Well, that was good. Very good. Just rewatched it so here is my over-analysis.
Mimi was my favorite of the Adventure girls by quite a bit, and the reboot seems to be channeling her end-of-series version rather than the one at the start. While she's clearly playing with the Queen and servants stuff, she's also extremely serious about living up to that. She's responsible, sharp enough to realize having a digivice means she'll have to leave before anyone mentions it and to notice that the video is slowed down before Taichi or Sora, somewhat throws tantrums when she thinks she'll have to abandon the Tanemon, goes from almost crying to indulging her Queen fantasy once Taichi and Sora promise to help, self-aware and confident enough to admit she's scared and courageous enough to keep fighting anyway. Basically best girl, once again. Her idolization of her grandfather is an interesting addition, and I wonder if we'll get more exploration on her family.
Her relationship with Palmon is pretty good too. Palmon clearly indulges her during the first few scenes, but immediately drops the pretenses and honorifics once things turn dangerous. She's also perceptive enough to notice Mimi is scared, and immediately stops once Mimi stops walking in the end to look at her.
Ogremon showed some good planning. He seems to have expected the frontal assault to fail, and planned to separate all the children. He sends the Tuskmon to try for a lateral one to get Taichi and Agumon away, Coredramon seemingly baits Sora and Piyomon away from Mimi later on, then of course he always had a Drimogemon prepared, and seems to try to attack them right before the evolution triggers, as well as later tries to attack Mimi directly while Togemon is occupied. Despite the caveman dialogue, he's shown himself to be pretty smart, and his pain and shame at the end after Greymon broke his horn makes me wonder how his character will play out. Both him and Coredramon had glowing red eyes at one point, which has also been the case with every brainwashed digimon. Adds more fodder to the "Ogremon is being controlled" theory.
A couple other bullet points I wrote while rewatching the episode:
- Taichi makes sure to not forget his original reason to come to the Digital World. He also does not immediately cheer when the tuskmon fall into the trap (unlike Agumon and Palmon), because he knows the battle is just starting. Mimi doesn't cheer either.
- Agumon is the only one of the group who does not say he is hungry. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries to smell for food. A big change from Tri, and a welcome one.
- Palmon and the Tanemon did not immediately notice Taichi and Sora weren't digimon. Or at least, Palmon didn't treat them as something strange. Maybe they didn't recognize they weren't digimon until Mimi saw them?
- The Tanemon do not speak. Does anyone remember if Koromon spoke in episode 1? They clearly understand language and how Mimi is feeling, they just don't speak.
- OST while Mimi is introducing herself sounded very stereotypically european, probably channeling them for the "Royalty" feeling.
- Agumon and Piyomon gossiped about the Tuskmon, introducing them to us. Palmon immediately realizes what the Tuskmon plan to do, showing she knows the layout of her area. They really do feel like they've lived in this world their whole lives.
- Sora knows who the president of Tachikawa Industries may be.
- The throne moves from the middle of the village to directly in front of the fruit trees. Not a continuity mistake, just a curious bit that implies Mimi asked them to move it just for this fight.
- Greymon is capable of one-shotting two Tuskmon at the same time with Mega Flame, which is consistent with last episode. He is only capable of holding them back in CQC, though.
- Palmon did not realize the battle wasn't about the fruit until Ogremon mentions the children.
- Palmon's evolution sequence has petals. Lilimon reference?
- During the Greymon vs Ogremon fight, while Taichi is focused on them, Sora instead notices the fight between Togemon and Drimogemon. When Mimi stops walking at the end, Sora also knows without asking why she did.
- Palmon devolves without explanation. I don't think we'll get an explanation of why some Adults remain on their evolved forms for a while and why some devolve immediately after the fight.
The Yamato-centric ED is starting to feel very misleading, though I guess we'll get swamped by Yamato-centric episodes eventually. As of right now, my ranking of the characters would go Taichi = Mimi > Koushiro > Yamato > (Hikari) >Sora. Next up, serious angry Jou and a V-Tamer reference episode.
