Digimon: Complete Series Retrospective | Billiam

0:00 the following video is a compilation of reviews posted to my channel from august 2017 to june 2019. it covers the entirety of the digimon anime now while watching this there may be some weird continuity errors and that's because i'm presenting this series as if it were going in chronological order for all of the digimon anime even though i didn't really cover the anime in chronological order also it includes a brand new version of my original digimon review which i decided to redo in order to fit in with my current style also this video is not sponsored but i am selling a digimon t-shirt in order to celebrate the finishing of this retrospective it's modeled after the digimon tamers logo so

0:47 the links to that are uh are pinned to the top of the comments and also you can look at my little uh store shelf at the bottom of this youtube video so anyways enjoy digimon digital monsters unfortunately too many people look at digimon and dismiss it as a pokemon clone and well that's not totally true it's not totally untrue while pokemon had its first release in 1996 digimon was introduced a year later but besides starring monsters and having a similar naming convention digimon and pokemon don't share too much in common digimon is a sister product to tamagotchi but it was marketed directly towards boys so instead of tamagotchi's pure baby essence muscles weapons and this the original digimon v-pet had the player raising a digimon from an egg until it

1:33 would either die like all of mine this literally happened like like literally one after the other this tamagotchi is dead and my digimon died are you kidding me or eventually transform into more powerful digimon that you could then battle by connecting devices it was successful and it spawned video games manga a card game and an anime released in 1999 digimon adventure [Music] adventure always surprises me when i rewatch it while the production quality and a questionable english dub makes it harder for newer fans to get into it there are certain qualities of it that hold up remarkably well it's an adaptation of a very simple concept yet it does so much with it there are dozens

2:19 of interpretations in alternate universe in which digimon takes place the digimon franchise is like a sandbox that allows pretty broad freedom of storylines and themes however some are less like sandboxes and more like a litter box i actually feel bad for that joke when looking at digimon it really feels like a product of its time you have a slew of uh cute and clean monsters that are simply designed because they're adapted from sprite art that would fit into a 16 by 16 screen but that's also contrasted by digimon that radiate 90s marvel comics energy rob liefeld straps and all and that's by design the digimon look from this period was defined by american comics which were having a major surge in popularity in japan at the time this digimon isn't just a t-rex it's a t-rex

3:06 with a metal war helmet in packs made out of cannons and a turtle that doesn't only have bowser's shell but thor's hammer and the face of jaime heinemann it's pretty rad although i make videos about a lot of nostalgic properties the ones i really hold close to my heart are digimon and animal crossing and for digimon it's because behind that overly masculine artillery carrying weapon holding muscles and muscles is a very sincere story about kids their relationships and growing up digimon adventure starts with seven kids at summer camp after a weird series of weather events across the globe it begins to snow right in the middle of summer suddenly each of the seven kids are given a small digital pocket watch looking thing called a digivice and

3:51 suddenly a wave comes out of nowhere sweeping them up and transporting them to the digital world a narnia-esque fantasy world that is also home to the digimon suddenly they all meet their own partner digimon what are they we're digimon digital monsters well i would argue that most of the digimon don't go through character development themselves their personalities complement or contrast the kids they're paired to there's tai the de facto leader of the group he's got goggles he's athletic and he's quick to make decisions his partner is agumon sora is the helmet-wearing tough but caring level-headed member of the group her partner is biomon there's matt and tk two brothers who come from a divorced household matt comes off as kind of cold

4:38 and distant but he's very caring and passionate his partner is gabumon tk is the little kid of the group he's very excitable but often is getting into situations where he can't protect himself because his digimon padaman can't digivolve to stronger forms as soon as the others padamon and tk kind of go back and forth between guiding each other and having to be guided by the other it's really quite cute izzy is the techy big dork big brains of the group he's infinitely curious and is always trying to learn more about the digital world which helps us to learn more about it his digimon is tentamon who may just be my favorite of the original seven digimon he's super supportive of izzy and is always concerned with his well-being it's adorable joe is the oldest member of the group and although he has some basic

5:24 first aid knowledge he's very squeamish and cautious his digimon is gomamon who serves as a more fun and outgoing contrast to joe gomond may just be my favorite of the original seven digimon he's adorable and finally we have mimi mimi is initially presented as a shallow valley girl type who just wants to get home but she eventually steps up now there have been previous watch throughs where i hadn't liked mimi but i really like her now she's great she never grows out of her love for fashion or shopping or whatever but she's still very useful i like her because many of those qualities are usually associated with a mean girl type character and are seen as negative however these are just her interests and they don't impede on her ability to be useful her digimon is

6:09 palmon who out of the other digimon is closest to resembling the personality of the partner i love the digimon cast their personalities are so well defined and strong i feel like you could drop two of these characters into a troublesome situation and you would know exactly how they try to solve the problem how they disagree with each other etc izzy i know how to get it to boot up you just gotta give it a couple of seconds are your brain cells malfunctioning they're characters that present themselves through an archetype of another character we've seen before or are familiar with so we kind of understand them at face value immediately it's inviting but as the series progresses our idea of that kind of character deepens and evolves the first few episodes of the show are very light on plot but it takes time to introduce us to the characters and to

6:56 the world it begins with a kind of formula each episode features a digimon attacking the group and one of the kids gets put into danger so their partner has to temporarily transform into a more powerful level to protect them from either a bad digimon or a good digimon infected by a black gear which makes them more violent while the digimon have six stages they can reach they usually remain in their third form their base form while the digimon have different names in different stages i'll only be referring to them as their base form to avoid confusion and i'll be referring to the digimon characters as their english names because i'm an english speaker therefore most people watching this video speak english and probably grew up with the english dub and i know this is

