Ooooh, I think it’s time for another Digimon post. For this month’s East Meets West, I’m going to be doing something that I’ve never done before here (surprisingly enough): compare the original Japanese version of a particular movie to a dubbed version. You might be wondering why I just don’t do this with all the anime I’ve seen, compare and contrast it with the dub. Well,the subject at hand, the infamous Digimon – The Movie by FOX Kids (the precursor of 4KidsTV), is a special case. The purpose of this series of posts, true, is to highlight various a movie that either had a similar theme, or played out much like the anime they were going up against. Well, that’s where this movie comes in as a special case. Digimon – The Movie is basically a loosely-held together mishmash of not one, but three Japanese movies from said franchise; in order for them to justify this, they had to drastically revamp the story to loosely tie them together.
See now, it’s one thing the two shows in question were word-for-word the same except in language, but with this one, I digress. The hard editing that Digimon – The Movie went through has led to it bearing little resemblance to the original stories, that I’d argue it’s more of a Western concoction than a somewhat-faithful adaptation; hence why this post exists. What’s left to see is whether or not despite all these changes, if it will be able to stand just as well to the Japanese editions.
Eastern Competitor(s) #26: Japanese Digimon Movies
The Digimon line of movies starts with the release of its prologue movie on 6 March 1999, being a short, 20-minute segment directed by Mamoru Hosoda. It explored the events of the moment when the eight lead protagonists became Digidestined, by witnessing a Digimon fight between a rogue Greymon and Parrotmon near their old housing complex. After that, it was followed up by another Hosoda production almost a year after, Bokura No War Game which takes place several months after the end of the TV series, and focuses on the lead characters trying to fend off an Internet virus from triggering an all-out nuclear war; basically, Wargames for kids (no surprise that Hosoda would go on to have one of his later films, Summer Wars, take notes from this film!). The third and final film follows from its sequel series Digimon Adventure 02, and takes the name Hurricane Touchdown. Released on 8 July 2000 and directed this time by Shigeyasu Yamauchi, this story takes a departure from the cybernet background of the series, and sees the lead characters traveling to Colorado to help an American comrade tame his rogue Digimon partner, and bring him back to normalcy.
Each of these films were produced by Toei Animation, who were the masterminds behind its parent TV series as well as classics such as Sailor Moon, One Piece, Saint Seiya, the Dragon Ball franchise and many others, and their total runtime spans 125 minutes – if you were to throw them all into one flick, it would match the runtime of Spirited Away, Laputa: Castle In The Sky and barely pass Akira.
Western Competitor #26: Digimon – The Movie
On 6 October 2000, FOX Kids released their take on the Digimon movies, spanning 37 minutes shorter than the above three combined, taking into account all its transition titles, end credits, and a corny segment featuring characters from the cutout-animation series Angela Anaconda (of which I have barely a recollection about) thrown in the beginning, going to watch the movie, only to find out that they’re in the wrong room. And so, you might be wondering: how could they manage to tie in three movies into one? Well, the string that holds them together is that American comrade from the third film of theirs, whose role is upgraded as a supporting character whose actions somewhat affect the plot of each film; for example, being the kid who accidentally unleashes Diablomon in the Bokura No War Game part. You can thank Jeff Nimoy and Bob Buchholz, then-members of the writing staff at FOX Kids, for putting together this cluster-bomb of a theatrical production, and their higher-ups for deciding to release, against their wishes, all three films into one instead of Nimoy’s suggestion of leaving the Hurricane Touchdown segment as its own thing – which would have been a smarter idea.
Alas, it got turned down because their bosses really needed to have more revenue to stroke their already-inflated egos as the ones who popularized anime in North America. Because of this, this resulted in many important figments from the third film, such as the part where the original Digidestined from the first season ARE KIDNAPPED AND DE-AGED BY THE ANTAGONIST completely removed, a fact which blew my mind when I watched the original years later. Though, to be fair, to their credit they were open about their displeasure with the film’s direction, and that proved to facilitate their departure from the company about a year later.
The Showdown
I will not be delving into analyzing the characters or any of the story-enhancing elements such as the music or dialogue. Instead, I will keep things simple, and strictly keep to the domain of talking about comparing the two movies against each other in things related to art, execution and most especially, the FOX Kids segments compared against their original Japanese counterparts.
Category #1: Movie Posters
Oh yeah, for this one, we’re going to critique the movie posters, starting with that of Digimon – The Movie. And what can I say except that it literally makes no sense. First thing I notice that they’re all in their Digimon Adventure 02 forms, which doesn’t fly considering that two-thirds of the film takes place before that, and even then the original Digidestined don’t even play a significant role in that! (Well, in the original they are mentioned during that segment, but you wouldn’t know that until you saw it, wouldn’t you?) As to the rest, they all look gratuitously constipated for whatever reason, the background is generic, and the art looks like a barfed-out resemblance of the cover art from all those 90s Disney VHS boxes. It’s a far cry from what the Japanese movie posters had. Even if you can’t read the language, they’re quite flashy and try to grab your attention. All the characters and their Digimon partners are in the picture, the artstyle and backgrounds are proper to their respective stories, the colour selection is bright and it’s made to look as imposing as possible – which makes for an artwork that’s both epic and pleasing to the behold.
