In the year 2020, technology is everywhere. Every digital device around the world is connected by a singular network where data travels. Unbeknownst to humans, this network has become home to life forms known as "Digimon."
Fifth-grader Taichi Yagami is preparing for summer camp when strange occurrences begin in Tokyo; certain electronic systems have started going haywire. When he discovers that his sister and mother are trapped on an unstoppable train, he rushes to the nearby station. Suddenly, Taichi is transported to another world where he meets a strange creature by the name of Agumon, who somehow already knows his name. Taichi also receives a strange device called a "Digivice," which allows him to communicate with the undigitized world.
Taichi discovers he is in the "Network," and virus-like Digimon are attacking the areas that maintain Tokyo’s electronic systems. It is up to Taichi and his new partner Agumon to stop these cyberattacks before the whole world is threatened by the actions of mischievous Digimon.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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SoldierDream
“This is Taichi and Agumon’s last adventure” – Toei Animation, 2019. With that categorical catchphrase, Toei Animation lied to all of us Digimon Adventure fans two years ago. As a way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the series that kicked off the franchise, it announced with great fanfare that it would be making one last movie -eventually called “Last Evolution Kizuna”- and that it would truly be the last adventure. The last one. This was it. No more. To say goodbye to the series and characters we’ve loved for more than two decades now. Despite the bitter taste in our mouths with the disappointing resultof Tri, we were looking forward to it anyway. I, the same as many others, had a feeling that in this occasion Toei finally would get it right with an Adventure project ever since “Our War Game”. And so it was. It was a great farewell, wasn’t it? Except that, well…it never really was. In February 2020, the same month of Kizuna’s premiere, Toei announced that it would be soon releasing “Digimon Adventure:” (yes, being the “:” the only title-difference) a reboot of the initial series of the franchise that settled down to be the most iconic, financially successful and remembered of all. A new beginning, from scratch, that would this time take into account the technological and social changes (which include of course, the fact that unlike the 90s, when the idea didn’t even cross the minds of anyone, now kids own cellphones and that’s totally fine) of the last 20 years. Taichi and Agumon’s adventures were far from saying goodbye.
Naturally, many of us were surprised and some felt betrayed: Kizuna wasn’t ever going to be really the last adventure. Or technically… it was… but in a deceptive way; it was going to be the last but only the last of the first run, so that this new one “didn't count”. But to us, lifelong fans, it very well did count. These are our characters and our creatures we’ve always loved. It wasn’t going to leave us indifferent. And as such, no matter what, we were going to be part of it anyway. Personally, being the original one of my all-time favorite anime series, just moving on and ignoring it was simply not an option. We were going to watch it anyway. Which leads us to the question: but can it be said that this was for us? To “milk on nostalgia” like many suggest? What exactly was Toei trying to do here, to achieve here? What was the intention? Who was it trying to appeal to? The historical fanbase, the current children generation to introduce the series to them in hopes of building up a new fanbase, or both?
Well, after finishing the series now 1.5 years later, I can say with high degree of confidence that to us, the old fans, it definitely wasn’t.
Or to be more precise…it couldn’t be. Because it’s impossible to believe something like that. Digimon Adventure (2020) (from now on: 2020), is so deeply inferior to its 1999 counterpart both in quality and emotional resonance that there is just no way. Despite the presence of numerous narrative similarities, references and tributes it pays to its inspiring series (even some shots were pretty much identical to the ones seen in the original and some similar events took place in exactly the same episode number) that any Adventure fan would identify immediately, it’s quite hard to think that they did this with us in mind with the intention to easily cash-in nostalgia-based bucks (I find it funny to still see people around believing this). Because no way, this reboot -that dares to bear the same name of the series we love-, wasn’t the Digimon Adventure we always knew and wasn’t ever even close to it. Basically, it has or shows little to nothing of the strengths that made the original great and catapulted it to be regarded as one of the best anime series for kids that could furthermore be also enjoyed by the more grown-ups (in fact, it’s among the few anime series I can think of that can be enjoyed by pretty much all ages: from a 5-year-old toddler to a 95-year-old elder), if not the best. With the exception of animation quality and action sequences (because credit due where credit is due: this time the budget was much higher and you could notice it, with consistent great visual quality and with the digimon battles being far more dynamic, kinetic and exciting than those of 1999, consisting in much more than just one-hit and that’s all, and I’d even dare to say it’s the best looking Toei Animation modern work, so nothing to complain about here), absolutely everything else was shockingly worse, for a lack of a better expression. But how worse exactly? What exactly happened here?
To sum it up, the entire heart and soul of the original series are just gone now, leaving us only with an empty, lifeless body. While on surface it was about a group of kids and their creatures defeating evil guys with standard world-domination goals (for the most part though), at its core in reality was a story about them growing up, learning and becoming better people in the way in order to succeed with the task entrusted to them. It emphasized in relationships, bonding, life lessons, and the idea of overcoming impossible odds thanks to values and personal growth. It gave us and made us want to follow in their journey a large set of eight highly charismatic, immature kids as main characters (16 (!) if counting their pet-partners) all with distinctive personalities, backstories and interesting struggles and/or weaknesses they had to overcome, interacting with each other and receiving each a fair share of attention at some point, and all this channeled through a generally well-thought, ever-engaging narrative that knew how to build lots of well-earned powerful, unforgettable moments and was shrouded in a particular charm thanks to a careful artistic and musical direction, which in the end provided a very rewarding experience and turned it into a solid kids’ series that could also be enjoyed by adults and be appreciated forever.
2020, has nothing of that. Our beloved characters went from these flawed kids that felt real and relatable with whom we could become fond of and be interested in their journey, to these lifeless, robotic superheroes who for worse saw themselves as the superheroes of the show with the duty to save the world always making sure to show their badassery fearlessly riding on top of their creatures while they were in fighting-mode and performed risky attacks even if that implied exposing themselves to unnecessary physical danger, and in the worst way possible. On this occasion, they don’t have flaws, they are perfect, very cool, they don’t suffer, they don’t have motivations, insecurities or anxieties and you can barely feel a soul inside them. They don’t live through a maturing or learning process where they have to learn how to get along and strengthen bonds. They don’t even at least feel surprised or confused to know about the existence of another world. This time they don’t miss home, don’t feel fear, they never argue, they don’t have internal conflicts to solve and they almost never commit mistakes to take lessons from. There’s barely anything of real interest humanly speaking going on for them. 1999 had normal, ordinary kids made of flesh and bones who behaved and spoke according to their age. 2020 has soulless, indestructible superheroes apparently made of iron, because now they can even be thrown to the ground at full speed from the skies, be crashed against giant logs at high speed, be engulfed in flames, even receive impacts of hyperbeams or other extreme situations, and survive like nothing. They just didn’t feel like real kids, and as a result it was impossible for us to connect with them and be interested in them, make us feel part of the group and making us care for anything they did or had to do or happened to them and feel empathy towards them at all. Thanks to this the series suffers from a chronic emotional weight deficiency which is shocking to notice for anyone who has seen the original and that wonderful ability it had of enabling us to project our inner kid souls into them, making us feel like kids again (one of the main adult appeals of the original) is gone now. Whatever great moments it tried to pull off were ineffective. And while this may not be a problem for a current kid, this evidently makes it significantly less valuable from the perspective of the now historical adult fan. So no, it couldn’t be for us. Because the cast we love wasn’t here, only their soulless bodies and in different clothes.
