Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna‘s theatrical screening had a corresponding informational pamphlet sold on-site, which contained informational and art assets and a large number of cast and staff interviews.
(Mayu Matsuoka | Natsuki Hanae and Chika Sakamoto | Other voice actor messages | Creator group talk | Scriptwriter Akatsuki Yamatoya | BGM composer Harumi Fuuki | Music artists Ayumi Miyazaki and AiM | Producer Yousuke Kinoshita)
This post is a translation of the included interview with the movie’s producer, Yousuke Kinoshita.
–Please tell us what points you focused on during production for this movie.
Kinoshita: Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna is a movie with the primary goal of bringing joy to those who have walked alongside Digimon, and being “fascinating” to those who are meeting Digimon for the first time. We’ve hidden things that those who are coming into Digimon for the first time might find fun, and I would like the series to expand and continue. For instance, we would like it if, five years from now, fans and their children could watch Digimon together. Thus, we thought about what we should do in order to achieve that purpose.
So, we thought about updating it in the sense of “a modern-anime should be like this!”, and also about how we needed to destroy established conventions of “Digimon should be like this.” By this, I don’t mean that we should disrespect our fans who are so important to us, but rather, as the creators, subvert their ideas of “this is how it should be.” It was along the line of thought that if we make the kind of story that everyone would already be expecting, we won’t be able to bring joy to anyone.
Of course, for the fans, we feel that their feelings for the past series, from Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 and beyond, must be very precious to them.
So, adding on tri., we thought about taking the prior series, setting the world of 25 years later shown in the epilogue of 02 as the end goal, and decided to tell a connecting story of “Taichi and his friends in 2010” that hadn’t been depicted yet.
I believe Digimon to be a wonderful series of media, and this movie is made as a declaration of our need to take on a challenge and “transform” it so that it can spread wider than ever.
This the end of Taichi and his friends’ time as protagonists of the story, but their lives will continue on from here, and that world of 25 years later is still waiting ahead of them. As they continue to live, there will be bigger and smaller incidents that come forth, and facing that world of 25 years later does not mean that things will always go well. This is not a movie meant to change the world’s timeline, but rather made to be a connecting story that happened within those 25 years, and we consider it to be a story that expands the world of Digimon.
–After this movie, what would you like people to look out for going forward?
Kinoshita: At a certain event, I happened to see a mother and her child taking a photo with an Agumon mascot. I felt that I wanted both the mother and the child to share the experience of loving something. Seeing those two, I thought, “there are amazing possibilities ahead!” I believe that we should aim to tie Digimon media to the children’s generation, in such a way that the two generations of parents and their children can enjoy it together. With the help of other media, such as games and toys, Digimon is expanding. Among all of that, we consider it very important to carry out our role on the “anime” end.
–Thank you very much.