Digimon Xros Wars

This review will contain preliminary thoughts on the series thus far at nine episodes. Another may come after it's over.

I consider myself a Digimon fan as much as the next young boy who woke up that fateful day and found this....strange Pokemon clone on Fox Kids. At the beginning, I didn't like it but it grew and became my favorite toyetic franchise ever. Now, here I am years later having watched nearly all of Digimon's media and rewatched the previous five series in original japanese to make sure my memories of it are not belittled by a nostalgia filter. They've all ... had ups and downs but I have always found Digimon's approach of approaching each series with a new perspective and universe after the first two seasons refreshing and a unique take on the mons franchise. So here we are in 2010 with the sixth series finally on our hands. Digimon Xros Wars (Because poor literacy is KEWL!)

Never in the franchise's 10+ years will there ever be a fanbase as broken and divided as there will be on Digimon Xros Wars. The loosely-defined rulebook that remained has been completely thrown out the window as well as any semblance of any rules that can remind any nostalgic fan of the past series, outside of previous Digimon returning and many many homages to the past. This series is almost a complete re-invention of the concept of Digimon and the Digital World to the point that it becomes the most unique and bafflingly different compared to the previous five series (officially removing Frontier as most unique concept for Digimon). No, this series is completely intended for the newer children to become fans with a few elements for the older kids. No levels are introduced for Digimon (removing any doubt about whether one type can beat another), Evolution is removed to make way for DigiXros (an ability to unite one Digimon with another, similar to Jogress, so that it compensates for the main Digimon's weaknesses) and multiple battles with more than one participant (unlike previous seasons where it would be one on one or two on two. Here it's like army on army) But enough of the franchise itself. What makes Xros Wars tick

STORY-8/10: The story is as straight-forward as the older ones as they develop into more. Kudou Taiki, our goggle-head of the season is pulled into the Digital World by the voice of the season's Digivice, the D-Xrosloader, as well as his two friends Akari and Zenjirou accidentally. They form the army Xros Heart and together seek to stop the evil Bagura Empire from ruling the shattered Digital World with their Digimon friends (Shoutmon, Ballistamon, Dorulumon and more) and the power of DigiXros. However other humans lie in wait with ulterior motives than Xros Heart It's completely a good vs. evil setup akin to the first series of Adventure and it is not the most original out there, but it gets the preliminary setup down. And that's really all Digimon needs to grow into a flower of eventual greatness.

ART-8/10: I am no animation buff so it could be that I am completely wrong, but Xros Wars' art is quite beautiful. The landscapes are no longer single ugly stills like the Adventure days. They are fully rendered areas of the world each location giving off a unique digital vibe in some way, such as the ash in a "Magma Zone" being clearly made of digital matter. Plus, the art style itself no longer uses the generic teen look in Savers and has them look more like children (even though they're 13 or so). Sometimes the animation can be inconsistent but it is rare and never in a heavy action scene.

SOUND-7/10: The opening song "Never Give Up" is not great like the typical opening by Wada Kouji but it grows as a catchy addictive tune. The real winner of the series however, is the insert evolution (or Xros) song "We Are Xros Heart" sung by the actual Wada Kouji. It's hot-blooded, it's pumping, it gets your heart ready to see some action and Bagura ass-kicking. The instrumental and quiet pieces are quite well done as well but they tend not to be noticeable too much thus, the 7 score. However, personally, I find the music for the Bagura Army quite chilling and is a memorable listen.

CHARACTER-7/10: Here is most likely where the most debate will occur. In previous seasons (except for maybe Tamers), the Digimon had little personality. Oh, they definitely had their own quirks to make them lovable, but they were never their own characters or they never had a chance to grow. They mainly served as the human's surrogate. In Xros Wars however, this is reversed. The Digimon are the ones that have the most character. Each one of the Digimon have unique characters and goals regarding the Digital World. For example, Shoutmon truly wants to become King of the Digital World so he can protect hsi villaige from harm, Dorulumon has a backstory that may not be expected, and even the cute mascot, Cutemon, has a tragic past and a goal all his own. The humans, on the other hand, still have room for development past their primary characterization. On a personal note, the mysterious beauty, Amano Nene is quite the unique character for Digimon as she seems to have no one side and has the most mysterious goals of all the humans. It'll stand to see if the humans, at the end of the show's run, can have a full development cycle like Adventure, Tamers and Frontier before.

