2000’s Digimon: The Movie is notorious for its complicated development, incredible ska and punk soundtrack, and the decades of memes that it spawned. Looking back at scenes like the giant, yoked-up rabbit Wendigomon dancing to Smash Mouth’s “All Star” is a bizarre, time capsule of a moment in anime movies. Eat your heart out, Shrek fans, it was ours first. English-speaking audiences know Digimon: The Movie as a story that takes place over several years, but in reality, the movie was Frankensteined from three disparate, shorter films previously released in Japan. As such, English fans have never seen a full release of those original short films, but now a new Blu-ray is up for pre-order for those who want to own a piece of Digimon history.
The Digimon: The Movies (it’s plural this time) collection is launching on December 17, and includes all three movies that made up the original English theatrical release. This includes Digimon Adventure, a 1999 prequel to the original anime season, 2000’s Our War Game, which takes place shortly after the events of the first season, and the second-season-set Hurricane Touchdown which also released that year. Each will get proper dubs, with members of the original English cast returning to reprise their old roles. These new dubs will be using the original Japanese soundtracks, so if you were hoping to relive the 2000s-ass music of the English movie, you won’t find them there. However, the collection does include the English film and all the quirks that come from smashing three movies together. So you get the best of both worlds. Stores like Crunchyroll have the collection up for pre-order now, though others like Amazon only have placeholder pages.
While it’s nice to go back and revisit old Digimon movies, the franchise has been releasing new films for several years now. The Digimon Adventure tri. series rolled out from 2015 to 2018 and followed the original cast through their high school days. Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna was released in 2020 and focused on the group’s transition into adulthood. 2023’s Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning follows the cast of the second anime. All of that is well and good, but I’m gonna need them to make a movie for the cast of the third season, which remains my favorite after all these years. We’ve seen enough of the OGs, let them rest.
