Digimon Xros Wars

The Digital World is in a state of war, with the evil Bagra Army attempting to collect fragments of the Code Crown. Whoever manages to collect all 108 fragments will become king of the Digital World. An evil group of Digimon, known as the Bagra Army, are determined to get their hands on the Code Crown.

Digimon Xros Wars features Taiki Kudou, a soccer-loving middle schooler who will always go out of his way to help people in need. When out with his friends Akari Hinomoto and Zenjirou Tsurugi one day, he hears a voice calling out for help. Investigating the situation, he meets a Digimon named Shoutmon who has been severely wounded in a nearby alley. Using the power of a strange device called a Xros Loader, Taiki manages to save Shoutmon's life, but is pulled into the Digital World alongside Akari and Zenjirou.

Determined not to let the evil Bagra have their way, Taiki and his friends join with Shoutmon and other local Digimon to form their own army known as Xros Heart. Now Xros Heart must fight their way across the Digital World to collect Code Crown fragments and defeat the Bagra Army, but Taiki and his friends are not the only humans caught up in this war of monsters…

Kudou, Taiki Main

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Shoutmon Main

Sakamoto, Chika Japanese

Amano, Nene Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Aonuma, Kiriha Main

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Hinomoto, Akari Main

Shiraishi, Ryouko Japanese

Tsurugi, Zenjirou Main

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Beelzebumon Supporting

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Omegamon Supporting

Shimada, Bin Japanese

Etemon Supporting

Angemon Supporting

Kobayashi, Michitaka Japanese

Sakurada, Hiroyuki Producer

Kakudou, Hiroyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Endou, Tetsuya Episode Director, Series Production Director

Nakamura, Ryouta Episode Director

Reviews

Apr 3, 2011

Nyron

Recommended

Digimon Cross Wars is done.
Well actually it isn't, this shitty website split it up into two entries, but whatever. For now I'm going to review the first part of the series.

Cross Wars is the best non-Mazinkaiser SKL mecha series that Japan's made since Gurren Lagann. The title says it's Digimon, but really it's something entirely different that is neither better or worse than what all the cool kids enjoyed so many years ago. It carries over Adventure 01/02's themes of our childhood monster fighting fantasy quests, but adds a twist of righteousness and giant combining robots that only Japan is capable of delivering properly. ... I've followed this show for 30 weeks straight, longer than I've followed any other subbed anime, and I have no regrets.

Story:

One day a goggle-headed hero kid with all the righteousness of every 60's superhero comes across a dying virtual red dinosaur named Shoutmon. He and his stupid friend and female friend are then transported to the shambled Digital World and are commanded to save the place from a bunch of tyrannical dicks called the Bugra Army. And so they do. Goggle kid and his friends form their own badass army called Xros Heart and travel through the many different parts of the Digiworld gathering allies, beating other armies, getting into rivalries with other humans and their respective forces and etc all to see who will take control of all of the dimension's various zones and reformat the place into something that's not a hellhole.

The story flows via series of miniature 1-3 episode arcs taking place in various zones of the Digiworld. It's a nice thing to watch every week, these kids going on their adventures and shit fighting evil. New-age nostalgia, I love it. It also adheres the oldschool super robot rules of new combinations, weapons and power-ups on a regular basis, but that comes hand in hand with the episode structure of the show anyways.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT is that only the main character has a Digivice, and not his two friends. Also, there is no Digivolving/Levels, only combining. It's really not a big deal though.

Characters:

TAIKI: He's a kid with poofy brown hair named Tai and has goggles. He fights for the right, but still has no qualms about ruining the shit of most enemies.
AKARI and ZENJIRO: Taiki's girlfriend and his self-proclaimed rival who mans the goggles while's he's indisposed of.
SHOUTMON: He's like Bloo from Foster's Home, but with the dream of ruling the Digiworld like a pimp.
NENE: The myterious awesome girl who also has a digivice and her own army of dudes.
KIRIHA: The mysterious powerhungry kid who kicks ass but doesn't care enough to take names. He has a Greymon and fights against(and sometimes with?!) our heroes on a regular basis. Cool rival bro.

