter the room and proceed to not say a single ducking word while Ukkomon and Lui talk and talk and talk, and it is the creepiest and most atmospheric shit I have seen. Holy shit!!!!
Obviously, the audience already knows shit is fucked up with Ukkomon, but at this point, ooooooooooooooooo baby that tension is HIGH.
-Power in the hands of children
Ukkomon is, like, seconds old when he meets Lui. Lui is 4 and extremely disenfranchised, even for a 4-year-old. Lui wishes for what he doesn't have. Ukkomon devotes his whole self to those wishes.
What happens when a 4 year old meets a baby genie? When that much power is in the hands of the innocent?
You don't want to know, trust me. Lowkey wish I didn't know!!! Christ on a bike!
As much as we love digimon and the Chosen and all of that, it's always been messed up how much power they have, and how much responsibility. It's so much pressure, it's so high stakes! It was really cool to see Toei explore how sideways all of this could go, literally at any moment.
-A few character moments
Honestly that part where a girl is chatting up Ken and Wormmon is visibly pissed is, like, my favorite thing in this movie. Oh! Also I loved seeing the international Chosen, that was so great. The gut scream of WALLACE/WILLIS in the theater when he appeared!!!!!!
Bonus:
My husband said he liked how there was a command center in Imperialdramon's head. I think that was actually some kind of... plane??? Made by Ukkomon??? I have no idea. You know, the place where Ken and Daisuke are accused of flirting.
Stuff I didn't like
-It was half flash back
I'm being a little harsh here, because stuff other than flashbacks happened in the first 46 minutes, but... I checked my phone after the final flashback (not counting Lui jumping into Ukkomon in the end). I was 46 minutes into a roughly 90 minute film. I'm not against flashbacks in principle, and I tend to like new characters, but... This just wasn't what I hoped for in a movie about the 02 kids. I accept that this is 100% subjective.
-It was too damned fucked up for my tastes
Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus H Christ!!!!!
Okay, so first of all, I generally am of the opinion that a lot of recent media has substituted trauma for substance. It's easy to make an audience pity/relate to/feel protective of a character by showing them suffer.
Lui wetting himself was so disturbing for me- in children, that's often a sign of ongoing abuse. I could easily be reading into it, but that combined with the range of age of his bruises (and he had more fresh contusions, too, they start red and turn purple and brown and eventually a yellow green) hinted that this wasn't some one off occasion caused by a sudden spike of stress. That was Lui's life. And he really might have frozen to death that night, if not for Ukkomon.
In a way, if I'm right and not just reading into things, this scene was well done. But also, like... I just don't enjoy the substitution of trauma for gradually making us care about a character and understand what they've been through. It seems like some kind of heavy handed short cut, and it usually has the opposite effect on me- thrusting me out of the narrative and making me distrustful of it.
Or maybe I'm just distancing myself, because I genuinely get so upset.
And don't even get me started on the scene where Ukkomon dissolves. I was not ready for that shit. It was just too much for me, I'm sensitive, lmao!
-I'm not sure what I think of the Chosen reacting to Lui's story
I kind of felt like the Chosen were oddly hard on Lui? They weren't actually, in reality they encouraged him to find a resolution with Ukkomon and reminded him that relationships go two ways.
But, like. Could someone have, like... Idk I was really waiting for someone to cry or hug Lui or reassure him or something? Instead it was like, "Poor Ukkomon. He tried so hard and you relied on him too much!"
And my visceral reaction to that was, "UKKOMON KILLED AT LEAST ONE OF LUI'S PARENTS AND MADE THEM MEAT PUPPETS FOR YEARS, JESUS!!!! AND YOU WANT LUI TO GO SEE UKKOMON AGAIN?!?!?!?!?" Like, that whole thing was literally a nightmare??? But Ukkomon was an actual whole ass baby god, and then again, as my husband put it, "Ukkomon did what CPS wouldn't." Lui needed help, stat.
I'm gonna need some time to sort how I feel about this. I can say that, as I watched, I felt like the emotional tone was really off for the last half of the film. All I could think about was the horror, and any time someone criticized Lui, or even told him to go see Ukkomon, I was just like- MEAT. PUPPET!!!! MEAT!!! PUPPET!!!! (Did those kids that Ukkomon made Lui's friends also die?!?!?!). Literally, snow was falling and the Chosen were playing, and my head was like, MEAT. PUPPET!!!!
There's no walking back that emotion, at least not in a 40 some minute window. Not for me, personally. I'm probably going to have nightmares. If I knew going in that this was a horror, I'd be fine with that. But gdi I though I'd see my blorbos having good times mixed with a plot.
Instead, nightmares.
-Lui's final scene with his mother
Lui tells himself, "This time, when I go back in time... I won't rely on Ukkomon for everything" (paraphrasing). He sees his mother inside his memory of his 4th birthday. He says to her, roughly, "Lui loves you, please remember that."
And magically, the mom is kind to him that night.
Now, to be fair, even disastrous relationships can have good times. Maybe it would have been just that night that was better. But there was this feeling of, "Oh, if I just talked to my mother when I was 4 years old and horrifically abused, it would have been different."
That just isn't how that works. If I had to guess, the film is just supporting communication. But god, don't ever point back to the child victim like that. Too bad that 4 year old doesn't know how to communicate with his abusive caregiver! Things might have been different!!!!!
I'm sensitive to this kind of thing, so it's totally possible I'm fixating too much on this or blowing up the importance of this moment. But yeah, not a good emotional reaction to that.
In summary: this was not the film I wanted. In fact, it's a film that will stick on me like a burr, but like. In a bad way? But also it did have some killer ideas. Ukkomon has to be one of the most interesting things to hit Adventure in years. So much power in the hands of an innocent, so disastrous so very fast.
My brain is still pudding. Time for some nightmares. Good night, I hope the film didn't distress you if you saw it! And my sympathies if you took your children, the biggest of oofs (how could you have known??? You couldn't have).
Could you tell more about the KenxMiyako in the movie?
Spoiler for Digimon 02 the Beginning
Read at your own risk if you didn't watch the Movie!!
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For real, spoilers for the movies, now. I will mention a specific scene, not really story-related but if even small spoilers ruin a movie for you, don't read more!!
There weren't really obvious hints about them getting married in the future, so no hand-holding or romance, they weren't a couple. Someone who doesn't know about the prologue might not realize that they somehow belong together (or will do in the future).
More specific spoilers coming ahead!!
But there were some scenes that showed how close they were already. Encouraging and looking at each other with a soft smile, for example, and relying on each other.
In the first half, when Daisuke and Ken are in danger, she calls his name (like he did in Kizuna). When they're all on a roof, talking about what to do, he's a bit anxious about what might happen and she encourages him, which makes him smile at her and cheers him up.
In the end, there was a snowball fight (loved that scene) with all the 02 Kids, and Miyako and Ken were talking to each other. Ken said something like "There'll be more to think about in the future" (or something like that, don't remember the exact words) and Miyako replied "Okay, but let's think about it together" and then threw a snowball at him before telling him to join the others and running away. He was looking at her, still with some snow in his face (ngl, really cute), and then followed her. I think this was the most Kenyako-ish moment we got in this whole movie haha
Also, that snowball fight and that small cute moment between Miyako and Ken gave me life. Omg, I want to see more of those two. This was so cute. Let me rewatch it now TT