While all main characters are an inferior version of their 1999 counterparts, in relation to character-wise mistakes, there are two of them that deserve a special mention for being the definite worst particular offenders. The first one is the absolutely obscene share of attention the main of the eight kids received from the writers. One thing we all loved from the original was how, despite acknowledging that the natural-born leader and the natural-born rival would need a bit more screentime due to their more relevant positions in the group and narrative, it still always made sure to give the rest a fair share of spotlight, participation and credit. They also mattered. This helped providing a sense of variety. On multiple occasions it even let another kid different than the main one finish an important enemy. But 2020 also forgot that. The attention gap is disproportionate. Here Taichi does everything important. Here he gets all the final glory. He gets a second mega before any of the rest even gets his first, in an episode where it looked like another character would get it. He gets to do the final hit even when it looked like the story was pushing for another powerful digimon of another kid to get the honor. He is the star of the opening and he’s always the eyecatch. And they didn’t even bother to hide it, through shamelessly contrived events to separate him from the rest and make sure they won’t interfere in his demonstration of badassery with his partner digimon. Even though I like the character, this just was excessive and unfair. The situation became increasingly worse to even reaching the point in the last part where he literally teleported through the Digitalworld to guarantee his presence in every single episode; even in those where he didn’t have absolutely anything to do there, he always managed to magically pop up. “Oh, I was just passing by and thought it was a good idea to be here right where you got to be too, what a coincidence!”. Yeah right. It essentially became trolling. There was even an episode with hundreds of Taichi’s clones!
The second one was the Koushirou/Izzy case, turned this time into the god of information. Look, it’s one thing to be the smart, genius kid of the group, but another completely different one to be an almost omniscient god. He always knew and discovered everything immediately and effortlessly, had access to classified information a kid his age should never have, hacked international systems and organizations, controlled ships from his laptop, came up with solutions adults with way more experience than him for some reason couldn’t come up with before, and nothing was ever an obstacle to him. Even Yamato once asked “how he knew all that?” with Taichi literally answering “because he’s so cool and knows everything”. Yes, in the original he was also the boy genius, he also had his laptop and he also eventually knew what was going on, however there it was more grounded, not only because he was an actual character that felt real, but also because you could see he obtained information through actual time and effort, with more naturalism. Here instead, he was more like a robotic know-it-all problem-solver with this constant “oh yeah since I’m the smartest one here I’ll give you all the info you need immediately because I’m here to do that” attitude. Heck, even that solve-everything robot from the movie Interstellar had more soul than him. It was sad to see how the writers overexploited his skills and made him go from a character to a hyper-convenient tool.
The digimon partners didn’t save themselves from the character-reduction either. They went from creatures who had a voice to creatures who are just there to battle whenever they were required at zero cost. They always evolve whenever they want or need or have to, never get tired and never go back to their in-training forms. This time they barely had any role or significance for the children’s growth and barely had anything of interest regarding relation-development, natural bonding or conflicts with their kid partners as it happened in 1999. You could almost listen to them internally screaming: “please, don’t treat us just like weapons!”, since they at least retained their personalities for the most part. In relation to them, the nice key concept of evolving-thanks-to-evolving (tying the creature’s power to growth as individuals of the kids) is also gone now. The digimon achieves the next stage quite cheaply, not triggered by an important event or spiritual evolution of the kid or a highly special occurrence, but instead out of random uninteresting, irrelevant circumstances which were not even framed within the true plot or character-story or just because they eventually had to appear with little to no proper buildup, so the heart and main idea of the series are lost. This was especially disappointing to see in the mega digievolutions since for them, being the final evolutionary stage, it should have been better; it’s supposed to be due to something more compelling and special, lacking the desired emotional impact and ending up being just dull show-ups. It should be noted that there are moments when it tries or remembers having to do that, but it arrives late (not even the crests were introduced when they should and didn’t play major roles here) and they don’t work because they feel highly forced and can’t feel earned or inspiring enough if the kid himself doesn’t feel relatable to begin with.
Moving to speak about narrative elements, it doesn’t do any better. The original may have had some issues you could criticize it for, but in general it had a well-thought or structured storyline, with every episode being relevant and contributing for plot progression, with moments correctly timed, without ever losing focus (and I need to be emphatic on this) and virtually zero uninteresting, skippable-like moments in a 54 episodes run, never letting you go. Little of this can be said about 2020. Badly structured with wrongly, awkwardly timed events, with parts that should have come beforehand coming afterward and vice-versa, episodes that would have worked better as introductory coming during the end, others that would have worked better in the end coming in the beginning or in the middle (like Millenniummon: which should have been the last enemy given the size and scale of the conflict, with even god-digimons appearing to participate in a Magnus, heavenly-like fight, something more appropriate and effective for endings), with endgame stages even in the first episodes (it was nice if they wanted to pay homage to Our War Game, but that was not the moment). Many light, silly episodes in both the second and third arcs when they can only work and should only be placed at the beginning to establish characters, provide background and so on. There is a noticeable lack of true tension for several episodes even when there’s a risky threat just around the corner. In the second, instead of being worried by the imminent resurrection of a legendary monster, they have time for irrelevant, random trivialities like rescuing enslaved digimon in a theme park, episodes about digimons angry because couldn’t eat french fries, water disputes among digimon we can’t care less for and even time to relax playing soccer like nothing, and for about 10 episodes in a row it forgets to actually move the plot wasting time with useless content that altogether never amounted to anything of true value for the viewer. In the third, they say they are going on a mission to investigate the mystery of the crests, yet barely end up doing things that have to do with that or that could give them clues. Instead, we have random adventuring episodes where Joe helps digimons recovering their onsen, Hikari protecting digieggs, Mimi training in a digimon school or Yamato helping random digimon villagers with a ghost samurai, and all this in the final stretch when the great calamity great, even worse than Millenniummon, would be soon happening and shit was supposed to be real. No tension, no thrill, no drama, no fun. Most of these types of episodes were entirely worthless with our kids dealing with disconnected situations that contributed nothing of real value in terms of plot progression, character growth or bringing in a new digievolution, serving little to no purpose and leaving no impact on future events.
Must be said that yes, the original did have light moments and our kids did occasionally deviate from the mission and took some time to rest (like when they went to eat burgers after coming back to the real world), however, this was minimal, always right-timed and never came at the expense of plot-progression, because these moments where framed within it and always brought in something of value, so they worked and provided tonal variety. Must be also mentioned that eventually (but lamely) it does attempt to develop a character (somehow), however, it didn’t matter much because similarly, that development wasn’t framed within a plot, limiting its potential. The original, to the contrary, cleverly made sure that the development always came hand-in-hand with progression, tying character with plot almost perfectly. Here, however, it’s like an attempt of one or the other. It comes as separated (if any development happens first of course). The idea is to bring it naturally while the story is also moving, however here it came during episodes with situations that had no relation to the stake of the arc. Another type of narrative sin was this absurd series of cyber world threats we could never care for because everything felt like a total joke with all of them coming right after the previous one, with no real sense of weight and which also felt like only secondary job assigned to Koushiro while Taichi and Yamato dealt with all the important stuff, in an attempt to create drama and tension which completely failed. That the missiles, the ships, the satellites, the NASA, whatever. Finally, the execution wasn’t as engaging; you won’t see this time the sense of mystery and feeling lost in another strange world of the Devimon arc, the sense of thrill of the Myotismon arc or the sense of drama and darkness of the Dark Masters arc of the original series, which largely helped to explain its entertainment value.
So, as it should be clear by now, all this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that this reboot was definitely not intended for us (because it’s impossible to believe they could have wanted to give us such an inferior show), but in reality for a younger new audience; the current generation of new children, in hopes to capture their fresh interest and devotion, which makes things tricky when it comes to the general judgment of this series since, despite being a shameful near-worthless work for the historical fan, this automatically means in reality it should be judged according to how well it could have satisfied these desired new ones. And while -evidently- I don’t have kid-eyes anymore to know this exactly, reasonably my own experience as a kid watching the original series would serve as a fair approximation. Given that, I would say the series, even with all its notorious issues already explained, could admittedly have passed as fine entertainment for kids who mainly just wanted to see the cool creatures in action and know what their following new cool evolutions, designs and special attacks were going to be (who do we want to fool here), if not because i) the narrative is a mess and ii) the show also fails to properly build hype for said new evolutions.
