Ask (older) Digimon Frontier

Talk event begins after the drama reading, with an MC named Ohashi coordinating the event

Cast introduces themselves: everyone delivers the “Spirit Evolution!” line with their character’s human spirit name…except for Hiroshi Kamiya (Kouji’s VA)

Cast introduction: Junko Takeuchi (Takuya), Hiroshi Kamiya (Kouji), Sawa Ishige (Izumi), Michael Shitanda (Junpei), Kumiko Watanabe (Tomoki), Kenichi Suzumura (Kouichi)

SuzuKen: *laughs and hesitates before delivering his Spirit Evolution line*

MC: “Is it okay for Kamiya-san to not do that line delivery?” Kamiyan, immediately: “YUP! It’s fine!”

Takeuchi (who has goggles with her): *teasing Kamiyan and telling him to do it* “You can’t run away~”

MC: *trying to convince him*

Kamiyan, eventually: “I’m Hiroshi Kamiya, who played Kouji Minamoto”

Takeuchi: “That really is Kouji-like behaviour, isn’t it” (everyone else: *agrees*)

Takeuchi: “this is the first time we’ve gathered together for this kind of event - I’m excited and nervous!” Kamiyan: “Can’t believe this is the first time we’re doing it in 20 years”

MC: “what kind of atmosphere are we getting today?” SuzuKen: “a fun atmosphere” *everyone laughs* “back then we said a lot of things, but today we want to express things we didn’t say as well”

Kamiyan calls Kumiko Watanabe “Ku-san”

Lots of banter between Ku-san and Kamiyan about what went down between the group in the dressing room before the event

Everyone: “It feels so nostalgic, doesn’t it? Nothing’s changed”

The themes of the anniversary talk are based on survey responses received from fans - the first theme being: “something impressive”

First topic within the theme: “not normal”

Ishige-san volunteers to speak: “this is my personal experience, but when Digimon Frontier began, I was still a newcomer…the person who voiced Bokomon (Sugiyama), told me: “Sawa-chan, you are a normal person, but when we’re chatting, you don’t seem normal, so please focus on the performance” I was so shocked that my super-senior was telling me this, and it’s an impressive incident that stayed in my mind.”

More banter, and then Ishige-san says “Compared to the rest of them, I’m actually normal!” (Possibly referring to her character Izumi in this situation) Takeuchi: “That’s not true!” Ku-san: “you do have a bit of a deceitful image, I think”

Some discussion on whether the twins are actually the “normal” ones

Kamiyan: *not sure whether or not he wants to or is going to get a word in*

Ku-san: “Is this Kouichi o’clock ?” Ishige-san: “It’s not one o’clock, it’s (presumably about to say Kouichi o’clock, since ichi means one in Japanese) hang on, this is something I want to talk about all night!”

Ku-san: “Let those two (Kamiyan and SuzuKen) talk for a bit, it’s pitiful” Kamiyan: “What’s pitiful? Who is pitiful?”

Ku-san: *says something about lines on the forehead that needs to be scanned like they’re a barcode* Kamiyan: “what are you on about lmao”

Ku-san: “no no, the lines on your forehead are so deep because you’re thinking”

Kamiyan: *fucking losing it rn*

Ku-san: “you looked so sad when you had those lines”

Takeuchi: “enough about that, already!”

MC: “Nobody is really ordinary, are they?”

Next topic: handwritten script

Takeuchi: *raises hand before MC is even done reading the topic*

SuzuKen: *joins in, explaining about some legend involving the scriptwriting company*

Takeuchi talks about having to read the handwriting and formatting in the script or something like that (didn’t fully catch the discussion here), and concludes with “the script is a really important treasure for us, you know”

Next topic: mischief

Kamiyan: “Who is it, who is it~” Everyone else: “Bro it’s literally you”

Talking about the anticipation for next episode’s script, and learning about how “Kenichi-kun” will have his character become a warrior on the side of justice

Kamiyan: “So Ku-san and I took a pen and replaced all mentions of Kouichi with Kouji and Kouzou” (implying the existence of a TRIPLET lmao)

Ku-san: “Huh? Me?”