7:42 a controversial opinion but i value clear communication over you know flexing my digimon knowledge to the 10 of you who will care so i understand if you want to refer to characters as their original names but please if you really really need to hear chi and tail and yam blank oh if those extra syllables really mean that much more to you please go elsewhere or rage comment down below the algorithm you know how it is a few episodes in it's revealed a digimon named devi mon controls the black gears and he's planning to defeat the children for some reason that's pretty evil devi separates all of the kids and while they're trying to find their way back to

8:28 one another we get to see some of the characters interact with each other one-on-one the pairings are great and it continues to explore their character my favorite things in ensemble based storytelling is when characters you wouldn't expect to interact do seeing izzy and mimi having to problem solve when one is an impatient airhead and the other is a socially unaware dork is great don't cry mimi oh no not you too izzy do something do what my laptop can't do everything the highlight for this part of the series has always been matt and ty having their alone time tai wants to head back to where they saw devimon and matt wants to find the others especially tk their arguments result in fighting which causes matt to break down and explain how he feels responsible for tk's safety especially

9:14 because he feels guilty for not being super involved in his life ever since their parents got a divorce throughout the whole show we're given glimpses into the character's home life which helps to inform their behavior in the digital world while the world is fantastical with all sorts of variations of monsters the emotional core of the characters are grounded in real life domestic troubles personally the kind of fantasy i gravitate towards are one with a grounded emotional reality if the emotional struggles the characters are going through don't have an analog to real life it's something that's very difficult to identify with and i truly believe that digimon finds a great balance one character i'm sure many younger viewers gravitated towards is tk while digimon are evolving left and

9:59 right and all over the place tk's digimon padamon just can't this makes tk feel useless and padamon's evolution is teased pretty explicitly there's even an episode where you think they're finally going to evolve beginning a transformation sequence into everything but it's just a tease it's edging even when the kids finally get back together they're told about their destiny by leomon a very good-looking rugged lion man mon they explain they're the digidestined chosen children brought to the digital world to protect it from evil the digivice links the child to their digimon giving it the power to dig evolve and that's pretty neat they determined the best chance to get home is to fulfill their destiny and defeat

10:44 devi mon and devymon is like no and right when everyone has had a good and embarrassing butt kicking release padamon digivolves to angemon i wanna take him home with me i'm sure plenty of people do angebond beats devymond by using all of its energy and reverting back to a digi egg although digimon don't die they need to restore themselves after death and my digimon died this show's tk is just as useful and maybe even more so than the others despite being just a little guy and also despite his digimon now needing to take time to reincarnate meaning once again he may be just as useless i'm sorry buddy the deviantart serves to introduce the world and the characters until the last episode or two there really isn't a clear plot or goal other

11:30 than for the kids to survive so it leaves a lot of time for character and world exploration but it doesn't meander to the point of feeling purposeless we see a lot including quite the variety of digimon from bears squishy guys slithery guys sludgy guys and rhinos it's really imaginative and interesting now i always knew that angemon came around to finally beat devi mon but i'm not sure i ever actually saw the episode as a kid there are a lot of digimon episodes i didn't watch while growing up i didn't see the whole series in its entirety until i rewatched it on youtube and from around 2006 or seven and it's not like i really had the option to watch the whole series in north america we got five volumes of

12:16 digimon adventure on vhs with the first three being sequential and the next two being climaxes to later arcs the first three volumes almost completes the first story arc but is four episodes short however there was a really rare dvd release in 2002 that had the first 13 episodes on it there wasn't a proper home video release or even an official streaming release until 2012 and even that release just featured broadcast tape quality episodes with tv ratings either still present or just blurred out in the corners the original japanese version was available on streaming platforms a few years ago but it was taken down and funimation who apparently owned the rights to it haven't done anything with it since also update as of

13:01 2019 digimon has once again been removed from streaming platforms in digital marketplaces meaning the only way to watch the original series is to track down the 2012 dvd release and i'm not even sure if that's in print anymore pumpkin digimon primarily tells its story through four distinct arcs all of which have a clearly defined final boss to defeat while i used to think this was a big negative for the show i've grown to appreciate this almost video game like style of storytelling especially after watching the later digimon seasons with 54 episodes to get through there's definitely opportunity for this story to outstay its welcome but with a three-act structure being spent under 10 to 20 episodes as opposed to all 54 episodes at once the show never quite loses its

13:47 pacing it doesn't drag on and while defeating the villain is always the climax of an arc it's never the driving factor of the story the story isn't simply defeat the villain rather the villain stands in the way of a different goal at least until the show's final arc while digimon's narrative is serialized episodes feel distinct and separate from one another it can feel formulaic at times but the wide cast of likable characters creates enough variation to stay entertained after defeating devymond the kids are sent on a mission across the ocean to collect tags and crests little emblems that may help their digimon reach the next stage and hopefully get them home however while traveling across the new continent of server the group is being chased and pursued by a super powerful digimon that also happens to be a chimp doing an elvis impression

14:33 the something's got my network he wants to stop them from collecting the crests that's pretty mean well the first dark was a kind of mindless exploration of the digital world with the most evil looking villain ever the second arc gives a clear goal while being hunted down by a super powerful albeit very silly villain where's my fried banana sandwich however the real purpose of the ark is to introduce the crests which is one of my favorite character development devices ever the crests remain a prominent part of the story through pretty much the rest of the series while the crests enable the digimon to digivolve to their fifth stage it's also tied to a particular value or trait that each kid exemplifies whether they directly realize it or not courage friendship sincerity knowledge