The first point was already described before. While kids may not pay much attention or care too much about the characters and their struggles, they can still notice or perceive some questionable plot developments or structures coming off as odd or get the feeling some things are not right. As for the second point, what I mean is that it fails to give value to evolutions, in terms of buildup and payoff; to make them memorable, you must first create the expectation and then after enough time has passed, deliver them in the right time. The original made sure to follow this by creating the expectations for them and once they arrived, use them for the right amount of time before the following did. However, in 2020 the ultimates just arrive too early in the story to be able to even create the hype (in the 10s, as opposed to the 20s-30s of original), one right after the other, under-using the adult forms, rendering them as only means or obstacles that the story should have to get rid of quickly and leaving little room for ultimate form-expectation. This also makes their appearances not living up to the potential emotional impact they could have enjoyed thanks to having made us wait for them for a significant amount of time. And while they did wait enough before introducing the mega forms (at least, for everyone who wasn’t Agumon), unfortunately, the way they did it wasn’t great or special anymore. They were just given too easily. They didn’t come due to situations of high emotional catharsis, high expectation or that were even at least framed into the plot, or thanks to special/unique occurrences (to not say “miracle”) that give more meaning and weight, but instead due to completely random, trivial circumstances we could never really care for, sadly devaluing their “final, special and rare stage” status. I appreciate they have decided this time to include the mega forms for everyone (though I argue the original still worked well without doing this), since that feels fairer to the rest of the cast, but now that you do, at least do it well, which unfortunately wasn’t the case. It almost felt like they brought them up just because “we have to” not caring too much (if any) about the “why”, the “when” and the “how” of their introductions. Given this, I have to even doubt it could have been an actually satisfying and effective experience to the real intended new audience. I doubt I could have been as intrigued with all these cool creatures and their hype-digievolutions watching this reboot as a kid as much as I did back then in 2000 when I was watching the original series.
All in all, I think at this point it’s needless to say that, being the original series one of my all-time favorites, I’m more than just disappointed with the sole existence of this modern reboot. I won’t lie by claiming I wasn’t initially interested and enthusiastic about it, because as a fan of the original that couldn’t be the case, however, with a final outcome as poor as this one, in the end you cannot help but end up questioning what was even the point. The Toei team clearly wanted to reach the current kids' generation and introduce them to the Adventure universe, but what comes as incomprehensible is how could it be possible that they had come up with something so noticeably inferior when they already counted with a great original work serving as a basis or benchmark. Given its reboot nature, the bare minimum here was taking the original series and crafting a new work on par or at least close to its quality, and even taking advantage of the opportunity to improve on past flaws (because as much as we love the original series, it’s not like it was exactly free of them and for everything there is always room for improvement), but what happened here was the complete opposite; instead of improving or at least keeping the same quality levels, they only worsened them. Did they even notice what they were doing? Were they even truly caring? In the end, if they were going to deliver something this inferior, it would have been better doing so with other characters and another universe, so that the Adventure name and brand didn’t bear the reputational costs. The truth is, personally I don’t really care much about 2020 since the vastly superior original 1999 series will always be there, but what does bother me is that it’s a shame to realize how your beloved title, characters and creatures were used and humiliated in something so lame with none of the charm and strengths that characterized the original series and allowed it to earn its position as one of the best kids’ TV anime ever.
And no, as a reboot, nobody expected an exact 1:1 copy of the first series, but what 2020 did was just unacceptable. Like everything else in life, doing things for the second time and doing them so significantly worse even when in the first time you already succeeded and you had all the tools in your hands (and even more than the first time) to succeed again, should never be accepted, because that can only happen when you deliberately reduce the efforts. 2020 is quite possibly the worst Digimon entry of the franchise and, as it isn’t already long enough, is yet another addition to the list of Toei Animation’s classics revival failures of the past decade. It only served to deteriorate the value of the Adventure name and didn’t work for any type of audience; for the old, historical fans that could have felt an interest in checking out a new version of the show, it pretty much felt like a bad joke, especially right after having experimented an already great conclusion to it with “Last Evolution Kizuna”, and for the new generations of kids this series was intended for, I can’t help but feel sorry for them for having been born in times where current Digimon producers thought they didn’t deserve better and had to grow up watching both uninspired and messy kids-oriented productions like this one. Even with all their huge flaws, at least the previous Adventure installments like 02 and Tri had a soul. 2020, didn’t even have one. 02 and Tri may have failed, but at least they tried. 2020 not only failed, it didn’t even try! And even though I’ve always insisted that you cannot treat and judge a kids-oriented series in the exact same way and with the exact same bars you would do it with a more teen and/or adult-oriented/designed one, and that it pains me having to give a low score to a class of series which on essence just want to bring entertainment (and hopefully, values) to the youngest of all audiences (since it is pretty much the equivalent of grabbing an innocent child who misbehaved and slamming him against the wall), the heart and care put into this series were so unbelievably low that this time I cannot give much of that benefit. Digimon Adventure (2020) is such a terrible involution (no pun intended) of the classic series whose name, success and legacy it miserably tried to capitalize on, that unfortunately, it leaves me with no other option. 3/10.
Fotsuan
I am writing this review to compare Digimon Adventure (2020) with the original Digimon Adventure. I do not see this as a new anime, and I will be harsh for an obvious reason; when you recreate such a classic work of fiction, with the same characters and main concept, you know your job must not disappoint. It seems that most Digimon Adventure fans - like me - are not satisfied with this reboot. The reasons are simple, so let’s examine them carefully. But before I begin, I must make a wish: I wish the next generations will know watching the reboot is the wrong choice. Anotherpoint to be made before I start my analysis is that Toei Animation, after a bad comeback with the Tri. movies, managed to create a masterpiece of a film to bid the old fans a tear-jerking farewell and end the Digimon Adventure. The nostalgia was there, we felt that, the movie was amazing in all aspects too, so let's make it clear from now; Digimon Adventure 2020's target audience is not the '90s fans. These fans had enough and loved their completed journey.
So, since the target audience is mainly kids of the new generation, there were some things concerning Koushiro (the genius child) and the world which obviously showed that this anime is newer. And these are the evolution of computer science and technology. Unluckily for Toei, they didn't think that making Koushiro hack big companies or take over ships in seconds from his laptop would seem extremely unrealistic. Back in 1999, he may have had hacking skills but they actually seemed more magical and all took place in the digital world, showing he is charismatic and that he can do great things from a laptop; he is the future of humanity in his own way. This time, it didn't feel like this at all, he was just a plot convenience for surreal things to happen. As a result, the use of modern technology to suit today's younger audience better was a failure and it was negative for the character writing as well.
Digimon Adventure was not just a TV show with cute or cool-looking monsters; it was far more than that. It was the journey of a group of "chosen" children and the road to maturity, where everyone had a digital partner of their own, the famous Digimon. Unlike the reboot, the original anime focused on all characters. Everyone had their flaws and immature behaviours, so the Digimon helped them grow up and see the world differently. The reboot does not focus as much on the characters and their development, while Taichi gets most of the credits and still, his character development is not even close to the good old Taichi we knew. This is because he feels more than a superhero, rather than a child who makes both mistakes and good deeds to mature.
Even if the reboot lacks in character, it is definitely more impressive in terms of fights, action and animation. The Digimon are mostly used as war tools, the interactions between Digimon and Chosen Children are far less and unimportant, and from episode 1 the real world is in panic due to a continuous huge catastrophe caused by the Digital World. If you're here for some supernatural action, pick the reboot but trust me, it will be a forgettable and shallow experience, giving you or your young friends/family only temporary pleasure.
The Digimon Evolutions were originally triggered by the children's character development and it was beautiful to see them surpass any borders by powering up mentally and psychologically. In the reboot, this is not the case. The Digivolutions are far easier to happen, and their flashiness is a big part of the series' selling point. Sometimes, they just evolve out of nowhere, as if there is no sense of fatigue. The Digimon are undoubtedly more powerful and more in numbers; a mix of Digimon found in Adventure, Tamers and other spin-offs. But all the magic of progressing and maturing allegorically by Digivolving seems lost, and this is one of the biggest turn-offs for old fans - and one of the reasons this version is forgettable.
