Digimon X-Evolution

Digimon movies are usually related to the series, however this movie is the exception. It has no relationship with the anime series but a remake of the manga Digimon Chronicle, only without involving human in the story, also comes in full 3D CG. Even the story has no interaction of human world. Usually a normal digimon fan will say "No human? That's boring man.." But I don't think so, digimon is sometimes better without human, so we can only focus with the story and characterization of the digimon, also how they face such a thing.. The background story is about the digital world, where digimon lives in it is experiencing a serious chaos. Unlike other series, while the chaos of other digimon series (except Tamers) involves about darkness invasion or evil swarm, this series has no dark or evil related things. The chaos is about the overpopulation of digital world, which the host computer, Yggdrasil can't handle and thus it executes the X Program in order to make only some of chosen digimon will be survived in the end of execution, named Project Ark. Maybe there will be many questions we want to know. We will perhaps ask: "What's the purpose of Project Ark?" "Why Yggdrasil dares to do such a thing? Doesn't it really care about the life of a lot of digimon out there? It's a host computer a.k.a. God of Digital World." We would expect in the first that: "Yggdrasil is so evil of doing such of things. It doesn't care about others' life.." But who knows? We'll see it then... Now we go to the story progress.. This movie tells a story about Dorumon, a digimon that owns X-Antibody naturally being hunted by Leomon who eventually died bcos he didn't dare to kill such an innocent Child level digimon, asking Dorumon to live for him later before he died. And then being rejected by 3 Mushmons saying that Dorumon is the one who will bring destruction just like another X-Antibody digimon because he had a red ruby on his forehead, explaining that Dorumon is the personification of the launching of the X Program. Meanwhile, Royal Knights, which are responsible for the execution of Project Ark, began to do that task. However, debate came between 2 of the Royal Knights, Dukemon and Omegamon. Dukemon, on the other hand, refuse to do the task because he seems that the Project Ark is something wrong. Even the Project Ark eventually came to the second level, to destroy everything including all digimon. We might also ask: "Omegamon, one of Royal Knights want to kill a lot of digimon? That's crazy! Where is his proud of being guardian of digital world? What an evil motive.." Is that so? I doubt it.. Now we go to the characterization progress and development.. Dorumon is the main protagonist of this movie. He's just an innocent Child digimon who always questioning about what's his purpose of being live. He often got into danger thanks to the execution of Project Ark. He can't bear his sadness seeing many digimon died for surviving, even some of them died for him. He later thought that his existence is just bringing chaos to other digimon, and also thinking that his existence is not needed in this world. Nevertheless, he later began matured as the story progresses. He's not the typical shounen MC who finished everything with only his own power and being the leader of the comrade, also he's not the only one that the story only focused in. The Royal Knights also had a lot of characterization as the story progresses. The knights aren't truly evil, no, they're not evil at all. They're just in dilemma, whether to obey their master or to struggle for the existence of everything, they must be facing the most difficult situation. They were later thinking about what they have done before and began to find the answer of Yggdrasil. So, is Yggdrasil that evil? Does it really want to end the digimon life cycle? No, Yggdrasil was just in desperation. Why it really dare to do such a thing? Why was it desperate about it? The answer is really, really simple. Because Yggdrasil only wants to 'LIVE'.. So simple right? That's what I really like about this movie. They're facing a very difficult situation, but the reason of the difficult situation was really simple. That's why it became the theme of this movie. [ Subete no Inochi wa Ikiru Tame ni Aru ], meaning "Life exists for living." Even they said this sentence in the end of the movie. The theme is really simple, but if you understand it deeper, you'll find how beautiful the sentence is. Even I think that the sentence actually wants to tell you some values of life. Well, we usually see someone being desperate of such a thing and eventually ended up suicide. They didn't find their purpose of life so that they thought being dead was better. Dude, even in this movie, all digimon were struggling with all their might in order to live although for just a second. We even usually see many people killed or enslaved something with life (animals) for no apparent reason and without mercy. They just want to do for their own sake without concerning others' life. That's why I think the writers concerned about those situations so they want to share their thoughts with this movie. This is not an ordinary digimon movie, this is a movie that tells you the values of life. I have no comment about the sound and graphic, it's just as awesome as they are.. Well, it's a 2005 film after all, so with that graphic and sound, it's more than great. I hope this review will be useful for you all and I highly recommend it for loyal Digimon fans. I'm a digimon fan indeed, but I won't always say that all digimon series are the best. No, I'm not a digifag.. I just found this digimon movie being different comparing to other series and it had something very special in it.

