Taichi Yagami and his friends have moved on to junior high, but by that time, they have lost contact with their Digimon partners. Taichi is therefore surprised to suddenly receive a distress call summoning him to the Digital World. Once there, he learns that Digimon are living in fear of the mysterious Digimon Emperor, who is somehow suppressing their ability to Digivolve!
In the real world, Hikari Yagami and Takeru Takaishi reunite in the same fifth grade class. They share three schoolmates: Daisuke Motomiya, who reminds them both of Taichi; Miyako Inoue, a technical wizard; and Iori Hida, Miyako's neighbor. When these three children receive "D-3" Digivices, they—along with Hikari and Takeru, who still possess their own original Digivices—comprise the new generation of "Chosen Children" who must save the world once again. With the power of the Armored Digi-Eggs, they must thwart the Digimon Emperor's plans to spread his influence over the entire Digital World.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
Were_Vampire
A while ago I made a review on Digimon Adventure, explaining why I found it to be one of the best kids shows out there, one that had smartly developed plot and characters, great soundtrack, good animation, and overall superb enjoyment not just for kids, but for young adults as well. I also said that a 7.78 score was way too low for a series that achieved something as great as developing each character propperly, have the characters arc influence in the main story arcs and present mature themes to little children without being too dark for them. And so the expectations for Adventure 02were far too high; I wish I could say as well that the score (currently 7.34) is also low, that the series is the great sequel Adventure so much deserved. Sadly, it is not, 7.34 is the score this sequel deserves, if not lower (even into the 6s zone). Why is that? Let's see:
Storywise: The storytelling is not bad, but much has changed, including the pace; Digimon Adventure had 5 story arcs, each 10 to 14 episodes long, which allowed it to move at a pace that never felt too quickly or too slow, each arc started and ended properly. Here... not su much; we have 3 story arcs, one of 21 episodes, then one of 17 and the last one of 12 episodes. We find some filler episodes in the first one, some ongoing character problems on the second (I'll fill that in the next section) and a rushed and convulted final arc that tries to make up for what is kind of a lagging season by bombing us with too much material that never gets developed (Demon, for instance).
Now, don't be fooled; despite all its flaws the storytelling is still enjoyable, there are still mature themes around and the air of greatness of Digimon Adventure, however the flaws are too notorious and the characters also dragg it down, but I have to admit that they are all thought through, none of them comes out of thin air (give or take the final arc) and they all get somewhat their propper ending.
The plot is not as good as the first Digimon series, but the potential is there. Now, why wasn't it fully used? Mainly, characters problems.
Character: Here is where Adventure 02 just outright failed. Remember how amazingly outlined the characters from the first Digimon series were? Remember how they were just broadstrokes that got developed into fully fleshed out character and how amazing was that the crest of each character represented the very scent of how they were? Well, Digimon 02 mainly hopes you forgot about all that.
We still have our main 8 characters from the first series, but 6 are downgraded to supporting roles, while 2 remain and 3 new character join (one more joins lare on). Now these 3 characters are the main trouble of Digimon 02.
Daisuke (aka Davis): he is arrogant, he is reckless, and he is a good guy deep down, we have our most stereotypical hero! Of course, that wouldn't be a trouble with the propper character work, but here there is... none. There is no background to explain Daisuke's personality, whereas in Adventure we had backgrounds for each character. We know he has issues with her sister, but that never gets developed (not to mention we never get to know his parents). As the series goes forward Daisuke changes and matures, for no apparent reason; granted, being in the digital world fighting monsters does change people, but Daisuke's change really came without propper building up. He passed from annoying to tollerable, but mainly he was just plot fodder. But he is not nearly the worst character.
Miyako (aka Joley): now here is a character that mostly everyone will hate! Why is that? Miyako is all talk and no action. She is energetic and sometimes you picture her as the optimistic one, but as soon as she get into the real danger she freaks out and it takes her about 5 minutes of screen time to realize she has to fight. As the series progress her character is mostly ignored and she is left with her characteristic energetic self and food lover life personality, with no development whatsoever or any background at all.
Iori (aka Kodi): Want someone as annoying as Miyako? Iori might be the one. He is rigid and barely makes an expression, if any. Unlike the previous two, this character does have a background which is not only in sync with his personality, but actually linked with the final arc and despite being kind of interesting, the character himself remains the same for about the whole show, with no actual changes and nothing more than his usual poker face.
Takeru (TK) and Hikari (Kari): They came from the previous series, so everything should be ok, right? Sadly no; both Takeru and Hikari are mainly ignored in this series. Takeru has about 3 good character moments in the show in the first arc, and then acts as plot fodder later on. Hikari is... well, I wouldn't know, she really doesn't fullfil any function here, give or take going to the dark sea world or supporting the rest on battle.
Ken: Here is a character that actually got good treatment; he is given a nice background which is consistent with his personality, he is conflicted, and while shy he is mainly likeable for showing the brave to move forward and attone for his wrongs. He is the only one that actually gets good character moments and a character arc that is mainly involved in the plot. Sadly 1 out of 6 doesn't make the cut for good character treatment.
Music: Gladly, the OST from the previous series remains here with the addition of some more tracks made just for this one, which are good. The opening theme, while not as amazing as the one seen in Digimon Adventure, is actually pretty good, both endings are also good, and the tracks that plays in the new evolutions moments are quite nice (specially the one when jogress evolution is made). So, yeah, still a 10 if you ask me.
Enjoyment: For all its faults and failures in the character department, I still think I like this Digimon series. It has some very bad moments that made me ask myself "why am I watching this crap?" Followed by some very glorious moments that kept me on the edge of my seat and reply "Oh, yeah. That's why". Sure, if I had to grade each episodes, most of them would be on the range of C to B-, but there would surely be straigh As in the ways, but sadly some Ds or Fs too. As a whole, the enjoyment is fair: you get some very clunky, cheesy and boring moments, but you also get profounds and exciting ones (thank you BlackWarGreymon! And Taichi and the rest too for that matter), and as such the enjoyement is in thin line between fair and good.
Stray observations (funny facts and bits of information I got while watching the series):
-Did you know that originally Adventure 02 had 64 episodes, but the order got cut to 50 somewhere around the way because of low rating? Now we may understand why the finale felt so rushed.
-There was supposed to be a rivalry between Daisuke and Takeru, but that gets forgotten at some point and then Daisuke just ignores Takeru; and they want to make us believe they are friends...
-Daisuke and Ken, Miyako and Hikari, all got some good character moments and emotional pep talks previous to achieving jogress evolution. Takeru and Iori got it by having Takeru tell Iori "have faith: well, that escalated pretty quickly
-Demon (being sent to the dark world in episode 45): "you'll regret this". Apperantly this was set up for Digimon Adventure 03, which you know ended up being tamer so... no, they never regreted it. Besides, what was his purpose in the first place? We'll never know.
-Ken (in episode 42): "por favor déjeme entrar" Ken, tu español no es malo, de hecho mejor que el de mucho japoneses, pero no deja de ser raro escucharlo.
-Best character: BlackWarGreymon, surely, as he is a sympatetic villian at first and then a tragic hero. His arc is also the high point of the series, as he wonders for the meaning of life; he surely got the best character treatment, closely followed by Ken.
-Worst character: Miyako, surely, clossely followed by Iori.
-Daisuke (in the finale) "I want to have a ramen shop!" Ken: "I never knew about this". Nobody did Ken, and nobody even cared.
-Award for most forgotten character from Adventure: Mimi, somehow the writers though sending one of their most developed characters into USA would make the cut. They were wrong. Also, I think Sora was pretty much forgotten too.
That's it for now! I hope you liked this review
Next up: How Digimon Tamers triumphed by denying it had a past!
