Digimon Frontier

while the first digimon anime will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first one I watched. I found myself enjoying digimon frontier more.
I liked how they could become the digimon, and reminded me of a few other shows I watched growing up.
I found the characters very relatable and well fleshed out.
I would have liked if some things were worked on a bit more and feel the anime had much potential.
I would recommend it yes.
I liked the spirit evolving scenes a lot, and the music always got me hyped.
And I think the intro was one fo the best.

What started out with the potential to stand amongst the best seasons of Digimon instead takes a decline in quality during the second half and never realises it's true potential

Particular to note is the colour grading of the characters during the first half of the show as well as the background environments which give the aesthetic of the award winning watercolor paintings you'd find in a 8th grade classroom, aesthetically this suits the season and invokes a degree of talent and artistic eye behind the work but as it goes on and the environments get more abstract the colours begin to clash and feel more ... out of place.

The colour theory at work during the first half of the season is simple, effective and beautifully dates it to the time of its release and most importantly evolves on the style that the Digimon cartoons/anime had been developing up until that point so it's a shame to see the quality of the colours chosen in the second half decline to a noisy, contrasting mess.

If an animated work is difficult to look at then it's not fulfilling it's potential as a medium.

I'd like to draw attention to one criticism I've seen of this season which is that the characters don't feel as though they've grown over the course of the season and feel stagnant, which I don't agree with. I feel as though each character had internalized the lessons throughout the season although the writers didn't give enough moments to really shed light and let these characters reinstate the lessons on what they've internalized (which I understand why people would interpret it as no character development).

It makes the characters seem entitled, stubborn, or straight up apathetic to each lesson they're supposed to learn when it's not reflected in the story or the character goes through the same growth over and over again, but beneath that, in the subtle ways the characters interact with each other and the world, there was growth, at least to me.

Oh yeah, but the story in the second half is uninteresting, there's this hierarchy of villains and there's always this bigger or more powerful enemy to take down and there's rarely any compelling reason to care about the conflict, there is a hint of possibility that a villain had a trait or a history that would've made the conflict more interesting, and an episode later it does appear they could make the conflict feel genuine or interesting, and then in another episode they double back and introduce a bigger and badder villain in the next episode (if you're dying to know what episodes it's 34-36).

Ultimately the second half feels rushed and as well as the writers not having enough time to probably complete the script. Seriously When you get to episode 36 just watch the first 9 minutes then skip to the last 8 minutes of episode 50, everything between isn't required to get most out of the story.

I'd also like to touch on the criticism of "But the humans turn into Digimon". As someone who had these same criticism for most of my life I can proudly say that if you still hold these beliefs grow the fuck up.

To summarize, the season starts strong and carries itself well whilst all of the protagonists are collecting their spirits but as the first wave of recurring villains struggle to remain interesting into the second half of the season they just don't bring the energy required to keep the main characters or the story interesting and as they rush the story into a digital worldwide cataclysm they just don't engage any plot threads to keep it interesting and at episode 36 they drag out the climax and by extent the cataclysm that by episode 48 there season feels so exhausted it is practically wheezing...

And to monologue, that really sucks because once you get past the immature "but the humans turn into Digimon" there is so much here to genuinely enjoy, the opening moments of the 'call of destiny' is one of the best openings in any season of Digimon that genuinely makes it feel as though during any mundane moment destiny could be called upon anyone (although in real life not as dramatically fantastical), there's the growth of the characters and how their goals evolve from wanting to leave and go home to genuinely wanting to stay and help even though they're given many opportunities to go back home in the latter half, there's the digital world that feels far more alive and lived in than any season of Digimon that came before it (a far cry from the desolate wastelands of earlier seasons), finally one thing I enjoyed in the final half is that instead of just fighting the bad guys and defending villages the protagonists feel as though they're trying to keep the economy supported whilst everything is crumbling around them in the face of cataclysm and everything on the verge of falling apart there's moments like trying to help an injured Locomon recover, and later as a town relegated as a hatchery for Digimon eggs they, instead of just fighting the bad guy, make an effort to relocate the baby Digimon and digi-eggs (even calling for the help of a Locomon they helped repair a few episodes earlier) which serves as slithers of a light behind the veil of a decline in quality and a dragged out ending that haunts the final half of the show.

Digimon Frontier is awkward, flawed and ultimately ends as a tragedy of a season. But there are also moments of talent, honesty and slivers of virtuosity in this work that would make it dishonest to leave out of the discussion, the few bright moments this season achieved should be talked about and celebrated because left under a mountain of criticism is a lesson and a handful of virtues this franchise could learn and grow from and become a better franchise because of it and it's be a shame to leave the few things that Digimon Frontier passionately done well go unheard.

But It's still a 5/10.

--- P.S. That was a long one, I know it got kinda chonky towards the end, I know I didn't express a lot of my views best as I could have but this was all kinda spontaneous. For anyone who's interested my favorite season of Digimon is Tamers and I'm enjoying Digimon Ghost Game at the moment, I might do a review of the latter but I don't plan doing a review of Tamers, I don't feel as though there's anything new I could add to the discussion of Tamers and I'm personally confident in the quality of that season. I'm also sorry for any Frontier fans I likely rubbed the wrong way, I think for anyone who is a fan of this season should be proud of it, I encourage them to explore what they believe the virtues of this season are and share it with others as well, either in their own reviews or reflected in a work of their own.

To preface, I'm a Digimon super fan and I have been all my life. I loved the first 3 seasons (Adventure 1, 2 and Tamers) but by the time Frontier was airing I guess I was doing something else because I never got around to watching it. I just remembered the cool designs of the main characters.

Story:
Honestly just didn't really feel all that compelling. Yes the typical save the world thing which is fine, but the execution just isn't great. Characters are often yelling things before concepts are even explained, like how in episode 1 Takuya is yelling something about fractal code before anyone knows ... what that is. There are some well done moments with some of the main characters later that I genuinely liked, but the flow of arcs seems too fast. And "The power of Friendship!" is mentioned at least 20 times per episode.

Art:
The art is still good and holds up well. Most of the Digimon designs are still great.

Sound:
Overall not bad. At first I didn't like the intro but I think it grows on you.

Characters:
In general I liked the way that characters were fleshed out. I thought it was an interesting spin to have people recognize themselves as Digimon and how that changed their perspective on things.

Enjoyment:
This is where it really hurt the most. I found that I liked the show less and less as I kept on watching. And I think I only liked it as much as I did because of my love for the franchise.

Overall:
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I don't think Digimon fans will prefer this over previous seasons and I think non Digimon fans won't even get the small pleasures of seeing returning characters.