Every Digimon season has one or more short films that serve to tell something that didn’t fit anywhere into the original. However, Digimon X – Evolution is a self-standing film of film length that has a story and world of its own. It doesn’t depend on popularity of anything as it creates something completely new. The question is, does it need other series to look appealing or can it truly stand on its own? Probably the first thing any Digimon fan is going to notice is the lack of human characters and complete focus on the Digimon and the Digital World. This is further emphasised by using CGI for animation. This setting will either chase Digimon fans away or pull them in depending on whether they watched Digimon series for human characters or for the world itself. I was really happy when I found out that this was only about Digimon because it’s something that hadn’t been explored before. Like I wrote before, the story is completely set in the Digital World. However, the Digital World is close to destruction. The main problem is that it got overpopulated as thus the host computer, Yggdrasil, decided to let only the chosen few live. The Royal Knights, protectors of Yggdrasil and the strongest Digimon in existence, are to execute that task. So begins the hunt of Digimon by Digimon and complete chaos ensues. The film doesn’t even try to go lightly about it and the ugliness of strong fighting the weakest is fully shown. In comes our lead, Dorumon, that doesn’t remember anything and his goal is both finding his purpose and surviving. However, soon its discovered that Yggdrasil’s plan isn’t exactly the same as he told his Royal Knights and they face a difficult decision, to stay by their master and watch the death of many Digimon or to protect those, that are helpless and oppose the one they swore their loyalty to. We are watching the growth of Dorumon, not only evolution wise but also nature wise and maturity wise. While not being exactly an action anime lead, Dorumon is rather weak and helpless, what is something even he acknowledges, he has a very realistic character. His only goal is his survival and survival of his friends but he get swept into hell very fast. He is never black or white and never tries to have moral upper hand. The Royal Knights aren’t exactly villains either. They face very difficult decisions and each of them solves it differently. Every character has their own nature, both good and bad sides and the also make bad and good decisions. No character is what they seem at first sight. Animation is very fluent and for CGI truly amazing even though I generally hate it. To me it made the atmosphere much better because it really gave me the feeling like it was happening inside of a computer. And at times it made me wonder whether a computer should really have the right to control the lives of living beings. That’s one of the things I really liked about this film. While it rises very philosophical questions for a Digimon film it never asks them directly but rather shows them to you. The only real problem I had with this film was that the setting was very complicated and since we were thrown right into the middle along with Dorumon, there was never time for explaining things in depth. Most of the situation had to be deduced by what was going on. That isn’t a generally bad thing but in an action film full of stuff happening left and right it was changing too fast to keep track of it. Generally, I’d say that enjoyment depends on what the idea of Digimon only film makes you feel. If it interests you, watch this. If not, don’t bother or give it a try but don’t expect much of it.

