“You can’t watch what you don’t know exists” - great summary of the issue. The amount of times I’ve told someone I know used to live Digimon about the 2020 reboot or even Tri and they hadn’t even heard it existed. Also Appmon rules :)

I think the issue is they aren't telling relatable real-world stories as we saw in Adventure and Tamers. We had the issues of divorce, sibling rivalry, death and adoption latest series don't seem interested in telling these stories.

Digimon Adventure 1 and 2, Tamers and Frontier were the first 4 seasons of Digimon before they went on hiatus. Ever since the return of the Digimon anime in 2006 and on-off attempts to revive the franchise in Anime seasonal format have often hit a hurdle. I would say it is because of competition not only with seasonal Pokemon but also with seasonal Yugioh and other Anime aimed for younger audiences in Japan that makes it hard for Digimon to get back to how it used to be in the late 90s.

Digimon keep failing for stupid decisions. Reboot a character driven season and made it all about shallow fights and characters going from one place to another without a real objective, or introducing a promising main cast and setting with ghost game to make the entire season episodic For the anime they just need someone who could write a story, nothing more.

Applimon started out with what I thought was a weak premise for a main character - literally giving a nobody the desire to be someone to lead, an actual main character in something. That would be something easily to turn me off. That is until the third kid get introduced, Astra. This poorly dressed kid has legitmately one of the most relatable conflicts for a kid I have seen from Digimon for a long time (even including Ghost Game) and it was that that kept me watching until the plot really picks up and shows Leviathan is actually Skynet and just works better than what they did with Yggdrasil in ANYTHING. If you want an evil AI rampage or destroy everything, look at Tamers (The D-Reaper is still the best one but Leviathan gets points for sticking with its drive all the way to the end even with a complex ploy for the main character at the end). Weak points were the characters' debuts at the start of the show but it mellows out with amazing action and actual continuity for the plot unlike the later shows. Marketing for a spinoff franchise that never even made it to the West, yeah, it would have been forgotten thanks to Tri but since Tri is a DUMPSTER FIRE, Applimon is the last great Digimon show that took itself somewhat seriously and had actual hooks for people. Ghost Game... you could have been the next Applimon if you didn't go EXTREME Monster of the Week format with lame continuity callbacks and lies for the actual fanbase. Your only plus was the horror and animation and music (all great set dressings but no substance to keep a fanbase alive).

I remember speaking to a friend of mine about the 2020 reboot when it first came out, and my legit first question was "do they maintain the more grounded themes from the original?" and he simply told me no which made me straight up say I wasn't really interested. I was mid-way through watching Tri for the first time after having put it off after the overwhelming poor reception that it had and, while Tri has its moments, its far from perfect. But at the time it was new digimon content in the adventure timeline so I pressed on anyway... It was only a week or so after I had finished Tri that a simple fact reared its ugly head at me... I was not done with the Adventure film series... there was one more that I had not seen. Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna is a film unlike the 6 that came before it as, instead of just throwing in mindless fanservice like Leomon, the other 4 kids reaching mega level, the Digimon Emperor, Alphamon and many other things that (while neat to see on screen) don't really amount to much, the film drops us into a familiar set up ( a newly discovered digimon on the internet) and uses it as a spring board to slap the audience in the face with a cold reality of life. I will not go into detail, for the many people who I have not seen it, as its something you just need to experience but just give yourself a day to let the film and its story consume you. It may leave you broken on the inside for a bit, but its worth it for what might be one of the last parts of the franchise that took its audience just as seriously as the original. That would be my answer by the way, as I could say that 02 was my childhood, Tamers is a masterpiece or Data Squad is the breath of fresh air the franchise needed. But Last Evolution is a story that rocked me to my core as an adult the same way Adventure seasons 1 & 2 did when I was a child, and I won't ever forget that.

Ghost Games seemed very promising, but I dropped it very fast when I realized it's monster of the week type story. They unable to make good stories with new characters/series, so they try to leech on original adventure series and try to ruin it too.

Digmon Appmon actually has a much well written story and casts than Digimon Adventure reboot. It's just Tri took the spotlight despite being dogshit plot and character development.

