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[Hydra of Ages]

Digimon is a Japanese media franchise originating in 1997 in the form of a Tamagotchi ripoff released by Bandai to attract male children to their toy line. It was a simple enough game, wherein players would take the role of owners who raised their digimon from their initial Baby form through various evolutionary levels until they eventually plateaued at the ultimate level: Perfect.

Simple enough. The game was fairly popular (enough so to warrant six versions and a world release, though production costs were understandably minuscule for the rather simplistic system), and proved to be a hit overseas. Rolling in that sweet, sweet digital monster dough, Bandai made the same business decision practically anyone with a franchise even somewhat popular with the kids did:

Make a show about it.

And I'd say the show did okay for itself. If you call launching a multimedia empire that at its peak, threatened even the brand domination of fellow juggernaut Pokemon okay. Let's not beat around the bush: in the early 2000s, if you were a small child living in any prominent, english-speaking nation, Digimon was the thing. Even if you purposely avoided it, you were defined as a hater of digimon; children fought small-scale gang wars over their favorite choice of cartoon, and Digimon commanded a legion as large as all of them. It had everything: a kickass show, card games, video games, an easily recognizable theme tune, cool monsters, what more did you need?

Apparently, a way to retain that popularity. Digimon's popularity in the western world dipped after the third series began, and crashed during the fourth- Japan was hit as well, though not nearly as hard. For years, the franchise seemed dead, until an unexpected comeback with series 5 breathed new life several years later; since then, the familiar monsters have clawed back into the popular eye within Japan, and are even staging a minor return to western television sets.

With the recent conclusion of series 6(.5) in Japan, I've decided it's about time to pay my respects to one of my fondest-remembered pieces of childhood entertainment. I will be watching every episode of every series of Digimon, in order, and reporting my thoughts as I go through.

Yes, all 332 episodes.

I'm probably including the movies as well, which will be slotted in as appropriate. Updates will come as I get time to watch, but will be at least once a week unless I state otherwise. The episodes I watch are all going to be Subtitled Japanese, as opposed to any of the English dubs; with this, I'd like to take a crack at what's closest to the original material as possible.

Digimon Adventure

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2 - Explosive Evolution! Greymon
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Digimon Adventure 02

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Digimon Tamers

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Digimon Frontier

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Digimon Savers

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Digimon Xros Wars

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- The Evil Death Generals and Seven Kingdoms

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- The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time

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Rules for the thread:

• Try to talk about events and seasons I haven't gotten to as little as possible. I've watched them all before, but I'd like to keep this spoiler-free in case someone without knowledge of digimon deigns to read.
• Making your own reviews of the episodes are fine (so long as I've gotten to them first), as is critiquing my own summaries/reviews.
• You guys are all reasonably intelligent people. I think you know what's acceptable in general nowabouts.

-

With that done, it's time to begin with the start of it all: Digimon Adventure.

1 - Adrift? The Island of Adventure!

Opening Theme: "Butterfly"

Our prelude tells us that strange meteorological phenomena has been occurring across the globe; scorching droughts in South-East Asia, flooding in the Middle East, and sharp temperature drops across the US of A (though, since the image showed Chicago, I'm not sure how they noticed). We're brought to a summer camp of kids in Japan, who (as the narration tells us), are about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.

Snow falls during a beautifully sunny day, attracting the attention of our primary protagonist Taichi Yagami (Tai, for you dub folk). Also introduced are helmet-wearing girl Takenouchi Sora, spiky-haired blond Yamato Ishida (Matt), laptop-owning Koushiro Izumi (Izzy), pink cowgirl Mimi Tachikawa, rupee-wearing Takeru Takaishi and foureyes Jyou Kido. We're given not a second to process these characters before the snowfall turns to a storm, prompting the camp counsellors (wearing pink for whatever reason) to direct the kids to their tents.

Our heroes instead take refugee in a small shrine, and emerge once the storm ends, and we have the first hints of personality from each of them: Tai leaves first as our designated leader, followed by perpetually energetic Takeru wanting to play in the snow. Yamato chases after Takeru so he doesn't hurt himself, while Sora expresses worry at the strange weather; Jyou wants to find the adults again, and Mimi simply thinks the scenery is pretty. Koushiro doesn't even bother to leave, being more worried about his cut internet connection than the storm, but is called out by the others as they find something strange.

