21st Anniversary of Digimon Adventure: Children's War Game!

[MarcFBR]

It's March 4th in Japan, which is the day Children's War Game (or Our War Game), the second Digimon Adventure film, opened in Japan.

Generally held up as one of the best, if not 'the' best, parts of the franchise, Children's War Game premiered as part of the 2000 Spring Toei Anime Fair, so it's the 21st anniversary of the movie!

(Various text below has been used in prior anniversary articles.)



The film was used as the 2nd of 3 parts for the American composite Digimon the Movie, and was the part of the film that was most heavily advertised around.

Because of the film director Mamoru Hosoda ending up at Studio Ghibli for a short time, before his eventual rise into being one of the better known Japanese directors.



The film also seemed to have stuck with Hosoda to a decent degree though, as he's actually remade it twice!

First as the (slightly less well known) short film Superflat Monogram in collaboration with Louis Vuitton and artist Takashi Murakami (Hosoda once commented that the way that happened was Murakami saw the film, and later when Louis Vuitton wanted to work with him, the presentation Murakami made involved the Digimon film, which is what later led to Hosoda being involved.)

Second is as the feature film Summer Wars, which is an expanded 'Digimon free remake' of the film, which was a well liked and successful feature film.


Various aspects of the visuals from the second Digimon film continue to show up through Hosoda's work, and the film continues to be something he's asked about at Q&A events. In fact, his next film Belle, is already reminding people of War Game from what little has been seen of it.



The second theatrical Digimon film seem to be what the franchise looks to on a normal basis at what to aim for, as you can see it acting as a guide for numerous Digimon content, from various films, to Cyber Sleuth, to tri., to Appmon, and that likely won't stop based on it's popularity.

Even Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna takes a decent amount of inspiration from it.


On top of everything else, it's just a fun and exciting movie to watch, which is part of why it's stood at the tip top of the franchise for so long.




A couple years ago we got ahold of promotional film slides and did scans of the clean version of the movie poster off of one.




After the release of the movie as part of a larger Digimon movie Blu-ray Box, it was later re-released as a single along with the first Digimon Adventure film, also directed by Hosoda! Those are still available: (affiliate links)
Digimon the Movies Blu-ray Box
Digimon Adventure Movies 1 and 2 Blu-ray



The original DVD release of the film is also being re-released next week, with all the original extras for 2,450 yen and is available to pre-order at CDJapan: (Affiliate link)
Digimon Adventure: Children's War Game (with Digimon Adventure the Movie)



Children's War Game is also being included in the Digimon Adventure 1999-2001 Blu-ray box coming out this week.

The box will be released on March 6th, 2021 (the day before the 22nd Anniversary of Digimon Adventure beginning.)

The price is given as an 'affordable price' for an anime Blu-ray box of this size (but still not cheap), 39,800 yen. This is under the cost of the standalone Blu-ray series boxes that Adventure, 02, Tamers, and Frontier each had (and also cheaper than the standalone DVD boxes the shows had gotten prior to Blu-rays.) More info on the set can be found here.

Pre-orders are currently open at CDJapan. (affiliate link)