Digimon Savers

Upon meeting for the first time, undefeated street fighter Daimon, Masaru and renegade Digimon Agumon become friends in the most natural way possible for the knuckleheaded duo—by fighting their hearts out. The self-proclaimed "ultimate team" are recruited by a secret government organization called the Digimon Data Squad, or DATS, who had witnessed an unbelievable human fighting blow for blow with a Digimon. Their primary objective is investigating mysterious problems caused by Digimon entering the real world, and the world is currently in the midst of a crisis with Digimon appearing at an unprecedented rate.

Embarking on various missions with DATS, Daimon and Agumon become colleagues with adolescent genius Touma Norstein and his Digimon partner Gaoman, along with the kind-hearted Yoshino "Yoshi" Fujeda and her Digimon partner Lalamon. As the group continues to investigate the rapid increase of Digimon in their world, a darker truth begins to surface, and it is up to Daimon, Agumon, and their friends to get to the bottom of things.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Agumon Main

Matsuno, Taiki Japanese

Daimon, Masaru Main

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Norstein, Touma Main

Nojima, Hirofumi Japanese

Gaomon Main

Nakai, Kazuya Japanese

Falcomon Main

Koujiro, Chie Japanese

Lalamon Main

Yukana Japanese

Noguchi, Ikuto Main

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Fujieda, Yoshino Main

Aragaki, Yui Japanese

Omegamon Supporting

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Dukemon Supporting

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Shibata, Hiroaki Producer

Umezawa, Atsutoshi Producer

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Itou, Naoyuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jun 2, 2008

Zoki-chan

Recommended

I absolutely loved this anime, and everything about it, I can't help but give everything a 10, for some though, if I could, I'd give more than a 10, as I'll have in my reasons below

This review is being given after watching the Japanese version of this anime

Story: 10/10
You could say that this anime starts out a little slow, with the meeting of the main character, Masaru, and Agumon (once more the main characters digimon) and the introduction of all the other characters that will later play a big part in the series. I had this anime on-hold at episode 14, and when I started ... it back up again, I became completely addicted to the series. Though I remember the beginning being slow (which is why I put it on-hold for such a long time), once I began watching it again I couldn't stop. I non-stopped watched the series and it's action-packed plot.
The whole storyline mainly focuses on the 'main' main character, Masaru Daimon and his digimon with some of the side main character, Yoshino Fujieda and her digimon, Raramon, Touma Norstein and his digimon, Gaomon, as well as the later introduced character, Ikuto Noguchi and his digimon, Falcomon, as they all aim to help protect the Human World as well as the Digital World from both attacks from Digimon, and even other humans.

Art: 10/10
Unlike the other Digimon series, Digimon Savers (or Data Squad as it is known in English) doesn't focus on young kids getting Digimon, this time it's older teens who get/have Digimon. The age of Masaru, Yoshino, and Touma would average around 17 years of age, with Ikuto being the youngest main character at the age of 10. With teens getting Digimon this time around, the art is a bit different in terms of the art of each of the human characters.
And yet again, the art for every time the Digimon evolve is excellent as it takes on a totally different form from the normal images that are seen during the viewing of each episode.

Sound: 11/10
This is one of the ones that I couldn't help but give it a higher rating than what's aloud here. I found myself absolutely addicted to the both of the opening and ending theme songs as well as some of the music that was played during the episodes. Sometimes I would even dance to the music while it was playing on the episode. Which was hard when I was trying to read the subs on my iPod ^^;
Anyway, the music was absolutely amazing and all the voices for the characters fit them perfectly, I have no complaints at all.

Characters: 11/10
The personalities of each character were well planned (in my opinion) and there were no 'split-personality' characters in this anime.
Each character was unique and had pasts that would later on become a large part of the series. (at least most of them)
By the end of the series, I had become extremely attached to almost each and every character, especially Ikuto, Falcomon, and Masaru, and was crying at the end because of the fact that the series was ending and it would be the last time I'd get to see them unless I rewatched it.

Enjoyment: 11/10
I couldn't say I have enjoyed a series THIS much in a long time!! Being a fan of not only Digimon, but action-packed, adventure, and comedy animes, I loved this series!! It has a nice balance of action, adventure, as well as even it's bit of comedy that almost every anime needs to succeed!

Overall: 50/50
If I kept the normal ratings of 10 for each, I'd end up with a 50 out of 50 score for overall. The anime was great, the characters couldn't be better, the music is absolutely addicting. I couldn't ask for anything better than what this anime managed to pack into its 48 episodes.

If you're looking for an action-packed, adventure, comedy, and something that you'll enjoy even if you've never watched a Digimon episode before, I know you'll want to watch this series!! Go on! Try it out, you won't be regretting it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 14, 2011

Misdre

Mixed Feelings

This is my first time writing a review for MAL, and I actually wasn't going to write any, but after finishing watching this series, I definitely cannot resist the urge.

