Pop Culture Panda: Digimon TRI: Soushitsu/Loss Ep 4

I find the flashback openers to the new episodes annoying, especially when the whole thing about Tri is that it's meant to be a set of 'movies'.

Anyway, the actual opener is Joe, Mimi and TK running from Gennai and Machinedramon. Gennai is monologueing about Digimons being life, humans can die, Digimon die in the real world and don't revive but a reboot can bring them back.

Then this happens.

Geez Gennai, are you gonna lick TK too??

A well placed Boom Bubble Puff almost takes off Gennai's creepy head and then freakin' Joe charges him and lays the smackdown on Gennai! Gooooo Jo-bra!

"How do you like being on the receiving end, jerk?!"

Gomamon then sends out the sassiest Marching Fishes you ever saw, headbutting and slapping the sense out of Gennai. Palmon traps him with her Poison Ivy but then Gennai sees Sora and Biyomon and his Pedo-power level raises enough to let him escape.

Turns out Koshirou's plan is to project a large hologram of Tentomon to distract the baddies?

It's kinda cool but begs the question can Koshirou just do anything and we can put it down as technology power or what?

Meanwhile Metalseadramon hasn't managed to eat Matt and co, partially because they keep throwing Digimon at him.

Admit it, you thought I was kidding!

It gets sillier. They shoot one Blue Blaster and think they've won against him. Um, no.

Why would you ever think that? I mean sure, they get stronger with all their experience but as a Rookie level Digimon they have no chance against an Ultimate.

On the other hand, Himekawa has finally tracked down her Digimon who has no memory of her. SURPRISE! What did she think was going to happen? These Digimon are so dramatic though, calling them 'liars!' and running away yet they're useless against humans getting right up in their faces and hugging them. Himekawa gets rejected, yet comes right back to Tapirmon and gets a bit crazy.

I'm sensing a theme with this episode and creepy faces

Metalseadramon drags Matt and Tai pretty deep but then just lets them go. They make googly eyes at each other while doing super sentai poses, but then realise they need to breathe so they ascend.

Then Tai - super athlete chokes and.. Matt has to save him? Shyeah right. Also, Tai doesn't even use his goggles.

Then Matt chokes and they both almost drown.

Agumon either uses a psychic link to ask a question or else lack of oxygen is making Tai hallucinate. Anyway, the Digimon come to the rescue although the partners should really be dead by now.

They both share a really.. intimate? moment with their Digimon, then use their Sailor Senshi underwater transformation to Digivolve their buddies.

Hikari is freaking out at the surface, which is fair enough but she's made no effort to swim to safety and is just bobbing there like a swan. Holding Salamon she can't even use her arms, she must have impressive (unseen) leg muscles. So of course, she needs to be saved because obviously there's still a fiesty monster in the water. And of course her brother and Matt's Digimon have warp-digivolved.

This is annoying but also good because at the rate these Digidestined are getting their shit together, we'd need another ten movies to get to where we are now, evolution wise.

Actually, Matt and Tai are shown standing up in the water. Hikari is still chest deep but perhaps she's standing also. Anyway, cue generic fight but with better animation.

Damn, that's cute!

Damn that's a weird angle!

Metaldramon is back and annoyed he's no longer the centre of attention, so he grabs Biyomon and gets a free Sora thrown in. Bargain.

It's bad timing because they were just starting to address the whole 'partner' thing.

BAHAHAHAHA Great help guys!

Biyomon tells Sora to run - while she's holding on to a metal arm for dear life like 20 metres up in the air. This is why we don't look to birds for advice about running.... they just don't get it.

Metaldramon gives them a brief break from slamming them into a wall and they take the time to bond over eating meatballs. He also gives them a chance to hold hands and to wait the extra ten minutes it takes Biyomon to evolve to Birdramon, Garudamon and finally her Mega form of Pheonixmon!

I hate the new evolution sequences because the art normally looks ridiculous, like Gatomon above or even Lillymon here.

What is this bendy pose and why does everything look weird?!

In this case, it works a lot better for bird monsters as opposed to people monsters. As lengthy as it was, I'm glad we didn't skip over the criminally underused Garudamon. Pheonixmon is a long time coming and she does not disappoint, throwing tank monsters around like nothing.
Also she dropped Sora, but whatever. Joe or someone can catch her, it's fine.

Mei watches the battle and gets creeped on by creepy Gennai.

Patomon decides he needs to get in the way of a perfectly good bird fight - basically Pheonicmon and Sora's spotlight and make it allll about him.

Boo, Patamon.

Inspired, even Tentomon steps up.

It feels like they're padding time a bit here, with all these evolution sequences. Joe and Mimi are even like 'oh, we could have joined in too' and it's like no. Please don't. The battle is over and hoping to actually see a plot again.

Well, we come back to Mei being force choked by Gennai over the side of the boat. The best way to get the Digimon angry is to hurt the partner, he says. Meicoomon falls for it. Instead of attacking Gennai properly, or calling for help or trying to teleport Mei through a distortion - she just stands there and watches Mei 'die' (or pass out.)

This gets what Gennai wants, for the fox thing to go psycho and obliterate everything.
The other kids seem to have forgotten about Mei/Meicoomon and are surprised when they finally remember to regroup with her and there's this crazy fox thing about to screw stuff up. If they'd even sent Mimi or TK (who may or may not have a broken ankle? Very unclear) to help guard her this whole thing may have been avoided.

I'm also not sure, but it looks like Tai, Sora and Matt are part of an elaborate threesome.