Digimon Frontier

Digimon Frontier is the fourth installment in the Digimon franchise, and is unconnected to the previous three shows, or "seasons". It follows the main character, Takuya, and his friends as they go through the digital world, and it is absolutely my favorite in the Digimon series. STORY: The plot develops quite well, actually surprising me with some of the twists. Keep in mind this series IS made for kids, so the messages that the story produces are things about growing up and making friends. On top of being a wonderful kids show, it actually has quite a few more adult like themes that surprised andpleased me as a teenage rewatcher of the show. The storyline will often show the kids being bullied, or having very real problems that I myself have experienced in life. It shows how that effects them once making new friends, and it shows them grow throughout the series. It's heart warming and very wonderful to watch. Besides that, the plotline was actually very well written (definitely a step up from Digimon Adventure 02, in any case) and kept you interested throughout the fifty episodes of the show. ART: The art, as it's a very old show AND made for children, leaves a lot to be desired. The world is absolutely beautiful, though, and they do a great job with the scenery. I don't believe the art is terrible, but it is definitely not great, especially compared to the art in anime nowadays. SOUND: Both the original and the English versions of the soundtrack are pretty good, in my opinion! They are both very upbeat and really fit what's happening in the show. Very enjoyable to listen to. The voice actors in the original for the characters are much, much better, though. In the English, true to most children's shows, they change a lot of things including names and whatnot, so I would suggest watching the sub instead of the dub. CHARACTER: Every character is well thought out and well designed and well developed. Even though there may be parallels to other Digimon series (Takuya being similar to Taichi, for instance), they all develop very differently and in their own ways which was pleasing to watch. Digimon Frontier delves more into character development then I feel the other Digimon series had, and it really allows you to get inside the character's minds. It's very intense, especially for a children's show, and very interesting to watch. They did an excellent job at making the characters very relatable in their own respects while also teaching people about the problems bullying and other real life issues will cause later on in life. As a child, the characters in this show helped me out greatly with life, and I find even as an older teenager the messages are universally important. ENJOYMENT: I have watched this series three times now -- once as a young child, once recently in English, and again in Japanese -- and I have enjoyed it every time. As I said, the messages are universally important and useful, and I've found them helping me in every day life. The series is very different from the other installments in Digimon, and I think it increased the enjoyment factor for me greatly. It's my favorite in the Digimon line, and for good reason. OVERALL: I will gladly give this an overall ten, without a doubt. I love watching this series from start to finish and it's highly enjoyable. Delving into character's minds is something of a hobby for me, and watching a Digimon series allow me to do that was a wonderful experience. As I said, it's my favorite in the Digimon line, because everything worked so much better. It had an original plot that was fun and interesting to follow, wonderful characters that were all very different from each other, believable character development, and so much more. Everything about Digimon Frontier was done well, if not very well, and I highly recommend it as something fun to watch and take your mind off of things. It's also, of course, an excellent show for kids, and I would recommend showing it to your children if you have them. It teaches wonderful messages that I still carry with me in my day to day life, and it does it in a wonderful way that I really appreciate now that I'm older.

I feel that this season of Digimon really pales in comparison to every other season that I've watched. The entire point of the original season was camaraderie, the two seasons to follow did the same thing but refreshing it. Season four tosses that out the window and just has the digidestined turn into digimon spirits. It's like DNA-Digivolution but without the partner, which in my eyes, doesn't make any sense. You may wonder how I could give the story and art a good grade and give everything else either fair or lesser. For starters there's nothing wrong with the story, I think that it doesvery well in presenting itself. And the artwork is fantastic, while I don't agree that the characters serve the purpose that they should, they do however look really cool, as digimon mostly have. To be honest because of how the the characters are, it might as well be called Power Rangers: Digital World. You have Kids or teens that say a few special words hold out their cell phone like thing and magically put on armor that often has to do with a positive trait or animal. Now really, be honest with yourself if this was made with the title power rangers and live action you wouldn't think that it had any relation with Digimon. Why? because compared to the other four existing seasons of Digimon, this is remotely different. Please note that this is how the anime came across to me and just because you don't like the review I gave it doesn't give you the right to shoot it down in a review of your own, if some people like it fine, but there are people who don't like it and have their reasons, l feel that it's not the way digimon should have been but that's my opinion and everyone is entitled to one. (Edit) I've recently come to the conclusion that Digimon Frontier is worse off than I initially thought. Do I think it's bad to begin with? Yes. My opinion will likely never change on that. But I've gotten enough direct messages so some of the fanbase for Frontier just comes across as petty and even sanctimonious, further putting me off from this series. Why would I want to be remotely associated with that? Do I respect that it's been made and the effort taken to make it? Yes, of course. But if you're going to once again try to convince me otherwise, note that I don't care what you think. You're more than welcome to enjoy this series. I quite simply don't.