Japanese Digimon Movies 1-0 Digimon – The Movie
Category #2: Digimon Adventure Prologue
In the beginning, Taichi and Hikari, the central protagonists of this film, were young primary-school children living in the Highton View Terrace apartment complex in Tokyo. Their lives are turned upside-down when a Digi-Egg graces their lives, and out comes a Botamon, who later becomes Koromon and then Agumon, who befriends them. They then bear witness to its battle against a Parrotmon in the streets, causing destruction and panic among its citizens (who mistake it as a terrorist attack, long before Al-Qaeda became a household name). Eventually the Parrotmon is defeated when Greymon shows up, and the rest, they say, is history for eight children that day. Considering how heavily modified the other portions of the film was, the prologue is the only one that largely remains faithful to Mamoru Hosoda’s story, and that I can appreciate.
Of course, the only other thing that was different between both is how the dialogue was handled; the FOX Kids version attempted to balance the humour with one-liners such as Taichi quipping about the Digi-Egg being from a nuclear farm, or taunting Parrotmon with a “Polly want… a really big cracker?” routine, just as they did with its parent dub episodes; whereas the original retained a more serious, and possibly darker tone. The deal-breaker between the two, however, is the atmosphere: and I would like to demonstrate this with an exercise. Go watch the original movie, and fast-forward to the scenes where Greymon is fighting Parrotmon; and take note of the music. You’ll notice that in the original, Maurice Ravel’s Bolero is THE ONLY SOUNDTRACK playing in the film’s entirety from start to finish, while Digimon – The Movie supplements this with a diverse range of original, hard-rock music.
If you ask me, this change in tone is what separates the two films together. Watching Mamoru Hosoda’s film, the staleness of its atmosphere made me throw my hands up in the air, saying “AYYYYYO, THIS MOVIE’S BORING” (shoutout if you got that reference). It feels fitting for a carnival ride music or maybe a Japanese Alice In Wonderland, but this is Digimon – a story about fighting monsters, explosions and all that stuff! Even if they were on a small budget, I’m sure they could have thrown in another classical piece or two to spice things up, they’re not hard to find! Which means that this segment of Digimon – The Movie was, in being able to express itself, was actually much better to watch in spite of its corny-at-times dialogue. Not even the appearance of the late Wada Koji’s Butterfly at the end credits while Taichi’s hugging Greymon could save the rest of the movie, and that’s saying something.
Digimon – The Movie 1-1 Japanese Digimon Movies
Category #3: Bokura No War Game
The next segment constitutes my favourite of the three Japanese Digimon movies, and the movie part that I most remember to this day. After defeating Apocalymon and returning home to enjoy their summer vacation, Taichi, Koushiro, Yamato and Takeru get embroiled in a Digimon showdown when Diablomon, a virus, appears on the Internet and disrupts the fabric of technological life, by intercepting telephone calls, causing supermarket registers to crash, and stealing online data. Matters are further complicated as half of the Digidestined are unavailable due to vacation plans, and Diablomon’s strength proves powerful against the quartet; he invokes his black magic powers to launch a nuclear strike on Tokyo with a 10-minute deadline, which is ultimate deterred in a last-second strike when Omegamon, the fused version of Taichi and Yamato’s Digimon, defeats him.
Common to both segments is the great setup of ambience during the battle scenes, especially the pivotal moments like when Diablomon multiplies himself or Omegamon’s arrival, as well as the late-game sense of urgency. But no doubt that Bokura No War Game still comes up as the better version. In retrospect, this bit from the FOX Kids take was a little awkward at times with Diablomon goes harping about how he’s “looking for his programmer” making no sense in context, and I disliked how they emphasized Taichi seeming like an idiot compared to his composed, leader-like tone from the original. Little things, sure, but it makes the story and consistency slightly loopy. For some reason also, they decided to throw Wallace, the American comrade from the third film (more on that soon) by making him the accidental instigator of Diablomon’s appearance, as revealed when he sends Koushiro an email confirming such.
This was badly forced into plot, and in offering absolutely nothing essential to the story, poses a problem by making him look worse as a supporting character, since he doesn’t own up to this goof and sits back praying that having Taichi and friends take Diablomon down. On another hand, the soundtracks – such as this stirring rendition of Pie Jesu after Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon’s defeat and the satisfying end credits song by Ai Maeda – were incredible additions to the franchise’s already excellent set of such, as opposed to the stream of early 2000s’ punk that they used which, unlike the first segment, felt disjointed from the high-stakes story that was being parlayed. All these would be what trumped it over FOX Kids’ rendition by a mile.
