Digimon Movie BD-Box is Out! Scans, Screencaps, and Discussions- Updated w/ Sales

[MarcFBR]

The set is out, and after a day of fighting with a few different scanners I got the stuff scanned and can now write about it.

First thing I gotta do is thank the people who donated so we could get the movie set. Hopefully we get donations and I can do this again when the Adventure BD-Box comes out in two months.

After the scans of the packaging itself I'll get to each movie. I won't be reviewing the movies, but will have a few screencaps of each and give my opinion on the job done on the film in the box.

I scanned everything at 1600dpi (the second time around... when I'm less drained I'll explain all the issues, which led to me using a scanner that I haven't touched in almost a decade.) I edited it all minorly, made it a size that was more viewable, saved it, then jpg compressed it all. I'll be throwing up more high resolution stuff and PNGs later (want to get it up now without to much of a hit on the server.)

The screencaps themselves will all be lossless PNGs from moment one.

I'll embed the JPGs but not the screencaps themselves because they are very large.

First up we have the paper slipcover that covered part of the box.



It was so large I had to scan the back piece separately. This is where you get all the details so potential buyers know what it is they are buying, without messing up the visual theme they want the box to have (it's not stuck on with glue or tape, so when you unwrap the plastic it just falls right off.)



All 5 sides of the box itself. The design is based on the design of virtual representation of the internet from movies 2 and 4.



The front and back of the short booklet that comes with it. Haven't scanned the booklet because I was concentrating on getting all the new stuff and screencaps done. The booklet itself just has 2 pages of information on each film that is taken from previously available sources. Nothing new that I could tell.


Each cover, disc, and menu uses previously available poster imagery for the 2 films on each disk. I won't comment on them much because we've all seen the art on them many times (if there is a detail in the text you want to know about please ask, I'm sure someone in the thread who can read Japanese will comment on it for you.)



http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_menu.png



http://images.withthewill.net/02_menu.png



http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_menu.png



http://images.withthewill.net/frontier_savers_menu.png



http://images.withthewill.net/bonus_menu.png

The bonus Blu-ray with the shorts has a menu on boot up to select 2d or 3d. None of my displays are 3d, but emulating one in Blu-ray software popped up a menu that looked identical (minus that I assume if you are actually watching it in 3d that the menu has some sort of popup effect.)

The bonus CD has a holofoil type label, so it didn't scan particularly well, but I did my best to clean it up in Photoshop.

On to the movies!

Overall I feel positive, neutral, and negative all at once regarding the visual quality of the Blu-rays in general.

It appears for each film Toei used a pre-existing telecine scan with minimal clean-up or alteration done. These were likely done as the films first came out, and were downscaled to make the previous DVDs. They were likely done in 1080i. That in itself isn't completely a bad thing, properly done 1080i can often have the separate fields put back together to make a native 1080p picture. I mostly bring it up to explain just how old these film scans are.

Edit- Movies 1 and 2 definitely are new masters, leaving the original text as is, but wanted to add this in to make clear I called it wrong when I originally looked at them all quickly. Likely a combination of being overcritical, not having seen them look like this before, and not pulling out DVDs for comparison. Also a good lesson to sometimes take a step back rather than looking at it from a foot away going 'ehhhh... does this look right?'

Each movie I'd generally say is the best it's every looked, which is the positive.

The negative is of course, with a modern film scan and cleanup and processing they could have looked so much better (especially early digipaint scenes that show up once in awhile that nowadays would be scaled up much cleaner.)

The neutral is of course... it's Toei... is anyone really shocked they went almost as minimal as can be?

Most of the movies have a single old letterboxed commercial for the film that aired on TV. Previous DVDs weren't stuffed with extras, but there were some things that could have been included (a few interviews and other promotional ads for the films.)

I didn't sit through each entire film for this. I went to random scenes in each film to get an idea how the film looked in motion, and give my thoughts below based on both how it looks in motion, and double checking what I believe I saw in motion with the screencaps I've posted.


