Characters / Digimon Adventure DigiDestined

For the Character Sheet index of Digimon Adventure, go here.

---

In General

• Animal Motifs: Based on the attributes of their Digimon partners, and evolutions tied to the Digiegg with their crest. Tai - Dinosaurs, Matt - Canines, Sora - Birds, Izzy - Bugs, Mimi - Plants, Joe - Sea Creatures, T.K. - Angels and Kari - Holy Beasts.
• Badass Crew: They're a group of young humans destined and even managed to save The Digital World helped by their respective Digimon partner.
• Brought Down to Normal: Between Adventure and 02 they used the power of their Crests to release the Four Holy Beasts, but couldn't evolve their partners past Adult by themselves afterwards. This actually brought them down to lower than normal - Homeostasis explains in Adventure that the Crests are more stabilizers than they are power boosters ("tools to help your Digimon evolve correctly"), and that they didn't need them like Tai and Kari didn't need them in the prequel movie with the big Agumon. During the World Tour arc of 02, Azulongmon grants them one of his DigiCores, allowing them to evolve to Perfect again.
• The Chosen Many: A group of children chosen to save the Digital World.
• Color-Coded Characters: Via their crests, crest empowered digivices, Transformation Sequences and merchandise and branding. Tai - Orange, Matt - Blue, Sora - Red, Izzy - Purple, Mimi - Green, Joe - Gray, T.K. - Yellow, and Kari - Pink
• Connected All Along: At first, only some of them know one another, and only peripherally in some cases. Eventually, Homeostasis reveals they were chosen because they all witnessed a battle that took place between a Greymon and a Parrotmon during the period they were younger and all lived in the same apartment complex.
• Demoted to Extra: With the exception of T.K. and Kari, the cast appear significantly less in 02, with much of the focus going instead to Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken. They shoot back to prominence in tri.
• Dub Name Change: In an interesting variation, the characters did get to keep their original first names, but went by nicknames throughout the show. The only exception to this is Hikari, which was changed to "Kari", as the show dropped that format halfway into the show. In the South Korean dub, however, all of the characters' names were changed into Western or Korean names to comply with South Korean broadcasting rules, which limited/banned Japanese content due to political tension between the countries.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna shows them all approaching adulthood.
• Losing the Team Spirit:
  • They all go through this when Tai disappears after the fight with Etemon. After failing to find him, the kids all go their separate ways and fail to do anything important for months on end. When Tai finally returns to the Digital World, he has to track them down and get them back together.
  • They go through this again early on in the Dark Masters Arc as the result of watching several of their Digimon allies die for them. The pressure and ensuing Survivor Guilt cause low morale and infighting within the group, to the point that some of its members (Matt, Joe, and Mimi) decide to leave in order to ultimately collect themselves. Once their issues are dealt with, they return with new-found resolve, strength, and allies to help defeat Piedmon and his forces.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The English Dub justifies most instances of Dub Name Change as them going by nicknames. Subverted in at least one case, though, as a nameplate on Izzy's bedroom door reading "Koushirou" was left unchanged.
• Power Limiter: According to the Adventure novel, the physical crests act as this if one of the kids' signature traits is motivated by evil intent.
• Punny Name:
  • Yamato and Takeru's names are derived from Japanese folk hero Yamato Takeru... which is kind of like having two characters named Arthur and Pendragon in a western work.
  • Sora and Mimi are from soramimi, which is the Japanese word for the intentional Lyric Swap of a song with words from a foreign language. Yes, the Japanese have a word for that.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Of The Chosen Ones variety.
• The Team: The Digidestined ultimately fulfill team roles according to the Crests they are attuned to them, but they need character development to get there. Tai is the headstrong Leader (Courage), the strongest, and the one who keeps the team together. Matt is The Lancer as a more thoughtful loner, Tai's primary foil, and rough equal in power. Interestingly, he has the Crest of Friendship and becomes a teamplayer. Sora is the Team Mom (Crest of Love!), looking after everyone particularly the younger members, but can also be a Shorttank Action Girl when the need arises.Izzy is The Smart Guy with the Crest of Knowledge who understands the technical aspects of the digital world better than anyone, an all around computer whiz, and Tai's Side Kick when needed. Mimi (with character development) becomes The Heart as is natural for someone with the Crest of Sincerity. Joe is the Team Dad who feels responsible for the others as the eldest, which fits perfectly with his Crest of Reliability. T.K. is the Tag Along Kid as the youngest of the team who initially is just "Matt's kid brother". However, his cheerfulness and upbeat attitude sync up with his Crest of Hope. Kari is a Mysterious Waif with the Crest of Light who has several inherent abilities that interact with the forces of light and darkness.
• Two Girls to a Team: At the start of the series, Sora and Mimi are the only girls in the group. Kari joins later.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: As of Digimon Adventure tri., since in almost every scene the characters are shown wearing a different set of clothes.

Taichi "Tai" Kamiya

Taichi "Tai" Kamiya (Taichi Yagami)

DigiDestined of Courage

Played by:

Japanese: Toshiko Fujita (Adventure and 02), Natsuki Hanae (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Gaku Matsumoto (tri stage play)
English: Joshua Seth (regular voice), Jason Spisak (Revenge of Diaboromon), Wendee Lee (one line in episode 19 of Adventure)
Spanish: Gerry Meza (Latin America, Adventure), Enzo Fortuny (Latin America, 02), Blanca Rada (Spain)

"You can do it, and even if you can't, we won't think any less of you, man!"

Tai is the first season's leader, and bearer of the Crest of Courage. He's a reckless blockhead at times, willing to jump into anything, and this gets him into serious trouble when he gets the idea in his head that, since the Digital World is digital, he can't be killed. The realization that this isn't the case freezes him right in his tracks, and when he overcomes it, he makes the proper jump from "not afraid" to "courageous." Despite his recklessness, he's a warm, encouraging guy, very friendly, and the team just doesn't work without him.

He comes from a normal family, living with his parents and little sister, Kari. Kari ends up being a major factor in his character development, as taking care of her forces him to mature from "courageous action guy" into "responsible leader".

In the conclusion of 02, he and Agumon become ambassadors to the Digital World.

---

General Tropes

• Anime Hair: His hair is both very big and spiky.
• Balloon Belly: His stomach has become like this due to his Big Eater tendencies.
• Big Brother Instinct: Taichi is very protective of Hikari. He cooks for her and feels her forehead when she's sick in her debut episode, and when she falls sick in the Digital World, he goes crazy in desperation as he tries to look for medicine for her. Part of why he's so protective of her is because when they were little, he made her come outside to play with him when she was sick, causing her condition to get worse to the point that she almost died. He's been ashamed of himself for this ever since and has tried to be better for her sake.
  • Takeru sees Taichi as a brother figure, and this tends to be a source of resentment from Matt.
• Big Eater: This guy has a pretty big appetite.
• Cool Big Bro: He often looks out for Hikari, and she idolizes him a lot.
• Crossdressing Voices: In Japanese, European Spanish, Italian and Arabic. Dropped for 'Tri.', when he is nearly an adult and is finally voiced by a man in all versions.
• Curtains Match the Window: Brown hair and brown eyes.
• Deadpan Snarker: Granted, this is mostly due to the Gag Dub.
• Depending on the Writer: The writers cannot decide whether Taichi has ever been interested in Sora romantically. Barring comments from the cast, Hiroyuki Kakudou, the series director, had never intended Taichi to be romantically interested in Sora because he found it too cliche and their personalities incompatible. According to him, it "doesn't exist". However, the writers for tri. have played up Taichi, Sora, and Yamato's relationship as a Love Triangle as the new series is aimed towards an older demographic and official polls have shown that shipping plays a huge part of the fandom's interest in the series.
• The Determinator: As the bearer of the Crest of Courage, he is determined to go further. At first, in a very impulsive way and then calmer.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Played With. The original series director never intended for Tai to have romantic interest in Sora at all. However, in 02 and tri, his relationship with Matt and Sora is clearly portrayed as a love triangle; regardless, Matt marries Sora in the end.
• Dub Name Change: English first name is an abbreviated version of his Japanese name, which isn't that odd in the Digimon franchise. What is odd, though, is that due to a mistranslation his Japanese last name - Yagami - was changed for the dub into... another Japanese surname: Kamiya.
  • In the Korean dub, his name is changed to Shin Tae-il along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where he was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Punches Matt when he starts to brood too much to knock him back to his senses. They do this to each other a lot.
• Goggles Do Nothing: In the first series. In the second he claims they symbolize leadership and gave them to Davis. In the third series Izzy makes a new pair that do something unusual.
• The Hero: He is the main character and the leader of the group.
• Heroic BSoD: Once a Season:
  • In Adventure, Taichi finds out that he really can die in the Digital World. Also, when Kari falls ill during the Dark Masters Arc.
  • In 02, Agumon is kidnapped by Digimon Emperor and is forced to digivolve to SkullGreymon and MetalGreymon Virus Type. Then Matt comes and punches him, in a friendly way, to get back to his senses.
  • And in Tri, its a recurring theme. This time after seeing the collateral damage caused by the battle with Kuwagamon he fears killing civilians and starts to question how the digidestined fight their battles in the real world, or if they should be fighting at all.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In 02, Taichi lets Sora give a meaningful Christmas gift to Yamato after finding out she has a crush on him. In tri., he feels awkward about inviting Sora to see his soccer game after seeing Yamato invite her to his concert, with both events taking place at the same time.
• Image Song: His image songs are "Yuuki wo Tsubasa ni Shite"^note "I'll Turn My Courage Into Wings" in Digimon Adventure and "Atarashii Taiyou"^note "New Sun" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Team" with Agumon. He also gets "Eikyuu ni Tsuzuke!"^note "Continue Toward Eternity" on the 10th Anniversary CD. In Digimon Adventure tri., his image song is "Eien no Puzzle"^note "Eternal Puzzle".
• Innocently Insensitive: Taichi is kind and generous, but he's also quite oblivious when it comes to comforting others sometimes, especially in Adventure. He's reminded several times, often by Yamato, to pay attention to the needs of the rest of the group. In Our War Game!, he and Sora get into a fight that lasts throughout the movie, which was sparked by him giving her a hair clip for her birthday and her interpreting that she's not feminine enough. He gets better and becomes more receptive to other people's feelings, but as shown in Loss, he still has trouble finding the right words to comfort other people.
• The Leader: He's the de facto leader at first since he's so headstrong and overbearing. When he puts the team back together later on he becomes the official leader, and takes on a few more level headed traits. Being that he's the one who keeps the team together makes him a charismatic type as well.
• Leitmotif: His theme songs are "Adventurer ~Taichi no Theme~" and "Adventurer ~Taichi no Theme~ #2."
• Lovable Jock: Downplayed. Among the boys in the group he is by far the most athletic and strongest physically, since Matt is a sensitive musician, Izzy is the smart guy, Joe is the reliable medic, and T.K. is the tag along kid. He can be very hot headed and stubborn but he is very caring and considerate of others and not afraid to stand up for the little guy. He also shows some restraint in his fights with Matt. Twice he gained the upper hand against him and had him at his mercy but held back from hurting him any further. Also after roughing up Izzy he quickly apologized for his behavior.
• Meaningful Name: His name has the character to "Sun" (as his crest) and his surname means "eight gods" (as the eight children).
• Nice Guy: Sora notes that even when he goes to the extreme, he always has everyone else's best interest at heart.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: With his counterpart Matt, having their color motifs of orange and blue respectively.
• Promotion to Parent: Downplayed, but definitely there in the pilot (first segment of the movie), where Yuuko leaves him and Kari alone for an entire day (she leaves early in the morning, and only arrives home at sunset, while Susumo only shows-up at the middle of the night drunk), leaving roughly six-year old Tai to look after his sister, who's barely a toddler at this point. The confidence with which he makes sunny side up eggs on the stove, while standing on a chair, suggests he has done so numerous times before.
  • Backfired pretty badly, when he was eight, and took then five-year-old Kari (who was left home alone, again, and not for the last time) out to the playground to play soccer, while she was sick, which resulted in her being sent to the hospital, and almost dying.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the red to Matt's blue, though the roles are switched later on. The main dynamic is that Tai is always focused on how the mission is going, sometimes at the expense of the good of the team while, Matt is the other way around.
• Ship Tease: Tai had ship tease with Sora in Adventure (which was often exaggerated in the English version, as the writers shipped them), despite that Hiroyuki Kakudou never intended for them to be a couple. However, Our War Game! and tri. (in which Kakudou notably was not involved) infamously amped up the ship tease between Taichi and Sora without any additions from the dub.
• Shirtless Scene: Apart from running around in his underwear in episodes 8 and 9, he was also shirtless when he went to the Net Ocean in Digimon V-Tamer 01, at least in the Italian version, which presented the story as a sequel to Digimon Adventure.
• Shonen Hair: Even more apparent without his goggle-strap-reinforced headband to hold it up.
• The Strategist: One of Tai's bigger traits near the end of the first season is that he's good at organizing Digimon in combat. That said, Digimon is not a particularly tactical series, so his orders never get particularly complex. You can see it in Digimon: The Movie, where he gives simple lines like "Circle around!"

