Headscratchers / Digimon Adventure tri.

"We're the only ones that can do this!"

• What about those international kids?
  • In their own country. Takeru has informed them of the situation.
  • And what the heck happened to them following the Reboot? They're not even mentioned then!

Digimon Adventure 02?

• Although the events of Digimon Adventure 02 clearly still happened, only selective elements are still being maintained within Digimon Adventue Tri's narrative. The series seems to be written as a continuation of the original Digimon Adventure series more than a continuation of 02, while only acknowledging the latter series as thinly as possible.
  • The events, turnouts and consequences of Digimon Adventure 02's various plots are never brought up. Sora and Matt do not appear to be in a relationship, the world seems more unfamiliar with Digimon despite the global turnout of the previous series, and the Digimon Adventure children appear to be the only ones relevant to Digimon activity (excluding their supposed newest member, Meiko).
  • T.K. and Kari still have their D3s, but Meiko receives an original model Digivice instead of a D3 model like the Spore children in Digimon Aventure 02's finale. Patamon and Gatomon also seem to lack their ability to Armor Digivolve.
  • Some of the original cast's redesigns harken back to their designs from the first series. Tai wears goggles on his person, Matt and Joe have short hair again.
  • T.K. and Kari no longer change clothes when entering the Digital World.
  • Davis, Yolei, Cody, Ken, the International children and the Spore children of 02's finale are not considered, discussed or referenced by the Adventure children, despite the fact Digimon activity is occuring in the Human world. They are completely ignored until a person resembling Ken as the Digimon Emperor appears although this turns out to be Gennai in disguise, and Ken's mysterious absence and the pecularity of his reappearance is not discussed.
    • Except it turns out it is not Gennai at all, or Ken, but someone else.

"There's no such thing as monsters!"

• So, apparently everyone forgot those times the world's been threatened by Digimon a couple of times or seeing Digimon in general. How come?
  • Call it "people see/remember what they want to see/remember" syndrome. Like how no one sees Hobbes despite the fact that he clearly exists with measurable effects.
  • Just because people were around and experienced all that doesn't mean they know or understand what the hell happened. From the point of view of a regular person, all they would know is that the world was threatened by horrifying monsters and it was resolved somehow. They had every reason to believe that the world was now safe and the monsters were gone, so no reason to fret over it (and I'd imagine most people would just want to forget about it and return to normalcy) or assume that the new resurgence of monsters are related to the previous ones. At the very least, the existence of a Hypnos-like organization in this continuity means that there are people that do remember the monsters and want to do more to combat against them should they resurface.
    • In fiction, maybe. Real life is different. People remember.

Crests or no crests?

• So how exactly are the Digimon reaching their Ultimate and Mega stages in this series? Assuming Agumon still has the energy boost he got from Azulongmon in 02, that explains his capability reasonably enough, but what about Gabumon in the first movie and Gommamon and Palmon in the second? There's no indication of any external power source, or even just a quick "Oh you can have your crests back, now that the Digiworld is safe again". I know they've been able to access modes they shouldn't be able to reach in past movies, but it was never explained there either. In any case, I was under the impression that Toei's attitude towards their movies was that they were generally non-canon unless stated otherwise.
  • Pretty sure it was mentioned somewhere that their crests were restored following 02, which is why they had Omegamon and Angewomon in Revenge of Diaboromon and Omegamon in Xros. Tamers movies are of questionable canon, and Frontier's is flat out impossible due to an impossible Digimon line up at the time (They only have two Beast spirits, but Izumi wasn't depowered) but the Adventure movies were clearly canon, and were referenced in show and such. Revenge of Diaboromon wasn't because it was post 02 but if the other adventure movies are (And it's directly connected to Our War Game) then it should be too. But if you refuse to accept the movie as canon, and alternate possibility is the Digimon are just stronger now and can reach the levels without the crests or power boosts (similar to how Gatomon can stay in champion form all the time because she obtained it naturally). However considering Rosemon and Vikemon come about after Mimi and Joe have development it seems pretty clear they have the crests.
  • It seems to me that a lot of fans don't seem to remember that the crests haven't been necessary for Ultimate evolution at all since the end of the first season.
    
