A translation of supervisor Hiromi Seki and producer Yousuke Kinoshita of Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna‘s messages left on its official website.
Hiromi Seki
Digimon original series producer
“Following the wave of Digimon Adventure‘s 20th anniversary”
It’s like watching your baby that you saw the first cries of when it was born, finally coming of age and becoming an adult1.
It wasn’t an easy delivery, but we were blessed by the efforts of all of the staff members and all the companies who helped us out, and it grew up splendidly. And it soon became the eldest son when its younger brother named 02 was born, and then it gained two more little brothers named Tamers and Frontier.
Then, after that, all of the staff who joined afterwards brought in new cousins and nephews, and more and more relatives, until it became a giant family. When I think about how each of these works came about, I’m filled with a lot of deep emotions.
Each work has been supported by its own fans, who have been deeply moved by it, who have engraved it in their memories, who consider it an incredibly important work to them, and I hope it will continue to remain this way for them.
It’s been 20 years up until now.
Let’s move onto the next 20 years.
As the producer of the original series, I would like to continue watching over this franchise for as long as my mind and body can handle.
I’m staring at it from the shadow of the column over there. (That’s a lie, that would be creepy.)
Yousuke Kinoshita
Digimon Adventure movie (Title TBA) producer
I took this as a challenge — for Digimon’s 20th anniversary, what kind of form should it take?
The only thing that could be determined at first was that we wanted to do “a movie”.
At the time it was just something we said because we were focusing on the animation and image quality, but when you try to puzzle out “what’s a ‘movie’?”, and how to make a form of entertainment that’s all concentrated in the span of only one movie, all different sorts of nuances come out of the meaning, and even now I instinctively return to that same point of worrying about “what should I do?”
But what I really want to say is that we’re hoping to make something that keeps the viewers gued to the screen, and makes them say “oh, that was fun!” when they go home.
To those who have been having all sorts of encounters with the Digimon for twenty years.
And to those who are meeting the Digimon for the first time.
We hope to bring this story of bonds2 to you.
Translator's notes
- The age of majority in Japan at the time of this writing was 20 years old, hence why Producer Seki refers to the series having effectively become an adult for its 20th anniversary. [↩]
- At the time this message was posted, the movie was still known as “Digimon Adventure theatrical movie (Title TBA)”, but since the Japanese word for “bonds” is, naturally, “kizuna“, this may have been a hint at its true title. [↩]