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• Always Someone Better: Matt begins to resent him not only for usually being stronger, but because he at times it seems like he has a stronger bond with T.K..
• Badass Adorable: He's only in the fifth grade at this point in time, and he's still willing to get up close and personal with many a stronger Digimon.
• Compressed Vice: The episode after the debacle with SkullGreymon, Tai's regretful but isn't reluctant to have Agumon fight again. The episode after that has Tai so hesitant to fight that the team nearly get their asses kicked by a Kuwagamon.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His outfit has an armband on one side.
• Fearless Fool: He was one at the start of the series, but he displays true courage in the Pilot Movie, causing him to be matched with the crest which he eventually lives up to.
• Figure It Out Yourself: Tai gets this response twice when he asks how to beat the Dark Masters.
• Gone Horribly Right: After getting his Crest, Tai does everything he can to get Agumon to digivolve to the Ultimate level, overfeeding him and finally deliberately endangering himself during a battle with Etemon's Greymon. When Greymon does so, Tai's look of triumph quickly changes to Oh, Crap! before SkullGreymon goes on the warpath.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Was the only character to wear briefs aside from the Ishida brothers, specifically blue with a white band.
• Hit Me, Dammit!:
  • To Matt, whenever their disagreements and arguments go too far, especially when separated by Devimon and when Matt got convinced by Cherrymon to have MetalGarurumon fight WarGreymon.
  • Also to Izzy during the fight against Machinedramon, but far more dramatically as Kari got sick with flu and Tai became desperate to cure her as soon as possible due to a traumatic experience that almost caused his little sister's death.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: His attempt to sing in the Japanese version is this. It's clearly his seiyuu trying to sound as bad as possible. Toshiko Fujita was a pretty good singer, she provided the theme songs for classics like Dororo (1969) and Moomin among other series.
• Hot-Blooded: Reconstructed. At first, Tai was a Fearless Fool who rushed into action without thinking about the consequences, which caused the SkullGreymon incident. After that, Tai proved himself worthy of the Crest of Courage by being more careful about what he did and only being courageous when he had to be.
• Magnetic Hero: The group falls apart without him. It also makes him something of The Heart.
• Percussive Maintenance: Apparently has a lot of faith in it, since he tries it on Izzy's computer in episode 4. Fortunately, an accident with Agumon disabuses him of trying any further... until Our War Games, when he does this again, and causes his computer to blue-screen mid-battle.
• Real Men Can Cook: He manages to whip up a pretty good-looking omelette for Kari in episode 20.
• Shirtless Scene: (In)famously wore just briefs and shoes for most of episode 8.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Force feeding Agumon, which resulted in SkullGreymon. The rest of the kids felt sorry for the poor fire breathing dinosaur.
• Wounded Gazelle Warcry: Knowing that Greymon's digivolution is powered by his courage, as well as Tai himself being in danger, Tai deliberately puts himself in harm's way to force it. It backfires; since this is less "courageous" and more Too Dumb to Live, the digivolution is distorted, and Greymon becomes SkullGreymon and goes on a rampage.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Ambadassador: In the epilogue to 02, he, along with Agumon, has become a United Nations diplomat for the Digital World.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: In the epilogue to 02.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a blue one in the later half.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Davis.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: After Agumon gets abducted by the Digimon Emperor, Tai starts moping. So Matt punches him in the face. Unlike last time, Tai thanks Matt, admitting he needed punching.
• Important Haircut: Shown to have had one in the epilogue to 02.
• Inexplicably Awesome: The first episode has him manage to get to the Digital World on his own, somehow.
• It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: Tai proclaims that Agumon is "the best present ever" when they get to spend Christmas together.
• Passing the Torch: To Davis. He gives his goggles to him after inheriting the Crest of Courage, symbolizing leadership.
• Shipper on Deck: He becomes one for Matt and Sora near the end of the series.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

The bearer of Courage, who is troubled by which path he should choose for his future.

• Big "SHUT UP!": After hearing Meiko blame herself for everything one time too many, he snaps at her. Then he immediately apologises.
• Call-Forward: Tai struggles with an assignment that basically asks "what do you want to be when you grow up." When brainstorming with his teacher he says he wants to see an old friend who lives faraway in a place hard to get to, thinking of Agumon, and gets the suggestion he should study foreign languages if he wants to travel. In the epilogue to 02 he is an ambassador to the Digital World, the very same faraway hard to get to place.
• Disney Death: He falls into an abyss after attempting to save Meiko and Yamato at the end of Coexistence, but Our Future quickly shows he's fine.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: After the reboot in tri., Gabumon becomes embarrassed to call Yamato by his name only, opting to call him "Yamato-kun" instead. He is, however, fine with calling Taichi by his name only, to Taichi's displeasure.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: A new pair made by Izzy that can see digital activity in the real world. He's also as likely to hang them around his neck as wear them above his eyes when they're not on.
• Good Morning, Crono: Kari gets him out of bed in the opening scene.
• Locked in a Room: The others force him and Matt into sitting alone in a ferris wheel to hash out their arguments.
• Maybe Ever After: At the end of Our Future, Taichi is implied to have a crush on Meiko, as he calls her blushing and stuttering while the rest of the DigiDestined are tense and egging him on. The official art of the series provides further Ship Tease by having the two stand near each other next to the Official Couple Yamato/Sora while their Digimon play, and when Agumon gives a bouquet of flowers to Meicoomon in another.
• Mr. Fanservice: Provides more shirtless scene than any other male in Tri.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Downplayed, but he is very irritated when his previously exhausted soccer team perks up when Kari drops off his lunch. Although he is probably more irritated by their sudden change of attitude.
• Ship Tease: He gets a fair bit of it with Meiko during the latter half of the series, Meiko confiding in Taichi specifically during Coexistence, and Taichi being egged on by the others into calling Meiko during the epilogue. While Taichi is more tense in during the call, Meiko is shown more at ease, even addressing him less formally.
• Took a Level in Cynic: He's become noticeably much more cynical than his past self and is reluctant to fight.

Yamato "Matt" Ishida

Yamato "Matt" Ishida" (Yamato Ishida)

DigiDestined of Friendship

Played by:

Japanese: Yuuto Kazama (Adventure and 02), Yoshimasa Hosoya (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Shohei Hashimoto (tri stage play)
English: Michael Reisz (Adventure and 02), Vic Mignogna (tri), Nicolas Roye (Last Evolution Kizuna)
Spanish: Uraz Huerta (Latin America, Adventure), José Gilberto Vilchis (Latin America, 02), Mariano García (Spain)

"I finally got it figured out. If I'm ever gonna change, I have to do it on my own. On my own. The others can't help me."

Matt wants everyone to think he's a brooding bad boy, but he's actually rather sensitive. He has issues trusting people (himself most of all), and he's very overprotective of his younger brother, T.K.. This causes him to be very cautious (although not as cautious as Joe), which results in a lot of clashes with the get-out-and-go Tai. Despite (or perhaps thanks to) all this, his crest is Friendship. The Digimon Adventure PSP game reveals that he has a crush on Sora and believes himself to be competing with Tai for her affections. Tai and Sora are best friends and while Sora has a crush on him, Tai only sees her as a friend.

Matt's parents divorced sometime after the Greymon/Parrotmon fight in Heighten View Terrace, but before the first episode. According to the Radio Drama Two-and-a-half Year Break, Matt was the one who decided that T.K. would go with their mother and he would live with their father. He doesn't have a great relationship with his parents, as he seems to feel abandoned by them. He has very low self-esteem, and seems to feel his only purpose in life is to watch out for T.K.—when T.K. starts feeling smothered by him, he's noticeably dismayed. However, with some encouragement from his partner, Gabumon, he was able to come to terms with his family's divorce, and returned in time to help save the team.

In the conclusion of 02, he becomes the first man on Mars (the first astronaut with a Digimon partner in the original Japanese). He is married to Sora.