I've taken 3 screencaps for each theatrical film.

http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_1_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_1_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_1_3.png

The first Adventure movie fares rather well. Colors look generally rich, and we can see some good detail. Not perfect, but rather nice.


http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_2_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_2_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/adventure_2_3.png

Bokura no War Game also fares pretty decently. Minus the lower resolution digipaint items (the first screencap has some good examples of this with the computer equipment. Of course, those digipaint assets are long since gone, but it feels like some sort of filter could have been done to those specific things to look a touch less choppy (sitting back from the screen will certainly help for scenes like that.)

Hosada's signature red/orange outline suffers a bit here since compression for the color red has gotten much better than it used to be (although reds can still confound video people from time to time. I recall reading this is why they wanted to use as much blue as possible on Optimus Prime in the live action films, so they could avoid dealing with it.)

Taichi and Yamato entering the internet still keep the no outline ephemeral otherworldly look, and it's nice to see the effect holds up so well.


http://images.withthewill.net/02_1_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/02_1_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/02_1_3.png

Never been the biggest fan of the third movie and it's very long title, but it feels like this one was treated especially poor. The slight haloing around some objects in the picture, along with the overall 'smearyness' to the lines makes me wonder if this film was just upscaled off lower resolution assets. Not every scene feels this way, but a few have a very 'Q-Tec' feel to them (like Sora in the first screencap.)


http://images.withthewill.net/02_2_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/02_2_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/02_2_3.png

Diablomon Strikes Back looks a bit better. The film has always had a very soft look to it and this continues on the Blu-ray. The shot of Miyako looks a bit smeary, but that could be artistic based on the weird angle the shot is doing. The film in general continues the trend that the Blu-rays have had of 'its better than it ever looked before... but it's not great.' This is perhaps the one that makes me think the most that they used old telecines... the framing on this one is signicantly off compared to the others (Except movie 3, which had it also, although not quite as much) and this was always an issue with the original DVD of this movie. Worth mentioning that while the framing is still off, it does look quite a bit better than the old DVD (some minor correction done for the Blu-ray perhaps.)


http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_1_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_1_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_1_3.png

First Tamers movie has some haloing around the linework, but no smearyness this time... Not much to say about this one, it's 'eh'


http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_2_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_2_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/tamers_2_3.png

This one looks better than the first Tamers movie. Still not great, but looking better. I think part of it is that the color pallette in this film feels a touch bolder than the last few movies, so it just pushes past the 'alright' quality to just sort of look better.


http://images.withthewill.net/frontier_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/frontier_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/frontier_3.png

And it's time for Frontier to swing in and finally be the champion of the Digimon franchise with a proper remaster! Nope... just kidding. Again, we have one that looks alright... a lot of haloing around linework (perhaps an ancient sharpening filter to try and make the animation look sharper on the big screen?)

I wish there was at least one of these that just looked amazing... with that we come to the end of the original batch of Digimon films, because Digimon went on a break after Frontier. A few years later though Digimon came back with Digimon Savers, and that got a movie...


http://images.withthewill.net/savers_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/savers_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/savers_3.png

And swing and a miss for the newest Digimon movie. Somehow the Savers movie actually seems to look the worse. The film overall has a sort of dirty look to it... I'm not sure if it was upscaled and done poorly... it doesn't really look like an upscale to me, it just doesn't look good. More haloing... the most recent Digimon movie doesn't look great, but again... I'd say it's the best the movie has ever looked visually.


And we finish off with the bonus disk which has the 2 theme park short films (2 caps of each here.)

http://images.withthewill.net/bonus_1_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/bonus_1_2.png
http://images.withthewill.net/bonus_2_1.png
http://images.withthewill.net/bonus_2_2.png

So OF COURSE... these look pretty good. I honestly expected these to look alright at best, especially the Adventure one, which is pretty old for a CGI ride movie. Neither is pristine, but both look pretty good. Ironic that the bonus stuff probably looks the best...


Overall none of the movies really look great, minus the first and the second (minus a few digipaint issues). I tend to be pickier with video than most people, but I'd be surprised if someone sat through the entire set with no complaints. I have little doubt that these are the best the movies have ever looked on home video, but it's disappointing because they could look so much better.

Let me know what you think, ask any questions you have, request screenshots of specific scenes, etc. and feel free to discuss the set. If you got the set, let us know what you think. Did I hit the nail on the head, or do you think I'm completely wrong? (It's been a long day to put this together quickly... if I've missed anything feel free to point it out also.)