    IIRC (and correct me if I'm wrong), the crests were all destroyed by Apocalymon in the 01 finale and the Destined learned that they could still Digivolve their Digimon without crests because it turned out that the power of the crests were inside the Destined all along. Come 02, the inability to Digivolve into Ultimate is a plot point for the original Eight Digimon, but I don't think the reasoning for this (aside from plot convenience) is really given^note The main implication seems to be Ken's many Dark Spires around the world preventing unaided Digivolution in the first place though.. In any case, Azulongmon later gives away one of his Digicores to Gennai, who then uses the core to allow all of the original Eight Digimon to evolve into Ultimate again. Later still, Agumon gets more power from the core and it allows him to become WarGreymon and fight BlackWarGreymon. We didn't see the others get this second boost, but going by what's happening in tri, I don't see a reason to believe that they didn't. Similarly, I don't see a reason to believe that any of the previous power boosts they got were temporary and that they'd need a new boost to justify further evolution in tri. But if I was fishing for an excuse as to why the other Destined can reach Mega now, I'd say that simply being older and having more pronounced/dramatic revelations regarding their crest-traits (both Mimi and Joe's character arcs involved Sincerity/Purity and Reliability in some way) allowed the rest of the Destined to evolve their Digimon further.
    • To clarify the whole Apocalymon thing, it was simply that Apocalymon destroyed the physical form of the crests and tags. They were more like crutches for the kids until they realized the crests were inside them all along. Similar to how the digivices aren't actually what's needed for the Partner Digi's to evolve, since Gatomon evolved on her own and stayed as a champion level, but are more of a conduit device to use the emotional power of the kids to temporarily digivolve.
    • Put simply: Crests channel digisoul. Digisoul is generated by the tamer. A sufficiently strong digisoul can work without a crest^note Although, if ShineGreymon Ruin Mode is any indication, it can easily go horribly right..
  • 02 made it clear that the season one kids couldn't reach Ultimate anymore because they had to "give up the power of the crests". It was a massive, blatant retcon even then which made little sense when you stopped to give it any kind of thought, but that's what it was. The power boost Azulongmon gave them later was used up when they gave it to Imperialdramon to allow him to change into Fighter Mode. So far as we know, the only permanent power boost was the one that let Agumon digivolve into Wargreymon again. Almost every time a season one Digimon has accessed Ultimate or Mega since, has been unexplained.
  • Appreciate the correction; I haven't seen 02 in years, so my memory was a little foggy on the whole "can't evolve to Ultimate" fiasco 02 brought on.^note And now that I remember it, I definitely recall being annoyed about it when it happened. In any case, it seems like this is probably another arbitrary retcon unless the third part of tri suggests otherwise (maybe Izzy will try to piece things together, giving us a Hand Wave).
  • http://adventure-hearts.tumblr.com/post/151125262326/tri-and-the-crests Provides screencaps. They never expected to never use their crests again. So it's easy to explain that in the intervening years, before the gate was locked, they reconnected with their crest powers.
• While the above paragraphs give some pretty plausible explanations for an in-universe reasoning, the most likely reasoning is that they're just quietly ignoring that development from Zero Two. It was a massive plot hole in the original anyway, and wasn't even consistently applied their anyway, so just ignoring it makes about as much sense. The whole series seems to be using some form of Broad Strokes for Zero Two as a whole, as plenty of other less than stellar developments from that series appear to be glossed over
  • Not to detract from anyone's explanations of the Digimon levels, but Adventure has always treated them as basically loose suggestions at best. Digimon are as powerful as the plot needs them to be.

The 02 kids

• Okay the opening scene shows the A2 squad getting taken out by Alphamon. That's all well and good but they are never mentioned or searched for. Kari and T.K. were part of both groups so even if they were busy in America or something they should have been mentioned. It's worse once things start to escalate and you remember that Ken and Davis command Imperialdramon, the third and final Mega making them more valuable than most of the original Digidestined.
  • It's possible it's a combination of "They've been gone a long time; we have to stop looking because we have other responsibilities." and Stepford Smiler. They're worried sick about their missing teammates but because of circumstances, they can't go looking and they also don't want to burden the older kids.
    • This is most likely, the 02 kids were clearly in the Digital World at their defeat, and Reunion established that the gates to the Digital World had closed a year before the film started, which implies they've been gone at least that long.
  • It's been established in Confession that the original digidestined, even Kari and T.K., are not aware of their disappearances. Plus, they haven't disappeared for a year. If they did disappeared for a year, the original digidestinied would've noticed by now.
  • Not even Kari and T.K. were able to open the path to the digital world either.
• None of the digidestined question why Himekawa has Ken's D3, even though he and the rest of the gang have been missing for at least several attacks across at least a week's time.

