I sort of answered this Sunday when it was first announced, but it’s worth elaborating on the sequel side of things. At the time, we couldn’t tell if this was a sequel or a retelling of Adventure. The interpretation is now leaning more towards proper sequel, so let’s run with that.
It’s easy to understand the lack of excitement, because they haven’t really said anything about it. We got some rough art, ages, and… that’s it. If we’re comparing this to tri’s unveiling, we’re at the “Taichi, 17, high school” stage. Could you have guessed what that would turn into?
Despite the lack of a hard announcement, we do know a few things that might help us point us a certain way. It’s still all speculation, but we’re not going in totally blind:
Toei considered tri. a success.
Toei has stated in a shareholders meeting that they are satisfied with how everything went with tri. They looked at the box office numbers, the merchandise sold, and the general buzz over the project and went “yep, that worked.”
What that could mean: First off, it’s the reason we’re getting another Adventure project right away, since it’s hard to say whether they were as satisfied with the way Appmon went (mind you, Appmon had a completely different target audience). The Tamers Blu-Ray seemed to do well enough to get us a Frontier Blu-Ray, but probably not enough for more Tamers (even if it did, an announcement would be a long time coming).
So don’t be surprised if one or more of the elements that made tri. tri. were deemed winners and will find their way into the 20th project. That could mean any or all of tri.’s format, tone, or story style wind up being repeated. Based on what we see below, the most likely thing to carry over is the format.
Toei wants to target a similar, but wider, audience.
In that same meeting, Toei suggested that while the new project will appeal to the same audience, they would like to extend the appeal beyond what tri. did.
What that could mean: Good as it is, tri. is demanding. It requires an advance emotional investment in the Adventure cast, a lack of emotional investment in the 02 cast, an open mind on the deeper implications of being a Chosen Child, an appreciation for the character work, and an expectation that you’ll work out the less important blanks in the exposition yourself. That’s a lot, and it’s no wonder not everyone was willing to commit.
Well, if they’re shooting for a wider audience, the easy way to get that is by not asking for so much! To get a broader appeal, expect a story that doesn’t have as many extensions and tendrils to explore, one that moves faster, and perhaps may not even require an extensive knowledge of lore to understand. It could go for more comedy, more action, and/or more random and varied character moments. Speaking more on the tone than the quality of the movies in this analogy, if tri. was Hurricane Touchdown, this new one may well be Revenge of Diaboromon.
Adventure’s original character designer and producer are on board.
Hiromi Seki and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru are both involved, and were on the Thanksgiving feed talking up the project. This is in contrast to tri., where pretty much everybody was new.
What that could mean: Whether it ends up being the case, the message here is to expect something more familiar. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be more of the same (it would be rather disappointing if it was), but these two should be reassurance that the new project might feel a little more closer to home. And even if there are drastic departures in certain areas, their specific roles means at least many art and directorial decisions will resemble like the Digimon we remember.
The original director was on board, but left.
Kakudou was involved with the project, but he disagreed with something in the script and not-so-quietly walked away.
What that could mean: Expect a curveball somewhere! Anyone who says they know what exactly he’s objecting to is lying. It doesn’t appear to have anything to do with tri.; he hasn’t said anything bad about it and even after the fact he was still willing to sign up for this project. But he wasn’t happy about something. It could be something abstract like a conflicting perception of what the Adventure world will look like in 2010. It could be broader like a disagreement over the overall tone or message the project is conveying. It could be something concrete like a direct conflict with the 02 epilogue (this would be especially disappointing given how hard tri. worked to honor that). It could even be something like a conflict with some of Kakudou’s ideas for how events building to the epilogue unfolded, whether he’s discussed them publicly or not. Remember that just because he tweeted about something doesn’t make it canon.
We may never know what exactly spurned his departure. It’s unlikely he’ll ever clarify it. But it’s safe to say anyone who ardently follows Kakudou’s ideas for the post-02 world will probably find something objectionable in this new project.
At some point, Taichi and Yamato will be seen as 22 year olds.
Yeah, you saw the artwork, right? (PS- those were unofficial sketches. They’re gonna change. Stop freaking out.)
What that could mean: They’re fast-forwarding quite a bit past the events of tri., which makes the odds of a direct sequel feel pretty unlikely. That’s not to say some of those dangling threads won’t get picked up again. Mysterious Man’s desire to sow chaos and his ability to change forms makes him a very versatile villain, there are plenty of ways to write Maki back into the story, and Koushiro’s work on creating a digital gate that can be opened without a D3 could prove very important. But if they’re moving five years forward, all of these could be taken, left, or reintroduced without tri. becoming mandatory viewing.
So while aging them all the way to 22 may diminish tri.’s significance to the new story, we also have to ask why they’re only 22. That puts the story roughly at 2010. There are only two reasons to deliberately avoid the present time (three if you count not trusting Takato’s voice actress to play a 28-year-old man). One is the time period: 2010 is when smartphones really started taking off, changing how we interface with the internet, with likely ramifications for the Digital World (please oh please give their phones Appmon icons!). Two is this puts the characters on the back-end of university and on the cusp of either a career or a graduate program. So think about what sort of angst they’ll be having over this upcoming new chapter in life and the sort of problems the Digital World could be facing. It’s not too hard to come up with some theories. That’s all they are at this point, but it’s a little direction for you as the slow droplets of information trickle down over the next few months.