Another big minus here is the use of the Chosen Children's crests. In the 1999 version, the crests were awarded to them as they faced and overcame many hardships, and each crest had a unique characteristic (courage, love etc.) that suited its owner as a result of their character development. It did not feel the same in the 2020 version; it felt forced, since the character development was clearly inferior as the anime mainly focused on showing off well-animated fights between Digital Monsters. It is actually funny because the episodes were more this time, but we still didn't get to know well some characters.
Another thing to take into account is that the villain writing and what surrounded it was uncanny. For example, Milleniummon seemed like he would be the last Digimon the children would have to face, and insanely powerful Digimon fought him and as a result, it looked like a climax. But it was not like that, the last episodes introduced us other Digimon and an anticlimatic way to end the series. The most bizarre thing Digimon Adventure 2020 did was to introduce the legendary Omegamon in one of the first episodes, to beat a powerful virus type Digimon. I guess there was a metaphor behind that which was not clear and did not work. Or maybe it was made to give us old fans nostalgia from "Bokura no War Game" movie, which is nonsensical because the reboot wasn't even made for this purpose.
The soundtrack follows the regular Digimon pattern; there's an opening song, an evolution insert song and an ending song in every episode. The only difference, here, is that the ending songs change every 12 episodes and there are some great artists like Reol performing them. In my opinion, the opening and insert songs are decent, but cannot compare to the legendary "Butter-Fly" and "Brave Heart". Wada Koji's absence hurts a lot and Digimon Adventure could never be the same without him.
To sum up, Digimon Adventure 2020 is one of the biggest question marks in anime history. It is a forgettable, chaotic hypefest with shallow character writing and almost no significance for kids, made to visually impress them and show off powerful Digimon fights. If you want your kid or young sibling to watch a cool looking kids show with monsters and action, here you are. If you want them to watch a meaningful story which includes both, and one that they can remember for the rest of his life, you should definitely show them the classic, original, beloved version of Digimon Adventure. In my opinion, the best kids shows are the ones who combine good visuals with morals and understandable life lessons.
Thank you for reading!
rasterman7
"Hello? Oh hi... yeah yeah, it's me. Hold on, don't hang up! I know that when I told you to watch Tri I didn't deliver but this time will be different, promise. I have just finished and I think you'll like it. What do you say?" "..." "Great. Now imagine something that has never been done before in the franchise, something unheard of, something like... a reboot of Adventure. Big time classic, huh?" "..." "No no, not a movie but a full fledged anime with 50 episodes. Actually more even. It has a story, characters, digievolutions. Sounds great, right?" "..." "Don't worry, it won't take time for it to get exciting.Let's just say that some digievolutions may come earlier than expected hurr hurr."
"..."
"Yes, they added more than in the original since they actually care about the franchise, not because of marketing and whatnot. It's nice to pay some respect to the rest of the products as well. Say, how many digievolutions do you think Greymon should have? I think there weren't enough in the original series."
"..."
"Ah, that's easy. To fit the digievolutions in time they did something genius: have some episodes with barely any character development. Random acts of heroism and lines of dialogue from here and there do that instead and the best part is that you can't develop them yourself in your headcanon. Fun, right?"
"..."
"Now now, there's no need to worry about Taichi, Mimi and Joe. They do have their proper time in the spotlight."
"..."
"Who are those? Sora? Ah, that one. Yeah, she's also there sometimes. But you know, I feel like not enough time was devoted to Taichi in the original run so this time he at least makes up for it. I don't remember the other 2 you mentioned though."
"..."
"The animation? Ohhh yes, you just have to see the new digievolution sequences. You're gonna love the ones for Taichi and Yamato, they are gorgeous."
"..."
"Hmmm they probably needed to make some cuts on those, but at least there are not rough drawing or copis frames... not that I've noticed at least."
"..."
"Hmmm, actually no, Bolero or Butterfly are not there. Buuuut there are still pretty memorable songs like Break the Chain and uhhh... and... Anyway, we were talking about the pacing, right?"
"..."
"Hmmm, I don't know much about climaxes, but get this: every episode feels like the end of the world. Hence people are bound to stick around. Sounds reasonable, right?"
"..."
"Crests? What do you mean? Those weird symbols that appear sometimes around the Digimon? No clue what those symbolise. Maybe it's a code for some behind the scenes content. That sounds exciting."
"..."
"The digivices? Ah yes, I don't think in the original run they gave them enough capabilities so now they can do all sorts of stuff. What exactly you may ask? You'll have to watch the series to find out hehehe"
"..."
"Nah, it will be fine. If you're not yet convinced let me ask you the following: what's your take on Shogungekomon hitting on Gomamo-"
"Uhh hello? Helloooooo? Hmmm, maybe I should have used the Ponchomon card."
kurodou
Hello everyone, it is my first time reviewing an anime series. Growing with Digimon Adventure as my childhood weekend show, I highly set my expectation in this new series to be good as the OG or even better. After following the story until the end, I can genuinely say that this new series is failing me. But it's unfair to say that the series is trash without looking up on the good side. Therefore to balance the review, I decided to make some pros and cons fair and equally. Here you go, Pros : 1) Battle movements are improved and slightly more varied at some point 2) Thereis a lot of new and old Digimon who makes their debut on the series
3) The animation of evolution sequences are so much better compared to the OG
4) Those villains appearance is felt to be the more dangerous with some massive size
5) The art and also the animation that they put in the credits are all fun and catchy to watch with 5 different ending songs too.
6) They've got three decent insert songs for each Digimon evolution level (Adult, Perfect, and Ultimate)
Cons :
1) The storyline is totally trash. Unclear plot and goal most of the time
2) The digital world environment feels tedious compared to OG
3) The Digi-Analyzer is not as informative as the OG version
4) Those villains are mostly unspoken and they're trying too hard to stir up emotions and a sense of danger while never putting actual danger in any of the episodes
5) Relied too much on people being familiar with the 90s anime and the personalities and backstories given to the kids
6) Lack of BGM variation, some of them are sounds similar but with a different arrangement
Varski_The_Chief
Okay let me get this straight. I have seen almost all of the digimon series there is to watch including all of the movies (only missing the Xross Wars and aplimon) and having played most of the games and read some original stories and scripts and even some mangas there is I think I am in pretty good position to write this review. So as I said I have a pretty good understanding of the franchise as a whole. I love digimon and thats why writing this review hurts in more than one way. But here we go anyway. After the good send off thatLast Kizuna was for the original Adventure I had my own suspicions on this one when I heard they were making a reboot of the original series that I keep in high regard for being a good show overall and having huge nostalgia classes on my head. And for the most part this new series turned out to be even worse than what I had anticipated but hear me out. There are some real neat things in the show like references to the older games and some proper backstory of the digimons in general that have not been touched in the anime so far.
And it got me laughing a couple times just like the old show. But not all is well and now on to tell what is not so good in this reboot. Firstly writing is the biggest challenge this new series suffers. Episode pacing is all over the place and it seems like that the writers just went with the attitude of writing one episode at the time and therefore missing the whole overarching story as a complete package. So while the story has some cool elements that could have been really neat they for the most part are left really underdeveloped and stay just as cool ideas.
Characters feel very underdeveloped too in many ways compared to the original and seems like the focus was more to just write characters and not to make memorable characters. In the original series all of the children had their own problems and personalities and they were explored more deeply and they had to overcome those problems of theirs and mostly they get solved during the course of the series. Here that happens too but like fraction of it what the original has to offer. Children rarely anymore interact with other digimon (just by nuking or fighting them) which make the digital world feel very much like that all of the digimon or atleast a huge portion of them are there to fight for the dominance of this world and are otherwise just soulless killing machines. Evolutions happen just for the sake of plot for both sides for the children and for the bad guys. They just happen for the most part. They are not in most cases earned in any way to justify the evolution or some digimons appearing so soon in the series. In the old series there was always something preventing that evolution to happen. It felt earned when finally that evolution could be achieved.