---

General Tropes

• Big Brother Instinct: Deconstructed. Matt care's a lot about T.K., though he has a lot of difficulty showing it sometimes. Unfortunately, it can backfire, as in some situations Matt's desire to look out for T.K. will override any other concerns. Like, for example, rushing out into the middle of a raging blizzard hoping he'd be nearby. In the end, he realizes being a big brother to T.K. was all he felt he could do, and as a result would drive away his little brother. He does learn to accept T.K. as an individual, and afterwards, he continues to look out for him. In tri., he checks up on him when Patamon gets infected and hugs him immediately after the reboot happens.
• Breakout Character: Matt is the most popular male character in the series and ranked consistently high on official polls. In 02, he even received his own solo drama CD, and in tri., Knife of Day (his newest band) even released a single in real life.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Has this relationship with Sora throughout the series such as when Hikari is captured by Vamdemon and Yamato starts to beat himself up over it while Sora feels bad for him, and when Yamato leaves the group due to Cherrymon's brainwashing and Sora promises him to look after Takeru in his absence. This is inverted when Sora herself starts to brood after being trapped in a cave and Yamato (along with Jou) must bring her out of her despair.
• But Not Too Foreign: 02 reveals that he and T.K. are 1/4 French on their mother's side.
• Chick Magnet: Yamato is very popular with the girls. In Adventure, this is only limited to an older, attractive woman hitting on him when he tries to hitch the group a ride, but in 02 and tri, he gains a fan following through his band.
• Commander Contrarian: Early on in the series. Whatever idea Tai comes up with, Matt will usually be the first to shoot it down. It's usually a case of him wanting to keep the group (or at least, his little brother) safe, but at the same time, he's not really thinking long term. For example, he believes Tai's idea to climb a mountain to get the lay of the land is too risky, so his alternate plan is to...sit around and do nothing.
• Dub Name Change: In the English dub, he was given the nickname "Matt." In the Korean dub, his name is changed to Matthew along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where he was made part Western in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Matt has an extremely strong sense of justice, and it shows when people disagree with him.
• Image Song: His image songs are "Walk on the Edge" in Digimon Adventure and "Negai Kanaeru Kagi"^note "The Key to Granting Wishes" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Oretachi no Melody"^note "Our Melody" with Gabumon. Yamato also sings "Tobira ~Door~" in his solo drama CD. In Digimon Adventure tri., his image song is "Boku ni Totte"^note "To Me", which is also the ending theme to Confession, the third part.
• Innocently Insensitive: While Yamato is more attentive to how people are feeling than Taichi is, he's not very good at comforting them. When Taichi entrusts Hikari to him during Vamdemon's raid, Yamato only ends up making her cry. In Loss, when Sora is down, he's unable to find the right words to make her feel better, and he also fails to notice her new Important Haircut at the end of Our Future.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rather grumpy and short-tempered, but still is a good person deep down.
• The Lancer: Number 2 in terms of leadership, usually the second to unlock new tiers of power, and Tai's primary foil.
• Leitmotif: His theme songs are "Run With the Wind ~Yamato no Theme~" and "Run With the Wind ~Yamato no Theme~ #2."
• Manly Tears: Matt often tries to give the impression he's the cool, unflappable sort. But he's actually one of the more emotional kids. He easily gets upset, especially on behalf of others, and visibly cries when he gets separated from T.K. for the first time out of worry for him.
• Men Can't Keep House: His dad definitely can't. Matt... does to the extent that he's forced to by circumstance. But 02 has T.K. comment that his home is still pretty darn messy. And when looking in the fridge for something to give T.K., he claims he's looking for something that's "not... expired".
• Orange/Blue Contrast: With his counterpart Tai, having their color motifs of blue and orange respectively.
• The Power of Friendship: His Crest relies on this. As his Character Development progresses and challenges him, he eventually finds out the meaning of friendship by himself, especially with Tai and Joe. Also helps Gabumon to digivolve to his Ultimate and Mega levels.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the blue to Tai's red, though the roles switch later on. True to his Crest of Friendship, he's always concerned with the safety, well being and group dynamics of the team, while Tai is more focused on how good or bad the mission is going.
• Theme Naming: Named after folk hero Yamato Takeru, along with his younger brother.
• Tsundere: According to an interview with Yuuto Kazama (his seiyuu) and Yamaguchi Mayumi (Gabumon's seiyuu), this applies to him. He gets really bashful when people bring attention to him being nice.
• Tsurime Eyes: His eyes noticeably slant upward, contrasted with practically all of the other kids.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• 10-Minute Retirement: After listening to Kari's disembodied entity and being manipulated by Cherrymon, he temporarily leaves the team to follow his own path and get to know himself, having been ashamed of attacking Taichi and feeling as though he's the only one who hasn't matured. Once Piedmon becomes the last remaining Dark Master and Gabumon persuaded him to leave the darkness of his heart, he returns to help Tai in the final battle.
• Aloof Big Brother: To T.K.. A big part of what leads to his breakdown late in the series is that T.K. seems to get along better with Tai than with him. And the one time he gets a chance to reciprocate by protecting Kari from Myotismon, he blew it.
• Compressed Vice: The third episode of the Dark Masters arc has Matt suddenly start exploding at Tai, after over a dozen episodes of them getting along fine.
• Darker and Edgier: He goes dark due to Cherrymon, Puppetmon's right hand man, manipulating and convincing him to fight Tai because of all their disagreements and arguments.
• Death Glare: Pretty good at these whenever he's displeased with someone.
• Fighting the Lancer: He and Tai exchange fists every now and then, but usually just to blow off steam. After being manipulated by Cherrymon Matt finally commands Gabumon to fight Agumon at their strongest levels. Despite being against it, Gabumon goes to Metalgarurumon and starts the battle.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Punches Taichi in the face when he acts too impulsively or stupid.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Grey briefs with a white band.
• Heroic BSoD: When T.K. is taken by Puppetmon, he becomes reckless and his crest loses its power because he separates himself from his friends. When T.K. returns having saved himself, he starts to believe he isn't needed anymore. Gabumon helps Matt realize he isn't alone and the crest is restored, but Matt still spends time away from his friends until he's able to figure himself out a little more.
• Ineffectual Loner: In spite of being probably the most sensitive to the feelings of his fellow Digi-Destined among the first season cast (only beaten out by Sora and Kari), he has a very bad habit of trying to do almost everything he sets out to do on his own. Whenever he starts acting like that, he is almost always at his most ineffective.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: In flashbacks.
• More than Mind Control: Cherrymon brings out his feelings of inferiority against Tai to the surface and sets them at conflict with each other.
• Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: Matt's crest fails after a falling out with the other kids, but once Gabumon affirms his loyalty to him, it works again.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: In Adventure.
• Troubled, but Cute: Yamato is still bearing the aftermath of his parents' divorce and how it has shaken up his family.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Happily Married: He ends up married with Sora. Word of God has confirmed it.
• Mr. Fanservice: In universe and out; he's a Chick Magnet in universe and among the boys is probably the most popular with fangirls, along with Ken, T.K. and (surprisingly) Izzy.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: Averted. He is a true Chick Magnet that makes his fans faint and even has his own Abhorrent Admirer: Jun, Davis' sister.
• Nobody Touches the Hair: He says this in a throwaway line in the dub. Like a lot of stuff in the dub, it sort of disappears into the ether after that.
• Official Couple: He ends up having a relationship with Sora.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He has a pink apron.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

Beneath his cool exterior lies his burning friendship and brotherly love.

• Curse Cut Short: In the English version of Loss, he's cut off by MetalSeadramon half a second short of calling Tai an asshole.
  Tai: Gabumon wanted a special name for you, and I told him you liked to be called "little!"
  Gabumon: Yeah!
  Tai: Haha...
  Matt: Tai, you are such an a—
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Nowadays he's the Foolish one to T.K.'s Responsible. He's more aggressive about things and T.K. often tries to calm down his brother whenever he and Tai fight.
• Locked in a Room: The others force him and Tai into sitting alone in a ferris wheel to hash out their arguments. It doesn't work.
• Number Two: Yamato becomes the leader of the DigiDestined during the first part of Our Future after Taichi's Disney Death.
• Ship Tease: With Sora. Piyomon catches them having a heart-to-heart moment and thinks Matt is singing cheesy love songs to Sora. The Valentine's Day section of Otomedia says that Sora would be making chocolates for Yamato's band.
• Take Up My Sword: At the end of Coexistence, Taichi is seemingly killed in battle, leaving behind his goggles. Yamato takes his goggles and acts as the new leader of the Digidestined.

Sora Takenouchi

Sora Takenouchi

DigiDestined of Love

Played by:

Japanese: Yuko Mizutani (Adventure and 02), Suzuko Mimori (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Suzuka Morita (tri stage play)
English: Colleen O'Shaughnessey (regular voice), Wendee Lee (one line in episode 43 of 02)
Spanish: Circe Luna (Latin America), Marta Sáinz (Spain)

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I'm the only one who can do it."

The group's mother figure, and owner of the Crest of Love. Sora is a sweet girl, but doesn't really see that aspect of herself very well. She spends most of her time mediating fights between Tai and Matt, and keeping the group in line. She doesn't always have the patience for it, but she tries anyway.

Sora's relationship with her parents isn't great. Her mom is a very traditional, ladylike figure who wants her to take up flower arranging, while her father is a professor at a college in Kyoto and rarely home. Sora is convinced early on that her mother doesn't love her; it's not until she unconsciously begins treating Biyomon the same way that she realizes her mother just isn't good at expressing it. They make up during the Myotismon saga, when Sora's mom pulls a Mama Bear on some Bakemon.

In the conclusion of 02, she becomes a fashion designer. She is married to Matt.

---

General Tropes

• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Despite her nature as the team mom, Sora herself is prone to bouts of depression and anxiety that take a serious amount of work to clear. Not helping is that Sora tends to hide her troubles, meaning the others might not even have a clue how bad they really are, something Tai even points out in Tri.
• Cool Big Sis: She acts like a big sister to the group, especially to Mimi, T.K. and Kari. The website of Adventure tri. states that she acts like a caring big sis that stops Matt and Tai from arguing.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the dub, Sora is prone to making cheeky or sarcastic remarks in a bad situation.
• Depending on the Writer: Whether she ever had any romantic interest in Taichi varies on who's on the writing team. According to Hiroyuki Kakudou's Word of God, she is not romantically interested in Taichi and this is reflected in the original Japanese versions of Adventure and 02 where she only likes Yamato. The writing staff for Our War Game! and the English dub put in Ship Tease because of the ship's popularity and because they had assumed that they would eventually become a couple. tri. brought back the Ship Tease and played up Taichi, Sora, and Yamato's relationship as a Love Triangle.
• Distress Ball: Sora is far from being a Damsel in Distress and can hold her own, but there have been numerous instances where she becomes helpless only to show how important she is to Taichi and Yamato. In Adventure, she had to be rescued from Taichi from Andromon and Datamon, and both Yamato and Joe had to come to her rescue when she falls into a dark pit. Loss puts her in compromising positions several times, with most of these scenarios resulting in her being rescued by Taichi and Yamato.
• Dub Name Change: In the Korean dub, her surname is changed to Han along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where she was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: The tomboyish soccer player Sora doesn't get along with her mother, who is a Yamato Nadeshiko who specializes in traditional flower arrangements. However, Sora does experience Girliness Upgrade later in life, switching from soccer to tennis and ultimately becoming a fashion designer.
• Fiery Redhead: She has flaming-red hair and is an active and battle-ready member of the team.
• Girliness Upgrade: Fandom accuses her of being subjected to Chickification, but in reality this is what happened. She used to love soccer and despised her mom's plan for her to study flower-arranging. By Adventure 02, she has traded soccer for tennis and has gladly taken up flower-arranging. She also has longer hair and dresses more feminine. By the epilogue, this is complete with Sora becoming a fashion designer.
• The Heart: Third in command, the mediator between The Hero and The Lancer and Team Mom or Cool Big Sis to the rest of the members. She takes care of them from behind the scenes even when she's too ashamed to show her face.
• Ignored Aesop: Sora's depression was an ongoing plot in the original Digimon Adventure, having difficulty believing in herself or being able to open up to friends and family. By the end of the show she had become more confident in herself and had overcome her depression. Unfortunately this would become her defining story trait, due to the fact literally every animated adaptation related to the original anime has her going through the exact same depression plot all over again, though it doesn't resurface in Digimon Adventure 02 until towards the show's end.
• Image Song: Her image songs are "Ashita wa Motto"^note "Tomorrow I'll Be More"; the song comes in two versions, the only variations are her whispering the last lines of her songs in one while singing them in another in Digimon Adventure and "Shiny Days" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Futari de Habatakeba"^note "If We Fly Together" with Biyomon. In the Digimon Girls' Festival alum, she also sings the image song "Sorairo no Kaze"^note "Sky-colored Wind". In Digimon Adventure tri., her image song is "Yume no Kanau Basho"^note "A Place Where Dreams Come True".
• Leitmotif: Her theme songs are "Straight From the Heart ~Sora no Theme~" and "Straight From the Heart ~Sora no Theme~ #2".
• Love Be a Lady: While she isn't the only girl in the crew, her caring nature as The Heart of the group and her role as the Cool Big Sis and Team Mom fits perfectly with her bearing the Crest of Love. This is still played with, as while she does become more feminine over time, she was the most tomboyish girl between her, Mimi, and Hikari when she first got the Crest.
• Meaningful Name: "Sora" is Japanese for "sky". Guess who has the bird Digimon?
• Nice Girl: She's feisty and tomboyish, yes, but she's generally a good gal.
• One of the Boys: Sora and Tai relate to each other since they played soccer together. Also, in the novelization, she also helped out at camp by doing the chores that are normally reserved for boys while the rest of the girls focused on cooking.
• Parental Abandonment: Mom is emotionally distant and Dad is a workaholic. They work things out, though.
• The Power of Love: She possesses the Crest of Love, and it was her love for Biyomon and the other destined children that gave her power.
• Ship Tease: Sora has ship tease with both Taichi and Yamato depending on the series. Though it's established in 02 that she ultimately ends up with Yamato, tri. continues to ship both pairings at the same time, with the cast calling their entire relationship a Love Triangle.
• Team Mom: T.K. even compares her to his mother at one point. In tri., it's showcased even more; by calming down Tai and Matt after their fight, reassuring Jou to not feel bad for missing the fight with Kuwagamon, going out with the girls for lunch, and helping Meiko look for Meikuumon. It's outright invoked in Confession when Meiko describes her as this. Sora irritably mentions that Tai says the same thing about her.
  • Deconstructed in Loss, where because she takes care of everyone else and she prioritizes making them happy over herself. That means they struggle to understand how to help her when she needs it and when Biyomon rejects her she falls apart.
• Tsundere: Sora becomes a type A "tsundere" in the events of Our War Game!.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• Goofy Print Underwear: A yellow camisole with light blue straps and panties
• Heroic BSoD: Despite the fact that she shows affection towards the team, she doesn't believe in her crest because of her strained relationship with her mother.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Sora doesn't wear sleeves in her main outfit.
• Short Tank: Sora had a tomboyish personality in the first series and wears more athletic clothing than the other female members.
• Signature Headgear: In Adventure, Sora wears a blue helmet-like beanie with light blue straps.
  • Amusingly, according to the movie the reason it disappeared during the Time Skip is that Tai threw up in it after an ill-advised bout of underage drinking at their elementary school graduation party.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Sora plays rough contact sports, wears jeans and sneakers, and holds her own as being generally third in line strength-wise, while Mimi is constantly complaining and longing for creature comforts, wears pink and carries a purse, and is usually the second-to-last to join a fight. After Adventure, they no longer have this dynamic thanks to Girliness Upgrade on Sora's part, where she is now portrayed as motherly and conservatively feminine.
• Women Are Wiser: Sora generally places the needs of the team above her own and often warns Taichi to steer clear of danger. However, in Our War Game!, where she spends the entire film refusing to talk to Tai over an unintentional slight.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Sora's Education Mama, who is one already, wants her to start practicing arranging flowers and pressures her to quit soccer. Later, though, they make amends.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Happily Married: Word of God has confirmed that she ends up in loving marriage with Matt.
• Not So Above It All: When the DigiDestined pick her and Miyako up from Russia, rather than being responsible, she joins Miyako in begging to stay so they could try authentic Russian cuisine.
• Official Couple: She falls in love with Matt and gives him a Christmas present.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

