#gennai

November 1999. Taichi hears the sound of Hikari's whistle in the house and looking for where it's coming from, he realizes it's not Hikari who went shopping with their mom, nor is it coming from his digivice, since he remembered Tailmon kept that whistle in the digital world. Taichi had put his digivice away in a drawer because keeping it out made him feel lonelier constantly reminding him that Agumon wasn't by his side anymore after they resolved the crisis in the digital world. For him, Agumon is the partner he has shared the longest continuous period of time with in his entire life. Even though only 3 days passed in the human world while they were in the digital world, the difference in the flow of time meant he lived with him for somewhere between 6 months and a full year, he isn't entirely sure so his absence after 3 months of separation when this Drama CD takes place, weighs on him.

Following the sound to his dad's turned on computer, he sees a blurry light identical to the digiegg that appeared at his house 4 years earlier (1995) when Hikari and he got their first digimon partner. Through the screen, he manages to see Agumon and Tailmon blowing the whistle. Even though the signal has interference and he can barely hear Agumon's voice, he sees him full of energy, mimicking soccer moves to show Taichi what he's up to over there. Those moves inspire Taichi to pick up soccer again, which he had completely abandoned after coming back from the digital world, driven by the determination not to fall behind or lose to Agumon, whom he considers his other self. The connection didn't last long and the gate to the digital world closed again. When Hikari gets home and finds out what happened, she gets furious with Taichi for not managing to keep the gate open until she arrived to see Tailmon.

May 2000. Joe talks on the phone with his middle brother Shin during Golden Week. Joe says he briefly entered the digital world because the gate opened. He mentions that Gomamon sent his regards to Shin and told him to take care of Joe. Regarding his future, Joe says he decided to become a doctor on his own because in the digital world he saw many digimon suffer and die without him being able to do anything. He says there are no doctors in the digital world and that they need someone to heal them, which is why he always carries a first aid kit in his backpack in case the gate opens again, even considering whether he should study veterinary medicine as well to treat them properly. He also mentions that his brother Shuu quit medicine to go to Kyoto to study humanities with Sora's dad and mentions that Sora has been wearing skirts lately and looks more feminine.

October 2000. Sora sends a letter to her father for his birthday, telling him that last summer (August 2000) she reunited with Piyomon. She's happy to have helped her dad with his research on the connection between both worlds and also tells him that Piyomon can no longer evolve into Garudamon (her Perfect form) because they sacrificed that power / their crests, but that it doesn't matter since the digital world is at peace right now and there are no urgent battles requiring that level of strength. On top of that, Sora tells him her mom is teaching her how to play tennis and is a super strict coach, even tougher than when she teaches flower arrangement.

About the family, she tells him she asked her mom how they first met and reminds him of how they ran into each other in Kyoto while he was studying in Tokyo, and right after getting married and settling down in Tokyo, he was relocated to work at a university in Kyoto. Later, when her mom opened her flower shop office in Tokyo, they had to move from Hikarigaoka to Odaiba.

Sora connects all of this and says none of it was a coincidence. She believes that because of everything that happened, she was able to meet Piyomon. In the same way, she feels her parents' meeting wasn't accidental either and even Joe's brother quitting medicine to go to Kyoto to take classes with her dad must have some meaning.

She tells him that for her next school trip she'll be going to Kyoto and since they get a bit of free time, she wants to go see the place where her parents first met as well as experience Kyoto for herself since she's only ever seen it on tv.

(So... Joe mentioning that Sora looks more feminine, Sora telling her dad that meeting Joe's brother doesn't feel like a coincidence… Kakudou, what were you trying to tell us here? Was all this setup seriously just for that one episode in 02 in Kyoto with Sora's dad and Shuu?)

