Digi Dynamic Shipping Game
Send me two names among the following 12 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:
Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji
Disclaimer: I won’t claim this to be a conclusive/definitive analysis of all of the ship’s aspects. Ship dynamics vary depending on which parts of the series/timeline or media types you are looking at. So this is going to be my personal take on it and just a personal interpretation of how I perceive them.
Whether canon provides input on them or not.
Sorato are a very interesting and - at this point in time - unique case in regards to canonically confirmed relationships in the Digimon universe. Despite the fact that they had been shown to have started dating through the course of Digimon Adventure 02 - with the epilogue showing them to have two children together -, the ongoing course of the series post 02 is... Incredibly vague about them to say the least. Disclaimer: I am not intending to bash the ship, this is a personal analysis post in which I am trying to analyze it from my point of view based on what we're being shown. And I want to thank my dearest @dutchforstrangers and @jamesthedigidestined for all the input I got over the years to put this into words!
First of all, Digimon Adventure presented Sora and Yamato as very interesting parallels to one another, hinting at a certain family angle in subtext. To summarize it: They're both prone to try and handle things by themselves, hiding their true feelings behind masks as they both believe that they don't have what it takes to activate or even deserve their respective Crests at first, Love and Friendship. This is in part thanks to their shared familial trauma and strained relationships with their mothers. It’s why they’re so prone to being engulfed by darkness, why their dark caves are dangerous manifestations of their declining mental health, self-doubt and fears. That is why the soul-searching is needed, repeatedly so. It’s why they understand each other’s need to be left alone - which is something we will see throughout the entirety of the Adventure series for both of them. By the end of the first season, Sora had already been on her way to reconciliation with her own mother and, after everything she went through, was able to reassure Yamato, believing in him to go on to find his own path as she did hers before. In return, Yamato had been put - and eventually also put himself - in the position to pull Sora out of her own state of darkness as well. Because he had been there himself, he was finally able to put things into words. (Which may or may not be influenced by Yamato also perceiving Sora as a motherly figure, reminding him of his and Takeru's mother, according to the novels.)
Them being the way they are is also why they need Takeru’s softness and Taichi’s persistence (as well as Jyou’s support and Mimi’s reassurance at different times) to get it back together again. They have to be reminded that they don’t HAVE TO be alone in all this (even if they often choose to).
I want to underline Taichi's importance in particular here - because even though he reassures Sora to go for Yamato in 02, encouraging her to actively pursue what and whom she herself wants for once... Canon is very reluctant to openly state that they're actually a couple. And the ongoing debate on whether or not the Digimon staff was ever fully settled on them being endgame doesn't help matters. (I will not open that debate once more, just know that this is still a thing.) On one hand, there is official art depicting them as close, with him usually having an arm around her shoulder, so "show don't tell" does apply here!
But on the other hand, the 02 audio drama "Armor Evolution to the Unknown" has a very... Debatable way to refer to them. "Daisuke’s Great Valentine’s Day Plan" has the other girls gossip over how they think that Yamato must really have a hard time enduring Sora's wrath and that they probably won't last through a fight. "Armor Evolving in Chaos" implies that Sora is asking herself why Yamato has been "so cold to her recently", causing him to desperately sing a love song for her...
It all feels very awkward and rocky. And to get back to Taichi here: The aftermath of 02 mainly shows us a somewhat dysfunctional bond between these three friends and it's very unclear what is even going on between them. For example, there is their portrayal in Diablomon Strikes Back: The way the picture of Yamato and Sora gets leaked causes the group to react in shock, followed by awkward silence... And the way Sora eventually leaned towards Taichi instead of Yamato, to this day, is reason for the fandom to debate on what the - at that time - current state of Sorato is. The writers of Tri even mention that "no official relationships are going on between [Taichi, Sora and Yamato]", which begs the question as to whether or not it had worked out in the end. We don't know if, when or why Sora and Yamato broke up, what their stance is towards each other. Just like the foundation of the relationship itself, we do not actively hear what they mean to each other outside of weird, non-canon audio drama humour. All we get is vague subtext and a forced (somewhat fanservice-y) love triangle that was never supposed to be one in the first place.
I say forced, because in usual fandom portrayals of the "traingle", it's Taichi and Yamato "fighting" over Sora's affections, which is never, not even once, confirmed to be true. While Sora is being put into a position in Tri that implies that she has to pick between them (aka Yamato's concert and Taichi's football match)... It never actually happens. Instead, in the end, Sora and Yamato both appear to be more likely to have feelings for Taichi than for each other, but that is a whole different box of pandora to open up.
Long story short - canon has never settled on how to commit to them and thus, the infamous Taiorato fandom wars had never really come to an end. Which is a shame, because the initial set-up in Adventure would have allowed for a lot of mutual growth and healing potential due to Sora's and Yamato's shared experiences and view-points. Unfortunately, the anime decided to never really SHOW them spending actual screentime for the sake of bonding together post their scenes in Adventure, neither in 02 nor in Tri. And if they talk to each other - it is usually about Taichi. Tri does include little nods towards them (hands on shoulders, little reaction shots, mostly on Sora's behalf), but is equally prone to depict a visible distance between them, culminating in Yamato not noticing that Sora had cut her hair even shorter than before at the very end of the season (so he's getting called out by Takeru for not being very observant). Kizuna at least implies that Yamato knows what Sora is up to in terms of her career path - but the only scenes that actually include her have her be concerned for Piyomon and Taichi instead...