And while I get that agumon is like the pikachu of the franchise it has too much involvement in the progression of the story and most of the fights. Agumon is everywhere and is involved in all too many fights that he does not have to be in. Original series gave a good amount of epic time to all of the digimons and chosen children and yes I know that Taichi and Yamato had more attention in the original too its way more obvious here. Even Yamato is most of the time in the shadow of Taichi and did I mention that he gets most of the screen time also. Taichi is in almost all of the episodes and even when he would not be needed and you start to think that hey this might be an episode without him he magickly happens to appear from thin air (which starts to get quite humorous in a way during the show as you start to guess where he appears next xD). I am huge fan of agumon and I like Taichi as a character in the original but even I started to feel very bored that they get to do most of the cool stuff that happens in the series.
But even with these problems that I mentioned there are some properly good episodes here and there and almost all of the cast get atleast one great episode where they get to shine. Its just sad that this series is 67 episodes long and if you are a fan of some of the other children other than Taichi and Yamato you might have to wait for a long time before the next time comes for that character to get the spotlight they all deserve. And they are always smaller than what Yamato and Taichi get to achieve. So while as a whole this series is a big mess of development favoritism and writing they have managed to capture some of the older series energy in some of the episodes for the very least.
Mimi and Jou are way better in this reboot than in the original and most of their episodes are more than great but then again characters like Sora and Koushiro have been ruined pretty harshly in my opinion. Like I mentioned earlier some of their defining personalities have been forgottten somewhere not to be found in this reboot. It does affect all of the cast but those are the characters that get the shortest stick in my opinion here. Most fight scenes in this series are one of the best animated over the whole franchise and some even having some properly good choreography in the fight but some of these are ruined by the favoritism and tipping of the power scaling massively. One of the strongest digimons the series has is introduced in the beginning of the series and one of the most powerful digimon that we knew before this show is beaten very easily in just couple minutes later in the series.
Villains have evolved in some areas and have taken some real setbacks in others. Some of them are familiar from the original like Devimon and his story is probably the best of them in the early run of the series and his story involved as a whole would have had so much more potential if written more deeply because there are some real neat ideas and lore involved here. And the end of his arc could have been the final episode of the whole series and this happens couple of times during the show. First half of the episode three could have been the last episode and so could have been the episode 50 and couple others. The show loses most of its momentum as almost all of these encounters have Mega digimons in them way before they are even introduced to the children (excluding that one that I mentioned earlier that gets introduced in the episode two) and most of them are dealt with ease. The sense of danger is rarely a factor here. Of course the children are going to win in the end but in the original the sense of danger and defeat was somewhat present. You start to expect that each fight is going to be won and that certain digimon to appear everytime situation gets too desperate and you hope they would give a good explanation for it in the end. Well they do give answer to that in the end but its very loose and not that original idea. Overall the villains are just there to be villains but they don't have a proper target or solid motives for their actions as in the original series they mostly seem to have a clear purpose. The real finale of the series has really cool fight scene but that kinda is the whole thing.
Almost all the show has to offer in many ways is very predictable story pieces and how the fights end in a bad way (excluding those great episodes I mentioned earlier). But for me the saving part and the best part of the series is the music Takayoshi Tanimoto and Toshihiko Sahashi have done and ou boy have they really out done themselves this time and I can properly say that these songs do fit the new anime way better than what they would have if they had used the old songs. I was always hyped to hear the songs starting play and the faster pacing and more hype atmosphere of this show really shows in the music and its neatly tied into small package that plays throughout the soundtrack and still be able to sound like they could be from the original series (some parts have been taken from the old soundtrack if listened carefully and brave heart can be heard in the new evolution songs). And speaking of the new evolution songs all three of them are great rivals for the the masterful and legendary work of Koji Wada (may he rest in piece). Unfortunately we could not have his work in this version too but what we now had is the best we could get and I can see myself listening to these for the years to come. All of the digivolution stages have song for them concluding in a whopping three songs that all kick ass and do fit for the show.
Now time to wrap this up somehow. In conclusion if you are huge digimon fan I suggest you to give this one a try just don't expect something outstanding but other than that its really hard to justify who this show was made for. New viewers have no idea about the game references or the first couple episode being like a nod to the good old boku no war game movie and many others. We old watchers and fans get those but the show is not what we liked in the original adventure about the characters and the story ? So its a like hybrid that tries to capture the hearts of us old fans with neat little tricks and old characters but still tries to make it something that some new fans would be able to call a classic and wait for the series to continue in the future and it really cannot succeed in any of these objectives. So now we have mediocre show that wasted so much potential and episodes to tell a story that is not very memorable with sometimes beautiful animations and very cool songs.
Overall I did not give this one a really high score as the negatives really outweight the positives here. But when I enjoyed it I really did enjoy it. I probably forgot to mention something here too but I don't want this to be any longer xD. See for yourself if you like it. Not a huge recommendation from me but a recommendation nonetheless as a digimon fan. Now let me go watch those couple really good episodes again and try to forget most of this series exists while listening to Break the Chain in the background.
Story 3/10
Art 6/10
Sound 6/10
Music 9/10
Enjoyment 7/10
Overall 6/10
Skyregalia01
Disclaimer: This review will predominately be making comparisons between this anime to its alternative counterpart (Digimon Adventure 1999). Furthermore, the comparison to the counterpart series will be based on memories when watching it - though it was around 2006. From this moment onwards I will refer to the counterpart series as the "1999 series". Story: I will separate this into two parts. The first part is the difference between the 1999 and 2020 series in terms of the presentation of the story and the second part discusses the similarities/difference of the story structure between the two series. A definite difference to its 1999 series where instead ofcharacters being the focal point of the story it really focuses on the lore and plot of the story - or you can say it focuses more on the world-building than anything. This can be observed where the main characters you meet early on in the 2020 series have pretty much fully developed personalities and traits that any further focus on them will just highlight the same personality and traits they already had since our first introduction to them. Therefore, the remaining episodes focus on the story, world-building, and lore on the Digiworld and its inhabitants along with its connection to humanity. Of course, if we take into account that the anime was designed for a younger audience then the reasoning above may be attributed to this as well. Since it is much easier to follow the story with easy-to-understand characters rather than the other way round where the story gets paused because the characters have to go through a soul-searching montage. However, a larger component that probably makes this series different from its 1999 series was probably how much lore it has developed since then. It is easier to understand this by comparing it to Yu-gi-oh or similar children's shows where it starts getting better as the show gets longer (in the case for Yu-gi-oh the rules for dueling was only established when GX started and all of Yu-gi-oh was experimenting with new and more ways of playing the various card types they had, so GX started playing around archetypes e.g. Hero-type decks, Dragon-type decks. Afterward, the rest of the spin-off series started experimenting on newer and more interesting summoning methods along with newer monster archetypes). For Digimon it got a larger library of the various digital monsters as well as their evolutionary line along with the lore of the role for each digimon - this was reflected in the 6 part movies for digimon. Therefore, the 2020 series being a reboot for the 1999 series it makes sense that the developers would want to take full advantage of all the knowledge and lore they have expanded for the last 20 years and make use of it. As a result, we have more information for the Digiworld and its connection to the digidestined in exchange for the character development for all of the characters.
There are similarities and differences between the two series and these differences stem from (previously mentioned) the focus on the lore and world-building rather than the characters. The 1999 series uses exploration of the Digiworld as a medium to enable the characters to interact with each other and learn about themselves thus we can see a lot of character development. However, the 2020 series used exploration for the sake of exploring more about the Digiworld. This is not a bad idea and in fact, the 2020 series does a better job of making the Digiworld more interesting and fun with its mysteries as well. In addition, the characters with their established personalities and a common goal they can settle their differences much quicker in the early part of the series to achieve their common goal. However, both use a similar story structure; 1) exploring the Digiworld for information, 2) encountering friends and enemies to reach the initial evil, 3) defeating said initial evil, 4) understanding the bigger picture and bigger evil, 5) further exploration in the Digiworld for more information on the bigger evil, and 6) defeating said bigger evil. This works for the 1999 series since steps 4 and 5 heavily rely on the exploration for character development but the 2020 series use of steps 4 and 5 has a weaker impact compared to the 1999 version. The 2020 series does have a reason for understanding the bigger picture and the bigger evil along with the exploration but you can argue that at least 10 of those episodes can be placed in step 2 so (overall) it has a weaker impact on the story.