Unpopular opinion, but adventure 02 is my fav. Say what you will but imo I just think everything to do with Ken is the peak of the series and even tho I think the first season and especially tamers are objectively better shows nothing makes me more mentally ill than 02. In Japanese anyway, dub is ROUGH

Appmon and Xros Wars ( the first 2 arcs) are my favorites.

I think "respect their intelligence" is a good way to put it. By the end of the first two episodes alone, we'd already found out the names of all the human characters and digimon, seen them interact with each other in believable ways, watched them discuss realistic issues, like how to divvy up the available food, so they can survive this strange situation they're in, and we'd been introduced to some hostile digimon, with multiple fights, which cemented an overall impression of Digimon's action style as being, "like Pokemon, if it was turning into the Incredible Hulk." Now, no matter what else that may be, I call it a hook. In less than an hour of actual, on-screen content, Digimon had already demonstrated what made it special and worth watching, so you didn't need to do a deep dive, or reach a certain arc, to know whether you wanted to check out next week's episode. It was obvious. I think a lot of modern anime have something they really want to build towards with their story, and that's fine. Many anime do that extremely well. But having a hook right at the start is important, so viewers know why they should continue watching that show in particular after they've put down the remote. BTW, Season 1 all the way.

I didn't think that the digimon adventure reboot was failing,I thought they just wanted to give us a movie before giving us season 2

What? Appmon is peak and so is data squad

The original formula definitely worked best nd each season moved further away from that. I felt like the lore/world building was strong / each character mattered in their own way. Loved the idea abt using crests it helped build interesting stories for each kid. I feel like it would be interesting if they did a reboot where new kids were chosen to get the crests now tht the older cast has moved on and building a whole new story from that.

Toei is always going to bank on the Adventure well whenever there new Digimon project doesn't bare any fruits. Toei/Bandai is always trying push Adventure related merch out the door and every few years they come out with projects like Tri, the Remake, and Last Evolution. However time and time again they fail to realize with there newer project why Adventure is so fondly remembered in the first place.

Im gonna say something that might be really unpopular but its my opinion so feel free to disagree. I feel like the reason why a lot of later digimon is failing is bc they are writing their characters like a drama, not a sitcom. When i say “like a sitcom” i dont mean their characters have to be funny. A lot of sitcom characters arent actually that funny, but moreso endearing and full of personality. Og taichi had a lot of charming moments that made us very attached to him, like his whole shtick of wanting to slam computers or how he wanted to take a bath once he got home. Even yamato, the guy who you’d think wouldnt have any personality outside of his archetype’s behavior, is shown to have way more character and interests than most characters with the same archetype. He’s shown to have more interests than bruting, like bbq and music, and we can see how he reacts in different situations, being a really goofy guy when he isnt being a drama queen. And he actually is the second highest character to cry the most out of the group, seconding his bro. A lot of the newer characters are boring, bland, or just serious all of the time. You cant write a digimon character like someone from a drama because most drama’s don’t guarantee that the characters will have happy endings. With digimon, its all but stated that every digimon show is going to have a happy ending, so you cant be to immersed to the situations when you already know the ending. That’s why its important to have such a strong cast of characters to make you invested in the story even if yoy already know the ending

I liked ghost game. it was episodic, but the characters' story had continuity, and it felt satisfying. Watching the extended cast grow, and with it the casts' resources was also very cool, and the sense of community that began to build was something we've never seen in a digimon anime, though calls to mind the original digimon world. While i enjoyed the anime greatly, the lost potential stings like a bitch. several plotlines, like myotismon, lillithmon, MILLENIUMMON and other threats remain at large or are otherwise unresolved by the end of the show, and that sucks. What's even worse is that the actual ending sets up an absolutely fascinating plotline that will NEVER be explored now. the problem is, the entire premise of the show is japanese ghost stories. Digimon through the lens of kitaro, if you will. And to maintain a format like that, you can't really pull back the curtain until it's time to end the show. The more you know about what's causing the paranormal activity, the less scary it becomes. even if the truth wasn't as unscary as it ended up being, once the mask is off, the mystique is lost. In spite of this, i wanted to see this brilliant little community these kids fostered grow into their proposed "digital country" that they discuss in the final episode, and think it would be a great premise for a show all it's own. Gammamon sharing his body with gulusgammamon would have also been a great shakeup to the character dynamic, but we'll never know now.

