Digimon Adventure 02

Taichi Yagami and his friends have moved on to junior high, but by that time, they have lost contact with their Digimon partners. Taichi is therefore surprised to suddenly receive a distress call summoning him to the Digital World. Once there, he learns that Digimon are living in fear of the mysterious Digimon Emperor, who is somehow suppressing their ability to Digivolve!

In the real world, Hikari Yagami and Takeru Takaishi reunite in the same fifth grade class. They share three schoolmates: Daisuke Motomiya, who reminds them both of Taichi; Miyako Inoue, a technical wizard; and Iori Hida, Miyako's neighbor. When these three children receive "D-3" Digivices, they—along with Hikari and Takeru, who still possess their own original Digivices—comprise the new generation of "Chosen Children" who must save the world once again. With the power of the Armored Digi-Eggs, they must thwart the Digimon Emperor's plans to spread his influence over the entire Digital World.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yagami, Hikari Main

Araki, Kae Japanese

Takaishi, Takeru Main

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Ichijouji, Ken Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Tailmon Main

Tokumitsu, Yuka Japanese

Patamon Main

Matsumoto, Miwa Japanese

Motomiya, Daisuke Main

Kiuchi, Reiko Japanese

V-mon Main

Noda, Junko Japanese

Wormmon Main

Takahashi, Naozumi Japanese

Inoue, Miyako Main

Natsuki, Rio Japanese

Hida, Iori Main

Urawa, Megumi Japanese

Seki, Hiromi Producer

Sakurada, Hiroyuki Assistant Producer

Kakudou, Hiroyuki Director, Episode Director

Imazawa, Tetsuo Episode Director

Reviews

Oct 5, 2022

WhatAGoodShow

Recommended

Digimon Adventure 2002 or 02 is a sequel to Digimon Adventure 1999 and continues with a new generation of chosen children to protect the digital world from sudden disaster. The digital world is inhabited by digital monsters called Digimon. Unlike Pokemon, they have more than 3 stages: Infant (In Training), Baby (In Training II), Child (Rookie), Adult (Champion), Perfect (Ultimate) and Ultimate (Mega) with the first being the names of the Japanese dub and the latter in English.
This series introduces a new ways of evolution and one additional new stage that in this series can be considered somewhere between Child and Perfect called Armor. Basically ... it can't fit to the traditional Level system like the previous forms which can lead sometimes to weird things when it comes to power scaling Digimon.

Like the previous season, the children get Digimon partners that help them develop and do the fighting. Each having a unique personality. In the living world they stay in their In-Training II level and in the Digital World they are in their Rookie state.

Unlike in the previous show, the children can go in and out the digital world with their upgraded Digivices whenever they desire.
Another upgrade over its predecessor is the addition of more variety of soundtracks for evolution. The previous types of evolution have the old soundtrack but Armor Evolution, Jogress aka DNA Evolution and Ultimate Evolution have their own unique soundtrack.

Digimon Adventure 99 was known for its great use of its protagonists. Sadly 02 can’t live up to the quality writing of its main cast.

Daisuke aka. Davis is basically a goofy version of Taichi aka. Tai. He starts off as a naive kid who is brave but over the course of the series he also worries about others taking their feelings in consideration as he was the first to be willing to trust someone who turned a new leaf. In short he has both Taichi’s and Yamato’s aka. Matt’s crests from the previous season and gives his take on friendship and courage. His weakness, however, is that he can be clumsy and has a crush on Hikari aka. Kari.
V-Mon encourages Daisuke often and shows a lot of personality. They are similar but often he feels embarrassed being part of Daisuke’s stupid plans to impress Kari. However, he has complete trust in Daisuke in fights even if it happens to be misplayed from the viewers perspective. He is one of the strongest members as he has the most evolutions.

Miyako aka. Yolei an energetic nerd. However, despite being experienced with computers and helping out a lot with Koushiro aka. Izzy who has the crest of knowledge, she is associated with love and purity aka sincerity. Crest that don’t seem to fit her selfish, greedy and cheeky personality.
Hawkmon is polite and has a cool design. There aren’t much notable interactions between these two.