School uniforms

• So, in Reunion Meiko doesn't wear the Tsukishima school uniform. How come? At first, I thought she simply didn't have time to receive it yet, but Mimi enrolled on the same day and seemingly on much shorter notice, yet she has the uniform on day one. Shouldn't Meiko also have received the uniform then?
  • I'm not an expert on the subject, but I've heard it's customary in Japan for transfer students to wear the uniform of their previous school to begin with and then switch over. But since Mimi's come over from America, where they don't have uniforms except for private schools, she wouldn't have had a previous uniform to wear (I'm assuming she wouldn't be allowed to wear plain clothes, even temporarily). I expect she had to acquire a uniform early as a result.
    • Actually some Large City School Districts do require uniforms, it could be possible that Mimi did not attend one of the schools that required uniforms.

Imperialdramon

• Maybe I'm asking this more out of fear than anything, but was the Imperialdramon that Joe and Mimi fought our Imperialdramon? If that's true, than why is he helping Ken if he's acting as the Digimon Kaiser again? Did he use his dark ring technology on his own partner? Did Rosemon and Vikemon delete Fighter Mode? I'm a little concerned.
  • Determination.
  • Either that or it was merely a phantom, the absence of Davis makes it questionable to how the Jogress has occurred let alone reached Imperialdramon,Plus at the end Hackmon is seen with his eyes glowing, so perhaps he was projecting both Imperialdramon and Ken
    • On the other hand, back in 02 Ken somehow used his dark digivice to digivolve Agumon to SkullGreymon and MetalGreymon, despite not being his partner or possessing the crest of courage. So it might not be beyond Ken's capabilities. Still, as I argue below, it is quite likely that the Imperialdramon in the movie was not the 'real' one.
  • Maybe Confession will reveal something. Determination ended right after several whammies were inflicted upon the cast (Ken is here? He's evil again? Imperialdramon is fighting us?! Leomon was killed?! Meicoomon went berserk?!), so it stands to reason that Confession will continue right from the cliffhanger. We don't even know if Ken has truly regressed or is Brainwashed and Crazy, same for Imperialdramon.
  • Personally I think that Imperialdramon might have been a copy made by Ken. Remember, partner Digimon have always de-digivolved rather than get deleted in previous fights throughout the Adventure-verse (Patamon and Wormmon died, but that was explicitly because they gave up their energy, not because they were damaged in fights). Yet the Imperialdramon seems to have been deleted.

Couldn't wear something more practical?

• So at the end of Confessions, the kids are going back to Digiworld. This isn't something they just do on the spur of the moment, they plan this out. So why, when they finally head out, are they dressed in their school uniforms? They don't know for sure that they're just going to pop in and out again, they're even warned that they might get trapped there. So why not dress in clothing better suited for roughing it in the wilderness? Digiworld doesn't care if you're dressed to impress!
  • When did they ever care for this before? The second time they go there in the original series, they do so with the same summer vacation clothes they had before, and all of the times the original crew goes there in 02 they also do so with casual clothes (even though there was a risk of them getting stuck there before the new digivices appeared).

Village of Beginnings?

• If Gennai's goal was the reboot, why destroy it? Just a dick move? Especially since he used Ken's appearance.
  • To make things as grimdark as possible without ever making sense.
  • GREETINGS. I AM GENNAI.
  • THANK YOU. YOUR POWER AWAKENED ME FROM DEATH.
  • MY "HUMAN SOUL." MY "DETERMINATION."
  • THEY WERE NOT MINE, BUT YOURS.
  • AT FIRST, I WAS SO CONFUSED. OUR PLAN HAD FAILED, HADN'T IT? WHY WAS I BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?
  • ...
  • YOU.
  • WITH YOUR GUIDANCE, I REALIZED THE PURPOSE OF MY REINCARNATION.
  • POWER.
  • TOGETHER, WE ERADICATED THE ENEMY AND BECAME STRONG.
  • HP. ATK. DEF. GOLD. EXP. LV.
  • EVERY TIME A NUMBER INCREASES, THAT FEELING... THAT'S ME. "GENNAI."
  • NOW. NOW, WE HAVE REACHED THE ABSOLUTE. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR US HERE.
  • LET US ERASE THIS POINTLESS WORLD, AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT.
  • ERASE/DO NOT
  • NO... HMM. HOW CURIOUS. YOU MUST HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD.
  • SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?
• More seriously, a reboot is probably something that is only used if things go really, REALLY bad. Like say, an all out infection plus the place where digimons are reborn being trashed.

Lack of evolutions?

