Digimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Hunter-tachi

What the fuck were they thinking when they made this?
I can't ask a more direct question than that.

Digimon Hunters is very easily the worst Digimon series, it's pretty much bile. It succeeds in nothing but destroying amazing potential, wasting a good cast of characters, tarnishing a franchise and having a catchy opening song. Never again will I ever be so excited for a series only to end up this disappointed. Let me walk you through this so you don't have to:

Digimon Hunters takes place a year after the ending of Xros Wars. Bugramon is dead, all the Digimon are back in their own world, and ... Taiki is back to being a baller. All of this changes when Taiki's stupid friend Tagiru gets handed a Digivice by a cryptic old man, and then bam, Tagiru now has ownership of the unruly Gumdramon and is about to face "great danger". Taiki and the newly reformed Yuu get their partners back eventually, and Shoutmon looks like goddamn Ryoma from Getter Robo. The trio run around stopping evil Digimon from kidnapping and possessing people across the city while traveling to DigiQuartz, a post-apocalyptic alternate dimension that's shrouded in mystery. Then a new trio of rival Digimon Hunters appear, and our heroes must both combat and join forces with them under the watchful eye of the old "watchmaker".

And that's the first few episodes. Digimon Hunters probably starts off better than any other series besides Adventure 01, setting up a good cast of new and returning characters, a cool setting and a great premise. After that, nothing fucking happens. All of the Xros Wars cast appears again for very short, worthless cameos, the logistics of the setting crumble as Digimon just sort of run rampant and the public doesn't care, and none of the characters get any significant development whatsoever.

Like, I don't even understand. This was the thought process I had while following this show:
Episodes 1-5: Holy god this will be the best thing since Tamers, it's Xros Wars 02, omgomg the animation, the music, omg
Episode 6-10: Haha alright, this is pretty cool. Yeah. I bet the story will kick in at episode 12 or so.
Episode 11-15: Aha, nothing's happened yet, but there's so much set up...!
Episodes 16-20: What the hell is happening in this series. Why has nothing progressed at all. Why...? Wha..? That doesn't make sense, but okay...
Episode 21-25: Alright, fuck this.

Slowly, the great premise cracks, breaks, shatters, turns to dust, and then you inhale the dust and it tears your lungs up.

Taiki and Yuu are nerfed to hell and back, and are almost never present. Most episodes are just Tagiru and Gumdramon screwing around. Shoutmon's reign as Digimon king is pretty much irrelevant. Damemon's personality is mostly gone and his relationship with Yuu is flat and lifeless.

The old man who was the impetus of the whole plot isn't present for 95% of the show.

None of the enemies in the series are intimidating in the slightest, and more often than not get beaten by the hero Digimons' lowest forms.

The whole "people getting possessed and kidnapped" plot never progresses or gets more threatening. In fact, it just becomes a trivial annoyance after a while.

Akari, Zenjiro, Nene and Kiriha are all but completely non-present. Akari and Zenjiro are foreshadowed to get their own Digivices and partners in the opening, but it doesn't happen until the very end when it doesn't even matter.

The three new main characters, who have really cool Digimon and character designs, get no development. Ever. They're never successful as villains or useful as allies, and there's no reason for them to have ever been in the show at all.

It's miserable. It's garbage. And then it ends at 25 episodes.

Oh wait, I forgot the best part, the whole overarching story to this show involves the previous 5 main characters showing up: Tai, Davis, Takato, Takuya and Masaru. It's foreshowed for literally less than 15 seconds at one point, and then completely dropped, and then they show up near the end. They just... show up. Nothing they do is explained, they're just "there". For no reason. Even though it makes absolutely not even one bit of sense at all on multiple levels. And they're gone. End of show.

There's dropping the ball, and then there's filling the ball with cement and shooting it with a cannon into your own feet. This show is the latter. Fuck it.

Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time (Digimon Xros Wars: Toki wo Kakeru Shounen Huntertachi) is continuation of second season of Digimon Xros Wars (shocker, right?) however it feels NOTHING like its predecessor. Basically, it follows second season of Xros Wars with some time skip, it introduces a few new characters and gives slight cameo to old ones (including other Digimon series). Is that just a last resort trick to bring more viewers to terrible series or just a cherry on top of amazing anime? That’s for everyone to decide on their own and, hopefully, this review will help you with it.

