Digimon Adventure’s 20th Anniversary series has been a much different experience than the original anime series from over 20 years ago, and much of that is due by the speedier pace of the battles the DigiDestined are facing this time around. At the same time, the new series has also greatly increased the scope of the series as well with a road map that will seemingly incorporate much higher levels of battle. As Digimon Adventure continues to make its way through the first arc, the bigger question then becomes whether or not it’s moving too fast.
As the series continues to introduce new elements at a fast rate, it’s also greatly intensifying the final threat of the arc. But this will eventually create a ceiling as either the series has to slow down or speed through even the Mega level evolutions before truly establishing what kind of threats needs Mega level heroes to face.
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The core of the new Digimon Adventure’s first arc is the same as the first arc of the original series as the DigiDestined are tasked with making their way across the Dark Continent and will eventually have to clash with Devimon. The difference here is that we have been introduced to a new origin for these DigiDestined as the Digimon partners were implied to be a group of warriors who perished in the first battle against the Dark Digimon.
This established that each of these Digimon partners will be reaching their final Mega level evolutions (which the original series never did) over the course of this new series, and seemingly set the stage for each of the DigiDestined to grow as they faced increasingly stronger threats, shonen action anime style. But it’s not really unfolding as slowly as one might expect with this formula, and nowhere near as slowly as it did in the original series.
The new series has begun to introduce the Ultimate level evolutions 10 episodes into its run, and depending on how long it plans to last, this might be an issue down the line. Even though this pace has injected an energy into the first few episodes (and makes the upcoming fight with Devimon all the more enticing), it’s going to hit a road block once all of the Ultimates finish their introductions over the next few weeks. Either we see all of the Mega levels by Episode 30 or it keeps them at bay for an additional 10 or 20.
In terms of moving the story along, it’s not the most dangerous pace as levels and scaling are far less important in later seasons (especially in the Digimon Adventure films). But the new series is skipping over the important stuff by doing this. By rushing even the crests along, the Ultimate levels are making their debuts without the development necessary to make it happen. Take Matt and Gabumon, for instance, his crest was activated when his friends were in trouble, but he’s only been with this group for a matter of days. So would his feelings of friendship be this strong already? Is that supposed to be the core of this new Matt’s power? The new series has yet to explain what these symbols are (or even their name), so it’s missing that extra oomph when they actually tap into the power.
Speeding through these iconic moments from the original series without the benefits of that emotional development that made these scenes special only comes off as hollow in the new anime. This pacing will not be an issue if this new series is planning to have even grander moments than fans could ever expect, but we’ll just have to wait and see! What do you think? Is Digimon Adventure moving too fast? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
