Japanese Title: Today Miyako is in Kyoto
Having left Poromon in the care of Koushirou, Miyako goes on a school trip to visit Kyoto and promptly enjoys herself there.
Back in Tokyo, Koushirou presents some theories he has to Ken. He believes that Daisuke and the other Chosen’s D-3s were created in order to compete with Ken’s corrupted D-3 that had come from the dark ocean, and that since the origin of the D-3 is Ken, Ken must have wished for it to exist. Koushirou explains that the Digital World has a system that determines shapes and appearances, which causes the kids’ clothes to change into what they wish for when they enter the Digital World, and Ken realizes that he must have subconsciously wished for the outfit he wore as the Kaiser.
Koushirou moves onto the question of who sent Ken the email that triggered Ken becoming the Kaiser, and speculates that it must have something to do with Archnemon. He then tells Ken that he and the other Chosen were supposed to find Ken before whoever sent the email did; there have been Chosen appearing all over the world, and Ken was one that they hadn’t gotten to in time. Ken recalls an incident in August 2000 that caused him to become a Chosen Child, but can’t remember it clearly.
Poromon begins to feel fatigue from having been in the human world without Miyako’s presence for three days. Ken offers to take him to the Digital World, and Koushirou asks him to check over the distortion in the Digital World while he’s there. Ken asks Koushirou why he’s telling him about all of this, and Koushirou says that there’s still a lot about the Digital World that he wants to know, having been unable to find everything about the Digital World during his adventures three years prior.
While having fun in Kyoto, Miyako is suddenly startled by an image of BlackWarGreymon in the sky...
In the Digital World, the other kids don’t make it in time to stop BlackWarGreymon from destroying another Holy Stone. The kids realize that the distortion in the Digital World is becoming worse as BlackWarGreymon continues to destroy Holy Stones, and BlackWarGreymon suddenly disappears.
The image of BlackWarGreymon appears in Kyoto, followed by indistinct images of other Digimon, but nobody other than Miyako seems to notice. Miyako chases the images and one of them manifests fully as a Hanumonnote . Hanumon, confused at suddenly finding himself in the human world, begins to attack, and Miyako sends an email to the others telling them that Digimon have suddenly appeared in Kyoto.
A young man named Shuunote is filming a movie when the footage is interrupted by the Hanumon, with Miyako on his tail. Fortunately, Ken, Stingmon, and Poromon arrive in Kyoto through a Digital Gate behind them, and Stingmon holds the Hanumon off while Ken delivers Poromon to Miyako. Since Hanumon isn’t a Dark Tower Digimon, Stingmon and Ken drag Hanumon back to the Digital Gate, while Ken tells Miyako that he’s "leaving the rest to her". Miyako is confused on what this means and is shortly approached afterwards by Shuu and an older man, who had heard what Miyako had said about “Digimon”.
The two of them give Miyako a ride, and the man introduces himself as Haruhiko Takenouchi, a professor in folklore who happens to be doing research in Kyoto. Shuu introduces himself as Shuu Kido, a medical student who had switched to humanities after taking interest in one of Haruhiko’s lectures, with two brothers both studying to be doctors. When Miyako introduces herself, the two of them say that they’ve heard of her from Haruhiko’s daughter and Shuu’s younger brother, and Miyako realizes that she’s talking to Sora’s father and Jou’s older brother.
Ken arrives to help the other Chosen in fighting off Archnemon and Mummymon in the Digital World, and XV-mon and Stingmon Jogress evolve to Paildramon.
Haruhiko tells Miyako that due to his work, he wasn’t able to be at home very much, and as a result Sora developed a rebellious streak towards her mother - until three years ago, when the arrival of the Digimon caused Sora to mend her relationship with her mother. As Haruhiko expresses his gratitude to the Digimon, while Shuu explains that while he was at training camp away from Tokyo three years ago, he was still able to see the images in the sky, but never got to see a Digimon in person.
Haruhiko presents to Miyako a theory that Digimon are appearing in Kyoto due to Kyoto’s high affinity for spirits. He explains the story of how Kyoto was once the capital in Japan due to its land being suitable for the “four gods”, and that shrines and temples were built to protect the land from “demon gates” to prevent “evil spirits” from entering. Hearing the phrase “demon gates” and “evil spirits”, Miyako is reminded of the events going on in the Digital World, and Haruhiko says that this is probably why Kyoto is being affected by the Digital World’s distortion. He also presents another theory about the Digimon being like spirits, comparing them to tsukumogami
, items that became spirits after having been created by humans - and indeed, the Digimon are able to exist in the human world even though they were originally data from computers.
Miyako, Haruhiko, and Shuu find themselves running into more Digimon images, one of which manifests fully in the human world as Musyamon. Miyako has Poromon evolve to Hawkmon and armor-evolve to Shurimon, and Miyako, Haruhiko, and Shuu follow the battle with their car. Miyako uses Haruhiko’s computer to create a Digital Gate, which Shurimon manages to get Musyamon into. Right after, the images of BlackWarGreymon and the other Digimon disappear.
Haruhiko tells Miyako that there must have been a reason for the Digimon to emerge in the real world, while Miyako thinks about how they can now easily send Digimon back to the Digital World by opening Gates when Taichi and his group were unable to do so three years ago.
With BlackWarGreymon coming back, Archnemon and Mummymon make their escape. Archnemon taunts them, saying that they’re going to destroy the remaining five Holy Points, and Ken realizes that this is what Koushrou was worried about: if the five remaining Holy Points are destroyed, the Digital World will lose its balance, and something terrible will happen.
Tropes
- Composite Character: The American dub decides to combine Jou’s brother who’d appeared in Adventure, Shin, with Shuu and make them into one character named “Jim Kido”. This creates the bizarre situation of “Jim”, a medical intern in Adventure with a dream to work on an island without medical help, suddenly becoming a humanities major under Sora’s father.
- Info Dump: The first five minutes of the episode are pretty much entirely this courtesy of Koushirou. We get another one starting about halfway through the episode, where we learn about Haruhiko’s theory about spirits, Digimon, and Kyoto.
- Pun-Based Title: Since the kanji used for Miyako’s name is the same as the first one in “Kyoto”, the episode’s Japanese title is a play on this: “Today Miyako is in Kyoto” (Kyou no Miyako wa Kyou no Miyako).