ENJOYMENT-9/10: Just as subjective as Character is the enjoyment factor. The show prides itself at being completely different from the previous seasons and rides that all the way. And to tell the truth, I really like it. As a longtime fan, I cannot say that I don't miss natural evolution but the production head, Riku Sanjou has really pulled the show out. The main draw of the show, besides the battles themselves is the fact that many Digimon from long before that haven't been animated are finally being animated (notably Lilithmon and Leviamon, two of the fan-favorite Demon Lords). The battles are always at a high pace and the battles regarding the armies only add to that. It really awakens the kid in me who loved seeing these kinds of shows on Saturday morning. However, if you still focus on the past, seeing this show only as "too different" then you won't have a good time. The production clearly shows how much fun they are having with the show and how much enjoyment is being dealt to the Japanese children. One won't be impressed if they go into this with the mindset that this will be like their own childhood memories.

OVERALL-7.5/10: At the current time of episode 9, Digimon Xros Wars is not a fantastic series like Tamers or a great one like Adventure. It is, however, a good series that should be watched by the fans and children alike. It gives that feeling of childhood happiness when you wanted to see monsters go at it but still learn about who these characters are. It offers much to the viewers but whether it can hold it's own to the future episodes will remain to be seen.

As for me, I'm rather enjoying it.

It's been almost 3/4 years since a Digimon series. The last one started in 2006 and ended in 2007: "Digimon Savers" ("Digimon Data Squad" in other countries), which is by definition the most mature of all the series made until that point

I was overjoyed by the fact that there would be a Digimon series comeback, since what I've saw from "Digimon Savers" was a total disapointement (I have, however, to see it all to give a better opinion about it). The more information was getting developed before its start, more I fell head over heels for it ;)

Well, it's been 9 episodes now and... I ... wasn't dissapointed (unlike other anime fans) ;) I like it very much at this moment, quite original from other Digimon series (especially the Digi-transformations, which it has been the big letdown for many anime-goers)

So far, the story is still in the beginning, so I'm not bothered by its pace. The art (altough with a few incoherences) and the sound are very good

The best, however, are the characters: Taiki Kudou (the fact that Minami Takayama is doing the voice for the character is a plus) and Shoutmon (so funny) caught my attention for sure. Noting also Dorulumon and its captivating personality

Altough my #1 Digimon series is still "Digimon Tamers", "Digimon Xros Wars" has pretty good chances to be my #2

This is my 6th Digimon review, and the hardest one to write: I always try to be as objective as possible, but there is always a bit of taste and personal like in every single review, not just mine but everyone's; still, I like to think that at every time I re-watch a Digimon series (or in this case, to finish something I dropped) I do it with an observant eye, trying to see everything good in it, what works and what doesn't work, and Digimon Xross Wars had a handful of things that worked on early going, the first episodes showed potential and were ... enjoyable, but sadly the following episodes were just so badly executed that it's hard for me not to insult this series. The thing is, after Savers aimed to a teen and young adult audience this series was meant to aim to young children again, so it couldn't be as dark, I understand that, but I'm just really annoyed by how shallow they meant to make this. Digimon Adventure aimed to children as well, and still managed to be mature, as Tamers did too, but this one just fails or it doesn’t even try: of all the Digimon series this is the one that had the worst character treatment, and somehow it managed to be successful enough to get 78 episodes, making it the longest Digimon series. I don’t understand it (seriously, I don’t), but somehow this show managed to forge a strong fanbase, and that’s ok, if you like it then good for you, I sure wish I could have liked it, but the thing is I couldn’t, mostly because it just didn’t embrace the potential it showed on early going.
This review only goes through the first 30 episodes (I still have to make up my mind to watch the following 2 parts) and now we'll see why I think this serie fails so much:

Story wise: I don't have much to complain here, the story is no masterpiece but it's not awful. Kudo Taiki, a 7th grade boy, is transported to the digital world with his friends Akari and Zenjiro where they are involved in the middle of a territorial war among many armies to win code crowns (a kind of crest which allows you to travel to the zone you conquered). Now that's a really strong premise for a Digimon series and a lot could be done here, but the focus is really into making this a good v/s bad kind of series, in which our team Xross Hearts (Taiki, Akari, Zenjiro and the digimon) are the good guys and the rest are usually just outright bad guys with no background, actual reasons other than being bad guys, and the worst of all, they are not even compelling. It's flawed with clichés and there's no sense of danger whatsoever as at the end of almost every single episode Taki find out a solution and everyone ends up smiling; that also gives the series a sense of being procedural, each episode being "the zone of the week" with just a little bit of story plot going on in the background. That's one of the things that hurt Xross the most. In the early first 9 episodes (the strongest of this show) we get little by little the dynamic of the series: it has elements from all the previous series: we have a protagonist that looks like Taichi from Adventure, we have digimons going through fusion (xross) like in Adventure 02, a support system like in Tamers (the digi memories), a territorial conflict like in Frontier and human facing digimon head on like in Savers (Zenjiro and his sword); with all that one can’t help but feel excited, I thought that Xross could make use of all these things and create a series out of the best of each Digimon series. I was dead wrong. Aside from the already mentioned flaw on the focus and aproach of the series in the good vs bad, the more episodic nature and the lack of good villians, Xross also fails when it tries to connect the peripheral storylines with the main war, resulting on just forced connections to move the plot along. But the worst of all its flaws is not the story, it is the characters.