Honestly, it's not a terrible set... and I've seen far worse. For the era most of these films come from from Toei it's roughly what was expected... but Digimon deserves better... if only because they could have done better without much trouble.



Update- Sales Information has come in (thanks ANN!) In it's initial week (the week counts as January 5th thru 11th, the set came out the 9th) the movie BD-Box sold 5,190 copies which puts it at number 2 on the Blu-ray charts (behind Frozen, which is just destroying all other animation in Japan.) Some notable releases coming out the same week that it beat are: Slam Dunk Collection 4, Black Bullet Volume 7, and the first Blu-ray box of Kamen Rider Kabuto.

 

[MatthewZMD]

Thank you so much for sharing the scans!

 

[Sabrblade]

Most impressive, indeed. Very thorough in the coverage.

 

[Theigno]

so... that's it? Not a single newly scanned movie? Seems I really got my expectations too high on this release, since I was really kinda getting used to older anime movies getting really good transfers but I guess I have been spoiling myself in that regard and didn't take into account toei being lazy and pulling off a meh job...

At least my favorite movies of the bunch, 7, 6 and 2 were on the better end of the spectrum. I feel sorry for movie 3 I always thought it to be kinda lame and I don't plan to watch it that often compared to the others but I always found the animation quite nice and it might have been one of the prettiest Digimon movies had it gotten a decent film transfer... but god, that first screencap of Sora really scares me, with it's weird overfiltered look that makes the lines seem like they were drawn with a wet brush or something.

for now I'll just wait until the box arrives for me so I can see if maybe some of the movies will look better in motion (although I don't expect them to) I'm especially curious about what exactly is going on with the savers movie... like is that dirty looking stuff static, is it some kind of grain, some kind of sentient alien life form infesting the video...

One thing I noticed about the 3D movie stuff... V-mon really looks like it has fur for some reason, when was that ever a thing?
Also, on the movie titles that are printed all over the box Ornismon's name is romanized as "Onisumon"

edit: hey, looks like this little rant just happened to be the 600th post that made me "Completely Digital"... goodbye to my analogue existence then...

 

[MagicBox]

I've been playing with my set for a few hours now. So far, I've watched the first movie and the CGI shorts in their entirety, along with select scenes of everything else.

I agree that none of the films look perfect. I'd certainly never call myself a videophile, but I can pick up on certain issues and I know when something displeases me (even if I have trouble describing exactly what it is I'm noticing). You already mentioned most of the things I noticed (and way more). I really have nothing to add. I guess if I got really specific... there were a couple shots during the Parrotmon fight that I remember seeing and thinking that they looked a little too dark (as if they crushed the blacks for those shots or something), but it's hardly worth mentioning and I feel weird even bringing it up at all. Also, there was always this one shot from the first Adventure 02 movie's DVD that really bothered me. It's when Cherubimon causes Holsmon to revert back into Poyomon/Hawkmon. You could see a big black bar on the right side of the shot; the framing drove me crazy. I instantly checked that scene in the blu-ray and it's no longer a problem. Hooray! I did notice that both Adventure 02 films looked awfully soft, like you said.

It's not perfect, and I was hoping for more, but I'm satisfied. Of course, I'm used to watching these movies on things like YouTube, so it's likely that finally being able to see these on a decent HDTV is clouding my judgment.

The menus looked nice; everything was very straightforward and easy to navigate. The box feels great, and the booklet's got some great artwork (most of which you can also find in the "Digimon Animation Chronicle" book, but that's beside the point). It would have been very nice of them to port over the individual bonus features from the original DVDs, but I never expected them to. I only own the DVD for the Savers movie, but if anyone's curious, the only bonus features on that disc were creditless versions of the TV openings and endings. No real loss, but it would have been neat to get the interviews from the Frontier movie's DVD and things like that.

