Digimon Adventure 2020 Episode 12 [Anime Episode Review]

Welcome, everyone, to my continued weekly review series for the 2020 reboot of Digimon Adventure! This time around, we’re getting a bit more Mimi, and… well… things got dark. Let’s dive have a look at what happened.

Lilimon Blooms: Recap

We picked up where we left off with Mimi having fallen through the floor. Unfortunately, the hole was too high up for Palmon to just lift them up again with her vines. Up above, Taichi, Koshiro, Agumon, and Tentomon were worried. Koshiro was able to decipher some runes and learned that an ancient weapon factory lay beneath them.

Somewhere in a pile of scrap, Soundbirdmon activated a mechanical Digimon. Mimi and Palmon turned up shortly after and were shocked to find the remains of Digimon just scattered about. They soon found themselves confronted by Andromon. Mimi asked if he could help, but Andromon registered her as a target to be eliminated. Palmon evolved to Togemon and confronted him, but her attacks were ineffective, and it only took one punch to force her back into her Palmon form. Just as Andromon was about to kill Mimi, a Guardromon Digimon rose up from the junk and made the save. He dropped a massive crane hand on Andromon and flew Mimi and Palmon out through an exit.

He took Mimi and Palmon to a slightly flooded area and picked a little flower for Mimi. She asked him if he knows of a way up and seemed to understand what he meant by his various steam blowing responses. Unfortunately for them, Andromon managed to crawl out from under the crane hand.

We got to see Yamato, Joe and Sora riding Birdramon with Gomamon and Gabumon. Sora was still worried about Neamon’s group. Yamato pointed out that their mission would lead to their peace, which cheered her up a little.

Back with Taichi’s group, a bunch of Hagurumon surrounded them. Greymon sprang into action and we cut back to Mimi just as Guardromon took her and Palmon into a lift, but Andromon arrived and stopped the door closing. Andromon’s Spiral Sword attack took Guardromon down but Kabuterimon arrived just in time to step in. Andromon being an Ultimate level Digimon though, he too was no match for metal menace either. Greymon tried his luck next, but he too couldn’t stop their foe.

Greymon evolved to Metal Greymon, evening things up in the power stakes. Palmon recovered and evolved to Togemon again, and the two heroes were able to land a blow on Andromon, knocking him to the floor. He quickly recovered though and used some rapid fire missiles to start bringing the roof down. With both Metal Greymon and Togemon unable to fight because they were holding the roof up, things looked dire, until Guardromon reactivated and grabbed Andromon’s leg. So, Andromon killed him. He died staring at Mimi, remembering her smile.

This enraged Mimi, and she swore she wouldn’t forgive Andromon. Her tears caused her Digivice to power up and Togemon evolved to Lilimon. Lilimon, being smaller and quicker, avoided Andromon’s attacks with ease and spread petals to stop him locking on, then launched a battle winning Flower Cannon. Andromon started to come to his senses just as he died, which caused Mimi to break down into tears.

Once things calmed down, Mimi was resolved to beat the bad guys, and the episode ended with the team heading out.

Lilimon Blooms: Thoughts

Digimon, for me, has always been at its best when it gets dark. That’s why I love Tamers so much, it’s a series that focuses on that in various different ways. Adventure was never devoid of it though, especially when it came to the famous Wizarmon scenes. Here, we got a taste of that again.

The moment Guardromon stepped in and became attached to Mimi, you could see what was coming. I loved that he managed a Terminator 2 moment with the whole ‘we think he’s dead, but he comes back just in time’, only for it to be flipped and be killed. That one second of Andromon coming to his senses just as he was killed too was an emotional one. So, well done on that Digimon!

Visually, this was a good one. Andromon kinda looked like Robocop throwing a Robo-strop to me, but I do like his design. The action was mostly slower and more plodding this time around, but that made sense given those involved. It had a very mechanical feel to it, which it needed.

The brief scene with the other team was very good. Yamato remains the coolest of the main characters, and it was nice seeing him use that to calm Sora’s fears. And the brunt of the episode? I’m happy Mimi is getting some nice focus. You can see how much she cares, both in how she swore revenge on Andromon and then how she reacted to his death.

So, overall, I really enjoyed this. I was always mixed on Mimi in the original run, but she’s coming across a lot better here. The action was set to the right tone, and we got a bit of darkness to gnaw on. I can’t really complain at all here.

But those are just my thoughts. What did you think of these episodes? Let me know in the comments below.

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