Story: ... 5/10
No story until about episode 22 but, instead, we get random Digimon of the week action. They are over average, thus the rating, but for anime series that always has been going for an interesting story this feels like a huge let down. Maybe they tried to aim this at younger kinds but the fact is that they lost majority of long-time Digimon fans. Every episode follows this pattern: A wild Digimon appears, brainwashes a kid to do bad things, the main gang find it out and (nearly all the time) Tagiru hunts it. That’s it. Episode over. Plot itself is exactly the same thing but with more characters.

Art: 8/10
Art looks interesting, nothing amazing but overall very good. Not many problems (animation or fluency) and character design is loyal to previous Xros Wars seasons. Although characters of the week are usually dull, there are exceptions to this.

Sound: 7/10
Nothing memorable but nothing terrible either. I had no problems with this but the fact that I can hardly recall any interesting songs from this season lets me down.

Characters: 5/10
Aside from characters of the week (which appear again only if they are hunters!) the 6 main characters are quite interesting. Tagiru, the current lead character, is seriously annoying and, for some strange reason, everyone lets him hunt all Digimon they encounter. Not to mention he seems to be interested solely in the hunt and nothing else (and becoming digiworld superstar, as stupid as it sounds). Then there’s Taiki and Yuu, both from previous seasons of Xros Wars, they didn’t change much from the end of previous season season. Last but not least we have the rival trio that have both interesting characters and design, although after first few episodes they get a slight cameo here and there. Characters from previous seasons appeared in a few episodes but they were there more for a marketing than anything else because their role in the story was nearly equal zero.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I find this season rather boring and unlike first 2 Xros Wars seasons when I could hardly wait a week for new episode, sometimes I forget to watch this (although I’m a huge Digimon fan). I really dislike the no-story setting it has and the fact that the creators force Tagiru to be the star. Everyone does nothing and watches Tagiru beat and hunt the Digimon of the week. Ratio of others hunting on screen to Tagiru is about 1 to 10. Not to mention that the plot in the last few episodes was as cliche as can get.

Overall: 5/10
This anime is no good unless you specifically love episodic anime. Even in that case it's watchable when you’re bored but hardly otherwise. I recommend it for you only if you are a hardcore Digimon fan.

This season of Digimon is so bad I am quite simply enraged.

The worst part was that the show doesn't betray it's true terrible nature until the final 3 episodes.

You can watch the first 22 episodes and find nothing too wrong with the season on a whole. It's not interesting and nothing happens, but it's not overtly painful, just boring and unimaginative.

This season continues the original Xros Wars tradition of Super Evolution and DigiXros, something I was never too big a fan of because it's different and I don't like things that are different...
I kid I kid. I may not be a fan of DigiXros ... and how it meshes with the established Digimon levels, but hey it's not my place to judge on that.

The new protagonist Tagiru takes the reigns from Taiki, in a move I suspect was meant to pay homage to the way Adventure handed the reigns off in 02. Only one problem, the show begins a trend of not understanding the most important parts of the things it tries to pay tribute to (COMPLETELY RIP OFF), and getting them completely wrong. For you see, the reigns aren't actually handed over. No. Taiki soon is back with Shoutmon, leaving Tagiru as some sort of crony.

Ever wanted a show to focus on and follow the life of a henchmen? Don't care about the established boss or superior leader? Want to see how a run of the mill day goes, but with Digimon?
What's that? You said no? You want kickass action, a topnotch protagonist and a deep engaging story?
Well then you might see why the first 23 episodes are painfully boring and banal.

The formula for episodes 1-23 go something like this:
Evil Digimon shows up and starts wreaking havoc and kidnapping humans, no one cares or makes a fuss, Tagiru bumbles around with his partner Gumdramon, they finally manage to subdue the baddie, roll credits.

Now there are 3 opposing hunters and Taiki and Yuu are there, but the show does nothing to develop their characters at all so I won't even bother describing them.