MonjaElisa
Digimon Adventure 02 is the secound edition to the Digimon series.. as the series takes place with some of the same characters from the previous season.. While only two of those now remaining the main characters.. As time goes by and after alot of research the Digidestined have managed to find a way back into the digital world Through using the School computer.. but as yet another couple of years has passed the Digiworld now has yet another huge enemy and a big threat. A Normal human being has managed to get into the digital world and is causing a ruckus.. This boy is the Digimon Emperorand he is building black spires everywhere in the Digital world.. as he will be hard enough to defeat on his own these spires makes it even harder as the digimon will no longer be able to digivolve as they used to.
As the series goes on it will come with new twists and challenges. it will be a change in the story that noone will be able to see coming.. And a couple of new characters will be introduced..
If you are a fan of The previous Digimon anime you should be sure to check this sequel anime out. If you are yet to see the first one though, There are things you need to know from the prequel before you see this one..
Mavz0r
I've watched both Adventure and Adventure 02 back when I was a kid (I believe both were the English versions). Less than a week ago, I've started re-watching. All 104 episodes. Here are my findings, hope you find them helpful: Characters: No matter how you look at it - you'll compare it to the first season. Where the first season had 8 original characters, all with an amazing background, unique in every way, this series simply does not have the same amount of effort put into it. Daisuke is even bolder than Taichi was, to the extent of you wanting to smack him in the face. Bigtime. The same with Veemon. He's like Daisuke, and thus, annoying as hell. Didn't grow to either one of them.
As for Miyako - wow. She's even more annoying. She's that one girl that nobody really hates, but has no real friends around her either. Comes from a family that runs a convenience store. Not really much to add here.. her Digimon is okay though.
Iori. Iori, Iori, Iori-kun.. back then, I thought Takeru was a crybaby and rather holding the team back. But this guy? Wow. His Digimon is somewhat okay, he reminds me a bit of Tentomon, but a little more childish and adding -dagyaa behind everything he says.
Takeru. Takeru sure has grown up. He's gotten used to fighting, protecting people, he's someone you can rely on. Patamon hasn't changed either. Both in a good way.
Hikari still is the same sweet girl she was back then, only a little bit more mature. Back in Adventure, Taichi said that "she was a person that really didn't care for herself, always sticking out for others". That quality seems to have been flying away in this series. Even though that's the case, she's still likeable.
Ken - well. I don't like him. Imagine someone torturing all of your friends, to the extent of almost dying, and then having him join your team because he was crying in a desert. Yeah. THAT kind of guy.
The story:
Well, yeah. A Chosen Child that thinks Digimon are just "data"-segments that have no feelings, and thus abuses them? With evil rings? And with a whip he hits his partner with? Okay. The story after the Digimon Kaiser-era (which took up 25 episodes if I'm not mistaken) grew a bit. Not a lot, just a bit.
I immediately resented the bit where Veemon came out of his Digimental, and instantly knew what to do. "YELL DIGIMENTAL-UP YOU BLOODY IDIOT, I DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!" is basically what it came down to. Where the original series was about the actual adventure, finding out what to do, where to go - this series has it all laid out before them.
The art:
It was still okay. Not that impressive, but good considering what year it came out in. Design of the Digimon.. well.. to be honest, I quite resented the Pegasus/Sphinx types that Patamon and Tailmon Armor-Evolved into. BlackWarGreymon and Parrotmon were Digimon that shouldn't have been introduced any further. Parrotmon had its charm because it was, well, just there when the original Digidestined saw it fight.
Sound:
The music was great. Well thought-through, just like the first series. Music, sounds, nothing to say about those but good things! :-)
Overall:
I enjoyed the series, even though there were enough things that bothered me. The biggest of them all was the following:
Remember how in the first series Digimon died all over the place? They wiped out Devimon without a second thought. That happened in the 13th episode. In the new series, the thought of having to "destroy"/delete Digimon, first occured in episode 40. And even then, when it finally came down to it, all new Digi-destined didn't like the idea. Honestly, someone is trying to kill you, but hey, let's not try to kill him back? That annoyed the hell out of me big time.
I still give the series a 7/10, mainly for the reason that the old Digi-destined (Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Jou, Koushiro and Mimi) were having a well formed role throughout the whole series. Don't get me wrong - if you've watched the first season, I highly recommend you watch this one, just don't get your hopes all the way up.
ggultra2764
Compared to the first season, this second season of Digimon Adventures is a step down in quality quite heavily. With exception to Ken, the new characters lacked the depth and problems that the first season kids experienced. This is especially a problem with new kid Davis, who is portrayed as a hot-blooded act-before-thinking boy who doesn't get much fleshing out nor any problems that he must overcome thus making him feel quite shallow as a character compared to much of the main Digidestined. The sad part is that Davis is made the leader of this generation's Digidestined, for better or for worst. The older membersof the first generation Digidestined are shafted to supporting roles whose their only roles in this series are to aid the current generation in explaining or advancing parts of the show's plot. About the only kudos I can give for characters in this series comes from Ken's developments where we learn of his tragic past and his efforts to reform by joining the Digidestined.
The plot for this series isn't much better off either. Digimon Adventure 02 has a more light-hearted mood with nearly half of it focused on the Digimon Emperor arc and having a decent amount of filler. While the idea of the Digidestined taking on a human threat is a unique approach to this series, Ken's not as convincingly threatening as early villains like Devimon and Etemon since we seen the stakes faced by the Digidestined raised higher in each later arc for the first season and many of the villains weren't hesitant to take lives. Things got a bit too scaled back with convincing threats in this season. The large length of the Digimon Emperor arc actually causes problems for developments in later episodes of this season as the show tosses in multiple plot developments that are either sloppily introduced, abruptly resolved in the span of a few episodes or rushed through to seemingly force the series to another desired point in its plot. The series also suffers from wasted potential in what it could have introduced or expanded upon with several plot elements that were tossed in such as the Dark Ocean, Kari's unique powers and the Daemon Corps. Regrettably, these plot elements were instead just tossed in as filler and either were never focused on again or were quickly brushed aside. It looked like this season wasn't sure what kind of plot it wanted to deliver with how its later episodes are all over the place with developments. I don't even want to get started with how the series pulls off its final three episodes that reveal who the true enemy threat is and the abrupt happy ending it plays up.
Otherwise, the visuals and other aspects to the plot are about what you would expect of generic titles: average artwork, reused animation clips, plain character designs, the run-of-the-mill 'evil' Digimon villains, Digimon being beaten to a pulp before their partners gain the power within to defeat villains and so forth.
Even if you're a Digimon fan, I wouldn't waste my time trying to look into this second season to Adventure. The Digimon Emperor arc got too dragged out thanks to having several episodes worth of filler and this results in later episodes being a mess with their developments thanks to having several plot threads being tossed around that are awkwardly handled in their resolutions. Not to mention that other than Ken, the new Digidestined children lack the solid depth and development that the first-generation group underwent in their ordeals. You could watch just the first season of Adventure and you could just pretend this one was never made.
WhatAGoodShow
Digimon Adventure 2002 or 02 is a sequel to Digimon Adventure 1999 and continues with a new generation of chosen children to protect the digital world from sudden disaster. The digital world is inhabited by digital monsters called Digimon. Unlike Pokemon, they have more than 3 stages: Infant (In Training), Baby (In Training II), Child (Rookie), Adult (Champion), Perfect (Ultimate) and Ultimate (Mega) with the first being the names of the Japanese dub and the latter in English. This series introduces a new ways of evolution and one additional new stage that in this series can be considered somewhere between Child and Perfect called Armor. Basicallyit can't fit to the traditional Level system like the previous forms which can lead sometimes to weird things when it comes to power scaling Digimon.
Like the previous season, the children get Digimon partners that help them develop and do the fighting. Each having a unique personality. In the living world they stay in their In-Training II level and in the Digital World they are in their Rookie state.
Unlike in the previous show, the children can go in and out the digital world with their upgraded Digivices whenever they desire.