• Why are the children so hesitant to evolve their partners to their Perfect forms? It feels like every fight, everybody but Agumon and Tailmon goes either Adult or Ultimate, even when fights would get so much simpler if they'd just go Perfect; even in situations where they're worried about collateral damage, you'd think WereGarurumon and Lilimon would be less problematic for that than Garurumon and Togemon. You could argue that evolving their partners too far would've caused problems had they contracted the infection from Meicrackmon, but it took until the end of the 3rd movie for them to know that that was true and it didn't stop them any of the few times they did go higher than Adult. It can't be a difficulty curve either because, again, there's no indication that hitting Perfect is a problem in the slightest for Taichi or Hikari. So what gives?
• Perhaps it has something to do with losing the crests at the end of season one? The kids were once told the crests aren't strictly necessary for evolution but it makes the process easier. Now that they're more emotionally mature, they can make do without the physical tags, but it takes more effort and energy to pull it off?
• It's because the kids can't control when the Digimon can evolve to Perfect. Losing their crests mean they can no longer control when the Digimon needs to evolve to higher stages than Adult. The Digimon still can evolve to Perfect because the power of the crests reside within the kids all along, but crests channel that power from them and without crests, they are just waiting when it happens (in other words, when the plot demands it).

Maki does not know how reboots work?

• Okay, so apparently Maki did what she did to revive her Digimon partner, Tapirmon, but for some reason she doesn't realize that the reboot will wipe out any previous memory Tapirmon has of her? She of all people should know better than others! She've been researching about reboots her entire life! Besides, everyone with even a basic computer knowledge should know that 'Reboot = starting over', so how the hell did Maki, a government agent, doesn't know this? Sure, maybe Gennai was manipulating her by claiming that he and Yggdrasil have the power to give Tapirmon back its memories once it is revived, but what makes Maki put her trust in Gennai so much in the first place?
  • Maki is just that desperate. She is looking for any chance that Tapirmon can come back, no matter how small. She also might not have realized exactly how far back the reboot would go (remember Tapirmon lived thousands of years before the current Digimon did) or she thought their bond would make it somehow retain its memories despite the Reboot. The same desperation applies for why she believed Gennai, especially when we consider that it is true that the Reboot was not completely successful. Meicoomon retained its memories and Mega-level Digimon like Alphamon, Machinedramon and MetalSeadramon are still around, suggesting Yggdrasil had some degree of control over it.
  • Also, to be fair, all of the partner Digimon were born already knowing who their partners were the first time around. Why this changed with the reboot is up in the air (my best guess is that the eggs were originally normal eggs that had information about humans uploaded once they were selected to be partner Digimon, so the reboot restored the eggs to before that point), but either way Maki probably assumed that even if Tapirmon forgot their adventures, they would still at least, as she put it, be "waiting for [her]."
  • Actually they did not know. Tailmon didn't know she was had a partner for instance. The reason why they knew them is that they had a mission. Koromon didn't know who Taichi was, however he knew he was his partner. It's only the 02' partners that had informations in the Digi-Egg.
    • It's made very, very explicit that the only reason Tailmon didn't know she had a partner was because her time with Vamdemon made her forget. From episode 34, immediately after her monologue about Vamdemon's abuse:
  Tailmon: Where was I born anyway? What was I doing before I met Vamdemon? I can't remember.

  • Later, we get (emphasis mine):
  Tailmon: I've always been waiting, waiting and searching, but I never find her! [...] I don't know. I don't remember anymore.

  • This indicates that she at least knew she was looking for someone, and that there was a time where she knew for certain that it was Hikari. Finally:
  Tailmon: But the one who appeared in my path... was not who I was waiting for. It was Vamdemon. Then the days of despair began, and before I knew it, I'd forgotten...

D3s?

Now that we've seen post-Reboot evo sequences for Takeru and Hikari, it's confirmed that they still have D3s and not the original Digivices. So... what was the point of needing Ken's at the end of Confessions? Why would Maki risk revealing that she has it (unless it wasn't his, but even so, it still raises questions)? And what was the point of the conversation Koushiro had with Takeru about whether or not the D3 "reverted"?

Magnadramon or Ophanimon?

Both forms have been shown as Gatomon's Mega from, but which one will they use?Magnadramon has been show in some of the promotional martial, but Ophanimon Fallen Down mode has been shown on the poster for ep 5 and you can't have a corrupted form unless you have the base form. It seems to lean towards Ophanimon.