Now let's begin the PAINFUL BETRAYAL THAT IS THE LAST 3 EPISODES my lovelies...
You see, in these last three episodes, the season realizes they have no bug baddie, and need to set something up QUICK!
So what do you think they do?
What's that? You said they pulled something out of their ass?
Ooooh if only!
Nope!
They pulled something so far out of their ass, they pulled it right out of Tamers!
I could only sit there and seethe with impotentent rage as the Quartzmon plot unfolded in some parody of the masterful D-Reaper final showdown. From the digitization of the human world, to using a loved one as a power source, to so much of it but without any of what made Tamers so amazing.

Oh but it get's worse.

This season has no lovable or memorable protagonist, so guess what?
That's right they start spewing the protagonists of each season prior into the show, even taking some of the most loved characters from Adventure and Tamers and throwing them in as half minute cameos too.

To understand how bad this season is, you should just go watch the Redlettermedia reviews of the Starwars Prequels.

The way they compare the garbage that is the prequels to the original trilogy, showing how the prequels had to try and steal whatever imagery you hold dear from the originals is a fair comparison to how this show sucks in anything you might have loved about Tamers, Adventure, 02, Frontier, and Savers and tries to make you think it's as cool as those seasons.
Except by trying to rip them off it only exposes how little creativity or depth it has.

I wept a little when I finally realized what this season had done.

I don't know how they intend to salvage the franchise from something like this, because this was a horrible blow...

Digimon Xros wars: The young hunters leap through time is basically the 2nd sequel to Xros wars. It does a bit better with the digimon considering in xors wars they were all robots, there reusing old digimon and adding some new ones( most of them have a stupid design )
Story 8/10: Its pretty bad, it has no plot there pretty much like pokemon, as in there really really repetitive and they all feel the same, digimon comes abducts a person, hunters come to defeat it, they capture him, the end
But the reason i gave it a 8 is because its the ultimate fanfic fantasy for ... old fans
there gonna reunite all the leaders from the previous seasons
Masuru and Tai were seen for a minute in a episode and the others will appear soon enough
Art 7/10: Its good, but i preferred the art style in Savers
Sound 6/10: Ill say this its good but compared to the other seasons it has the worst music track yet
Character 7/10: We have
Taiki: I never understood why they made him return in this season when he wasant a good character to begin with
Shoutmon: He acts like a grumpy old man, mainly because his king.
Tagiru: Worst main character ever! Hes like Davis but double the annoyance
Gamudramon: He would be good if he didnt have ignorant idiot for a tamer
Yu: Hes probably the best out of the three, hes likable
Damemon: WHy did we need a metalsukamon, oh god why?
And we have the 3 rival hunters i dont know there names mainly because they just get about 5 minutes of screen time
There basically team rocket ver digimon. They appear to capture a digimon they fail miserably but they act like they meant to do that
These guys have potential but stupid writers decide to give more time to tagiru
Main reason for 7/10 same as for story mainly because of the old leaders
Enyoyment 7/10: Even tho the episodes are repetitive they can be good and the ultimate fanfic will guarantee enjoyment to old fans of the anime
Overall 8/10: Its good but i wont recommend it since the only way youll enjoy this season is if your an old fan looking for the ultimate crossover

The problem with this Digimon Xros Wras was that they keep with the story of the digimon of the week and then one arc in the last 4 episodes, leading no space for development for the characters (humans and digimons). Also, they destroy the concept of Chou Shinka, using one of the greatest evolutions to dealing with some low level digimons and not using much of Digi Xros (concept very well worked in the two other season). The only tthing that can save this season is the feeling of nostalgia in the final arc. In the overall, the anime is too MEH
OBS: sorry about any ... mistakes in the grammar, english isn't my mother language. Hope you enjoy

Just to be clear: Digimon fan since I was 7 years old. I'm 28 years old now and I've watched (and played) all of the Digimon media available to this point in the series. Also, since this is the last series of a trilogy, my criticism will refer to a lot of the things from the past 2 seasons.

