DIGIMON FRONTIER

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE AdventureDigimon Frontier: Ornismon Fukkatsu!!
ANIME ActionDigimon Adventure
ANIME ActionDigimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi
MANGA ActionShuma Baobei 04: Wuxian Didai

REVIEWS

• 

  AngeVNs

  60/100
  Digimon Power Rangers Edition Was an Alright Experiment, but It's Good They Never Did It Again

  Ever since the success of the first season of Digimon, it's clear Toei wanted to recreate that success with the same IP but without using the exact same cast—at least until more recently.

  Sadly, despite the high praise for Tamers and the direct continuation with 02, none have come close to the popularity and nostalgia of the first season.

  Nevertheless, Toei kept trying, and one interesting idea was to create a Digimon series without partner Digimon—opting for a Super Sentai/ Power Rangers-style approach where humans transform into Digimon to fight.

  In theory, this is actually pretty cool. While Digi-evolutions were always a highlight of the series, I'd argue that Frontier has the best ones, even as early as their first transformations. In previous Digimon series, Champion forms were still kind of cool but rather basic. Meanwhile, even the earliest humanoid Digimon transformations in Frontier feel like a huge upgrade.

  Outside of the transformation gimmick and lack of partners, Frontier surprisingly still follows the story formula of the first three seasons—for better or worse. It features six human characters by the end, all of whom get "isekai’d" into the Digital World. They have personal struggles to work through while being stuck there for almost the entire series, only reaching the human world near the very end, which contrasts with previous seasons.

  At the end of the day, this is still a shounen kids’ show, so the emphasis is on flashy attacks and cheesy humor (especially in the English dub). However, there’s still a degree of character depth. These middle school kids have to figure out how to escape, understand the Digital World, and confront their own issues, which ultimately creates a simple yet surprisingly serious story at times.

  As much as I wish I could praise the series more, there are many reasons why it’s considered one of the more forgettable, mediocre, or outright terrible Digimon entries.

  The story itself is a major issue. While the goal of capturing and purifying all the spirits is decent, it just isn’t as compelling as previous seasons. With only five human characters for most of the first half, their interactions and development feel weak. They have potential depth and backstories, but they lack the charisma and chemistry of previous casts. They aren’t necessarily bad characters, but they’re not memorable, and when they’re not getting direct backstory moments, they just don’t stand out.

  Even conflicts between characters, like Takuya and Koji’s natural clashes, don’t go far enough. There’s barely any leadership dynamic, and every episode just feels like an excuse for the humans to transform, fight, and get a new spirit.

  Unfortunately, the only female character, Izumi/Zoe, has it rough. Unlike the others, who at least win some fights, she barely gets any victories, and many of her spirit battles don’t end in success.

  The second half of the series only worsens things. When the sixth kid joins, you’d expect the group to fully bond and develop after everything they went through. Instead, Frontier copies the worst aspects of the first two seasons—making Takuya and Koji the only characters who matter in fights. The first half at least let the others have some cool moments, but in the second half, they’re reduced to handing over their powers so Takuya and Koji can get their final transformations. This makes the series more boring and repetitive than it needs to be.

  It doesn’t help that the characters never return to the human world mid-series, limiting their development. They’re stuck with only each other and a few Digimon who don’t know much about the real world or their personal struggles.

  To make matters worse, about ten episodes in the latter half are just a rinse-and-repeat cycle of Takuya and Koji fighting the Royal Knights. While the Knights have cool designs, every episode plays out the same way—go to a new area, fight them, get beaten, rinse and repeat—until the real final boss shows up for the last few episodes.

  It’s a real shame. I legitimately like the idea of a Digimon Power Rangers-style series. There are cool designs, fights, and transformations, and sometimes even interesting character depth. But limiting the cast to six, removing partner Digimon, skipping human world development, and relying on a few comedic sidekicks ultimately hurt the series’ long-term appeal.

  While it was cool that Toei experimented, and it led to some iconic designs and fights, it’s for the best that future Digimon series returned to the traditional human-partner dynamic.

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• 

  BASEDGODJAMANI

  60/100
  This show is so cool but I wish it had more than 3 characters

  DISCLAIMER: In this review I'll mostly talk about the main cast and what i like/don't like about them instead of the plot, because the last time I made a review on here it just kinda devolved into a plot summary, but there will be story spoilers in this so if you haven't watched Digimon Frontier I wouldn't recommend reading ahead.

  ---

  At a fundamental level, Digimon Frontier is a story about getting over regret and learning from your mistakes so you can live for tomorrow, but It doesn't really use that theme to it's full potential and as a result just falls flat at the end

  To elaborate: Every character has their own "regret" they carry into the digital world

  Takuya regrets not being a better brother

  Koji regrets not being able to get along with his stepmom

  Izumi regrets not being able to forgive her classmate

  Junpei regrets not being able to make any real connections with his classmates

  Tomoki regrets never taking his brothers advice and standing up against his bullies

  and Koichi Regrets never reaching out to Koji despite having several chances to.

  they went 3/6.

