#tri spoiler

Throughout all of Tri, the scene that stands out to me as one of the most beautiful & important came very close to the beginning. Taichi’s lost in his ongoing internal monologue but pauses to enlighten Agumon about a big fear of his.

“I’m scared. What if I end up killing someone?”

At first this seemed somewhat petty to me because I assumed he was talking about an enemy of the digital variety, of which Taichi’s honestly killed many. Not himself, of course, but it never seemed particularly difficult for him to charge into battle against the big bad™. As Tri made very clear, however, the big bad isn’t always the textbook definition of evil. In the ~adult~ world, the big bad can take the shape of an overly designed gremlin with an allergy-ridden partner, some seedy subset of the government developing weapons with little to no oversight, or a morally compromised woman that makes me laugh whenever I remember there was a point in time we all thought she was Ken. They’re all... grey areas. Everyone has their own secrets, their own motivations... it’s complex to make sense of it all.

To me, this entire series started out with a very ~Adventure~ vibe. Kuwagamon appears out of nowhere and when Taichi reunites with Agumon, he’s lowkey hyped as fuck for some action until he’s... not. And yes, yes, I know, this boy’s participated in leveling significant portions of Odaiba at least twice, but he’s grown now and his bike got smashed and there’s some other, uh, significant damage. It’s scary and he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. 

It’s not his fault, but all of Taichi’s adventures, for the most part, are fairly cut and dry. There’s a very evil villain he has to destroy, or else his sister dies or something like that. There’s not really any choice- some different means, maybe, but it’s the same end. What’s a 17 year old to do in the situation Tri puts him in? There’s multiple actors (almost all of them shady) and it seems like Taichi’s been questioning his own capabilities for awhile. 

So what does it mean to be ‘chosen’? Daigo was a crucial advocate of solving this puzzle. Sadly, Daigo dies [but DREAM BIG Yagami! He’s not the only one whose death you’ll be involved in this episode!] but before passing on, he passes on some final words of advice:

Build the future. Choose where to go from here. Navigate this grey area and create something better. 

But what if he chooses wrong? Taichi is [re]learning that his choices have very serious consequences, but apparently worrying doesn’t matter. He became adamant about ending things before he disappeared, and arguably due to his actions [and protag powers], his teacher died for the cause. So whose side does he join upon rising from the dead?

Personally, I thought this question was wrapped up quite nicely. If neither side feels right, find another way. Create something. If the world chose the future that shouldn’t have been chosen, build a new one. That is the power of the chosen children, as Hackmon learned alongside us.

So here we are again- Taichi knows what needs to be done, but it’s different this time. If you pay attention to the details, he took to heart the lessons learned in all the previous installments. Don’t shoulder the burden on your own. Trust your friends. Don’t let your heart grow cold.

I was reminded of the episode of Adventure in which the kids rely on Taichi to get them home. Koushiro solves as much of the card puzzle as he can, but leaves the final portion up to Taichi’s intuition. He’s played a much-more cartooney version of this game before, but ultimately, he was gambling with the mortality of himself and his friends. While I think the pacing makes it difficult to consider in the moment, I’m struck by how much courage it must take to inflict death on someone after watching a mentor like your teacher die. Therein lies the growth for me, yet it’s still in line with the recurring theme of Taichi’s crest. It’s okay to be scared- terrified, even- but do what needs to be done and continue marching forwards.