Digimon Adventure: (2020) Episode 13

Random trivia: Of all the DigiDestined’s Digimon, I think Piyomon is my favourite. She’s just really cute and friendly, a perfect partner for Sora. :3   Also, her Digivolved form of Garudamon is pretty bitchin’.

It occurred to me during this episode that Taichi’s seiyuu sounded like Naruto Uzumaki, which I figured wasn’t true because Naruto’s seiyuu has always been Junko Takeuchi and I assumed I’d have heard somewhere that she was going to be in this Digimon reboot if it were true. But I did some googling and it turns out Taichi is voiced by Naruto’s son Boruto (Yuko Sanpei)! No wonder the voice acting sounded similar to me.  Yes this is totally random and I just wanted to share. xD

Onto the episode! It looks like Digimon Adventure: (2020) will follow a formula of spending one episode per team until the DigiDestined are reunited. Last week was Team 1’s turn, so this week we’re back to Team 2 and it’s Piyomon’s turn to get an Ultimate Digimon-tier digivolution.

So, Team 2 is flying over a seemingly endless jungle when they encounter a flying group of Funbeemon. However these friendly bees are being chased by some miasma-infected Waspmon! The Waspmon are capturing Funbeemon in some kind of sticky goo and bringing them back to a giant mecha Digimon called Cannonbeemon. When the Waspmon come after the DigiDestined, Joe falls off their wooden perch and Gommamon jumps down after him. Birdramon tries to evade the missles fired by Cannonbeemon by flying into the jungle.

Removing Joe from the picture allows Sora and Yamato to spend more screen time together, if you know what I mean. ;D  And it shows. Yamato sees that Sora is a strong and loyal friend, willing to help out whoever needs it no matter how much anyone might try to talk her out of it. Meanwhile Yamato’s learning to work with others, his friends, and be a part of a team for what might be the first time in his life. Yay for character development!

Yamato and Sora don’t catch up to Joe before he and Gommamon are caught by some Waspmon and brought back to Cannonbeemon along with the other prisoners. Naturally, the two remaining DigiDestined are going to have to go after him, so after freeing some Funbeemon, they allow themselves to be captured.

Once inside Cannonbeemon, Gabumon digivolves up to Weregarurumon and starts flattening the Waspmon attacking them. He also (accidentally) breaks down a wall and frees Joe. Gommamon breaks the wall of his own cell and while it looks like the DigiDestined might be able to put up a good fight while breaking out the Funbeemon, they decide to retreat instead for the time being.

Sora makes the executive decision for everyone to land in a clearing while she and Birdramon return to free the captive Funbeemon, but Yamato ignores her and decides to stay with her for the upcoming rescue mission. Joe, having been airsick for much of the episode already, will fight the Waspmon with Ikkakumon from the ground.

So, the plan is for Birdramon and Sora to distract Cannonbeemon from the air while Yamato and Weregarurumon break through Cannonbeemon’s shell to rescue the Funbeemon. When they give a special signal, it’s Sora’s turn to attack. Unfortunately Birdramon’s Meteor Wing attack is too weak to do any damage to Cannonbee’s mecha exterior, so Sora thinks about her friends and how they’ve been trying so hard to give her and Birdramon the chance to defeat Cannonbeemon. This triggers Birdramon to digivolve into Garudamon.

However Cannonbeemon has a trick up its sleeve – a very powerful energy cannon attack! In this evolved form, Garudamon also has an energy beam-type attack called Shadow Wing. The two Ultimate Digimon fire their attacks at each other and Garudamon is able to overpower Cannonbeemon. As the giant metallic bee is starting to crumble, Sora and Garudamon break into Cannonbeemon’s core and destroy it. With moments to spare they rip out the glass shell where Yamato, Weregarurumon and the Funbeemon are waiting, and carry it to safety. Moments later, a giant BOOM! indicates that Cannonbeemon is no more.

I appreciated how Yamato went from chiding Sora for wanting to rescue random Digimon (Neamon and its friends in the previous Team 2 episode) to acknowledging that her drive to help others is part of who she is. And he’s not making fun of her or scolding her for it either. This ship just made a little progress. ^_~v

I also liked how Joe was still included in Sora’s plan. No one was left behind. Joe had a role to play on the ground as a support comrade, and I’d argue that even Yamato was in a bit of a support role. With the goal being to free the Funbeemon, Weregarurumon didn’t get to do much fighting during this second trip inside Cannonbeemon. Everything hinged on Birdramon being strong enough to take down Cannonbeemon on her own without help from someone else. And she did it!

After the Funbeemon are released, Team 2 continues on towards their meeting point with Team 1. Yamato muses to Gabumon that Garudamon’s power indicates how much power the DigiDestined team will need in order to rescue the Holy Digimon. Maybe all of the DigiDestined’s Digimon will even have to evolve past their Ultimate forms? Time will tell.

As Team 2 has been dealing with a whole lotta flying insects this episode, Team 1 has left the ruins and has been hiking onwards and upwards. Koshiro has been having technical issues with his tablet (trying to find their location, trying to find out what’s happening in the real world) and can’t seem to get a good signal. Finally at the end of the episode they reach a peak and Koshiro’s able to get a decent signal. They’re getting closer to their end goal, but it’s still at least one canyon length away. Ganbatte Team 1!

I think this is one of my favourite episode of the series so far. There was a fair amount of character development on display and hey, bees are cute. Lots of good teamwork and cute humour too. I wonder if Taichi and the rest of Team 1 will encounter their own group of insects in the next episode??