Japanese Digimon Movies 2-1 Digimon – The Movie
Category #4: Hurricane Touchdown
The third film suffered most heavily from the FOX Kids edits, and is a major part of why I call it a Western production rather than a sub/dub case. In the original story, Wallace’s second Digimon, Lopmon, transforms into a violent Wendigomon and kidnaps six of the eight original Digidestined (Takeru and Hikari were mysteriously not included because they were part of the new crew with Daisuke, Miyako and Iori), imprisoning them in a purgatorial structure that de-ages them progressively as the movie goes on. As a result, they travel to the plains of Colorado to investigate the matter, where they meet Wallace and his partner Terriermon, who explains to them that he is infected with a virus, and that the only way to subdue it is to eliminate him in the place where they first met. Thanks to a deus ex machina machine known as the Golden Digimentals, they are able to succeed in defeating him and revert him to his original form, albeit in a Digi-Egg that resurfaces by his side at the end.
Not that the Japanese version was any better in itself, given Takeru and Hikari’s reduced role and the abrupt ending where the first Digidestined set are miraculously saved after Wendigomon is killed, but the Japanese version trumps FOX Kids’ Digi-theatrical muck-fest of this movie in more ways than one:
- It doesn’t attempt to awkwardly shoehorn Wallace’s relationship with Diablomon and the subplot with the original Digidestined gives Takeru and Hikari some leverage in them going to Colorado, or being involved with the affair to rescue their siblings. In addition, keeping that part made the movie feel a lot creepier and edge-of-the-seat inducing considering how dark it gets at the end. Also, how does Wallace coolly mention Taichi’s name when explaining to Daisuke his predicament even though he’s never met him in person before?
- The scenes in the FOX Kids version were emotionally confusing: most infamously they have Daisuke burst into tears after Wallace reveals Wendigomon’s pain, only for him to hop back into smiles when the latter comforts him with a sentence. The original makes this more poignant, as Daisuke’s sadness stems from relating to Wallace having to fight his Digimon partner and friend – a thought that he fears. Or Wendigomon dancing to the Shrek song whereas in the original he is crying out in pain.
- “Go back to the beginning”. What is that even supposed to mean? At first Diablomon says this quote before triggering a countdown to a nuclear strike, which didn’t make any sense, and then Wendigomon adopts this to insinuate wanting to see the younger Wallace – but again, since the original Japanese sheds light on this by having him kidnap the Digidestined (I must add, using a faulty algorithm) for vague reasons of nostalgia, here his reasoning is just shallow and the dots are never connected.
- And I must mention again, the characterization in the movie really reeks in the FOX Kids version during the final battle. When they are de-aged, in the Japanese version they still hold a strong fighting spirit and remain determined towards their goal, and are fearless through thick and thin while the other one cheapens them; not only by changing their appearance, but drops their IQ massively. They run around screaming, panicking and chase their Digimon around while crying instead of being concerned for their safety as the original depicts them.
With all things considered, to no surprise it is the Japanese Digimon movies that take the cake this month, beating its Western counterparts in formulation of its story, atmosphere and overall entertainment. Like seriously, if I didn’t know any better I would have thought this section was an actual parody and not a half-arsed attempt at a movie subplot.
Final Score: Japanese Digimon Movies 3-1 Digimon – The Movie
Conclusion
No surprise, the original trilogy of Digimon movies outshone their respective segments in Digimon – The Movie. The fact that the latter compiled three barely unrelated movies to squish them into one plot was its death blow, and should never have been done in the first place. The result isn’t pretty, lacks any fluidity, and moreover justifies anyone who says that the franchise is a cheap cash grab clamping on Pokemon‘s success instead of an intelligently-designed production following the footsteps of Digimon Adventure. As it proceeded, the writing got lazier and lazier and the lack of effort to connect the films together, even vaguely, was astounding. For comparison, it would be like if George Lucas released a Star Wars film that consisted of scenes from The Phantom Menace, Revenge Of The Sith and then straight to Return Of The Jedi; too many plot gaps in between, inconsistent erratic characterization and all-over-the-place action would be the death of it. Guess that explains why it took 14 years before anyone cared enough to revive the franchise’s movie run, while Pokemon continued to gain steam and race its way from one generation to another.
The Traditional Catholic Weeb 
I watched a pirated copy of the US dubbed version of Digimon Adventure the movie and looking at it now, it bears a striking similarity on the plot with another anime movie titled Summer Wars. Moving on the movie was nice even with the poor visibility provided by the pirated copy. I was not used to the voices on the dub on the movie since it was different compared to the English dub done in the Philippines (we dubbed both DA 1 and 2 ).
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You mean Bokura No War Game, or just the FOX Kids version? Either way, yes – Summer Wars was directed by the same person (Mamoru Hosoda) and even some scenes, like when they’re on the phone are said to be inspired by it. Talk about taking inspiration from oneself 😅 Personally I loved both films!
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