Another upgrade over its predecessor is the addition of more variety of soundtracks for evolution. The previous types of evolution have the old soundtrack but Armor Evolution, Jogress aka DNA Evolution and Ultimate Evolution have their own unique soundtrack.
Digimon Adventure 99 was known for its great use of its protagonists. Sadly 02 can’t live up to the quality writing of its main cast.
Daisuke aka. Davis is basically a goofy version of Taichi aka. Tai. He starts off as a naive kid who is brave but over the course of the series he also worries about others taking their feelings in consideration as he was the first to be willing to trust someone who turned a new leaf. In short he has both Taichi’s and Yamato’s aka. Matt’s crests from the previous season and gives his take on friendship and courage. His weakness, however, is that he can be clumsy and has a crush on Hikari aka. Kari.
V-Mon encourages Daisuke often and shows a lot of personality. They are similar but often he feels embarrassed being part of Daisuke’s stupid plans to impress Kari. However, he has complete trust in Daisuke in fights even if it happens to be misplayed from the viewers perspective. He is one of the strongest members as he has the most evolutions.
Miyako aka. Yolei an energetic nerd. However, despite being experienced with computers and helping out a lot with Koushiro aka. Izzy who has the crest of knowledge, she is associated with love and purity aka sincerity. Crest that don’t seem to fit her selfish, greedy and cheeky personality.
Hawkmon is polite and has a cool design. There aren’t much notable interactions between these two.
Iori aka. Cody is the deepest character of the original new members. Despite being the youngest, he is skilled in kendo and can defend himself when the situation calls for it. His father who used to be a police officer died in an accident during the line of duty before the start of the story which shaped his black and white view on the world. Over the course of the series, his world would start showing more tones of grey which leads him to help reform an antagonist to the side of good.
Armadimon is a goofy armadillo who has some of the wildest evolution. Sadly he doesn’t contribute much to Iori’s character besides getting new evolutions out of them.
From the previous season, two other characters get upgraded Digivices and work as guides for the new members. Them being Hikari and Takeru who grew up.
Takeru aka. TK is more self confident unlike in the previous season and his knowledge sometimes end up helpful. Also some experiences from the previous season show a side not seen by TK so far and despite his on the surface cool self, there is a side of him that can’t forgive anyone who abuses the power of evil.
Patamon didn’t change much from the previous season. Sadly he can’t use his old forms for most of the season due to various cases the show used to power down the old cast. However, he did get an armor evolution and later get a Jogress evolution.
Hikari aka. Kari was the last introduced member in the previous season and pretty much a deus ex machina. In this season she has an actual personality being a curious child and showing the most amount of emotions ironically. However, she is often the victim of being dragged into weird dark worlds with creepy images leading to situations the other members have to safe her. Luckily that doesn’t happen often.
Her partner Tailmon aka. Gatomon got powered down losing her holy ring putting her power down to child level despite being an adult level digimon. But she does get new evolutions that help her out in fights. In the previous season she used to be an antagonist and the deepest Digimon partner. In this season not much of her personality shines except when she meets the ghost of her best friend and someone she hoped to never see again.
While 02 lacks good protagonists, it makes up for great antagonists. Some of which set the standards for many future Digimon antagonists to date.
Ken the Digimon Kaiser (or Digimon Emperor) is an evil chosen child who uses the Dark Spirals and Rings to enslave all the Digimon like Devimon did in the predecessor. But unlike Devimon, Ken is far more effective. He builds towers that unable Digimon to evolve to the next level unless they use Armor Evolution making all the former cast members Digimon useless. He upgrades his gadgets when he sees there is an issue in them and even goes as far as building his own Digimon partner Chimeramon aka. Kimeramon. Ken has a tragic past where he used to be overshadowed by his overly skilled brother. Once that brother died, he took that role in the family becoming a new prodigy to the point anyone else looked inferior to him including his own parents. Seeing him rise, develop and fall is one of the most interesting story arcs not being successfully replicated by other Digimon series yet.
His real partner Wormmon is supporting him despite knowing what he is doing is wrong. He hoped some day that the kind Ken he befriended with would one day return. There is a great character arc between these two when Wormmon has to make a harsh decision in order to protect Ken.
While he lacks Armor Evolution, he still ends up getting one of the strongest evolution in the show.
Arukenimon and Mummymon are a duo of villains similar to Team Rocket. They are henchmen to a bigger villain but until that gets revealed, they work effectively creating powerful digimon using the Black Towers that were meant to seal the power of evolution. They end up creating one of the deepest Digimon characters in the show.
BlackWarGreymon is visually just a black pallet swap of the original WarGreymon. Created by Black Towers, he is considered an evil Digimon. However, being mightier than his creators he disappears in the hopes to find the real reason he exists. This leads to him fighting the protagonists very often and his overwhelming power leads him often the win. It is very interesting to see what his search for meaning leads too.
Oikawa is an adult man who desires to go to the Digital World and is willing to do that by any means possible. He has a traumatic past losing the only person who shared his love with the Digital Creatures who was Iori’s dad. He is really clever using various means to distract the protagonists from the main goal and even making them fight his enemies, the Deamon Corps who came to the world of the living creating chaos. Despite being a mere human, he uses his knowledge and assets well to get what he wants.
However, there is a reason why 02 isn't as good as it could be. Rather pretty mediocre.
After the Armor Eggs ended their purpose, we still didn't see the old kids using their Digimon to beyond Adult, but instead the new kids got Adult forms themselves and the show introduced a new evolution mechanic. So the show introduces cope outs to prevent the old cast coming with the latest evolutions and overshadow the new cast. But they will get some back for some nostalgia trip.
And more and more restrictions were put in and adults have all forgotten about Digimon.
And like with Tamers, 02 tried to tie in the Wonderswan games to excuse why Ken got evil. Ken's backstory got more and more confusing with many plotlines being dropped. The Dark Ocean plot went nowhere because Toei found it too depressing but aired "out of respect" the episode that confused everybody. Deamon Corps were, while powerful, filler villains that only filled the runtime like how MetalEtemon only existed as a sacrificial villain for Jou to make the non-Ultimate owning kids relevant somehow.
And the old kids rarely did anything of value and the parents besides exceptions like Iori's were pretty much irrelevant.
Female characters are meh unless we include Arukenimon. Miyako is selfish and hyperactive like a female Daisuke. She is more useful than Sora and Mimi but her role can be replaced by Koshiro in several situation. Hikari is less active than in Adventure despite being here since the beginning this time.
As a show where monsters fight each other, Digimon fights at the start aren’t that impressive. However, just seeing the different forms and the emotional struggles needed to archive the forms are usually worth it where the lack of good choreography can be looked past. There is a reason why many evolution, especially when they first appear, will stay with you. As the show progresses, the fights and budget improve. There will be a lot of recycled animation and the evolution to Child and Adult states seem rather lame. Like mentioned earlier, the new forms get a kickass soundtrack unique to them.
Armor evolution is upgrading the Digimon for fast travel or other purposes.
Jogress or DNA Evolution is an evolution method where two Digimon merge into one more powerful one. However, each Digimon gets a set partner they can perform it with and nobody can chose who their partner will be. However, fusing Digimon is still cool.
There is the use of CGI for certain evolution which normally would be a turnoff, but since Digimon are digital creatures, the evolution scenes are tolerable and give the show a unique identity as many later Digimon series will use that concept for their transformation scenes.
While Digimon is a kids show, it can be off putting or flat out scare the viewer as it goes on since the enemies can be deviant and scary.
Digimon can reincarnate but only in the Digital World. Digimon drying in the living world cannot. And one human will outright die in his show.