One of my main issues with the Digimon series as a whole is the whole Goggles Kid thing is GOD. It's a concept that got old by the time Digimon 02 was released. This shows a huge amount of lack of creativity and fear of innovation. ... I mean, most Digimons were introduced in past seasons and those that are new either were created by children that watched the shows back when it was airing on japanese TV (I'm not joking) or they're old Digimon with new color schemes. Or... they're just regular stuff with eyes. It's really difficult to take this trilogy serious, starting with the fact that one of the main Digimon is a mechanical piece of poop. Literally. It would make sense if this show was trying to be a parody of the series but it's not. To prove my point, SPOILERS - there's a scene where a Digimon is made of literal food. What in the NANI were they thinking?????????

Similarly to the previous seasons, the story moves at a solid pace but the 4/5 of the series it's just random events happening. It's similar to the pace of Sailor Moon.

I felt that the animation got worse for whatever reason but the sound retained it's quality which is pretty solid.

In terms of content, I felt that they tried to copy Pokemon in the sense that you can catch whatever Digimon you can/want but you may only use one each time. If they're running out of ideas, might as well just stop doing these poor excuses of nostalgia traps.

The characters don't act as normal people would at all and that hurts the immersion aspect. Imagine 50 kids being abducted in a few days and instead of reporting it to teachers, police or any other responsible adults... they rely on other kids. I mean... what the heck????? Not only that but sometimes humans can see Digimon in the Real World and other times not, without any explanation about it. Same lack of logic and continuity in terms of memory loss after each Digimon incident.

Once again there is no balance at all between the main trio, it's always the same Goggles kid, the same Digicross routine and attack pattern. Some rare occasions we got to see new Digifusions and strategies but very rarely.

SPOILERS:
1) in final episodes, we get a treat! We get to see most of the main cast of every main Digimon series giving our current heroes a hand. Except... we don't see everyone and it's all about the same goggle boys and their Agumon or similar Digiboys. And to rub salt on the wound, Masaru which is the worst Digimon protagonist ever gets to show off not once but TWICE. Forget about seeing anybody else but the main Digiboyz in action
2) during this cameo-fest, you see an impossible scenario: Digimon Adventure heroes and Digimon 02 heroes have the same age. The show acknowledges this and states something along the lines of "Taichi is older but for right now accept that we're the same age although it's impossible... just go with it, please". Imagine a SEQUEL basically saying that it's not canon. It's impossible to take this trilogy seriously when it disregards the Digimon timeline.
3) Episode 24 - the real world fused with the Digital one and all humanity's endangered. For a very stupid reason, it's necessary for the remaining hunters to battle each other to decide which one will go 1-on-1 with the final villain. In the hellish scenario where every human could die in the next few minutes, most hunters refuse to fight because "I don't want to see my Digimon get hurt" or "I'm not strong enough, someone else do it". I'm sorry... what have you been doing for the last 20-something episodes???? Is this your first day??????? Not to mention that this trilogy has been feeding us this "friendship is strength typical shounen BS" but at the end it does a U-turn and screw team-work.
5) final fight is a joke with so many twists and turns and who cares anymore because everything leading up to that point is garbage





In conclusion, this season was the worst Digimon series I've ever watched and I'll say it again: I've watched and enjoyed everything up to this trilogy. This poor excuse of a Digimon anime gets a 5/10 from me.

okay first review let's go

first and foremost, before watching digimon hunters, i had never seen a full digimon episode before, or at least that i can recall. my friend is an active member in the digimon fandom and suggested that i watch this, and it was the season that was airing at the time so i decided to give it a shot. recently, this season of digimon ended. to say the least, i wasn't very pleased, mainly because a very good idea for a plot had gone to waste. before you go on i'll give a mild spoiler warning -- i'm not sure if i'll ... actually include any but i'll try not to. additionally, it's late, and my memories are kind of vague, and i did not watch most filler, so i apologize for any missing or incorrect details.

