The next few episodes of the season set the stage for the final battle with Kurata, but in clumsily repackaging certain events they nearly prove their own undoing. The technical quality is fair, particularly in the scenes with Thomas and Kurata, but the sense of uninspired imitation is almost pervasive.
First, a few comments on the situation. We are introduced to Thomas' father, whom he holds a grudge against that will become important later, and his sister Relena. The latter makes a particularly good first impression, and it's very convincing that she and Thomas care for each other. I already like this brother/sister dynamic more than the one between Marcus and Kristy. Then we find out that Kurata has been hired by Mr. Norstein, and everything goes south.
To the writers' credit, they at least tried to make Thomas' supposed betrayal distinct from Matt's, but really the biggest difference between these two cases is that the pertinent one has hardly an ounce of conviction. Kurata is clearly using Relena as leverage against Thomas, which, frankly, falls under one of the biggest villain cliché's ever put to text. Even so, this might have been an acceptable springboard for inner turmoil if the show was forthright about it, but the misfire comes in trying to integrate Thomas' friction with DATS and Marcus. Not only has Thomas already shown his commitment to stop Kurata even when it seemed that DATS undervalued his input, but even if he has lost confidence in his allies since, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he would willingly ally with a proved deceiver and murderer. Not to mention, Kurata's logic is embarrassingly flimsy; he might as well say "everyone who opposes me in a conflict that I initiated is to blame because they oppose me".
This is a critical problem because the episode wants you to believe that Thomas truly has switched sides, otherwise it wouldn't have brought up all that stuff about the principles of DATS and Marcus' ineptitude. It gives the impression that this whole scenario was shoehorned in to force Thomas and Marcus to engage in battle, even though that was needless. The aforementioned points would have been far more acceptable as a basis for Thomas seizing control of DATS and confronting Marcus about his fault in the loss of Eldradimon.
The sequence almost directly lifted from "The Ultimate Clash", "The Arrival of SkullGreymon" and "Lionheart" is hollow and uninspired, never mind how forced it feels for Marcus to screw up the Burst Mode about 5 minutes after being warned about it. Tai and Takato deliberately forced their digimon to evolve, whereas Marcus just gets angry and vengeful. In "The Ultimate Clash", Tai (who initially refused to fight) acted to correct a teammate who had clearly overstepped his boundaries; it complemented his role in the group. The situation doesn't serve Marcus in the same way because, again, he just gets angry and vengeful. Call it mechanical, shallow, melodramatic, whatever it does not work, and these same defects will run the gamut of the resulting subplot.
Shinegreymon and Miragegaogamon's fight is decent, but lacks the novelty of the original. It tries too hard to be about two fast moving monsters fighting when it should embrace what it really is: a brawl between two LARGE monsters. There's no sense of size, mass or force when they exchange blows. Gallantmon and Beelzemon, despite only being a fraction of the size, did not suffer from this problem during their own brawl.
First, a few comments on the situation. We are introduced to Thomas' father, whom he holds a grudge against that will become important later, and his sister Relena. The latter makes a particularly good first impression, and it's very convincing that she and Thomas care for each other. I already like this brother/sister dynamic more than the one between Marcus and Kristy. Then we find out that Kurata has been hired by Mr. Norstein, and everything goes south.
To the writers' credit, they at least tried to make Thomas' supposed betrayal distinct from Matt's, but really the biggest difference between these two cases is that the pertinent one has hardly an ounce of conviction. Kurata is clearly using Relena as leverage against Thomas, which, frankly, falls under one of the biggest villain cliché's ever put to text. Even so, this might have been an acceptable springboard for inner turmoil if the show was forthright about it, but the misfire comes in trying to integrate Thomas' friction with DATS and Marcus. Not only has Thomas already shown his commitment to stop Kurata even when it seemed that DATS undervalued his input, but even if he has lost confidence in his allies since, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he would willingly ally with a proved deceiver and murderer. Not to mention, Kurata's logic is embarrassingly flimsy; he might as well say "everyone who opposes me in a conflict that I initiated is to blame because they oppose me".
This is a critical problem because the episode wants you to believe that Thomas truly has switched sides, otherwise it wouldn't have brought up all that stuff about the principles of DATS and Marcus' ineptitude. It gives the impression that this whole scenario was shoehorned in to force Thomas and Marcus to engage in battle, even though that was needless. The aforementioned points would have been far more acceptable as a basis for Thomas seizing control of DATS and confronting Marcus about his fault in the loss of Eldradimon.
The sequence almost directly lifted from "The Ultimate Clash", "The Arrival of SkullGreymon" and "Lionheart" is hollow and uninspired, never mind how forced it feels for Marcus to screw up the Burst Mode about 5 minutes after being warned about it. Tai and Takato deliberately forced their digimon to evolve, whereas Marcus just gets angry and vengeful. In "The Ultimate Clash", Tai (who initially refused to fight) acted to correct a teammate who had clearly overstepped his boundaries; it complemented his role in the group. The situation doesn't serve Marcus in the same way because, again, he just gets angry and vengeful. Call it mechanical, shallow, melodramatic, whatever it does not work, and these same defects will run the gamut of the resulting subplot.
Shinegreymon and Miragegaogamon's fight is decent, but lacks the novelty of the original. It tries too hard to be about two fast moving monsters fighting when it should embrace what it really is: a brawl between two LARGE monsters. There's no sense of size, mass or force when they exchange blows. Gallantmon and Beelzemon, despite only being a fraction of the size, did not suffer from this problem during their own brawl.