Now hanging in the sky is an impressive example of the Aurora Borealis. They barely get a chance to wonder at the impossibly of that happening in Japan before a green vortex spits out a bunch of meteors, which strike near the kids. From the craters, a small glowing object rises, of which each child grabs one, revealing a metal device. They get about a second to think about what these things are (apparently neither a cellphone or a pager) before they glow ominously and summon a massive typhoon from thin air to consume them all.

The kids all fall through the air down between two sheets of water, and everything goes all Tron for about a second; the water turns to multicolored circuit-boards, followed by what appears to be the squiggle-line windows screensaver, before everything goes black.

Taichi wakes up to find a pink ball-monster sitting on his chest.

After a few moments panic, the pink ball makes introductions: its name is Koromon, and it happens to be a digimon (who for some reason already knows Taichi's name). Koushiro comes from behind a tree with his own pink blob monster -Motimon- and Taichi realizes that he's definitely not at Summer Camp still. Instead, the kids are now in a vibrant, almost dreamlike forest seemingly painted in watercolor.

The blob digimon call it File Island, and Taichi climbs a tree to get a better look: sure enough, there are mountains everywhere, a definite sign they aren't in Japan any longer. As is the gigantic red beetle, which charges at Taichi and cuts the tree in half on a flyby.

Motimon pegs him as Kuwagamon, an atrocious digimon, who turns to get a second pass on Taichi. Koromon pulls off a sacrificial manuever and fires bubbles that do jack against the insect in return for getting pounded, allowing the group to run for it, bruised but alive. Motimon leads them to a tree that happens to be a hologram, successfully throwing Kuwagamon off the trail.

The familiar voice of Sora tells them that the coast is clear, and it turns out the girl has her own pink monster- the flowerlike Pyocomon. Koushiro is confused at how it can be a plant and also simultaneously a digimon, but is interrupted as the small and quadrupedal Tokomon comes in, calling Takeru in after it. Yamato chases after the little kid, holding an orange digimon with a big horn on its head under his arm named Tsunomon. Jyou then runs in to meet the party, pursued by a small flying thing called Pukamon.

The group of digimon formally introduce themselves, and the animation budget briefly fails to allow their mouths to move. In response, the humans (possibly unnecessarily) introduce themselves to the tiny monsters. Worth noting is that Taichi, Sora and Yamato are fifth graders, Jyou is in the sixth, Koushiro is in the fourth, and Takeru is a second-grader. Mimi is also in the fourth, but she's disappeared somewhere- that is, until they hear her yell.

Running heroically towards the scream, they come across Mimi and Tanemon, her green sproutlike digimon-partner, running like hell from Kuwagamon. The group attempts to escape, but they're eventually cornered on a cliff. Koromon once again throws himself at the giant bug, and once again has nothing to show for it but a headache. Then the other digimon join in, and combined they manage to throw enough bubbles at him to cause him to crash, briefly inconveniencing the monster.

Before the thing gets up again, the kids go to their injured partners, who claim want to protect them. Kuwagamon rises once more, this time attacking directly. Despite being totally outmatched, the digimon demand to be allowed to fight and run at it like lambs to the slaughter; this time, though, their cries of worry activate the small devices hidden on their waists, causing a vortex to rain rainbow energy down on the small small digimon.

Evolution Theme: "Brave Heart"

Koromon Evolve - Agumon
Pyocomon Evolve - Piyomon
Motimon Evolve - Tentomon
Tsunomon Evolve - Gabumon
Tokomon Evolve - Patamon
Pukamon Evolve - Gomamon
Tanemon Evolve - Palmon

Instead of a bunch of variously malformed pink blobs, we now have a yellow dinosaur, a pink bird, a red beetle thing (smaller than the current red beetle thing), a blue horned wolf-thingy, a bat wing-eared hamster, a white otter with big paws, and a humanoid plant. Instead of bubbles, they produce death in its many forms (mostly fire) and cause Kuwagamon to burn to death while falling off of a cliff. Victory!

The kids congradulate their bigger partners, and are thus surprised when Kuwagamon turns out to be not a charred corpse at the bottom of the river, and cleaves the edge of their cliff straight off, dumping them into the river far below. Our narrator comes to espouse that this was the start of their journey- and the longest/shortest summer vacation of their lives.