Art and Sound: Art is bold and colourful with a similar style to the 1999 series. The sound/music was good and it definitely felt a more modern version of the Digmon adventures. Of course, I prefer the 1999 series' music and soundtracks but I have to admit that the 2020 series does have its own unique style that does not pale to the older version. Although, I will say the ED theme songs for the 2020 version are very catchy and definitely capture the spirit of being a child.
Character: I believe this may be the key factor that might have split the Digimon fan base community a little bit. Like I have mentioned in the story section the 1999 series was good (for many viewers) because of the character development between all the characters. The main plot point was that each character was placed a specific personality trait that they have yet developed or already displayed but were not aware of it. This required each character to come to terms with this revelation and to understand this was (predominately) their core personality. In addition, this required the others to come to terms with the other's personality traits as well since they all had to work together. However, the 2020 series does not try to focus on this aspect since they made it clear near the beginning what each character's personality traits when seeing them for the first time and this gets highlighted more as the series goes on so it makes it more clear that this is their core personality. The major difference for this is that the starting point between each character is different in the 2020 series compared to the 1999 series. In the 1999 series, all of the characters were "isekaied" to the Digiworld at the same time so everyone had to individually cope not only with each other but with the new world they were in as well. This obviously leads to character interaction and development where their personalities become a large theme throughout the whole series. However, the 2020 series has each character isekaied to the Digiworld at different times where one of the characters stumbles the other who has already lived/stayed in the Digiworld without knowing how long they have stayed there. As a result, you can argue that each character has already done the initial hurdle of coping with the Digiworld so the only thing they need to do is to interact with the other characters - which only takes around 10 episodes or so. Thus, the series sometimes have the "episode of the week" feel to it since there is not much to focus on. Furthermore, the villains the characters go against are less impactful in the 2020 version compared to the 1999 version for the same reason that the theme between the two is different. The villain used in the 1999 series focuses on the characters' personality traits and (to a larger extent) all of humanity to symbolise its strength and defeat whereas the 2020 villain was more or less a concept that so happens to endanger humanity and just gets stronger. However, lore-wise the 2020 series makes sense (in my opinion) compared to the 1999 series where it was more impactful. In the end, I cannot say which one is better but I can see where the strengths and weaknesses lie in either of them.
Overall: The 2020 series definitely has a more modernised style to it with a more focus on lore and world-building than the character development. This makes the story more straightforward and easier to follow with little room to doubt that the characters will have a falling out. However, this does make it less interesting since the 1999 series provides a larger impact from the characters falling out and reconciling with each other providing a stronger bond between them. In my opinion, if you were to ask me which one to watch, I will say watch: the 1999 series for context on the characters and impact of each character's personality; alternatively watch the 2020 series first for a general understanding between the connection of the Digiworld and humanity along with a more up to date version of Digimon lore. Both have their ups and downs and I will say I enjoyed both of them with their own unique styles. Keep in mind that this is based on the assumption that the show was meant for a younger audience to watch so I am not going to be super critical on which one is better than the other.
ThatAnimeSnobRE
The Digimon franchise used to be a big thing in the early 2000s. Although on surface level it was just a proxy battle show that was only aiming to sell videogames to kids, it was also the perfect isekai. Despite being a trapped in a videogame story it didn’t have the bullshit of the 2010 isekai. It had a complete story, it wasn’t rushed, it was allocating screentime to all its main characters, and it wasn’t about forming a harem in a fantasy realm since the characters wanted to return home. They weren’t killed and removed from their world, just so they could permanently behaving a jolly time while playing videogames, as is the trend nowadays.
The second season lost a lot of the charm of the first since it had basically turned into another power fantasy. The kids were now chosen ones who were coming in and out of the videogame whenever they felt like it, they were having fun in it, and their monsters were at max level. The tension of the first season just wasn’t there anymore. And as it turns out the reboot of the franchise suffers from the exact same issues.
A lot of things have changed in those 20 years it took for the reboot to happen. The demand for better animation has skyrocketed, which is why we longer get those awful CGI transformations of the original. Along with it the need for instant gratification also skyrocketed, as people of today lose their interest a lot easier if they don’t get a dopamine fix every few minutes. That means nowadays the pacing has to be a lot faster and there has to be a lot more spectacle in every episode. Something that becomes a huge detriment to characterization and power escalation.
The original show was spending a big portion of every episode in showing one of the kids facing a problem in a coming of age way. The ending was reserved for a battle with an enemy monster where you would get a couple of transformations and a few minutes of spectacle. The plot structure was simple, but it was functional in giving you the time to like what is going on. The new version doesn’t do that as it’s rushing to have as much action as possible; meaning it doesn’t give the characters the time to think about what to do next. Heck, it tells them right away that they are special chosen ones. You cannot empathize with them since you don’t feel they are going through important shit. They are messiahs amidst dozens of transformations and special attacks per episode, which makes the whole thing to be hollow spectacle instead of character drama.
The power scaling is another issue with the new version. They were rushing to introduce all the different evolutions instead of doing it gradually. As a result, because of their frequency transformations quickly became redundant. More importantly the last evolutions eclipsed the lesser stages very quickly and made them feel like filler, something which wasn’t the case with the original, since over there every new evolution would stick around for a dozen episodes before the next one comes up.
Another issue is that in the reboot Taichi and Agumon are always at a far higher level of power than the rest. In the original the kids were at the same level the whole time and thus felt equally important. Over here Taichi monopolizes the action in every final showdown and the rest feel like a bunch of Yamchas waiting for Goku to arrive and save the day with his broken powers. It just makes them to not be important. Even as far as spectacle goes, most of the times they don’t even get the impressive transformations of Agumon. If the very animators don’t care about them, why should you?
Along with that, the conflicts don’t feel important either, because they are same-y. Instead of gradually introducing more and more powerful enemies that raise the stakes as the episodes go by, in the reboot you get planet-threatening monsters since episode 1. The writers had the brilliant idea to begin the show with Our War Game, which is the first movie and a major highlight that happened after the end of the first arc. You get god-level Digimon enemies in the freaking pilot episode! There is no room for escalation after that; every other big bad had to be planet-threatening and thus the order they fight them doesn’t matter. Furthermore many of them were supposed to be lieutenants of even bigger bad guys, which didn’t make any sense power-wise because they were all equally powerful.
So yeah, as a whole it was hollow spectacle and nowhere near the quality of the original. There were only two minor improvements compared to it, one was the much better visuals (which don’t mean anything if the characters are Yamchas) and the other is the removal of the naughty stuff that were making the original unnecessarily creepy at times. Beyond that I don’t recommend it, stick with the original because retro always wins.
DigiCat
Credit where credit is due, the first 25 or so episodes were freaking awesome, but then… the best way i can describe the plot post episode 30 is like if you had a very well drawn map, flushed it down the toilet, and then fished it out of the toilet and tried to read it hoping it won’t get you lost! Well, at least it was pretty to watch and had it’s fun and cute moments, so it’s not like it ruined my childhood, i haven’t finished yet though The mega-digivolutions make no sense! Cool flashy special effects is not gonna make up for good storytelling, and timing, a mega-digivolution is suppost to be special, your last hope at defeating a bad guy that seems impossible to beat, none of the mega-digivolutions made the impact they should’ve, it felt like just another power-up and that’s it. I still remember the first time i watched Agumon and Gabumon mega-digivolve to Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon as a kid watching the original Digimon Adventure like it was yesterday, cheering them on while my eyes were glowing, Adventure 2020 had none of that, Angewomon looking like a Pretty Cure while she mega-digivolves looks cool, but without anything to build up that moment it falls flat
The biggest difference between Adventure 2020 and Adventure 1999 is the way the plot was layed out: While Adventure 1999 was made up of 4 seperate arcs put toghether like a puzzle to make one cohesive story, Adventure 2020 tried to go with one mega-long arc thruout the whole series, i’m not saying it’s something impossible to make work, i’ve seen plenty of series do so, but in this case the story wasn’t paced right and ended up getting lost and turned into a jumbled confused mess
KitsuneLisek
I am Digimon fan since original anime aired in my country in '90s. I watched almost every single TV show, including tri. I didn't yet watch Xros Wars and Applimon series, but I am up to date with Ghost Game. I had different opinions on different series. There were series I didn't like and those that I adore. Despite those, every one of them had both good and bad sides. There is no flawless series, neither there is series that is completely bad... Or is it? As a big fan of Digimon, whose favorite series is original Adventure (it's both my favorite Digimon and ex aequofavorite anime with Slayers) I was really interested and curious about it. I was hyping, but I knew that I have to hold my horses until I actually see the show. So it happened - I watched the whole Adventure:. And it's really not something I would like to see. Both, because it profanes the amazing Digimon Adventure and because it's just bad. As I said, I had Digimon series that I didn't quite like, but I seen good sides that didn't made it that bad and I quite enjoyed them. But I can't enjoy cheap story with no character development and no plot whatsoever. But let's explain things a bit...
