Incase you missed it, yesterday Hiroyuki Kakudou talked about his resignation from the new Digimon project. If you want to see the details, check WtW for Onkeikun’s translations of the tweets, but the TL:DR;
- Kakudou had been invited to work on the new project
- The project has been in production since last year
- Kakudou has now left it and won’t be involved any further due to unknown creative differences between him and the studio
The first thing we can take from this is that since the 20th Anniversary Project has been in production since last year (aka it didn’t go into production when tri. ended) we can be sure to hear something about it in the Digimon Thanksgiving event in July. Trailer? Probably not. Concept art? Possibly.
The other thing we can take away is that while Kakudou doesn’t explicitly state it, we can be very sure that the new project is indeed going to be Adventure-related. Kakudou’s grievances with the new project and the reason he left was that something about the setting of the new project contradicts what has been previously established “in the TV series” (and the fact that the story/ideas he submitted got rejected over what Toei ended up accepting).
There is no TV series Kakudou knows better than Adventure and Zero Two; he may have been in the staff for Tamers and Frontier, but Adv+02 are his babies, it’s safe to assume Toei asked him to help because the project is Adv-related and he’s the most familiar with them.
Now… people have taken kind of an “abandon ship”-attitude over the 20th Anniversary Project after Kakudou’s tweets, and yeah, I just want everybody to calm down a bit. Kakudou leaving the project doesn’t mean it’s all already going to hell.
As much as I love Adventure, we all must admit that Adventure’s lore is not flawless without holes or that it makes perfect sense all the time. Kakudou has had a pretty damn fluid view of the Adverse’s lore, you can see it in Adventure, Zero Two, the CD Dramas and the novels. So his lack of involvement in the new project doesn’t mean the project will suck. If anything it might mean the writing could turn out more consistent even.
It is still concerning however since, yeah, Kakudou’s view of Adventure IS fluid. So the fact that he wanted to leave the project because of some kind of continuity errors is somewhat alarming to a degree. Either the something truly awful is brewing in Toei’s studio, something so out there that even Kakudou was like “aww hell naw”, or it might just be a petty fight over artistic vision.
The thing is; we have no idea where the consistency error is.
The new project could be planning on changing or retconning important events established in Adventure/Zero Two, it could be planning on changing rules we’ve come to expect as facts about the world, or a crucial part of the new project might be completely OOC for some of the characters.
The issue in the new project could be that they’re changing how evolution works. Or it could be a “Luke Skywalker tried to kill Ben Solo” situation.
We don’t know where the issue lies, and thus we don’t know how severe it is. And not all of these issues are equally bad.
Kakudou did say that he thinks some fans will be able to enjoy the new project despite the issue he sees in it. Kakudou leaving the project this early doesn’t mean it already sucks. Yes, treading with caution is for the best, but there is still hope, the 20th Anniversary Project isn’t doomed yet.