Digimon Tamers

Ten-year-old Takato Matsuda loves playing the Digimon card game with his friends and immersing himself in its imaginative world. One morning, he finds an unfamiliar blue card in his collection and swipes it through his card reader. Little does he know, his decision leads to its transformation into a D-Ark Digivice. When the mysterious device scans his designs for an original Digimon named Guilmon, it generates a Digi-Egg that later hatches into a living version of his own creation!

Although Takato is thrilled to have a real Digimon, his idealized fantasy shatters when he realizes that his rambunctious new companion requires constant supervision. Adding to his troubles, Guilmon is targeted by Ruki Makino, a rival tamer who commands her partner, Renamon, to gain power by defeating other Digimon and absorbing their data. Luckily, Takato finds allies in his schoolmate Li Jianliang and his sassy Digimon partner Terriermon to help him on his journey as a real-life tamer.

With sinister foes appearing at an alarming rate, Takato must strengthen his bond with Guilmon to protect both the human world and the Digital World.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Impmon Main

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Makino, Ruki Main

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Terriermon Main

Tada, Aoi Japanese

Guilmon Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Renamon Main

Imai, Yuka Japanese

Matsuda, Takato Main

Tsumura, Makoto Japanese

Li, Jianliang Main

Yamaguchi, Mayumi Japanese

Culumon Main

Kaneda, Tomoko Japanese

Katou, Juri Supporting

Asada, Youko Japanese

Leomon Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Seki, Hiromi Producer

Kaizawa, Yukio Director

Kakudou, Hiroyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Imamura, Takahiro Episode Director

Reviews

Apr 2, 2010

Rotom

Recommended

I liked the first two seasons of Digimon as a kid, they were the only ones they aired here in Finland. After some years I matured and began looking down on them.

Let's face it, the idea that ENIAC, the world's second computer, was capable of twisting space-time and created parallel dimension where computer data took physical form and gained sentience on its own, and then interacted with human kids' emotions to reconfigure the data to combat monsters, was quite silly, and the show mostly served only commercial purposes. (This creation of the Digital World is explained in the Wonder Swan games relating to Digimon ... Adventure 02.) The plot of the first season also was quite nonexistent, fighting one big bad with world-domination fantasies after another.

Then, after many years they decided to air Digimon Tamers in the kids' weekday morning program slot. I hadn't seen it back on the good old years because I didn't know Japanese, didn't want to watch English dub and subs were not available, which was quite surprising, considering Digimon is, or once was, very popular franchise around the world. I started to watch it mostly for nostalgy. Digimon Tamers however turned out to be much more actual cyberpunk than kids' show.

Digimon Tamers' plot is built upon the concept of unintentionally created artificial intelligence. It is, too, a bit strange idea, especially given that it's creation is timed in 1984. But then again, Digimon Tamers officially is stated to take place in different universe, so we can assume some technology had advanced asynchronously. Or perhaps the same quantum phenomena that affected the creation of the Digital World played a role here. Anyway, the backstory is not fully explained in the show, there's a novel called Digimon Tamers 1984 which would be a good companion to watching it, but it hasn't been translated either to my knowledge.

Tamers is loyal to the original ideas of Digimon however, and the fact they made them believable, even if eccentric, is one of the things that make it so good. The childrens' ability to interact with the Digimon in unique ways and the fact the main character actually CREATES his own Digimon are justified with the concept of DigiGnomes - programs that were originally intended as a part of a children's toy, designed by a group of programmer students at University of Palo Alto in the 80's, until the project was cancelled.

The art of the physical world is decent, but when we get to the Digital World it's amazing, acidic. We have packets of garbage data running around deserts in coils, our physical world's information networks manifested in the sky as a huge shining globe with greatest data streams arranging around it like debris rings of a planet, and all your classical Digimon weirdness - mansions inside glass bubbles underwater and completely monochromatic old-skool town etc. The CGI and normal animation in this show are in perfect balance. Some evolution scenes (basically those from adult stage to perfect stage) aren't very cool, they could be much better, and that's about the only actual complaint.

I've always considered all incarnations of Digimon to have excellent soundtracks, and Tamers is not an exception. The second ending theme 'Days ~aijou to nichijou~' is so sweet and dreamy I have on many mornings after not sleeping the night (like was the case at the time when Tamers aired here on kids' mornings) listened to it on loop about ten times and got a really good feeling. After that it temporarily loses it's charm, but on the next morning it's restored. The opening 'The Biggest Dreamer' is really groovy too. Tamers has more futuristic and/or digital sounding BGM's than the other seasons, fitting it's themes and atmosphere perfectly. The first evolution sequence music, 'Evo' is probably the coolest Digimon evolution music ever, but the others send chills to the spine too. Try listening those in Youtube even if you don't plan to watch the series.

Characters are better developed than in any other Digimon incarnation, and some have relatively dark backgrounds. Our main hero is way far from typical shounen hothead with big ego and exaggerated goals and bad manners. He's what you'd call an artistic soul, and his development into a sort of knight on a white (though it's really red here...) horse is interesting. The Digimon also have distinquishable personalities that aren't paired with their owners' personalities in any typical - balancing opposites nor overly similar - fashion. We have serious adventuring group drama here where half of the 'people' just happen to be artificial intelligences gained physical creature-ish manifestation via quantum physics.

Also, the Digimon aren't initially friends by default. Wouldn't you be surprised, confused if you just happened to encounter a talking battling mutating video game creature? Their slowly developing bonds are quite serious. And we get to explore the differences and similarities of humans and Digimon. At the beginning, most Digimon are guided by their basic instinct to battle, absorb the opponents data, convert it into utilizable form for self, and evolve, bestowed upon them by humans themselves. Neither is there any over-the-top world-saving premise - the characters become involved with it through pure chance, bit by bit, through their own choices.

