Digimon

[Shattered Rift]

Yes, I know that there's an Anime/Manga thread. (Which is very, very cluttered and is all over the place, with Digimon only being mentioned momentarily in long lists, once or twice every couple of pages.) I'm not sure if there are actually enough fans (or former fans) of it to warrant a discussion here, but we'll see.

And to go off-topic, too (I figured the Video Games Forum wouldn't be able to support discussion about the games), three new Digimon games were released this week (Digimon World Data Squad on PS2, and Digimon World Dawn and Digimon World Dusk for DS). I only found a couple of user-reviews on Gamespot for Data Squad, and it looks (from the video) and sounds (from the one halfway intelligent user review) like it sucks horribly (which is a shame, since the back of the box made it look cool when I was at Gamestop earlier this evening). Dawn and Dusk appear to be a rehashing of World DS (which was decent, but had its flaws), but are taking on the Pokemon concept of splitting it into two games (why has every decent monster tamer series followed that precedent?).


Ahem. The point is, Digimon has a good anime, or at least one where most people can give credit to a specific season even if they didn't like the other seasons (for example, I liked most of Adventure 01 (season one), but only the first few episodes of Adventure 02 (season two) and Tamers (season three), and have heard that season four sucked, but haven't seen more than an episode or two to have my own opinion). After all, the anime was where it was at, contrasting with Pokemon which had its games. (And if any Pokemon fans are lurking, may I point out that Digimon apparently existed in Tamagotchi(sp?)/Gigapet form before Pokemon existed.)

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Savers (season five?) is being brought over the US, and is apparently going to be faithfully translated. (I'm not sure whether I'm remembering that right, though.)

Also, if anyone's interested, I've started writing a Digimon fanfic (which is what inspired me to make the thread here).


Now then, let's start up a conversation, shall we? What were people's favorite seasons and why? (I'll cover my "why" later.)

[UmbreonMatt]

Did a double-take when I saw the thread title, then completely fell over when I saw the thread starter.

Anyway, I've been on-and-off the Digimon bandwagon right from the start. Owned one, developed a strange obsession for digivolving my little dude into Airdramon and was horrified when it became Mamemon, and had no idea why everyone kept wanting to digivolve theirs to Monzaemon (we called it Teddymon, iirc). There was a fad with regard to drawing Digimon in squared exercise books as well. Craze died out pretty quickly though, I recall, after all, not much you can do when battles are based on luck/chance. Pokemon descended on us 2(?) years after that and well...

Digimon World for the PS was an incredible game, I bought the DS version simply due to its legacy. Wasn't disappointed, too, frustrating though the scan data system is, I played the DS game non-stop for one heck of a long while. Least till I hit my goal of controlling a Puppetmon, anyway. </fanboy>

Shattered Rift Wrote:Dawn and Dusk appear to be a rehashing of World DS (which was decent, but had its flaws), but are taking on the Pokemon concept of splitting it into two games (why has every decent monster tamer series followed that precedent?).

A pity. Was planning to pick them up too. Ah well, least my money gets saved to go towards Zelda. Even weird spin-offs of games which follow the monster collection style of gameplay (think Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits, lol, now that was one pointless exercise) tend to split themselves into two games. *cough*commercialization*cough*

Shattered Rift Wrote:The point is, Digimon has a good anime, or at least one where most people can give credit to a specific season even if they didn't like the other seasons

Nicely put. Digimon Adventure was the series that started it all off, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I find that quite strange actually, since I'm not fond of any of the characters (Yamato in particular was a real pain in the rear end). But the concept was just irresistible, and the monsters just cool beyond compare. The Four Dark Masters Arc in particular sold me on the series. MetalSeadramon with dialogue like "I rule the ocean with an iron fist, an iron tail, and an iron everything for that matter" and announcing his River of Power technique in an incredibly cool manner? The featuring of my all-time favourite Puppetmon? (Getting him taken out by that emo brat Yamato did not rank high on my list, mind you) What we assumed to be the final boss in Piedmon pwned by, of all people, T.K. & Patamon? Great stuff.

02 was horrible. Character-wise (Davis, good grief), monster-wise (Veemon was a real pain, and cool as Magnamon is, we see it an amazing ONE time) and digivolution-wise (Eggs, right...) The premise was just bad to begin with, in my eyes it was just meant to ride on and exploit the original's popularity. All this did was to spark off the endless Taiora vs Sorato debates.