15:20 hope love and faith or reliability if you're watching the english dub while digimon would digivolve to the champion level if their partner was in danger the next stage is only reached if they are able to discover or uphold their particular value in a difficult scenario so while they all find their crests rather easily activating them is another issue entirely at one point tai tries to force his crest of courage to activate by throwing himself into danger but this just corrupts it causing agumon to transform into a spooky scary evil skeleton monster mash digimon who goes on a rampage you gotta have that rampage scene however it activates truly for the first time during a much more intimate moment tai briefly convinces himself the digital world is like a video game and has no consequences however he learns the danger in the digital world is real and suddenly becomes really fearful when

16:06 he has to put his life in danger to protect a friend it's not during a big fight he just has to cross through a safe point in an electrical fence but the point is he's scared to do so when he builds up the courage to do it his crest activates and agumon digivolves using the highest tech animation in the business whoa i love the crests it's not just reaching a new form and getting more powerful it's a reflection of how the kids are growing as people often when shows have power ups and transformations they can seem like a cop-out or an easy way to defeat a powerful villain but having the kids have to earn it really helps to justify what may have been seen as a deus ex machina in a similar scenario it's really clever and i like it after the fight ty accidentally opens a rift in the digi time continuum and ends up

16:52 returning home alone you gotta have that mid-series return home episode this episode kind of serves as an intermission it's very odd no time has passed it's still the same day from when they left and nobody is home except for ty's sister kari this episode always feels off to me and that's clearly intentional the colors are subdued no one seems to be noticing the giant digimon attacking famous landmarks on tv and thai's sister has this creepy demeanor to her and that's aided by the fact she mysteriously knows who agumon is now a few years ago this episode's director mamara hasoda who is one of digimon's most influential creative voices gave an interview comparing tai and kari's relationship in this episode to that of

17:38 a married couple with agumon being this new younger girl taking away tai's attention from kari now many people took this quote to mean that tai and kari had an incestuous relationship however i and many others don't please don't make me believe that not seeing incest is a controversial opinion this episode just feels off it's completely different than anything else in the entire season and i think hasoda wanted kari and tai to have a strange and uncomfortable dynamic to make ties return to the human world seem off and uncomfortable something's wrong and it's not that two prepubescent siblings are romantically involved tai eventually

18:24 receives a distress call from the digital world and has to make the hard decision to return to the digital world i've rewatched this episode randomly outside of full series viewing it's melancholy and i feel like this episode's off tone makes it one of the highlights of the entire series it's just a different flavor and it explicitly introduces a series long arc while the kids need to get home at some point there's also been a responsibility thrust upon them to protect each other and this new world they've been introduced to from danger it's not just about the self-serving goal of returning home it's about helping to make the world a better place when tai returns to

19:10 the digital world everyone is separated and has to find their way back together once they do they are confronted by the mysterious new villain who has been keeping the kids separated while hiding in the shadows myotismon what a spooky guy the kids are able to find out my otus mon wants to get to the human world to find a secret missing eighth digi destined and everyone is like myotosman is able to escape into the human world before the kids get a chance to follow them thanks to the help from gatomon myotismon's top henchmen but eventually the kids are able to go through myotisman's gay and return to the human world this is where sh gets good so we learned that tai's younger sister kari is the eighth child but nobody else realizes it they do

19:56 discover the reason they were chosen as digidestined is because they all witness a digimon fight when they were very young that was mistaken for a terrorist attack so it's set up that the audience knows who the new digi destin is but no one else does however myotismon has kari's tag in crest so he clearly has the upper hand in the situation i love this arc taking the action from the digital world to the human world raises the stakes in such a way that it makes the show feel suddenly really fresh the digimon are no longer guides the kids are and after being teased of the kids home life we finally get to see it front and center and of course that's all while they're trying to find creative ways to hide their digimon and now while many of the parents are just kind of background and side characters izzy's

20:42 parents joe's brother and matt and tk's dad become characters heavily involved in the plot at this point in the show as well not all of the kids have had their crest activate so the activation of their crests happen as a result of their family life or being close to that while of course there is a bunch of insane action in this arc or at least the implication of insane action there are also some nice moments and somber moments as the kids finally get a moment to rest and reunite with their families while the kids are searching for who the eighth digi destin could be myotisman is out wreaking havoc with super strong digimon in sucking the blood of young women we learned that kari is the eighth digidestine before anyone else does however gatoman starts to suspect kari as the eighth child however wizardmon

21:27 got oman's bff forever or at least bff for now starts to suspect gatomon as kari's long-lost digimon however this turns out to be the case and it's the reunion of the two that makes kari's identity known so garumon may be my favorite of the original eight digimon that's because gatomon is the only digimon that is actually their own character now gatomon is a villain however eventually we learned through godoman's best friend for soon wizardmon that gotomon was not always a villain kari was supposed to go to summer camp with everyone else but she was sick so she couldn't so while the other partner digimon got paired with the kid ganaman waited forever and was eventually taken in by otismon where they became a villain after years of

22:13 abuse myotismod figures out gatumon is the eighth digimon and uses that to discover that kari is the eighth child resulting in a big battle to rescue her wizardmon gatoman's best friend for no longer sacrifices themselves to protect kari the crest is returned it activates and [Music] [Applause] yes anjawa man so anyways anja wood defeats myotismon but he reforms into a big strong form and luckily ty and matt unlock their digimon's final form or i guess this isn't even their final form

