Story
A massive Digi-egg hovering over Tokyo Tower causes confusion and speculation, especially after an electromagnetic transmission delivers a worldwide message about the need for everyone to have friends and everyone to have a Digimon.
When a mysterious young man named Lui (voice of A.J. Beckles) falls from the Tower in an attempt to contact the egg, Davis (voice of Brian Donovan) and his friends leap into action. They soon discover that Lui is the first ‘DigiDestined’ and that he believes he killed his own Digimon and is intimately acquainted with the egg in the sky.
To figure out the present mystery, Lui finds himself revisiting the past where he begins to see the bigger picture of what happened to him and how his Digimon, Ukkomon (voice of Giselle Fernandez), tried to help him. He sees that there were some terrible miscommunications and misunderstandings and that, even now, Ukkomon is still trying to fulfil its promise to Lui. Lui also discovers that even though Ukkomon’s intentions were and are good, the results could be globally catastrophic. Therefore, Lui needs to depend on others as he never has before.
Can the DigiDestined and their Digimons stop Ukkomon before it’s too late? Will Lui ever find the friends he so desperately wishes for?
Themes
Child abuse; neglect; manipulation; the dangers of miscommunication; loneliness and isolation
Violence
Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning has some violence. For example:
- Lui falls off the Tokyo Tower, and it looks like he’ll plummet to his death. He’s rescued in the nick of time.
- There’s an electromagnetic blast that knocks characters off their flying Digimon and back down to Earth. They arrive on Earth in another time, years in the past.
- A mother grabs her child and screams at him that he must not touch anything or his father will die. She shouts at him and roughly shakes him. The child is covered in bruises.
- Three characters are pulled from the past and fall back to Earth. They’re saved by a Digimon before they hit the ground.
- Lui confesses to killing his Digimon.
- A character punches a table.
- There are battle scenes and footage of people fighting in different parts of the world.
- Lui’s parents collapse and lie unconscious. Ukkomon sends snake-like tentacles into Lui’s parents to control them.
- Lui takes a baseball bat to his Digimon device and violently smashes it to pieces, severing the relationship he has with Ukkomon.
- Ukkomon’s giant tentacles fly toward Lui and the Digimons.
- A character is blasted backwards and knocked unconscious by Ukkomon’s tentacles.
- The Digimons join forces to battle Ukkomon, blasting, hitting and trying to outmanoeuvre its tentacles.
- The Digimons fight Ukkomon. They blast and slice off its tentacles and shoot it in the face.
- A massive gun delivers a blast, like a comet, right through the middle of Ukkomon’s body, ripping it into pieces and making it disintegrate. Even the Digi-eggs begin to disappear.
Sexual references
Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning has some sexual references. For example, a character says, ‘What is with all the flirting, you two?’
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
There’s no use of substances in Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.
Nudity and sexual activity
There’s no nudity and sexual activity in Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.
Product placement
There’s no product placement in Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.
Coarse language
Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning has some mild name-calling, including ‘you meanie’.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning is the sequel to Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna and provides the backstory of the first DigiDestined. Dubbed in English and featuring mixed 2D and 3D animations, thos movie is best suited to teenagers and mature audiences, as well as anime and Digimon fans.
These are the main messages from Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning:
- Friendships must be cultivated and developed.
- True friendship is indestructible.
- We’re all connected in ways we can’t even imagine.
- It isn’t the devices that connect us but the heart-to-heart conversations.
Values in Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning that you could reinforce with your children include loyalty, compassion, friendship, courage and happiness.
Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of things like:
- failing to communicate or understand others
- creating chaos even though you have the best of intentions
- controlling others and taking their free will to make someone happy
- abusing, shaming, hurting and neglecting people you’re meant to love.