Digimon Frontiers: Island of Lost Digimon

Japanese Title: Digimon Frontier – Kodai Digimon Fukkatsu!
Also Known As: Digimon Frontier – Revival of the Ancient Digimon, Digimon Movie 7, Digimon Movie 7: Island of the Lost Digimon, Island of Lost Digimon
Genre: Action/Adventure
Format: 1 Movie
Allegiance: Toei Animation
Director: Yukio Kaizawa
Vintage: 2002
Intelligence Agency Report by: Drake
The Digi-Destined children come across an ancient floating island. Upon arrival on the island, they discover a feud between the two types of Digimon- the beast type and the human type. After witnessing the bond between two young Digimon from opposing factions, the kids decide they must stop the feud and unravel the mysteries of the island.

Field Agent Report by: Drake
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
7.50
6.50
6.75
8.00
8.25
Overall 7.75
(not an average)

Of the first four seasons of Digimon, I’ve never truly been a fan of Digimon Frontiers, due to its drastic change in concepts. However, after much debating with friends of mine who did enjoy Digimon Frontiers, I resolved to at least give the show the benefit of the doubt and see the movie. So began my first real taste of Digimon Frontier, and, to be honest, it wasn’t all that bad.

The movie follows the classic plotline of two factions of a single race at war with each other over something really trivial or avoidable. However – and I will hand the movie this- there was a decent plot twist that was not one hundred percent obvious. The five original Frontier Digi-Destined children are brought into the movie, but only Takuya and Kouji are given decent amounts of attention. The remaining three are left to sit in the background for the majority of the movie. To make matters worse, the new characters in the movie are not entirely fleshed out; we know their roles, but we can’t sympathize for said roles…the characters just kind of exist.

The animation in the movie was great for the most part. The atmosphere’s coloring did a great job in expressing the sorrows that the characters underwent during the movie, and displayed the pains of the characters correctly during the conflicts.. However, I must state for the record that I absolutely LOATHED the colored tanks. I’d love to meet the people responsible for their existence and find out just what was going through their heads when they thought them up. Yet once again, Digimon’s saving grace was the music. I especially liked the songs used during the shinka sequences; the rhythm truly matched the feelings framing those scenes.

Despite the few negatives that came with Island of the Lost Digimon, I found myself pleasantly intrigued by the movie. Sure, the movie won’t win any awards, but it wasn’t something to be frowned upon, either. It held its own and did decently. For that, I applaud the movie, and shall look further into the Frontiers season.