After the breakout success of Digimon Tamers Toei renewed Digimon for a 4th season, and here they had 2 choices: they could do Tamers 02 (just as they did Adventure 02) or a whole new series. As Adventure 02 mostly failed to keep the audience it would have been a huge risk to do Tamers 02, as it could go the same way, and so Frontier was born, setting a brave new world and timeline, once again starting from scratch. The concept of the series lies in one of the thing most Tamers fans loved: humans becoming one with digimon. The thing is, Tamers didthis around episode 35, once we knew who the characters were and their story arcs matched this evolution almost perfectly. Starting from episode 1 with that kind of evolution is risky as we don't know anything about the new characters and so it could feel unearned, weird and anticlimactic. Many viewers turned off after just a couple of episodes and I can't blame them, the start is very shaky, but once Frontier figured out what worked and what didn't work it started becoming better. Sadly, it was just a little too late, and so the ratings declined to a point of no return and the Digimon franchise would be buried in the ground until Savers comes out several years later. Now, is Digimon Frontier really a bad series? No, not at all, but is it great? Again, no. It does many things right and many things wrongs. Let's see the hits and miss. Story wise: The plot is simple; once upon a time, in the digital world, there were 10 warriors who stopped the world from destruction. As a new threat rises, human kids are called to participate on a "game" that will decide their future. That game is going to take place in the digital world and the kids must become one with the spirits of said warriors in order to save the digital world. Now, there's a lot of juice to that plot, you can explore this brand new digital world while adding layers of complexity to the plot by discovering the past of the warriors, what kind of trials they went through and how it affects the current situation. Sadly, Frontier doesn't bother going there; we just follow the children who got a power beyond their understanding. Ok, that can work out too if you have good characters, but character work isn't really that good either (we'll see that later), and the plot moves mostly ignoring any development the children make. Frontier has 2 bad habits: 1) it set character development mostly in filler episodes that add almost nothing to the story, and there's many episode that feels like this and 2) when the plot finally moves it usually sacrifices character development in order to compensate for the lack of movement in filler episodes. As such pacing is really troublesome here, sometimes slow as a snail, sometimes fast as a train, and as such we can't really get to enjoy it all that well. There are two main story arcs, one that takes place for 37 episodes and other one that uses just 13 episodes. The first arc is a mixed bag: the first 10 episodes are outright boring, with simple plot and no depth to it, but as we move forward we slowly start to dip our toes into darker themes and get into the depths of the series. By episode 21 we can see the Digimon Frontier it should have been from the beginning, but as I said it was already a little too late for becoming good, at that point most of it audience might have as well left. As the arc continues, there are some really good moments, but also many that lag, and as such enjoyment is just fair. The second and final arc is also a mixed bag as it starts rushed and only finds real momentum in the final 4 episodes or so, becoming the highlights of the series. The final episodes are smartly crafted and find the right pace to end the series, but anything before that I got through by sighing mostly hoping it would end quickly. As such, I can't think it was a great or even a good arc, it had its moment, but it constantly sacrifices some important character development in order to move as quickly as it can, and that's just a mess. Characters: Just as I said in the story section, this is a mixed bag. This is not the worst character treatment in a Digimon series, but it's not the best either. Takuya is a good lead; he gets the usual broad strokes at the beginning and then is developed into a more complex kind of character. We get to explore his fear a lot, and because of it his bravery feels real. However, sometimes it gets repetitive and one might find it boring, but usually the character work is right. It's the rest of the children who really have the trouble as their development is mostly scattered. Kouji is the cold one who gradually warms up, Tomoki the youngest of the group and the cry baby that grows up (doesn't this remind you of Takeru?), Izumi the girl who is figuring out how to be kind, Jumpei who wants to make real friends and Kouchi who is conflicted by family issues. All of that sounds good and with the right treatment you can get great characters. In fact, in early going Jumpei made a case for breakout character as his issues were the ones that could be pointed out easily and he grew around them. I expected a lot from him, but then the show just forgets it has ever developed this character. And the same happens to Izumi and Tomoki. Kouji and Kouichi mostly get treated as just one character; their background is interesting, and