STORY
the plot idea was pretty good. i liked it a lot, and as i said before i was very sad to see it just sort of get thrown in the trash like it did.
it definitely is a proper sequel of sorts -- you have a new goggle boy, tagiru, who is soon introduced to digiquartz, which he can access by time shifting, which is only possible because of his xros loader. his partner is gumdramon. you also have the goggle boy from the original xros wars, taiki, and another original xros wars member, yuu. together, tagiru, taiki and yuu explore digiquartz.
at first it starts off sort of slow; the viewer is mainly just watching filler, with some plot development every few episodes. it definitely starts to pick up at some point, but some of it is kind of confusing; it only really starts getting interesting when the old clock maker gathers all the hunters to defeat and capture a powerful, destructive digimon.
it calms down a little after that, but then picks up again, but then it actually became very rushed, ESPECIALLY during the final two episodes. i feel like the entire thing was just sort of an excuse to try and gather all the leaders together, maybe make some fans scream (i am one of those fans; i sounded like i was getting murdered) -- i don't want to call it a bad fanfiction, but it might as well have been that. if you want nostalgia, then go for this series, but if you're new to digimon, definitely do not watch this as your first season like i did.
as for the art and music: the art is pretty okay, quite a few derpy shots in the background if you're paying attention to the right episodes (which aren't exactly a flaw; anime wouldn't as be good without those). the opening is one of my favourites out of all of the seasons i've watched as of now, definitely one of my favourite anime opening songs in general. the rest of the OST is also very enjoyable.
overall 4/10 for story.

CHARACTER
okay... this was one of my biggest problems with hunters.
i feel like taiki, yuu and... everyone, pretty much, except for, like, tagiru, gumdramon, and ryouma, were there just to look pretty. -especially- ren.
pretty much no one in the entire show got any character development. tagiru and gumdramon had some good development; their partnership got its own episode, which i was very pleased with. respectively, tagiru and gumdramon in themselves were very enjoyable -- while they didn't receive the most development ever, i still liked them a lot.
ryouma was also a very interesting and enjoyable character despite being shrouded in mystery for a good portion of the show, though again, he didn't have the most development. i was very disappointed when astamon only really even played a role in the final two episodes, and even more disappointed by the fact that ren hardly served a purpose. he was such a good character, but he basically got one or two episodes, then was trashed immediately.
many of the characters seemed useless because of their significant lack of development, and in fact, they pretty much were. what kind of upsets me a little bit is that they gave them all very interesting personalities but hardly did anything with their actual character.
overall 3/10 for character.

so overall, i give digimon hunters a 4/10.
if you're currently watching digimon (all the seasons, like i am): i would make this one of your last priorities.
also, a note: you do NOT have to watch xros wars at all to get a good grasp of what's going on. it isn't like adventure 02 in which certain things make more sense if you watch 01 first.

This series is pretty much like Digimon Adventure 02. It's a sequel with a time skip where the previous protagonists are older, and introduces newer and younger main characters. The story is pretty simple. It appears to be Pokemon-like "gotta catch 'em all," but of course with a bit of twist in the last couple episodes. The evolution system has been reworked with limitations, thus creates interesting combos when the characters are sharing their digimons so they can digi-cross effectively. A neat twist from the previous formula. It works, and it keeps the fan service going.

The main character, Tagiru, is akin to Daisuke from 02. ... Even his digimon, Gumdramon, is similar in appearance to V-mon. Well, now you realize where the writers got their idea. One of the problems with sequels having new protagonist while the previous protagonist is still in it, is that the old protagonist might overshadow the new. It's happening here. Tagiru's personality is too simplistic to replace Taiki, and Taiki himself is still in the show and play a part in it. Then of course, there Shoutmon with his cross X whatever. To make things worse for Tagiru, the previous protagonists from all previous Digimon series were brought over. Sure, they're only there for a short time, but it feels unnecessary. It's like they want to sell more toys and merchandise by re-kindling nostalgia, at the expense of the new main character. This doesn't work well for Tagiru's digimon, Gumdramon, either. Sure, he got to digi-cross with many different digimons, but many of them are just one timers, and his main evolution doesn't go much further (compared to Shoutmon's multiple crosses). Oh well, at least Gumdramon is cute. Forget about the supporting characters. They don't get much development either, nothing like Kiriha's and Nene's in the previous series.

Overall, the series seem to be tuned down a notch from the previous Xross Wars. Just like 02, there are too many characters around, too many hunters. Add on the cameos of all previous main protagonists from previous Digimon series, it feels mismashed. At the end, they pretty much step Tagiru up by default. There's no sense of achievement compared to Taiki's own struggle on the previous series.