If anyone's curious about the bonus "Our War Game" CD, don't be. Every piece of music here is also located on the first TV soundtrack for Digimon Adventure 02. If you own that CD, you've got everything this bonus disc has to offer. We've known it was going to be like that ever since we got the track listing. What really annoys me is that this isn't even all of the music from the film! You still have to buy the "Diablomon's Counterattack" soundtrack if you want the complete score from "Our War Game." There's no excuse for this soundtrack CD to be so incomplete, especially since we're expected to pay a premium price for this thing, but hey, that's Japan. At a mere 18 minutes, this CD is criminally below capacity (which, again, is nothing new from Japan). I still wish the CD could have included select music from every movie instead of glorifying "Our War Game" yet again. It drives me crazy to know that I've bought "Requiem" on CD three times now, yet I still don't have a way of owning anything from the Frontier movie's soundtrack.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. Er, well, not "very" happy. I'm just happy. I don't regret buying it, at least.

 

[MarcFBR]

so... that's it? Not a single newly scanned movie? Seems I really got my expectations too high on this release, since I was really kinda getting used to older anime movies getting really good transfers but I guess I have been spoiling myself in that regard and didn't take into account toei being lazy and pulling off a meh job...

You always hope... but it's always in the back of your head "you know... this is Toei."

screencap of Sora really scares me, with it's weird overfiltered look that makes the lines seem like they were drawn with a wet brush or something.

It's very reminiscent of the filtering a company called Q-Tec does, they very often are called in to upscale anime for Blu-ray releases.

for now I'll just wait until the box arrives for me so I can see if maybe some of the movies will look better in motion (although I don't expect them to)

It'll sound funny, but never underestimate how moving video, and not being right next to the screen (standard in looking at video and caps on a PC, but rare with viewing on a TV) will do to make something look better.

I'm especially curious about what exactly is going on with the savers movie... like is that dirty looking stuff static, is it some kind of grain, some kind of sentient alien life form infesting the video...

I'm torn on if the film stock is artificially grainy, or if they purposely added some kind of artificial grain filter to it to get a weird look... it does occasionally happen.

One thing I noticed about the 3D movie stuff... V-mon really looks like it has fur for some reason, when was that ever a thing?

I saw it more as just a 'texture,' but not a specific texture of anything. Generally speaking if you don't add some kind of texture to 3d objects, they look unusually artificial and lifeless.

there were a couple shots during the Parrotmon fight that I remember seeing and thinking that they looked a little too dark

I recall colors in general always being very dark in that fight... but I don't always remember

It's not perfect, and I was hoping for more, but I'm satisfied. Of course, I'm used to watching these movies on things like YouTube, so it's likely that finally being able to see these on a decent HDTV is clouding my judgment.

DVD compression is some of the heaviest most destructive digital compression you can have done to something (at least in the modern world of video.) The only sources for these movies were based on DVDs. Toss on Youtube compressing AVC as far as it will go... and add on that the original DVDs weren't that great to begin with... it's pushing the footage to it's limit.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. Er, well, not "very" happy. I'm just happy. I don't regret buying it, at least.

I still to that it's the best the movies have ever looked, even if it's not really as good as they should.

 

[mozyss]

amazing,thank you for your sharing

 

[Unknown Neo]

Thanks a lot Marc. This is awesome. I'd almost want to have it.

 

[MarcFBR]

I still stand by everything I said in my post but...

It's hard not to be impressed watching movie 2 on a big TV. It all looks so vivid and lush...

I'm seriously inclined to wonder if maybe they did new masters for movies 1 and 2, because those are the oldest, yet they look far superior to the others...

 

[MagicBox]

I still to that it's the best the movies have ever looked, even if it's not really as good as they should.

Oh, I totally believe that. Video quality's on the low end of my very few complaints, and the fact that this set looks better than any of the DVDs is really all I could ask for. Everything certainly fits my standards, even if I can see that they're not as perfect as they could be. I run into so many worse-looking home video releases that I would feel silly to dwell on anything from this boxset for too long. I can sit back, relax, and watch Japanese Digimon legally, in good quality, on my HDTV. To be able to actually say that outweighs any complaint I could muster.

I've only just now noticed that the boxart doesn't exclusively reference "Our War Game." The chain of Kuramon from "Diablomon's Counterattack" is also on the box, along with some of the tanks from the Frontier movie. There's even a V-Pet from the first Tamers film on there. I'm surprised I didn't notice any of that until now, but I really like it. It's subtle, but it's nice to see them acknowledging that the other movies exist. I was getting a little sick of the constant "Hey! Our War Game! Our War Game! Look! Our War Game!"

