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After being announced via an image teaser roughly 2 and a half years ago, with a more formal announcement 2 years ago, we finally got the 20th anniversary Digimon movie, Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna, right before the Covid pandemic began.
The home video release was likely delayed a month or two due to this without us ever really knowing, but it's finally here.
I won't be reviewing the movie itself, just going over the actual Blu-ray release. Actual review thoughts will wait for the US release in about a month.
While I'm not going over the movie itself, scans and screenshots below 'may' reveal spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie and don't want to be spoiled, this will be the only warning (and some of the embedded screenshots do have spoilers.)
There was enough here that this will actually be the 1st in a series of articles/posts about the release. This one will be about the physical package for the Blu-ray Deluxe release, along with the contents of the Blu-ray itself.
Some of the books were glue bound. I did not debind and scan them due to lack of time, and not wanting to deal with debinding them. A few photos are provided in that case. Based on if I get extra copies of the books in the future, scanning them may be revisited, but there are no plans for that now.
Scanning was done as high quality as I could do, and compressed and shrunk to reasonable sizes, along with reasonable quality JPG compression. I've explained my workflow in my personal thread and will answer any questions involving it or the processes used.
Scanning this time went very smoothly. Scanning went well, editing went smoothly. In fact, it went so smoothly I did some extra cleaning up on some of the more art showcase type scans.
Any screencaps from the Blu-rays are lossless PNGs.
All images in the article are smaller copies from our gallery (to keep loading sizes smaller for everyone), but link to the full sized versions when clicked.
First up will be all the physical stuff.
In addition I've taken photos to help show off the set better.
We start with... an obi card!
This obi card covers the front, spine, and back of the box and contains various product details so that the box itself ends up clean.
The left side has the movie logo, and above that is the 'To all the children who walked with Digimon' marketing text. There are also labels showing this is both the Blu-ray and deluxe edition.
The spine portion has the logos, deluxe edition market, and has the stylized 'Kizuna symbol'. This as done so that since the obi covers the symbol on the spine, it's still there.
The right side goes over cast, staff, and the contents of the set.
The left and right sides also have portions that fold into the box for grip, but there is nothing on them, so they weren't scanned.
On to the box itself!
The new artwork for the box is pretty great. Both sides feature new artwork from character designer Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru (returning for the movie from the original series.)
On the front we have artwork of Taichi and Agumon holding hands with the Digivice shining inbetween them. Behind them is Agumon's new evolution, Agumon: Bonds of Courage.
The other side features the same style of artwork for Yamato and Gabumon, with Gabumon: Bonds of Friendship behind them.
The spine has a vertical version of the movie logo. I'm not sure the logo works like this to be honest. The Last Evolution text seems out of place. But of course, it does do the job of showing you the title on a shelf well.
The new artwork really is nice and striking. It's done to an amazing high quality and looks nice and it's fantastic for Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru to continue to do new art for the franchise.
The only negative is I had hoped they would continue the 'characters running' theme from the various TV Blu-ray boxes the last few years. The drawings he had done for those were interesting, and it would have allowed more characters to be included in the new artwork.
The bottom of the box includes various technical and legal details. The top of the box was blank so was not scanned.
Inside the outer box is the digipak that holds the discs!
The outside of the digipak includes new artwork by Seiji Tachikawa, the chief animation director of the movie. This type of image actually 'does' continue the theme of the digipaks from the TV boxes (specifically the 1st in each set), which has generally been more casual images of the characters.
This one features all the kids and their Digimon at a pier at sunset. It's a rather gorgeous and detailed image and you can tell that Tachikawa went all out.
The image shows off a ton of personality from the characters, and is just a fun and nice image to look at.
The digipak itself is a tri-fold model, with both disc trays on either side, with the movie logo in the middle. The backing is a rainbow of colors with the digital square effect we've seen used in marketing a bit. The primary focus though, is on a large range of screenshots from Digimon Adventure, Zero-Two, tri., and Kizuna.
The center 'page' appears to have a number of the most well known and strongest remembered images from content before Kizuna, with most of the Kizuna images used on the center portions being either from heavily marketed moments, or shots that would be easily recognizable in general.
It's a really nice touch for a movie made as a 20th anniversary film.
The center page didn't have any plastic for added rigidity, so it was bowing while scanning. The crop on the scan is loose to make sure as much of the imagery could appear as possible. Thanks to Logan for his help with the joins.
And of course, the digipak holds the discs...
The Blu-ray uses the art of Taichi and Agumon from the digipak. It also contains the movie logo, the 'digital square' theme, and various logos and legal text.
The audio drama CD does the same with Yamato and Gabumon.
It's a nice reuse of the art. Although with the audio drama focusing on the 02 gang, using one of the kid/Digimon pair of them would have likely worked better. Yamato and Gabumon were likely chosen to keep the cohesive theme of the Blu-ray set being around them.
The digipak unfolds quite large and looks impressive. I'm not the hugest fan of digipaks (they never quite feel solid enough to me, and they are prone to bending), but having the big tri-fold packaging with giant art really does make the set look nice.
