On August 1st Toei Animation released a special livestream to commemorate the anniversary of the original Digimon Adventure series (Digimon: Digital Monsters season 1 in America). The stream consisted of newly animated footage from the original series and some announcements of new merchandise that fans can find in the coming months. While light on news this year, the stream ended with a mysterious date overlaid on a screenshot of a familiar image to Digimon fans. The date reads January 1, 2025, and tells fans to save the date for a special announcement. This could be just speculation at this point, but it could imply a follow-up to Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.

While primarily anthological, Toei Animation has returned to the Digimon Adventure timeline a few times over the years. Digimon Adventure Tri, Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna and the Digimon Adventure 2020 reboot have been notable returns in recent years, but Digimon Adventure 02 (released in America as Digimon: Digital Monsters Season 2) was their first attempt to keep the timeline going. That series follows a new generation of DigiDestined and their partners, while also keeping the original cast of characters in mentorship roles. However, history hasn’t been kind to this sequel series. The general consensus is that it’s not a very popular series. While the above-mentioned films have returned to the timeline of Digimon Adventure, the characters introduced in Digimon Adventure 02 have been largely absent.

The beginning of Digimon Adventure Tri shows the 02 DigiDestined falling to an unknown foe (that turns out to be Alphamon), and are hardly mentioned but never seen again. With every subsequent release of Digimon Adventure Tri, fans were hoping that they would return, but they never did. Due to the current reputation of Digimon Adventure 02, Toei might have assumed that fans wouldn’t care, but they were wrong. In 2020, two years after Digimon Adventure Tri concluded, Toei Animation released Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna. This film was meant to be the final concluding chapter of Tai and the gang's story and this time they brought along Davis, Ken and the other 02 kids. This was met with tons of praise, so Toei Animation quickly revealed that the next Digimon Adventure film would be all about Davis and his friends, called Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.

Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning was released in Japan and America in 2023 and saw Ken, Davis, V-Mon, and the rest take the reins of the franchise for the first time since their series ended in 2000. The film follows those characters as they meet Lui, a DigiDestined who claims to be the first kid to ever partner with a Digimon. Lui claims that it was his wish for more friends that made the partnerships between Digimon and humans possible. As the initial hype of the film began to wear down, fans began to notice a glaring problem with it. It’s not about the 02 Digidestined. It’s about Lui, a brand new character that serves to retcon the franchise (for the third time?), and his struggle to reconnect with his Digimon partner Ukkomon. After years of asking, fans were given a film that has these characters play supporting roles to a brand new character. 

Hope springs eternal, however. While fans were left largely disappointed with Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning, there was still the chance that a new film could make up for it. After all, the filmmakers and Toei Animation still insist that the epilogue of Digimon Adventure 02  is canon (Despite all the evidence to the contrary). For those who may not remember, the epilogue of the original show jumps forward to the year 2027 and shows a world where everyone on the planet has a partner Digimon, including Tai, Matt, and Sora, who notably lost their Digimon at the end of Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna. This is important to bring up because eagle-eyed fans immediately recognized the screenshot from the mysterious save-the-date message at the end of the Digimon Day stream as the exact shot that transitions the show into its epilogue. 

It’s important to mention that this is all wild speculation based on a single image. Well, a single image and one more thing. At the end of the Digimon Adventure 25th Anniversary Special, a special that consists of famous scenes recreated with new animation, there’s a shot of Agumon that doesn’t exist in the original series with a single line of dialogue: “Tai, see you later.” Well, of course, Digimon fans are going to run rampant with speculation about the inclusion of this scene. If the epilogue of Digimon Adventure 02 is still canon then at some point in the near future, Tai and the others have to be reunited with their Digimon partners. One of the exciting things that Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning did was get rid of the Digivices. Once a device believed to be the source of the bond between Digimon and humans, now serves no purpose. This severed element could be the first step to reuniting people with their Digimon partners since the Digivice seemed to dictate how long a Digimon could be with their Digidestined. Now no Digidestined would ever be faced with losing their partner like Tai or Mat did. A new movie could cover this story, but that would potentially mean sidelining the 02 kids a fourth time.
It’s hard not to feel lied to when it comes to Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning. There’s no great new enemy to face, there’s no new digivolutions to experience, and it isn’t about the supposed main characters of the film. So of course Digimon fans are going to look into any tiny detail that could hint that a new film is on the horizon. Let's just hope that it’s actually about the 02 kids this time.