Characters:
Kudo Taiki: No character has been as flat and shallow in a Digimon series as this one, and even when they tried to give him some more deepness it just fell flat. His main trouble is that he doesn't need to grow, he doesn't need to evolve, because he is already kind a perfect, in a bad way. He is the definition of Gary Stu, a character who has no real flaw and the story revolved around him. He is considerate, a bit smart, a good friend, never gives up, he believes in the best of people, he's just so perfect that it is annoying. And why that is? Because he stays the same, he never gets developed, and we grow bored of it: he is like a broken record that keeps playing. You can't have a character (even worse, the lead character) that won't grow up as the series continues, this is just frustrating, the events of the series are supposed to change him, but he stays the same, no matter the situation. Character development is nothing but a joke here, and with no character development, it doesn't matter if the story plot is brilliant (which is not) the series just will feel shallow.
Akari: She's a little better than Taiki, but just because no one can be as flat and shallow as he is. This character is annoying, and she doesn't add anything to the group aside her usual yelling and be a burden to everybody else. She has no xross loader (this season's digivice), no abilities to support the team, she really has nothing... she is just the friend who tag along, complains about everything and gets nothing done. Seriously, what were the writers thinking involving her in this series? Even her character development is weak at best.
Zenjiro: probably the best of the human characters. He is a comic relief and usually he adds nothing more than that. Sure, sometimes he fights with a sword and helps out, but he is mostly there to joke, and that makes him the one who bothers the less, but there's no background nor real conflict, so he is just one dimensional.
Shoutmon: I usually group the digimon in just one section, but Shoutmon deserves to be on his own because he might be the ONLY character that could make this series worth watching. Bad attitude, hot headed, a bit arrogant and funny, while portraying some interesting behavior. He gets easily irritated and likes doing things his way, but he's also a good friend. He has many traits that make him feel like a more fleshed out character even when we don't get to know much of his background. It seems as he was the only one thought through.
Kiriha and Nene get more developed through the second part (from episode 31 to 54) so it feels unfair to talk about them here, so I'll be brief: both add almost nothing to the series; they both have xross loaders and they have their own teams in their race to get the code crowns, but none of them are more than one dimensional in this first part. Kiriha is the apparently bad guy, but who is not so bad in deep down and Nene is... well, she is just looking for her brother. Make of that what you wish.

Sound: Luckily the soundtracks are usually great. The opening theme is catchy, the soundtrack lands almost perfectly with each scene, but sometimes they feel a little bit over the top. However it must have been the part that I enjoyed the most of this series.

Enjoyment: The first time I watched I endured 20 episodes before dropping it. Now, a few years later, I came back, trying my best to take it on with good will and I almost couldn't stand it. It rarely drew a smile out of me, it mostly felt like I was watching something meaningless, because it never really changed, it never really used its potential.

So far I've seen some positive reviews of this series, but most of them just cover up until episode 9, where there was still hope for this show to become better. When it started it seemed as this show could add some conflict to Taiki, give some importance to Akari and Zenjiro, develop a deep (yet lightly delivered) tone to what happens in the story plot and have the villains flesh out and become compelling. I wish that was the way it turned out, but that didn't happen.
Digimon Xross Wars started trying to take all the elements from previous Digimon series and thus it had the potential to take the best of them and becoming a great, memorable Digimon series; instead, it took the worst habits of each series, created a lot of shallow characters that couldn't exploit the potential of the story plot and utterly destroyed the quality that most Digimon series had. And that just makes me sad.
Stray observations:
-Episode 2: Taik to Shoutmon: “If you want to become king then do that yourself”. Shoutmon: “I need to become one to help my friends.” Taiki: “I’ll help you!”. Well, that escalated pretty quickly.
-I don’t remember which episode, but Shoutmon once said: “I think I’m starting to fall for you Taiki!” Disturbing.
-There was an attempt to make Taiki a deeper character in episode 10: We see a flashback in which he refused to help a fellow kid and the kid died. It was dark and it gave some good and necessary context to Taiki’s trait to help others. Sadly, in the next scene everybody just laughed out of Taiki being traumatized as it was some kind of joke.
-Baalmon was another Digimon that had good fleshed out personality and good background, but as soon as he evolved into Beelzebumon and joined Taiki’s party he just had one function: to xross with Shoutmon. What a waste of a good character.
-It takes 22 episodes to finally get to know the relation between the digital world and the human world. This might have been the only interesting fact delivered in the whole show.