22:59 to defeat the super strong miodesman in my opinion the miotis monarch is the climax to digimon adventure well not every personal issue is nicely wrapped up at this point there are confrontations and small glimmers of closure that could potentially come at a later point one of my favorite moments comes towards the end of the story tk and matt have proven themselves to be of value and strength to their parents who haven't seen each other in however long and tk being the young naive kid he is thinks this reunion is happy and although he's not wrong there's a kind of somberness surrounding the whole situation that he really doesn't understand you know obviously their parents aren't going to get back together but it's oddly hopeful like maybe this is the start of their family not being as distant as they were before and this closure or hopeful

23:44 confrontation of these issues is relevant for all of the characters personal struggles although gotaman is just a good character they're able to overcome their abuser by letting others come into their life to help it makes maya odesman a very personal villain and the only digimon adventure villain that isn't just bad guy evil baby boy as a kid i loved the conclusion to the myotis monarch it really justified liking digimon to me not just because it was super cool but to a certain extent i understood that these more personal issues weren't things that were generally confronted in children's media and i think that's why digimon has continued to mean so much to me despite what's holding it back and i guess we can discuss

24:30 what's holding it back the first and most glaringly obvious issue with digimon especially now is the english dub i grew up with the english dub i like it i consider the voices of these characters to be defined by the english cast however early on in the dub you can tell someone involved was embarrassed by digimon jokes are consistently added where they shouldn't be in 90 of the time this is fine but more often than it should it undermines the emotional tone a scene is going for and sometimes they even point out and make fun of the limited animation whoa time standing still here there are also a lot of character whose voice is based on famous comedians or

25:17 actors including peter laurie rodney dangerfield and marlon brando i'll take you there myself it's not every day your lunch saves your life that's destroying my life no respect i don't get no respect but i think the best voice in the whole dub is togamon pokemon is palmon's first evolution and you know they thought it was silly i mean it's a cactus with boxing gloves how does it type with those boxing gloves on you're going down big boy you could tell they had a blast voicing in writing this character and while not a major critique of the dub there are also some dubbing heirs like the wrong voices coming from the wrong characters hey check it out you can see right through this wall and this odd moment where some kid broke into the recording studio and sent off the broadcast tape before anyone could notice

26:04 over here there is still no official explanation from this and people have asked the english producers like any dub of an english anime there are also many censored changes that are made because of cultural norms some mild swearing is cut out mild and nudity and references to alcohol are cut too all right it's a bottle of green chili sauce it's great on tacos the dub also uses its own music while a lot of the music is recycled from other shows several tracks were written exclusively for the digimon show including the main digimon theme which i love nostalgically but is a major turn off for new viewers there were also victory songs written for when the digimon were winning a battle the folksy hey digimon excels at killing the mood

26:50 of the scene it's played in [Music] but nothing is as bad as the digi wrap [Music] however there are also great orchestrated tracks that i still associate heavily with digimon including the instrumental version of the main theme that plays during heroic moments however what's lost in return are two of my favorite anime songs ever braveheart the awesome guitar riffin song that plays during evolution sequences and butterfly which i can say may be one of the best anime opening songs ever while there are many questionable

27:36 changes made in the english dub the dub was not handled by four kids so many things you would expect to be cut out aren't there a lot of mature themes and concepts that are fortunately kept in including references to the number of the beast six six six that's so metal and mention of terrorist attacks but this was before 9 11. furthermore all references to the story taking place in japan are kept in well i would definitely recommend newcomers track down the original japanese version i do think the english dub is forgivable because it makes an effort to respect the material eventually matt's dad are you smoking not in my christian english dub of course the second thing holding digimon back today is the production quality although there are some great shots in digimon that are

28:22 animated well and the transformation sequences are phenomenal the vast majority of action is very simple with still frames being motion tweened attack animations being recycled over and over and sometimes the same shot repeating matt where are you going also the evolution sequences often take up huge chunks of the episodes but fortunately they will speed them up cut out shots and split screen the evolutions occasionally in order to keep up the pace of action sequences and occasionally there are whole episodes where characters are just off model it's very odd after defeating myotismana rift between the digital and human world opens up in the sky and the kids learn they have to travel back to the digital world to finish off the final bad guys the dark

29:09 masters four full level digimon that once wreaked havoc across the land but were defeated by the group of original digidestine just a side note this one frame inspired so much curiosity as a kid like they gave no more detail other than just mentioning them while i like the dark masters storyline it's definitely a classic last battle kind of story their strength is tested their relationships are tested and their roles within the group are tested throughout this entire arc everything has changed the digimon they all met along the way are dying all around them and the source of reincarnation for digimon has been put on pause meaning the stakes are higher than ever it's a pretty tense arc and there are some great character moments but i think the purpose is to

29:55 just give the kids one final test to show how much they've grown and while there is certainly continued character development some lore development and more it's really about the kids taking responsibility just because they have the power to do so there are some highlights like the return of leomon just to have him die you gotta have that leomon death i also like how the other kids don't take a backseat here there's a massive power gap between them ty and matt which is something that definitely becomes a huge problem in later seasons but fortunately they don't take a back seat the final dark master is defeated when tk's crest finally activates after a whole series to forget that it hadn't already a big fun final battle follows that's just what you'd expect from a

30:41 large ensemble action piece but now the first time the angel came out of nowhere to save the day it's like that's pretty great he's pretty handsome too the second time the angel came out of nowhere to save the day was like that's pretty great she's pretty handsome too but then the third time the angel comes out of nowhere to save the day it's like that's pretty repetitive regardless of how handsome you are the first two were punctuation for a character arc and here it's finally the activation of tk's crest but it seems like it was only withheld to have this cool reveal however the dark masters aren't the final villain there's another final villain the evil apocalypse that's pretty scary but they beat him too pretty good the celebration for their victory is short-lived the series ends very suddenly and it comes as a shock to the