The box also contained a few different booklets.
The 'special' booklet. The front cover uses the familiar teaser poster art of Taichi and Agumon, which from when we first saw the 'sketch' version of it was teased as being from an important scene in the movie.
The back of the booklet has the movie logo inside the Digivice countdown effect.
This is one of the booklets that was thicker and glue bound.
The special booklet is a nice equivalent of the general 'basic but nice' content booklet you often get with anime films. It includes a basic introduction and plot synopsis at the beginning.
It has an interview with director Tomohisa Taguchi. Plus it has the standard character art and profiles you'd expect from this type of book alongside various 'Memory' shots from Adventure, Zero-Two, and tri. Images of items, backgrounds, and a few storyboards are also included.
Some of this content will be translated shortly.
The next booklet is a storyboard book. The cover has the digital square effect, with the 'flat' version of the English movie logo down the left side. A big version of the Kizuna symbol also appears, giving it a really nice pseudo-minimal look.
The back keeps the same general theme, flipping the English logo to the other side, skipping the 'big' Kizuna synbol, and having the movie logo in the middle.
This is one of the booklets that was thicker and glue bound.
The storyboard booklet contains the entire storyboard sequence for the opening scene of the film.
The last page even has a little sketch of Hikari and Tailmon on it.
The last booklet is 'Thanks from Staff'. It contains drawings from a number of staff members as a way to to say thanks for supporting the movie. The front and back continues the digital square motif.
This booklet was not glue bound and will show up soon.
If you pre-ordered the movie you got a bonus item...
A mini shikishi featuring new artwork of Agumon and Gabumon.
This was advertised as coming with early pre-orders while supplies last.
Various stores also had their own exclusive pre-order items...
CDJapan, and it's Japanese equivalent Neowing, had a small can badge. It's rectangular with rounded edges, and features the movie poster art.
This was where I got it from, so this is an actual scan of the badge.
Other store exclusives are the promotional sample art.
Amazon had 2 exclusive versions that included some combination of: a tote bag, a b3 size clear poster, and 3 A4 size clear files. They featured new art of Taichi and Agumon eating, along with shots from the movie.
Animate had a B5 size art board with new artwork of Taichi and Yamato, with partially transparent art of their Adventure character designs behind them.
Rakuten had a 2L size bromide print of Taichi and Agumon.
Yodabashi Camera had an acrylic plate featuring artwork of Mimi, Sora, Hikari, Miyako, and their Digimon. The artwork was used in a few places around when the movie came out.
Kamishin had a set of two can badges featuring SD artwork of Taichi and Agumon.
Seven Net has an acrylic plate featuring the movie poster art.
And amiami had a set of 4 can badges featuring Taichi, Agumon, Gabumon, and Yamato, using their art from the movie poster.
The last physical thing included with the Blu-ray was a single ad sheet...
A basic sheet for the upcoming first Blu-ray box of Digimon Adventure: using the intiial poster art for the series.
And now... onto the disc contents itself!
I haven't yet watched the full film, so video and audio comments are based on spot checking. The overview should apply to the full film unless there is actually some sort of issue. I may come back later and update some of this if necessary.
The video is encoded using AVC at an average bitrate of just under 23 Mbps. Decent bitrate for animated content in general. Kizuna is encoded at 1080p and 24 frames per second. This is generally more towards the lower end of the bitrate we've seen for Digimon content on Blu-ray. The movie has a lot of solid colors, so the bitrate should be fine, as it appears to have been encoded correctly.
The bitrate appears to have been chosen to make sure the film would fit on a single layer disc, so it'll be interesting to see if there ends up being any difference from the upcoming US release, if it ends up on a dual layer disc.
The audio is a 5.1 PCM track. Good uncompressed 16-bit audio. The audio is generally smooth and crisp and is effectively what you would expect from a movie release. There isn't much to say about the audio because it's exactly what you would expect for a theatrical film.
No subtitles are included, which is expected.
The video quality is roughly what you would expect. It's digital animation, and appears to be encoded well, so it looks good. I would expect some potential shots of banding or aliasing, as we tend to see with these, although minus maybe some very mild aliasing in a few shows, it looks pretty good.
A few of the redder shots look a bit fuzzy, but at the moment it's hard to tell if that's from low bitrate or artistic styling, etc. It may become more clear with upcoming releases, but it's unlikely to be noticeable while actually watching the film (staring at a screenshot from a couple inches away from the screen tends to give you a different look at screenshots compared to watching actual content.)
While the bitrate is a touch low, it isn't unusually so (it's about a hair under the halfway point of where the various Japanese tri. discs were.) Expanding to a dual layer disc might have potentially made it look nicer in theory, in practice it probably had no effect, especially in real world watching, but that is something we will hopefully be able to tell when the US disc is out.
Time for extras!
Kizuna has the standard extras, but things go a bit wider than you would expect.
First up, the standard collection of trailers, commercials, and so on incluces:
Extra Special Information- This was the trailer played at Digimon Thanksgiving in 2018 when they formally announced they were working on a new movie, narrated by Taichi and Agumon.