I didn't really expect it to be something extraordinary, but the show has many serious issues. Pace was totally destroyed, the strongest character just appeared in 3rd episode and there was really big threat to the whole Earth by that time. Imagine 67 episodes long show, where 3rd episode has already escalated to some titan fight level. This is what happened there. Meanwhile in original show, in third episode kids were lost in who knows where and they didn't know what to do. They desperately tried to contact their homes but they just didn't know what happened. In reboot... one character just had all the informations at hand. Literally - in smartphone. He could just "google" the answer, or rather chat with no-names about what's going on. Like... Internauts. Yes, he was informed by random people from Internet. It's not end of the problems. While original adventure set the plot around finding what they had to do and why they are here, here, in reboot they had all the answers on silver plate. The show failed to provide real threat and story whatsoever. Compare it to original, where kids had real life issues, that were linked to their special traits and the bond with their digimon partners were the key. And while I am saying the problems were real, it were real. It was about their own past, life, relationship with family and digimons, as well as them evolving, changing into better themselves. This didn't happen at all in reboot. Actually they just removed any personality issues completely. And while some of the character did have similar traits like not being to confident or being too selfish, it didn't provide the problem to their story progress. Plot in original Digimon Adventure really was orbiting around the kids. Everything they did was to understand why they have those traits assigned to them and how to find it. Not everyone was happy with their traits too. And the human-digimon bond was deeper with more relationship issues, that also originated with their traits and their real life problems. All was about the kids, the change, personalities. It just wasn't there for the reboot. Like they had some simple traits, but it didn't provide any story-related things. For example, relationship between them in original was not always perfect. Sometimes it was negative. Sometimes they mocked each other, sometimes they didn't trust them... but sometimes they were loyal to the end. Their bond wasn't just made in an instant. It was changing and finally they established big friendship and love. This was something I didn't see in the rebooted version of the show.
Plot in the Adventure: is just not there. They had learned about the threat and that they have to defeat it, because it's bad, but... that's it. They just fight with random monsters, defeat them, then at the end they fight big boss, struggle, but "miracle moment" happens and they defeat it. But there was nothing more than that. Okay, there were some moments that You can say were good. But basically story itself was... just poor. I missed the threat of main villains. They weren't just bad guys that do bad stuff with bad power. In original it was about what they did and how they did that, not how powerful or "evil" they were. In original show You could feel the threat. They were constantly attacked and threatened to death. Big bad guys weren't just there to appear at the end of the show. They were very active villains that were attacking kids directly or sometimes via minions. But all of it was their doing, not just random enemy attacking. While in the reboot... they got the prophecy about bad guy that appeared almost at the end. Before that there was another bad guy, that was a bit deeper in personality. And there was a third one that appeared at the very end, unannounced before. Their motives were just "I am evil, so I evil", meanwhile in original show they did all those things for different reasons. It's like comparing an evil guy that likes to see people suffer with a guy that just destroys everything, because he is a destroyer. Nothing else is needed. I really couldn't feel a threat from those villains in 2020 version, because they were just bigger, stronger variants of any other digimon. And if we are here... all the other enemies were just random digimons that appeared. They weren't directly minions or anything like that. They were just attacked by wild digimons.
So, we know there is no story, no threat and no character development. Is it that bad? Umm... no. It's 4/10 afterall, there are some elements that were better. Specifically visual style. I hate when reboot, remake or something changes original style, like I hate it with Shaman King for example, that also rebooted the old anime (or rather made new that is more faithful to manga). But Digimon Adventure: nailed it perfectly. The shows looks like the old anime, literally. If I didn't know better, I could have seen a random screenshot of the reboot and think it's from old anime. But also they improved things, like the effects and the evolution sequences. They also had really good ideas... just the poor plot made the execution of those ideas bad. It also had some good moments that were done properly. Although it's like one flower in the pile of crap. Also the other good things is that they give all of them highest evolution...... but it didn't really matter, as there was one guy that appeared every time, stealing the spotlight, so even if the character did cool stuff, him appearing "coincidentally" was annoying and ruined the moment. Plus those high evolution forms appeared once, so it wasn't really much. The other good thing was side evolution. I am not really a fan of side evos in Digimon, but they nailed it nicely... but that idea was too not really well executed. Two of the forms were used once, other forms were used instead of base forms, instead of making them change those forms while needed. For example, if they need form A, they use it, because form B is ineffective. It wasn't done like that.
Did I enjoy the show? A bit. But more I was annoyed by the fact that those things that were done so greatly in original, was completely screwed there. At the end few decent stuff couldn't cover everything they failed to do. And most of things, even those positive, had bad sides anyway... I really hoped for at least anime that I wouldn't like, but will be decent. Instead I got a failed product that were written poorly by someone, who didn't thought it through.
Overall I give it a 4. That much, because there was some good things there. Without them it would be solid 1.
PS Sorry for a bit of chaos, I just wanted to tell about few things, but the topic is so wide and it's hard to not spoil anything, especially comparing things with original series. Thanks for Your understanding.
Pixoniatus
You know that feeling when you're driving and notice a car crash on the side of the road, and as you pass by you slow down and turn your head unconsciously to catch a glimpse of a dead body lying on the ground ? Well, that sum up my experience with this reboot. (some spoilers in the "story" part, go to the tl;dr if you wish to avoid them) Story: I'll do a parallel with the original show. In the original show (OS), 7 tennagers friends (more or less I concede to you) are sucked up into a digital world where they meet their digi companions, and theygo to explore their surrounding altogethers in search of answers and a way to get back home.
In the reboot (R) theses 7 teenagers don't know each others, some even never spoke to their digimates. And they aren't surprised nor scared about digimons, as if it was perfectly normal. And they go on a walk in the forest, looking for a way to get back home, or cool looking fruits, whatever it's all perfectly normal and there's no reason to be worried at all.
OS, a really evil digimon appears and try to split them up, scare them, hurt them, kill them, aside working on a global domination plan. after being separated, facing trials and terrible dangers while learning more about the digiworld, and becoming stronger aswell as their digicompanions, they are ultimately reunited to face the big boss but soon learn it's only the beginning of their journey.
R, they roam around without a clear goal, sometime they talk to each others, no real trials, no bonding with their digicompanions, but the really evil digimon is now a treat to mankind, as he manage to affect the real world in a terrible way: a power outage in Tokyo. A few blocs, at best. The teenagers destroy a big bad digimon and tadam, the world is saved.
OS, they go through an ocean to meet their destiny, training themselves to the limit and realising they can effectively die in this world as well as in the real one. This strenghten their bond with their digicompanions and their friends, as they walk together toward an ennemie far more dangerous than the previous one.