Overall, it's a meh. I actually was more interested in seeing the cameos (it's good to see Guilmon again, Masaru punching a big digimon, and the old evolutions). This 3rd season felt more like a filler season, just to extend the Xros Wars franchise a bit longer.

There will be a spoiler mention later but I'll warn before we get to it. Also, this review can be read without prior knowledge of the Xros Wars (Fusion) series though it being the sequel to the 2nd season of Xros Wars, it will may have spoilers for the last season or two.

So, I'll be honest. I waited years to watch Seasons 1 & 2 of Xros Wars and right as i was about too, a Dub was announced for it, called Digimon Fusion. So, I watched it and it's 2nd season. The 1st season was not that good and got better around the ... half point, but I considered dropping it. Glad I didn't. The 2nd season was awesome and i waited years till recently hoping for a Dub but, the writing was on the wall, a dub was unlikely to happen especially given certain actors would need to be brought back. (In other words, would cost more to Dub) I also think (don't quote me) that Fusion did poorly in the US, which would further explain why Digimon Hunters (Xros Wars Season 3) didn't get a Dub. Maybe it will in the future but I doubt it but love to be wrong.

Anyway, that brings us up to speed with the series, now is Hunters any good? To my delight yes it is, very good in fact. While 2 or 2.5 episodes were stinkers for me, I enjoyed the majority. Does it have problems? Yes, it does, namely 1 thing goes unanswered involving someone who forgot the gang nor was it even brought up and the biggest thing you may've heard is, until the last 3.5 episodes, the plot revolves around the gimmick of hunting Digimon and the real plot is set aside with slight hints in a few episodes here and there (Emphasis on few and slight hints). BUT! Despite this, the "Digital Monster of the week" format worked really well. Some say there wasn't character development but that's not true. Its just harder to notice for some characters unless you're paying attention. Sure its not big or major character development for anyone but its there and each "Digital Monster of the week" episode we see has plenty of life lessons in it and more; over all it was enjoyable and a blast and one of the better Digimon anime out there if you ask me.

Now the good news is, you can watch this by itself, no need to even see the first two seasons of Xros Wars before the third season being Hunters. YES there will be spoilers for the first two season if you do this and YES you will lose out on context and such for some things but the Hunters anime does a good job of mentioning what happened in the last two seasons when it brings up anything/someone from the past two seasons and something that happened in the past. By the way, it'd been maybe 5 years? years either way since I last saw Fusion (Xros Wars) and i finished both seasons and sadly forgot most of it (Can't say those seasons were memorable, but that doesn't mean they're bad and it's prolly the same for Hunters too given the format) yet despite forgetting most of it, I wasn't lost for long as Hunters explained most of what I forgot for the characters and plot it brought up. That said am sure it would've been slightly more enjoyable if I could've remembered the last two seasons better.

Now let me rate the Hunters anime... a solid 7.5 out of 10.0 and I really don't feel it deserves the low score on MAL that it has, especially if you don't worry about the plot too much and just enjoy the "Digital Monster of the week" format the Hunters anime has as you'll get to the plot at the end, until then, enjoy the anime for what it mostly is and yes, there is a reason why it's like this and is explained in the plot towards the end.
Oh and I forgot to mention but I LOVE the OP music and didn't skip it but like once or twice.
Also, out of the new human characters, Airu is my fav~

Now about that spoiler I mentioned, we're coming to it but know what I'm about to say has no bearing on anything I said already nor did it affect the rating as this is concerning the end of the anime plot and the rating stayed the same both before and after those 3.5 episodes. Alright, stop reading now unless you have seen the anime and thanks for reading, hope it helped you and hope you enjoy the anime if you watch it. :)