If anyone's wondering, the original stereo tracks play on the Adventure movies by default. The "pseudo-5.1" tracks can be chosen at the main menu, and you can toggle between both of them during playback. The 5.1 tracks are nice, but I find myself sticking with the original stereo mixes more often than not.

 

[MarcFBR]

Someone asked me via a PM with the chatroom if X-Evolution was left out because they lost the masters or for some other reason.

X-Evolution could be left out for two potential reasons.

1- Toei is deciding to be overly pedantic and not including it because it doesn't have Digimon in the title since officially it's "Digital Monsters X-Evolution"

More likely though is...

2- Despite being animated and designed to be a big theatrical worldwide CGI film, Toei seemingly got cold feet and just trashed it as a TV special, so it never actually was a theatrical released film. Despite it obviously being a movie, even if it was released on TV, Toei's actual animation catalog lists it as a TV special, which is why X-Evolution isn't in the box.

We've never even seen the full film, the version that aired was cut down (I don't remember the exact details but I want to say we had confirmation it was going to be around 95 or so minutes when the plan was to do it theatrically.) Someone else who was around back then might remember more

Hopefully with more emphasis on the brand maybe Toei will do a proper Blu-ray of the film.

I've only just now noticed that the boxart doesn't exclusively reference "Our War Game." The chain of Kuramon from "Diablomon's Counterattack" is also on the box, along with some of the tanks from the Frontier movie. There's even a V-Pet from the first Tamers film on there. I'm surprised I didn't notice any of that until now, but I really like it. It's subtle, but it's nice to see them acknowledging that the other movies exist. I was getting a little sick of the constant "Hey! Our War Game! Our War Game! Look! Our War Game!"

Yep, I only mentioned 2 and 4, but there are little details to look for from more than a few things.


Also, since the fandom hasn't had Blu-rays before if people want me to dig into the technical aspects and explanations of what's going on in the various films as far as being in HD, I have no issue writing more, but I have no idea if that's something you guys want to see (with many more screencaps to help show what I'm talking about.)

 

[B-mon]

I think I see Locomon somewhere on there, and I suppose the various signposts are a nod to Movie 3. I've never actually seen Movie 8, so I'm not sure what to look for.

 

[Sabrblade]

1- Toei is deciding to be overly pedantic and not including it because it doesn't have Digimon in the title since officially it's "Digital Monsters X-Evolution"

Yeah, what was up with that, anyway? Why'd they market it as "Digital Monster" instead of "Digimon"?

 

[MarcFBR]

1- Toei is deciding to be overly pedantic and not including it because it doesn't have Digimon in the title since officially it's "Digital Monsters X-Evolution"

Yeah, what was up with that, anyway? Why'd they market it as "Digital Monster" instead of "Digimon"?

I believe the idea was they were... at least going to try, to market it as something other than Digimon to try and get away from the "it's Pokemon, but with a different word in front thing" that has popped up from time to time. You know, try and market it as something a bit less 'kiddy' (which is especially odd since X-Evolution makes no attempt in it's writing at all to not be Digimon, minus not having humans around.)

It's sort of like how every so often we get an attempt to do a franchise without it's name to make it seem more serious or mature- They've tried calling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'Ninja Turtles' and 'TMNT', the last few Batman movies were 'The Dark Knight' instead of Batman, the last Superman movie was 'Man of Steel,' they tried calling the last Star Trek series 'Enterprise' but gave up on that after 2 years and renamed it Star Trek: Enterprise. Warner more than any other has a huge habit of doing this when they try and make a show teens and adults will watch based on DC characters... I can't remember the last time prior to The Flash that they used the proper name in the show... it may have actually been the last time they did a TV show of The Flash... oh wait, the one show was called Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman... so I guess that counts.

Every so often a franchise owner feels an obligation to try and expand the audience and seems to be under the impression the problem is the name.

 

[Unknown Neo]

That's funny but maybe if we'd get over trying to make something "more mature", we'd get over the name too.