She acts as a mother figure to everyone with her ability to care for others.

• Call-Forward: Sora helps Meiko with her outfit in the second movie, hinting at her later career as a fashion designer in the 02 epilogue.
• Idiot Ball: At the end of Loss, despite knowing the Mysterious Figure is after Meiko, Sora leaves her alone to join the fight against Machinedramon. This allows the guy to nearly kill Meiko, setting Meicoomon off on an unstoppable rampage that lasts the next two movies, only ending when Omegamon kills Meicoomon. Good going, Sora.
• Important Haircut: At the end of Our Future, Sora gets a haircut as the DigiDestined move onwards to the future.
• Made of Iron: Is she ever. When Machinedramon grabs Biyomon during Loss, Sora hangs on to Machinedramon's claw. The Dark Lord responds by smashing Sora repeatedly against a glacier. Despite that, Sora refuses to let go, manages to have a conversation with Biyomon while hanging on, and is ultimately none the worse for wear.

Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi

Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi (Koushiro Izumi)

DigiDestined of Knowledge

Played by:

Japanese: Umi Tenjin (Adventure and 02), Takahiro Sakurai (adult), Mutsumi Tamura (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Kaisei Kamimura (tri stage play)
English: Mona Marshall
Spanish: Mónica Estrada (Latin America, Adventure), Alfredo Leal (Latin America, 02), Raquel Martín (Spain)

"Prodigious!"

Basically, Izzy is the one who can actually think his way out of a paper bag, which is only supported by his Crest of Knowledge. He's very curious and logical, and somewhat unsure of himself socially. He carries around a laptop computer, and his reactions to various problems are nearly always a variation on "If I learn enough, I can fix it."

Izzy is adopted. His biological parents died when he was very young, and his father's cousins adopted him, having recently lost a child of their own. They kept this a secret from him, but he accidentally heard them talking about it, and was devastated. After this, Izzy sank himself into his computer as an escape, probably to learn everything he could. At the same time, he loves his parents deeply and is very well-behaved for them.

Thanks to Character Development and a talk with his parents, Izzy is able to overcome his withdrawn personality better, so that he then can help Tai out of his depression over Kari falling ill during the Dark Masters Arc.

In the conclusion of 02, he has set up a research team to study more of the Digital World.

---

General Tropes

• Adoption Angst: A minor subplot in the series is his knowledge that he's actually adopted; something his parents kept secret from him, and which caused him to retreat into his computer work in an attempt to ignore this knowledge. It comes to a conclusion in Episode 38 where his parents finally tell him the truth.
• Alliterative Name: In the English version he goes by Izzy Izumi, despite the fact that the nickname 'Izzy' comes from his last name. His first name is still Koushiro.
• Badass Adorable: What else can you say about a short, cute nerd who can hack into the mainframe of an entire alternate world? Three times?
• Bad Liar: Izzy tends to babble nervously, laugh awkwardly, and come up with weak sounding stories when he is placed on the spot and asked questions that he can't answer.
  • Adventure tri. has him stuttering a "no" over Mimi saying, "Don't I look attractive?"
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: His eyebrows are noticeably thicker than any of the cast's in all three series.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: In the dub, he's the only one who actually likes Tai's mother's cooking, which includes such things as spinach cookies and beef jerky shakes.
• Cerebro Electro: Izzy is the team's IT expert and is exceptionally smart for his age. His Digimon partner is Tentomon, a beetle Digimon with electric-based attacks.
• Character Development: Izzy starts out buried in his computer, and he doesn't attend to anyone or anything else. At one point, this makes Mimi cry. Later, he becomes braver, trying new things. It gives him the confidence to attend to what's going on around him, and apply his knowledge (and his computers) for the benefit of his entire team. It's saying something that although Izzy walls himself off again in Tri., this time he's doing it in order to better concentrate on figuring out how to save the partner Digimons' lives.
• Character Exaggeration: His "computer nerd" status was exaggerated quite early in the dub. They even had him theorize about aliens.
• Child Prodigy: Izzy is the brains of the team and has a good knowledge of informatics for his age.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Always voiced by a woman in both Japanese and English, all the way into when he is 21 years old in Last Evolution Kizuna, though in the Flash Forward at the end of 02 he is voiced by a man.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the dub, Izzy tends to bring the snark in most conversation, especially if he is explaining something to either Tai or Davis.
• Delusions of Eloquence: The English dub gave him a Catchphrase of "Prodigious!", but rarely, if at all, does he ever say it in a context where said word makes sense. Notably, nobody ever actually calls him out on this.
• Doing Research: The kids would never have gotten very far without Izzy's laptop. It does 98% of everything in the series except digivolve, be a digivice and induce the character development of traits that the Digidestined need.
• Dub Name Change: In the English dub, he was given the nickname "Izzy", although his mother does call him "Koshiro" in one episode. In the Korean dub, his name is changed to Jang Han-sol along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where he was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Generation Xerox: His biological father was a mathematician. His adoptive father remarks that he's "the living image" of him.
• Happily Adopted: He was actually very aware of it before his parents told him after overhearing a late-night conversation. That didn't stop him from treating them as real parents.
• Image Song: His image songs are "Version Up" in Digimon Adventure and "Open Mind" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Sekaijuu no Keshiki wo!"^note "The World's Scenery!" with Tentomon. In Digimon Adventure tri., his image song is "Kioku no Kakera (Koshiro side)"^note "Fragments of a Memory".
• Ineffectual Loner: Inverted, Digivolutions and one-time circumstances aside, he gets more done on his own than the rest of the team combined.
• Leitmotif: His theme songs are "Digital Scratch! ~Koushiro no Theme~" and "Digital Scratch! ~Koushiro no Theme~ #2".
• Mr. Exposition: Comes with being The Smart Guy on an island made of data, and Mission Control for the new kids. In tri he gets so deep into an expository monologue so long he doesn't notice when everyone stops paying attention to him to have side conversations, Tai and Matt getting into an explosive argument, and people starting to leave. He only snaps out of it when Joe makes a passing mention about having a girlfriend.
• Oblivious Adoption: His parents think he's this, unaware that he knew the truth.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The only person, in the dub, that called him Koushiro is his mom.
• Parental Abandonment: Izzy lost his parents in an accident before he was a year old, so his father's cousins (who had lost their own baby boy not long before) adopted him, but didn't tell him he was adopted. He accidentally overheard them talking about it and it caused him lots of angst until they sorted things out, at which point he becomes Happily Adopted.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Comes with being The Smart Guy. Present mainly in the dub, though still crops up a few times in the original.
• The Smart Guy: A Wise Beyond Their Years TV Genius Child Prodigy who scans enemies, comes up with strategies, builds equipment and tends to know the most about how the digital world actually works. He shown to be a competent computer programmer in the third series.
• Spell My Name With An S: His Japanese name was officially romanized "Koushiro." In Digimon Adventure tri., his name was spelled "Koshiro" instead.
• Tell Me About My Father: This is how things got better. And it's one of the most beautifully sad moments in the first series.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Oolong tea. It's made more obvious in tri., where he's almost always seen with it.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• Armor-Piercing Question: Early on, Tentomon asks him if he's got any secrets after several questions from Izzy. It causes him to have a brief flashback to learning he was adopted.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: In a world made of digital information, Izzy's PiBook Laptop is priceless. The Digimon Analyzer reveals that WarGreymon has Dramon Destroyer weapons, which allow him to destroy MetalSeadramon and Machinedramon.
• Dub Personality Change: Izzy has Insufferable Genius tendencies in the Saban dub but he's much more polite in the original Japanese.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Light orange boxers with a white band.
• No Social Skills: He honestly doesn't get why Mimi and Palmon are so upset when he ignores them to keep poking away at his computer, after everyone's been scattered to the four winds by Devimon. Tentomon even points out Izzy's social skills are kind of lacking.
• Potty Emergency: The original reason for Izzy's loss of composure in Our War Game!.
• Shorter Means Smarter: The intellectual, tech savvy member of the team. He's a year younger than Tai, Matt and Sora, and short for his age either way. To make the picture clearer to you, he and Mimi are the same age. He eventually grows out of it and looks more like his age.
• Side Kick: As Izzy is the brains and Tai the leader, Tai counts on him to avoid the dangers like entering Datamon's Pyramid or touring Machinedramon's City. It's notable that, while Sora is the third in command and is usually listed third (such as in openings, endings or in here), Tentomon, his partner, was usually the third one after Agumon and Gabumon to get power-ups.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Mission Control: The role he plays in 02 is similar to this.
• Noodle Incident: Dub only: He claims in "The Emperor's New Home" that his ethernet configuration somehow managed to completely collapse. Note that it's pretty much impossible for that to just randomly happen.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

Through his intellectual theorising, he moves one step closer to solving the mystery of the 'distortion'.

• Crush Blush: Gets one whenever Mimi is near, or somebody asks him about her.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: After pulling at least one night (and almost certainly more) trying to work out how to solve the infection problem.
• Failed a Spot Check: When everyone meets to discuss the Digimon appearing, Izzy launches into a long explanation that relatively quickly becomes background noise for everyone else discussing the recent news coverage. It becomes a little ridiculous when Matt starts yelling at Tai right in front of Izzy, and he still continues his explanation completely oblivious to the fact that nobody is listening to him anymore.
• Geek Physiques: While hard to tell with the art style of tri, Izzy is relatively thin and gangly.
• Heroic RRoD: Working yourself to exhaustion will do that. When Joe finally convinces him to take a lie down, Izzy goes out like a light.
• Ship Tease: With Mimi.
• Teen Genius: A natural progression from his Child Prodigy stage; he's able to afford his own office, create a clothing software that details his own size and weight, and create a new set of goggles for Tai, all while being sixteen.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Despite his huge crush on Mimi, he is by far the most critical of her actions after she sends out Togemon to challenge Ogremon alone for selfish reasons, and winds up accidentally shooting down a news helicopter as a result.