Ok so, having the old cast (Not all, but a good many) return was pretty awesome, sadly I was already spoiled on this years ago and never forgot it (and would've been reminded even if i had) so i knew it was coming. It was not only awesome to see them again but sweet speculating the plot of what was coming as the Watch Maker and his role is where you start speculating, especially at the point the old cast i mentioned are teased around the half point given what happened up to that point and in the episode. Also, even though I watched the entire Digimon series' anime up to this point English Dubbed, watching the Sub wasn't that bad nor was I confused by any name differences for the old cast. The Japanese Sub was really well done too. Double Kudos to the fact Taiki (Mikey) Kudou's VA is the same VA who plays Conan Edogawa aka Shinichi Kudou in Detective Conan. Guess one truth really does prevail ey you two Kudous? (They both have the same last name and voice in both their anime, coincidence or not? Who can say lol)
I really do hope someday we get a sequel to Hunters as it was clear they may've been setting up for a sequel with how the Hunters anime ended (It has an ending but more can be made given how it ended) and I'd love to see the cast again, especially Airu and her Digimon.

My love of digimon is mostly for the story. Tamer's story was touching and intellectually interesting. The Young Hunters' story is mediocre at best. I watched the entire series in one day, and though I enjoyed it (it has digimon), it is mostly filler. Of the 25 episodes, about 7 matter to the overarching story. Thankfully the last 4 or so episodes are a digimon fan's wet dream, but that still left 21 episodes of meh.

Tl;dr
If you like digimon, watch it. If you're neutral to digimon, tread carefully. No matter what, don't marathon this. There is ... too much filler to enjoy it that way.