Story The digital world becomes over populated so the god of the digital world decides to destroy it and make a new one. The digimon that were not chosen for the new world had obtained something called X anti-bodies that gave them greater power and different look, there god fearing their power orders his elite warriors known as the Royal Knights to kill them. It begins with a digimon called Dorumon trying to survive while being hunted down by the royal knights and other digimon looking to kill him for his antibodies. Along the the way he finds friends willing to fight by his side and fight to save as well against beings far more powerful then they are. You also see the Royal Knights take on what there doing and if it's right. The Characters Dorumon: While this character rarely speaks, just seeing his reaction and struggles as well as being so cute really makes you feel for the little guy. He is brave and kind creature that cares for his friends and will fight for them. WarGreymon X and MetalGarurumon X: Two of the few surviving digimon who risk there lies fighting off the Royal Knight, seeing there desperate struggle and leadership in battles is very captivating. Omegamon/omnimon and The Royal Knights: Seeing there views and thoughts on what they are ordered to do whether it's good or bad and choosing either there duty or what is right to them is very interesting. Pro/Cons Pro's Good action Interesting animation and attacks. Touching and sad Moments. Good characters and some nice development. Seeing popular digimon fight enemies and each other. Con's Even digimon fans will be lost in what's going on at first. The animation may take time to get use to Final thoughts It's a very good digimon movie my second fav in fact, good action, drama and I think shows you can have a good digimon story without humans. While not being the same characters it's cool to see some familiar Faces so recommend it to all digimon fans.

Honestly, I don't know if I liked it. Digimon X-Evolution is one of those movies that left me with a rather difficult-to-define feeling. I wouldn't say it was a bad experience, but I also couldn't finish the movie thinking I had just watched something truly special. It has some interesting ideas, mainly by exploring the Digimon universe in a different way, but at the same time there are several choices that made the experience a little strange for me. Firstly, the graphics. This is probably the aspect that struck me as strange during the film. Being a production made entirely in 3D, it's impossible not to notice how much it was marked by the technology available at the time. At times, the aesthetic really reminded me of PlayStation 2 games, both in the character modeling and the way the environments are presented. I wouldn't say the animation is simply horrible or impossible to watch, because there are visually interesting scenes, but it's an aesthetic that has aged quite a bit. Perhaps at the time of its release it was much more impressive. Today, however, after so many years of evolution in 3D animation, it's difficult to watch without noticing the technical limitations. And this ends up slightly hindering immersion, especially in scenes that should be grand or exciting. On the other hand, one thing that really struck me was seeing Dorumon on screen. For me, this Digimon has a special significance because I remember him mainly from Digimon World 4 on the PlayStation 2. So seeing him starring in a production like this brought back a very pleasant sense of nostalgia. Dorumon is a visually striking character, and I was genuinely happy to see him here. At the same time, precisely because I enjoyed his presence so much, I felt that much more could have been done with the character. Another interesting aspect is that this was, at least among the Digimon films I know, the first one I watched focused exclusively on the Digimon themselves, without relying on the traditional human protagonists. This significantly changes the structure of the story. Instead of following humans entering the Digital World, we have a story completely focused on that universe and the Digimon themselves. And I found that choice interesting. The film manages to present a different vision of the digital world, showing conflicts and concepts that end up being more directly linked to the very existence of the Digimon. The story also attempts to explore some more serious ideas about how this world works, survival, evolution, and the conflict between different forces. I don't think everything is perfectly developed, but I liked the attempt to do something different from the franchise's traditional formula. My problem is that, despite all these ideas, I didn't feel the grandeur that the film apparently wanted to convey. Perhaps it's a matter of time. I can imagine that, when it was released, a fully 3D Digimon film, with this more serious approach focused on the digital universe, could have been