TACTIMON: Bugra Army's CO. Means serious business and looks radical.
BLASTMON: Thier other CO. This guy's awesome. He's a huge crystal dude who eats jewels and shits failure. He has a majestic voice.
LILITHMON: Bugra army's other other CO. She's conniving and kind of a bitch and has big boobs.

Presentation:

The animation is okay. Except when it's either really bad or really awesome. It wholly depends on the episode/scene. Usually when the most awesome shit's going down you get some Gainax-quality beams and transformations, but if the characters are just sort of trotting around, eh. It's still presentable.

The style bugged me at first. The series is back to using designs that are reminiscent of the first four seasons, as opposed to the crap they used in Saves/Data Squad, and that's really awesome. However, I nitpicked the setting a lot because it's a lot less abstract than I want it. The Digiworld is season 1 was a freaking bizarre place, full of weird scenery that didn't make sense. And that was cool. This series' settings are just sort of okay and more standard fantasy-styled. But that's just me.

The music's some of the best ever. It's like GaoGaiGar or some shit, where everything important has its own passionate theme by some guy who's almost Masaki Endo full of lyrics about combining robots, blazing souls and never giving up. I love that.

In closing:

DO YOU LIKE DIGIMON?
[Y] Watch this

DO YOU LIKE DIGIMON TO THE POINT WHERE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE METASERIES UP UNTIL THIS POINT?
[Y] Watch this, but don't come into thinking it's a Digimon show. Your favorite Mega-level Dark Master will be used a a villain of the week and there's nothing you can do about it.

DO YOU LIKE GURREN LAGANN OR GAOGAIGAR OR GETTER?
[Y] Watch this


DO YOU LIKE GUNDAM?
[Y] Watch this, but expect nothing actually like Gundam (unless it's G Gundam, the good one)

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 12, 2012

Firechick12012

Mixed Feelings

(This review applies to both this season and Death Generals)

Ah, Digimon. That name rings a lot of bells for people of the late 90's and early 2000's. What comes to mind? A group of kids who pair up with monsters who digivolve and save two worlds from a great evil. Sure it had it's cliche moments, but it really showed kids that anime was unlike anything that the American cartoons showed. For the most part, Digimon was daring, it took a lot of risks, and did a lot of things other shows wouldn't even dare to do, while still staying true to what it was: ... a great adventure featuring kids and their struggles. I'm definitely a Digimon fan as of right now, and I still remember seeing episodes when I was little. Unfortunately...I feel terrible for saying this, but I have to say it: as of now, Digimon has really fallen from grace. Things started to go a little off track with Digimon Savers (I really liked it), but things REALLY went awry with this new series, Digimon Xros Wars (I'll review Hunters separately).

Now where do I begin? Well, for starters, the animation...is kinda funky. One scene, it'll be really crisp and smooth, but other times it'll look like paint and gum arabic got mushed together weirdly. The animation's not the most consistent. Sorry, but Digimon Tamers looked a lot better than this in terms of the animation department, though even that had its errors. The music...by God, why does the OST have to be soooooo GOOD?! I really liked the background music for this, even though I have to admit most of the time it's rather generic. Not only that, most of the insert songs are great. I especially liked We Are Xros Heart and the terrible underused X4B The Guardian. Seriously, that song is BOSS!!! But one thing that really bugs me is that there's no ending theme! Yes, there are opening themes, but no ending themes. Just these dumb segments at the end which I never bothered to watch, and I have to admit, I feel this series uses too many insert songs in one episode. I just feel they were a bit too overused. Seriously, why did the creators use all of their budget on their insert songs and not use it to make an ending theme?! Come on! You can do better than this!