SuzuKen apparently freaked out, and wondered wtf had happened to Kouichi in the story, and had to check with the staff “This is Kouichi, isn’t it? It was correct in everyone else’s scripts, but in mine it was written Kouji or Kouzou - and this happened, like, EVERY WEEK”

Next topic: Hospitalisation

Person involved: SuzuKen

MC: “So this is when Kouichi becomes Kouzou—” SuzuKen: “To hell with Kouzou”

Apparently, during his initial attempts to record his first “Spirit Evolution!” line, SuzuKen threw out his back. Hoping his pain wouldn’t get noticed, he tried moving, but did not work out - he couldn’t even stand - seems like he had to SQUAT the whole time. Everyone asked him if something was wrong, and he was like “nope, all good!” Eventually he had to admit that he couldn’t move, and had to go to hospital; how he admitted it was hilarious: he said, “Apologies, but I can’t move” (he used the term “Sumimasen,” which is a catch all phrase used in Japanese to say “Sorry” “Excuse me” and sometimes even “Thank you” in a way that conveys the speaker apologising for any inconvenience). He managed to hobble over to the car and got taken to the hospital

APPARENTLY THIS INCIDENT MADE IT TO WIKIPEDIA? (could not verify this, unfortunately, but if anyone else reading this post is good at Japanese, please let me know if it’s mentioned on his Japanese Wikipedia!)

Kamiyan: “Him not moving was Part A, going to the hospital was Part B, but then after that, we were so worried that we called his manager and asked if he was ok; manager was like ‘at the moment, he feels kinda guilty’” (SuzuKen loses it at this part)

Some more banter, then the new theme: “What would you say to yourself from 20 years ago?”

Topic 1: “Please, stop!”

Ku-san raises her hand: apparently this was an incident that had her heart thumping. They were taking a break from recording (possibly for the drama CD?), she felt really off inside, and this seemed to have impacted her voicing Tomoki (she said it was a “black voice,” not sure what that means). Then it seems she got a letter stating that Tomoki would not do something like this! Because she really cared about the character Tomoki, she didn’t push herself (I think that’s what she said; I didn’t understand some parts of the story). Letter-writer was anonymous, but Ishige-san pretended to search for the culprit among the cast for a few seconds (so cute!)

Topic 2: “I’m sure you’ll find it!”

Shitanda goes for it: The story is about his bonds with the rest of the cast, and how he wasn’t as close with them at first, especially since many of them were his senpais; he may have also mentioned that he lacked confidence. He then mentioned something about working hard and possibly talked about finding that confidence in himself, especially since the MC mentioned him feeling lost 20 years ago and how worried he must have felt during that period

Takeuchi-san: “you worried a lot, right? Not knowing which way to go; Kamiya-san, what did you think?” Kamiya: “I didn’t have any thoughts” *everyone laughs* “well, we did have fun - it was too much fun” (then he says something about it being so much fun to be so reckless at the time, and something happening on Wednesday mornings)

Final theme of the talk event: “20-year self-evolution chart”

Each main cast member was rated by survey respondents on 5 parameters on a scale of 0-100: Thinking Power, Sociability, Acting Ability, Adventure (Dream), Economic Power

Takeuchi-san “They’re strange (parameters), right?”

First the results of them from 20 years ago: Takeuchi-san doing great on Adventure, not so great on Economic Power, Acting Ability (which is hilarious given that this was before her big break in Naruto), and Thinking Ability; score is bad on Sociability

Kamiyan fared much worse: Adventure rating was 100 points, but all others were below 40

But Ishige-san had the lowest scores: 0 for everything except Sociability (100) and Economic power (10-ish)

Shitanda-san scored average or good on everything except Economic Power, which was below 50

Ku-san had highest scores: 70 or above in everything except sociability (around 60). Acting Ability was at least 80

SuzuKen scores were also low: only Thinking Power and Adventure went beyond 50; all other parameters were 50 or below

Everyone amazed at Ishige-san’s scores; Ku-san: “Sawa-chan’s (chart) looks like a radar or something!”

MC: “Junko-san, Suzumura-san, Michael-san all have a good balance on their scores”

Next comes the scores for the present day:

Junko-san: Acting skills…STILL THE SAME?? sociability, thinking, economic power gone up, adventure gone down

Kamiyan: literally everything crosses at least 60, with thinking almost at 100 and adventure gone slightly down to about 80

Ishige san: her chart literally looks like a clock lmao, with sociability and adventure at 100, thinking and economic power just under 25, and acting replaced by…art? (Still very low)

Shitanda-san: adventure went down to about 50, but everything else is 75+!

Ku-san: adventure is the same, sociability is around 90, everything else reduced to 50

SuzuKen: adventure and economic power at 100, everything else in the 50-75 range

Takeuchi-san: “HANG ON”

Kamiyan: “Sawa-chan’s is—!”