smartly crafted, but they take the spotlight from the rest of the characters and once Kouichi is added in the series every single character moment from either of them have to include the other, making difficult to see them as separete individuals. And also, the more we spend with this duo the less we see of the others, and it seems as if Frontier is all about them, and that just frustrates me as I don't just get bored of being handled the same thing, but I also see a lot of characters who have potential not being used. Talking about potential not being used, there was a pretty strong character combo in early series: Takuya and Tomoki had a great brother’s like chemistry, but Frontier seems to abandon this. The same happens with Jumpei and Izumi, who get a couple of strong episodes together and seem to be a good fit. But the show mostly explores two combos: Takuya/Kouji and Kouji/Kouichi. As such, Frontier hurts itself by forgetting some character with real potential. Still, everybody gets their screen time and we can see them becoming more mature, it just feels... rushed, convoluted and sometimes unearned. Takuya, Kouji and Koichi get the best treatment, the other 3, while somewhat developed, are mostly left in the air, which makes the character treatment somewhat lacking, but with some great moments, so it's only fair. Sound: Though it shares some music that comes from the previous series, it is mostly new music, just like Tamers did, but not as great. It's still pretty good, but some tracks just don't land as they should. As such, it's no more than an 8. Very good, but something is lacking. Enjoyment: very scattered. At times I just wanted to skip episodes because I couldn't stand the slow pace of the fillers episodes and at times I just didn't want the episode to end because I was really enjoying it. Digimon Frontier have a chunk of good episodes, but I'm afraid that the amount of filler is just too damn high, and when the plot moves it also forgets what the filler gets right, the character treatment. So it's really hard to say: I decided to go with "fair", because in the end I'm glad I re-watched, but I don't think I'll do it again. There are great moments, sure, but as a whole there are way too many troubles. Overall, I think this series could have been really great, outstanding, but it didn't really know how to handle it. The fact that there are no digimon partners also hurt most of the audience it built over the years; if the spirits at least talked to our human characters then maybe it could have felt like we were watching a Digimon series. Even when Tamers set a whole new world, we still could recognize it was a Digimon series. In Frontier we get that by the huge amount of callback we get (including digimon from previous series, the crests, and many others element of earlier series), but not really because of the dynamic. If we could see this as a standalone series, without the Digimon name, maybe I'd go easier on it, but we can't due to the heavily amount of callbacks. And even if we could, it still wouldn't be great, as the story plot and character treatment are so scattered. As I said multiple times already, there is great potential there, there are some moments that shows us what this series should have been, but the writers don't dare go beyond the comfort zone all that often, and as such we get a series that is neither bad nor good, it just is. Stray observartions (may include some spoilers): -Through episode 2 to 41 we see Jumpei giving chocolates to a great amount of digimon. Just how many does he had with him before going to the digital world? -In episode 18 we get the mother of callback, as we get to see many main digimon from previous series, such as v-mon, agumon, dukemon, taomon, wormmon, armadillomon, etemon, terriermon, among many others. -In episode 38 Takuya finally explains why they have been fighting, as he says: "Right, we are human, but we are also half digimon". For me, that was a winning moment, as it finally gave some context as to why they have been risking their life all this time and it landed perfectly on context. -Every time, in any digimon series, when someone says "did we get him?" the enemy always emerges from the damage. Every. Single. Time. -As usually, per season, we got to see Leomon dying, this time killed by Takuya. Don't worry, he was just a random enemy, not an ally this time, and so it's not really traumatic. -In episode 26 Frontier decided to do a kind of Snow White story with Izumi. It didn't really work, but it was fun to watch, even though the episode was mostly bad. -It was interesting to see that Kouji has a dog and that he had to take care of a Tsunomon (who evolves later into Gabumon and then into Garurumon); it seems he has a connection with dogs and wolves, as all his evolutions are wolf related. -In episode 31 Takuya outright says he is the main character. Sorry Jumpei, for what is worth I did think you could make it as a great character and lead before the show forgot about you. And that's it! Two more Digimon series to go, and the following (Savers) is one of my favorites, so I'll be happy to review it! Next up: after a long time nap, Digimon reawakens, as Savers come to save the franchise with excellent character treatment and the darkest plot to aim to an audience that already grew up