Iori aka. Cody is the deepest character of the original new members. Despite being the youngest, he is skilled in kendo and can defend himself when the situation calls for it. His father who used to be a police officer died in an accident during the line of duty before the start of the story which shaped his black and white view on the world. Over the course of the series, his world would start showing more tones of grey which leads him to help reform an antagonist to the side of good.
Armadimon is a goofy armadillo who has some of the wildest evolution. Sadly he doesn’t contribute much to Iori’s character besides getting new evolutions out of them.

From the previous season, two other characters get upgraded Digivices and work as guides for the new members. Them being Hikari and Takeru who grew up.

Takeru aka. TK is more self confident unlike in the previous season and his knowledge sometimes end up helpful. Also some experiences from the previous season show a side not seen by TK so far and despite his on the surface cool self, there is a side of him that can’t forgive anyone who abuses the power of evil.
Patamon didn’t change much from the previous season. Sadly he can’t use his old forms for most of the season due to various cases the show used to power down the old cast. However, he did get an armor evolution and later get a Jogress evolution.

Hikari aka. Kari was the last introduced member in the previous season and pretty much a deus ex machina. In this season she has an actual personality being a curious child and showing the most amount of emotions ironically. However, she is often the victim of being dragged into weird dark worlds with creepy images leading to situations the other members have to safe her. Luckily that doesn’t happen often.
Her partner Tailmon aka. Gatomon got powered down losing her holy ring putting her power down to child level despite being an adult level digimon. But she does get new evolutions that help her out in fights. In the previous season she used to be an antagonist and the deepest Digimon partner. In this season not much of her personality shines except when she meets the ghost of her best friend and someone she hoped to never see again.

While 02 lacks good protagonists, it makes up for great antagonists. Some of which set the standards for many future Digimon antagonists to date.

Ken the Digimon Kaiser (or Digimon Emperor) is an evil chosen child who uses the Dark Spirals and Rings to enslave all the Digimon like Devimon did in the predecessor. But unlike Devimon, Ken is far more effective. He builds towers that unable Digimon to evolve to the next level unless they use Armor Evolution making all the former cast members Digimon useless. He upgrades his gadgets when he sees there is an issue in them and even goes as far as building his own Digimon partner Chimeramon aka. Kimeramon. Ken has a tragic past where he used to be overshadowed by his overly skilled brother. Once that brother died, he took that role in the family becoming a new prodigy to the point anyone else looked inferior to him including his own parents. Seeing him rise, develop and fall is one of the most interesting story arcs not being successfully replicated by other Digimon series yet.
His real partner Wormmon is supporting him despite knowing what he is doing is wrong. He hoped some day that the kind Ken he befriended with would one day return. There is a great character arc between these two when Wormmon has to make a harsh decision in order to protect Ken.
While he lacks Armor Evolution, he still ends up getting one of the strongest evolution in the show.

Arukenimon and Mummymon are a duo of villains similar to Team Rocket. They are henchmen to a bigger villain but until that gets revealed, they work effectively creating powerful digimon using the Black Towers that were meant to seal the power of evolution. They end up creating one of the deepest Digimon characters in the show.

BlackWarGreymon is visually just a black pallet swap of the original WarGreymon. Created by Black Towers, he is considered an evil Digimon. However, being mightier than his creators he disappears in the hopes to find the real reason he exists. This leads to him fighting the protagonists very often and his overwhelming power leads him often the win. It is very interesting to see what his search for meaning leads too.

Oikawa is an adult man who desires to go to the Digital World and is willing to do that by any means possible. He has a traumatic past losing the only person who shared his love with the Digital Creatures who was Iori’s dad. He is really clever using various means to distract the protagonists from the main goal and even making them fight his enemies, the Deamon Corps who came to the world of the living creating chaos. Despite being a mere human, he uses his knowledge and assets well to get what he wants.

However, there is a reason why 02 isn't as good as it could be. Rather pretty mediocre.
After the Armor Eggs ended their purpose, we still didn't see the old kids using their Digimon to beyond Adult, but instead the new kids got Adult forms themselves and the show introduced a new evolution mechanic. So the show introduces cope outs to prevent the old cast coming with the latest evolutions and overshadow the new cast. But they will get some back for some nostalgia trip.
And more and more restrictions were put in and adults have all forgotten about Digimon.
And like with Tamers, 02 tried to tie in the Wonderswan games to excuse why Ken got evil. Ken's backstory got more and more confusing with many plotlines being dropped. The Dark Ocean plot went nowhere because Toei found it too depressing but aired "out of respect" the episode that confused everybody. Deamon Corps were, while powerful, filler villains that only filled the runtime like how MetalEtemon only existed as a sacrificial villain for Jou to make the non-Ultimate owning kids relevant somehow.
And the old kids rarely did anything of value and the parents besides exceptions like Iori's were pretty much irrelevant.
Female characters are meh unless we include Arukenimon. Miyako is selfish and hyperactive like a female Daisuke. She is more useful than Sora and Mimi but her role can be replaced by Koshiro in several situation. Hikari is less active than in Adventure despite being here since the beginning this time.

