Stubborn friendship

Digimon Adventure tri. (デジモンアドベンチャー tri.)

"You know, Matt, if you wanted to talk, you could just come up to me instead of being coy and doing things sneakily in the background to get my attention~"

Where Are They Now

Digimon Adventure 02 Ep. 01

DIGIWEEK (2022) - DAY 5+6 - PokeDigiBey Supremacy Forever ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ

Upon rewatching Digimon Adventure 02 - or at least a few of its central episodes -, it’s, once again, so interesting how so many of the conflicts are reappearing repeatedly. I have once talked about how I thought, the character progression would have made a lot more sense if Tri had taken place BETWEEN 01 and 02, but I actually wasn’t aware just HOW accurate I would end up being in regards to Taichi and Yamato’s relationship.

This entire conversation is about a conflicts that goes on for exactly 2 episodes - and their emotional conflict is solved within just a few minutes. All it takes is for Yamato to punch Taichi for him to snap out of his - very familiar - state of hesitation and doubt. Not only that, he is immediately able to put his issues into words, reflects on them and decides that the only choice they have is to move forward. To fight. 

Granted, it’s still different to make this decision for your own Digimon partner instead of the partner of somebody else - but if you think about how this conflict is resolved just by having them TALK PROPERLY, it’s amazing to think how this entire plot point was the focal point for almost six movies, with either parties switching positions on whether or not killing their frenemy was the right decision, how and where to show empathy, etc. (Especially because having the Kaiser clone temporarily stealing Meicoomon is basically the exact same set-up, visually speaking.)

The only doubting factor in this is Daisuke - as we will see in the follow-up post -, who a.) doesn’t understand why punching someone is a sign of their friendship me neither, buddy, but it’s basically their thing and b.) doesn’t want to kill a friend. You have varying degrees on agreement within the group, but characters like Takeru and Tailmon are tossing their doubts aside immediately for the sake of helping everyone to stay on track.

Long story short - you can literally see Taichi and Yamato being in their honeymoon phase at this point, so having this take place after Tri would have made all the sense in the world.

Andromon

Digimon Adventure