Japanese Title: Adrift? The Island of Adventure!
Strange and bizarre weather starts to take place all over Earth in the summer of 1999. On August 1, while relaxing on a sunny day at summer camp, fifth grader Taichi Yagaminote is startled by a sudden snowflake falling onto his face. The snow catches the attention of six nearby children: Sora Takenouchi, Yamato Ishidanote , Koushirou Izuminote , Mimi Tachikawa, Takeru Takaishinote , and Jou Kidonote . The snow piles up so much that the seven children take shelter in a nearby cabin.
Once the snow stops, the kids go outside to check out the environment and see an aurora — something that Koushirou points out shouldn't be in Japan. Suddenly, a green portal appears in the aurora and shoots lights at the children, which turn into mysterious blue devices, one for each of the kids. Before they can properly react to this development, a giant tidal wave appears out of nowhere and they find themselves falling right into another world.
Taichi wakes up to someone calling his name — and is immediately greeted by a large pink ball. Taichi reacts appropriately and has a massive Freak Out, with the talking pink ball calling his name, introducing himself as Koromon, and claiming that he’s been waiting for Taichi. Koushirou comes up from behind, accompanied by a different pink blob, who introduces himself as Motimon.
Having met up with each other, Koushirou and Taichi quickly realize that they’re not at summer camp anymore, and Motimon and Koromon introduce the place as File Island. Taichi climbs a tree and finds geographical structures that shouldn't exist where their camp should be, along with a giant red stag beetle... which promptly attacks them. Motimon identifies it as Kuwagamon, a vicious Digimon, and Koromon feebly attempts to attack it to no avail. The four of them run and take shelter in a hologram of a tree.
After Kuwagamon passes, they're given the all-clear from outside from Sora’s voice, and find her next to yet another pink blob, who introduces herself as Pyocomonnote . A small white hamster-like creature, named Tokomon, also runs into the fray, followed by Takeru — and Yamato, holding another one of the creatures, this time named Tsunomon. Jou frantically runs in, being “chased” by yet another friendly creature, Pukamonnote . Seeing all of the weird creatures, Jou asks what they are, and they identify themselves as "Digital Monsters".
The kids introduce themselves, only to realize that Mimi is missing, and hear her scream right after. They find her (accompanied by yet another Digimon, Tanemon) running away from the Kuwagamon from before. The kids and Digimon immediately make a run for it but find themselves cornered by a cliffside as the Kuwagamon approaches. Seeing their new human friends threatened, the Digimon try to attack Kuwagamon, but their attacks are weak and useless against it and they end up severely injured. Against the kids’ wishes, they continue fighting.
However, luck ends up on the kids' side; their concern for the Digimon causes light to fall from the sky on them and the Digimon transform into slightly bigger forms: Koromon to Agumon, Pyocomon to Piyomonnote , Motimon to Tentomon, Tsunomon to Gabumon, Tokomon to Patamon, Pukamon to Gomamon, and Tanemon to Palmon. Get used to these forms; you'll be seeing them for the rest of the season.
Now slightly bigger and stronger, the Digimon are capable of driving Kuwagamon back, and the Digimon run back to their human friends in happiness. However, Kuwagamon quickly sneaks back on them and breaks the piece of the cliff that they’re all standing on, and they fall towards the river far below...
Tropes
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The digital tree hideaway that Taichi and Koushirou use to escape Kuwagamon is never brought up again after this. Plus the very first monster (of three) that the children's Digimon battle against is a wild predator (presumably) trying to defend its territory without any dark influences corrupting it. Also, this and the next episode ended with the final scene zooming out to reveal a technological background that doesn't appear afterward.
- Monster of the Week: Kuwagamon serves as the first example of this in the series proper, attacking the main characters unprovoked and incidentally introducing them to both the dangerous side of the digital world and to the ins and outs of Digimon combat and of digivolution.
- Noisy Nature: Kuwagamon hisses a lot in the original Japanese. The English dub changed it to dinosaur-esque roars.