31:28 audience into the characters the gate between the worlds are closing and without much time they have to say goodbye to their digimon it's really sad to see them say goodbye but it's not a depressing ending they'll see each other again someday and we know they're ending their adventure as more complete people than when they started digimon adventure has remained one of my favorite pieces of childhood media it's a story that is very silly at times and the issues surrounding it are not insignificant enough to ignore but this is a story that succeeds in spite of pretty glaring flaws that's because the character work is very sincere even though it's surrounded by silly concept crazy monsters and edgy try-hard 2000s

32:13 character design the good qualities are able to shine through in spite of it i mean as long as what they're trying to shine through is not the show's biggest flaw which is the digi rap the next video is a review of the first digimon movie now if you hear me say a number throughout this entire video that means i am covering one of the movies and the number is just signifying which movie it is number one digimon adventure released in 1999. this film was released as a part of a toei film festival which aimed to preview upcoming toei projects it was directed by momoro hasoda who would later go on to direct some highly critically acclaimed films including the girl who leapt through time and the boy

32:58 and the beast although the film serves as a preview for digimon adventure within the series itself it actually ends up playing a pretty important role in the plot also sidenote i am going to be using the english names just because i think it's what my audience will be most familiar with one day kari and her older brother tai receive a special egg through a computer screen it hatches the fun and energetic coral mon who as the movie progresses grows into larger forms at one point coromon escapes with kari and tai has to chase after them eventually a much larger egg comes from the sky and hatches a giant parrot digimon koromon grows one last time to defeat it before disappearing in the digimon movie i always loved this segment but while watching the original version it's clear a lot of the tone and style is lost it's mysterious it's slow

33:45 building and when the final battle hits it's exciting and terrifying i mean this shot wasn't in the english dub i love giant monster films and although digimon always features giant monsters it never truly feels kaiju but in this the low angles property destruction and human perspective really makes it feel like a proper godzilla mon film even the final fire blast from greymon feels like godzilla's atomic breath i also love how much like small small children kari and ty are although they are kids in the anime it's definitely an anime protagonist kind of kid they're small but they're just as intelligent as a young adult but here they're little kids totally helpless it's fun and exciting and definitely worth that 20 minute run time number two

34:32 children's war game or r war game as the posters and most wiki articles call it this film was also directed by mamuro hasoda it has a 40 minute run time and was released on march 4th 2000 as a part of the same festival which showcased digimon adventure march 4th is also when the film takes place what a neat and fun fact this film wow i truthfully think our war game may be the crown jewel of all the digimon films and maybe even of digimon itself well not as a standalone work but as a part of the digimon adventure series taking place over spring break the year after the kids get back from the digital world a digimon has invaded the internet and begins tampering with computer systems around the globe izzy is the first of the original digidestine to take notice

35:18 and heads over to tai's house to warn him of the danger it can impose after nearly a year izzy and ty are able to get back in contact with the digimon but this time over the internet unfortunately for a multitude of reasons they're unable to get a hold of the other children to help tackle the threat together eventually matt and tk are contacted and they try to take down the digimon before it can detonate a nuclear warhead in tokyo bay our war game is tense it's heartwarming and it's entertaining as heck what makes it interesting is the logistical challenge between accessing the internet in the early 2000s and a fight against a strong enemy if it were just one of these things it'd be fine but it's the combination of two which makes it cool i really like it in action scenes when there's multiple things to worry about it's not just a fight but there's

36:04 something else going on as well when ty and izzy are having trouble contacting people have their internet connection go out or when matt and tk can't find a computer connected to the internet it helps make the action relatable because everyone with an internet connection has run into similar issues when trying to do a much more mundane task like sending an important email or submitting an assignment even the solutions the characters find to these problems feel real like the satellite cell phone the voicemail tag etc also because we feel for the characters already when war greymon and metal gurumon have their butt kicked it's pretty hard to take if this were a standalone film i don't think that would be the case but that's the benefit of working with established characters you can do mostly plot driven stuff because the audience is already

36:49 sold on the characters and the world i mean matt is barely in the movie but we're still sad for him when his digimon is hurt when wargreymon and metal gurumon combine at the end of form omnimon it's awesome and that final stab to diaboromon's head is wicked cool in fact hasoda liked this film so much that he ended up taking a lot of the concepts and remaking it from the ground up without digimon in a film called summer wars both summer wars and our war game are definitely worth a watch digimon on the surface it's a pokemon clone but once you dive deeper you discover it's actually a tamagotchi clone but for boys digimon's style was influenced by cool things like marvel

37:35 comics but i think they took a little too much influence from rob liefeld look at this dinosaur with pecks the concept is simple enough you have digital pets digital monsters digimon as you raise them you take care of them and they transform into bigger digimon the anime adaptation digimon adventure which really only existed to promote and sell a line of toys and video games took this simple concept and made a heartfelt story out of it seven kids on summer vacation are transported to a magical world the digital world while trying to survive in this new environment and get home they're each given a partner digimon and a digi vice which helps them to channel the bond between them and their digimon the animation in this show sucks you probably start to notice it around the 78th time an attack animation is

38:22 recycled in the same episode so characters are used as a crutch for the lack of exciting action as the kids grow up and develop their digimon are able to reach stronger forms or digi evolve eventually the kids take on the responsibility of digi destin to save the digital world from evil it's flawed it's silly but it also grounds itself within its characters the original series holds a special place in my heart nostalgically but for some reason despite watching it on tv just as much i can't say the same for adventure 02 the sequel i think it's because there weren't as many home video releases so maybe not having access to it all the time resulted in less of a connection it's

