The Digital World is a cruel place for children. Haven’t you noticed how every time the Digidestined get the chance to go to the Digital World, it is rarely a good thing? There’s an ailment plaguing the land, a sacrifice they have to make, a road of suffering to endure, a great evil (both specified and unspecified) to defeat. And much like Narnia, once their good deed is done and the darkness has lifted, the children are separated from their Digimon partners and dumped back unceremoniously in the real world, exchanging one kind of adventure for another one.
We might max poetic about how the journey is the destination itself, but it still seems to me that the children get the short end of the stick, every single time. The Digital World, a kind of Narnia, seems to be a place only for children, specifically children with a particular mindset. It sows fertile seeds of wonder and imagination, builds friendships, tests bonds of trust and fellowships, reveals us to our personal demons and sets us to confront them–all to help people and Digimon alike become better beings.
Yet in the end, this adventure is a transitory one. People separate, people change (and not always in a good way), and whether or not the intent is there, we all leave each other in the end. But in spite of this forewarning, we hold on to what we fear we may lose, reach out for what we may have lost, and chase after what we might still hope to find again.
The adventure that Takeru and the Digidestined choose again and again is worth the pain.
Anime Monographia 