As a show where monsters fight each other, Digimon fights at the start aren’t that impressive. However, just seeing the different forms and the emotional struggles needed to archive the forms are usually worth it where the lack of good choreography can be looked past. There is a reason why many evolution, especially when they first appear, will stay with you. As the show progresses, the fights and budget improve. There will be a lot of recycled animation and the evolution to Child and Adult states seem rather lame. Like mentioned earlier, the new forms get a kickass soundtrack unique to them.
Armor evolution is upgrading the Digimon for fast travel or other purposes.
Jogress or DNA Evolution is an evolution method where two Digimon merge into one more powerful one. However, each Digimon gets a set partner they can perform it with and nobody can chose who their partner will be. However, fusing Digimon is still cool.
There is the use of CGI for certain evolution which normally would be a turnoff, but since Digimon are digital creatures, the evolution scenes are tolerable and give the show a unique identity as many later Digimon series will use that concept for their transformation scenes.

While Digimon is a kids show, it can be off putting or flat out scare the viewer as it goes on since the enemies can be deviant and scary.
Digimon can reincarnate but only in the Digital World. Digimon drying in the living world cannot. And one human will outright die in his show.

Digimon 02 is decent. It struggles to live up to the standards set by 99 and doesn’t take advantage of its old cast well to guide the new cast. However, it has amazing antagonist with lots of grey in them and are used as examples for future Digimon Villains yet to come out.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by WhatAGoodShow (58)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jun 17, 2025

Firechick12012

Mixed Feelings

Out of all the seasons of Digimon I had watched, Digimon Adventure 02 was the one I remembered the least. The most recently I had watched it was back when it had briefly aired on NickToons years ago, and only now have I finished watching it in Japanese for the first time thanks to Discotek putting out new blu-rays for it. But from what I can recall, Digimon fans consider Digimon Adventure 02 to be quite divisive, and opinions on it are pretty split down the middle. Some think it's a great follow-up to the first season while others think it to be the worst ... series ever. I'm of the opinion that while I don't think it's the worst Digimon season ever (Those titles go to Young Hunters and Adventure 2020 IMHO), I definitely feel it's one of the weaker seasons by far, and for good reason. I attempted to review this back in 2013, but I had a hard time putting my thoughts on it together back then. Now that I'm older and have seen the series in its unaltered format, I had a much easier time doing so now.

Three years after the events of the first season, the DigiDestined have grown up and have gone their separate ways for now. But when a distress call from Agumon draws Tai, TK, and Kari back into the Digital World, they discover that it has been conquered by a malicious boy calling himself the Digimon Emperor, who is using a black Digivice to suppress natural evolution and brainwash Digimon into becoming his slaves. That is, until a trio of new DigiDestined—hotheaded Davis, perky tech geek Yolei, and morally upright Cody—happen upon them, gain their own Digimon partners, and discover the power of Armor Digivolution, which allows certain Digimon to attain more powerful forms that sidestep the Digimon Emperor's embargo on evolution. This new generation of DigiDestined must use their new powers to stop the Digimon Emperor's ambitions before the entire Digital World is consumed by darkness, and he might not even be the only threat they have to face.