TAMERS!!! *does a jig* In my all-time favourite anime series list, which horrifies quite a few hardcore fans when they see it. I just loved it that much. Concept was the best thus far (as evidenced by their applying it in the World games, that said, where are our cards? Afraid of being sued by Megaman or what?), characters were far better thought and fleshed out (a main character that you actually rooted for? Unthinkable!), excellent storyline (good use of both the real & Digital worlds), and of course, the monsters! (*drools at all the Megas*) Saint Gargomon's technique, where the missile's face turns into a smiley before firing off still makes me sweat drop though. This is one series I am likel;y to fanboy over for a long, long time.

Frontier was weird in principle (human --> Digimon?) but it wasn't that bad, as it turned out. I stuck with it throughout. Main character was a royal pain (most of his Digimon had bad designs too), so much so that even the emo kid, that I generally detest, ended up being more likeable. Annoying too was your stereotypical big bully-type character. In general I supported the villains, which never bodes well for a series (But Ranamon was just too cute and Mercuremon too cool). But the introduction of JagerLowemon helped matters. The Megas were sufficiently awe-inspiring as well. The ending though, roflmao. I won't spoil it, but lets just say the melodrama was so much that I spend half an hour after the episode laughing my head off.

I've seen a bit of Savers, and it seems to be even worse than 02. Franchise is dead for me, symbolized by the fact that Wada Kouji's stopped singing for them (The Biggest Dreamer is up there with the greatest of anime OPs).

Fanfiction. Lol. Back in my insane fanfiction-writing days (I was churning out something like 3-4 fics a week. Far more moderated now) I think I wrote a couple of tamer fics. For a weird pairing though, as I recall. Those were all lost when FF.net spirited my account away around the same time as my Zip Drive died on me so...

On another note, I actually still own a Digimon TCG deck, haha. Now didn't that take off wonderfully?

...wow. The length of this post frightens me.

[Shattered Rift]

No kidding, you made a longer post than I did, .


I never had a chance to play any of the PSX World games, though I did end up renting Rumble Arena at one point, which was very, very fun. Wish I'd found a copy to pick up and own, since there were more character choices than Rumble Arena 2 has, and it had Renamon.

I'm not 100% sure yet on Dawn and Dusk, so there's still (a little) hope.We'll see. (I've never played Shaman King: Legacy of the Spirits. For that matter, I only barely remember ever hearing about Shaman King.)


When I rewatched Adventure 01, 02, and Tamers about a year ago, it jarred my memory on the writing (which isn't very good across the board, and got "better" in Tamers, though I still have a major qualm there). Adventure 01 "picked up" with the Myotismon arc, since it started fleshing out the Crests and also had the best villain (Crimson Lightning was another beautiful example of an attack). Being in the real world probably also helped my impression of that arc, and I wasn't so fond of the Dark Masters. Whoever MetalSeadramon's voice actor was said "River of Power" perfectly, though. Each of the Dark Masters had good personalities, too.

I'm guessing your ticked about how much the episode where T.K. and Puppetmon were "playing" together got dubbed? (Erm, in case anyone got the wrong idea by my quotes, by playing I mean being rather violent.)


Davis annoyed me in Adventure 02, but his character actually grew on me as the season went on. He was the first one (and really only one at the beginning, from what I recall) to reach out to Ken, which showed that he completely deserved to be leader. I don't mind the Digieggs premise, since I still have no idea what Digimental was supposed to imply or translate over to.

I saw a few subbed episodes of Adventure 02 (they may or may not be on YouTube right now), and my limited Japanese tried to go for accuracy while I watched. What I noticed immediately was that the English dub went for humor at every opportunity, and Davis isn't as annoying.

My interest in it wavered at the Dark Ocean episode, though. That mini-arc never was explained, and that was also the last episode I saw when it originally aired. (For that matter, I think the episode prior to that was the "wild west" episode, which I hadn't really enjoyed either.) The pinnacle was at the episode where Davis and Ken had their soccer game, and Davis managed to trip Ken and stop one goal. It was excellent mirroring to have an "imperfect" person at least be able to compete, even if he couldn't win.