• That's actually incorrect. In other media like games and cards, the base form is just another mode of the same Digimon species. For example, Taomon can evolve directly to Sakuyamon: Miko Mode or Paildramon evolved directly to Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode. There are many Digimon who can evolve to Belphemon: Rage Mode without going to Sleep Mode first. Even in tri., we had Meicoomon evolved directly to Meicrackmon: Vicious Mode and the "normal mode" doesn't exist per fourth movie.
  • There honestly isn't any way to know in advance. Evolution rules are flexible enough that the production staff can basically do whatever they feel works best for the film, and there's a lot of evidence in both directions.

Oikawa

• Given him becoming some kind of Digital World-based Genius Loci at the end of Adventure 02, how did the reboot affect him?
  • He's presumably gone for good, but they still have time to bring him up. It doesn't help that 02 didn't establish very many details on what exactly transpired with him.
  • The 02 epilogue suggests he's still around. It's possible that he wasn't affected by the reboot since he wasn't native to Digital World. Similarly, Kari's whistle was still there, while the 02 kids in stasis apparently weren't affected either.

Imperialdramon's power

• Now I know Imperialdramon isn't a very impressive example of a mega level. Even in fighter mode, he'd probably get his ass kicked in a one on one confrontation with, say, WarGreymon. But how in the blue hell can two champions and a rookie hold him off for so long? I know there's dramatic tension, and I should be suspending my disbelief, because this is hardly the first time lower level Digimon have taken on a mega and survived briefly (I'd argue that in those cases that the megas were clearly playing around with their prey, whereas we have no indication Imperialdramon is doing that here, though), but they last forever and keep getting hit with direct attacks! The other two adventure series established very well that even large groups of ultimate level Digimon are no match whatsoever for even one mega. The Dark Masters curbstomped the Chosen Ultimates easily, BlackWarGreymon took out an entire herd of Mammothmon without even using named attacks casually, and even Imperialdramon Dragon mode himself took out a Triceramon (who actually seemed to be a decently powerful Ultimate level) without any trouble. Is this just part of this series trashing on Zero Two? While I'm always up for cringing that series (for the most part), I don't get why they should defy logic to do so.
  • Given that the Mysterious Man's Ultimate-level servants have consistently been way below par for their level (Mugendramon getting pwned by Child-level Plotmon's Puppy Howling, Childs and Adults holding their own against Imperialdramon) even as all the other Ultimates (Alphamon, Jesmon, Chosen Digimon) are portrayed realistically, I would guess that we're supposed to take notice of it and conclude that whatever Mystery Man does to procure Digimon servants makes them significantly weaker.

Locked Out Of The Loop

• Why doesn't anyone just let Kari know she's been possessed? Confession is not the first time, and it's an important aspect of her life, especially if she's the only member of the team who can be possessed in that way. Is the rest of the team afraid that she'll Go Mad from the Revelation or something? Kari's a big girl now, and her right to know that she's been possessed is part of her right to her own body.
  • Only the Digimon and Himekawa knew about the Confession example: the digimon kept it to themselves because explaining her possession would require explaining the reboot, and they were trying to keep their partners in the dark about the reboot, and then when the reboot came out into the open, they didn't really have a chance to sit down and explain properly (though Tentomon might've told Koushiro offscreen on their way to the Meicrackmon fight). Himekawa lied for obvious reasons. As for her possession during the series, again, that sort of happened in the middle of a big violent fight, so I would assume they told her offscreen.

