Japanese Title: The Legendary Warrior! Agnimon of Flame
A boy runs down a road, following a text message saying that it will “decide his future”. As the people around him receive mysterious phone calls, he ends up accidentally stumbling in front of a truck...
We flash back to a few minutes prior, in which the boy, Takuya Kanbara, is idling around, waiting for his father to come home from work so that the entire family can celebrate his brother Shinya’s birthday. He suddenly receives a mysterious text message on his phone: “Would you like to start, or not?”, along with a Yes/No prompt. When he selects Yes, a voice on the phone addresses him by name and says that the game to decide his future has begun, and the text message displays instructions for him to catch the train that leaves for Shibuya Station at 5:45 PM. With only seven minutes to 5:45 PM, Takuya, with nothing better to do, decides to run off quickly to catch the train to Shibuya.
We cut back to where we were at the beginning of the episode, and Takuya narrowly dodges the truck and keeps going, finding that he has only five minutes left. As he reaches the ticket booth with no money, he’s about to miss the train, but a ticket mysteriously prints out just for him and he barely makes it to the train.
On the train, everyone’s cell phones start ringing, including the phone of a bandanna-wearing boy across from him. Takuya’s own cell phone presents him with another message: switch trains at the subway from Shibuya Station at 6:00. When the train reaches Shibuya, Takuya sees the bandanna-wearing boy depart for the subway, and wonders if he’s also gotten the same message too; he sprints as fast as he can to make it to the elevator to the subway before 6:00, barely making it to the elevator (with the other boy inside) before it closes.
Takuya asks the boy if he’d also gotten the message, but he only scoffs at him. He soon realizes that the elevator is going far below the lowest floor, and the elevator soon reaches a platform with a bunch of strange-looking trains and children everywhere, whom Takuya realizes had all gotten the text message. Takuya’s phone presents him with a final choice: will he get on or will not?
The other boy runs to one of the trains and takes off on it, while the doors of the trains close with some children behind them. Takuya, making a last-minute decision, pursues one of the trains and manages to embark on the back of one. As Takuya goes through the train, he meets three other kids and asks why they got on the train; two of them, Junpei Shibayamanote and Izumi Orimotonote seemed to have gotten on just for kicks, while the third one, a small boy named Tomoki Himinote , was pushed in against his will by bullies.
As the train goes into a dark tunnel, Takuya sees images of mysterious entities around himself and the other kids, and their phones transform into strange devices. The voice that had sent the messages tells them that these are their “Digivices”, and welcomes them to the Digital World. The train, which turns out to be a living, sentient creature, rolls into a place that’s clearly another realm, with unfamiliar creatures swarming around them.
The train arrives at a town with more creatures, who are excited to see humans, and the train yells at them to get off. Takuya expresses surprise that the train talks, and the train introduces himself as a Trailmon called Worm, saying that they’ve arrived at Fire Terminal, a Digimon town. As the Digimon swarm them, Tomoki breaks down, crying that he wants to go home, and the Trailmon tells them that they have to obtain the “Spirits” if they want to go home. The kids demand to know what the Spirits are, but the Trailmon departs. Tomoki completely loses it and tries to walk on the tracks back home before Takuya says that he’ll help him find the Spirits so that they can go home. Unfortunately, the tracks happen to be suspended over open air, and Tomoki finds himself clinging to it for dear life.
An explosion occurs nearby, and two Digimon run into Takuya, calling for help. After they get up, they realize that Takuya is a human and reveal that a Cerberumon is attacking. Cerberumon demands to know where the “Legendary Spirit” is, saying that he can sense one in this town. Takuya and the two Digimon make a run for it onto the tracks to save Tomoki, while Cerberumon, eating up the town’s “DigiCode”note , causes some of the land to disappear. With no anchorage, the track that Takuya, Tomoki, and the two Digimon are on begins to swing around.
Fortunately, as they fall off the track, they fall onto solid ground, and Takuya’s Digivice begins to react. The Digivice causes what one of the Digimon says to be the Legendary Spirit to appear within some of the flames, and Takuya decides to use it to take Tomoki home, but Cerberumon catches up to them and runs toward the Spirit. Takuya, seeing Tomoki’s anguish, picks up a pipe to fight Cerberumon with and declares that he won’t let Cerberumon have the Spirit. The brawl throws them into the flames surrounding the Spirit. Cerberumon is repelled by a mysterious force, but Takuya finds himself unaffected by the flames. He calls to the Spirit and it enters his Digivice, allowing him to use “Spirit Evolution”note and transform into Agnimonnote .
As everyone around him expresses shock that Takuya has turned into a Digimon, and one of the two Digimon with Tomoki identifies him as one of the Ten Legendary Warriors, Agnimon of Fire. Agnimon takes Tomoki and the two Digimon to safety with Junpei and Izumi, and while Agnimon initially has issues fighting and falls into Cerberumon’s “Dark Area”, he quickly escapes it and defeats Cerberumon. A ring of data appears around Cerberumon and Agnimon uses his Digivice to scan it and purify Cerberumon with the call of “DigiCode Scan!”note , which causes Cerberumon to revert to an egg and fly away. The Digimon who had identified Agnimon explains that Cerberumon’s egg will “awaken in a different time, in a different place”.
Agnimon reverts to Takuya and wonders exactly what had just happened with him becoming a Digimon. The voice in his Digivice tells Takuya that he is a “Chosen Child”note , and reminds him that even if he was chosen, Takuya alone had made the conscious choice to come to the Digital World.
Meanwhile, a different Trailmon arrives at the Digital World, with the bandanna-wearing boy in it...
Tropes
- Breath Weapon: Cerberumon mainly uses this.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The mysterious voice uses the term "Digivolution", which is never used again, when Takuya first spirit evolves.
- Eye Catch: As this is Takuya's spirit evolution debut, the eyecatch for this episode (which will normally feature two of the kids at random) features Takuya twice.
- Technicolor Fire: Cerberumon uses green fire. Averted with Agnimon, who uses normal-looking orange fire.
