A Dreamer

One out of many things that I hate about 02 Epilogue is how the titular female characters have settled into roles modelled for them by a patriarchal society.

To its fair credit, I obviously should not expect feminist perspectives from a Japanese show written mostly by men for a target audience of kids in the early 2000s. Even then, characters like Sora and Mimi, whose designs make you shoehorn them at first sight as “tomboy” and “spoiled princess”, or Hikari who one might consider a “frail damsel in distress”, rise above all of these stereotypes and through their respective arcs prove that there are multitudes to every person (yes even little girls shocking isn’t it) and they’re strong enough to fight in the same stage as their male counterparts.

On the contrary one of the many things I LOVE about Kizuna, is how the girls are showcased to be forging their own paths, abandoning any expectations that may have been placed on them before. Sora, for example, wants to do something for herself, she is no longer the Mom Friend of the group, she is able to pull herself out of the responsibility of a Chosen Child and build her life around the career she wants. Mimi is a businesswoman running her own company, which isn’t to say that she may not start a cooking show sometime in the future but for a character whose taste in food was a running gag through the story while one of their key moments included rallying a group of Digimon army to fight together with them, it makes more sense for her to be in a position where she is leading a team and is working on something she’s passionate about. Miyako is studying abroad, and I know for a fact that this is quite liberating for Japanese women in general. I don’t know if it’s ever hinted how rich her family is, but I know she has many siblings so it must not have been easy to make the decision to go abroad for further studies, or at the very least she must have worked hard for scholarships or at part time jobs to afford this for herself. Hikari, I think is perhaps the only character I don’t mind the job for, because it just suits her character that much.

Now let’s talk about what we saw in 13+.

Sora and Hikari are responsible for all the emotional labour required to help all the rescued Partner Human. While Taichi and Yamato are out on the road facing the brunt of the atrocities, as is shown in the tiny pov we get from Yamato, Sora and Hikari are dutifully tending to the kids well-being as the “mother hens”. Of course the argument can be made that someone has to do this, which I will accept. And yes Sora gets one cool fighting scene, and Hikari too when she meets up with Miyako for the jogress evolution. But we don’t get to see or hear what they actually think about having to fulfil this role, which I find a little sad (personal opinion). If Yamato can share a moment where he was vulnerable while working on rescue operations, I am sure that Sora and Hikari who actually receive the rescued kids and help them settle into the Sanctuary, face many vulnerable and mentally stressful moments. But we don’t know how they feel about it. What we do know is that their outfits that we see in the Beyond PV were chosen so they could at any given point help someone in need. Sora ties a jacket around her waist in case she needs to lend it to someone, Hikari wears a hoodie dress which when pulled off can be used as a blanket on the ground in case someone needs to be laid down for treatment or out of weakness. This is something Kakudo explains in detail, and even the outfit choice of Mimi and Miyako and others is also explained, it’s a point I will get to later.

Let’s first talk about Miyako.

Miyako, an intelligent woman who I believe (even without having watched 02) is mostly on par with Koushiro when it comes to Digital World and tech theories, is working part time for Koushiro at his Lab since she is still at university. So far so good? Now here comes the part that annoys me, again disclaimer, my personal opinion.

Izumi Lab when handled by Koushiro alone, feels bland and unwelcoming. The intelligent man often loses himself in his research and does not care about his surroundings or the appearance of it because he is busy being so intelligent™️ (btw the notion that men cannot care about appearances is another hole I cannot dig up right now but thank you Digimon Adventure Tri for showing a side of Koushiro which was removed from the unfeeling nerd persona, which made him care about his looks, and idk this might just be me but Mimi Tachikawa will never allow her besties to live life looking and feeling bland btw there ain’t no way she wouldn’t hound Koushiro into not beautifying his office).

It is because of Miyako, that Izumi Lab has a welcoming atmosphere. In her red overalls with many pockets, she carries tools that makes the whole space feel more like home. Without Miyako, who else would think of serving tea to guests waiting in the reception room? 🥺 Without Miyako, who will think about the little administrative tasks that change how the Lab looks and feels?

Sigh.

