DIGIMON ADVENTURE Really Holds Up

With the release of the Digimon TCG and the new Digimon Adventure: anime earlier this year, many people, including myself, have been feeling nostalgic for Digimon. I decided to revisit the original anime for the franchise and wanted to talk about it. I sat down and watched all 54 episodes of Digimon Adventure (notice the lack of colon) available on Hulu and it’s been really fun. I will probably keep watching the series, so be sure to share your favorite moments in the comments below.

First, a quick history lesson. Digimon Adventure originally launched in Japan in March 1999 and then in the United States in August 1999 on Fox Kids. I remember fondly watching it as a child as part of my cartoon rituals. Many saw Digimon as a rip-off of Pokémon and I just didn’t care (we’ll touch on this a bit more later). It was a fun adventure of kids and monsters defeating evil. The series follows 7 kids (8 in the latter half) who are the DigiDestined, humans chosen to work with Digimon, to save the Digital World. Each kid has one Digimon that is their partner and the vast majority of the adventures take place in said Digital World which is full of good, neutral, and evil Digimon. This was peak ‘90s anime. Just check out the theme song!

Rewatching the series, Digimon Adventure is actually really good. The characters are complex and have a lot going on for them throughout the roughly 4 main arcs. The first arc is all about exploring and learning about the Digital World in general. We find out that the DigiDestined can help their Digimon Digivolve and become stronger which is really cool, but they can’t stay in their higher forms for very long. Then, we have the introduction of the tags and crests which starts exploring the characters more. Each crest is a strong characteristic of the specific DigiDestined such as Courage for Tai or Friendship for Matt. This becomes really interesting because some of the options are very on the nose like Izzy having the crest of Knowledge, but then others are a bit less obvious like Mimi’s crest of Sincerity or even the loner Matt’s crest of Friendship. However, we get to explore all of these to some degree throughout the entire rest of the series.

The third arc is really fun because that’s the one that takes us to the human world. We see people become terrorized by Digimon and it varies things up a little as things unfold. This is also when we get our 8th DigiDestined and we get to see the personal lives of the DigiDestined since family members enter the picture. The final arc takes us back to the Digital World and the focus is once again on the characters and their characteristics mixed with some lore exploration behind the DigiDestined, Digivices, tags, crests, etc.

Digimon Adventure tackles a lot of themes. A very dominant one is that of friendship and what that means. We see it a lot with the more Matt-centric episodes, but even in other episodes we see it come up like when Greymon becomes SkullGreymon. We also learn about love. Not only the love of friends, but also siblings and even parent-child relationships. Izzy is adopted, but his parents love him so much. Basically, if it’s a crest, it’s a topic seen throughout the series, but it’s always done very tastefully and not just force fed all the time like some bad television.

There’s one episode I want to talk about: “Home Away from Home.” This episode is very interesting to watch. In the episode, Tai and Koromon are back in the human world and find Tai’s sister Kari and there’s some crazy stuff with Digimon happening. What I find the most interesting though is that the animation style for this episode is vastly different from the rest of the series. There’s a very strong contrast and it’s just interesting to watch as it almost feels like this is supposed to be an alternate version of the human world (it’s not). My best thought is that it highlights that something is not right with Tai being there. At the end of the episode, Tai does return to the Digital World and things have gone to crap without him there (time passes much faster in the Digital World) as the DigiDestined split up. I’d love to hear your thoughts about why you think the animation was so different for this episode.

Now, let’s talk about the designs of Digimon. I freaking love them, especially at the Ultimate and Mega levels. MagnaAngemon and Zudomon are absolutely incredible. There’s also WarGreymon and WereGarurumon which are classics. I like how unique they all feel and how most of the time the Digivolutions make sense and feel natural. There are some outliers like Patamon becoming Angemon, but it is what it is.

I want to briefly talk about power levels. It’s not great in my opinion. You have different classes (Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, etc.), but then within each class you have a huge disparity in power levels. Also, why is Gatomon’s natural form not Salamon? Why does she get to be a Champion at base? In the end, none of this section matters, but it’s a thing that I think about and get frustrated with on occasion.

Let’s talk about the Mammothmon in the room. Is Digimon a rip-off of Pokémon? I don’t know how much the latter informed the former. I know a lot of people default to yes because both feature children that go around with monsters. I feel like that’s where the similarities end though. In Digimon, they don’t collect more Digimon. They’re also facing evil Digimon and trying to save the world instead of just trying to be “the best there ever was.” So, while on the very surface they seem very related, I can’t help but feel that they’re very different titles in a similar monster-based genre of anime.

I really enjoyed watching Digimon Adventure and will try to continue watching the other series. What’s your favorite memory of the anime?