The epilogue itself had also always been reason to speculate for decades by now. In comparison to Miyaken - which had actually gotten quite a solid foundation in the most recent movie -, there had been a visible physical distance between Sorato while talking to their children. Which heated up fan speculations as to whether they're still together at this point in time...
Whether I think why and how they’d work.
As I haven't been able to keep it shortly up there after all, you may be able to tell that I am somewhat frustrated with their portrayal. Whether production quarrels got in the way or not, whether they've been trying to undo the damage by keeping things as vague as possible throughout all these years, I am not able to tell. What I do know is that - Digimon never shied away from giving us realistic interpersonal relationships. We've seen it all, between friends, siblings, parents and children, married couples... The sad part here is - that also includes relationships that are not meant to last.
And as much as it may sting, as promising as their initial parallels may have been... To refer back to my previous analysis post, maybe their mutual tendencies to "pull back and isolate themselves" had been (one of) the reason(s) why they were not right for each other in the long run. Do not get me wrong, I support the idea that Sora had developed feelings for Yamato as a teenager - they were 14 years old, they had been through life-changing events together and related to each other due to their strained mother-relationships... Again, we never really hear how they feel about each other, but: Why wouldn't Sora feel drawn to Yamato as a kindred spirit, someone who could understand her and already proved to be able to give her the space she needed in the past? Let's also not forget that we're also still talking about Sora Takenouchi here - she's a born caretaker, even if she doesn't want to be reduced to that role, she is still naturally loving. So it also makes sense for Yamato to fall for her, to feel cared for, loved and wanted? To get the affection he had always craved while simultaneously being able to live out his own protective side? Heck yeah! In theory - it makes perfect sense! Let teenagers experiment, have fun, figure themselves out!
But canon also shows us that they - and Taichi - actually turn out to be quite... Dysfunctional young adults due to a LOT of unresolved self-esteem issues, mental health problems and a lack of a clear identity path. Adventure and 02 had shown them to be on a good way, but... Puberty apparently didn't allow them to work on their issues in healthy ways, which applies to all three of them - which, once again, is mirrored in the dysfunctional bond between them as well as in the fact that THEY were chosen to be the ones to lose their partnerships in Kizuna.
For some reason, Yamato and Sora had drifted apart and, as far as we can tell, were not able to rekindle their initial romantic attraction by the time of Kizuna/The Beginning. Instead, there were, apparently, a lot of confused feelings for Taichi involved... And an inability to open up to themselves and each other about their dreams, aspirations, paths. They tried to become "performative adults" - and lost themselves in the process. Sora is the literal embodiment of the "I'm going my own way by myself" as of Kizuna, distancing herself from literally everyone once more while she still follows in her mother's footsteps - and Taichi and Yamato did very similar things.
My impression here is that, even if Sora and Yamato did eventually get back together again at some point, maybe after doing some more soul-searching and getting in touch with themselves, getting their Digimon back... I'm not sure if they'd last. Especially if you consider Yamato's career path as an astronaut, who'd spend quite some time away from home, whereas Sora would not only be tasked with her own, probably very time- and energy-consuming career as a fashion designer; she'd also have to take care of their two children by herself... Which kinda delegates Yamato back to his initial lone-wolf-persona he never even wanted to have, literally forced to keep a physical distance, probably doomed to follow in his own parents' footsteps of being incapable of maintaining a happy, balanced marriage... It's not that he doesn't WANT to break through generational trauma, quite the contrary, he is a hands-on person after all, especially when he has set his mind to something. But he's not always the most observant and vocal when it comes to the subject of his own relationships and we know how he tends to deal with conflict, he either gets unintentionally hurtful or... Leaves. And since Sora can also very easily lash out when she feels cornered, Yamato might not be capable to give himself or her what they need - just like the silly audio drama once implied. Especially because after everything she went through, Sora needs as much reassurance and validation as he does - and living through a marriage in which her husband would be away just as much as her own father used to be in his marriage... Might not be the healthiest approach.
Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship.
Whether or not we'll ever retcon the epilogue or not - my personal verdict is that Sorato could have been a great opportunity to show that dating as teenagers can be super fun and nice, but you may not be compatible long-term. But it's okay to break up and move on and maybe be a little awkward for a while, but since you still have that history and a deeper understanding for each other, you still get out of it stronger and with a bond that is just as meaningful as a romantic connection. I feel like it could really have been great like that and I do have a very soft spot for their potential. Especially as parallels to Taishirou, there is nothing more fun than having these four go on adventures and silly double dates together IF everything is well executed and functional and if people actually TALK to each other for once. I have a billion set-ups in the back of my mind in my AUs where they would end up moping about their mothers and about Taichi and teasing each other, Sora would actually enjoy collaborating with Taichi and Takeru to get under Yamato's skin, but she also knows his gentle and soft and cheesy side, they adore each other, even if they're incredibly dense about it and Mimi would forever roll her eyes at them... I could go on.
But even if things stay like they are in the epilogue - the "Sorato is actually divorced in the epilogue, but still on good terms and take care of their children like responsible adults who successfully broke through generational trauma" approach can be pretty nice and enjoyable as well. (Especially in a scenario in which Yamato would end up with Jyou and Sora with Mimi, because I feel like these two get them the best - or both of them actually end up with Taichi, so the triangle can FINALLY be resolved in a satisfying way. The comphet memes about them from back in the day also really spoke to me, because I do believe them getting together could also have been them trying to compensate for their attraction towards their own gender - OR because neither of them thought they could have Taichi in the end, but... THAT'S just a theory after all.)
Either way, they care deeply about each other in every reality - even if I personally believe they might work better platonically.
