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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:477#1552] |
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Surprising what a touch from Lain head writer Chiaki Konaka offers up for what is supposed to be an animated advertisement for a children's card game. Digimon Tamers offers up a number of unique spins on the franchise that make it the best offering of the franchise I've seen. Perhaps the darkest installment of the franchise, Tamers dabbles into elements of cyberpunk and is mostly set in the real world this time around instead of having our human/ Digimon pairings whisked away to the Digital World. Not to mention that Digimon is treated as a popular media franchise within the world of Tamers with our human leads playing a trading card game based on the franchise that is popular within their world and they use trading cards to enhance their Digimon's abilities while in combat. Tamers has several lingering plot elements that it focuses on involving the kids learning to bond with their Digimon partners, dealing with rogue Digimon that appear within their world and a mysterious government organization keeping tabs on the Digimon invasion. The plots slowly build up to a complicated situation that jeopardizes the fates of both the human and digital worlds. Unlike the two Adventure seasons, the arcs in Tamers are more integrated here as events build up to reveal more about the issues surrounding the Digimon invasion upon the human world and the reasons behind it. The much different mood of the series is also felt with its heavy dabbling into technology, psychological focus on the mental states of some among the major cast and having a decent number of moments that are quite unsettling to see for a children's series such as mental torture and Digimon being killed off permanently (the Digital World in this series has no Primary Village for Digimon to reincarnate in as Adventures had). With only three main leads for this series in the form of Takato, Rika and Henry, there is more time to focus on the personal lives and mentalities of the trio with how they regard their Digimon partners, their families and the unique situations they have to deal with. Throughout the course of the series, the experiences that the three undergo in understanding Digimon and the complicated situation between both human and digital worlds significantly change them throughout the title's run. Other characters introduced in the series get their focus and many of the major ones have their motivations explored. This is a big plus here as characters that are seemingly villainous with their motives actually have purpose for their actions beyond just wanting to destroy or rule over whatever, a big difference from many of the villains that were encountered in the two Adventures seasons. Also, one seemingly irrelevant character in earlier episodes gets major focus in later episodes as tragic developments with them are exploited for the main enemy's personal gain. Praises aside, Tamers does have some imperfections and cliches that it carries over from other titles in the Digimon franchise. The series usually resorts to plot conveniences and deus ex machina at points to give characters power upgrades or rescuing a character whenever they appear to be on the verge of defeat. The early episodes can be deceptive at first glance with what the series as a whole can offer as it is somewhat light in mood with its focus on Takuto meeting up with and understanding Rika and Henry's mentalities of raising their Digimon and dropping hints of its darker content to come. Also while the visuals for this are somewhat improved over the two Adventure seasons with smoother details on characters and background shots not looking washed out, the series still loves to reuse animation frames and resort to shortcuts to attempt covering up its limited budget. Plus, the CG animation for this sticks out like a sore thumb for this series as it is used at points in rendering some sequences involving the final enemy threat confronted by the Tamers. Issues aside though, Tamers offers up some pretty significant differences with its offerings compared to other installments of the Digimon franchise with its darker story direction and cyberpunk themes implemented by Chiaki Konaka. It also offers up a decent amount of development with a decent number of its major characters and a smoothly integrated plot that doesn't have the typical feel of story arcs that you would expect out of anime promoting trading card games. This is a definite look if you're either a Digimon fan or a fan of Chiaki Konaka's work. Last updated Tuesday, March 04 2014. Created Wednesday, August 20 2008. | ||||||||
| Buy | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 10 |
 Scarred Dragonia
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[series:477#1483] |
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Hmm... As Excel said, Digimon Tamers is DA BOMB! And I loved it so much, Takato looks so cute in some scenes :) I just said Takato is cute. Why only 7 for art? Well, in some scenes, they look a little awkward. However, I think that the music was THE BEST in this one! I love Wada Kouji's voice, and AiM is still good. I would buy their CDs if I could find them. I also don't think that Jeri should have gone all Ms. Depression (TM) so soon in the season, Leomon should have died a lot later so we could understand her a bit better. But that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree. I like the fact that one of the 3 main characters is half Chinese (YAY!) and I also liked the development between Rika and her mom. Overall, this is the best Digimon season ever. Buy it. It's great, trust me, unless you're die-hard Digimon Adventure and can't stand a new thing coming. Otherwise, at least rent it. Last updated Sunday, July 11 2004. Created Sunday, July 11 2004. | ||||||||
| Buy | 9 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
 KHfreak
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[series:477#591] |
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This is better compared to the previous seasons. There are the three main characters who are really cool (one's half-Chinese. WOW!) and the battle sequences are great thanks to technology of course (you know, more, uh.. pizazz). Everything looks better than in the previous seasons. Some things that you can't leave in Digimon though are those goggles worn by the hero and of course Wada Kouji's voice in the opening theme. A mix of the old and mostly new, this anime is wonderful. Another thumbs up for Digimon.
Last updated Thursday, April 24 2003. Created Thursday, April 24 2003. | ||||||||
| Buy | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 9 |
 Excel
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[series:477#473] |
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I LOVE Digimon Tamers. It takes on a level of 'maturity' that Digimon Adventure never had. Chiaki Konaka does great as the writer! The story is more interesting than the story for the previous two seasons, introduced now is love and death, though getting more into that would spoil the surprises. The animation is fairly similar to the animation of Adventure. But the evolution/bio-merging sequences have improved a lot. They look more... digital, I guess you could say. The music is good, but doesn't stand out. The opening song is still sung by Wada Kouji. Other songs by AiM, nothing out of the ordinary. Altogether, I think Tamers is the best out of all the Digimon series. ^^ It's really great! Last updated Saturday, January 04 2003. Created Saturday, January 04 2003. | ||||||||