This season of Digimon Xros Wars is something that should not exist. This is perhaps one of the worst sequels to any anime that I have ever seen. Not only was Digimon Xros Wars originally a slight bastardization of the original concept of Digimon that spanned from Digimon Adventure to Digimon Adventure 02 to Digimon Tamers to Digimon Frontier to Digimon Savers, this season of Digimon Xros Wars is a bastardization of the previous 2 seasons of Xros Wars.
Story: 4
The story is downright awful when it comes to its concept and its execution. Digimon are back in this alternate realm known as the DigiQuartz and ... are feeding off of negative human emotions. Now, a bunch of random children are being given Fusion Loaders in order to capture these Digimon. I’m sorry, but this does not seem like Digimon Xros Wars Season 3 to me. It seems like a completely different anime that features characters from the original Xros Wars as well as the concept of DigiXros. It is a completely different scene from what we were originally introduced to in the original Xros Wars. Children are collecting Digimon like it’s Pokemon now, what is up with this? That’s the general concept, but now let’s get into the story revolving around our main characters: Tagiru Akashi and Gumdramon. Unlike the other “Hunters” (which is what they are called), he cares for other individuals more and so, he seeks to help those who are being used by the Digimon who’ve entered the DigiQuartz, making him the usual hero at the end of the day. The sequence of each episode is usually: Human gets tricked by Digimon, Tagiru and Gumdramon find out about this and go after the Digimon, Gumdramon Super Digivolves into Arresterdramon, they fight, Tagiru DigiXroses Arresterdramon with one of his other Digimon, and they win and capture the rogue Digimon. It is that same mundane, repetitive process over and over and over for each episode. They all follow the same lazy and uninspiring formula. Of course, Taiki Kudou and Yuu Amano are also there as characters from the previous seasons of Xros Wars to help out as well, but they are treated as side characters more than anything. Now, it is revealed near the end that the DigiQuartz was created by a Digimon to try to take over both the Digital World and the Human World (as per usual), so everybody gears up to fight back, but Tagiru is the hero at the end of the day because he is the Main Character. Everything about the story is so boring and really repetitive. I’m not sure what could even be changed to make it more interesting, even if only slightly.
Characters: 2
We basically have 2 characters because the rest of them are never given the same amount of screentime. Tagiru and Gumdramon are 2 of the worst characters that I have ever seen. They are your average rowdy, hard-headed, loud, obnoxious, and straightforward Shounen characters. They basically have no character development at all and stay the exact same from beginning to end. Sure, Gumdramon is able to mature (very slightly) in order to Super Digivolve, but this practically resulted in no changes to his overall character which is very disappointing. Taiki and Shoutmon were already pretty mature in Season 2 of Xros Wars due to the insanely high stakes back then, but they’ve matured even more in this season. They are basically treated as the GOATS when it comes to Digimon and Hunters. Another character that gets much screen time is Yuu who has long since been the child manipulated by Dark Knightmon back in Xros Wars Season 2. He has matured much, similar to Taiki, but he also is very serious and sometimes comes off sad due to the death of Damemon back in the previous Season, and haven yet seen him once again after the rebirth of the Digital World after Shoutmon becomes king. However, Damemon does come back which is pretty obvious because he and Tuwarmon were in the OP since Episode 1. The other hunters are barely given any screen time and are generalized to be pretty much the prideful, showoff veteran Hunters. As for the villains, the only villains were basically the enemy Digimon, and they were pretty terrible. All of them pretty much were very prideful and manipulative in order to feed off of human negative emotions (which is not something new). As for the final villain Digimon whose name I will not say to avoid spoilers, bro, he was only shown in a single Episode (being the last one), so there isn’t much of him at all. Overall, the Characters are absolutely atrocious. There is no originality, no real development, and the screen time wasn’t shared between all of them enough to warrant them even having their traits be shown.
Digimon (Portrayal): 3
I already dislike Xros Wars for basically getting rid of the whole Evolution Level concept (Egg, Baby, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega, Super Ultimate). This meant that Rookie Digimon were beating up Ultimates, Champions slaying Megas, and all sorts of weirdness that otherwise should not even be possible because the difference in power between each Evolution Level is massive. In Xros Wars Season 2, we were introduced to Super Digivolution. This allowed for a given partner Digimon to Digivolve into what is basically an Ultimate Level Digimon which was the case for OmegaShoutmon and ZekeGreymon. However, this is not the case anymore because we have Gumdramon Super Digivolving into Arresterdramon who is a Champion Level, Dracumon turning into Yaksamon which is also a Champion, and Damemon turning into Tuwarmon which is also a Champion. I understand that Evolution Levels don’t exist in Xros Wars, but seeing “Super Digivolution” not making an “Ultimate Level” Digimon is strange for someone who understands the Evolution Levels. Thus, you still get things like Rookies beating up Ultimates (ex: Shoutmon vs. Sagomon) and Champions beating up Ultimates (ex: Arresterdramon vs. MetalTyrannomon). Another change would be how DigiXros works. You can only have 2 Digimon out at once, so you can basically only Fuse 2 Digimon together. This is a good change as you can’t just go nuts on Fusing Digimon, but it does make larger Fusions harder to access such as the Shoutmon line. Also, let’s talk about “Superior Mode”. The only 2 Superior Modes in the Digimon Universe are Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode and Arresterdramon Superior Mode (not including any Xros Up). When there used to be only 1 Superior Mode which was only possible by Fusing every Digimon in the Digital World with Shoutmon, it seemed sacred and really cool. And then Arresterdramon got it too. Like, Tagiru and Gumdramon barely worked for it. Gumdramon basically matured (very slightly), realizing his past and having been punished by Sanzomon, and was able to “unlock his true potential” and got a Superior Mode. Literal Bruh moment. This Season of Xros Wars just makes the previous ideologies of the concept of Digimon even more worthless, basically bastardizing the original concept and the concepts brought up in the previous 2 seasons of Xros Wars.
Animation/Sound: 5
I have no issue with the music and sounds. It’s the animation that I have an issue with. The closest thing I can compare this steep drop in Animation quality to is Pokemon XY&Z vs. Pokemon Sun & Moon. But even that wasn’t that bad. The difference between the Art and Animation from Digimon Xros Wars Season 2 and Digimon Xros Wars Season 3 is like night and day. The quality just dropped to near rock bottom. It is indescribably bad.
Overall: 3
If you are a fan of Digimon, you can literally pass this up. Xros Wars Seasons 1 and 2 were decent, but this was just plain awful. It reuses the same formula for every episode while basically giving the Main Characters no development over the course of this 25 Episode anime. If you do want to know what happens after Season 2 of Xros Wars, you could watch this, but I expect you to be sorely disappointed because even the recurring characters are portrayed terribly. There is a single memorable part of this anime which was the fact that characters from the other Digimon timelines make a cameo due to plot reasons. I feel like it was put there for fanservice reasons only because of how somewhat minor it is, but it is definitely cool seeing Taichi, Daisuke, Tatsuya, Takuya, and Daimon standing side by side. I sincerely do not recommend watching this.