Otakon 2023 – page 13
I mean, for all I know, there might have been SOME Digimon cosplayers meeting up with each other SOMEWHERE in the vast, sprawling expanse of the Washington Convention Center, but nobody ever told me about it.
But that’s not what you care about, YOU care about Digimon movies! See, Discotek had a Digimon SOMETHING panel announced, and the worst-kept secret of the weekend was that it was to announce a brand new re-release of the first three Digimon movies, a.k.a. The Ones That Got Turned Into Digimon The Movie. See, when Discotek set out on their mad quest to re-release all the classic Digimon stuff stateside, they weren’t sure if the Saban version of The Movie was actually covered by the deal, and decided to start work on brand new, more faithful English dubs of their own… and then when it turned out that they actually COULD release Digimon The Movie, they just went ahead and finished the new dubs anyway so they could release both.
Now, not to turn the commentary of this comic into a movie review… but I’m gonna quickly review these three movies. I mean, not really, but I can’t bring this up an NOT say if I liked them, right? Well, I was VERY impressed by the new dubs, and I say this as a total subs-only snob. Discotek rounded up as much of the original English crew as was realistically possible, and they’re all in fine form. There’s very few spots where I thought the two decades that have passed since the last time they played these characters actually showed. And in the cases where they original cast members just aren’t with us anymore, the new recruits were perfectly fine in their roles. However, the thing that impressed me the most was the delicate balancing act that the dub WRITING managed to pull off. Obviously, the new translation tries to stick closer to the tone of the original than the Saban/Fox Kids version, with less editing and fewer extra jokes crammed in. (Oh, and no westernized soundtrack either, this version is %100 Fatboy Slim free). But it still manages to work in JUST enough familiar gags for diehard dub fans to get their nostalgia-gasm.
In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that I walked away from this screening is a bit more respect for Digimon The Movie, at least where the final act is concerned. Don’t get me wrong, the original Digimon Adventure film and Our War Game are darn near perfect as is, and I relish the thought of them being more accessible in The West without Saban’s tinkering. That Mamoru Hosoda knows what he’s doing. But as for Hurricane Touchdown… Look, I’m just gonna say it, I don’t think that one’s very good. Honestly, watching it in it’s entirety for the first time in MANY years, I felt like I was watching the rough cut of a film that still had a lot of elements left to add it. The pacing’s not great, there’s not enough music, there’s a couple glaring plot holes (which the new dub goes out of its way to try and patch up), and quite frankly there’s multiple patches that are just boring. I actually found myself wishing Discotek had included a few MORE Saban gags and edits to tightening this part up. Now THERE’S something 2000’s-era me would never have dreams of saying.
But yeah, this was a really freaking awesome experience, and probably the highlight of the con weekend for me! So much so, that there’s actually a Part Two of this page coming up…
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