Not gonna lie, Digimon Adventure 02 does have a lot of good ideas going for it, but its the execution of all those ideas that leave a lot to be desired. Actually, I'm gonna get the show's biggest problem out of the way right now: Remember how I mentioned in my review for Adventure was that its strongest asset was not only its continuity, but how tight its writing was in making sure that everything made sense and felt cohesive, a few stray plot threads notwithstanding? Digimon Adventure 02 unfortunately doesn't have that asset going for it. Digimon Adventure 02 establishes a lot of ideas and plot threads but never tries to really follow up on any of them, or the few times it does, they do the bare minimum and have them all amount to nothing. Cases in point: Daemon, the Dark Ocean, and the Destiny Stones. The Dark Ocean is said to be another world separate from both the human and Digital Worlds, but how this is so, the show never bothers to explain. Daemon is a random enemy who randomly appears late in the series who needs Ken for something, but the DigiDestined just foist him into the Dark Ocean, and he claims he'll come back to get revenge, but never does. The English dub only managed to make him memorable by making him into a super hammy Disney villain thanks to the late Bob Papenbrook playing him as such. The Destiny Stones are these random stones that apparently keep the human and Digital World in balance, and their destruction is treated as a big deal, but after about six or seven episodes, the resolution is so cut and dry that you wonder why the show even made a big deal out of them in the first place. I've heard differing stories about how the writing turned out behind the scenes. Some say the series turning out the way it did was due to both conflicting ideas between the series' two writers or interference from Bandai-Namco. I don't know which of these is true, but that would definitely explain a lot. I even read that Adventure's original writer, Satoru Nishizono, wanted nothing to do with 02 and left because he didn't think giving the series a sequel was a good idea. Man, imagine how the series would have turned out had he stayed, but I can't really blame him for leaving.

But 02's writing and lack of cohesion doesn't just extend to its slipshod narrative, but also in its characters. The new characters aside from Ken aren't as interesting as the original DigiDestined, and the latter are mostly shunted into the background or de-powered so the new kids can hog the spotlight. Davis is pretty much a stagnant character in that no matter what happens, he barely changes throughout the series, if at all, and apparently this was due to executive meddling. He never stops being an annoying hotheaded brat, though sometimes the show can be downright mean to him at some points, in ways that I feel are frankly undeserved, with ExVeemon's debut episode being the absolute nadir IMHO. The original DigiDestined are mostly fine, but there are times when the writers have them act completely out of character—again, the ExVeemon debut episode shows them at their absolute worst. Not to mention the explanation behind why the original Digimon can't digivolve into ultimate and mega level is bullshit and only serves as a cheap way to keep the new kids relevant. Not that the show really cares that much about keeping the new kids' Digimon evolutions consistent either, as the first arc shilled armor evolution to the Nth degree, only to shove it into the background in favor of DNA/Jogress evolution. And need I mention completely nerfing previously powerful Digimon and making them pathetically weak? Poor MagnaAngemon got done so dirty in this show.

Honestly, the only character that I found worth caring about was Ken, the Digimon Emperor. His arc is actually the strongest in the entire series, explaining why he became the Digimon Emperor and his subsequent development into the person he used to be before then. But even the best character is yet another victim of the show's skewed priorities, in more ways than one. For one thing, the show constantly mentions that he went to the Digital World once before and had his own adventures, but the context for that is only found in a video game. A video game for a console that never left Japan, and the series expects you to have played it. And since this came out in the 2000s, where that information was in absolutely no way accessible outside of Japan, you were out of luck in those days. Yeah, this series has a problem with its stubborn refusal to make accommodations for anyone who isn't familiar with the aforementioned Wonder Swan games. This would carry over into Tamers, but there it wasn't as bad as it was here. It really says a lot when the first Digimon Adventure anime didn't have this problem and made sure to be as self-contained as humanly possible so it wouldn't alienate anyone unfamiliar with Digimon's lore. There's a reason why series like Ghost Game and Appli Monsters didn't make the mistakes 02 did, even with their own issues! Oh, and before I forget, the series flat-out ignores Ken's development in a later episode where it tries to use some sort of Dark Spore horseshit to absolve him of any personal responsibility for his actions in the first quarter, undermining his redemption, so not even he's safe from the series slipsod writing! Like...what the hell?! Do you really have no respect for your characters, 02?! I know people like to harp on the epilogue, but 02 has so much more problems than just the epilogue. Not even Ken's supposed crest gets used much, it's just another plot device that's thrown away just as quickly as it was introduced, though how Ken even managed to get a crest, the show again doesn't bother to explain!

