I actually felt a bit let down by the relationship stuff in 'Loss.' It's been a while, but I remember the focus really shifting to Taichi and Yamato's dynamic, which was solid, but a lot of the other characters got sidelined. The whole conflict between them felt like a rehash of older arguments, just with more angst because of the reboot situation. Meiko's integration was the main new thing, and honestly, it kinda dragged the pacing. Her bond with Meicoomon was tragic, sure, but it ate up so much screen time that relationships like Sora's with the others or even Joe and Mimi felt like afterthoughts. They were all just reacting to the big plot crisis. The scene where Taichi and Yamato finally agree to fight together again was well-done, I'll give it that, but it didn't feel like it developed their relationship so much as reinstated the status quo from the original series. The real development was more about the group's collective trauma and guilt over what happened to Meicoomon, which bound them together in a grim way, but I'm not sure individual pairs got much deeper. Maybe that was the point—the weight of responsibility straining their old bonds—but it made for a pretty gloomy and sometimes static character study.
I did appreciate the quieter moments with Koushiro, though. His struggle with the hacking and the pressure of being the brains felt very real, and his interactions with Mimi showed a nice maturity. But overall, 'Loss' felt like a bridge chapter where the characters were stuck in a holding pattern of despair, which isn't the most exciting ground for relationship growth. It set up the emotional stakes for the finale, but the actual inter-personal connections mostly just treaded water or got simplified into 'we must protect our partner' on repeat.