Digimon 02 is decent. It struggles to live up to the standards set by 99 and doesn’t take advantage of its old cast well to guide the new cast. However, it has amazing antagonist with lots of grey in them and are used as examples for future Digimon Villains yet to come out.
thadder12345
what can i say about digimon season 2.... um in the words of bill and ted, EXCELLENT! its one of the few time where the squeal was better than the original and let me tell you why. first you have a recurring cast of the old digidestined this allows the die hard fan to ease into the new group of kids. plus the experts can help out the rookies. digimon season 2 did have its faults and i say it comes down to series length. digimon has this problem that they must go from rookie to mega in less than 40 episodes this rushes thestory and also limits any appreciation for newly introduced forms. for instants my favorite digi-egg was the digi-egg of miracles but it olny got 2 episodes and a minor movie appearance.
but enough of the negative lets get into the positive! i love the new kari or hikari(light) for those japanese fans. she shows real development from her season one self and shows how the crest of light is truly powerful. my favorite character by far is ExVeemon.
now im just rambling so ill get to the point.....
WATCH THIS ANIME ! digimon has to live in the shadow of pokemon and we digifans will not let this happen! digimon is a great show and i wish the season 3 was a conituation but beggars cant be choosers. oh well
kayori1928
STORY: 9/10 Digimon Adventures 02 contiues 3 years after Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Mimi, Jyou, Koshiro, Takeru, and Hikari travelled to the digital world for the very first time. The series starts with 3 new chosen children, Daisuke, Yolei, and Iori, who get a new digivice model which was sent flying from the computer after Taichi touches the digimental with the crest of courage on it. These new digivices allow the new children to not only open the gate to the digital world anytime they please, but they also allow for a new type of digivolution, the armor digivolve. But these three are not the only oneswho get new digivices, but also Takeru and Hikari from the first season. The chosen children team up in the first half of the series to fight against the evil Digimon Emperor, whose not only a human boy genius but is also another chosen child, Ken Ichijouji.
ART: 7/10
The artwork was not amazing but wasn't too bad either.
SOUND: 8/10
The music was pretty good but not as much as the first season.
CHARACTERS: 7/10
Daisuke: He is the crazier and more annoying version of Taichi.
Yolei: I have one word to describe her...annoying
Iori: Nothing comes to mind but boring.
Hikari: Has matured from 01. But is still the same sweet girl who would go do anything for anyone no matter the cost for her. Not a bad thing. Actually this adds a bit of depth to her character.
Takeru: Honestly I see him more as the new leader than Daisuke. He's gotten more mature, has gotten guts, but also has brains. He is also still affected by what happened to Angemon during their first battle with a major enemy in Adventures 01, which adds some depth to his character.
Ken: He is by far my favorite character in Adventure 02. Even though you start of despising him with every being, after Wormon's death and his realization that the digitalworld isn't a game, his charcter really starts to shine brightly. This new character depth comes from his backround story and honestly he is the only new character who I care about in this season.
The only problem I have with Ken is the fact that the stupid writers decided to do part of his backround story as a game called Tag Tamers instead of an OVA or I wouldn't of even minded an extra episode based on the first time he entered the digital world.
ENJOYMENT: 8/10
I found this season quite enjoyable. The story was kept me pretty interested but there were a few episodes that were pretty boring too.
OVERALL: 8/10
Even though there were some things I did not enjoy, it was still overall a great season and I would definately reccommend you give it a watch. Its probably better if you haven't seen this season to watch the first season as well as the first 2 Japanese dubbed movies. The first English dubbed movie contains the first 3 Japanese Dub movies cause they were all a half-hour long.
Shura-shurato
I.m so damn glad i´ve continued to watch the digimon serie´s on t.v after season 1 ended. The only minor complaint for me of season 2 was that some of the kids of se1 has been replaced, though i had no idea what the story was about this time, except that digimons wil be used alright. It really had a more darker, less kidfriendly tone the further the plot revealed itself , slight psychological mindfucks, digimon enslavement, what the real purpose was of the digiworld ect ect. for the animation and the music it stayed and kept the things that se1 had thanks to itspopularity and ofc the dancemusicOP-ED. a lot of things came as sort of a suprise to me like any other kids that watched it back then, and talk of the day. it was certainly one of the best enjoyable t.v shows i had seen in a while next to DBZ and Pokemon!
Nyyai030
When I was a kid, I didn't get the chance to watch the whole first season because I discovered it late, so you can say that this part is the first I watched and I liked it a lot. I remember getting excited,enthousiastic; jumping and screaming like them when their digimon devolpe . this show was one of my best i enjoyed every episode in both the first and second season but there were a LOOOT of bad moments and points Well the most fortunate characters to have a good development were ken and dark wargreymon the others were ignored , i kinda understand why causei though :just 50 episodes??? i dont think it will be enough to give every character more time screen
In addition, the number of main characters is reduced
This frustrated me because I know the Digimon serie has the potentiel
But things may have prevented that
There were many important and big messages that were presented in the anime in a nice way, so that I, as a person in her late teenagerhood, can take a lesson from them as well
I love the slice of life animes in general , digimon gave me that and i really enjoyed how they spend their time and go through dramatic and difficult situations, then funny ones . i was smiling all the time and laughing with them
The anime gave me a lot of positive, warm and nostalgic feelings, especially nostalgia
the ending is so rushed and a lot of things are left unexplained But I found myself crying when the ending phrase appeared i really love the digimon serie
angelsreview
Well, there back but not the main characters. At least, only two of the main characters from the old show are actually main characters in this one. Unfortunately, they have the same problems from before as well. TK, although grown up a little too much, acts young a lot and Kari again is little miss Jesus with how perfect she is. Really, she seems to do nothing wrong with how caring she was. The other characters pretty much ether don’t grow, don’t change, or something around that until they hit a certain point and by then, I had lost interest in them. I think partof this was because that they seemed to be made to be the embodiment of two characters from the older show.
Davis is supposed to be Tai and Matt, Cody is Izzy and Joe, and Yolei is supposed to be Mimi and Sora. The only character that actually grew is Ken and actually, he replaced my favorite character, even if he was the bad guy for half the season almost.
The two that really never stood out to me was Yolei and Cody. They just really didn’t have much screen time and seemed like the whole show could have just left them out and let it be Davis, Kari, and TK as the main characters.
Now, Yolei feels like she was made as the exact opposite to Mimi in the first season. She had many brothers and sisters and was rather poor, but yet she kept whining and complaining like Mimi so it only sent a message to me that no matter what, girls will become bitchie no mater what… not the best to send to young women. With Cody, there really wasn’t anything to talk about.
The voices are so off. I really don’t know who decided to have these characters sound the way they do but its worse then the first. T.K. sounded like he hit puberty faster then anyone else. His voice was not the voice of a young kid but of a much more teenage adult style. The other characters and I’m talking the main characters, sound pretty raspy or like Kari, has a harsh voice like she always has a stuffy nose.
DATS24
I watched digimon adventure 02 when I was still a kid, I did enjoy it very much. After I grow up, and rewatching it, I can't believe that it had a bunch of flaws in it. Let's go into it... Story: 5/10 Being connected with 1st adventure series, the story involves about digimon kaiser, who make rampage on digital world, torturing digimon becoming his servants. New chosen children had to stop him for what he did. The story of kaiser become connected with the next villain and more. My problem is, the story had a LOT of annoying plotholes, especially on the dark ocean episodes. It's cliche,didn't make sense at all. It tended to be darker but it failed, more like a useless filler. It was nice to see the connection between the old villain with the next one until the last villain, making it become clear about the controversies.
However, the ending of the episode is just not what it should be. I was disappointed for the ending. But overall, the story is okay-ish, degraded from the straightforward adventure 1.
Characters: 8/10
Despite of huge plotholes, the characters are more or less good, except the main character. It had fair enjoyable moments between characters, sometimes are annoying. And it had a few good teen drama.
Daisuke was just an annoying generic typical shounen main character. He's the most annoying of all, he tends to be more anime-ish character. Even though so, he did a few best job especially in before last episode. Maybe that's what I can only appreciate him for.