And that's it for now. I really don't know if I can stand the next 2 parts of Digimon Xross Wars, so this might as well be my last review. If so, thank you so much for reading them, many people have commented about them and said that they were "spot on" which really makes me happy and encouraged me to re-watch them all again, and that was really a wonderful experience.
If I do come back, this might be the headline for the next one:
Next time: Digimon Xross Wars tries to convinces us it had matured, but destroys any good will with an excessive amount of Deus Ex Machina and the same annoying Kudo Taiki

Digimon Cross Wars is done.
Well actually it isn't, this shitty website split it up into two entries, but whatever. For now I'm going to review the first part of the series.

Cross Wars is the best non-Mazinkaiser SKL mecha series that Japan's made since Gurren Lagann. The title says it's Digimon, but really it's something entirely different that is neither better or worse than what all the cool kids enjoyed so many years ago. It carries over Adventure 01/02's themes of our childhood monster fighting fantasy quests, but adds a twist of righteousness and giant combining robots that only Japan is capable of delivering properly. ... I've followed this show for 30 weeks straight, longer than I've followed any other subbed anime, and I have no regrets.

Story:

One day a goggle-headed hero kid with all the righteousness of every 60's superhero comes across a dying virtual red dinosaur named Shoutmon. He and his stupid friend and female friend are then transported to the shambled Digital World and are commanded to save the place from a bunch of tyrannical dicks called the Bugra Army. And so they do. Goggle kid and his friends form their own badass army called Xros Heart and travel through the many different parts of the Digiworld gathering allies, beating other armies, getting into rivalries with other humans and their respective forces and etc all to see who will take control of all of the dimension's various zones and reformat the place into something that's not a hellhole.

The story flows via series of miniature 1-3 episode arcs taking place in various zones of the Digiworld. It's a nice thing to watch every week, these kids going on their adventures and shit fighting evil. New-age nostalgia, I love it. It also adheres the oldschool super robot rules of new combinations, weapons and power-ups on a regular basis, but that comes hand in hand with the episode structure of the show anyways.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT is that only the main character has a Digivice, and not his two friends. Also, there is no Digivolving/Levels, only combining. It's really not a big deal though.

Characters:

TAIKI: He's a kid with poofy brown hair named Tai and has goggles. He fights for the right, but still has no qualms about ruining the shit of most enemies.
AKARI and ZENJIRO: Taiki's girlfriend and his self-proclaimed rival who mans the goggles while's he's indisposed of.
SHOUTMON: He's like Bloo from Foster's Home, but with the dream of ruling the Digiworld like a pimp.
NENE: The myterious awesome girl who also has a digivice and her own army of dudes.
KIRIHA: The mysterious powerhungry kid who kicks ass but doesn't care enough to take names. He has a Greymon and fights against(and sometimes with?!) our heroes on a regular basis. Cool rival bro.

TACTIMON: Bugra Army's CO. Means serious business and looks radical.
BLASTMON: Thier other CO. This guy's awesome. He's a huge crystal dude who eats jewels and shits failure. He has a majestic voice.
LILITHMON: Bugra army's other other CO. She's conniving and kind of a bitch and has big boobs.

Presentation:

The animation is okay. Except when it's either really bad or really awesome. It wholly depends on the episode/scene. Usually when the most awesome shit's going down you get some Gainax-quality beams and transformations, but if the characters are just sort of trotting around, eh. It's still presentable.

The style bugged me at first. The series is back to using designs that are reminiscent of the first four seasons, as opposed to the crap they used in Saves/Data Squad, and that's really awesome. However, I nitpicked the setting a lot because it's a lot less abstract than I want it. The Digiworld is season 1 was a freaking bizarre place, full of weird scenery that didn't make sense. And that was cool. This series' settings are just sort of okay and more standard fantasy-styled. But that's just me.

The music's some of the best ever. It's like GaoGaiGar or some shit, where everything important has its own passionate theme by some guy who's almost Masaki Endo full of lyrics about combining robots, blazing souls and never giving up. I love that.