That said, I don't want to be a Negative Nancy, and for what it's worth, there are parts of 02 that are still enjoyable. For one, the soundtrack still slaps, both using pieces from Takanori Arisawa's soundtrack from Adventure and introducing new songs that are still as good as the ones from the previous series, with Break Up being my favorite out of them. Though speaking of the audio, I did find Yolei's voice to be extremely grating, with it being one of the few instances where I vastly prefer the English dub's voice for her. It's a shame Tifanie Lenhart disappeared off the face of the Earth. The animation is about the same as the first series, and while it's not perfect, it does its job. I really liked episode 29, where the kids have to escape Arukenimon's trap and use some really clever, creative teamwork to get out of the situation, not to mention Ken's whole episode where he reunites with Wormmon after the latter's death and rebirth. I also really liked the idea of the kids meeting other DigiDestined around the world and connecting with them. Why couldn't the series do something like that? That would have been really interesting! Seriously, this series could have been great if it either focused on one or two of its many ideas, fleshed them out better, or did more to develop and respect its characters, both the old and new ones. There are reasons why so many people write fan fics that completely rewrite this series from the ground up, because people know it's a flawed series that deserved better than what it got! 02 feels like a hodge-podge of ideas that got thrown into a blender but never meshed properly.

So yeah, Digimon Adventure 02 is a very flawed series that has no idea what it wants to be. It has its good points, but they're unfortunately not enough to save the show from being an incohesive mess of differing ideas that just don't mix well together. I will give 02 this though: I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than Digimon Xros Wars: Young Hunters Leaping Through Time! Seriously, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between 02 and Young Hunters, I'd go with the former every tim, including the God awful ExVeemon debut episode! 02 also has a lot more to offer than Digimon Adventure 2020. Come at me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Firechick12012 (303)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jan 15, 2016

Duckielover151

Not Recommended

The rating system on here is trying to tell me that by ranking something a 4, it means I think it's 'Bad' and that's not really the case, but I like 02 less than Adventure and, critically speaking, Adventure is only a 5, so... you do the math.

When it comes to the sound and the animation, 02 has pretty much the exact same flaws as its predecessor. Add to that that season two's characters weren't nearly as likable, and the story gets a bit sloppy after the halfway mark. That said, this is another crucial part of my childhood, and I did still really ... enjoy it.

Critically speaking, it doesn't hold up quite as well as the original, but it does still hold up.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Duckielover151 (93)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Non Music/Idol Anime With Characters Who Are Singers

by DigiCat

11 Entries · 2 Restacks

[W] Digimon Watch Guide

by Watch-Guide

30 Entries · 56 Restacks

Made it to Brazil

by -YUMMY-

38 Entries · 12 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for February

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for February. Week 1: February 4 - 10 Anime Releases Mato Seihei no Slave (Chained Soldier) Comple...read more

Feb 1, 3:29 PM by Aiimee | Discuss (2 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for June

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for June. Week 1: June 4 - 10 Anime Releases Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?) ...read more

Jun 3, 2024 11:38 AM by Aiimee | Discuss (2 comments)

	Poll: Digimon Adventure 02 Episode 35 Discussion emeraldrosary - Apr 11, 2014	9 replies	by Aniinschen »» May 11, 1:08 PM
	Poll: Digimon Adventure 02 Episode 50 Discussion FarAwayTimes - Nov 12, 2010	33 replies	by noiseaholic »» Apr 9, 4:45 PM
	Poll: Digimon Adventure 02 Episode 49 Discussion emeraldrosary - Apr 12, 2014	9 replies	by noiseaholic »» Apr 9, 4:01 PM
	Poll: Digimon Adventure 02 Episode 48 Discussion emeraldrosary - Apr 12, 2014	8 replies	by noiseaholic »» Apr 9, 12:30 PM
	Poll: Digimon Adventure 02 Episode 47 Discussion FarAwayTimes - Nov 11, 2010	8 replies	by noiseaholic »» Apr 9, 10:00 AM

Top 15 Anime Crossovers: The More the Merrier

The ultimate fantasy for any anime fan is the anime crossover. How cool would it be if one of your favorite anime characters teamed up with another one of your favorite characters to make animated magic? Very, indeed. Let's explore some of the most creative anime crossovers of all time.

by NicWat10

188,340 views

Spoiler

RecommendationCollectionVideo

One Bad Day: 15 Mental Breakdowns in Anime

The human mind can only take so much before it just snaps like a twig. When that happens people can have different reactions, from breaking down and crying to going on a killing spree. One bad day can be the tipping point that forever changes a person for better or for worse.

by NicWat10

79,156 views

Spoiler

Collection