I scored this series 5, average. I would have given it a 4, but there are some things I actually somewhat enjoyed about Digimon Savers, so I thought calling it downright "bad" would be inappropriate. So instead I'm going to say: this series is not good. It's not the worst ever, but it's not good. This comes from a person who has loved the Digimon merchandise as a whole for almost ten years.

When Savers originally ... aired, I simply ignored it. I wasn't that high on Digimon hype back then and from the very first promo picture I could tell I didn't like the series. Only this year I finally decided to check it out, as I've seen all the other seasons.
It took me over a month to finish it.


Story: The plot is fairly unoriginal. The digital world and the human world are beginning to overlap, main characters fight against invading digimon with their partners, a couple of sub plots emerge, and in the end they save both worlds by defeating a strong enemy.

There are only two things that really distinguish this season from the others: firstly the way the main characrers have been made young adults instead of kids, and the DATS organisation. The former is a nice idea but poorly executed, and the latter somewhat reminds me of Tamers and isn't that original afterall. Most of the time I really couldn't bring myself to care about what was going on. The most interesting part of the story, for me anyway, was the concept of a team of researchers venturing to the digital world ten years before the main characters met their partners, and the fate of Daimon Suguru. Otherwise the overall plot took off clumsily and didn't reach any kind of peak of excitement. There wasn't a single episode that honestly would have left me feeling like I wanted to know what happens next.
Overall, I think the story could have been better if it was carried out better.


Art: Definitely the biggest setback of the whole series. It looks awful. The number of well-drawn episodes can be counted with the fingers of one hand, and that isn't much of help anyway as the colour scheme is one of the worst I have ever seen (and I have seen a good bunch of different kinds of anime, honestly). Just look at the shades of Masaru's hair and red outfit - they are unbelievably ugly. Overall the colours look dirty and grey-ish.

And as I mentioned already, this series has very poor art, even on a kids' show's standards. All the other Digimon seasons are better drawn, possibly thanks to their simple style. I cannot understand why they had to change the style so drastically to the worse. Savers is a gold mine of incorrect anatomy, awkward angles and bad perspective, not to mention their faces which were beautifully drawn only on very rare occasions. I swear Chika's face is drawn well only once in the whole series, and that is in the very last episode.

The character designs do not appeal to me, at all. They lack imagination, the colours are mostly an eyesore, and their clothes are often ridiculous (for example the skin-tight DATS jumpsuits). Ikuto doesn't even look like a Digimon character. The way they changed Agumon to look much more artless is definitely a sign of plain laziness. And the list of weak points goes on and on. The animation is also mostly very poorly done and it often ended up making me laugh at its primality.

Altogether, art-wise this series is a reminiscent of the ugly style of the beginning of the 00s when digital animation was still a new thing and animators weren't skilled enough yet. Considering that Digimon Savers came out in 2006 (and the older seasons look much, much better), this is rather outrageous.


Sounds: The soundtrack had some good, memorable tunes, but mostly I didn't even think about the music all that much. I didn't like any of the opening & ending songs either but this, I can say, is probably due to my personal pickiness when it comes to music, so the songs aren't necessarily bad. The evolution theme, Believer, is quite likeable, though not one of my favourite insert songs from Digimon.

Not many people have commented on the seiyuu/voice actors of the series. This is yet another issue regarding Digimon Savers. While I adore some of his roles, Hoshi Souichirou manages to sound extremely annoying as Masaru most of the time, as shouting and screaming isn't one of his fortes. In almost every episode, he is doing some very over-the-top over-acting.
Much worse than Hoshi is Yoshino's VA who simply cannot act at all. She sounds emotionless, forced and just plain stupid. I cannot comprehend why they couldn't give Yoshino a proper seiyuu, as the previous seasons showed some great talents and very famous actors.
Another very poor attempt at acting was provided by the seiyuu of the blond-haired DATS woman, whose name I have entirely forgotten. She is a minor character, but I felt like ripping my head off every time she opened her mouth.
I have no further complaints about the cast, though. Especially Nojima Hirofumi and Nakai Kazuya sound wonderful as Touma and Gaomon - Nakai has never sounded this cute before!


Characters: This section is mostly made of my personal opinions instead of facts, please don't forget that.

Stereotypical and un-inspiring or simply annoying, the characters of Digimon Savers did not impress me. Masaru is your typical aggressive main character dressed in red, and it made me very sad how they didn't even care to give him goggles like every other main boy. Agumon lacks all of the charm his predecessor in Adventure had and is mostly tiresome for me to watch.

