Well. 02 has spikes, I guess.
Simply put, 02 is a show that is badly overshadowed by its predecessor, and that stands both for in general, and for the characters in the show. It does what so many "sequel" anime do - adds new gimmicks, more flashy character designs and powers, but fails to actually develop the characters or the story with any degree of finesse. I'm looking at you, Yu-Gi-Oh, when I say this. And Dragonball GT. Is Armor Digivolving cool? Absolutely. Jogress/Fusion Digivolution? Sure! But I need more than that, actually, and 02 isn't really inclined to give it to us.
One need only take a look at the main cast of this season. Our original chosen children, with the exception of Takeru and Kairi, have "aged out" of being protagonists, and it is, admittedly, fun to see them a couple years more mature, having changed their look and style a little bit. It would be better, though, if we got to follow the characters we love instead of these guys, though. Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori - or Davis, Yolei, and Cody if you prefer - aren't horrible characters, necessarily, but they're far weaker than the ones whose shoes they're stepping in, and 02 could not make that all the more apparent if it tried. The entire story of the season is based on them fitting the legacy that's been left for them, with Daisuke inheriting Tai's courage and Yamato's Friendship, Miyako inheriting Sora's Love and Mimi's Purity, and Iori getting Koushiro's Knowledge and Jou's Sincerity. Except none of them are as good as the characters they are taking the place of, and when they're getting the screen time and emotionally-tied powerset of two previous characters, you'd think that might at least mean they get twice the development and growth, right?
It doesn't.
We see the cast of the first series struggle, grapple with real problems, grow and flourish as they come to terms with things like what love really means, what it means to be a leader, or a hero, a big brother or a son or a dozen other things. Our hero and rival butt heads over two different ideas of family and taking charge, our main heroines start as contrasting ideas of femininity that soon become fast friends who respect one another deeply, and even our kid sidekicks get a ton to do. Daisuke in episode 1 and Daisuke in episode 50 of 02, though? Basically the same dumbass. An endearingly well-meaning dumbass, sure, but I don't feel like he's actually learned or changed in any meaningful way.
That goes for all of them. Really the two characters with the strongest arc this time around are villains, with our first arc enemy of the Digimon Kaiser, Ken Ichijouji, suffering a massive fall from grace, a brutal awakening from his "middle school syndrome"-induced sociopathy, as he realizes that he's been living a cruel child's dream to hide from his real pain. Now that's good stuff, but he's side-lined compared to Daisuke and Iori and Miyako who, simply, don't do a lot. There's Black WarGreymon, too, a manifested symbol of darkness, literally brought to life out of the corruptive influence of a Dark Tower, who has to learn what it means to actually have a soul and be alive, and is far and away one of the most memorable arcs of the entire show, but it's only a few episodes and late in the game.
Instead, 02 is more content to show off fun Digimental evolutions and the way that their main characters use their powers, or introducing villainous gimmick after gimmick from dark rings, to dark spirals, to dark towers, to dark spores. And while Digimon Adventure has a slightly rote "new enemy pops up with More Power" dynamic as well, as is typical for kid friendly action shows, 02 couldn't be more transparently by the books, not to mention the sometimes inexplicable appearances of villains like Demon just to, well, show up and make trouble it feels like.
So with the story and character stripped down to bare parts, you're left with what Digimon always was. A somewhat cheaply animated show designed to sell toys and video games, and while again, 02 has some really stand out moments of animation and ambition - the jarringly weird but fantastically atmospheric HP Lovecraft pastiche in the Dark Ocean will always linger with anyone who watches this season - it only feels all the more cut and paste and by the book because it doesn't have story beats and character work like Adventure to make up for it.
Ultimately, 02 is a disappointing follow up to an unexpected and underappreciated gem. A show shouldn't take so much time reminding you how much better that the old cast was than the new one, either - especially if they're just going to ruin it at the end with this, the first (for me) and worst of the "and then they grew up and had kids" epilogue. It sticks badly in my craw, and has only gotten worse after seeing Harry Potter, Naruto, Bleach, and a dozen more do the same, though I'm not sure any have made me more upset than this incoherent mess.
No wonder they go in a different creative direction for Tamers, and I'm excited to see how that one holds up. And at the end of the day, 02 is a perfectly fine show. It's still Digimon. Your beloved characters are here, the monsters are fun and interesting, and while the story is by the book, it's competently told, with probably a stronger all around villain roster than Adventure had, besides. But all it really is is yet another kid's anime capitalizing off media buzz, and it's predecessor, to fill air time and make a buck. If you go in just wanting 50 episodes of kid-friendly lightness, you'll be content. Just don't expect anything more.