Ku-san: “Ishige-san’s looks like a boomerang!”

Kamiyan, very straightforwardly: “7:15” (like on the clock)

Everyone: *loses it*

Ishige-san: “Maybe my scores are predicting something/making me a prophet!”

MC: “It’s also looking like half-past two lol”

Kamiyan says something about a cat, everyone’s like “huh?” or agreeing

Ishige-san protesting wildly at the results

Everyone else then goes in then to analyse the change in their individual scores, with lots of banter in between (it got a bit technical, so I couldn’t keep up with some bits)

Everyone giggling during the discussion of Ku-san’s results

The discussion goes to how Ku-san is strange, and SuzuKen says “All the strange people are sitting close together over there! Us interesting people should come sit here!”

Discussion about how some of SuzuKen’s scores have exploded and that he’s famous now; Kamiya: “and you’re rich! Yeah, that’s right!”

SuzuKen: “I don’t have THAT much money, but when you compare me and Hiroshi, the money I have is easy to hold!” (Either that, or he said something about who pays when they go to izakayas and wondered why that person was paying; I couldn’t tell)

Kamiyan: *dying of laughter*

SuzuKen: “We used to go play pachinko after work lmao”

Ku-san apparently said that these two used to sit in the studio corner playing Gameboy on CARDBOARD? Like, they used to pretend the cardboard was a gameboy???

Ku-san: “That’s not normal, are you guys ok”

Takeuchi-san, Ishige-san, Ku-san agreeing that it’s cute, like a bunch of elementary schoolers

The person whose scores are being discussed gets to choose the next person in line, so SuzuKen says “My Pachinko Partner from that time, Hiroshi Kamiya”

Kamiyan’s discussion is relatively straightforward, where he just reflects on that time and what he thought and did and wished for

Kamiyan: “Kenichi-kin and I were hella broke at the time”

Says something about SuzuKen, and the others advise him to “lower your voice lol” (the discussion seemed to be about their current finances)

Next person: Shitanda-san, who finishes his discussion too quickly and reflects on his skills 20 years ago

Then Takeuchi-san, who says that everyone else in the cast is just plain weird and that there were too many weird guys in the cast while she was the only normal/decent person (audience loses it)

Kamiyan: “She’s terrible! In the end when all the legendary warriors come together to become Susanoomon, they were trying to figure out who will voice the character.” Apparently Junko-san volunteered and he was like “HUH? You’re already in the leading role! Give it a rest alreadyyyy! She’s mean! Why is she doing it?” (SuzuKen agrees)

Takeuchi-san: “Well, I heard…” Kamiyan: “Ha?”Takeuchi-san: “Kamiya-kun’s speaking ability, picture, and being the star, well…” Kamiyan: “LIKE YOUR SPEAKING IS ANY BETTER”

SuzuKen: “Junko-san really hasn’t changed” (everyone agreeing)

Takeuchi-san gives the closing speech for the talk event (not the whole fest, since there was a 02 event that I didn’t see)

“I may be considered the lead, but the true lead was…Kouji! Okay, Kamiya-kun, over to you!” Kamiyan: “What?“

MC: *makes a joke about him being the potential voice for Susanoomon*

Kamiyan: *wondering what to say* “Well, it was really fun, working together every week” *mentions other cast members* “That one year was a really fun period. Coming together today after so long, nothing has changed, I felt at ease.”

End of Frontier Talk Event.

There was a 02 event after this, followed by a rendition of the various songs from Frontier and other seasons, sung by different artists associated with the Digimon Franchise (event opened with Fire). Singers present were AiM, Ayumi Miyazaki, Mazano Oda (?). In the end, all the singers and Frontier + 02 cast attending the event came on stage and sang Fire together!!

After becoming a middle schooler, Takuya gets an email telling him to come to that elevator area in Shibuya at 17:45…but when he goes, that mysterious elevator isn’t there

Izumi and Tomoki appear, and Takuya assumes they sent the mail to prank him, but it turns out they also got the same email

Junpei and Kouji also show up, with the latter seemingly enjoying teasing Takuya once or twice

Izumi’s kouhai gave her a stomach band (haramaki) as an elementary school graduation present (Junpei sounds jealous)

Tomoki is now the same age as “Takuya-oniichan” when they had the original adventure

Junpei and Kouji didn’t send the email either, so Takuya assumes it’s Kouichi, and states he may have come into contact with some dark and corrupt file or organisation and they may have to fight said organisation (Izumi thinks he may just be planning a surprise party or something)

But nobody believes him, not even Tomoki LMAO

Kouji spills some TEA: apparently Kouichi went out for tea…WITH A GIRL

Btw, the twins canonically attend the same middle school

So the girl wanted to confess to Kouichi, BUT SHE CONFESSED TO KOUJI BY ACCIDENT

He told Kouichi about it, but he apparently made a promise on his behalf to meet with her later

Kouichi suddenly appears and is like “Kouji, what the HELL did you do????”