Yoshino has very little to none personality with her Lalamon and I found it difficult to think anything at all about her (apart from her horrible VA). I guess she's supposed to be level-leaded yet insecure but I'm not even sure. She was given very little highlight throughout the show.

Touma and Gaomon, on the other hand, while not all that original either, are lovely characters and pretty much the only reason I bothered to complete this series. Touma, unlike the other characters, has multiple levels to his personality and is surprisingly refreshing even for a rival character in Digimon - I have to say he's like an older, half-European version of Jenrya (who happens to be my favourite from Tamers) but possibly even more charming. The only episodes I truly enjoyed were the ones where the focus was on Touma's independent whereabouts. I guess you can call me biased like that.

Ikuto, while his story was unique considering the whole Digimon verse, annoyed me right from the moment he was introduced. I tried very hard to like him but ended up disliking him more and more by every episode. His design is overdone and I can't stand bratty brats like him, no matter how justified his personality is by his past. Everything about him as a Digimon character is just way off.

Masaru's family, sans his father, didn't manage to bring any emotion out of me. I liked his father and BanchouLeomon though, their story was interesting and delightful considering how he's the first seriously meaningful parent character ever in Digimon (well, maybe along with Jenrya's father). Overall I preferred Touma's family's bittersweet dynamics.

The two DATS women were unnecessary and pointless, and I didn't care much about the villains either and didn't really understand all of their motives. In my eyes they were pretty much recycled material from other seasons and didn't bring anything new and exciting with them.

The other minor characters, such as Satsuma, were nice - and weirdly seemed to have much more personality than Yoshino who's supposed to be the main girl...

Overall, I couldn't get myself to sympathise much with the cast and found myself constantly annoyed at them - for example, the sub story with Chika and Piyomon was just plain boring in my opinion. The characters and their relationships lack charm and excitement and had very little to offer for someone who's seen all the seasons. I was hoping for the main characters to build interesting relationships with each other and it never happened.


Enjoyment: Digimon Savers does have its occasional saving graces (namely Touma, Gaomon and Suguru), but overall it is a weak anime with poor production values and doesn't have any nostalgic value for an old Digimon fan. It didn't make me laugh with its lazy humour, and neither did it make me cry (seasons 1-4 did, quite easily actually). It's like a poor attempt to create a season where the fans can relate to the grown-up "digidestined". I guess I did enjoy it enough to watch all 48 episodes, but on the other hand, at times I just stopped watching for a week.

Overall, if the art and animation in Savers were better (say, similiar to the other series), I might have enjoyed it somewhat more. But as it is, even Xros Wars (which has gained a fair amount of unpopularity) appeals to me more.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 27, 2016

Asztal

Not Recommended

Well... I'm glad that's over.
This is my first "review" on MAL, and I will be blunt here. Take some of my thoughts with grain of salt, because the review is less organized, than I'd like it to be.

Before you leave, I won't bash Savers, because it "ruined my childhood anime". I went in hopeful for a change of setting.

There will be some spoilers.

Digimon Savers is the first full length Digimon series since Digimon Frontier in 2002-3. I've seen quite a few people praise it for "saving Digimon" and being more "mature", than it's predecessors. For starters, it has more aggression and main cast aging from ... mid teens to early twenties (with some variables), so it must be more mature. Right? Well.. no. It's not. I dare say it's even more childish than Frontier was.

But would that be a bad thing on it's own? No. Definitely not. Seeing the first few episodes, I actually thought it would become a silly shounen adventure by the end.
It didn't.
It was actually aimed at a more "mature" audience, unlike the series prior and for that reason, after the initial few episodes went down, it turned into a "serious business" show.
It didn't hit the mark.

(I won't give points. Since everyone rates differently, I find them generally less useful than they're shown to be. What a 5 means to one person can be very different to what it means for another. I will give impressions instead.)

Story:
The story is about a cardboard cutout shounen manga protagonist saving the world with his fists. (Take this at face value.) Everything else is just a semi-bland mesh of spices.
I don't dislike simple stories. Simple stories can be great. However even the simplest of stories need something entertaining going for them. This story you can experience by reading almost any shounen manga or by watching almost any shounen anime in a much more entertaining manner. The only thing different here are the Digimon as a choice for Monster of the Week monsters. You can predict most of it by looking at the first 15 episodes. Or watching every 4th one. Doesn't make a lick of difference. Considering all this, the story could have been charming if it was somewhat played for laughs. It wasn't. The plot takes itself extremely seriously and given it's subject matter it's completely laughable. Except I cried.

What if it had a nice set of characters?
About that...

Characters:
The main cast is a mess, but there are some unpolished gems. Too bad next to nothing is expanded on any of the characters except the main four and 1 or 2 others.