Special Information- This was the first trailer showing animation from the film, which was shown at Anime Expo 2019. This is the version with Japanese text onscreen.
02 Character Gathering Special Video- This was the preview of a scene from the film revealing the 02 kids were in the movie, shown at DigiFes 2019.
Trailer- This is the full movie trailer shown a few months before the movie came out.
Last PV- This is the 'last' movie trailer that was released shortly before the film came out, featuring Bolero.
Countdown Video Collection- In the last few days leading up to the film countdown clips featuring the characters were used to promote the film on social media. This contains all of them.
15 Second Commercials- The short commercials used to advertise the film on television and elsewhere. Each of these has a menu entry.
Action
Drama
The Last Evolution
Encounter
A few of these footage from Adventure that appears to be from the Blu-rays a few years ago, while some others use what appear to be done new footage that was scaled up a bit iffy.
Then there is a clean version of the ending, without any visible credits covering anything.
The last extra is quite sizeable, and new for Digimon. We get a commentary. The first half of the movie has commentary by director Tomohisa Taguchi and producer Yosuke Kinoshita. The second half has commentary by Natsuki Hanae and Chika Sakamoto (Taichi and Agumon respectively.)
The extras, minus the commentary, are pretty standard, but that little bit extra helps it feel all the more special. With it being a full theatrical film it is also able to avoid the issue tri. had, which was discs had to be prepped for early release, before some promos were edited, leaving them to be released later.
The menu features animation from the movie and looks nice in general, if perhaps a bit overkill.
The menu itself has clips from the movie playing, while appearing to be in the 'digital red space'. The menu text itself is in English and appears over the hexagon pattern that has shown up in a few places for Kizuna.
The menu selector itself not only highlights the text, but has the Digivice countdown symbol itself appear.
The chapter menu is over 2 pages and highlights chapters nicely in yellow with the Digivice countdown.
The audio menu does the same, and makes clear what you are choosing, and having the commentary there is actually a nice touch, if not for one thing...
The extras submenu is where things feel a bit overly complicated. There are 3 selections, but 2 of them take you to different submenus.
You get a listing for the commentary, the clean ED, and the trailers/commercials.
If you click commentary, you get taken to a commentary submenu, which clarifies which is which half, and jumps you to the proper section with the commentary selected. With this here it makes it a bit odd that it was also included in the audio selection menu. (They could have skipped that menu entirely and just had the commentary be a seperate title track using the same video.)
The trailer/commentary submenu looks nice if a bit complicated to have submenus inside submenus. Everything is labeled well, so it works. The way the commercials are surrounded in aqua is a nice touch.
No screenshots of the pop-up menu if you call it up during the movie. It is simply the bottom portion of the main menu (hexagons and text boxes.)
A few more photos of the contents of the deluxe Blu-ray release.
Kizuna got a really nice Blu-ray release in Japan. The disc contents, which also apply to the standard Blu-ray, are a bit more than you tend to expect, and everything feels well done. The biggest flaws are that the menus are perhaps overcomplicated, and that a dual layer disc 'might' have given more room for the video to breathe potentailly, but it all comes across as well done.
The deluxe physical package adds to it a decent amount. You get a really nice outer box, a digipak with new artwork of all the characters, plus the nice screenshot effect on the other side of the digipak. You get multiple booklets with content to enjoy. And that's before even getting into the audio drama featuring the 02 kids, which acts as a prequel to the film. (We'll talk about that in the future.)
It's a great release which shows off the movie, and even integrates a bit of the 20 years history of Adventure into it. If you aren't worried about any of the 'deluxe' contents, the disc itself is the same as the standard one.
You hope to see this type of release where effort was paid to it, and extra effort was put into it.
More to come from Kizuna!
We've begun to get information about the movie charting quite highlighy in Japan in sales.
The Japanese Blu-ray and DVD releases are still available to order. CDJapan links are affiliate links:
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna Blu-ray Deluxe Version (CDJapan)
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna Blu-ray (CDJapan)
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna DVD (CDJapan)
Various details on store exclusives can be found in the original article, and an updated one here.
The US Blu-ray and DVD release of Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna is currently scheduled for October 6th and is up for pre-order at Amazon: (affiliate link)
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna BD/DVD
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna DVD
A digital release in the US will be a week prior to the home video release on September 29th.
Screencaps were taken largely at random while jumping around (although if I knew a moment was coming up I wanted a cap of, I'd wait or take extras.)
Various additional screen captures are in our gallery:
Screenshots of the movie and menu.
The scans can all be found in the gallery.
The scans are very small compared to the master scans I did (the work and backup folder structure for the scans and screencaps was over 57 gigs.) I will try and make wallpapers if people are interested. If you want to see a specific screencap of something give me a rough timecode if you can.
Lots of Digimon stuff is coming out soon and supporting us via our Patreon or donations would be greatly appreciated so that we can do more breakdowns and improve the site. Feel free to join us in the Discord if you want to chat.
More things to come!
Images are hosted on our gallery and embedded on the forum, so let us know if anything is acting up.