The characters...eh. Typical. You've got the kind but brash and happy-go-lucky gogglehead, the angsty lone wolf who hates everybody, the mysterious beauty, and two of the most useless and bland characters in the entire show, Akari and Zenjirou. Seriously, these two do absolutely nothing to make themselves engaging, nor do they even once contribute to the story (well, until the end, of course, but that's another thing entirely!). All they're used for is comic relief, and not the good kind! Watch the Jungle Zone episodes and you'll see what I mean. I don't like Kiriha, the lone wolf character. His angst is just really stupid and way too Kaiba-ish. I have to admit, I really liked Taiki. I don't understand why people say he's a Mary-Sue. A Mary-Sue is a character used in fan fiction who is perfect and lacks any flaws, and are mostly created as a wish fulfillment fantasy for fan fic writers. Taiki may be kind of bland, but he's far from a Mary Sue. He has flaws. For example, in the beginning he was rather brash and dove into situations without thinking, and he pushes himself too hard. Doesn't that count? As for the Digimon...yeah, they were bland. Shoutmon...I really don't like him. He's like a tiny robot dragon version of Naruto, always yelling and boasting about something constantly. Stereotypical power-hungry villains are stereotypical power-hungry villains. That, and Lilithmon is basically big floppy boobed fan service. WHY DID THEY PUT THAT IN A KID'S SHOW?!?

Basically, Digimon Xros Wars is still your formulaic kids show with lots of adventures and everything else. HOWEVER! I will give it credit for bringing back a lot of my favorite Digimon. In fact, there is ONE two-episode arc in this series, yes, ONE TWO EPISODE ARC that branded itself into my heart like no other. It's the NeoVamdemon arc. Why? Not only does it feature my favorite Digimon of all time (and with awesomely cute voices too), it has some of the saddest and most heartwrenching scenes in not just this anime, but all anime in general. I cried at it! This is why I started watching Xros Wars, because I wanted to see those two episodes and those two alone! They have a near perfect mixture of comedy, drama, suspense, and bombast. To me, those two episodes were just perfect. I love them!

Unfortunately...I still have to be a critic and rank this series VERY low...and I do so for a rather silly reason. Have you noticed that Toei has this REALLY WEIRD habit of giving the weirdest voice actors the weirdest roles? Something like that often happens, and it often leads to some really bad miscasts. With Toei, that's happened. A LOT. For example: take the seiyuu Tomokazu Seki. He's a famous voice actor in the anime industry, known for his role as Kyo Sohma from Fruits Basket and Shuichi Shindou from Gravitation. Get this: he was cast as a cute little animal mascot in the very first Pretty Cure series! Yes, a GUY as a cute little animal mascot!! I heard this role myself and...oh God, I hated it so much. Yes, I know it's been done before. Nyanko-sensei from Natsume Yuujinchou is an example, but that was done right! Why do I bring up this issue? Well...after seeing episodes 15-17 of this series, Toei has officially made me lose my respect for them. I do give them credit for bringing back one of my favorite Digimon and giving him a cuter design...but the voice. OH MOTHER OF GOD, THAT VOICE!!! WHY TOEI?!? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CAST AGUMON FROM DIGIMON SAVERS AS A FREAKING GOD WHO LOOKS LIKE A LITTLE KID?!?!?!? I will seriously NEVER forgive them for this utterly disgusting and insidious miscast!!! This particular character should sound like a little kid, NOT Shun from Kimi to Boku! Yes, his voice fits when he goes into his adult form, and personally, I would have tolerated it better if the voice was JUST for his adult forms, not his kid forms! But NOOOOO!!! Why Toei?! WHYYYYYY?!? I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!! He sounds so awful because of it!!!