39:09 weird because as a kid i remember liking o2 significantly more than the original but that's probably just because the main digimon was blue and my favorite color was blue my critiquing skills haven't grown up that much adventure o2 has more animation than adventure it's not high quality animation but there's more of it just like how there's more characters they aren't high quality characters but there's more of them adventure o2 takes place three years after the original show it's not digimon adventure 2 it's specifically o2 referencing 2002 the best year the year of blue if you're watching the english dub all the original kids are now in high school except for the younger ones tk and kari

39:55 for the most part the older kids are sidelined for the new team tk khari yoli cody and davis all of whom are introduced and reintroduced in a messy first two episodes there's a lot of exposition yet hardly any time is spent introducing the new kids to the world zero two aired only a week after the original series finished so the audience didn't have to be reintroduced to anything but hearing the new kids spit out digital world jargon is odd because they haven't had anything explained to them yet the key narrative difference with the original is the fact that no one is trapped in the digital world the new team is given a new digivice called a d3 which can be used to open up gateways to the digital world from any computer so the older kids have to catch a ride with the new ones usually one or two of the

40:42 older kids will tag along so they're not completely absent just completely useless the d3s are an important plot point and tie into the show's primary villain the digimon emperor the first human villain in digimon the emperor uses a dark digivice to take control of wild digimon and block the original kid's digimon from transforming to higher power levels he amplifies this power throughout the digital world using dark cell phone towers called dark spires the new kids get around this through a new transformation by using power from digi eggs and the new digivices to equip their digimon with digi armor to armor digivolve into armored digimon now that's branding on a side note digimon adventure bred all of these cool transformer style toys where you take one digimon and transform it into another digimon o2 had a similar line but instead it was just eggs

41:29 which is lame the ability to go in and out of the digital world kind of eliminates the greater sense of adventure that adventure had there's no camping or scavenging for food they just go home to their beds at the end of the episode there's less urgency and sometimes it's tedious they go out for a bit destroy a couple control spires maybe find a new digi egg rinse and repeat often it feels more like they're running errands rather than having this great adventure it's also hard to accept these new kids are automatically invested in what happens to the digital world they take on the objective to defeat the emperor immediately in adventure their objective at first was self-serving they had to get home it was only later they took on the greater responsibility of protecting the digital world poor format aside when

42:16 the show is on it's really strong we're soon introduced to ken the real identity of the digimon emperor in episode 8 davis plays a soccer game against ken without knowing he's the emperor i love it dramatic irony but by the end of the episode ken reveals his identity and runs away from home to live in the digital world getting rid of ken's human world storyline makes this side of the story more of a weight onto the plot this could have been a great opportunity to build dramatic irony and differentiate the sequel from the original maybe ken gets close to the team without them knowing he's the emperor he could find out information about the kids lives and use it to his advantage but the only dramatic elements that come from the human world side of the story are the kids having to hide their digimon from and to find excuses

43:02 to tell their parents when they've been spending time in the digital world at this point it's stale and a missed opportunity for something new still ken is the most interesting villain from either of the series this is the first human villain digimon has had and it's also the first villain with depth it's a lot more depth than a monkey doing an elvis impersonation i mean he kicks a puppy ken's partner digimon warm mon tries to act as ken's conscious and we get a sense that ken hasn't always been the puppy kicking type he's messing around with the darkness of the digital world which is something he really doesn't understand when he tries to make his own digimon he ends up stealing data from devimon the first villain from the original series and a bit of a sore spot for tk tk's digimon died in a battle with deviamon digimon get reborn so don't worry about

43:47 that so seeing ken screw with deviamon is the turning point it's one thing when thor turtle jaime heinemann attacks the magic vampire but it's another feeling entirely when two kids are punching each other in the face when you can't think of anything to say do you always resort to fighting i guess the scene where tk confronts ken is so totally different from any other part of the show but that's why it works no other villain in digimon has ever doubted themselves they're cartoon villains unable to question their moral alignment but ken is human and able to change and when i say change i don't just mean the kitty cat turning into a scantily-clad angel whose figure now costs four thousand dollars i mean character development ken getting his ass kicked and losing his digimon opens his eyes to all the dumb [ __ ] he's done we learned ken hasn't always kicked

44:33 puppies but his turn to darkness began through his grieving after his older brother was hit by a car and died digimon has always dealt with these heavier domestic family issues but having a character become a villain and go through a redemption arc as a result of their problems takes the concept to another level that's what a sequel should do ken is eventually brought into the team and becomes a core member but all that development is thrown out the window when they explain ken just had an evil spore inside of him which made him evil because why have a complex character win magic digimon adventure o2 spends its first 21 episodes dedicated to the digimon emperor arc which eventually wraps up

45:20 but not without distraction and there's a reason for that after adventure wrapped up two new creative directors were put in charge of the story replacing the original director who left to protest a sequel being made between their disagreements and studio meddling the show never found a clear direction after the emperor's storyline new storylines are introduced and dropped new antagonists come in and distract from developing plots and plot lines are introduced only to have a quick anticlimactic ending we eventually learned that someone has been controlling ken then we learned that person was controlled by somebody else before finally learning that myotismod the best known villain from the first series was behind it all its inclusion feels tacked on and that's only because it was between it there are small moments where they attempt to recapture

46:06 the emotional moments from the emperor's storyline and attempts to expand on the lore but it's ultimately lost amongst the rest of the mess the show ends with an epilogue which sees much of the cast pursuing out of character careers it left a bad taste in my mouth speaking of bad taste there are two major storylines which were dropped entirely the first was hinted at as early on as episode 13. we get a totally strange episode apart from the emperor storyline where kari is brought to this weird alternate dimension between both worlds called the dark ocean at the end of the episode we hear this sinister music as this dark giant silhouetted evil cthulhu ass looking digimon rises out of the ocean who is this evil dark undersea master