a very impressive visual and narrative experience. But watching it today, I couldn't feel the same magnitude. Many of the ideas seem interesting on paper, but the execution didn't manage to engage me as much as I expected. In the end, I think Digimon X-Evolution was worth the experience precisely because it was different. It has an interesting premise, presents the Digimon universe from another angle, and even brought back the nostalgia of seeing Dorumon again. However, I also expected much more, especially considering the potential this premise had. It's not a movie I regret watching, but I also can't say it was a memorable experience. Perhaps it's one of those works that function better when viewed considering the time in which they were produced. Anyway, it was worth the experience, but I expected much more from this movie. Still, I think it's worth watching at least once and drawing your own conclusions. Rating: 5/10. =================================================================================================================Versão em Português===================================== Olha, sinceramente não sei se gostei disso. Digimon X-Evolution é um daqueles filmes que me deixou com uma sensação bastante difícil de definir. Não diria que foi uma experiência ruim, mas também não consegui terminar o filme pensando que tinha acabado de assistir a algo realmente especial. Ele tem algumas ideias interessantes, principalmente por explorar o universo de Digimon de uma maneira diferente, mas ao mesmo tempo existem várias escolhas que fizeram a experiência ficar um pouco estranha para mim. Primeiramente, os gráficos. Esse é provavelmente o aspecto que mais me causou estranheza durante o filme. Sendo uma produção feita inteiramente em 3D, é impossível não perceber o quanto ela ficou marcada pela tecnologia disponível na época. Em alguns momentos, a estética realmente me lembrou jogos de PlayStation 2, tanto pela modelagem dos personagens quanto pela maneira como os ambientes são apresentados. Não diria que a animação é simplesmente horrível ou impossível de assistir, porque existem cenas visualmente interessantes, mas é uma estética que envelheceu bastante. Talvez na época do lançamento isso fosse muito mais impressionante. Hoje, porém, depois de tantos anos de evolução na animação 3D, fica difícil assistir sem perceber as limitações técnicas. E isso acaba prejudicando um pouco a imersão, principalmente em cenas que deveriam ser grandiosas ou emocionantes. Por outro lado, uma coisa que realmente me marcou foi ver o Dorumon em tela. Para mim, esse Digimon tem um peso especial porque lembro dele principalmente por Digimon World 4, no PlayStation 2. Então vê-lo protagonizando uma produção como essa trouxe uma nostalgia muito boa. Dorumon é um personagem visualmente muito marcante e fiquei genuinamente feliz de vê-lo aqui. Ao mesmo tempo, justamente por ter gostado tanto da presença dele, fiquei com a sensação de que poderia ter sido feito muito mais com o personagem. Outro aspecto interessante é que esse foi, pelo menos entre os filmes de Digimon que eu conheço, o primeiro que acompanhei focado exclusivamente nos próprios Digimons, sem depender dos tradicionais protagonistas humanos. Isso muda bastante a estrutura da história. Em vez de acompanharmos humanos entrando no Mundo Digital, temos uma história completamente concentrada naquele universo e nos próprios Digimons. E essa escolha eu achei interessante. O filme consegue apresentar uma visão diferente do mundo digital, mostrando conflitos e conceitos que acabam ficando mais diretamente ligados à própria existência dos Digimons. A história também tenta trabalhar algumas ideias mais sérias sobre o funcionamento desse mundo, sobrevivência, evolução e o conflito entre diferentes forças. Não acho que tudo seja perfeitamente desenvolvido, mas gostei da tentativa de fazer algo diferente da fórmula tradicional da franquia. Meu problema é que, apesar de todas essas ideias, eu não senti aquela grandeza que aparentemente o filme queria transmitir. Talvez seja uma questão de época. Consigo imaginar que, quando foi lançado, um filme inteiramente em 3D de Digimon, com essa abordagem mais séria e focada no universo digital, pudesse ser uma experiência visual e narrativa bastante impressionante. Só que assistindo hoje, eu não consegui sentir a mesma magnitude. Muitas das ideias parecem interessantes no papel, mas a execução não conseguiu me envolver tanto quanto eu esperava. No fim, acho que Digimon X-Evolution valeu a experiência justamente por ser diferente. Ele tem uma proposta curiosa, apresenta o universo Digimon por outro ângulo e ainda me trouxe a nostalgia de ver Dorumon novamente. Porém, também esperava muito mais, principalmente considerando o potencial que essa premissa tinha. Não é um filme que eu me arrependo de ter assistido, mas também não consigo dizer que foi uma experiência memorável. Talvez seja uma daquelas obras …