Tamers had a good premise, and had the most character development overall (which was good), but I was grated when Rika's personality did a 180. She became way too nice and lost all of her appeal. Renamon was still cool, but it had been the combination of them early on that made the initial episodes have so much power. I really disliked the cards concept, which ended up being dropped without explanation anyway.


There was a Digimon TCG? Oh yeah, that thing that followed on the tail-end of the Pokemon TCG. Did it even hit a second expansion? (I faintly remember kids having the cards at the end of fifth grade.)

[theonlysaneone]

I remember starting to watch Digimon faithfully during the Myotismon arc, and he still remains among my top 5 best villains ever (Ben from Lost is still #1). I thought the second half of the second season was really good when I watched it the first time, because they paced it very very well. I HATED Etemon, and Davis was pretty bad too.

As for the later seasons, I didn't like them. They really should have had more stories in the same universe, instead of creating a totally new one.

[UmbreonMatt]

@Shattered:

Yep, the T.K.-Puppetmon scene was sacrilege! The episode always struck me as strange when I first caught it (when on holiday in Australia lol, iirc, in S'pore it was still on MetalSeadramon). Later when I picked up the original VCDs... well.


A little hope, huh? Worst comes to worst, I'll pick one up and sucker my sister into buying the other. And SK: LoS was just a bad spin-off meant to tap the popularity of the anime (think the 101 games they make of Naruto. Daily.)


Machinedramon had a personality? Did it actually shine through in the what, 3 episodes he was alive.


I have nothing good to say about 02, so I won't even try to dispute what you find good about it. Bad characterization (Davis, ew, and Cody both doing 180s on their attitude towards Ken, not to mention the horrible main duo of Digimon and Digidestined, among other gripes), illogical and incoherent plot (entire chunk revolving around BlackWarGreymon was just puzzling, not being able to Digivolve naturally was never really explained clearly, etc.), and contrived ending (someone point out an incident involving Ken and Yolei, any incident, to justify their ending). I nearly skipped out on Tamers because of how bad this was.


Thank god I didn't though. I liked the cards concept, gave battles an added dimension, wasn't fully utilized imo. Rika's character change was pretty frustrating, and adding Kazu and Kenta into the fold was absolutely pointless. Worst part was making Rika blush in that one scene involving Takato, wrong in every sense of the word. Flaws aside, few other animes come close though.


I can't recall when exactly the cards came out, but I remember reading the beginner's guide to it on a plane while headed for a holiday in the states, which was um... 7 or so years back I think. It was really pointless, virtually a rock-paper-scissors at times, and the one who won the first match-up would be in the driving seat for the rest of the entire match. But I built a deck all the same.


@TOSO:

Etemon was hilarious, more so when he came back as MetalEtemon. The 'song' he used to narrate the events that occurred after getting pwned by MetalGreymon was brilliant in its corniness, and was it 'Gas Attack' he called his technique when he broke wind after Puppetmon uh, 'drilled' his rear end? Genius.

And if you asked me, the universe needed work after the fiasco of 02. I personally wouldn't mind if every season of Digimon stayed in the Tamerverse, but *shrugs*

[Shattered Rift]

Being willing to destroy everything in sight doesn't count as a personality? And I'll never forget the "Eliminate" joke. (Plan Eliminate? How about Elimi nine?) It's also possible I didn't care for the whole "Kari got sick" subplot. It got worse when I started to think about it, since the Digital World was never fully explained.

I watched the Puppetmon episodes and never suspected a thing. I think I was a naive kid or something.


I seem to remember Davis' shift to wanting to work with Ken had been justified (maybe I should rewatch those episodes again). It was already semi-clear that Ken hadn't realized what he was doing as the Digimon Kaiser, and Davis had already earned respect for him at soccer. I remember it being more as a, "We could use his help," rather than a, "Let's make him part of the team."

The entire plot of Adventure 02 failed. I won't disagree there (except for the Digimon Kaiser portion at the beginning, since they did properly play off of the fact that Ken was human and he could be fought in both worlds: up until Ken changed his residence, anyway). The Dark Ocean was just used as a plot device, the... "ending" episodes were a plot device (albeit a somewhat welcome one for fans of Adventure 01), and Arukenimon and Mummymon were simply boring. The BlackWarGreymon philosophical concepts I somewhat enjoyed, though it was possibly the target audience that shot that portion down. Having Agumon talk to him was a flawless choice, however. Agumon had the "right" answer, but couldn't explain it or properly support his arguments, and BlackWarGreymon was willing to change if he heard something he believed. Even though BlackWarGreymon helped them in the end, it was due to a plot device rather than agreeing with Agumon's arguments.