I can tell you as someone who has worked with Japanese men all her life, it’s so humiliating to sit in a room full of teammates who have the same or sometimes less qualifications than you, and yet you are the one asked to get up from their seat and serve tea and water to everyone because you are the only girl in that room 🙂

Anyway, Mimi and Menoa are probably the only two girls who aren’t depicted in this light in this script. Mimi is quite literally hanging out with all the boys (Micheal, Wallace, Daisuke and then Ken) and they respect her taking the lead or sharing advice with them. Menoa is depicted as keeping up with Koushiro’s intellect and even helping him with his tech development. She is a co-partner of Izumi Lab and can get easily absorbed in her research like him which leads to her being standoffish towards others as well.

Mimi’s outfit choice of short shorts and thigh boots are to allow ease of movement because she does a lot of active work around the Sanctuary, she needs to be ready to jump into action mode at any time. Idk in which world thigh high boots allow ease of movement 😂 but okay I guess in Digital World that’s how it works 😂 (I personally would wear athleisure leggings that cover my legs comfortably and a pair of strong running shoes if I had to be constantly active but hey Kakudo, that’s just me 🤟🏻)

While Kakudo uses the girls’ outfits to describe the purpose they serve in the grand scheme. When he talks about the outfits of the male characters, it’s mostly a commentary on their personality or “cool” appearance. Makes one think doesn’t it?

Anyway this turned out to be longer than I thought it would be.

“Don’t worry about the fortress!”

“I know.”

“I’ll go.”

Actually, this is a sweet moment between Yamato and Sora, but the translation can't capture its meaning, so you have to look at the original text.

砦の方は心配ないから！」 「わかってるって」 「行ってくるぞ」 Toride no kata wa shinpai naikara!'

`Wakatteru tte' `itte kuru zo'

The first sentence was spoken by Sora, and the second was Yamato's response.

Anyone who understands Japanese knows that Yamato's reply was very gentle; you can look it up to see that he answered Sora in the manner of a lover.

So it was a hint from the director, Kakudou.

Yamato x teenage wolves announcement picture

Happy Odaiba Day!

The grown-up versions of the Chosen Children/Digidestined with their Digimon Partners in Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna Shikishi

1st pic = Taichi Yagami/Tai Kamiya and Agumon

2nd pic = Yamato Ishida/Matt and Gabumon

3rd pic = Sora Takenouchi and Piyomon/Biyomon

4th pic = Koushiro Izumi/Izzy and Tentomon

5th pic = Mimi Tachikawa and Palmon

6th pic = Jou/Jyou/Joe Kido and Gomamon

7th pic = Takeru Takaishi/TK and Patamon

8th pic = Hikari Yagami/Kari Kamiya and Tailmon/Gatomon

9th pic = Daisuke Motomiya/Davis and Veemon

10th pic = Miyako Inoue/Yolei and Hawkmon

11th pic = Iori Hida/Cody and Armadimon/Armadillomon

It seems like this work was made in consideration of the characters’ appearances as adults in the final episode of 02. Were there any difficulties because of the ending already being predetermined? Seki: There was nothing to worry about at all. I just drew upon my memory of making the TV series all those years ago, and had fun with it.

The Digimon Adventure 02 epilogue is still canon, surprising no one.

With all of these changes, we got the impression that, among the eight children, Sora’s position was particularly unique. Kinoshita: The theme of this story is “it can’t always be like this way forever,” and we felt that among the eight children, Sora was the best one to represent that. Seki: In addition, we understood that viewers would start having doubts if we didn’t answer the question “what happened between her and Taichi and Yamato?”, but this movie is only ninety minutes long, and we worried that if we started on a romance plotline it’d end up half-baked. So we decided to leave it as a simple movie that brings out all of the good qualities of Digimon as a series.

That’s a cop-out. Sora was sidelined hard, and her exchange with Piyomon in the “To Sora” short should have been included in the actual movie, to give context to her “storyline”. Because, as it was presented in Kizuna, Sora is the one character that most viewers will have a negative reaction to.

They also “simplified” the “love triangle” to a short exchange where Yamato tells Taichi what Sora is up to – and Taichi looks completely bored and disinterested. I thought Toei were clearly (and quickly!) making a point that A) Yamato stays in touch with Sora (… because they’re dating), and B) Taichi doesn’t care about Sora (ie., he really isn’t interested in her, he moved on ages ago, let it go).

Have you gotten a chance to hear the reactions of those who watched the movie? Seki: I watched it with the staff, so I haven’t gotten to hear anything from the fans yet. But the people within the company said things like “ah, this truly is Digimon,” so I was relieved. Kinoshita: “This truly is Digimon!” is an abstract thing to say, but ultimately everyone had different things they wanted out of it, so I was also relieved to hear it.