Takeru was a crybaby on adventure 1, but he get developed well in adv 2, becoming much level-headed and not being crybaby anymore. Despite being nice, there's a time when we can see his anger because of something traumatic of him. It had a burden of not being able to overcome the trauma. But eventually he could do it well.
Ken, the former kaiser, was unexpectedly first a villain which later become the protagonist, but apparently, he's not that evil and tyrant. His back story were very sad and making it sympathetic. Deeper psychological problem goes to him. After being freed from being kaiser, he only thought that he's not forgivable, and just being depressed. Fortunately, he eventually can overcome that feeling and become developed really well.
Iori is a kid with more level-headed person. He had a trauma of being left by his late father because of accident in his job as an officer. Somehow, he's still being childish and couldn't control his emotion well. He did developed well eventually, despite not much changes of him. Things got more complex with Iori when he found the truth of his father's relation.
The rest of characters are good just the way they are. However character like Miyako seemed annoying, despite she had done some best job in a few moments. I have no comment for Hikari, but she's just so so. Most of old chosen children had developed well too.
The villains are much better than cliche adventure's. They have their own reason of why they become the bad one. I really appreciate that the series can made the watcher being sympathetic for the villains. However, the last villain was a degradation, and not enjoyable.
Music: 9/10
As usual, digimon series are very well-known of their epic music. Opening was catchy enough, ending was nice as well. Soundtracks are good enough, but the thing that I really like was the insert songs. Break Up and Beat hit are epicness, fitted the evolution scenes really well. Bokura no Digital World was so good and memorable.
Art: 8/10
I have no comment for the general art, but they did really well with the 3D CG evolution scenes especially for imperialdramon.
Enjoyment: 8/10
I still enjoy it as if I was still a kid, but it went down quite a bit when I found the big flaw on the plot. But I enjoy the characters very well also the epic insert song.
Overall: 7/10
Despite the degradation of the plot of the story, it still did well. However, I can still think that a connected story or second season of same story of digimon isn't that needed. Thanks for reading my review.
Dcm18
---Dcm18's quick reviews--- Story: 7 (Not that great, I was expecting much more) Art: 7 (Mediocre animation, good designs) Sound: 8 (Solid, good OP) Character: 6 (Major flaw - the new chars sucked) Enjoyment: 7 (Meh not bad) Overall: 7.0 (Worse than it's great prequel, still good though)
Theusnew
ENG: Digimon is an anime with great potential and deserved to have a second season. Well, not this specific. Comparing this sequence with the first anime is seen that the production team did not give a deserved attention, creating a lazy story! First of all, as a sequence, then all the events occurred in the first anime must be respected, correct? Well, some of them, but others do not, for example: part of Japan has seen the digidestined and the whole world has seen that digiworld exists, and no one cares to know about the digiworld and what can affect in the real world.Besides that, all the characters have a normal life after all the events of the first anime and no one in the world goes after them to seek clarification. Speaking of digidestined, the new ones are very basic, but they are not bad. The real problem is (and even serious) to put almost all the old digidestined (6, to be more exact) as simple supporting in this new story (they do not even seem to care about the digiworld and digimons anymore, they care more about their lives personal, only in some cases do they appear). Speaking of history, oh my God! (Many episodes nothing important happens ! It seems a lot of filler) It's a set of adventures that are not so challenging and without excitement. The new villains (with the exception of the emperor digimon) are very uninterestin ( especially Oikawa) and others are recycled (lack creativity when it comes to creating them).At least the animation (including the new digievolutions) are very cool ,as well as sound, which is in the same quality as the first digimon series.
PORT: digimon é um anime com grande potencial e que merecia ter uma segunda temporada. Bem, não essa em específico.Se comparar essa sequência com o primeiro anime é visto que a equipe de produção não deu uma atenção merecida a ele, criando assim, uma história mais preguiçosa! Primeiro de tudo, como é uma sequência, então todos os acontecimentos ocorridos no primeiro anime devem ser respeitados, correto? Bom, alguns sim, mas outros não, exemplo: parte do Japão viu os digiescolhidos e o mundo inteiro viu que o digimundo existe, e com isso ninguém se preocupa em saber sobre o digimundo e o que isso pode afetar no mundo real. Além disso, todos os personagens tem uma vida normal após todos os acontecimentos do primeiro anime e ninguém do mundo vai atrás deles buscar esclarecimentos ou informações.Falando em digiescolhidos, os novos são bem básicos, mas não são ruins. O problema mesmo é ( e grave até) colocar quase todos os antigos digiescolhidos ( 6, para ser mais exato) como meros coadjuvantes nessa nova história ( eles nem parecem se preocupar mais com os digimons e o digimundo, eles se preocupam mais com as suas vidas pessoais, somente em alguns casos eles aparecem). Falando na história em si, que coisa estranha viu! ( muitos episódios não acontecem nada de importante! Parece episódios filler) É um conjunto de uma aventura pouco desafiante e sem empolgação. Os novos vilões ( com exceção do imperador digimon) são bem desinteressantes ( principalmente o Oikawa) e outros foram de certa forma reciclados( faltou criatividade na hora de criá-los). Pelo menos a parte da animação (incluindo as novas digievoluções) estão bem legais, assim também como a parte sonora do anime, mantendo a qualidade do primeiro Digimon.
maberlazer
This series is one of the first few animes i ever watched so i decided to watch it again. The story was good with some rememberal story arc's but alot of episodes with a short and sometimes stupid way of ending the arc. The art was good with some great character designs, backgrounds and some great 3-d effects near the end that could be used more. For the sound, The theme song is to me one of the most memorable oppenings in anime (for the english oppening). the characters are memerable with some great storylines (which sadly only last an episode or 2) I enjoyed the series butnot as much as i did many years ago. i guess i lost my love for animals with weapons of mass distruction.
Overall the seriies is good but like nearly every anime there are some problems. the characters can have a great episode then just fade away into the background never to have a story arc again. and every episode has about 5 minutes an episode where its just digivolving sequence and even to the point where its the same sequence being shown twice an episode.
This series is worth watching and even though the first series does explain alotof stuff towards this one, you can still watch this and get the story.
samhijazi
Digimon Adventures 2, the sequel to my favorite anime series Digimon adventures 1. Before watching this, I knew it could never be as good as the original one. I was right, and I decided to write a review hoping to benefit you all. Story: Well, the series is four years after Adventures 1, and three new digidestined are introduced. I was excited to see the previous eight children at the beginning, but the series seemed to revolve around the new digidestined. It would have been great if Adventures 2 was all about the grown up digidestined ready for another mission to save the world. However, eventhough these new characters werent as good as the previous, the series still had potential. unlike adventures 1, which has 5 sections with different enemies, this series is mainly split into two: the fight with the digimon emperor, and the one with Arukenimon and Mummymon. The episodes concerning the digimon emperor are sort of the sam as the clash with devimon, where the only difference is that a human is controlling digimon, with dark rings/spirals instead of gears. After that its all Digidestined clashing with Arukenimon, where the plot thickens and becomes better and better. The DNA digivolving is pretty cool, but I prefer the way Digimon could digivolve into ultimate. The finale of the series was unexpected and naive. The writers seemed to have create the ultimate enemy, Malomyotismon, yet they end up destroying him by children's dreams? I was expecting Omnimon to finish the job or some new DNA Digivolving. And the way the series ended was also pathetic, where every child had a digimon. It was better to keep it to the digidestined.
Art: art was pretty good, the digimon were still monsters and not cute cuddly animals like in the digimon movie. Nothing to criticize
Sound: I always wish the series could decide the voices and lines of the digimon from the beginning. Like Digmon saying "drill of power" and "drill of knowledge" interchangeably.
Character: The new digidestined are nothing compared to the original. Cody nags alot and Yolei is annoying. Davis is fun but still, nothing like Tai. Also, they hesitate to destroy the digimon, which was something never mentioned in the first series and was a total bummer. It was surprising that the digidestined have been killing digimon for 54 episodes and in this new series, its "not right" because they "have a heart".