In closing:

DO YOU LIKE DIGIMON?
[Y] Watch this

DO YOU LIKE DIGIMON TO THE POINT WHERE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE METASERIES UP UNTIL THIS POINT?
[Y] Watch this, but don't come into thinking it's a Digimon show. Your favorite Mega-level Dark Master will be used a a villain of the week and there's nothing you can do about it.

DO YOU LIKE GURREN LAGANN OR GAOGAIGAR OR GETTER?
[Y] Watch this


DO YOU LIKE GUNDAM?
[Y] Watch this, but expect nothing actually like Gundam (unless it's G Gundam, the good one)

WHY IS THIS SO LOW?? Like this gets a 10 from me !
Best season of Digimon without a doubt. The art is of course way better than before but not only that surprisingly i find myself giving it a 10 music and character wise!!!
Those two things aren't very nicely done by digimon (the villains are always awesome but this time they were also even better) but man oh man was these things nicely done here.
And for enjoyment i gave it a 10 since i dont think there was one single moment where i was actually bored !!!
The story is typical digimon stuff but still ... they added different twists to make it better than before !!
I didnt make it too long but I hope this encourages people who hate this anime to give it another chance because it is reall the best digimon season.

Xros Wars (or Fusion for those watching the English dub) is the 6th entry to the highly successful multimedia franchise, Digimon. The series has similar roots to the Pokémon series, popping up at around the same time in the mid-90s, and spawning many spin-offs and successors across multiple media platforms over the next 20 odd years. Xros Wars exists independently of previous entries to the Digimon saga, both canonically and tonally. With each successive addition to the series, the creators strive to reinvent the franchise, not just through introducing new characters, but often drastically altering the world and any major elements within.

This 30-episode run is ... launched by 7th-grader Taiki Kudou (or Mikey for those watching Fusion) rescuing the fatally injured Shoutmon, and being granted a X-Loader by an unknown entity. He is immediately thrust into the Digital World alongside his two friends, Akari and Zenjirou (Angie and Jeremy.) As far as Digimon introductions go, this is quite generic, essentially being some basic variation of the introductions used in previous seasons. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it does do a sufficient job of introducing the human characters, as well as giving some brief insight into the severity of the situation within the Digital World.

The key conflict of the series is with the Bagra army, an evil force lead by 3 Commanders with a single-minded goal of conquering the Digital World. As the series progresses, more detail is given as to the history of the Digital World, and to the conflict itself. What starts as a fairly straightforward ‘Good vs. Evil’ battle for control of the world slowly escalates, as we can see more and more of what’s at stake. While it never fully escalates into a genuinely epic conflict, there is certainly enough of a plot here to pull you through the 30-episode run, though it is a little barebones at times. There is a fairly large amount of filler content spread throughout the series, but even within the filler episodes there is usually something new and interesting to keep it worthwhile. For instance, one particular filler episode started with ‘love-love dancing’ to appease a guardian Digimon, and ended with tragic backstory for one of the major characters. Such revelations, whether they’re plot related, character related, or simply a new power-up for the Digimon, are spread evenly throughout the series, so there’s almost always something to look forward to.

Previously, I mentioned that this series represents a fairly significant shift for the Digimon franchise. This comes in the form of “Xros,” or “Fusion,” as the dub elects to call it. In basic terms, Xros Wars does away with the staple of Digivolution in all forms, replacing it entirely with straightforward combination sequences. This gives the series more of a classic Mecha feel than the Proxy Battle feel that it has had for every season prior. Every Digimon has the capability to combine with each other, so there is essentially limitless potential for crazy new designs and power-ups. Unfortunately, this is rarely used to interesting effect, as it eventually boils down to the same few combinations used throughout the series. The ability to Xros is shared among the Bagra army too, leading to some interesting escalations within the otherwise standard Monster of the Week format.

Taiki, Akari and Zenjirou act as the anchors of the series. They drive the plot forward, and keep it chugging at a reasonable pace. Unfortunately, these 3 characters also suffer the most in terms of character development. Because of that necessity to keep consistency, the three protagonists end the series essentially the same as they were in the beginning. Taiki is the same brash, headstrong, yet totally devoted lead, Akari is the same caring, yet oftentimes selfish support, and Zenjirou is the same complete blank slate, comic relief character. Fortunately, development is present elsewhere, particularly within the additional human characters, Kiriha and Nene. Kiriha acts as direct rival to Taiki, but his motivations are expanded upon throughout the series. Nene has a particularly interesting backstory, one that I don’t particularly want to spoil here.

