Digimon Adventure Movie

Name(s): Digimon Adventure Movie / Digimon: The Movie / デジモンアドベンチャー 劇場版
Format: Movie (20 minutes)
Release Date(s): March 6, 1999
Studio(s): Toei Animation

Digimon Adventure Movie Review

I somehow hadn’t heard about this movie until rather recently. Well, I guess technically, I saw at least part of it. I watched Digimon: The Movie as a kid, after all. I remember it confusing the fuck out of me and absolutely nothing else. I might as well have never watched it, considering my retained knowledge. For a 20-minute short film, this is actually pretty good—even putting its brand aside.

Plot Summary

A baby Digimon comes through the family’s computer, and little boy Tai and his toddler sister Hikari wonder what to do with it. The first half is devoted to this set-up, with the monster causing mischief for the kids. Though light on dialogue, Tai is hesitant and critical of the problems the creature is causing but warms to it, and Hikari is an instant fan. Baby Hikari was my favorite thing about the movie, her naive fascination with the Digimon is super cute and she communicates almost exclusively through a whistle she carries with her.

The Digimon eventually grows to be too big for the house, and Tai and Hikari escape with it in the night as it battles another giant Digimon in the form of a Kaiju fight. The backdrop of a city makes this influence feel pretty genuine, and the movements of the large monsters are slow with a fair amount of physical brawling and city destruction. It’s a bit different in tone from what I remember of the Digimon Adventure series, which was more akin to Pokémon between trading off named attacks from a distance.

The music is the weakest part of the movie, featuring basically one theme that’s reused repeatedly regardless of context. It’s an uplifting orchestral piece that captures the scale and feeling of awe of the Digimon, but it doesn’t evolve in tone unlike the movie’s progression from cute comedy to action, so the development could’ve been a little better there.

Digimon Adventure Movie Verdict

That aside, the story told feels perfectly complete here and fits in a balanced, standard three-act structure with more serious tonal escalation to keep momentum going. I love the painted backgrounds but I wouldn’t sell this for its animation quality although it justifies the distinction of being a movie. It’s just slick all around, and a bit of an outlier regarding its slower, more minimal direction among the usual Digimon franchise.