Time After Digimon Tamers, 2018 - 2021
Quotes from the 2018 Drama CD are taken from Onkei's translations and the 2021 live script was translated by The Wild Bunch.
It's revealed that the trio is 28 years old in 2018, which means they were born in 1990 ((the year I was born as well, which somehow makes me so so happy!)). The anime was never explicitly set in 2001 (just the 2000s) but that was the year it came out in Japan. The last episode must be taking place a year later in 2002 and the beginning of the 2018 Drama CD is explicitly set in 2004, two years after the serie's ending.
Takato and Juri are walking home together, talking about their friends, realising they haven't seen them for a while.
*The outline of the Drama CD even reveals Rika's middle school: "They [Takato and Juri] haven't seen much of Jian and Ruki lately, since Jian has gone to a private prep school and Ruki attends Kagurazaka's All-Girls College's middle school section."
Takato goes past Guilmon's old home, gets sucked into a mysterious light there and wakes up as a 14-year-old in Yamaki's Nyx. The story continues in the year 2018.
We get some info on Rika's life in the past seventeen years from the CD outline and the story itself as well.
Not only does she compete in an extreme sports discipline, she appearantly does it with men as well. She always was going for the boundaries and although she told Renamon she didn't want to fight anymore, not even in a card game, I guess she couldn't just stay still (quite literarily, when we think of her modelling job). I wonder to what extent her being an FMX rider has to do with her coping with losing Renamon, since Takato and Henry too have somehow dedicated their lives to reunite with their Digimon (we don't know what Takato did until 2017 but he then left to search for Guilmon and Henry becomes the head of Nyx by 2021). It is clear though that Rika never got over Renamon's disappearance: "Ruki had put distance between herself and the digital world, but thinks that her true nature is being a Tamer and answers [Yamaki's] call."
Unfortunatelly we don't know what she was studying at the university but the fact that she got into modelling on her mom's behalf tells me their relationship continued to improve. I really like that she tried modelling and then went for something that suited her more. I'd be disappointed if the writers attributed her "tomboyish" personality to her young age and made her find something (stereotypically) more feminine in herself when she got older (like they did with Sora, never forget, although okay it did a bit more sense for her I guess?).
The Japanese cast reunited for a live script reading at DigiFes 2021, which took place on August 1st, and featured the sequel to the 2018 Drama CD.
The content of the script stirred up a big controversy with Tamers' new enemy being political correctness that's using cancel culture as an attack to fight them. In a pamphlet sold on-site of DigiFes there was a short interview with Chiaki Konaka, who also wrote the controversial piece, in which he states that: "The script reading can only be seen by those who come to the event or for a limited time via streaming, so I felt that I shouldn't make a formal sequel to the drama CD. This reading can't be treated as official canon, so if I were to do a straightforward, normal script reading, it wouldn't feel properly like Tamers. So I came up with a meta concept that would convey the Tamers line of thought" (translated by The DigiLab).
Although we shouldn't treat the live script as a canon (I assume that mostly goes for Tamers fighting actually materialised political correctness, ah so bizarre), there is some more info we get about the trio and their Digimon that I'd like to talk about here.
It's been three years since their fight against the Malice Bot and Tamers meet again. Once again it's the now 31-year-old Rika and Henry and the 14-year-old Takato. Rika and Henry (now the head of Nyx) meet first and we find out Rika got into bouldering (a form of free climbing performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without using ropes or harnesses).
I actually like the idea of Rika coaching future Tamers (a new Digimon season in future maybe?). And I like her reasoning for coaching those kids that doesn't necessarily only show her caring side. While Henry seems to always like to point out her caring side (like he did in episode 20 when they were looking for Impmon), it's Impmon later on that's not so impressed by it (or at least acts not to be) when the Tamers hesitate to fight the new enemy:
I don't really agree with Impmon regarding Rika's style, since we've seen her evolve throughout the series and become more of a team player (teaching Juri how to play Digimon cards was one of those moments) and I do believe Rika wouldn't hesitate to fight when necessary if she still had Renamon with her. However, she is the first one to respond and lends her smartphone and the evolution card (the former can now be used as D-Power appearantly) to both Takato (2018) and Juri (2021).
RUKI: Eh? Renamon? Where's Renamon?
TERRIERMON: Well... Renamon apparently disappeared from the digital world a while back.
RUKI: What?
JIAN: Then could she be in the real world?
TERRIERMON: I don't know...
Renamon's voice actor, Yuka Imai, retired from the industry by 2018, which is the reason Renamon doesn't appear in the 2018 Drama CD. ((I just noticed she also lent her voice to both Rika's mom and grandma, wow!)) I really like how the story itself had to be written considering the original voice actors (the reason Takato stays a 14-year-old is because Makoto Tsumura could never sound like a grown up man). I think they wrote a really compelling story considering the situation, however rereading Rika's message to Renamon and knowing it's been 20 years by 2021 since they've last seen or heard eachother, breaks my heart TT.
Renamon's whereabouts are unknown even to Guilmon and Terriermon, although they seem to know she's not in the Digital World anymore. In Digimon Tamers 2021 Terriermon is convinced Renamon is okay and is just training somewhere (TERRIERMON: "Momentai, Ruki. I bet Renamon is just off training somewhere."). However, when the Malice Bot appears and they do damage to it, it sounds to the Tamers a lot like Renamon.
It's not clear if the enemy only imitates Renamon's voice but the question isn't brought up again in the 2021 script. Renamon is still missing in 2021, however the script does end on a more positive note regarding her. Guilmon goes missing as well (JIAN: "Wait, he's not completely untraceable like Renamon. Guilmon's ID can be seen at certain points.") but Takato gets a message from him in the end, in which it seems he's trying to tell them he's with Renamon but doesn't know where.
We also get a confirmation that the Digimon successfully received the messages their Tamers sent a year after their disappearance:
It's probably not realistic to expect a continuation of this story (especially considering the 2021 sequel isn't supposed to be canon) but I do believe Rika and Renamon will meet again one day. <3