Wednesday 25 February 2015

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Adventures 02: "Why can't we send in the competent ones?"


Ah Zero Two. One of the most debatable seasons of the series out there. Both praised and hated by many. But as with Adventure, how well does it hold up now? Four new Digi-destined, new Digivolution (mechanics?) and more, Time to review Digimon Adventure 02.


Sadly, the plot is pretty much exactly the same, just the villains change. For the first half of the series, the villain is Ken Ichijouji, yes, a human is the villain... he'd later be a member of the Digi Destined... but let it be for now. Using Spires and glorified collars, Ken is trying to take over the Digital World (insert M Byson here) because of a troubled past (more on that later). The second half people often link as two arcs, but I prefer to link the two together as there's no villain change, just more info on the chain of command. At the end, spoilers, its a reincarnated Myotismon, who is still trying to take over both the Digital World and the Real World.

"Why can't we send in the competent ones?" isn't just a gag, four years later, the place, meaning that the original eight Digi destined are in the series. While two of the originals are still main group (T.K and Kairi), none of the new Digi Destined are characters I'm invested in. Davis is an idiot, Yolei's no better (but I find more bearable then Davis), Cody is the stereotypical wise character, but I struggle to take anything he says seriously, unlike Izzy and Joe. I should mention that Davis, Yolei and Cody can be considered the fusions of two of the former Digi destined. Davis being the fusion of Tai and Matt... without any of the positives from them, Yolei the fusion of Sora and Mimi and Cody being the fusion of Izzy and Joe. On the surface, that's fine, but it comes off as a lazy retread. I'd rather have new characters go through these events because WE ALREADY HAVE THE COMPETENT ONES IN THIS SEASON!!! T.K and Kairi are exactly the same as they were in Adventure for the most part, which is fine when they were in Adventure, they were young kids after all, but in 02, they're in Middle school, they've aged. While T.K has a bit of a temper every now and then, both of them are still portrayed as the "we can do no wrong" character, which isn't entertaining for a combination of 100 episodes and four movies. The only character that is actually a character is Ken, but for someone like me, the troubled past character trope is over used and at times boring if its the main personality. The Digimon partners are in the same boat, none of these characters are interesting.
"I found you, Faker"

Before I get swamped with hate, yes, I know the Digi Eggs exist, yes I know that's how the first arc handles Digivolution. But I direct you to this: http://wikimon.net/Digimental_Evolution_Chart. This is a chart with all the Digimon that can use any of the Armour Eggs, and as you can see, all but Agumon of the original Digi Destined's Digimon can use them. Now that being said, am I glad they aren't in the show often? Yes, as it gives time for the new characters to develop, but that doesn't excuse the fact that these new characters are almost carbon copies of the originals, they even point that out in the Movie when referring to Davis.

The only difference between Adventure and 02 in terms of artstyle and soundtrack is the soundtrack... and by that I mean the battle song. If you liked Digimon Adventure, there's a chance you're going to like 02, but even with the enjoyment of Adventure, then you may hat this as well. The same can be said of you don't have Adventure. But the problem is the story, you need to know Adventure before you go into this, you also need to know of something else to make sense of a plot point. But that comes Friday. Up next in the Digimon Marathon: the infamous Digimon: The Movie.
So who wants to wager that the team working on the new season, using the Adventure cast forgets about this? The team behind the PSP game forgot about the third movie, so...

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