10/10 Review: When I first checked this season out I didn't care about it mostly. That was because at the time I heard a theory that season four was the prequel to one and two and I wanted to see if that theory held up. Little did I know that this season had so much more to offer. In the first half I found the concepts to be great. Let me tell you something first. Most people dislike this season for its ideas that sort of take from seasons one and two and more original stuff. Two things to debunk that. First, when you are makinga prequel, sequel or something new to a series you need to have old stuff and new stuff. Second if this was a prequel (and it gets more convincing the more you look at it and examine the details) then it is kind of smart to have some people represent the older group Takuya: Tai Koji: Matt Tommy: T.K., but his evolutions like Joe J.P.: Joe, but his evolutions like Izzy Zoe: Sora and Mimi Koji's twin brother in second half: Ken I don't have much to complain about. I like the story and follow it fine. The characters are all very interesting and develop nicely even the villains. Tommy as a 12 year old kid didn't bother me at all. The reason this is because if you compare Young Gennai to Tommy in appearance, they look a like. If this was prequel, then there is a possibility that this is Gennai's origin story. Its like Anakin in episode 1, but the role of how they are when they are when younger and older is reversed. A powerful idea on the creators ideas. The idea of a brother that is impacting what he is doing but has no screen time is interesting, and how Tommy learns the meaning of his last words. When Neemon showed up I feared the worst because some called them the worst comic relief since Jar Jar. After a couple of episodes though Neemon didn't bother me at all. In fact I found them to be funny. Some say comic relief shouldn't be in Digimon. Let me correct you on that. Remember Gomamon in season one? Some people complain about why so many digimon in season 1 and 2 are in it and why the technology is so much older. Some digimon in season 2 such as Armadillomon are abundant in season 4 but near dead in season 4 and considered ancient. That makes sense though if you think about it. Some other people talk about why the digital world looks near destroyed in season 4 but like a good as new place in 1. Remember near the end of season 1 when Gennai told the group that the final test they have face nearly destroyed the digital world but five saved it? That was Lucemon's goal in the end and there were five kids in season 4. Meaning that the digital world could have collapsed in between the two and if Tommy is young Gennai, it would make sense why he would know this. About half way through the season we meet Duskmon the seasons secondary villain, who is Koji's twin brother who was forced evil by the main villain Cherubimon. Anybody who was paying attention to what Bokomon said to the group, Cherubimon has been fighting a war to control the digital world. So it would make sense that they have a few servants. He didn't choose it it was forced and he found a way out and you find out his spirit was there not his real life self. His real life self dies at the end of the season which just breaks Koji. The only season to have a human die in it. May I also mention that the season unlike everything prior or since has one story arc. Not multiple. The only thing it has multiple of is the villains which all serve purpose and have development. The second half of the season only gets better. The story picks up even better. All the characters good and bad have purpose that is needed. The characters only develop even more so than the first half. But then comes the last few episodes with a climax and resolution that is considered to be the high light of the season by everybody. And one of the best climaxes/resolutions in all of digimon history. The only dispute is with season 3. Which I won't give away This season has the second best evolution concept in the entire saga (behind Bio-Merge in season 3) called Spirit Evolution. There are three factors why this idea is so good. First is the music. The only form of digivolution to have its own soundtrack and it's old style. It shows by how well it works. Second is the humans reactions. With no words you know how they feel turning into the digimon. Third is the human contributions. For once and only this once we don't have the humans have digimon do all the work. It is them and the group all works together. Just watch this on Youtube to see what I mean. Overall season four is a great entry in the digimon series as a whole. It has some good and well held up animation, the best (or at least second best) writing of the series, well done and cared for characters, a well made story line that works together, and it doesn't deserve the hate that some give it. The only season that beats it and it is a very close one is season 3 I would highly suggest people to check this season out any day. I would give this season a 15 if I could

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Studio

Producers

Themes