Waiting 3 years to dub Adventure (2020) was also a questionable decision.

Short answer it isn't its just the majority of its popularity is from Japan

the issue with digimon even with the older series is that sometimes it would go through an identity crisis first season and second season they were like pokemon but could talk, season 3 rolls by and now its a card game anime, season 4 comes along and now its justice league but they are digimon, data squad might as well have been called Digimon Z. it sometimes feels like the show tries too hard to ride off of the next popular thing instead of being what it was great at being which is a monster anime for older kids. Even though anime and games like pokemon and yugioh have seldomly changed their mechanics and their gimmicks they still hold on to what makes those series what they are and know their target demographic.

I think the problems with Ghost Game can be summarized to 3 specific points. 1. The pacing: for both episodes individually and the series as a whole had major pacing issues. on an episodic level, episodes start really strong, but are running out of time by the end of the episode, which leads to battles shorter than the first cour of the insert song and resulutions which are regularly unsatisfying. On an overarching level, Plot points are either resolved by the next episode, or go on for so long that the show needs to bring them up again just to remind of their existence. There are also plots that were implied but then dropped. The solution to these problems is simple, longer episodes, shorter episode count(I believe that GG has the longest episode count of all digimon shows). Also, a mediocre conclusion is better than a non-existing one so the writers should have concluded the "you will see me again" villian plots before adding more. 2. Misshandling of the plot: The main story is good, but it doesn't fit Ghost Game's formula, which makes it really hard to get invested in it. Add on that the problems stated in point number and you get a story that could be really good, but is instead just fine most of the time. The finale couldn't even close up all of the main stoy beats so even though the final fight was good, the resulution to the show was weak. 3. Problematic out of show stuff: That is the part I understand the least on, so to summarize. There was a product that forshadowed Gammamon's Mega evolution also foreshadowed Gulus Gammamon's Mega and a fusion between Gammamon and Gulus. Which sounds really important, but Bandai never even told the writers about any form beyond Gammamon's Mega and Gulus's ultimate, which made the final fight with Gulus akward because it was 3 mega Digimon vs one ultimate. The same product also showed an ultimate form of the ryudamon the protagonists befriended, which visualy told so much about his character, but that for was likely also never told to the writers. Also the head writer was depressed at several point during the shows run. But despite all of these problems, I still legitimately love Ghost Game. And the reason I love it is simple, the show is fun, making the show a part of my sunday morning was fun, the characters, while not as "realistic" as the original 3, are a more realistic friend group, I could see them being friends even if digimon didn't exist in their world. I also love their subtle character development, like Gammamon calling people/digimon dying "going on a journey" meaning that old lady with that Monmon really did die and Gammamon understood that, so when Gammamon is saying a character is going on a journey, you know he means that they died or are going to die.

Digimon sadly is just a big fat piece of miss potential. As for Fusion Nick screwed the series over.🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿

In my opinion the Digimon 2020 remake was pretty good and I like how it didn't copy the original story and it was doing its own thing. Not everybody loved their classic story be redone over and over.... FUN FACT: Is the Ghost Game series is definitely a Digimon show but the monster on the week format was made by the creators because they stated that nowadays kids have short attention spans so the team wanted to have that formats to keep them entertained and intrigued.

I watched a little xros wars and then couldn’t make it past episode 5 of the new shows. Tri I eventually watched but it felt slow like there was spaces in all of the dialogue which seems to be one of the biggest issues in the newer stuff for me.

It's not the 90's anymore, there's no shortage of animes with kids dealing with a fantastical threat. Unless the Digimon / Digital Word are interesting I couldn't care less, I come for the monsters.

Appmon has a lot of stuff going for it because of the appmon chips and the Digivice. However, I think what happened that it didn’t connect to the older fans.

I might not remember all that well since it has been 20 years, but when the hell wasn't Digimon on a monster of the week basis??? In almost every episode there was a fight.