Kazu and Kenta were (poor) comic relief. They worked well early on for making fun of Takato (and Kenta worked well for the ironic parallel), but that was all they should have done. I don't remember the name of the other kid who showed up at that point, but it didn't feel like he fit in either (simply because he was forced into the show rather than gradually brought in).


Adventure 01 aired in the '99-'00 season in the States, and the cards were released here around the Spring of 2000. I'm at least right about the cards even if I'm wrong about when the show aired. (Adventure 02 and season one of Beast Machines aired simultaneously, from what I recall. Though I want to say Beast Wars concluded in Spring of '98. :/.)


I'm with TOSO. I hated Etemon. Having rewatched Adventure 01 a couple of weeks ago, I feel the need to comment on how blatantly *censored* he is. It would have been more comical, but he had too much screen time as opposed to most other villains (Myotismon probably had more, but he permeated evil while Etemon permeated lame humor). I think I enjoyed MetalEtemon a bit more.

[Jacob]

Only ever watched the very first story arc of Digimon (the first set of characters). The American intro had me acting foolish every day after school. Lost touch with the series ever since the Angewoman was about to be revealed.

American Opening
Original Japanese Opening

[Shattered Rift]

Time to revive this thread on the chance anyone else is watching the Savers dub (which started airing sometime in September, I think). To those of you that don't really pay attention, it's called Data Squad over here in the US, and in my opinion it's quite possibly the best Digimon season. (Though I keep hearing the original version was much better, but won't be watching that until Data Squad fully airs.)

Anybody?

[UmbreonMatt]

Savers is the reason I thought about bumping this. And to be quite frank, I am horrified at:

Shattered Rift Wrote:in my opinion it's quite possibly the best Digimon season.

As far as I'm concerned, SAVERS. WAS. A. TRAVESTY.

There, off my chest.

I marathoned Savers in last year, a mixture of dub, sub, raw with stolen borrowed translation scripts from DATS (fansub group) staff friends, and just raw with my own sad attempts to translate (read: Japanese dictionary next to me at all times and episode paused every twenty or so seconds). To date I have no idea what inspired this amount of effort other than stubbornness and boredom. Or maybe some desperate hope that it would eventually come good. Obviously disappointment would be an understatement.

First off, the main characters. Worst duo I have seen since Davis + Veemon. Absolutely stereotypical brains in their biceps sort of characters. Well newsflash, while these OCCASIONALLY work out as side characters, you do not stick them in the lead roles! Shining Tears X Wind was absolutely panned for a reason, and I barely tolerated Yu Yu Hakusho for that reason as well. Yes, I detest this personality type. Right from the very beginning Masaru rubbed me off the wrong way (to put it lightly) and the fact that he was paired with one of my favourite Digimon in Agumon, and their giving it a similar personality to him? Good grief. Good grief. Hell, I think I prefer Naruto in maximum idiot mode. Sticking him next to ShineGreymon has got to be the worst mismatch in the history of Digimon (or at least second only to Sorato, as far as my sister is concerned ). Crushing him in Digimon World: Dawn to get my rank promotion pretty much made the entire game worthwhile (apparently I was cackling throughout the battle).

Supporting cast was horribly clichéd as well. Touma as the polar opposite to Masaru and them butting heads, Yoshino in the big sisterly role, complete with early villain shown the light by Masaru's bright and shining light of justice (Ikuto)?! I will say no more.

The plotline, ugh, just ugh. Clichés abounding here as well, Masaru and Agumon's entering DATS so contrived I wondered if Digimon had begun to cater entirely to the first and second grade age group. You could see every plot 'twist' (LOL) as they came along, and really, what the show degenerated in the end was to a state of "Hey! Let's throws all those bombastic fan favourites out (Royal Knights) and hope all the fanboying takes the heat off just how bad the show is!".

It's been a while, yet the memory of the show still rankles. This thing ranks lower than 02 in my book, i.e. valued about as highly as 0.000000000001% of Tamers. The worst, not the best, for me. And a last teeny-weeny little gripe I had with the show? No pairings. Not that I'm too overly concerned with such anyway ( Ignore the siggy, ignore the siggy!). Then again, any pairing involving Masaru would have had me puking anyway.