Ending Theme: "I Wish"

Thoughts: An adequate pilot episode. Literally all the basics of digimon are contained here- you have a bunch of kids, who are each teamed up with a digimon that is willing to fight for them for some strange reason, who give them additional power in order to defeat progressively stronger enemies. Kuwagamon is a humorously persistent bad guy who I've always thought was a bit of a hint at what a certain other villain would be like... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We get the barest hints of character from this episode, largely in establishing the status quo, which it does quite effectively. The odd men out are Sora and Yamato; the former has no particular defining traits expressed here, while the later expresses a more diverse array of reactions that ultimately gives us a weaker idea of his characterization; in particular, his interaction with Takeru is strange due to their relationship being unrevealed at this point.  

The episode is certainly nothing exceptional, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do- which is all a pilot needs to, really. It seeds hooks throughout its entire length, which will be tugged quickly as we continue.

[Mugendramon]

300 episodes of reviewing? Sounds quite like the endeavour. Good luck with that. I suggest you add this to your signature and replace that old list of clichés?

[Яeverse Black]

One thing I just wanted to note is that the dub had Tai do a quick review of the cast for the first minute, erasing some of the personality/wtf is with TK and Matt issues the original series seemed to have had.

Anyways, good luck with this. Will be keeping tabs, because the nostalgia is priceless.

[Hydra of Ages]

2 - Explosive Evolution! Greymon

Continuing from the previous episode, we start mid-fatal fall. The three winged digimon attempt to help out their partners, but unfortunately they're not capable of carrying an entire grade-schooler of weight. Palmon tries to Indiana Jones it by latching a vine onto the rock clifface, but she somehow manages to cause a massive chunk of it to collapse beneath her weight (?).

Fortunately, Gomamon calls for a bunch of fish to break their fall, in possibly the first and only example of a situation where the ability to talk to fish beats vine-slinging and flight after being flung off of a cliff.

The rest of the cliff collapses behind them (maybe because of Palmon's stunt?), carrying away Kuwagamon with it because he's none too bright. The rocks and digimon fall into the water and call up a disproportionately huge wave, which pushes them and their fish-raft to a nearby shoreline.

Jyou is, of course, the only one who wonders why random fish decided help them, at least until Gomamon explains his aquaman powers. This leads to an explanation about Evolution; much like earth organisms gradually change over time to better suit their environments, Digimon instantaneously change when certain power thresholds are met into stronger forms. Which is entirely unlike earth evolution, but aside from Koushiro, I doubt any of them even know what normal Evolution is. In any case, the digimon were unable to evolve prior to this, so they're pretty thankful to their human counterparts. Jyou is completely lost, but it apparently doesn't make sense to the digimon either so let's just go with it.

In any case, Jyou wants to go back and wait for the adults, but he's quickly shot down by the others. Pretty much everyone is certain they're not exactly in Japan anymore, and Koushiro seems to think the plants seem similar to sub-tropical varieties, though Tentomon has no idea what he's talking about. Agumon mentions that they're the only humans they've seen around, and Taichi decides they should go check out the ocean to be certain File Island is, indeed, an island. Also because there's nothing else for them to do.

On the way, the kids banter a bit more with their partners; Patamon and Piyomon are surprisingly poor fliers, Palmon isn't certain what photosynthesis is, and Koushiro is just about certain they aren't on any known part of Earth at this point... but, just as they come to this conclusion, they're greeted by a ring-tone. Set up against a relatively normal beach shore are a number of pay phone booths, all in the typical Japanese style. Taichi decides to place a call on one (using Koushiro's phone card), and the rest join in, only to find a line of bizzare responses on the other end. When it becomes obvious that trying to phone home is futile, they're left to question exactly what they've found here- and where are they?

While Jyou continues to call, Taichi figures its a lost cause and wants to move on. Yamato and Sora manage to convince him to take a break for a while, considering they're all pretty tired and hungry at this point. They search themselves for any food they might have on, and notice the small devices that brought them here in the first place; interestingly enough, they're all positioned somewhere safe on their bodies, as if purposely placed there.