  To elaborate on this, I'll talk about the characters In this show I came out liking: Tomoki, Koji and Koichi.

  Starting out withj Tomoki, his entire thing was that he was a coward who never spoke up for himself, and yeah while it's basic, they pulled it off damn near perfectly. First off, giving Chackmon abilities that fit support was genius, sure he still has to rely on others but this is digimon so that means friendship is contractually required to be a main theme. Either way Tomoki having to learn how to pull his own weight was great

  

  And then when you get into Blizzarmon, a digimon that just relies on sheer strength to win is once again, genius. While yeah this can be interpreted as "the rage of a kind man" which isn't completely unfounded but I think that's lame.

  I like to interpret Blizzarmon as a representation of Tomoki's resolve. In it's debut episode, Tomoki was working his ass off trying to get everyones digivices back, and there would be several opprotunites where he would be fully justified in leaving the Toucamon to die since they WERE the reasons why he's in this situation to begin with, but he helps them anyway despite it screwing him over immediately after. As I said it's a basic message but it works great.

  Next, we move on to Koji, and as I write this im coming to the conclusion that his character development was hard carried by the existence of Koichi, who i'll talk about in a bit.

  

  It becomes very easy to see that his entire “lone wolf” gimmick is a facade and once he gets over his trust issues he’s just a normal ass kid, and because of that he was able to win over Koichi, thats great! Now if the characters actually FELT like friends this would be way better. If it wasn’t for Koichi Koji’s entire arc would just be nothing since the only thing that shows off his development Is being the main force that redeems Koichi. Take that way and he just kinda fades into nothingness.

  Im going to be blunt with Koichi, He's the best character in the show.

  

  even though Koichi did jack shit after his redemption arc he absolutely stole the show and I hate how much he got shafted because they ran out of money to give him new shit. Koichi starts out as an antagonist named Duskmon, but later it was revealed that he was brainwashed. This was done great since the only way he was able to be manipulated by Cherubimon was by harvesting the part of him who resented his father for abandoning his mother while she practically worked herself to death, and the part of him who resented Koji for living a happy life unaware of her struggles, and on a base level that's great, along with that, his redemption coming from seeing past his (rightful) anger and makes the effort to re-connect with Koji in spite of his fathers actions ties in with the shows main theme of learning from your mistakes and living for a better tomorrow. I will admit that I am showing a lot of bias towards Koichi because his Image song kicks so much ass. It made his backstory hit 20 times harder. Go listen to it right now.

  Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier, Koichi barely does anything after this since he (and the rest of the digidestined) need to give up their spirits so Tatsuya and Koji need all of their spirits to go into Kaisergreymon and Mangagarurumon (which i'll touch on those guys later)

  Now moving onto the bad

  First off im going to talk about Izumi and Junpei in one section because they both suck

  

  Their entire things are that they were never able to make true friends due to their personal flaws, that sounds like it has potential, right? well unfortunately this only comes in HALFWAY THROUGH THE SHOW, and to make it worse? There is NOTHING that could possibly suggest this before we see their flashbacks. Junpei’s entire thing is that he had no real friends since people only wanted to talk to him because he had candy or rare trading cards (he’s pretty much the one kid you only talked to because he has an early birthday so he gets new games first) Good premise right? Unfortunately the only thing that can possibly point to this is that he had an inferiority complex due to getting his spirit last, but this basically means nothing since this NEVER GETS BROUGHT UP AGAIN.

  And with Izumi, she never made any friends due to the culture shock she experienced once she moved to Japan and as a result she became shy and wasn’t good at articulating her feelings to others Now once we translate this to how she acts in the show, we see none of it. She is fully fluent in Japanese, and she is extremely outgoing (she’s practically a second Mimi) she even FLIRTS with Takuya sometimes, it’s like they remembered “oh yeah she IS half italian!” So they decided to just rip off Doremi and make her worse Momoko at the last minute (shoutout Momoko)

  

  Last up is Takuya. I have nothing to say about him. Why? because I think he is practically a walking piece of cardboard.

  

  Like yeah he's brave and heroic but that also applies to literally every other Digimon protagonist. Ok sure he has an "arc" where he questions his decision about going to the digital world but he doesn't actually grow as a person. Right now im struggling to find more things to write about him because he's just a nothing character.
  
  These forms suck.
  Not only do they rob every other character of their agency by existing, they also do absolutely nothing for the plot since after Tatsuya and Koji get it, they spend the rest of the show jobbing to Lordknightmon and Dynasmon for over TEN EPISODES. This just exists so they can squeeze a couple bucks out of a slightly different D-scanner.

  Digimon frontier is a show with a lot of wasted potential. While I didn't HATE watching it I just wish that they did more with the characters. Izumi and Junpei just have so much wasted potential and it pains me, because their digimon forms are amazing

  Also Neemon goated

  
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