I personally vehemently despise Ghost-game; It felt like a weird fucking propaganda piece made by Kurata, where Digimon genuinely are monsters, out to harm humanity for their own gains. Like, for fuck's sake, we literally had a pair of sore losers who turn people into alcohol for them to drink... and the kids did nothing to permanently take care of this issue.

Ghost Game was such a disappointment. If thay had just written a more solid story...

I think you didn’t do that much research on this

The biggest reason why, I feel, is just Bandai don't care. Which frankly, is not surprising since Bandai is one of the worse companies out there and I would argue, the EA, Unisoft, Activision Blizzard, 2K and many mor publishers of Japan. They only see a few products and are only willing to invest money in a few specific products and he biggest thing for them is toys. That's it. If you are not Dragon Ball or Fromsoft or the likes, you are basically nonexistent to Bandai. Which sucks because series like Digimon, had it been allowed to build, could have actually been something great.

I'm glad someone brought up the current state of the Digimon anime overall. Not a lot of people talked about it at all.

Unrelated, but what happened to movie reviews?

Applimon was good

The creator of the series said he had no interest in making a story focused series for digimon ghost game because kids focus on Tiktok nowadays (man i hope that app dies) and their short attention spans. Therefore he made monster of the week with a mystery overarching plot He also had no faith in the ending which is why things feel rushed, especially the ending.

It isnt an adventure every show. It is trying to be something it's not. n

I think it might be lack of marketing

😂😂 muhaha just gonna step right in and break the mold here such is my nature i loved all the digimon animes that i have watched including xros war and i do not see the problems described in this video never have also i dont think adventure 2020 suck lastly the mind set i have when i watched digimon shows made me think that each show still contain that darker relatable moment

*Adventure* = Flawed but Great *02* = Crap Sequel *Tamers* = MASTERPIECE *Frontier* = What is this even? Power Rangers Anime? *Savers* = Mediocre *Xros Wars* = GO Back *Xros Hunters* = I said GO BACK! *Tri* = No, don't Go Back! *Kizuma* = Enough of Adventure... *Adventure 2020* = PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP! *Ghost Game* = PUT THE OLD YELLER TO SLEEP

I'm glad somebody else noticed it because after data squad honestly season 5 of digimart Digimon just felt something was off It didn't feel special It didn't feel like they were trying to make something new or different it felt like they were just trying to keep going with you know the popularity of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh and like you said there's no announcements most people don't even know half of these days my series even exist. And the Digimon 2020 reboot was dog crap because they was trying to rush through all of the iconic moments of the original Digimon series and tried to add new lore without building anything and I think that's another problem is they're not building towards anything The newer Digimon seasons they're just there just because hey is that you might as an IP you recognized Hope you like it.

Great explanation!

I didn't thought Digimon had this huge problem with their animes, but I only watched first season and tamers and I really both of them. My childhood anime was the 2009 Bakugan Battle Brawlers, which have similar problem. The first series and New Vestroia was good, after the 3rd series was not that good, the 4th was bad and they cancel it. In 2018 a new reboot started, the toys were good, just like the Digimon videogames, but the anime... the first episode was very bad 2 out of 10, but I thought I can develop, so I watched till episode 26 and it just became worse with every episode. Fortunately this reboot was cancelled and the 3rd series will start in september, it seems better in the trailer, but most of the problems of the second series are still here. The second series was nowhere near as popular as the first one, so when I heard your comparising the first 4 series succes and the later one's failure I realised the Bakugan franchise made the same mistakes. It's so sad.

Adventure 2020 was okay, GG failed due to so much filler.

Its not failing digimon are still strong today

C'mon man Xros Wars was great

You were 6 in 1999 and feeel 'old' ?? ......😶

thy need too put heart and good writing into any stories and push stories even if its umcomfortable

Fun fact the 1st halloween epsoide air on mine birthday

N O S T A L G I A There, that's the reason. Everyone wants Digimon Adventure because it's the one they grew up with and the one they know so that automatically means it's peak Digimon and nothing else can beat it No other reason.