That aside though, the real reason you’re watching this show is the Digimon. That much is clear, even early on. The Digimon cast here is varied and expansive, each with a different personality, and most of them overflowing with charm. Taiki leads a rapidly growing army of Digimon known as Xros Heart. I could be here all day listing them out one by one, but to be concise, they are a dynamic bunch, with each character contributing something different to the team. They all have their moment in the spotlight, though some more than others. The Bagra army however, are given little to no background, and so they’re generally just painted as ‘evil to be evil.’ Each commander has different means, so they’re not entirely devoid of character, but they are a fair disappointment.

Aesthetically speaking, Xros Wars is a very well designed series. The creature design, though often generic and overdone, is very pleasing to the eye. With a nice range of bright colours, and some interesting use of lighting effects, Xros Wars has some very pleasant eye candy on offer. Stock footage is used with a fairly heavy hand, being generously sprinkled throughout the 30-episode run. However, this stock footage is generally well crafted and animated, and for the most part it is used effectively to fill in the gaps between action sequences. The world design however, I feel is a bit of a step back from previous seasons. Gone are the abstract designs of the Digital World, replaced instead by myriad generic regions, each with a distinct theme, such as Forest Zone or Desert Zone. They do serve as appropriate backdrops for the action, and they are well drawn at the very least, but I feel like more could have been done with them. The human character designs are generic, fitting with their cookie-cutter character archetypes. Not necessarily a bad thing, just don’t expect to be wowed by their design. The sound design was overly well done, with a catchy OP and some well written Insert tracks, complemented by some punchy sound effects and a fitting background score. Nothing really to write home about, but it all served its purpose. Both the English and Japanese voice cast performed well, so pick whichever one you prefer. Just be ready for a slightly more light-hearted approach in the English dub than in the Japanese.

Xros Wars is an interesting beast, to me. Looking at the sum of its parts, it shouldn’t amount to much. It’s a late entry to a long running kids franchise, with a fairly generic plotline and some uninspired characters. But somehow, despite that, I had a lot of fun watching this series. It’s by no means perfect, but it is an enjoyable ride. The shift from proxy battles to mecha was an interesting gamble, and I think it paid off, creating a fresh atmosphere for what could be considered a fairly stale franchise. It doesn’t really have much to offer, outside of a bit of fun and some eye candy, so I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. But for those of you willing to jump in, there’s a lot to like here.

I haven't really sat down to watch a Digimon Series since the original two. I sort of lost hope on digimon after Tamers, and then Frontiers (I keep debating on Savers). That said, I wasn't really hopeful when I sat down to watch XROS wars. I mainly attempted it because the newest season coming up sounded good.

I was pleasantly surprised, and found myself enjoying XROS wars. It's overall an enjoyable show, and I found myself liking the characters a whole lot, especially the digimon. The couple of episodes featuring Ba'almon story really struck an emotion in me. Some of the things are completely cheesy, ... but it's easy to get sucked in and excited.

The one thing I found myself disliking a little bit was the DigiXros. I enjoyed it for what it was, I thought it was a neat and interesting new concept to the series, but I disliked how robotic it looked sometimes. I sat there staring at some of the XROS and wondering how they formed that when it looks nothing like any of the digimon combined. The sequences for awhile got annoying after seeing it over and over and over again to (It wasn't half as bad when they finally changed it and shortened it later on in the series).

I also didn't like how one episode sort of just threw you into the middle of it, then changed. I found myself wondering for a moment if I had skipped an episode.

Overall though Digimon Xros Wars is an enjoyable series that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of Digimon but is wary of getting back into the series after the past ones.

I was 7 years old when Digimon Adventure (the season that started it all) was released. I'm now 28 as I'm writting this review. I've watched every single Digimon anime, special, OVA and move there is until to this point. I've also played a few Digimon games. The point is: I'm a Digimon fan.

I'm going to start off by talking about the character design. Years pass but it's still the same "kid goggles on his forehead and has a dragon-mon". I've seen it times and times before and this lack of creativity cannot be ignored. Speaking of other examples of the same lack of ... creativity, the overall monster design is super lazy: either we have the same old digimon from past seasons with a chance of a different color scheme OR the new ones are mostly Mobile Suit Gundam-based dragon-mons. I kid you not, a more accurate name for this anime would be "Gundamon!"

Speaking of sound, I have awesome news and terrible news. Starting off with the bad stuff, the volume given to Taiki and Shoutmon (main characters) is a lot louder than the rest of the cast, which means that either become deaf whenever they speak so I can listen to the others or they're all I'll hear and then have to rely 100% on subtitles to be sure I don't misheard them. It's that bad. Another thing is that the OP only comes half-way through the episode and I hated that. However, there is good news as I've said before. The Digimon battle song is an explosion of Diginostalgia and will make you sing along to it in no time. I've experienced goosebumps everytime it came on.