Aside from that, Sora brought a first-aide kit, Koushiro has a cellphone and laptop (neither of which work), Taichi has a small telescope, and Takeru has a backpack of candy. The other kids realize that Takeru doesn't go to their school, and he mentions that he came on the trip with his big brother, Yamato; considering the difference in surnames, the other kids seem to think they're cousins. Mimi, meanwhile, has brought essentially the entire set of basic survival gear, to the other kids' amazement.

They realize Jyou has the emergency rations, and after taking it and doing some basic math, they have enough food for about two days so long as the digimon forage for themselves (which they seem comfortable doing). Taichi, of course, ignores this advice and pigs out along with Agumon. Suddenly, Gomamon registers movement under the water.

A series of geysers emerge from the sand and destroy all of the phone booths, narrowly avoiding crushing the kids when they fall. A massive sprial shell emerges from the sand, belonging to a Digimon called Shellmon according to Tentomon. A pink dinosaur-like frame emerges from the shell and growls at the kids before clawing nearer to them. It spouts a bunch of water at Jyou to stop from escaping, then turns and deals with Gomamon in the same way; the rest of the digimon run ahead to engage, but all of their attacks save Agumon's fail to ignite- evidentially, except for Agumon (who ate earlier), the rest of the group are too hungry to drum up the power.

Taichi and Agumon decide to try and take Shellmon down alone. While Agumon distracts, Taichi runs around and grabs an iron beam from one of the destroyed phone booths; taking a wack at Shellmon obviously fails to work, and he's taken captive by the hermit-crab monster. Agumon is held beneath a foot, and the larger digimon uses water to force the rest of the group back while crushing Taichi in his grip. Taichi calls out for help, and the device at his belt starts glowing.

Agumon evolve- Greymon

Agumon turns from a small yellow dinosaur into a big mask-wearing dinosaur with blue stripes. The change in size knocks Shellmon backward and releases Taichi from its grip, allowing the two to face on relatively even turns; they charge and grapple for a little bit, until Greymon breathes fire and scorches the shellfish until it backs off slightly; then, it turns and catches it on his horns, throwing Shellmon into the air before sending him flying back far into the ocean with a Mega Flame shot.

With that done, Greymon glows and recedes back into Agumon, tired and hungry again.

Jyou continues to try and call the destroyed phonelines while the digimon partners all feast on the remaining rations, it being rather clear at this point that being hungry makes their partners rather useless. Koushiro announces that as Shellmon still lives, they aren't terribly safe at the moment; Jyou still wants to go back to where they started, but Koushiro thinks that phone lines logically mean people, so they should continue to treck forward. The rest of the group agrees with that, and they head forward once more.

Thoughts: The exposition this time around feels a bit more natural, likely because the very basics of the concept have already been set down. The kids get a fair amount of characterization here, given they're finally able to interact without having to worry as much about immediate threats; Taichi is still an instinctive leader, but Yamato isn't willing to let him call the shots unchallenged. Sora is the peacekeeper of the group, but simultaneously willing to call out stupid decisions as she sees them- we see her most frequently in conflict with Jyou, who seems to still believe the children should do as they were told and not take too much initiative on their own. Mimi and Takeru are both fairly clueless and are largely being led around by the hand here- they don't get as much time to shine as the other characters.

Koushiro is already the obvious odd-man out. It's readily apparent that outside of this situation, he would not be associating much with these people- but at the same time, he doesn't hold any contempt for them. He doesn't respond at all when Taichi mocks him a bit for bringing a laptop, but merely focuses on the current problem at the time. The kid is exceptionally focused and seems to have the broadest mind of the group- he's willing to accept that they're not exactly in a normal part of the world. This is in stark contrast to Jyou, who is almost militantly fearful that they're outside of Japan- Jyou's comfort zone is heavily breached, whereas Koushiro is intrigued.

Interesting difference here; the Japanese show actually goes to a certain extent to convince the viewer that Takeru and Yamato are not, in fact, brothers. At the very least, the other kids seem to think they're cousins. As Yuzu said, the English Dub actually confirms their relationship in the first episode... heck, did they even mention that TK had a different last name in the English? It's been a while.

I expect this is because they wanted to address the issue in the next episode, which is of course a Yamato/Takeru focus episode.