Meicoomon

• Part 5 of Tri reveals that Meicoomon is Apocalymon reborn. How is this even possible, knowing he was sealed away by the children's Digivices when he tried his self-destruct technique, and the Digital World was then reconstructed, which is why the kids had to go home?! If Meicoomon had been introduced after the reboot in Part III, it would make sense to an extent, but the character was introduced in the first installment. This means a lot of what transpired across the first two seasons was for naught.
  • To say that the kids "sealed" Apocalymon is not entirely correct. They created a physical barrier to contain his explosion, so that it only killed him and not both worlds, but the shattered remnants of Apocalymon's data would still be there, just like how any other Digimon's data survives the individual's death. So, then, when the barrier dropped, Apocalymon's data was still present. Remember how Apocalymon was made of a bunch of smaller Digimon who failed to evolve? Do you also remember how all those Digi-Eggs rained down from the sky when the Digital World was reconstructed, containing all of the Digimon who were killed over the course of the Dark Master's reign? My guess is that the data of all the failed Digimon who comprised Apocalymon would have gone towards the rebirth of those individuals, who were revived along with all the other Digimon who came back, but that would have left behind the data that comprised Apocalymon's consciousness and memories, which by then had become distinct from his component parts. That corrupted data was not capable of reformatting itself the ordinary way, since it wasn't exactly a Digimon in and of itself, so instead it lodged itself within a "proper" Digimon's Digi-Egg, which is where Meicoomon came from. Once the egg hatched and evolved far enough to express the Apocalymon mutation, Homeostasis found a partner for it and banished it to the human world.
• On a similar note to previous commenter's complaints, why exactly is Meicoomon having Apocalymon's data such an apocalyptic thing when this is literally just Cyberdramon 2 : Electric Boogaloo? And before anyone goes 'well you see it's different because Apocalymon wants to kill everything' ... Wasn't Apocalymon's entire first half of dialogue in the original Adventure yelling at a bunch of ten year olds about how sad he was about not being able to live in the digital world and have fun or whatever? About how all of the digimon composing him wanted to use 'this body' to be useful to the digital world? By all means Apocalymon should be ecstatic?? And if anyone tries to point to any extraneous lore about 'oh well the digimon lore says he wants...' digimon lore /also/ says that Evilmon is responsible for most species in the Dark Area so yeah, I don't buy that cheap argument one second.]] Also, honestly speaking I'd rather go off of Adventure's actual lore here. Like at most I could see this resulting in a Yubel from Yu-Gi-Oh GX thing, considering a possible interpretation of Apocalymon having a really twisted/messed up version of 'friendship' and various other crest virtues from some lines.

I think the bigger concern isn't so much Apocalymon itself as much as its data. If some unscrupulous entity had that, they have the data of something that came very, VERY close to devastating two worlds. And if you have that much raw power, infected with the trinary virus... Recipe for disaster. We already have seen that the trinary virus can cause even long-time partner Digimon to go rampant, so if a Digimon with data from a multi-world threat is infected, and rampancy sets in...boom.