The main four are:

Masaru doesn't grow even a little bit as a character. He is depicted and is supposed to be accepted as an idealistic view on a "MAN". This is demonstrated though him beating up others (including Digimon) and through this they start to respect him, because he "talked to them with his fists" and "that's the way a man does things". He is like this until literally the last frame and is presented extremely seriously. I hoped that he would grow out of this personality or do something productive with it, like all other digimon protags, but he didn't. The other saving option would have been that the story and he himself turns purposely corny. This doesn't happen either. He is a worthless character in every sense of the word.

Tohma has a little bit more growth as a person than Masaru, but it's still filled with overdone clichés and exaggerated, meaningless drama. He is mostly only there to be the rival trope for the self-insert protag.

Yoshino is there, because "cool older sister" trope. That's it. She has no character arc. No, that one episode doesn't count.

Ikuto has by far the most well made character arc, but sadly, as many a reviewer said before me: No matter how much you polish a turd, it won't become a piece of gold. He is a little shithead through the first ~20 episodes he's featured in. After that he becomes completely docile until the end. He has two agendas. The first one: HUMAN=EVIL, next one HUMAN+DIGIMON=GOOD. He's supposed to represent the "humans' potential to live alongside digimon peacefully" and "HUMAN EVOLUTION" ((within the context of the Digimon shows: growing up)). (In contrast, in all other Digimon series before this, all characters had this happen to them very naturally and mostly without being constantly hammered through the "retarded viewer's" skull.)

Some of the others:

The partner digimon are cute but that's it. They have basic personalities. Agumon is always hungry and is the same as Masaru. Gaomon is a butler. Lalamon is... well.. sometimes a straight man to Yoshino I guess? Falcomon is mostly a mirror to Ikuto. Kamemon had some potential, but he is mostly just there, saying and doing nothing. Sometimes he fights alongside Yushima. The two PawnChessmon are purely for support, same for their tamers. Kudamon and Satsuma combo is fun to listen to sometimes, but they're filling the bare minimum roles of "a father to his men"-type boss characters.

There is one supporting character who's constantly mentioned through the entire series. He's Masaru's dad. He is the same as Masaru and nothing is really done with him other than constant praise by everyone. He's basically a "means to an end" character. He's mainly used to justify happenings in the story.

The enemy characters were explained with:
"He's a cackling evil scientist, kill him." and "He's an emotionless algorithm, kill him."
The first one has a long and drawn-out buildup, basically shoving a shitton of "kick the dog" moments to show how he's evil because he's evil. The other antagonist on the other hand comes out of nowhere and blames the entire humanity for one man's actions and decides in his infinite wisdom to kill everyone. His followers obey him without any questions or showing any character until the last two episodes.

The characters I enjoyed seeing were few and far between, but here they are in no particular order: Mercurimon, Craniummon, Satsuma, Kudamon, Yushima.
I also love hearing that voice actor from the mouth of Dukemon (even though at first it was a bit jarring to hear Tamers Guilmon's voice back from Savers Dukemon).

Art:
Mediocre, but I won't fault Toei. Making Saturday morning stuff with limited time (and lack of direction and probably a lack of faith from the higher-ups) is definitely not easy. Especially in the mid 2000s, making a promo, monster of the week show for Digimon. At least the battles were spectacular and a lot better than the first two and the fourth series' battles and most CGI wasn't bad. (Except for the MachGaogamon evolution. Every time the frame-rate drops form 24 to 3, a little bit of my soul evaporates.)

Sound:
One of the better points. The openings are nice and energetic, the endings are calming (though not sure how fitting they are for this kind of presentation). The Evolution song is one that I really like. It's the perfect song to just shout loud. I love it. The other OST is not bad, but I can't hum any of it after watching the whole series. It's just there. Sometimes I remember it fitting the atmosphere, but most of the time I can't recall any of it. The voice acting cast is good enough, though Yoshino's voice actress sounds extremely uninterested half the time.

Enjoyment:
Poor. I enjoyed how they showed us the characters in the first couple of episodes and I remember thinking "Huh, this is vastly different from before, but so far I like it! I wonder how they'll make them likeable or what story will go around them!"
If you've read this far, you already know the answer to those questions.

Overall:
I did not enjoy Digimon Savers. It was a copy-paste of the first volume of any shounen manga story about school gang-fighting and how that's honorable. Add some Digimon and that's it. The characters don't change, which was one of the cornerstones of the previous four Digimon series. The story is by the numbers and even like this, it's taken bloody seriously. Last but not least, the show treats the viewers like morons.

I can't find a single reason to watch this anime over basically any other shounen of similar length or indeed any Digimon series that aired before it. If you honestly enjoyed it or can take the piss out of it, I'm happy for you. Sadly I couldn't.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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