Japanese Title: The Chase! Hurry to Japan!
The kids report to Gennai what had happened, panicking that the eighth child will be killed and Digimon will be running all over the real world if they don't do something. Gennai decides to give them information that will help them reopen the gate, inviting and leading them to his underwater house, where they meet the man himself.
Gennai finally gives them some needed answers: he's an entity that is neither human nor Digimon, and the Chosen are children destined to Save Both Worlds. With that, he shows them Vamdemon's location in the Nerima
ward of Tokyo, which gets a surprisingly similar shock reaction from all of the kids. Taichi wonders if Vamdemon happens to be searching in the Hikarigaoka districtnote ...
Gennai hands ten cards, each depicting a different Digimon, to the children — the same kind that Vamdemon used to open the gate — and tells them that they need to insert the cards on the nine slots in front of the door. However, according to Gennai, one of the cards does not belong there and shouldn't be used for the door, but he doesn't remember which, nor does he remember what order they should be put in. Taichi suggests using trial and error, but Gennai severely discourages the idea, saying that there are other different and crazy worlds that they might end up in that way, and even if they do end up in the right world, using the wrong method may not guarantee that they come out intact.
While the kids rest for the night, Koushirou decides to have a question-and-answer session with Gennai, asking about the nature of the Digital World. Gennai provides a helpful Info Dump: the Digital World is made up of computer data from the human world in the same way the human world is made up of atoms. In addition, Gennai describes himself as different from the Digimon in the way that he doesn't have an "attribute"; all Digimon have one of three attributes of classification, known as "Data", "Virus", and "Vaccine". Gennai then takes Koushirou's laptop to modify his Digimon Analyzer so that it'll be able to show info of Digimon that Koushirou's fellow Chosen have seen in addition to ones Koushirou has seen himself.
In the morning, Gennai returns Koushirou's laptop, now with some new software and a hardware mod so that it can have a Digivice inserted and have the info of a Digimon the Digivice's owner has seen loaded. With that, Gennai wishes them luck and sends them off.
The kids return to Vamdemon's castle to find the place overrun by the Devidramon, and Tentomon super-evolves to AtlurKabuterimon, successfully creates a diversion, regresses to Motimon, and returns to the kids who are running to the basement to find the slots. The kids ponder what kind of order the cards should be in and which one is the incorrect one, while Koushirou looks at the markings on the slots and tries to decipher them.
The castle begins to shift around, Patamon goes to check what's up, and returns with bad news: all the passages are blocked from AtlurKabuterimon's diversion, the castle is falling apart, and the Chosen are now unable to turn back.
Jou stands up and tells Taichi that he's handling the responsibility to him because he believes in him. Yamato concurs, saying that Taichi should make the call as leader, reasoning that Taichi is the one with the right to be called leader since his absence had made the group fall apart earlier and only he was able to get them back together successfully. With all of the Chosen resolving to change themselves further for the better and believing in Taichi as the leader, Taichi makes his decision to delegate the choice to someone whom he believes would do it better: Koushirou.
Koushirou pulls up his Digimon Analyzer and realizes, due to the precise similarities and differences between the Digimon that are labeled on the cards, that the slots form a grid: one side indicates the three attributes that Gennai had told him earlier, and the other side indicates the evolutionary level of the Digimon. The only problem is that two of the cards occupy the same slot: an Agumon card and a Gomamon card, both of which are Childnote -level Vaccine-attribute Digimon. One of them is the correct card, but Koushirou can't figure out which one.
The kids thank Koushirou for their help and once again tell Taichi to make a decision as to what to do from there. Before Taichi can do anything, however, the kids are attacked by a Dokugumon, who wants them dead for damaging Vamdemon's castle. The kids' Digimon evolve to fight it off but start to fall back, forcing Taichi to make his decision quickly. Taichi chooses the Gomamon card at random and puts it in the last slot, opening the gate; Were Garurumon kills Dokugumon and the kids and their Digimon run through the gate, with Yamato and Tsunomon making it just in time.
The kids find themselves back at their summer camp, but initially can't find their Digimon and wonder whether they used the wrong card... only to see their Digimon all together behind them, waiting to be greeted. Taichi reveals that he'd used Gomamon's card because he'd wanted to keep Agumon's card as a souvenir, and the kids decide to go to Hikarigaoka to search for the eighth child.
Tropes
- Chekhov's Gun: What exactly does happen when the incorrect (Agumon) card is used isn't ever elaborated on until a year and a half later in broadcast time, no earlier than episode 48 of Adventure 02.
- How Did You Know? I Didn't: Tai didn't figure out that the Agumon card was fake; he just wanted to keep it as a souvenir.
- Point of No Return: After the castle starts collapsing and all the ways back out are blocked off, the kids and their partners find themselves unable to head back and with no way to go but forward through the gate.
- Projectile Webbing: The Dokugumon sprays strands of webbing from her mouth when starting the battle, entangling most of the opposing Digimon before they could do anything.