46:54 don't miss the upcoming digimon digital monsters we have we never we never hear from it again digimon wiki says it's dragomon wow this is so much cooler than what we ended up getting episode 13 also sees the return of the show's greatest villain the digi rap digi rule the second drop storyline is daemon who shows up only a few episodes before the series is over and is defeated a few episodes later filler within the final eight episodes daemon is defeated when it gets sent to the dark ocean two dropped plotlines resolve each other instead of myotismon daemon should have been the final villain and have been

47:40 revealed to be devimon fully evolved daemon is in devimon's evolutionary line and it would have bookended the beginning of adventure with the end of o2 and had a nice little tie into the original series there are some nice nods to the original series which are nice and the plot of the digimon film our war game is important to the new characters the new kids were chosen to be digidestined after witnessing the internet battle featured in our war game this also leads to hundreds of digidestined around the world my favorite series of episode post emperor and actually probably in the whole series is the digimon world tour arc this sees the old kids teaming up with the new kids and traveling across the world but i think maybe the reason i like this short saga so much is because it takes place over winter and uh all

48:27 the characters are in cute winter clothes aesthetic we see new digidestine and get a chance to see the characters interact one-on-one and there are also some nice episodes which allow us to see how the original team has grown up over the years the quiet personal moments of digimon are where the show shines however i like this arc because we got to spend time with the old cast and that's a problem the original show had this really simple plot so character was always the focus but the convoluted nature of o2 makes it harder for the characters to develop because it's always changing direction tk is shown to have trauma but it never manifests itself in anything but anger tk is the obvious choice for team leader but because davis has goggles he's chosen despite being totally incompetent in a

49:13 leadership position he's the least interesting character and a little [ __ ] kari like in the original series unfortunately never has time to grow the dragoman and dark ocean storyline seemed like it would be dedicated to her but her relationship to the dark ocean never manifests itself in anything other than her grabbing her head and screaming yolie well i like yoli she's fun but cody cody is the worst let me rephrase that cody is treated the worst he's the youngest member of the team his arc is him coming into his own and being seen as a valuable member in the original tk also had to prove himself as the youngest member but the difference is the reason why they had to do so tk's

49:59 brother matt was overprotective of him in adventure but everyone in o2 the characters we're supposed to like are just totally dismissive of cody so his arc requires everyone else to be a jerk ken is the only character who's fleshed out and everyone else's development has to do with their relationship to him in adventure the kids were given crests representing a trait they best exemplify courage friendship love etc which tied directly with their digimon getting stronger the digimon transforming was really symbolic of their own growth however in o2 most of the transformations are tied to the digi egg so most transformations are earned through finding an object instead of character growth however to continue to make the old team completely useless

50:45 it's revealed that they gave up their quests to protect the digital world in their absence this creates a few tiny massive plot holes but that's just nitpicking so let's not really get into that i mean i don't mind when they make an exception to the rule [Laughter] the new kids get around this by dna digivolving which sees two of their digimon combining into one this should be tied into a big character moment but it actually helps create a big character moment when ken and the team are still unsure about working together ken and davis's digimon come together to form paiildramon it's only then that they start to consider the possibility of ken joining the team paelderman should have only been possible after they all forgave ken it would have symbolized their coming

51:30 together even later dna digimon feel underwhelming and unearned it's just a result of the other kids deciding it's time to let their digimon come together as for the new digimon they serve the same purpose as they did in the original series they're either character complements or character contrasts for the human characters which works a lot better than having them be their own unique characters the new digimon are armadilloman a western armadillo hakman a hawk and vimon whose english voice sounds like sid from ice age something about kari human girls make human boys act sort of weird digimon is known for its odd english dub and the dub is as dumb as ever the actors do a good job but moments in between drama and action have bad jokes stuffed inside them most of them miss but some actually had me

52:15 laughing out loud then how does the story of the birds and the bees go later davis now's not the time hmm what do you guys want to play how about striptease unlike the original series dub dramatic moments are allowed to play out without added humor but the choice in sound effects will often be used to undermine the violence it's going to win one thing digimon has always been good about were references to japan being kept in which is unusual for an english dub especially for a children's show the show isn't afraid to call a donut a rice ball so i made you some rice balls for your trip these donuts are great i don't mind the dub so much this time around because the show was a lot more tedious this plot with a serious tone would just be boring

53:01 there are a lot more pop punk songs featured in the dub all of which are on the digimon movie soundtrack which would be the greatest film soundtrack in history if it were not for the digi rap and here's a little side note on the official dvd release of the english dub sometimes a tv raiding stamp will appear in the corner i wouldn't be surprised if a clean version of the english dub just didn't exist there are blue rays of the japanese dub available all of which have great quality but it's doubtful that there would ever be a new master of the english dub because digimon has been relegated to a very niche thing the new characters just aren't nearly as strong as the original and they're still splitting screen time with the old cast who always steal my attention when

53:47 they're on screen because that's who i care about i don't hate the new characters i enjoy watching them interact with the old cast and you know ken but the show would have worked a lot better if more focus was put onto them or if they were just taken out entirely this show could have worked with the old cast while only introducing ken as a new character this is a show based on characters and when the new characters don't add anything that's a problem digimon adventure has an ongoing sequel film series called digimon adventure try and within the first few minutes of the first film we learned the new characters introduced in o2 have been defeated and are nowhere to be seen the older kids don't seem to miss them very much and much of the audience doesn't either if digimon try continues after its 6 movie run i'd like to see them return but it's