Mimi Tachikawa

Mimi Tachikawa

DigiDestined of Sincerity

Played by:

Japanese: Ai Maeda (Adventure and 02), Hitomi Yoshida (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Marina Tanoue (tri stage play)
English: Philece Sampler (Adventure, 02 and tri), Kate Higgins (Last Evolution Kizuna), Wendee Lee (singing), Elsie Lovelock (Uncut movie dubs)
Spanish: Isabel Martiñón (Latin America), Pepa Agudo (Spain)

"If someone's in trouble, you help them out, even if they tried to pummel you into oblivion."

She's "the girl", basically. Somewhat prissy and spoiled, she doesn't always seem to "get" the situation, and is sometimes rather selfish without really realizing it. Often considered the weakest character in the English dub due to her more girly elements being overplayed in translation. She matures into a kind, sweet, pacifistic figure, befitting her status as holder of the Crest of Sincerity/Purity. However, once she realizes how high the stakes are, she breaks down and refuses to continue, but comes to realize that some fights simply must be fought.

Mimi's family life isn't delved into much. Her parents are hopelessly in love, and like her, not always fully in-tune—but when the danger is ramped up, they prove very brave.

In the conclusion of 02, she becomes a famous chef with her own TV show.

---

General Tropes

• All-Loving Hero: Her compassion, willingness to forgive for the sake of peace, and cheerful demeanor get her a loyal army of Digimon followers — including the Gekomon and Otamamon she darn-near enslaved.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: In Adventure 02 when Mimi Tachikawa is returning from America back to Japan, she is first seen wearing a blue and red T-shirt that bares her belly button.
• Bizarre Taste in Food:
  • In Adventure, when the kids are discussing how they like their eggs, Mimi brightly chimes in that she eats hers with natto (fermented soybeans) and sugar on top. Uhhhh...
  • In tri., she devises her own mix of cucumber roll and jelly-beans on the return to the Digital World. Izzy's not brave enough to risk eating it, but the Digimon sure are.
  • She gets her unique tastes from her parents; one Adventure scene shows that her mom likes to come up with such concoctions as kimchi (a Korean cabbage dish) with whipped cream and strawberries, and her dad is happy to eat them.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Preteen (she's about 10 in the first series), where she often complains about inconveniences and trivial things like her hair frizzing. She grows out of it by the end.
• Brutal Honesty: In short, she has the Crest of Sincerity simply because she is no one but herself. Case in point, right after the SkullGreymon incident she reassures Tai that it wasn't his fault, then immediately follows up by saying that he has screwed up royally.
• Character Development: At first, Mimi was a prissy, spoiled and selfish girl that was averse to fighting. Throughout her adventures in the Digital World, she gained some humility and learned fighting is necessary to protect people she loves.
• Children Raise You: A mild example. When we finally meet her parents, she's actually much more mature and much less impulsive than them.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: She has her moments, one such example is that she carries around broken compasses with the knowledge they are broken.
• Dub Name Change: In the Korean dub, her name is changed to Lee Mi-na along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where she was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Flowers of Femininity: Mimi is the most feminine of the three female Digidestined and her Digimon Palmon is a flower creature.
• Genki Girl: Mimi is the more energetic female in the cast, contrasting with the more down-to-earth Sora.
• Image Song: Her image songs are "Itsudemo Aeru Kara"^note "Because We'll Always See Each Other" in Digimon Adventure and "Super Girl" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Happy Smile" with Palmon. She also sings "Tomadoi"^note "Confusion" in the Digimon Girls' Festival album and "Open Your Heart" in the Natsu he no Tobira drama CD. In Digimon Adventure tri., her image song is "Go My Way."
• Leitmotif: Her theme songs are "Sweet Innocent ~Mimi no Theme~" and "Sweet Innocent ~Mimi no Theme~ #2."
• Like Brother and Sister: With Joe. She usually talks through her issues with him, while he tries to look after her.
• Lost in Translation: in the Japanese version, her crest is the crest of "Purity" instead of Sincerity, which has different connotations in the Shinto religion. Some other related tropes would be This Is Unforgivable! and Kawaisa.
• Ojou: She comes from a pampered, upper-middle class background, and can act bratty and spoiled as a result.
• Pink Means Feminine: Her hat in Adventure is pink and she becomes a Rose-Haired Sweetie in 02, in all series she wears her girliness on her sleeve.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She's princess-like, but don't underestimate her. When she's furious, Mimi can be scary. Just ask to the Numemon and the Roachmon.
• Stylish Sunhats: Her sunhat is pink and tilts upwards, and is larger than her head.
• Valley Girl: In the dub, her characterization is exaggerated to where she often comes across as vain and vapid, though she still has her moments of Character Development that she had in the original.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• 10-Minute Retirement: After seeing several Digimon die for them, she's so distraught that she decides to temporarily stay put to not be a burden to the others. She gets better with time and rejoins the group with reinforcements.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Sukamon and Chuumon, which continues through to 02.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: An entire castle of Digimon waiting on you hand and foot will do that to a girl, especially one like Mimi.
• All Women Love Shoes: While walking through a really warm savannah, someone remarks their shoes are melting. Mimi chimes in at the thought of buying new shoes.
• Berserk Button: Peeping toms, even if by accident. Tai and Izzy once accidentally walked in on her having a bath, and she brained them with thrown objects.
• Big Damn Heroes: With Palmon in Episode 6.
• The Ditz: In the dub, especially in the earlier episodes. For example, when the team goes over their resources, she produces a compass. When asked why the heck she didn't tell anyone this earlier, she states she wanted to see how they'd get along without it. And it's broken.
• Dub Personality Change: In the dub, Mimi is made into an over the top Girly Girl stereotype with Valley Girl tendencies and acts like a Spoiled Brat even later into the series. Japanese Mimi on the other hand is more of a Spoiled Sweet Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak, and her most notable quality is how open-minded she is. That said, she does crack under extreme stress from time to time.
• First-Name Ultimatum: When the DigiDestined are first introduced to Puppetmon, Mimi says he should "bop himself (with his hammer) for how he looks in [his] stupid outfit", which Lilymon calls her on.
• Goofy Print Underwear: A pink training bra and matching panties.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Is she a light-haired brunette?◊ A dirty blonde?◊ A strawberry blonde?◊
• Hidden Depths: She was the only one that thought to bring some survival gear to camp (and Joe even says that she was in charge of carrying the ration bag before they were transported). The compasses couldn't do anything in the Digital World, but a surprising moment for the apparent girly girl.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: In Episode 25.
• Magnetic Hero: Arguably the most prone digi-destined to befriend other digimons as Numemon, Otamamon, Gekomon, Leomon and "even" Ogremon (later).
• Plucky Girl: In the last few episodes, she gets over her sadness and is able to gather an army of ally Digimon to help defeat Piedmon's forces.
• Reluctant Warrior: During the Dark Masters arc, she shown reluctance towards fights and conflicts to the point to quit the team for a time. But few times after, she decides to embrace her DigiDestined status and to continue the battle with the others.
• Poor Communication Kills: She sits out Our War Game by having gone on vacation to Hawaii. And she didn't bother telling her friends beforehand.
• Ship Tease: Occasionally with Joe, though this mostly applies to the dub (it helps that a couple of the dub writers shipped them).
• Single Tear: During the battle with DarkTyrannomon, Mimi realizes that her family and friends are in real danger, and wishes to help. Her tear of anguish lands on her crest. Its symbol is in the shape of a tear. Mimi is rewarded with Lilymon due to her honesty and the fact that this wasn't just selfish whining.
• Skewed Priorities: Way, way too many examples to list in the dub. Mimi ain't thinking on the same lengths as anyone else. Her looks are usually a major focus over concerns like, say, being eaten.
• Survivor Guilt: As the result of the loss of several of their Digimon allies, Mimi comes down with a terrible case of this in the early part of the Dark Masters arc. She loses her fighting spirit and ends up leaving the group, yet she eventually regains her resolve and gathers a Digimon army to help defeat Piedmon.
• Super Drowning Skills: She admits being unable to swim even 25 meters.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mimi is the Girly Girl to Sora's Tomboy. After Sora's Girliness Upgrade in 02, they no longer have this dynamic.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Commuting on a Bus: Since she moved to America in the Time Skip, she appears less often than the rest of the original Digidestined.
• Cool Big Sis: To Yolei who idolizes her.
• Onee-sama: Yolei calls her "Mimi-oneesama" because she admires the older girl.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Dying her hair pink 02 to match her sweet and sincere personality.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: She has the most costume and hairstyle changes out of all the other characters in 02.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

An innocent, pure girl who takes things at her own pace.

• Awesome by Analysis: Once she sees Joe use Mega Evolution, she figures out how to do it too.
• Call-Forward: She's generally associated with food in this series, such as bringing snacks for everyone when she arrives in Japan, and later running the cafe project for school. In the epilogue to 02 she's a chef with her own cooking show.
• Cool Big Sis: To Meiko trying to break her out of her Shrinking Violet shell.
• Curious Qualms of Conscience: A deconstruction of her character development from the old series. She starts out thinking its always good to be totally sincere and say exactly what's on your mind. However when she sees the effect it has on people who disagree with her she starts to question if she's just being selfish and narcissistic.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Mimi has a very individualistic approach to solving things and tends to focus on herself, which is encouraged by Western cultures. When she comes back to Japan, her classmates start calling her selfish by forcing her ideas onto the entire class, as Japanese culture focuses more on self-sacrifice for the good of the community.
• Fashion Dissonance: Some of Mimi's outfits, especially in Determination, seem more in line with popular fashion in the 2010s, not 2005.
• The Gadfly: She often teases Koshiro and Yamato just to see their reactions.
• It's All About Me: She herself, in a moment of Heroic Self-Deprecation, notes that she believes that whatever she does is what she believes is best for everyone in the second film. This causes a PR problem when dealing with an infected Ogremon ends up crashing a helicopter.
• Lack of Empathy: Gets called out on this as the dark side of Sincerity. The other students dislike her for forcing the 'Hooters' idea on them, speaking out of turn, and generally being narcissistic/selfish.
• Ms. Fanservice: Mimi wears more revealing outfits in tri. and a Valentine's Day-themed magazine spread featuring the girls in bikinis spotlighted her in front. In Determination, she's the one who suggested wearing skimpy uniforms for the class café and is enthusiastic to perform in them. When Izzy shows up to the café, the audience is even treated to Male Gaze shots of Mimi's breasts and crotch.
• New Transfer Student: She transfers into the rest of the group's school mid-way though the first film.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She impulsively jumps into a battle with Ogremon in front of the press, thinking that this will prove to the world that not all Digimon are bad. Unfortunately, Togemon accidentally hits a news helicopter during the fight, which only makes public opinion on Digimon even worse than before.
• Ship Tease: With Izzy.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: As established under Nice Job Breaking It, Hero above. With Fantastic Racism against Digimon running rampant, Mimi impulsively decides to fight a rampaging Ogremon in front of the press, hoping to prove to the world that not all Digimon are bad. Unfortunately, during the fight, Togemon accidentally shoots down a news helicopter, which only ends up making public opinion against Digimon even worse.

Joe Kido

Joe Kido

DigiDestined of Reliability

Played by:

Japanese: Masami Kikuchi (Adventure and 02), Junya Ikeda (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Junya Komatsu (tri stage play)
English: Michael Lindsay (Adventure and 02), Robbie Daymond (tri and Last Evolution Kizuna), Eli Farmer (Uncut movie dubs)
Spanish: Víctor Ugarte (Latin America), José María Carrero (Spain)

"I tried positive thinking once. I was positive about one thing: I positively hated it!"