Enjoyment: Despite it being sort of a "different" series, my favorite series ever was Digimon 1 and seeing characters from there in Digimon 2 was awesome. I enjoyed many scenes of the series, and I liked the soulsearching of Ken, and how the old digidestined gave advice and help to the new ones.
Overall: I enjoyed this series, and despite its flaws, everyone who has seen the first series must see this. The show went downhill after this.
BeebopJazzAttack
I'll just say it right now, I was a pokemon fan when I was young. I wasn't that big of a digimon fan. I though the people always looked weird with there big hands on there small arms. And I always liked how the monsters looked in pokemon rather then digimon. But this season wasn't THAT bad. It's definitely is better then season two of pokemon. Pretty much because they seemed to really try and put some effert into character development. I enjoyed the digimon monsters and there masters way more then I did in the first season. And I kinda liked the out comeof it, especiually since I had been watching it from day one on saturday mornings, so it was almost kinda sad to see it done. The story is takes place three years after the first season, the first digimon masters are done and have passed the torch on. TK and Kari are the only returning original characters, they are older then in the first season. They must stop an evil digimon war lord with a worm digimon who might not be who we think he is.
This series also did another really cool thing, it gave us the most bad ass kids movie ever.
Take care everyone.
DerOkashi
Let's start with the elephant in the room: What did they do to Mimi's hair. Seriously, first she looks like a christmas tree, then she looks like she fell asleep in a hair dryer. Sry, but that was a little to much for my taste. OK, now that that's out of the way, let's start the review: To be honest, every time I watched it, I could never really decide on what to make of this season. Twice I thought I never even finished. The shifts in tone and story make it almost seem like two separate seasons. But let's start with the first half: The Kenstory arc was always one of my favourite story arcs. It shows how human some people can be even under the most inhumane circumstances and how manipulation and despair can drive people into near insanity. I really favour Ken in the first half, because he is actually an antagonist with purpose. In flashbacks you see, that he didn't start of as an antagonist but as a nice young boy with a huge premise. He fell because his despair took over and started to control his actions. This is, what made him so fascinating in comparison to the antagonists of the first season. They were purely meant to be evil, Ken on the other hand has a reason for his behaviour. It would be even stronger, if they would have explored it more. But for what it is, it's pretty strong.
The second half of the series we sadly return to the regular Digi-formula. Bad guy is bad and does bad guy things, and for what reason, well, because. At least this is what you get until the end, were the truth behind his actions is revealed. You don't get behind it unless you have hindsight from watching the season before. The shift in tone is so drastic, that I thought I didn't even finish watching the season,... twice. When I started rewatching, I never could even tell what happend in the second half. When I reached the halfpoint I usually think, oh, that seems familiar until I realize, that I actually did finish the season. It actually is so forgettable, that you almost overlook, that it contains a very strong story, i.e. the story of Black Wargreymon. It is one of the strong points of this season, because you see and feel the dilemma that enshrouds this poor soul. And it gets even better, when you see all this search for rhym or reason and purpous being discussed with Agumon. But yet it could have been analyzed more, but we had a basic good vs evil story to shoot so what the heck. The climax also couldn't be more sentimental and clichéed. I don't want to spoiler to much so I keep it very basic, but it is a little to much even for my taste. And then the ending: After Adventure 01 seeing those charaters all grown up, all those connections build, those deep and affectionate friendships... Actuallly, it would have been better, if they wouldn't have shown anything instead of what was shown. A lot of people had problems with this ending, because a lot of outcomes were really unexpected and undesired. Sry, but why build up those deep feelings and bondings when they go nowhere, At least not in the way, everybody wants them to go? Those last 5 minutes, they didn't ruin only the second season but the whole adventure arc in total.
After raging about the story I could start raging about the characters. Let's start with the well drawn characters,... um... well, oh yeah, the characters from the original series. But actually, it's more of a nostalgic value that is present rather than really interesting characters. It's nice to see how they are doing now after the timespan of 3 years. But actually all the strong points of these characters have been reduced to mere shadows. I mean of course, there are new characters to show and develope, and those characters are, well, how do I say this, mediocre at best. They seem to be cardboard cutouts from the characters of the first season. You've seen those characters, those characteristics, those motives and those backstories. Davies represents Tai and Matt, Yolei represents Sora and Mimi, Cody represents Issy and Joey, T.K. and Kari are, well not really T.K. and Kari. Kari became the boring clichéed, well, girl, I guess and T.K. became kind of grown up, but in a kind of way that's kind of out of charakter. OK let's say Davis and T.K. are quite interesting characters, they overtook the places of Tai and Matt. Davis is very heart warming and sympathetic. And yet his design, well, in my opinion from Tai to Davis it's a downgrade, but that's just my opinion. I like fancy hair desing more than the basic buzz cut. Nevertheless he is hartwarming and generally nice, sometimes stupid but has his heart in the right place. The only thing I find really enoying is his exaggerated affaction for Kari. You always saw Kari and T.K. have a special bond and he never really fitted into this scheme. I'd rather not go into more detail with Kari and T.K. if I want to avoid rage mode. T.K. on the other hand seems to be more rational and less emotional. He has his moments but he grew up te become very calculating and quite contradicting to his character of adventure 01. You could argue, that the events of 01 made him that way and yet it's still a little out of place. He still seems a little boring, because he is so basic and chichéed, even though he is one of the interesting characters of the series. The best character has to be Ken. He has the most interesting backstory and he has a lot of screen time to flash out his inner struggle and his misunderstanding of the Digimon and the worlds both digital and real. He still keeps your interest and is the only thing to pull you through the transition episodes between the two story arcs. Yet as soon as this is over, the interest value decreases pretty much, wich is a shame, cause he started of with a lot of promise.
The Digimon are, well, without true characteristics, except of course for Black Wargreymon. He actually still keeps your interest high when the other part of the story falls flat. But I talked about him already, so no need to repeat myself. The other Digimon, except for Wormon, are, how do I phrase it, just there. Wormon is very passionate and shows his deep affections for Ken. He is the reason he snaps out of his rage so he shows purpous.
The antagonists... basic. Nothing special, rather boring. But I already talked about it as well.
One point that sticks out and is always a favourite part of each series is of course the music. The songs are all memorable. Once you started watching a seasons, good luck getting those songs out of your head. Wada Kouji really had a good feeling of what sticks and what describes the mood and set up of a Digimon series.
To sum it all up now, I can say, it's basic, but still enjoyable. It doesn't stick to long except for these songs. The story is mediocre but that's for Digimon standards so the standards are pretty high. The characters are here and there enjoyable but on the whole quite forgettable. And the ending kind of ruins it all, for the set up expectations that everybody wanted to see and hoped to become true where not fulfilled at all. Yet it was nice to see the characters from the first season you learned to love all grown up.
So my final conclusion would be, that I definately recommend this season yet keep your expectaions low to avoid disappointment.
SoldierDream
Probably no other title better represents the common belief “sequels are never as good as the originals” in anime more than Digimon Adventure 02: with respect to the first one, the second installment of the Digimon series is unfortunately a steep decline. Suffering from one of the worst reputations in the franchise, it is infamous for removing many of the elements that made its predecessor a hit, for having an erratic second half as a result of creative differences in the writing team, for ruining one of the fan-favorite ships, for ruining the appeal and respect of one of the fan-favorite digimons, and for aquestionable epilogue that left many fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Being the original series one of my all time favorite shows, this one is naturally among one of my personal biggest disappointments, although this only became this way after rewatching it as an adult (right after finishing rewatching the first one), since, for better or worse, I remember very well I actually had a very good time watching this continuation as a kid. I remember very well how I glued myself to my old CRT TV screen every day after school when it was about to start and how I begged my parents to buy me the expensive action figures, which in the end, is a fact I like since it acts as a proof that enjoying as a grown-up an anime first watched as a child is not only due to nostalgia, like it is commonly argued these days.
