Loss is the fourth film in the Digimon Adventure Tri film series that was released to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the series. I’ve reviewed each of the previous films here on the site and now the home release of Loss will be getting the same treatment. While not the best entry in the Tri series it offers the same great nostalgic hit that anyone who grew up with the original Digimon series will appreciate and seems to be setting up bigger events to follow in the later films.
Loss starts off with a mostly silent flashback sequence revealing Nishijima and Homekawa’s link to the digital world before picking up right where the third film ended. After performing the reboot the DigiDestined have reentered the digital world and located their partner Digimon. They quickly reestablish their bonds except for Sora who is having a hard time getting Yokomon/Biyomon to come around and trust her.
Their reunions are quickly cut short after the group gets attacked by Machinedramon and the group end up split and scattered across the Digiworld.
Meanwhile there is a story thread going on in the real world with Nishijima finding secret files Himekawa possesses that reveals the possible true nature behind performing the reboot at the end of the previous film. This plot thread is the part of the film that pushes the story of the Tri series forward the most. We meet a creature that calls himself Hackmon who reveals to Nishijima that Gennai has been corrupted by a mysterious being known only as King Drasil and together they are after Meicoomon for reasons I’m sure will be revealed in more detail in the final two films.
The ending plays out in a similar fashion to the previous 2 films. With 2 of the DigiDestined’s Digimon reaching their mega forms with Biyomon becoming Phoenixmon and Patamon becoming Seraphimon to defeat the main enemy threats of the film, resurrected versions of the dark master Digimon Metal Seadramon and Machinedramon.
My biggest problem with Loss is that it doesn’t move the plot of the overall Tri story forward a whole lot. It seems to spend most of it’s runtime showing the DigiDestined redeveloping their friendships with their partners and Sora’s struggles with Biyomon with a few scattered scenes sprinkled throughout that contain the meat of the story. I found a few of the scenes focused on the Digidestined to have little meaning and were poorly paced. Even though the film is the shortest of all the Tri movies it felt really long and drawn out due to these pacing issues. Although I must say it was awesome to see the main cast back in the digital world once again.
The animation and music continue to be high points of the Tri films with the character models and Digimon designs looking sharp and modernised. And the original Digimon theme kicking in during emotionally powerful moments adds a heartwarming nostalgic vibe to the sequences it’s used in. The film contains the best and worst parts of the Digimon series.
Although the story in Loss is lacking, it seems they are setting up the building blocks for bigger things to occur in the later films with the cliffhanger ending, flashbacks of the original DigiDestined making an appearance and the unfinished Himekawa story thread.
The home release Blu-Ray includes the film which can be viewed either in English or Japanese with English subtitles. It is light on special features but what is on the set was great to see. It includes a feature called ‘The Evolution So Far with Joshua Seth’. This is a 10 minute recap of the events that occurred in the first 3 films and is completely narrated by Joshua Seth (Tai). With the home release sets coming out months apart from the previous one this was a fantastic feature to include on the set as it brought me back up to speed with the story of Tri before jumping into the 4th part.
Overall Thoughts
While it’s not the best entry in the Tri series and is far from a bad film, Loss isn’t a great one either. It’s slower pacing and minimal story hardly furthers the plot of the overall film series but does provide another chance to spend time with the original DigiDestined and the Digimon I grew up with so that’s never a bad thing. Toei’s animation and character designs continue to help Digimon look better on screen than it ever has before. I’m looking forward to the final two films where I hope to see some fitting conclusions to plot threads that are still open at the end of this film.
A Blu-Ray review copy was provided by Madman Entertainment for the purpose of this review.
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7
- + It's great to be back in the Dig World again
- + Animation and music continue to be top notch
- + Good story recap included on the set
- + Plot threads that have been set up for later films
- - The story barely moves the plot forward
- - Pacing is slow during lengthy DigiDestined sequences
