WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 26 of Digimon Adventure, "Break Through The Sea Monster Barricade," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
In recent weeks, many fans have felt that Digimon Adventure has slowly been turning into the Tai and Matt show, with the rest of the cast back in the human world following the defeat of Nidhoggmon. Episode 26 changes that with the addition of Kairi and the return of Izzy, Joe, Mimi and Sora, finally putting the show's entire cast into one location. So what was the point of splitting everyone up in the first place?
At first glance, the characters in the human world mucking about the internet is uninteresting compared to Tai and Matt's rescue of T.K. and battle with Devimon. They themselves are in no immediate danger, and even get a chance to say hello to their families -- who are far less concerned about their sudden disappearance than they should be. Mere moments after they succeed in their goal, they're returned to the Digital World! Anything could have happened during their time in the human world, so why was "Digimon hackers take over boats and cause crashes" the plotline they went with? Yet there are some legitimate reasons why they may have decided to use a slow, low-stakes subplot.
Firstly, taking most of their allies out of the picture raised the stakes for the Devimon fight. This made it more believable that Metalgreymon and Weregarurumon, both Ultimate Digimon, would have difficulty beating the Champion-level Devimon even before his Digivolutions. Had the entire cast been available, they may have just curb-stomped the big bad easily!
Another reason is to give more time to Tai, Matt and especially T.K.'s character arcs. By tossing the other characters back from whence they came, the show was free to flesh out Matt's relationship with his brother and how Tai reacts to the challenges facing them. It also allowed time for T.K. to establish his character beyond "Matt's cute kid brother." Unfortunately, this does play into an imbalance of focus among the cast, which can leave fans of the other characters feeling cheated. Sadly, there's no indication that the others are going to receive any sort of screen-time compensation.
Another reason for the subplot is to ease tension. Tai, Matt and T.K. get no more than thirty seconds between battles, often finishing exhausted, only to have to get right back up and stop an even more powerful baddie. This constant tension is exhausting not just for the Digidestined, but for the viewer as well. As such, the writers used the low-stakes huddled-around-the-computer scenes as breather moments for the audience. By interspersing these scenes throughout the episodes, the show allows the viewers to process what's happening with Tai and Matt without taking them completely away from the story.
It's not as if the other kids are idle either. They may not be running, dodging or in the midst of the battle themselves, but as a supporting cast, they're doing their job flawlessly. Each of them gets their partner up to Ultimate level in order to take out the swarms of Argomon jamming the ships' GPS, and they even help their Digimon coordinate to take down Calmaramon and destroy the tower that was sending Devimon data and boosting his power, thereby making them instrumental in winning that battle -- even if they weren't directly involved. Let's not forget that the kids actually prevented an imminent war, where the people killed wouldn't simply return to being Digi-eggs.
Finally, and most importantly, the Digidestined who went to the human world didn't return alone. Kari, the eighth Digidestined, joined them for the ride, even appearing to have instigated the trip by responding to a "call" of some sort. To long-time fans, this seems reminiscent of Digimon Adventure 02's Dark Ocean plotline, where Kari was similarly called to another world -- though not quite the digital one. Given that that plotline was abandoned, could Adventure be foreshadowing a return, or maybe an explanation for what exactly was supposed to happen there?
While many fans are sad to see beloved characters get pushed into a lackluster side-plot, their separation wasn't without reason.
