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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.