So...Digimon Xros Wars has a plot that's generic as heck and...that's it in a nutshell. But don't even try going near Hunters, it's sequel. That's EVEN WORSE!!!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 18, 2013

Were_Vampire

Not Recommended

This is my 6th Digimon review, and the hardest one to write: I always try to be as objective as possible, but there is always a bit of taste and personal like in every single review, not just mine but everyone's; still, I like to think that at every time I re-watch a Digimon series (or in this case, to finish something I dropped) I do it with an observant eye, trying to see everything good in it, what works and what doesn't work, and Digimon Xross Wars had a handful of things that worked on early going, the first episodes showed potential and were ... enjoyable, but sadly the following episodes were just so badly executed that it's hard for me not to insult this series. The thing is, after Savers aimed to a teen and young adult audience this series was meant to aim to young children again, so it couldn't be as dark, I understand that, but I'm just really annoyed by how shallow they meant to make this. Digimon Adventure aimed to children as well, and still managed to be mature, as Tamers did too, but this one just fails or it doesn’t even try: of all the Digimon series this is the one that had the worst character treatment, and somehow it managed to be successful enough to get 78 episodes, making it the longest Digimon series. I don’t understand it (seriously, I don’t), but somehow this show managed to forge a strong fanbase, and that’s ok, if you like it then good for you, I sure wish I could have liked it, but the thing is I couldn’t, mostly because it just didn’t embrace the potential it showed on early going.
This review only goes through the first 30 episodes (I still have to make up my mind to watch the following 2 parts) and now we'll see why I think this serie fails so much:

Story wise: I don't have much to complain here, the story is no masterpiece but it's not awful. Kudo Taiki, a 7th grade boy, is transported to the digital world with his friends Akari and Zenjiro where they are involved in the middle of a territorial war among many armies to win code crowns (a kind of crest which allows you to travel to the zone you conquered). Now that's a really strong premise for a Digimon series and a lot could be done here, but the focus is really into making this a good v/s bad kind of series, in which our team Xross Hearts (Taiki, Akari, Zenjiro and the digimon) are the good guys and the rest are usually just outright bad guys with no background, actual reasons other than being bad guys, and the worst of all, they are not even compelling. It's flawed with clichés and there's no sense of danger whatsoever as at the end of almost every single episode Taki find out a solution and everyone ends up smiling; that also gives the series a sense of being procedural, each episode being "the zone of the week" with just a little bit of story plot going on in the background. That's one of the things that hurt Xross the most. In the early first 9 episodes (the strongest of this show) we get little by little the dynamic of the series: it has elements from all the previous series: we have a protagonist that looks like Taichi from Adventure, we have digimons going through fusion (xross) like in Adventure 02, a support system like in Tamers (the digi memories), a territorial conflict like in Frontier and human facing digimon head on like in Savers (Zenjiro and his sword); with all that one can’t help but feel excited, I thought that Xross could make use of all these things and create a series out of the best of each Digimon series. I was dead wrong. Aside from the already mentioned flaw on the focus and aproach of the series in the good vs bad, the more episodic nature and the lack of good villians, Xross also fails when it tries to connect the peripheral storylines with the main war, resulting on just forced connections to move the plot along. But the worst of all its flaws is not the story, it is the characters.