Moving away from Savers, as mentioned earlier, I picked up Dawn (and my sis Dusk) and was rather disappointed as a whole (outside of Masaru-squashing, since it was a one-time only battle anyway). Gameplay pretty much remained the same, but it lacked a coherent storyline (doing mission after mission for the union? Bleh) and some changes were just annoying (having to level up in order to degenerate? the screen taking its own sweet time after every enemy is defeated after each battle? farms getting more complex and overall just nerfed?). I still derived some enjoyment, and the WiFi battling is a very nice touch, but it disappointed as a sequel.

...seems I went crazy with my word count again.

[Shattered Rift]

Please tell me you'd actually taken a course or more of Japanese before attempting to translate via a dictionary (as it'd be impossible otherwise).


Also, keep in mind that the dub is only up to defending the Sacred City (no idea what it was called in the original).

The only thing I'm disliking about Masaru is the general theme backing him up: apparently a character's will matters more than anything else (then again, I was a hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, but at least Atemu was backed up by black magick). I learned after Beast Wars and Smallville not to criticize the pilots: even for the best of shows, they suck. What mattered there was getting Masaru involved.

However, unlike Taichi and Takuya (and Takuya barely had a comparable personality), Masaru hasn't underwent development yet in the episodes that have been dubbed. If anything, he's gotten more cocky as the series has gone on.

In case you're forgetting, every character in Digimon has been stereotyped or cliched (and not always in the way dubbed!). Touma fit the necessary role, but Yoshino hasn't lived up to any potential. She feels like a worthless third wheel. Between Satsuma, Miki, and Megumi, and the odd music in the dub I'm being reminded of the last two Mega Man X games. (Everyone be ready to laugh when Forte stumbles across this thread someday.)

No pairings? Touma x Nanami doesn't count as a pairing?


Seeing a human finally fight a Digimon and stay on par with them was a defining moment. I recall two or three scenes in Adventure where this occurred, and in each they lost (Taichi attacking Shellmon and Yamato and Sora fighting Phantomon). I don't entirely like the concept of Masaru staying on par with higher level Digimon, but using the action to properly set up his emotional state to evolve Agumon was a good idea.

Likewise, using the Seven Deadly Sins (and parallel Holy Virtues) as the fuel to power Digimon was a nice touch. (Was it actually explained that way in the original version?) Tying episodes 8 through 12(?) together afterwards made them all feel justified even though they initially felt independent of each other.

Ikuto's another first for the series. Though apparently either I just don't like him or he was horribly translated into the dub (since a few of my friends at a Digimon community consider him their favorite character).

The series has also had an extremely high level of characterization and character development. We saw virtually none of this in Zero Two and a limited amount in Frontier. (I recall Tamers being somewhere in the middle.) Add this to the actual level of depth the series has, and that's why I'm claiming it as the "best" (even though I still prefer and favor Adventure).

Episode 26 marks another first: all of the partner Digimon working together as their own team and reflecting an almost identical structure to their partners. Episode 28 destroys the Digivices. And we're only a couple of episodes past that in the dub.

From what I've heard you (and from others that were criticizing the addition of the Royal Knights arc), it doesn't maintain quite the high it has where I'm still at, but only Adventure came close to doing so (and possibly Tamers, though its Digital World arc sucked terribly). I'd still argue that between the characterization and actual depth of the series, however, that it's the best.


Guess I won't be picking up Dawn/Dusk. Needing to level up to degenerate? How does that make any sense?

[UmbreonMatt]

Yes, Japanese is my third language. QC on occasion, though politics frightened me off the general fansub scene.

Hmm, I think it's best I qualify my labelling of Savers as the worst ever. Simply put, Savers is the one season I watched after I became something of a rabid anime fan, which is why the clichés were so much more painfully obvious to me. But my detest for Masaru would have been the same regardless, I do believe. It didn't help that to me the show seemed to give the idiot so much more screentime than other leads before him. It was like making Junpei the lead of Frontier, really.

LOL Heart of the cards. I will forever prefer the Yu-gi-oh! dub, whether for the original or GX.

No that is not even remotely a pairing in my book.

Ah well, to each his own, I guess. I seem to say that to a lot of people on the forums about anime, it seems.