Because he's the oldest, Joe thinks he should be the responsible one and take care of the other kids—too bad he's a total pushover with no self-esteem. He's cut deeply whenever he realizes that people think of him this way, and tries to make up for it with acts of reckless selflessness that make Tai look positively cowardly. Perhaps the closest thing to a father figure in Season 1. His crest is that of Reliability.

Joe's family isn't a big focus, either—it's worth noting that, out of the 12 Digidestined in the first two seasons, his parents are the only ones never shown on-screen. His father is quite strict, being a doctor who wants all of his sons to be doctors, too. Joe's two older brothers, Shin and Shuu, rebelled in their own ways, while Joe is (as always) indecisive.

In the conclusion of 02, he becomes a Digimon doctor (i.e., a doctor for Digimon).

---

General Tropes

• Big Brother Instinct: Really gets to exercise it with Mimi, T.K., and Iori.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Iori and Mimi. He talks them both through their crises of faith and morality dilemmas.
• Butt-Monkey: His nervous breakdowns and worried personality makes him the center of jokes and laughs in the series. By Adventure 02 he had grown wiser and mature... but tri. has the real Joe return.
• Cerebro Electro: A downplayed example. is a very studious student as a kid and becomes a doctor as an adult. His Digimon partner is Gomamon whose ultimate form wields a Thunder Hammer.
• Cowardly Lion: For someone who's often worrisome, he still manages to pull through for his friends when duty calls.
• Cram School: In 02 he's frequently in classes and exams. In one episode he even has to leave a test to help out. In tri, he's the only of the chosen children to be in his 3rd and final year. Struggling with poor grades (a shot of his report card shows mostly Cs and Ds) and his need to study harder drives most of his scenes in Saikai.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the English version, he gains a penchant for snarky remarks.
• Dumber Than They Look: He may wear Nerd Glasses and is concerned with his studies, but he's not actually a good student.
• Dub Name Change: In the Korean dub, his name is changed to Jung Seo along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where he was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Education Mama: His unseen father. They reach a deal, though: Joe becomes a doctor like dad wants, but on his own terms.

• Good with Numbers: In the final episode of Adventure, he mentally calculates how much time they'll have before having to go back to the real world when the summer holidays are over (until Gennai breaks up the news that Year Inside, Hour Outside is no longer in play).
• Image Song: His image songs are "Chigau Boku ga Iru"^note "There's A Different Me" in Digimon Adventure and "Kaze ni Mukatte"^note "Facing the Wind" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Sora wo Crawl"^note "Crawl Across the Sky" with Gomamon. In Digimon Adventure tri., his image song is "I can't".
• Inconsistent Dub: In the Japanese version, Joe's crest was translated as "honesty" on merchandise. However, since tri., they decided to settle on "reliability", just like the English version.
• Leitmotif: His theme songs are "Blue Faith ~Joe no Theme~" and "Blue Faith ~Joe no Theme~ #2".
• Like Brother and Sister: With Mimi. She walks all over him and he basically lets her, but they also confide in each other and are pretty indulgent of each other's eccentricities. The English version implies that Joe has a bit of a crush on Mimi, but nothing comes of it.
• Lost in Translation: His crest's Japanese name, "Seijitsu", can mean "sincerity", "honesty", or "faithfulness". The dub ended up going with "Reliability", which, while not a direct translation, is a pretty good catchall term.
• Lovable Nerd: His special traits are "diligence" and "reliability", which don't much endear him to the cast (he has the only monster partner to routinely sass him) but make him one of the most popular human characters for trying his best to lead and protect the group in spite of their lack of deference to him. And he wants to become a doctor so he can help even more people.
• Nerd Glasses: While Izzy is The Smart Guy, Joe is the one most concerned with academics, has a dweebier personality, and wears glasses.
• Nerdy Nasalness: Has this sort of voice in the English dub. The nasalness gets slightly lower in 02.
• Nervous Wreck: He mellows out in 02 as he matures.
• Nice Guy: To the point of self-sacrifice sometimes.
• Odd Friendship: With Gomamon. Joe clashes the most with his Digimon but they both truly embody Faithfulness and are great partners.
• Papa Wolf: He's a big wuss until one of the other kids is in trouble. Then the badass comes out. See The So-Called Coward.
• The Power of Trust: Faithfulness/Reliability, actually. As in, he's the one you're supposed to have faith in.
• The Reliable One: He possess the Crest of Reliability, and is always ready to help a friend in need.
• Sickly Neurotic Geek: In the dub, he's nervous, jumpy, and sickly.
• The So-Called Coward: Despite an oft-stated aversion to danger - Joe is always vouching for the safest route, choice, etc - he's always the first to throw his own body at these monsters. Because all Joe cares about is everyone's safety, she stated that even when the Mega level Digimon Piedmon is bearing down on them, you knew what Joe was going to do even before it happened-trying to get the other kids out of there without any regards to his safety. Joe is the real badass of Digimon!
• Spell My Name With An S: While the English version was able to evade this with no problems, Joe's name has been spelled inconsistently in various Japanese material. The official website, the opening of Digimon Adventure tri., and some of the shots in tri. romanize Joe's name as "Joe." The official subtitles for Digimon Adventure 02 spell it as "Jyou". The preview trailer and official subtitles for Digimon Adventure tri. spell it as "Jo". Recent marketing seems to favor "Joe" as the preferred spelling.
  • Worth noting that the English-speaking fandom (as seen in, for example, his AO3 character tag) tends to reject all of the above and go with the (also valid) romanization "Jou".
• Team Dad: He's the one that keeps the team together by mediating between Tai and Matt.
• Undying Loyalty: To his friends, this being the nature of his crest; the other digidestined can always count on him to be there for them, and he always puts their safety on top priority.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• 10-Minute Retirement: Not entirely by choice, but close enough.
• Badass Unintentional: Probably the closest example of this trope as the most prone to say he want to leave the Digital Word to continue his ordinary life in the Real World but anyways his badass side came in action when it's necessary like his self-sacrifice to save T.K. against Megaseadramon leading to Zudomon's debut.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In their shared adventure, it's Joe and Sora whose partners are the first to outright kill an enemy, as opposed to all previous instances where they've been possessed by a Black Gear - Ikkakumon and Birdramon blow Lord Bakemon away... and neither Joe or Sora bat an eyelash at this.
• Crazy-Prepared: Before they returned to the Digital World, Joe brought a roll of toilet paper among other things. It was used as a bandage for Ogremon's wounds.
• Forgot About His Powers: During the Myotismon, Joe and Gomamon get stuck at a ferry station thanks to Myotismon's fog, and it takes Joe a while to remember that Gomamon can digivolve into a perfectly suitable mode of transport. Of course, if he'd remembered earlier, he wouldn't have met up with T.K. and Patamon, and the battle with Myotismon might've gone very differently...
• Iconic Item: His emergency bag, which he always carries with him. According to Joe, he was initially carrying it to give it to Mimi.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Light blue boxers with a white band.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Despite his attempts to be the sane one, Episode 2 has him desperately trying to get the beach phones to work long after it's made abundantly clear they're useless (and more to the point, have been smashed by Shellmon).
  • Much later on, in Kokatorimon's ship, Matt, Izzy and T.K. are reluctant to start eating after what happened the last time someone left a fancy spread around (it was an illusion summoned by Devimon). It's Joe who starts pigging in while everyone else is mulling their options.
• Only Sane Man: Or at least he thinks he is at first. One of the reasons why he was such a stick-in-the-mud at the beginning; he thought he was just being reasonable and that the others were actually putting themselves in danger by being irrational, making it his job to look out for them. This attitude wears off in time.
• Ship Tease: Occasionally with Mimi, but mostly in the dub. A fairly adorable example would be when Gomamon tries to get him to admit to thinking that Mimi is charming. Cue the following line from a furiously blushing Joe:
  Joe: SHE'S NOT CHARMING! I MEAN SHE IS! (hushed) I'm NOT having this conversation!
  (Mimi and Palmon just giggle hysterically)
• Shower Shy: He's very uncomfortable about getting into an onsen with the other boys. In the dub, he eventually gets in on his own, but in the uncensored original, Matt and Tai have to drag him in.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Expository Hairstyle Change: Lets his hair grow between Adventure and 02 to show that he's mellowed out a bit.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

As he studies for his entrance exams, he takes on his dream of becoming a doctor with sincerity.

• Dirty Coward: Considers himself one for flaking on the others and shirking his digidestined responsibilities in the first two films.
• Growing Up Sucks: Dealing with his schoolwork and his duties as a Digidestined causes him a ton of problems, leading to Heroic Self-Deprecation.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Despite how diligently Joe works on his studies, his grades are still falling.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: He unlocks Mega Evolution when he finally decides to support Gomamon and rejoin the team, totally unaware that he even had the ability to do so. Izzy speculates if the strange email he received earlier prophesied it.
• Refusal of the Call: Trying his hardest to be the responsible one in real life, but keeps getting faced with digidestined responsibilities. He wanted to leave that life behind a long time ago, and laments being dragged back into it.
• Senior Year Struggles: As the oldest of the Chosen Children, he's in his senior year during tri. He's very stressed about his university entrance exams as he wants to be a doctor. It gets worse when there is trouble again and due to his cramming, he can't help his friends save the world.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: While he's still somewhat of a Butt-Monkey in this series and is struggling with his grades, he does have a girlfriend, and Gomamon achieves Mega Evolution before the other five partner Digimon.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much happier in Confession after getting over his issues from Determination. Also helps that Gomamon finally reached his Mega level.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Casually mentions that he now has a girlfriend, whom he has little time for thanks to school. Everyone else immediately expresses shock and doubts his claim, to his great annoyance, as he insists that it's true and can tell the others don't believe it. This line says it all:
  Gomamon: Is she a real person?

Takeru "T.K." Takaishi

Takeru "T.K." Takaishi (Takeru Takaishi)

DigiDestined of Hope

Played by:

Japanese: Hiroko Konishi (Adventure), Taisuke Yamamoto (02), Hiroaki Hirata (Adult), Jun'ya Enoki (tri, Last Evolution Kizuna, and The Beginning), Megumi Han (PSP game), Kenta Nomimiya (tri stage play)
English: Wendee Lee (Adventure, regular voice), Philece Sampler (episodes 13-16, Adventure), Doug Erholtz (02), Johnny Yong Bosch (tri, Last Evolution Kizuna, and The Beginning)
Spanish: Lupita Leal (Latin America, Adventure), Irwin Daayán (Latin America, 02), Diana Torres^note Pepa Agudo did the crying sounds for baby T.K. in the episode 12 flashback of Adventure (Spain)

"I don't want to fight, ever!"

Matt's little brother, and the youngest Digi-Destined. As the quote may say he doesn't like to fight... but when he does, hoo boy. His crest is Hope.

In Adventure 02, T.K. has grown up a little and serves as the warm, friendly The Lancer of the new Chosen team. Nonetheless, he is a bit more cynical and a bit shellshocked from his previous adventures. Together, he and Kari often explain how the Digital World works to the new kids.

In Adventure tri., he is still separated from Matt but they still get in touch. He also runs a blog where he contacts with Digi-Destined from all around the world and the girls faint over him.

In the conclusion of 02, he becomes an author. He was also Narrator All Along for the 02 series.