Our main villain is, unlike the Digimon, an emotionless program. Originally created to keep the numbers of copies of data files in given limits, in order to prevent viruses from spreading themselves that way and collapsing the budding 80's Internet, he has now gained physical form too, and become what you could call an 'eco-fascist', calmly launching plans to reduce the numbers of humans after calculating there're too many of them for the planet to withstand. This is an interesting, thought-provoking concept really.

We don't have big bad guys who are bad just for the sake of it here. Sans the few rogue monsters in the beginning that serve only as ways to initiate character conflict, every villain has understandable motives for whatever they do, and most turn out good after some serious misunderstandings and political or religious differences crossing the border of two different worlds have been cleared. The question whether or not we are gods and masters of our creations is also explored in many episodes - even if our creations believe in gods completely of their own.

And the final battle is on par with Gurren Lagann's. No, I'm not kidding. They have many things in common in fact, as one Digimon's final form is like giant green dog-faced mecha, and both involve quantum physics you actually have to think a bit for them to make sense.

Overall, it's weird, trippy, cool and enjoyable to both children and adult science fiction fans. Not everyone is going to like it of course, mostly probably because it has lots of monster battles, the beginning is slow, and because some things of the backstory are left a bit obscure. Also some have called it Evangelion's child, which in turn has pissed off some fans of Evangelion, which I think is completely justified - indeed it doesn't go to same depths over same subjects. Some have called it a bad Evangelion-wannabe, but I don't think they have much in common. Both are good though, so let's not start an argument over this one.

If you watch Tamers expecting it to be like Evangelion, you're going to be disappointed and probably hate it. So don't do that. Tamers is worth liking it. It doesn't try to be a ripoff of ANYTHING, it's honestly completely its own kind of work.

There simply isn't anything like Digimon Tamers out there.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 25, 2009

Suedomase

Mixed Feelings

Well, being as there are nothing but pro digimon tamer reviews, I figure an alternate view point is in order.

First off, I like the original digimon. It was simple, but fun. Lot's of cool creatures, fun characters, cool battles. It delivered what it offered. I also hated the 2nd series, (notably more then tamers), i found it boring, repetitive, stale, no form of character development outside 1, and set ups for multiple things that were never explored, just an over all disappointment.

Now, on to the topic at hand, Digimon Tamers. I've read nothing but reviews stating how amazing the plot was, so I'll start ... there. The plot was, stupid. Basically my main issue with this anime is, it tried to be something it's not. Anyone even suggesting this is in any way similar to evangelion should have their head examined. Basically, some of the names of things used seem remotely similar to some in eva... that's about the extent to the similarities. Evangelion was something called, a good anime. It had a well constructed plot and dealt with deep psychological and philosophical issues. I'm sorry but I don’t consider anything these character went through, deep. The only one who really develops at all is Ruki, and she does it so suddenly that you wonder how the heck she could ever have acted like she did to begin with. Basically, digimon tamers pretends it's evangelion, when in fact, its digimon. The original digimon was good, because it was simple, it didn't try to be more then it was. What happens when you try to pretend your something that your not, is not only does it add a pool of uselessness to the show, but it degrades what made it good in the first place.

Digimon Tamers reminds me of a spork. Basically, a fork that wants to pretend its a spoon. Lets look at a spoon for a moment. Spoons are very useful inventions, they allow us to scoop and hold liquids for consumption. Now let me ask you, have you ever tried eating soup with a spork? Let's just put it this way... IT DOESN'T WORK. It's like trying to eat soup with a spoon, that has 2 massive holes in it!!!!. I know, now your saying, "Ok, so the spork doesn't make a good spoon, so what? It's still cool!". No, no it isn't. See, in changing the shape of what was once a great utensil for stabbing/holding food, it now has an awkward shape that greatly hinders its ability to do even that! So lets sum this up. A fork is better then a spork, a spoon is also better then a spork. Tell me again, why we have sporks?

Digimon Tamers, is a spork.

That is all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 3, 2017

Avgasblomman

Not Recommended

Basically, Digimon Tamers is a good show trapped within a horrible show.

The Good: The characters are quite well-realized and their growth is interesting, especially Ruki and the ties between her character arc and Renamon's powerset. Impmon was surprisingly engaging as well, and I enjoyed tracking the subtle development Culumon underwent.

Beyond that most characters, except the one-off monster-of-the-week baddies were fairly likeable; the adults were surprisingly well individualized and the side-kicks did not feel like they were wasting my time that often.

The overall themes present are ones I sympathize with, and they were explored with some nuance.

The general art direction was hit or miss; I liked ... the backgrounds, but the digimon designs range from pretty good to awfully overdesigned.

The bad: The problems with the show come down mostly to the technical stuff. The transformation sequences were too frequent and too lengthy, the animation quality in general was incredibly poor.

Beyond things like repeated transformation sequences, there were quite a few times when the show seemed to be wasting time; fights were padded and several episodes seemed like they weren't contributing to the plot in any significant way.

A lesser complaint, but the sound design was generally poor when it came to all the different growls and grunts the mons made- they very much sound like someone making an impression of something.

So, all in all, the show has many good things in it, but so much of it is wasted by poor choices in production that I could never really enjoy it; I watched it because I was interested in it, but with very few exceptions it was with the feeling that I "just want to be done with this".

If you have patience for the issues with presentation there is a lot to like, but otherwise I would recommend you to stay away.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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