April 2001. Koushiro chats with Gennai and comments on how busy Gennai has been ever since he got younger. During the conversation, Gennai tells him that the number of his comrades has increased and Koushiro finds it weird that all these new comrades share the same face as Gennai. Koushiro mentions that he has grown a bit taller even if the 5th grade girls joining the computer club are taller than him he was named club captain and that he visited the cemetery for Ohigan to see his biological parents, feeling at peace with both his adoptive family and his birth parents. He also shares his realization about the term chosen children. They were chosen to fight and stop conflicts in the digital world, which is why they were given partner digimon before anyone else. He tells Gennai that if any new chosen children appear in Japan they want to help them right away and that he's surprised to learn that neither Gennai nor Qinglongmon and the rest of the Holy Beasts know where the chosen children originally come from when they enter the digital world. After saying goodbye, Koushiro reflects on how the number of chosen children doubles every year. He calculates there might be around 100 worldwide by now and wonders how the count grew from their original 8 in 1999 back to the Hikarigaoka incident in 1995.

September 2001. Mimi records a video mail from New York to tell the group how she's doing over there and starts off excited talking about her new school, her new friends and something an acquaintance of her dad told her about Native American totems and animal spirits. This lead Mimi to reflect that maybe digimon weren't born exclusively from computers but have always existed as guardian spirits or digital totems. In the middle of her recording distant explosions can be heard. In the next section of the recording, Mimi explains that she and her parents are safe because they were far away but the sound of the collapsing buildings was extremely loud and the sky turned pitch black from the smoke of the Twin Towers attack. Seeing the disaster, she couldn't just stand by and ran out into the street to see how she could help. Even though she didn't have Palmon with her, among all the dust and chaos she found several other chosen children from the US helping in secret. The smaller digimon slipped through the cracks in the rubble to search for survivors while the kids and larger digimon moved heavy objects. Mimi showed them her digivice to overcome her language barrier since she couldn't speak english very well yet, letting them know that she was one of them. She helped carry the injured and treat their wounds until more adults arrived and they had to separate so the digimon wouldn't be discovered. That was the first time she saw other chosen children.

I found this arc remarkable. The calm with which she tells her story trying to comfort others while actively making herself useful during the emergency, shows huge growth on her part given how sensitive she is to other people's sorrow and injustice. It's a grounded touch on Digimon Adventure's part to weave such a real and tragic moment in human history into her character arc.

March 2002. Yamato talks with his dad at home while playing the bass getting surprised to learn that his dad used to play bass in a band when he was young. He gets his dad to promise to buy him his own bass with his work bonus so he doesn't have to keep using his. During their chat, they mention that rebuilding the Odaiba TV station took 2 and a half years and Yamato says that he talks to Takeru every now and then, who told him their mom is organizing the events of Odaiba and Hikarigaoka for a report while protecting the group's identities and that they'll soon be moving back to Odaiba into a new apartment. Then Yamato reflects on how strange it is that despite the whole world watching the events 3 years ago, no video records or evidence remained of what actually happened. He acknowledges that while there is still so much they don't understand, the lack of recorded proof is precisely what allows them to live in peace without being exposed to the public. While he plays, his dad is going through a mountain of old work tapes and puts on a werewolf horror movie "I Was a Teenage Werewolf", and seeing the monster on screen, his dad gets confused and asks Yamato if that's Gabumon. Yamato reminds his dad of the difference between Gabumon, Garurumon and WereGarurumon, and also tells him that the last time the gate to the digital world opened, Gabumon looked fine. Then Yamato gets more reflective about his past and his parents' divorce recalling that on the day of the separation, since neither his mom nor his dad could decide how to split the kids, he was the one who made the decision to stay with his dad so Takeru could stay with their mom. That's where his fixed mindset of fending for himself, making all decisions on his own so no one could use him for their convenience and keeping a distance from others to avoid making friends came from. But Yamato admits that closed off attitude made no sense because no one lives in this world alone and if he hadn't met Gabumon, he never would have realized that or understood that now he isn't alone anymore.

And just a month later in April 2002, the events of 02 begin. I think this Drama CD is an important piece of the story, and what I highlight the most is seeing how each of them misses their digimon partner and how despite the separation they keep moving forward inspired by everything they went through, longing for that reunion.