Apparently Kouichi wanted to turn the girl down, but couldn’t, and somehow ended up meeting the girl’s PARENTS (comparing it to an arranged marriage meeting or something like that), because Kouji seemed to have made some pretty grand promises to the girl about “our future” (I didn’t fully catch what they said in this bit, sorry!)

The twins collectively share one (1) braincell, and apparently the twin with permanent custody is NOT Kouji

But they seem to have gotten used to being brothers - they get into a MASSIVE argument about the miscommunication involving the confession

“KOUICHIIIIII!!!” “KOUJIIIIIII!!”

Tomoki: “Twins…they’re really something, aren’t they?” (He used the word 大変 which refers to then situation being unfortunate)

Back to the mysterious email, the gang wonders who sent it, as the culprit could only be someone who knows about their adventure. Tomoki speculates about it being Katsuharu or one of the others from his group, but they don’t have the gang’s emails

Junpei comes to the conclusion that one of the gang is therefore lying: hence, the reveal of “Detective Junpei Shibayama”

Izumi: “when the heck did you become a detective”

“Detective Junpei Shibayama’s Case Files: Season 3, will now begin!”

Kouji: “Season 3?” Kouichi: “When was this series even confirmed?”

Junpei labels everyone as a suspect, and accuses the twins of being the culprits behind the email, because they could have alibis for each other, and there is a history of the twins impersonating each other, and therefore they used the girl’s confession to their advantage (and presumably sent the email from her phone? Idk, I couldn’t keep up with the technical details of Junpei’s “evidence”)

Junpei accuses the twins of currently impersonating each other, and they’re the culprits

Kouji: “Nope, you’re wrong” Kouichi: “Our faces are the same, but our voices are very different - shouldn’t you know that much?”

Everyone else starts getting into Detective Mode from then on, starting with Takuya, who suspects Izumi due to something about the haramaki from earlier (didn’t catch the explanation)

But absolutely nobody even takes his accusation seriously

The twins: 😑😑

Next is Tomoki’s investigation- his suspect is Junpei, because the culprit needs electricity to manipulate radio waves and send the email, and the only one who could do that is Blitzmon, Junpei’s spirit

Junpei: “My spirit isn’t that of electricity, it’s thunder” Tomoki: “Oh yeah” Junpei: “Don’t ‘oh yeah’ me!”

Izumi gives it a shot: her suspect is Tomoki

Tomoki, very straightforwardly: “Nope” Izumi: *goes on anyway*

Izumi: “The reason is that Tomoki is shy and embarrassed!” Tomoki: “I have never been embarrassed”

Izumi: “ The mail is anonymous, meaning the sender didn’t want to be known. Why would that be? Well, Tomoki wanted to see us and missed us all so bad, but he was too shy to say so. So he sent this email to have us gather together!”

A couple of them are convinced, with Kouichi saying that this is the closest thing to the truth so far

Everyone starts arguing about it, but Kouji jumps right in and accuses Takuya of being the culprit (unsurprisingly)

But since Takuya only recently got a cellphone of his own, he states that he has no idea how to send an email like that

Junpei: *attempts to bribe the culprit into revealing themselves using chocolate* (some detective you are)

Takuya: *yells at the culprit to reveal themselves, because it’s getting late and everyone’s tired*

No culprit is revealed, and Takuya is MISERABLE

Izumi: “But…I had fun. Seeing everyone’s faces after so long, having conversations with everyone…I feel good.”

Everyone agrees, and decides to go out and eat soba

They go to the restaurant, and everyone’s phones notify them of another email - and then the phones start glowing like they did when they turned into Digivices last time

Takuya: *laughs* “So that’s what it is…the culprits are you guys, right? Agnimon…”

Everyone’s respective spirits send them a message, checking in on them after so long (In order: Agnimon, Wolfmon, Fairymon, Chakmon, Blitzmon, Löwemon)