Alphamon and Omegamon's power

• First of all, I'm afraid I'm not really knowledgeable about levels of power in the franchise, so I might be asking a stupid question. However, I was shocked at being Alphamon one-shotting a bunch of Mega level digimon (among which there was Seraphimon of all people), especially giving that he then went to trade hits with Omegamon and Jesmon as if nothing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means to me that Omegamon is effectively stronger than the rest of the Digidestined's digimon put together, regardless of them being in the same level at that moment (except for Angewomon, they were all Mega in this battle, just like Omegamon himself) and nature (there was two Celestial Digimons, that has to mean something). How can this be? Are Royal Knights really that above everyone else, Celestials included, in terms of power?
  • Okay, Digimon Power Levels 101. Egg, Larva (f.e. Botamon) In Training (Koromon) Rookie (Agumon) Champion (Greymon) Ultimate (Metalgreymon) Mega (Wargreymon). All good? Every stage is stronger than the last. I don't remember when it was introduced, but there is a 'Super Ultimate' level which is above Mega and can only be achieved through special circumstances. Fusing 2 Megas (Ommimon) absorbing data from an artifact (Gallantmon Crimson Mode) a special digivolve (the Burst Mode) or adding enough members through Digi-Xross (Shoutmon X7) In our case, the Royal Knights are a special collective of 'knightly' Digimon that were designed as much more powerful than regular Megas (Alphamon) or retconned into being in such group (Ommimon) There are similar collectives like the Seven Demon Lords, the Olympus 12 and the Holy Beasts. Lastly, T.K.'s Seraphimon has nothing to do with Frontier's Seraphimon, who evolved naturally throughout centuries... and everyone else reached Mega state mere days ago in-universe. In Digimon, life experience > natural power. Conclusion: the kids where outmatched in both raw power (Super Ultimate > Mega) and battle experience.
    • Also, canonically Alphamon and Omegamon are just cracked. As their name indicates, they are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. They are the strongest digimons in the world, the keepers of balance and a check against unruly royal knights. They are the right hand of god (Yggdrassil), deployed when things go south quickly to do it's bidding and stop whatever is happening. Entire armies of ultimate (mega in the english translation) digimon cannot do anything against them. Heck, Alphamon goes even beyond that, with him being capable of taking on a full power Omegamon and defeating him due to his X-Antibodies and Alpha inForce. Unfortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it), both the Alphamon and Omegamon of Adventure/Tri are not the canonical versions and are far weaker, because if not the fights would have been waaaay shorter, waaay blodier and there would be no need for Omegamon merciful mode, default Omegamon would have just crushed Ordinemon like it was wet tissue paper.
• [copypasted from another discussion relevant to the topic]
  • The age old question... where do Armors / Hybrids / Xross forms fall in the power curve?
    • Short answer is depends on the digimon being formed. Long Answer see below.
  • Armors are supposed to be on par with Champions. They show up in 02 (but the kids prefer to use Champions unless a Dark Spire is present?) and after that as Monster of the Week material (in Tamers they were beatable by card-boosted Rookies...) The Digiegg of Miracles and Destiny are another story. Magnamon has power to rival a Mega (Chimeramon was designed as Mega and Magnamon was the only one able to make a dent on it.) and was later added to the Royal Knight group, while the only data we have on [Gold] Rapidmon is the movie where he defeats a Kerpymon [Virus]
    • That's at least how it is in 02. As Champion digimon do have Armor evolution (Wizardmon uses the Digimental of Courage to turn into Flame Wizardmon) should give it something similar to Ultimate. Basically it depends on the Digimon and Digimental use (Ie: Wormmon uses the mental of Kindness to become Pucchiemon, which is a champion level but not a strong one).
    • Why would two Celestials at Mega level need to power down to make Veemon and Terriermon power up? Weren't they already strong enough?
    • Because its a bad movie.
    • Maybe a Dragon and Beast are better match-ups than two Holy's VS one...?
  • The Hybrids are... hard to pin down. One of the base materials is either a human (the heroes) or a Rookie Digimon (the evil ones under Kerpymon) so it's safe to assume they start at Champion level. And the Beast Spirits? Well, Gotsumon was looking for the BS of Light to face Gigasmon and a Goburimon unwillingly fused with the BS of Fire, so they should be Champions too... who trade intelligence and control for raw power. Of course, mastery over both forms give you the 'Dual Evolutions' (uh, check the card game) Those are Ultimates. Then KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon are Megas and Susanoomon is a (frikkin' OP) Super Ultimate.
    • Kaiser and Magna are Megas? Then why were they squashed again and again by the Knights?
    • Inexperience + they are humans at the core, not monsters + they fought ROYAL KNIGHTS, man.
  • Xross forms are a mess. I am not saying it as an insult. Any Digimon can be Xrossed with any other... with different results: it gives the dominant half a weapon (a la Magichange) or works as a Fusion Dance. These are the ones that no one agrees upon. Shoutmon is 99% guaranteed to be a Rookie... but Ballistamon / Dorulumon seem like low-tier Champions. Since the Dark Generals seem to be Mega level strong we can agree that X4 is Mega too since its the first form that can put up a fight. X2 and X3 are high tier Champion and Ultimate respectivelly. OmmiShoutmon is Ultimate since he invokes 'Super Evolution' (Chou Shinka) Shoutmon DX seems a Mega, while X7 is another godly Super Ultimate.
    • Why does adding Belzeemon's data, a Mega himself, not push Shoutmon to X5 instead of being stuck at 'X4B'. It bugs me.
    • Because Belzeemon isn't a mega at this point in Xros Wars. He's closer to a higher tier Ultimate.
    • Imcompatibility? Apparently the things that 'advance' Shoutmon to higher levels are the ones that contribute to his Combining Mecha motif (all of Ballistamon, Dorulumon's drills, Sparrowmon's jets.) And it's doubtful THIS Beelzemon is the same as Tamers's Beelzemon.
    • Yet Sparrowmon, a not particularly strong Champion (?) does push him to X5, who can trade blows with a Demon Lord (and Lucemon SM is a Super Ultimate.)
    • Could be that Sparrowmon is a compatible Xros partner (similar to how certain digimon can jogress/DNA digivolve while others can't). So whereas Beelzemon can only act as an in-level equip boost, Sparrowmon is able to perfectly synch and advance to the next stage
    • Xross Wars power levels are more messed up than Dragon Ball Super.

Only have one pod left! Wait a minute...

• Ok, so Evil Gennai makes it so that only either Tai or Daigo can enter the last pod. Except that unless I failed kindergarten maths, the 02 gang (Daisuke, Iori, Miyako and Ken) occupied 4 out of the 6 pods, meaning that there should be 2 pods working. However, according to the interface, five are somehow in use. Who could possibly be using the 5th pod? It was never revealed even until the end and the whole situation seems to be shoehorned in. Sure, Daigo is already bleeding out from saving Taichi and may not have survived the trip but still...
  • You can see the silhouettes of the pod's occupants - the one next to the empty pod is very clearly the real Gennai.
  • I did see a fifth silhouette. The ponytail gave me a hunch that it might be him. The problem was that this was not acknowledged In-Universe and if the fifth person is really him, that just raises even more questions.