R, walk in the wood, befriend some useless digimon we'll never see ever again, oh no another treat to mankind: GPS failure, the super tankers are going full speed into each others (no they can't change direction, no they can't shut down their engine, well yes they could but they won't because that's why). How will the digidestined save us all ? Find big bad digimon, blast off big bad digimon, world saved, let's go for a walk in the forest or a night at the onsen. Oh btw, you can't die in the digiworld, Takeru and his friends take full blasts for mega digimons and get out of the smoke without a scratch, several time, in 67 episodes they have never ever been at least slighty wounded nor scared while facing a treat.
OS, another evil digimon mastermind appear, able to open a portal toward the real world, he can and will invade and conquer the whole planet with an army of terrible creatures. Only the teenagers can do something to prevent that, but they'll have to learn, fight, train, and become stronger togethers.
R, oh no a space station is desorbiting and will crash onto Tokyo in a few minutes. Big bad digimon, boom headshot, we're all safe now. What, the space station ? Meh, it crash into Tokyo's bay with a big splash and people livestream it with their phones. I'm not kidding, this is litteraly what happen. At this point you should understand my rating.
OS, fast forward to the end, after lot of trials, difficults time, friendship lessons, and after they learn to use their true power, the teenagers go at war agaisnt the "elite 4" of the digiworld. Mankind is once again endangered (for real), and the victory of our friends isn't guaranted at all.
R, the big bad very big very bad evil digimon which has been teased as the final boss all over the show is awaken, let's kick his ass in half an episode then go have a cheesburger at McDonald's. No I'm not joking, I wish I was but I'm not, this is a real thing. Oh btw there's another very big very bad evil digimon far more powerfull, somewhere, perhaps you'll find him if you roam around helping random digimon clean up their garbages or play a racing minigame ? Again not joking.
OS, finaly the ultimate fight, the last effort, the end of the journey, the victory of the light over the darkness. A splendide final to this amazing adventure.
R, if you saw the first Digimon Movie with Diablomon/Diaboromon, you saw the next fight aswell. And don't expect a good conclusion, according to the animation during the last fight they were already out of budget and couldn't afford a scenarist to end the show.
tl;dr: The original show was showing a group of friends on a journey in a wonderful yet dangerous world, the further they go into it the stronger they get and together they save the world. The reboot show a group of teenagers with 0 background and low to no personnality as they do random stuf wandering across the land in search (more or less) of their destiny. Take your average 12ep slice of life ecchi highschool seasonal anime, add dinosaurs remove the ecchi and stretch it over 67 episodes, and voila.
Art: to be fair it's not bad. The original art style is here, the characters and the digimons are almost identicals to their originals counterparts, and the animation is (most of the time) fairly well made. Some digimon received a visual look.. different.. from the original, but it's a reboot and as long as we recognize them easily I won't say a thing about it. Tbh it even had me burst of laughter as some of their looks are really "interresting". The graphism are either fairly good or low-tiers seasonnal slice of life, sometime you get a grandiose panorama or a well made battle scene, sometime you get a poor background with some touch of colors here and there to not make it feel like it was completly rushed. 50/50 I'd say.
A bad point for the ending however. If most of the fights were well animated, the very last one had a DragonBall Super feeling if you know what I mean. The digivolutions however are cool, differents from the originals but they keep the same style and add some nice details. Sadly only Agumon and Gabumon really take profit from it, it would've been nice to see all the digimon go full power with the same style.
Sound: nothing to say, generic slice of life music, generic shonen music, and some erzatz of rock, the original was overwhelmingly superior but you know what they said about music tastes. Please don't take it in account as it's really my personnal tastes, I just wanted to be exhaustive in my review.
Characters: what characters ? I still don't know anything about them. In the OS we learned to know them as they were learning to know themselves, accept their mistakes and errors, and grow up. In the reboot they don't change at all from ep1 to ep67, mostly because they haven't faced any obstacle that forced them to adapt and grow up. There is no death, no wounds, no loss, and the few "real" menaces they encounters are far away from them. Also no backstory and no usefull interaction between them or the digimons they meet along the way. It's the same way of thinking, the same convictions, the same behavior over and over again. is it that hard to put a teenager at risk so he can face his fears and become stronger ? I mean there's countless mangas and anime about that, brillants or not at least they have what lack to the character's developpement of this reboot: a character's developpement.
Enjoyment: a bunch of characters you don't care about who can't be harmed in any way and doesn't change a bit in 67 episodes. I won't say there was no good moments at all, but honestly it's like watching an old sitcom without the laughtrack, nothing important happen and if it does nothing change afterward. Boring, bland, annoying, at least it helped me going to bed as I had no more motivation to do anything else after watching my weekly episode.
Overall: let's be concise here. The story is a giant teaser to a massive treat that last only for a few minutes and doesn't feel like a real treat at all. The art is mostly close to the OS in terms of design, with modern animation, but goes from good to meh/bad between two camera angles. The OST is correct, I personnaly don't like it but it's really subjective (original OST masterrace). The characters are a bunch of immortals empty shells with no personnality who doesn't change at all through the show (I repeat myself about that but clearly this is the biggest problem of this show by far, with a good characters writing I probably would've gave it a 5 or even a 6). The enjoyment was inexistant beside some funny moments, not because their were made to be funny but because they were ridiculous to the point of making you question if it's not a school project they mistook for the real show.
In one single sentence, this reboot is an insult to the original show, a slap in the face of digimon's lovers, and a complete failure as an anime of it's own.
BlitzAceSamy
The more I think about this series, its potential, and how it ultimately led to disappointment, the more I felt I just needed to write this review. I grew up as a fan of the Digimon franchise, so I am not watching this with fresh eyes, as I expect most watchers here will be. If you too are a fan of the franchise wondering if you should spend your time watching this series, allow me to share with you the best parts of this anime, so you don't have to waste your time digging through the bad parts to get to the good parts. 1. The absolutelyfantastic hand-drawn sakuga evolution sequences for Agumon and Gabumon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQTE2C5_Kw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFNqyK5bgdM
(Too bad they ran out of budget and couldn't do the same for the other six of the cast members)
2. The absolute banger opening and 3 evolution themes (just like how 02 had four evolution themes for each of Armor, Adult, Perfect, and Ultimate levels, Adventure 2020 has three evolution themes for each of Adult, Perfect, and Ultimate levels as well):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59gNYs04roA (Opening)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdkJLe_LaqY (Adult evolution theme)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgvm18SMZ9s (Perfect evolution theme)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMm9o5lcUM (Ultimate evolution theme)
3. Kouno Marika making Kouno Marika noises, but really, you're better off watching Onii-chan wa Oshimai! or Hinako Note, or heck, even Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni.
And these three points are literally the only good things I can say about this series that I've spent 67 episodes watching lmao. Seriously the final fight at the end of the series is literally a PowerPoint slideshow where they obviously ran out of animation budget smh
Sai_Saishi
Although I wouldn’t describe it as outstanding, this revisit to Digimon Adventure is a fun ride. It does have a lot of failings, but for this 90s kid, it offered some great callbacks to the original series and made just a few improvements. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from watching and enjoying it. This reboot does fail in a lot of areas as well, though, mostly in the areas of pacing and character development. The pacing was funky, offering random glimpses in each episode at what various character groups were doing or charging headlong into boss battles that weren’t really all that earned. I often foundmyself confused about how situations developed until I rewatched the whole thing in reverse order so I could see the connections between episodes from a different angle. I saw a reviewer who described this show as having extreme acts of random heroism in place of character building, and that feels accurate to me. There is character development, but it is weak. If you’re debating if you should watch this, I’d say give it a try but don’t expect the storytelling to be quite as good as you remember.
StrikeZero78
Didn't expect this to be this good. One of my favorite anime this season. They really going full throttle for this one. The graphic transition is so smooth, the soundtrack were really kicking (I mean, really, you guys should hear it), a lot of new evolution line/ slide evolution, the new storyline, the new enemy... At first, it was like "Taichi and Agumon" centered adventure. They inserted those two like in every adventure/episode. but as the story goes on, each character have their own adventure, and many question about the "Chosen Children" were answered. It maybe didn't be as good as the original, but this onereally deserved to be called the "Reboot".