The story's pace is very fast with the series skipping ahead whenever necessary to get to the important stuff but each episode was still very repetitive with the same formula being used over and over again: fuse the same digimon, use the same attack, pretend you're in trouble, still win. I wish the other kids had their own Digimon and be creative with fusions and strategies. For example: there's an episode when (SPOILERS) Taiki is fighting a fire Digimon. Taiki has a water Digimon on his party but despite being considered by every character an incredible smart kid, never does he ever think of using the water Digimon. Also, the same guy doesn't use his signature goggles when diving underwater. WTF????

Moving on to characters, Akari and Zenjirou's existence is a waste of time and space. They don't have Digimons, they can't fight (obviously), they're not smart. They don't add anything to the anime, not even in terms of comic relief. There were a couple of instances where the story tries to give them a feel of "it's a good thing they're there" but honestly it's all BS because at the end of the day, they were utterly pointless.

SPOILERS:
1) this show breaks its own rules, for example: it's said that Digimon heal up when stored on the Digi-device, even if they're close to dying. However, Shoutmon got poisoned and the series made it seem that he needed an antidote or he would die.
2) legendary Digimon are basically popular Digimon from older seasons. You'd expect that when summoning creatures with "legendary" on their name would be something badass, with impact and really useful on key moments like boss fights. But not. They're nothing but an excuse to have these 2 second long cameos of our favourite Digimon from past seasons.
3) Shoutmon begins to have issues with fusing with other Digimons around episode 25 due to fatigue and lack of strength. The problem with this scenario is that it happens 25 episodes in, when all Digifusions have been established and used and there hadn't been issues until then.
4) Nene and Kuriha have both Digimon of their own but once again it's all up to the goggles kid.

All things considered, this season didn't amaze me as it could've done. The idea where Digimon fuse together to create new and powerful Digimon is good but only if you add the concept of strategy and set a percentage limit to the end result: Say if I fuse a Gabumon and an Agumon, the end result shouldn't just be a different color scheme, you know? Both Digimon should have an equal impact on the new Digimon. That's how I feel anyways.

Final score: 6/10

(This review applies to both this season and Death Generals)

Ah, Digimon. That name rings a lot of bells for people of the late 90's and early 2000's. What comes to mind? A group of kids who pair up with monsters who digivolve and save two worlds from a great evil. Sure it had it's cliche moments, but it really showed kids that anime was unlike anything that the American cartoons showed. For the most part, Digimon was daring, it took a lot of risks, and did a lot of things other shows wouldn't even dare to do, while still staying true to what it was: ... a great adventure featuring kids and their struggles. I'm definitely a Digimon fan as of right now, and I still remember seeing episodes when I was little. Unfortunately...I feel terrible for saying this, but I have to say it: as of now, Digimon has really fallen from grace. Things started to go a little off track with Digimon Savers (I really liked it), but things REALLY went awry with this new series, Digimon Xros Wars (I'll review Hunters separately).

Now where do I begin? Well, for starters, the animation...is kinda funky. One scene, it'll be really crisp and smooth, but other times it'll look like paint and gum arabic got mushed together weirdly. The animation's not the most consistent. Sorry, but Digimon Tamers looked a lot better than this in terms of the animation department, though even that had its errors. The music...by God, why does the OST have to be soooooo GOOD?! I really liked the background music for this, even though I have to admit most of the time it's rather generic. Not only that, most of the insert songs are great. I especially liked We Are Xros Heart and the terrible underused X4B The Guardian. Seriously, that song is BOSS!!! But one thing that really bugs me is that there's no ending theme! Yes, there are opening themes, but no ending themes. Just these dumb segments at the end which I never bothered to watch, and I have to admit, I feel this series uses too many insert songs in one episode. I just feel they were a bit too overused. Seriously, why did the creators use all of their budget on their insert songs and not use it to make an ending theme?! Come on! You can do better than this!

The characters...eh. Typical. You've got the kind but brash and happy-go-lucky gogglehead, the angsty lone wolf who hates everybody, the mysterious beauty, and two of the most useless and bland characters in the entire show, Akari and Zenjirou. Seriously, these two do absolutely nothing to make themselves engaging, nor do they even once contribute to the story (well, until the end, of course, but that's another thing entirely!). All they're used for is comic relief, and not the good kind! Watch the Jungle Zone episodes and you'll see what I mean. I don't like Kiriha, the lone wolf character. His angst is just really stupid and way too Kaiba-ish. I have to admit, I really liked Taiki. I don't understand why people say he's a Mary-Sue. A Mary-Sue is a character used in fan fiction who is perfect and lacks any flaws, and are mostly created as a wish fulfillment fantasy for fan fic writers. Taiki may be kind of bland, but he's far from a Mary Sue. He has flaws. For example, in the beginning he was rather brash and dove into situations without thinking, and he pushes himself too hard. Doesn't that count? As for the Digimon...yeah, they were bland. Shoutmon...I really don't like him. He's like a tiny robot dragon version of Naruto, always yelling and boasting about something constantly. Stereotypical power-hungry villains are stereotypical power-hungry villains. That, and Lilithmon is basically big floppy boobed fan service. WHY DID THEY PUT THAT IN A KID'S SHOW?!?

