December 2018, Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5 Feature image

Review: Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5 – Coexistence (Blu-Ray)

Digimon Adventure Tri is back in the second to last entry in this epic theatrical series. With Part 4 stumbling somewhat in execution, it will be interesting to see how the story recovers in this latest release.

Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5 follows in its predecessors’ footsteps by directly continuing the longform narrative of the previous movies. With the team recovering from the previous battle and Meicoomon missing, they’re faced with an increasingly hostile digital world. Meanwhile Homeostasis visits Nishijima and Professor Mochizuki to convey they will take care of Meicoomon for the greater good which goes down poorly with the DigiDestined when they eventually make their way back to the real world which proves just as hostile towards their Digimon.

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By this point there’s a feeling that the story’s hitting a bit of a decent pace with the team getting some downtime to add in some slice of life before the next wave of action hits, resulting in the reappearance of Meicoomon, silly but well-meaning passionate speeches about the power of friendship/passion/so forth before everyone returns once again to the digital world for a surprisingly interesting conclusion.

In looking back on Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5, the way they wrap up this final third of the movie has done an excellent job bringing back the passion from the earlier entries in this series. It’s nothing that will challenge your perceptions of the universe or the capacity of animation to deliver amazing stories and experiences, but it throws enough elements into the mix to come away really satisfied. The usual pattern with the Digimon Tri movies is to normally throw in a big action sequence towards the end, and by Part 4 it was feeling a little worn out. As things moved in that direction for Part 5 I was expecting more of the same, but we manage to get some interesting elements flowing through, including a concluding sequence that has more than just a passing semblance to a very famous film released by Hideaki Anno 20 years ago.

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Beyond the redemption of sorts, the local release is a solid package. Both of the audio tracks maintain their lossless HD surround mixes, the transfer looks great and we get a short featurette starring Johnny Yong Bosch, the English voice actor for Takeru. Nothing outstanding, but the core is solid and that’s generally my main interest in releases these days.

Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5: Coexistence is a welcome improvement on its predecessor and manages to help Digimon Adventure Tri find its feet again in achieving an admittedly exhaustive pace in terms of theatrical releases. It will be very interesting to see how this all wraps up with the final local release due in 2019, but for the moment this will serve as a worthy entry in the Digimon Adventure Tri series.

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A review copy was provided by Madman Entertainment to the author for the purpose of this review.