---

General Tropes

• Alliterative Name: Takeru Takaishi.
• Big Little Brother: While Takeru is shorter than Yamato in the anime, Takeru's actor in the stage play, Kenta Nomimiya, is taller than Yamato's actor, Shohei Hashimoto. However, the character description for the 2019 Digimon Adventure movie states that he's now grown taller than Yamato.
• Break the Cutie: While T.K. had to witness and overcome plenty of horrible things that happened during his time in the Digital World, out of all those things watching Patamon die right in front of him was the single most traumatizing event he experienced. Even if he didn't stay dead for more than a day, it's shown in 02 that T.K. has been haunted this ever since it happened and it affects a lot of his reactions to the forces of evil. In Part 3 of tri., he is the most visibly affected by the infection and the reboot and spends a good portion of the movie trying to pretend everything is okay when he's close to breaking down completely.
• But Not Too Foreign: 02 reveals that he and Matt are 1/4 French on their mother's side.
• Chick Magnet: His official character description from 02 explicitly mentions that he's popular with girls, and in tri., he mentions hanging out with some of them. In the official character polls, he ranked in #3 as the "Person I'd Want as My Boyfriend/Girlfriend", with the description mentioning that his partner might get jealous since he's nice to everyone.
• Color-Coded Characters: The only inconsistent character. He's Yellow in the context of the first generation in Adventure and tri. and Green in the context of the second gen in 02.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Word of God confirmed that Takeru did not end up with Hikari in a magazine interview◊.
• Divorce Is Temporary: He never gives up hope that his parents will remarry.
• Dub Name Change: In the English dub, he was given the nickname "T.K." In the Korean dub, his name is changed to Ricky along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where he was made part Western in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Takeru is depicted with blond hair, and he also has a generous, easygoing personality that makes him popular with girls.
• He Is All Grown Up: The first thing Hikari says when they meet again in Digimon Adventure 02 is that he's grown taller. Hikari brings it up again in Confession.
• Image Song: His image songs are "Be All Right" in Digimon Adventure and "Focus" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Steppin' Out" with Patamon. In Digimon Adventure tri., his image song is "Kibou no Tsubasa"^note "Wings of Hope".
• Leitmotif: His theme songs are "Little Brightness ~Takeru no Theme~" and "Little Brightness ~Takeru no Theme~ #2." In Digimon Adventure 02, his theme songs are "Happy Friends ~Takeru no Theme" and "Happy Friends ~Takeru no Theme~ #2".
• Nice Guy: T.K. is very kind, and it's his kindness that makes him popular.
• Nom de Mom: Since his mother got custody of him after the divorce, he uses her surname.
• Spear Counterpart: To Kari. Both have an angel Digimon as their companion's evolution.
• Tareme Eyes: Which contrast with Matt's. T.K. is much more cheerful and less introverted than his brother. This trait is mantained in Adventure tri.'s design, even if his eyes design is smaller.
• Theme Naming: Along with his brother, named after folk hero Yamato Takeru.

---

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• All Up to You: The battle with Piedmon is what solidified him as a competent ally.
• Armor-Piercing Question: While Matt is taking T.K. home on the subway, they discuss whether Matt should get off at the next stop prompting Patamon to ask, "Do you not like separating?" T.K. tells him to shut up, sparking a fight between them.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Devimon went out of his way to target him to prevent Patamon from digivolving. It went as well as you'd expect.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Because at the start he is, and Patamon can't even digivolve.
• Break the Cutie: Even without aforementioned Angemon, he also gets separated from his friends and brother for over a week, with only Tokomon for company.
• Children Are Innocent: T.K. thinks he can just walk up to Devimon and ask him where Matt is.
• Dead Sidekick: Death Is Cheap, mind. Patamon just digivolved to Angemon and had to sacrifice himself to defeat the powerful (at that time) Devimon. This was an "injury" that would span to Adventure 02.
• Freudian Slip: In the original Japanese, when helping convince Sora to stay with the group he says, "I don't like it when my family- er, the team is separated."
• Goofy Print Underwear: White briefs with a green band.
• Hope Springs Eternal: T.K. is very innocent and optimistic.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: All of the children are awestruck by Angemon's first appearance, but only T.K. is able to put his feelings into words.
• Morality Pet: For Matt.
• Prone to Tears: He's prone to breaking down in tears somewhat easily.
• Solomon Divorce: Provides the page image. Matt lives with their dad while T.K. lives with their mom.
• Tagalong Kid: Three years younger than most of the cast, two years younger than Mimi and Izzy. As Matt's little brother, he is and is treated as a child among children.
• Took a Level in Badass: The first two times T.K. gets separated from the others, he isn't able to do much, the first time actually has him break down crying. During the Dark Masters arc, when separated from the others he manages to outmanoeuvre Puppetmon and trash his stuff, before getting back to everyone else.
• What Would X Do?: T.K. triggers Angemon's evolution by channeling his brother.

---

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Advertised Extra: He's still part of the team, but he receives less screen time.
• Always Someone Better: Was that way to Daisuke in the beginning.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Good-natured and kind at first glance, mention The Dark Side and he does a 180. Expect a This Is Unforgivable! or two. Physically.
• Blood Upgrade: Reacts this way to Ken Ichijoji whipping him in the face. To drive the point home, it was also mentioned in earlier episodes that Ken had martial arts training. T.K. doesn't, but he still kicked Ken's butt.
• But Not Too Foreign: Revealed to be part French during the World Tour.
• Creator Breakdown: Alluded to In-Universe, in the 2003 audio drama. While he started writing his book about his adventures in the digital world less than a year after 02, the narration notes that it was a long time before he could bring himself to write about what happened to Angemon.
• Deadpan Snarker: He can pull out some good one-liners from time to time.
• Depending on the Writer: Is he resentful of those who try to toy with the powers of darkness without knowing what it entails (Episode 19), those who try to take over the world or do other evil deeds with the power of darkness (Episode 34), or those who create artificial life with the power of darkness (Episode 35)? The only thing anyone can agree on is that Angemon's death in Adventure did a number on him.
  • However, all these conflicts can fit in that he is resentful of those who abuse the power of darkness (which is a very dangerous power).
  • This is revealed ultimately to be the result of his characterization in the Dub being misunderstood. In truth, his conflicted behavior is the result of his Fatal Flaw of repressing his emotions, and expressing it very differently than Hikari (who basically suppresses her own pain in favor of helping others and puts the blame on herself for her pain) by bottling up his problems until it explodes violently.
• Dub Personality Change: T.K. is snarkier and harsher in the dub, especially towards Davis. T.K. teased Davis more frequently — he could be downright unkind in certain spots.
• Fatal Flaw: Much more evident in the Japanese Dub, but similar to Kari he had a bad habit of trying to suppress his fear and emotions in order to keep other people happy and hopeful. However, whereas this resulted from Kari's knowing that she deserves to express her own pain and wants but being unable to do so due to her compulsive need to keep her pain to herself, T.K.'s variant of emotional repression is built more on deflection and denial of his trauma (especially in regards to Angemon's death and his parents' divorce in Adventure), until he eventually reaches a breaking point. When he reaches that point, his repressed trauma bursts out of him in violent rage and irrational anger due to having little means to healthily handle it.
• Good Is Not Soft: He is normally friendly and soft-spoken. Towards an enemy that's pissed him off (like Ken, for example), however, he can be quite violent and unforgiving.
• The Heart: Becomes this after Ken takes over his role as The Lancer.
• I Should Write a Book About This: In the Distant Finale, T.K. became a novelist and wrote about their adventures.
• It's All My Fault: Blames himself for Angemon's sacrifice three years ago.
• The Lancer: For about the first half of the series. Demoted later.
• Narrator All Along: Turns out he was this for the series, as an author. The English dub doesn't follow this by not having a single narrator.
• New Transfer Student: He moves to the school Kari and most of the new Chosen go to in episode 1. This makes Davis very jealous at first because he knew Kari before and is good at basketball.
• Not Himself: When his Berserk Button is pressed.
• Older and Wiser: He grew in wisdom and stature from his clumsy self.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Davis' red until Ken joins.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In theory he becomes a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to his own brother, being The Lancer to The Hero who he constantly butts heads with and has his own personal issues. However, The Hero and The Lancer at odds dynamics is dropped after the first half of the series and T.K.'s personality is very different from Matt.
• Took a Level in Badass: Compare his characterization in Adventure 02 with his characterization in Adventure. And even back then, the kid tried hard to do things on his own. Which made Matt almost flip.
• The Unchosen One: He and Hikari weren't part of the Harmonious Ones's initial plans, but once they noticed Patamon and Gatomon could armor evolve, they adjusted accordingly.

---

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

This child of Hope has grown out of his past crybaby ways.

• Autotune: Takeru's Image Song for tri. is heavily autotuned.
• Break the Cutie: In Confession, he was pretty desperate and distressed by Patamon's infection. Furthermore, as Takeru was afraid that the other digidestined will fight (and kill) Patamon, he didn't tell them about Patamon's infection, which prevents him from receiving some support or comfort.
• Call-Forward: T.K.'s blog can be understood to be a precursor to his career as a novelist.
• The Charmer: Implied when he was in his brother's band backstage. He called more than one girl to tell them the concert might be cancelled, this implies that he had invited two or more girls to the concert (according to T.K., they are just friends). Tai and Matt also consider getting his advice on how to get through to Sora during her emotional breakdown.
• The Dandy: Out of all the boys he seems to be the most interested in his outfits, to the point that Izzy asks him for advice on what he should wear to impress Mimi.
• Fashion Dissonance: T.K.'s new clothes seemed to fit more for the 2010s than the 2005 the movie is set in.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Nowadays he's the Responsible one to Matt's Foolish. He's much more mellow about things than Matt is and often tries to calm down his brother whenever he and Tai fight.
• The Gadfly: His sense of humor runs this way: he makes a mild yet inflammatory comment, then watches in amusement.
• Ladykiller in Love: T.K. is very popular with the girls, but Keitaro Motonaga, the director of tri., has entertained the possibility that T.K. has a crush on Kari.
• Shipper on Deck: For Izzy and Mimi.
• Ship Tease: Some with Kari. T.K. asks her if she's jealous of his female friend but Kari denies this. He also gets some ship tease with Meiko, where he offers to let her call him by his first name and everyone teases him about her in Loss when he defends her decision not to join them in the Digital World.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: While not nearly as volatile as the Tai-and-Matt variant, half the things he and Kari say to each other are gentle snark.

Kari Kamiya

Kari Kamiya (Hikari Yagami)

DigiDestined of Light

Played by:

Japanese: Kae Araki (Adventure and 02), Mao Ichimichi (tri, Last Evolution Kizuna, and The Beginning), Yuna Shigeishi (tri stage play)
English: Lara Jill Miller (Adventure and 02), Tara Sands (tri, Last Evolution Kizuna, and The Beginning)
Spanish: Cristina Hernández (Latin America, Adventure), Tamara Guzmán (Latin America, 02), Rocío Azofra (Spain)^note Marta Sáinz voiced her in her first appearance in episode 21

Tai's younger sister, and the Eighth Child, not that anyone knows it at first. Very kind and innocent, but also often wise beyond her years. She has the Crest of Light, which is only fitting.

In Digimon Adventure 02, even though she has grown up, Kari remains sweet and gentle, having tempered her innocence with wisdom. However, she still has issues that come back to haunt her, usually when she least expects it.

In the conclusion of Digimon Adventure 02, she becomes a kindergarten teacher.