 

[Sabrblade]

1- Toei is deciding to be overly pedantic and not including it because it doesn't have Digimon in the title since officially it's "Digital Monsters X-Evolution"

Yeah, what was up with that, anyway? Why'd they market it as "Digital Monster" instead of "Digimon"?

I believe the idea was they were... at least going to try, to market it as something other than Digimon to try and get away from the "it's Pokemon, but with a different word in front thing" that has popped up from time to time. You know, try and market it as something a bit less 'kiddy' (which is especially odd since X-Evolution makes no attempt in it's writing at all to not be Digimon, minus not having humans around.)

It's sort of like how every so often we get an attempt to do a franchise without it's name to make it seem more serious or mature- They've tried calling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'Ninja Turtles' and 'TMNT', the last few Batman movies were 'The Dark Knight' instead of Batman, the last Superman movie was 'Man of Steel,' they tried calling the last Star Trek series 'Enterprise' but gave up on that after 2 years and renamed it Star Trek: Enterprise. Warner more than any other has a huge habit of doing this when they try and make a show teens and adults will watch based on DC characters... I can't remember the last time prior to The Flash that they used the proper name in the show... it may have actually been the last time they did a TV show of The Flash... oh wait, the one show was called Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman... so I guess that counts.

Every so often a franchise owner feels an obligation to try and expand the audience and seems to be under the impression the problem is the name.

I can see that. But, I kinda always figured that when companies try for an alternate, more "mature" name like those examples you cited, they try for a "less is more" name that is short and clear. Had X-Evolution just been called "Digital Monster" and nothing else, I could see this being the case no problem. But it's "Digital Monster X-evolution", which is a bit more of a mouthful than the likes of "TMNT", "The Dark Knight", "Smallville", "Arrow", etc.

(I also recall some sources claiming it had a full title of "Digital Monster X-evolution: The 13th Royal Knight", but the actual movie doesn't have this)

 

[MarcFBR]

Initial post has been updated with sales information from Japan.

 

[Theigno]

Finally got the BD set myself and after watching most of it on a big TV I have to say that I'm overall quite pleased with it. Even if in most cases it doesn't shine in terms of sharpness the movies just look so much better just because of the colors. With a larger color space and hugely increased bit rate compared to the compression we had on the DVDs, everything just looks much more vibrant now (and I've been watching scenes frame per frame and taking screenshots the whole day...)
a few comments on some other stuff...
Why is the F of the frontier logo suddenly red? That wasn't the case even on the movie DVD and in the menu it's blue again... mysterious, mysterious...
the griminess of the savers movie wasn't as distracting as I expected it to be. probably because this kind of effect stands out in bright uniformly colored surfaces and most of the movie has a darker muddy feel as in terms of style it's almost post-apocalyptic.
The haloing is truly annoying in most of the movies, the first and the seconds seem to be the only ones that are are not plagued by it.
...and of course I'm quite happy that the set has great sales.

anyway, now that we got the movies in HD it might be a good time to do some treasure hunts about background stuff animation oddities and other things that might now be more apparent than before...

 

[TedBanias]

We've never even seen the full film, the version that aired was cut down (I don't remember the exact details but I want to say we had confirmation it was going to be around 95 or so minutes when the plan was to do it theatrically.) Someone else who was around back then might remember more

Oh, so THAT'S why plot points just appear and disappear out of nowhere and none of it makes any sense. I wondered if it was just the version I found on YT that had had bits cut, but that explains my inability to follow the film a lot better.

But in any case, it's nice to see the official films released together, even if they're seen minimal to no improvement since their initial release. Good to see it's sold pretty well in Japan too.

 

[MagicBox]

The X-Evolution special received a DVD release, didn't it? So they removed completed scenes for the television broadcast and didn't even restore them for the home video release? That's the first I've heard of that, but that's baffling if true.

anyway, now that we got the movies in HD it might be a good time to do some treasure hunts about background stuff animation oddities and other things that might now be more apparent than before...

This was probably already noticeable on the DVD version, but I've only now just noticed that the cover of AiM's single for "Friend ~I'll Never Forget~" is on a billboard in the city in "Diablomon's Counterattack" when V-mon and Wormmon are being swept away by the Kuramon.