How can Patamon digivolve to Seraphimon?

• When and how did Patamon become able to digivolve to his mega form? The others make sense, because they all had a moment related to their crest that allowed their partners to digivolve, but T.K. didn't have that. Patamon just digivolves to Seraphimon without any explanation. Now, he did do this in the third movie, again with no explanation but that was considered non canon by all accounts? Is it that the movie is canon to the Tri movies?
  • Think of it this way. Remember the prophecy that said Ultimate-level evolution would come after the Chosen "knew the darkness and went beyond" or whatever? What happened with Takeru and Patamon in the third movie was essentially an example of what happens when a Chosen *fails* to beat their darkness. Takeru gave in to the despair of knowing Patamon was corrupted and would eventually need to be destroyed, thereby failing to confess to the others in time to successfully save him. So in the *fourth* movie, when Takeru gets his partner back, and they click again even with Patamon's memory loss, Takeru regains the hope he had lost in the previous film, and that combined with the lessons he learned during the previous film meant that he got the growing-up needed to evolve to Ultimate. The last piece of the puzzle was to enter a combat situation — with the reassurance of the other Chosen, Takeru could let Patamon fight without being scared to lose him again, and that was the moment in which Patamon evolved to Seraphimon.

Yggdrasil's decision to exterminate the human race

• More to the point why is he acting so ungratefully towards the kids he basically solicited for aid, in saving his world and its inhabitants!? When he did it in Savers/Data Squad it was a matter of survival but here there's no clear cut reason, for all we know he could have chosen this course because "fuck you I'm a God and I'll do what I want!"
  • Arguably, his logic is the inverse of the Abrahamic God. Instead of "I shall spare them if even one good person is among them", Yggdrasil sees the wickedness and greed of humanity, and deems them deserving of death, regardless of the good of a few.
  • When did King Drasil solicit the kids help to save the world? It was Homeostasis during Adventure. As for the why of it? Well "fuck you I'm a god" doesn't seem that unreasonable. Well so long as there's another God he wants to rein supreme over. So... basically Zanza from Xenoblade.
    • Where does it say who chose the Digi-Destined? How do you know whether it was Yggdrasil or Homeostasis?
    • Because Homeostasis takes credit for choosing the Adventure children during episode 45, when they possessed Hikari. Meiko is almost certainly Homeostasis's doing as well, since it was Homeostasis's plan to pacify Meicoomon with a human partner. However, it's unclear whether Homeostasis was responsible for the international Chosen Children — at minimum, we know they didn't pick the 02 children. Regardless, it's exceedingly doubtful that Yggdrasil had any involvement in drafting humans for help, since it consistently either hates or ignores humanity in almost every medium. If anything, it was probably happy about Vamdemon and the Dark Masters, since the distortions they created would've allowed the Digital World to engulf the Real World.

So where was Hackmon during Adventure?

It's ambiguous in 02, but in the original Adventure series it's made clear that the Digidestined are doing the work of Homeostasis, especially during that Dark Masters arc. So where is Homeostasis's lapdog Hackmon? Having Jesumon around would have been ridiculously helpful. Did he only come into existence afterwards for some reason? How did he reach mega so easily in the intervening six years (Dark Masters arc alone took seven years in universe). If it's purely homeostasis's power what prevented her from gifting that to someone else before?

• We never get an explanation, but there are two guesses we can make. If Jesmon existed pre-Adventure, then the Dark Masters probably fought and sealed him away like they did to the Holy Beasts, which explains why he didn't get involved. The other option is that Hackmon was Perfect-level or weaker during Adventure, and didn't achieve evolution to Jesmon until tri. As for how Hackmon accomplished Ultimate/Mega in just six years, remember that it was actually much longer than that. Per the Wonderswan games, Millenniummon distorted time during its first two appearances in the Digital World, and it took Gennai and Agumon a long time to find Ryo the first time around. (This also explains why there are so many Perfect Digimon at all during 02, since it shouldn't have been possible for all the died-and-reborn Digimon to evolve so far in just three years.)

Tai's whole issue

So... anyone gonna bring up the fact that while Tai is angsting about collateral damage, he of all people should know that they need to stop rampaging Digimon from harming humans given that the first time they invaded en mass, it was because one of them put out a hit on his little sister?