Being it a direct sequel, it comes as inevitable to compare it to its predecessor. One of the main reasons that made Digimon Adventure an stand-out when it comes to children’s anime was that it chose to put the focus in the characters, their exploration and relationships instead of the cool action sequences and the light humor like it is the case in most kids’ anime or kids’ TV programming in general. All of this is just thrown away in 02 with the new gang of digi-destined kids. First, it already comes as strange the fact that there “has to” be a new generation of chosen children, leaving the old ones sidelined for supporting roles and automatically making them “not really that special” anymore, devaluing their status, though it comes as understandable when remembering that their arcs had already been closed in the original and creating them new issues to deal with just because a new series had to be produced could have felt somewhat exhausting and/or repetitive. But what is not understandable, is that, if the idea of a new generation was to keep things fresh -and with the exception of only one- the newly introduced kids had not received the same treatment as the original cast did when it comes to making them fleshed-out, fully-realized characters, lacking motives, backstories and/or personal struggles or fears to overcome, thus turning them into uninteresting characters from a substantial point of view. For kids this may not be a problem, but for adults the story is quite different. They do not face tests, they do not undergo any growing-up/learning process like the first generation did (what had been the true heart of the first series); they’re just there to accomplish their mission of defeating the bad guys. It doesn’t help the fact that two of them, Yolei/Miyako (an inferior version of Izzy/Koushiro) and Cody/Iori (an inferior version of T.K.), are simply too boringly designed with not a single trait/quirk that could have made them at least likeable characters to follow in the journey, and what could have at least made up for their lack of depth, like it was actually the case with Davis/Daisuke (the new generation leader and Taichi’s kouhai), whose adorably explosive, brash and happy-go-lucky personality made of him at least an entertaining character to watch. Even the experienced members of the group, T.K. and Hikari, don’t play major substantial roles besides supporting the new members in the digimon battles, which was especially unfortunate for Hikari considering she had been the least-developed member of the first generation due to her late entrance in the group and the one that had the largest potential.
This state unfortunately is also extended to the new digimon-partners. One of the other hits of the first one was that in relation to the creatures of the show, the writers treated them more than just the accompanying, obedient pets used as the battle weapons and cared to give them more meaningful roles. And again, except for only one (Wormmon), this is also a merit thrown away in 02. While in the first one the digimon-partners had a relevant voice, morally supported their respective kid-partners in their growing-up/maturing processes and even had to learn how to get along with each other, understand each other and build a good, constructive relationship in order to accomplish their missions, this time the new team of creatures of the new generation well, are precisely just that: the accompanying, obedient pets used as the battle weapons; there is literally nothing else to say about them. Design-wise, they also do not fare much better. Unlike the original cast of creatures, they virtually lack any sort of distinctive, interesting personalities, and/or strengths, weaknesses and anxieties, which ultimately turned them into dull, unmemorable creatures the audience was unable to ever care for and/or feel anything for. Lastly, and more importantly, it was a shame to see how the whole purpose of the original series was forgotten too: to make their digimon-partners evolve and become powerful enough to defeat the enemies in turn, the kids had to first learn a lesson and work upon their personal virtues represented by their crests; digi-evolving didn’t come at no cost, it had to be earned. 02 throws away that valuable spiritual connection between the digimon and the kid where the powering-up of the former was tied/conditioned to the character growth/psychological evolution of the latter, by making the digimons instead digi-evolve either just because an object allowed it (armor evolution) or because the kids decided it was time to do so (DNA/jogress evolution), making clear that the focus this time shifted from character development and teaching life lessons, to the action sequences and selling more toys. There’s even a submarine-shaped main digimon, literally!
One of the aspects where this sequel did improve upon the first one, was the characterization given to the enemies. However, this improvement was unfortunately spoiled and could not live up to its full potential thanks to a general lack of narrative focus and creative differences that will be explained later. In the first series, all the villains were digimons and most of them weren’t characterized beyond the basic evil guys who seeked world domination (I say most because there were two better elaborated). Now, things got more interesting since, despite the still-presence of some cartoonish villains (Arukenimon and Mummymon), there are three main ones that do get more meaningful backgrounds and motivations and do provide more meat and maturity to the show (making up for the lack of character exploration of the children), with two of them in this occasion human beings (no enemy in the first one is a more sensitive, morally complex human being): Ken Ichijouji (the “Digimon emperor”, and later sixth member of the new digi-destined generation) and Yukio Oikawa. The former, an insecure, lone-wolf boy with a tragic past who uses the digitalworld as a form of escapism and personal fulfillment by enslaving and hurting the digimons (and who later must redeem himself for all the pain he caused and learn how to fit with and trust the rest of the team); the latter, a misunderstood old man with an unsatisfied childhood dream, and the third one, BlackWargreymon, an artificially created digimon with the capacity of thinking and having feelings that develops an existential crisis and wanders through the digitalworld looking for answers. Unfortunately, none of the arcs of these villains is executed in a satisfying manner neither are they convincingly tied together. As interesting as Ken’s backstory is, the show fails to capitalize on it by making his merciless actions result of only being infected by an evil spore and not because of genuine “inner demons”, and never “truly” mean when we learn that he had always thought that the digimons were not real in the first place. The show also never really knew what to do with BlackWargreymon and his existential crisis, eventually became a hurdle to the writers, and in the end, they simply decided to get rid of him with a disrespectful “goodbye” type of resolution. Finally, the value of Oikawa’s story was sharply lessened after being pushed into the background with the introduction of the far less interesting last enemy towards the end, completely ruining his “now this is really the main one” condition. Despite most of them being more basic and cartoonish, at least all the villains of the first series were executed effectively with no unsatisfactory conclusions.
Which brings us finally to the core failure of the series: the fact that its storyline is simply a straight, big fat mess. 02 suffered heavily from creative differences, studio meddling, poor planning and a general lack of agreement in what story to develop. After the first arc (the digimon emperor arc), which had already been way longer than it needed accounting for 45% of the whole show (an excessive amount when remembering it was only an introductory arc to present the new chosen children, their new digimon-partners and the new digi-evolutions), the story never really picked a clear direction, never found a clear north, never knew where it wanted to get from the start, meandering from plot point to plot ploint without ever properly delving deeper into any of them in particular. It starts developing -or announces the intention to develop- many plot threads at once, each fighting for the show’s attention with none of them really “winning”, without concluding any of them well with a good pay-off, solving in a quick and questionable way some (Destiny Stones and Daemon) or even simply dismissing others without explanation (the Dark Ocean and Dragomon), which ended up being unexplored, worthless elements. In order to give a minimal sense of coherence, the writers tried to tie everything together conveniently resorting to making most of the introduced villains simply being used or manipulated by the following one, from Ken Ichijouji to Yukio Oikawa, but it wasn’t an useful tactic since the damage to the watching experience had already been done and the mess had already exceeded its no-return point. There was never a sense of a tight structure, it seemed like the plot was being written by two (or three) different writing teams who never knew what the others were writing, and as a result no plot thread was well-developed neither concluded, the chances of taking advantage of the potential of every of the (well-characterized) introduced enemies were missed as mentioned before, and obviously, this also resulted in the audience losing its interest in the way since it was never clearly told what or where to put its attention to. In addition to the narrative department, it doesn’t help that, unlike the first series where not a single episode was irrelevant or was not contributing to the story progression, 02 does include a lot of fillers during the first arc that do not add anything relevant and are completely skippable, so we have an overly long first half where not much was going on and a second one where too much was going on but didn’t last accordingly long enough.
As if all this wasn’t already enough, 02 features other bothering and/or disappointing story elements that do not help its cause:
•Armor-digievolution: if the reason the first generation could not fight against the digimon emperor was because the control spires inhibited the normal digi-evolution, what exactly prevented them of using the digi-eggs and armor-digievolve then? Nothing. They didn’t do it just because the writers/producers wanted (or needed) to introduce a new generation and give them the whole spotlight.