Characters:
Kudo Taiki: No character has been as flat and shallow in a Digimon series as this one, and even when they tried to give him some more deepness it just fell flat. His main trouble is that he doesn't need to grow, he doesn't need to evolve, because he is already kind a perfect, in a bad way. He is the definition of Gary Stu, a character who has no real flaw and the story revolved around him. He is considerate, a bit smart, a good friend, never gives up, he believes in the best of people, he's just so perfect that it is annoying. And why that is? Because he stays the same, he never gets developed, and we grow bored of it: he is like a broken record that keeps playing. You can't have a character (even worse, the lead character) that won't grow up as the series continues, this is just frustrating, the events of the series are supposed to change him, but he stays the same, no matter the situation. Character development is nothing but a joke here, and with no character development, it doesn't matter if the story plot is brilliant (which is not) the series just will feel shallow.
Akari: She's a little better than Taiki, but just because no one can be as flat and shallow as he is. This character is annoying, and she doesn't add anything to the group aside her usual yelling and be a burden to everybody else. She has no xross loader (this season's digivice), no abilities to support the team, she really has nothing... she is just the friend who tag along, complains about everything and gets nothing done. Seriously, what were the writers thinking involving her in this series? Even her character development is weak at best.
Zenjiro: probably the best of the human characters. He is a comic relief and usually he adds nothing more than that. Sure, sometimes he fights with a sword and helps out, but he is mostly there to joke, and that makes him the one who bothers the less, but there's no background nor real conflict, so he is just one dimensional.
Shoutmon: I usually group the digimon in just one section, but Shoutmon deserves to be on his own because he might be the ONLY character that could make this series worth watching. Bad attitude, hot headed, a bit arrogant and funny, while portraying some interesting behavior. He gets easily irritated and likes doing things his way, but he's also a good friend. He has many traits that make him feel like a more fleshed out character even when we don't get to know much of his background. It seems as he was the only one thought through.
Kiriha and Nene get more developed through the second part (from episode 31 to 54) so it feels unfair to talk about them here, so I'll be brief: both add almost nothing to the series; they both have xross loaders and they have their own teams in their race to get the code crowns, but none of them are more than one dimensional in this first part. Kiriha is the apparently bad guy, but who is not so bad in deep down and Nene is... well, she is just looking for her brother. Make of that what you wish.

Sound: Luckily the soundtracks are usually great. The opening theme is catchy, the soundtrack lands almost perfectly with each scene, but sometimes they feel a little bit over the top. However it must have been the part that I enjoyed the most of this series.

Enjoyment: The first time I watched I endured 20 episodes before dropping it. Now, a few years later, I came back, trying my best to take it on with good will and I almost couldn't stand it. It rarely drew a smile out of me, it mostly felt like I was watching something meaningless, because it never really changed, it never really used its potential.

So far I've seen some positive reviews of this series, but most of them just cover up until episode 9, where there was still hope for this show to become better. When it started it seemed as this show could add some conflict to Taiki, give some importance to Akari and Zenjiro, develop a deep (yet lightly delivered) tone to what happens in the story plot and have the villains flesh out and become compelling. I wish that was the way it turned out, but that didn't happen.
Digimon Xross Wars started trying to take all the elements from previous Digimon series and thus it had the potential to take the best of them and becoming a great, memorable Digimon series; instead, it took the worst habits of each series, created a lot of shallow characters that couldn't exploit the potential of the story plot and utterly destroyed the quality that most Digimon series had. And that just makes me sad.
Stray observations:
-Episode 2: Taik to Shoutmon: “If you want to become king then do that yourself”. Shoutmon: “I need to become one to help my friends.” Taiki: “I’ll help you!”. Well, that escalated pretty quickly.
-I don’t remember which episode, but Shoutmon once said: “I think I’m starting to fall for you Taiki!” Disturbing.
-There was an attempt to make Taiki a deeper character in episode 10: We see a flashback in which he refused to help a fellow kid and the kid died. It was dark and it gave some good and necessary context to Taiki’s trait to help others. Sadly, in the next scene everybody just laughed out of Taiki being traumatized as it was some kind of joke.
-Baalmon was another Digimon that had good fleshed out personality and good background, but as soon as he evolved into Beelzebumon and joined Taiki’s party he just had one function: to xross with Shoutmon. What a waste of a good character.
-It takes 22 episodes to finally get to know the relation between the digital world and the human world. This might have been the only interesting fact delivered in the whole show.


And that's it for now. I really don't know if I can stand the next 2 parts of Digimon Xross Wars, so this might as well be my last review. If so, thank you so much for reading them, many people have commented about them and said that they were "spot on" which really makes me happy and encouraged me to re-watch them all again, and that was really a wonderful experience.
If I do come back, this might be the headline for the next one:
Next time: Digimon Xross Wars tries to convinces us it had matured, but destroys any good will with an excessive amount of Deus Ex Machina and the same annoying Kudo Taiki

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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