---

General Tropes

• All-Loving Hero: As stated by her brother, Kari always puts others before herself no matter what; even after being hospitalized as a child due to Tai's mistake and nearly dying from her illness, her only concern after being released from the hospital was Tai's feelings.
• Alliterative Name: Her dub name, Kari Kamiya, both begins with a "k".
• Big Brother Worship: Admires her brother, and ends up depending too much on him. She is also very critical towards Davis when he badmouths his own older sibling, Jun.
• Blessed with Suck: Her power takes a physical toll on her. Not to mention that this power seem to attract certain evil forces.
• Cheerful Child: Except when bad things happen, she remains a happy innocent girl the whole time.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Her first appearance makes her look like a Precious Moments figurine.
• The Determinator: Has the same strong-willed attitude as her brother. This is also partly Deconstructed in the first series because of her status as the ill girl. She always put others' needs before herself and pushes herself too hard. When she was young, she had gone out to play football with Tai despite being extremely sick and ended up in coma for 3 days, an incident which Tai recalled when he tried to find medicine to cure Kari when she was sick in the Digital World, lamenting that she might not really wanted to come along, but she had no choice because she's a Digidestined.
• Distaff Counterpart: To T.K.. They have Digimon that digivolve into angels (one male and one female), both are the younger sibling to one of the other Chosen Children, their crests were paired by Azulongmon, their digi-eggs were found at same time and their Armors are both winged with similar binding attacks.
• Distress Ball: Hikari's not a Damsel in Distress, but she's been in several situations where she ends up being rescued by Taichi or Takeru just to drive in the point that she's important to them.
• Dub Name Change: In the English dub, her name is Kari Kamiya. By the time she entered the series, the English dub had done away with keeping the original Japanese names, and her last name was mistranslated. In the Korean dub, her name is changed to Shin Na-ri along with an Adaptational Nationality change, where she was made Korean in order to comply with South Korean broadcasting regulations.
• Dude Magnet: Davis, Wallace, all three the Poi Brothers in 02. By the time of Digimon Adventure tri., Tai's soccer team is more interested in putting on a show for her than actually playing their best.
• The Empath: She can feel the emotions of others, knowing that Cherubimon was different to the forms she met earlier because of it. It goes so far as to feel the emotions of dimensions, as in tri she knows what the Digital World is feeling.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: To the Season 1 cast, besides being Tai's actual little sister.
• Fatal Flaw: This is more explicitly highlighted in the Japanese version, but Hikari is stated to have a bad tendency to repress her own pain in favor of worrying about others, even if it means leaving herself with severe emotional problems that she struggles to resolve, or even just to express that she has any problems. The worst part is that she's entirely aware she has issues, but is compulsively unable to express her own pain. This was somewhat muddied in the English Dub of Digimon Adventure 02 due to her Dub characterization being much snarkier and blunter.
• Image Song: Her image songs are "Holy Light" in Digimon Adventure and "Yasashii Ame"^note "Gentle Rain" in Digimon Adventure 02, plus "Shining Star" with Gatomon. She also sings "Reflection" in the Digimon Girls' Festival album. In Digimon Adventure tri., her image song is "Ring."
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Has both a real-life pet cat and a cat Digimon.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Yes, she's the eighth child - this trope is so far in play that the PSP game trailer outright showcased her and her partner along with the others! The fact that she's prominently featured in 02 and now tri make doesn't help either.
• Leitmotif: Her theme song is "Holy Light ~Hikari no Theme~". In Digimon Adventure 02, her theme songs are "Sunshine Smile ~Hikari no Theme" and "Sunshine Smile ~Hikari no Theme~ #2".
• Light Is Good: A sweet innocent little girl who cares about everyone, no matter her health. She is the personification of Holy Light itself.
• Little Miss Snarker: And you can blame Lara Jill Miller for that. She'll tease just about anyone.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: Hunted by Myotismon because she's the Eighth Child and the holder of the Crest of Light.
• Meaningful Name: "hikari" is Japanese for "light", and guess who has the Crest of Light? Kari also in some languages means "Pure" or "Pure One". This isn't done for irony as with another Light Yagami.
• Naïve Everygirl: Subverted. She is sweet and kind and gentle, but tries her best to hold her own.
• Nice Girl: She always puts others before herself.
• Supernatural Sensitivity: Hikari is sensitive to the presence of other Digimon. In 02, she is very aware of the Dark Ocean and can sense BlackWarGreymon's pain. In Hurricane Touchdown, she feels the presence Chocomon when it takes Mimi, calls it a crying Digimon and leads Takeru to it. On sight, she knows that Chocomon is the crying Digimon. Later, when she sees Cherubimon she knows on site that its not the crying Digimon anymore. In Symbosis she can vocalise how the Digital World feels about the Chosen's presence inside of it.
• Superpower Lottery: In a world without superpowers, Kari is an empath with Holy Hand Grenade abilities, capable of playing host to beings without bodies.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure

• Ascended Extra: Kari was originally not going to be a DigiDestined. When the head writer wanted to add a new member to the team in the middle of the series, he decided to use Kari instead of creating a new character.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: Wears a pink neckerchief.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In her case it's more like "cuteness", but Kari despite being harshly sick to the point any physical activity was dangerous she was never shown with more than a cough or just looking sickly while laying around, she never was shown throwing up nor having any other real issues someone who is dangerously sick can display. Later she is shown literally falling face first on the floor from passing out due to exhaustion (twice) and neither time does she have any cuts or physical harm such an action would usually display on someone.
• Chekhov's Gunman: We're introduced to her in the series as well as find out out that she knows about Koromon and the Digital World BEFORE the search for the 8th child arc starts.
• Creepy Child:
  • Although not at all evil, her mysterious powers and unexplained knowledge makes her seem this way at times.
  • Played for Laughs in the battle between Angewomon and LadyDevimon where she becomes enthusiastic in cheering for the former. The creepy part is that she was borderline bloodthirsty.
• Delicate and Sickly: She gets the Incurable Cough of Death during one episode. It's later stated that Hikari had not properly healed from a huge cold that left her bedridden and unable to join the kids who'd become the Digidestined in their fateful summer camp. Said cold came back with a vengeance when they were in the Digital World, causing Hikari to fall down with a fever that was just as bad as back home — only that in this particular Sick Episode, they had no ways to properly treat her, and for worse Machinedramon was tracking them. It triggered Taichi's bad memories of the incident in which, years ago, he accidentally caused Hikari to almost die of pneumonia. She seems to have grown out of this by the time of the sequel series.
• The Dreaded: Even though he was unaware of her identity for most of the arc, Myotismon was afraid of the Eighth Child so much he conducts a city-wide raid to find her.
• Fluffy Tamer: In Digimon: The Movie, "Big Agumon" seemed less intelligent and more violent than Tai's Agumon, but he still let her ride around on his back.
• Foreshadowing: Her being the Eighth Child is hardly even hidden from the audience. Even from the outset, she and Tai were the protagonists of the original Digimon Adventure short film (the first segment of Digimon: The Movie), while the rest of the heroes only made cameos. That she would be added in the follow up anime was pretty much a given. Further when Tai first returned to the real world after defeating Etemon, Kari already had an affinity for Digimon before anyone was explicitly looking for her.
• Missed the Call: As mentioned above, she was ill. Coincidentally, her partner was in the hands of a Big Bad by then, having been lost as an egg and taken in by Myotismon... which raises the question of what would've happened had Kari not missed the call and gone to the Digital World anyway.
• Out Sick: She would have been with the other kids from the beginning, but she was home with a cold. Suffice it to say that it keeps her safe in the immediate term, but leads to a lot of stress further down the line.
• Power-Strain Blackout: In Episode 49, her little body can't handle the power that she emits. She is able to release enough power to call forth WarGreymon, but she collapses.
• Remember the New Guy?: In the dub, due to the pilot movie not being dubbed until later, we don't even get a hint Tai has a sister until just before the moment she appears.
• Sixth Ranger: She is the Eighth Chosen Child that the team and Myotismon are desperately looking for.
• Super-Empowering: In "The Crest of Light", Kari's crest and body shines with a holy light, which allows Biyomon and Patamon to go Champion-level, Gatomon to go Ultimate, and Agumon to go Mega, even though their previous attempts to digivolve failed (hilariously) due to exhaustion.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: What causes her to digivolve Gatomon into Angewomon? Wizardmon's death.
• Wait Here: Tai leaves Kari with Matt to hide so that she won't get caught by Myotismon. She sacrifices herself to save Matt and Sora after their location is discovered thanks to Phantomon tracking Sora.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure 02

• Advertised Extra: She's part of the core team this time, rather than being the Tagalong Kid, but she is one of those who receives less amount of screen time.
• Badass in Distress: Gets separated from the team during one mission gone wrong, leaving her facing down a Dark Ring-controlled Andromon. Fortunately, it's the Andromon from File Island, and she's able to snap him out of it.
• Berserk Button: As Davis found out early on, do not talk ill about your brothers and sisters when Kari is around. This sweetheart of a girl will verbally tear you a new one.

• Declaration of Protection: How T.K. feels concerning her. However, it should be noted that she is capable of taking care of herself... most of the time.
• Dimensional Traveller: In Episode 13, she manages to open a portal to allow T.K., Patamon and Gatomon to travel to the Dark Ocean. Without her D-3 and a computer, somehow.
• Dub Personality Change: Kari is snarkier and harsher in the dub, especially towards Davis. Kari teased Davis more frequently — she could be downright unkind in certain spots.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: To Yolei, even she's shocked at how uncharacteristic this is for her.
• Gotta Get Your Head Together: She spends a good chunk of her Dark Ocean panic attack in this position.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Light and/or holy powers. In the english dub, she is referred to as "the worst enemy of darkness". Unlike most who are powerless without their partner, she actually exhibits some power on her own.
• Manipulative Bitch: Downplayed. Kari has once or twice exploited Davis' blatant crush on her to get her way.
• Mysterious Waif: Evolving from Creepy Child above. She's borderline telepathic, and soon it backfires on her.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: The biggest thing she is known for is being the original leader's baby sister and in this season being the girl Davis crushes on. Any time she does show anything resembling leadership or independence it is because she "got it from Tai" and even though she is more experienced than most of the new children, she has no chance of being their leader. Not even her own older brother considered her for the role.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She inadvertently reveals the Dark Rings don't work on Ultimates to the Emperor, sparking his creation of the Dark Spiral.
• Oh, Crap!: She's never seen SkullGreymon before, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know it's bad news. The army of DarkTyrannomon sent in to restrain him don't help.
  Kari: Why can't we ever fight anything short?
• Pom-Pom Girl: Daisuke has an Imagine Spot with her as a cheerleader once.
• Quickly-Demoted Woman: Much more notable than with T.K. Kari's advantage of being more experienced than the new children (especially Davis) quickly fades away and she firmly becomes just part of the group. For comparison, T.K. still gets things to do while Kari didn't really do much as a person aside from be the female in a love triangle.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She takes Sora's Team Mom role, also Tai's crush on Sora in the first series is not dissimilar to Davis' crush on Kari, although Davis is a lot more open about it. However, Team Mom role is dropped after the first half of the series and Kari's personality is very different from Sora.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Miyako's Tomboy.
• Who You Gonna Call?: Spoken word for word by her in the dub (not Gatomon) as a Shout-Out when Wizardmon's ghost haunts the Fuji TV Station in Episode 17.

Tropes related to Digimon Adventure tri.

The Light of fate who is able to communicate even with Homeostasis.

• Break the Cutie: In Coexistence, Hikari reacts strongly when Taichi is seemingly killed. This vulnerable state allows an external force to transform Nyaromon into Ophanimon Falldown Mode.
• Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. Hikari says that she will probably never forgive Taichi for deciding to kill Meicoomon instead of finding another way to save her. However, it's a small instance and she accepts the situation at the end.
• Facial Markings: In Coexistence, the Crest of Light shines briefly on her forehead, before Nyaromon Dark Digivolves into Ophanimon: Fall Down mode.
• Fighting from the Inside: When the group reject Homeostasis as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Kari fights its possession of her body for the first time, appearing in silhouette across from her possessed body.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Nowadays she's the Responsible one to Tai's foolish. She's much more mellow about things than Tai is and often tries to calm down his brother whenever he and Matt fight.
• Sailor Fuku: Kari now wears the green middle school uniform from Digimon Adventure 02.
• Ship Tease: Kari has some with T.K. as made evident when the latter asks her if she's jealous about him having a female friend. Kari denies this.
• Sweet Tooth: Kari's love of sweet foods is professed by her website profile - particularly, convenience-store ice cream.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Kari's website profile mentions that she likes convenience-store ice cream.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: While not nearly as volatile as the Tai-and-Matt variant, half the things she and T.K. say to each other are gentle snark.
• You Owe Me: Kari brings Tai his forgotten lunch early in the first episode and insists that he buy her an ice cream with a name longer than the amount of time it would take her to eat it.

---