•New digivices (D3): the new generation has new digivices that are the ones that allow their digimons to armor-digievolve, while the first generation doesn’t. Again, why couldn’t they just give the first generation those new devices instead of selecting a new gang for that matter? And where did they even come from? Who or what crafted them this time?
•Crest-inheritance and characteristic colors: the first generation had 8 members while the new one 5 (later 6), with 2 of them repeating their roles (T.K. and Hikari). The new generation had to inherit the virtues of the first one, but since T.K. and Hikari already had their own (hope and light), this meant that 3 members were each going to receive 2 of them, so we have 3 members with 2 and 2 members with 1, which made no mathematical sense. Why then couldn’t they bring in 3 other members? And why couldn’t T.K. keep his own characteristic yellow color? Because Iori/Cody was going to be now the new yellow child? But why would Cody be the yellow child if he inherited the crests of knowledge and reliability, being none of them the yellow ones?!
•Digitalworld anyone? It was baffling to notice how the rest of the humanity, being now fully aware of the existence of the digitalworld, was always behaving quite normally, as if they had never ever seen anything particularly odd. Why wouldn’t they want to know more about it? How could it be that it was not even a topic of daily conversation? They all saw the digitalworld, a whole new dimension, in the end of the first series, and now they were acting like nothing happened!
•Digital Park: the D3s allowed the kids to now easily come and go from the digitalworld at their own will, whenever they want. This automatically meant both that the tasks in the digitalworld the new kids had to deal with were not going to be as tough and arduous as the ones of the first gang were (who never had the possibility to return home to comfortably rest in their beds by the end of the day), lessening the stakes, and that the digitalworld was no longer a difficult, far place to reach and walk in, lessening its value. They even go there to have picnic days!
•Chosen children worldwide: for what? So now it turns out that our special group of 8 children of the first series wasn’t really that special, since there were other chosen children in other parts of the world. Seriously, why? It only served to ruin the privileged status of the first gang and the whole concept of being a “chosen children”, which was supposed to mean something truly special.
•And last, but not least, some blatant plot-holes and inconsistencies here and there regarding the crests and the roles of the first generation, but there’s no need to go in full detail with them.
There’s also not much point to talk in detail about art, animation and music as their quality is about on-par with the original. Character designs, backgrounds and color-palette follow the same style, though part of the surrealist sense of the backgrounds is lost now. There’s not much difference in terms of animation quality (budget is still limited), it reuses a lot of the great tracks composed before but doesn’t forget to add new ones as well, and while the opening “Target” and the new digi-evolution sequences themes “Break Up!” (armor-evolution) and “Beat Hit” (DNA/jogress evolution) are legitimately awesome and blood-pumping, they aren’t as memorable and iconic as “Butter-Fly” and “Braveheart” respectively were.
All in all, it’s hard to see the second installment of the Digimon series as a competent and worthy one, to the point of even thinking that it probably would have been better no sequel at all. The show is just pure wasted potential from any angle you can look it from. It never knew how to capitalize on all the plot-threads it introduced (Ken Ichijouji, Dark Ocean, Dragomon, BlackWargreymon, Destiny Stones, Sacred Beasts, Daemon and Yukio Oikawa); its convoluted nature after the digimon emperor arc led to some of these ideas to be developed and concluded in disappointing and/or questionable ways and others to be simply abandoned, failing to engage the viewer with a thrilling, well-constructed narrative unlike the first series. There are also too much story-elements that don’t make sense or are too convenient, starting with the fact that nothing stopped the original team to use armor or jogress digievolution, so a new team was not really needed in the first place. It’s also hard to understand how, if the main reason that made the first series stand out as a kids-oriented series was the focus put into the characters, their development and life-lessons, with the inclusion of dark themes adjusted to children’s sight, this had been removed now with this new team being totally underwritten and far less interesting and endearing than the first one, who were now only there to defeat the villains without going through a personal growth and learning journey themselves. As a result, 02 failed to be a rewarding, entertaining experience, which wasn’t able to replicate the same captivating sense of adventure, mystery and wonder the original enjoyed and to provide well-earned, memorable moments like the original did. It’s pretty telling of the bad execution of the new stories when the most enjoyable moments actually came from the cute “slice-of-lifey” parts of the original gang which was now playing supporting roles!
If they were not going to have the intention of doing something more substantial with the new protagonists and their new digimons, in that case it would have been much better not to introduce them at all. The show could have been better off by just keeping the first cast and only introducing Ken as the 9th child. By also developing more Hikari, who didn’t have much participation in the first one due to her late entrance, with a story related to learn how to become independent of his overprotective brother and her tendency to be swallowed by darkness, and even T.K., who despite not being a crybaby anymore, was still affected by the divorce of his parents and feared being abandoned. By delving deeper into Ken’s redemption process and his childhood trauma after realizing all the pain he had caused to the digimons. By also never introducing BlackWargreymon with whom they never knew what to do in the end, and making Daemon the final villain instead of the boring one finally shown. By never introducing the international chosen children, who never contributed with anything significant besides devaluing the special-status of the main characters. And finally it also would have been definitely a much better (and natural) idea to make the main plot revolve around the global reaction of the rest of the world to the newly discovered digitalworld, exploring more about it, its nature and the roles of the chosen children, with a more coherent, gripping storyline, instead of focusing it in the personal goals of a particular human being.
Being the first Digimon series one of my all-time favorite shows, it’s pretty evident how much of a disappointment rewatching its sequel was, to the point that, despite liking some aspects of it (like the explosive, fun personality of Davis/Daisuke, the new generation leader and watching how the first one is now living their early teen years), I prefer pretending that it never really existed. In addition to all its structural narrative issues and others, Digimon Adventure 02 looks more like a show designed to promote and sell merchandise with action-packed sequences instead of bringing to the screen a well-built, meaningful storyline. While this works for kids, with all certainty it won’t be the case for adults who want to see more than that. Nevertheless, it is precisely for this reason that despite being quite a flawed sequel, there’s no need to be too harsh with it either. After all, it’s still decent, or perhaps more than decent entertainment for kids (the demo it was always targeted to) who are mainly going to pay attention to the creatures, their designs, evolutions and battles, like I myself did when I was a kid. I would not have liked it back then if this weren’t the case. Strictly speaking, from an adult-perspective, 02 is deserving of a 4/10, but considering that for its target audience it’s more like a 6/10 or even 7/10, I’ll be giving it an extra point. However, if you happen to be over the age of 12 or at most 13, just watch the original Digimon Adventure and watch this one only out of curiosity, or alternatively just skip it entirely and move to the third entry of the franchise, Digimon Tamers, the first one to take place in a different universe with a different set of characters, and to many Digimon fans, the best entry of the whole franchise from a critical standpoint. 5/10.
Hachiko75
Been binge watching this and the first season for the past weeks now and I can't believe I thought the second season was up there with the first. I like that this is a sequel to the first season because I like seeing the original seven...especially an older Tai. But that is mostly what stopped me from rating this lower. I never knew this anime was so heavily edited...I have been reading the wika pages of this season and apparently there is an original version that I guess is just the subbed version. They made a lot of changes that I did not think was necessary. But whatreally bugs me about the second season is that while the new kids seemed to quickly embrace and took to being in the digital world and fighting battles, they seemed really disconnected from each other before and after the digimon emperor arc.
There is a lot of angst than there was in the first season and this whole "you killed a digimon, you are a bad person" holier than thou attitude crap in nearly every episode is pathetic. They punch each other a lot because they have a lot of dumb melt downs and they are not really fully connected/bonded with their digimon like the original seven were.
Another thing I found to be tiring was all the digivolving. I enjoyed it the first season but this season I found it happening too much. There were too many stages and even then they were not strong enough. It would make for a good show if it weren't so constant.