Jesus Christ has comes to save you

99 was a good year for me I finished high school 🏫,I was saving my money for the new Apple MAC laptop 💻 clam,the color ones ,I was jamming to bare naked ladies song and other big artists at that time

I have my own thoughts about the more modern Shows. I dont want to go into too much Detail rn, so in short. Xros wars: Feels more as a Celebration of the Series, whit as much Action, Iconic, or unused Digimon possible. Manga is better. Ghost Game. I enjoyed it. Its nice to see more of the Digimon as actual Charakters, instead of just relative one dimensional Bossfights. Didnt mind the Episodic Format to much, 2020 very poor. Its an endless onslaught of poorly choeographed Action. It could have been a good Partner to Ghost Game. One focusses on one Story, or Charakters, the other on Action. The one is new and experimental, the other thing Nostalgia Bait. But it was just not good, it felt a lot like a DBZ Clone.

Digimon is in a weird spot to say the least. It's not likely anymore that they can depend on delivering on great stories like before. There was some success with the Digimon Tri movies, but I'd say most of that had to do with coming back to the main cast who were aged up and still were able have them battle with their mons, which was a smart move ngl. Doing that, trying to make great games for the series, there isnt much they can do. Aside from making a Renamon spin-off and going all-in to make it an eechi. There I said it.

Thanks YT algorithm, take my comment sacrifice to feed your dark gears. But that aside, thank you! I was trying to figure out why the new versions of Digimon just didn't grab me. I can still sit and watch Tamers and enjoy it, but all of the new ones sort of suck....

Digimon lacks world-building compared to other kid series. I like Xros Wars, I enjoy 2020, and Ghost Game. Frontier is not a fan of Zero Two, either. Adventure 1 kind knew how to balance characters got quite well

It doesnt keep making new shows. It makes weird new video games where you are stuck in the real world too much.

i hope they do a digimon tamers continuation, that series definitely deserves it with way they ended the series 😢

ghost game was such a huge dissappointment, it had everything it needed to be great but fell so flat....

How once a great franchise has fallen.

Appmon is a divisive taste.

anybody remember "real player", the video downloader back in the early 90s internet era.

Ghost game was sweet until it culminated and fell flat. Sucks. The potential of it in the beginning rivaled adventure and tamers because of the characters, The character design, and gulusgammamon. Perfection with the highest letdown. Adventure 2020. The sub was pretty lame but the dub slaps. Love it. Sure it’s less deep not addressing adoption, divorce, etc. but the heights it reaches occasionally rival the original series. Devimon/neodevimon/donedevimon anyone? Appmon. Thought it sucks but the last 15 or so episodes are as good as tamers and adventure. It’s surprisingly turns into peak Digimon, best story since tamers.

'Promosm' 😄

Ghost Game despite its lack of plot is still far more competent than every non Adventure 1999/Tamers/Savers show, if only because its not unfocused like Adventure 02, tedious like Frontier/early Appmon, or Bakugan levels of MC wank like Xros Wars and Adventure 2020.

Because its completely unearned and incompetent. Giving omnimon to them in the first couple of episode well a there is no longer a threat and b they didnt deserve it. to get to champion they had to figure out the digivice. to ultimate it a character journey where they developed a core trait of theres, and mega required a miracle involving lethal damage from the loved one digital monster in the form of holy arrows. and omnimon required a bond so strong they brute forced there way between dimensions and merged the collective human spirit of a billion souls to create. 2 if you are given that level of power you need to be competent.

Actually at the time digimon was a threat to pokemon when it aired until tamers spite being the best season that everyone remembers.

"survive is a really good game and ya'll should give it a try" ye, if you like reading simulators and platform combat....otherwise stay far away...

what happens to imagine feel about money 😕

Neither Pokémon or Digimon are interested in making 'great' games, shows, etc. in recent years. That's why both franchises don't want to take their time to write good stories because they know they can easily make money from millenials by puttting out mediocre stuff. What they want is MONEY, and more MONEY from millenials who are now adults and can get easily trapped in nostalgia. 🤷‍♂️

My fav season is tamers, but I agree that modern digimon needs to write good characters over everyone being a fearless hero.