Adventure Episode 09: Subzero Ice Punch!

In this episode, Matt loses his mind and almost gets himself, Gabumon and Tai killed in the process. The fangirls love it.

Separated from the group with a weakened Agumon, Tai manages to destroy a black gear, cross the ocean with Frigimon, find one of his teammates, destroy a second black gear and unravel the secret of getting back to Infinity Mountain. All of this is pushed aside because he and Matt break out the fisticuffs.

I like it when they argue. I like it when there's dissension in the ranks. I like it when they get angry and when team spirit takes a break and nobody can stand each other. That's all awesome. It makes the show grittier and provides necessary balance to the “we can do it together!” mantra that often emerges. The argument here between Tai and Matt is a good one too as they both have short-sighted viewpoints. Tai wants to make sure they're heading towards Infinity Mountain but is forgetting that he can't beat Devimon alone, while Matt is so focused on finding the others that he's willing to make things worse in a futile attempt to do so. Problem is, they get really punchy really quickly. Chalk it up to the fatigue, but it continues to seem forced that their happy reunion escalates into violence in such a hurry.

Matt is again the instigator here, and for the second time he gets uppity not for a comment made about TK, but towards Gabumon. In episode three, Tai was clearly teasing, but this time it was a simple question about how Gabumon caught a cold given his fur coat. Which is a pretty damn good question. The answer is that Matt went nuts, overworked himself to find TK, got sick, and Gabumon played hero and saved Matt from hypothermia. With that full explanation, Tai would have been pretty impressed. Perhaps it goes back to Matt learning to be a team player and ashamed that Gabumon had to go to such great lengths to help. Or perhaps Matt's just really tense after a stressful night. Either way, the arguing was understandable, but the fighting was over the top.

So was Tai's revelation at the end of it. Matt's so eager to find the rest of the group because he's worried about his little brother being alone? Shock! And here I had him pegged as having some silly crush on Mimi. Seriously, Tai, you were worried about Matt babying TK too much before and now you're stunned when he's worried about him in this clearly dangerous predicament? The whole episode reeks of fanservice for Tai/Matt fangirls and while the premise makes sense, the lengths they go to do not.

Being the first episode after revealing the big bad, they were at least able to introduce the concept of the gear-powered island fragments and in Frigimon the dub begins a long-standing tradition in using celebrity impersonations as voices of NPC Digimon (this one being... Frosty the Snowman). But going way over the edge with the Tai/Matt fighting, only to turn around and be friends again in an instant (especially at the end with Matt suddenly thinking the others will be fine), is a bit much for me. Then again, I'm not a Tai/Matt fangirl.

My Grade: C-

Loose Data

• We're just supposed to believe that everybody's clothes not only stayed together, but ended up on the same island as each kid, right? Yes? Fine, Tai was naked enough in these last two episodes and we don't need more of that.
• Almost to counter the end of the last episode, the beginning of this one starts with more joke lines than average. It was pretty unnecessary as the Frigimon battle was silly enough.
• We never actually get to see furless Gabumon. He was shown to be too shy to take it off in last episode's hot tub scene, and we get a bunch of cutaways when he gives his fur to Matt. Wonder what he's hiding back there.