Basically, Digimon Xros Wars is still your formulaic kids show with lots of adventures and everything else. HOWEVER! I will give it credit for bringing back a lot of my favorite Digimon. In fact, there is ONE two-episode arc in this series, yes, ONE TWO EPISODE ARC that branded itself into my heart like no other. It's the NeoVamdemon arc. Why? Not only does it feature my favorite Digimon of all time (and with awesomely cute voices too), it has some of the saddest and most heartwrenching scenes in not just this anime, but all anime in general. I cried at it! This is why I started watching Xros Wars, because I wanted to see those two episodes and those two alone! They have a near perfect mixture of comedy, drama, suspense, and bombast. To me, those two episodes were just perfect. I love them!

Unfortunately...I still have to be a critic and rank this series VERY low...and I do so for a rather silly reason. Have you noticed that Toei has this REALLY WEIRD habit of giving the weirdest voice actors the weirdest roles? Something like that often happens, and it often leads to some really bad miscasts. With Toei, that's happened. A LOT. For example: take the seiyuu Tomokazu Seki. He's a famous voice actor in the anime industry, known for his role as Kyo Sohma from Fruits Basket and Shuichi Shindou from Gravitation. Get this: he was cast as a cute little animal mascot in the very first Pretty Cure series! Yes, a GUY as a cute little animal mascot!! I heard this role myself and...oh God, I hated it so much. Yes, I know it's been done before. Nyanko-sensei from Natsume Yuujinchou is an example, but that was done right! Why do I bring up this issue? Well...after seeing episodes 15-17 of this series, Toei has officially made me lose my respect for them. I do give them credit for bringing back one of my favorite Digimon and giving him a cuter design...but the voice. OH MOTHER OF GOD, THAT VOICE!!! WHY TOEI?!? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CAST AGUMON FROM DIGIMON SAVERS AS A FREAKING GOD WHO LOOKS LIKE A LITTLE KID?!?!?!? I will seriously NEVER forgive them for this utterly disgusting and insidious miscast!!! This particular character should sound like a little kid, NOT Shun from Kimi to Boku! Yes, his voice fits when he goes into his adult form, and personally, I would have tolerated it better if the voice was JUST for his adult forms, not his kid forms! But NOOOOO!!! Why Toei?! WHYYYYYY?!? I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!! He sounds so awful because of it!!!

So...Digimon Xros Wars has a plot that's generic as heck and...that's it in a nutshell. But don't even try going near Hunters, it's sequel. That's EVEN WORSE!!!

digiXross is new feature of digimon series (altough there are jogres/dna digivolution).

The Story is about saving the digital worlds like other digimon story, and the plot is same as the digimon also, so i think there is no special thing about it.
Because i like digimon series when i saw its cover i wanted to watch it badly. But when i watch it my dream and hope all be ruined. I think i am not watching digimon. I think i watching gundam or other mecha story. So bluntly i just disappointed because i have a high expectation about digimon series.

I watched the English version: Digimon Fusion. From a Digimon fan's perspective there's a lot of weirdness about this show. It doesn't really follow the same formula of everyone gets a Digimon companion, everyone needs to learn lessons and grow, the Digimon actually digivolve into cooler more powerful forms, etc. Despite being so different, I found it pretty ok.
Mikey is probably one of the most responsible main characters of any Digimon series I've seen (especially compared to Marcus). He seems to think things through and actually look out for his friends. The supporting characters aren't amazing but they're not horrible either.
I would say one ... of the big disappointments with the show is the lack of digivolutions. Shoutmon doesn't actually digivolve until the end of the season. The rest of the "evolutions" are weird fusions that remind me of Power Rangers robots joining together. I can definitely see how it wouldn't be for everyone.
Another nock against it would be that none of the villians are particularly imposing. There's no Myotismon scheming for an entire arc or the Digimon Emperor creating his very own frankenstein digimon.
Overall, I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone, but you could do worse if you wanted to watch a Digimon show you haven't seen. You could watch Frontier