54:32 not something i'm disappointed about digimon adventure 02 is such a mixed bag when it's on it's really strong but its good moments are so far and few between once it gains momentum it quickly drops and interesting ideas are forgotten before they have time to develop even though its cast as a whole isn't as strong as the original the more complex ideas are more interesting when the show is willing to explore them the cool thing about the digimon anime series is despite the fact that this really is just a glorified film and video game commercial the creative team behind it really cares and really tries digimon adventure 02 didn't fail because people didn't care about it it failed because two creative directors fought for their own creative vision and at the end of

55:18 the day that's really cool number three digimon hurricane touchdown transcendent evolution the golden digimentals that's a long title because it's actually two titles this film premiered during the summer toei film festival only a few months after our war game it aired in two parts with another short airing between the two and it was later released on dvd before i made this video this was actually the only digimon movie i hadn't seen in its original form and because of that it totally surprised me it's pretty good while visiting mimi in america tk and kari come across a boy named willis who's tracking down an evil digimon mimi along with the other original digidestined are captured the rest of the zero two gang davis yoli and cody get word of this and travel to america to help tk and kari rescue the

56:04 original digidestined once there the gang meet up with willis and his digimon terriermon as they head to summer memory a spot where willis terriermon and his twin kokomon the original form of the evil when dingo mon originally met at some point pokemon was struck with a type of virus in turned evil it meets up with willis years later but is unable to recognize him so he starts kidnapping all the other characters with the same digivice and turning them younger in hopes he'll recognize them as willis the other kids help willis track down wendigomon who gets progressively more and more removed from its original form in hopes that they can save the other kids while these shorts are by no mean excellent they are pretty good in the digimon movie they received the worst treatment with nearly 30 minutes being cut from the original hour run time what

56:52 resulted were these frantic nonsensical action pieces cut together with awkwardly paced dialogue scenes the original piece is the exact opposite it's slow it's filled with these little funny quiet moments and the action is anything but exciting in fact it's a bit depressing wendigoman is willis's digimon and because it has become a danger to others willis has to come to the conclusion to kill it and that storyline is never lost within the tone of the film what should be exciting action scenes are undermined by this slow creepy music and the characters getting genuinely stressed when they see their digimon get hurt [Music]

57:38 you really feel that this is a hard decision for willis to come to when windigomon is finally defeated there's not a big triumphant attack it just ends almost anti-climatically i mean of course there's a cool new digivolution and angelwoman shows up which isn't related to anything but i still enjoyed it this wasn't what i was expecting it to be it's a little bit of a bummer and a low note but if you like digimon i definitely recommend watching it it's interesting to see these characters in a cleaner constructed plot than zero two zero two is such a mess that it's really easy to nitpick and the characters are more likely to get on my nerves but in this context i think they work for example because of the more subdued tone davis's frantic personality works a lot better it balances out also

58:24 if you look at it it appears many of these plot points were repeated in digimon try just with the cast swapped i mean the original kids go missing and due to an infection a new member of the group has to come to the conclusion to kill their digimon the only difference here is the zero two kids care about finding the original digi destin and in try they quickly forget about it huh i guess the difference between the zero two cast and the original cast or the fact that the zero two cast are actually good human beings apparently hey so this spot used to have my original digimon the movie review however i used a lot of copyrighted music in that video and this video kept getting copyright claimed so i decided just to remove this segment altogether if you want to go see my original digimon movie review which is very

59:10 angsty and over exaggerative uh i'll post a link in the description or at the end of this video number four the digimon movie okay so i know i talked about this one in a whole 20 minute video but i wanted to have another go on it because it made it seem a lot worse than it actually is since going back and watching a lot of digimon i've realized i really do appreciate the digimon movie for what it is it's silly it's funny at times and its soundtrack is truly awesome it introduced me to a lot of music that i grew to really appreciate as an older teenager and it definitely is a fun watch for digimon fans even if it's a total disaster from outside observers what i'm saying is it's fun and it has the one thing every other digimon movie is missing the digi wraps

1:00:01 number five the revenge of diaboromon while the first three uh 3.5 digimon movies never received a proper adaptation many actually did in 2001 disney bought sabon and with it the rights to digimon's english dub to promote reruns of the first four seasons on disney's new programming block jedex disney brought the original english producers on to do a dubbed adaptation of the then remaining four digimon movies including the revenge of diaboromon the revenge of diaboromon is a potentially canon maybe non-canon sequel to digimon adventure zero 2 taking place three months after the show's finale diaboromon the virus digimon from our war game is back and this time it's got a different plan it's

1:00:46 going to escape into the physical world it sets a trap for some of the digidestine but then starts sending itself as tiny low data versions of itself through people's cell phones before it can finally come together and get big revenge of diaboromon is probably at the bottom of my list for digimon adventure movies it's not bad it's just not that interesting the idea of diaboromon sending itself as smaller bits of data is clever but in a huh kind of way not enough oh that's awesome kind of way like an our war game the final battle between omnimon and armageddon in tokyo bay and later imperial german is awesome the highlight of these films are the higher quality animation and it really shows in the choreography like omnimon blasting armageddon in its mouth that will always be cool and there's

1:01:32 little moments too like the sound of matt's harmonica and kari's whistle coming together to be a representation of omnimod's energy that really gets back to the heart of digimon which is the kids interacting with giant monsters omnimon is defeated and so is imperial dramond but their energy combines to make a new version of imperial german paladin mode which finishes the fight it's cool and the half hour run time makes the film's lack of substance enjoyable i wish more dumb action movies were 30 minutes they'd be fun that way

…