At the conclusion of the original Digimon series our heroes had to leave their Digimon partners in the Digital world as they were whisked away back to earth to continue with their lives, none expected to see each other again. Four years later the kids are going on with their lives, some in high school others trying to get into college when the Season One leader,Tai, is suddenly contacted by his partner Digimon and asking for help. Once he arrives in the Digital world he sees Agumon being attacked and unable to Digivolve to a strange black structure. Once they are safe they end up in a cave where an egg is embedded into the ground with his old crest, or sign, of courage which he tries to pull out and three beams of light shoot out and hit three kids that were introduced as David,Cody and Yolei, friends and admirers of the original Digidestined children for their sports skills, computer knowledge and classmates of T.K and Kari from season 1. These beams of light turn out to be the new generation Digivices named D3s thus making them the new Digidestined children.
The show really kicks off when the three new kids are taken to the Digital world and Davis successfully releases the Digi-egg of courage and meets his partner Digimon, Veemon. From then on it is explained that the black structures are named Control Spires and are built by a kid going as the “Digimon Emperor” who is controlling all the Digimon using these spires and a dark ring device that attaches to Digimon and makes them evil. It’s further explained that no Digimon can Digivolve due to the control spires inhibiting that ability and thus making Digimon easier to capture for his own amusement. The Digimon Emperor turns out to be a child from their world, who has a dark D3 in his possession and is very intelligent and very good at sports, a genius that is hounded by reporters everywhere he goes.
As the new children find their own Digi-eggs molded after the original Digidestined crests they release their partner Digimon named Hawkmon and Armadillomon, any guesses as to what sort of animal they look like? So far the team is up to three new children with the old cast quite honestly being useless at this point and being there for their knowledge of the Digital world and advice. T.K and Kari later find two additional eggs with their own crests on them and release them to get their Digivices upgraded and their Digimon given the power to Digivolve using the Digi-egg method now known as “Armor Digivolution”
As the series progressed the new team of Digidestined takes down the emperor and convinces him to return to being good with the words of his passing Digimon slave Wormmon who turns out to be his partner all along. Wormmon is later returned back as an egg hatches after the emperor, from now on called Ken, apologizes for the way he mistreated him and promises to take care of him. After this the children fight all sorts of wacky bad guys like a mummy with a machine gun, a spider that turns into a woman who is actually behind the creation of the evil spires used to control Digimon. She uses these spires to create the kid’s worst enemy, Black Wargreymon, a soulless Digimon who is bent on finding the most powerful opponent by any means necessary. He gets his wish after destroying a set of stones which release the guardian of the Digiworld who easily defeats Black Warygreymon.
After the Wargreymon issue the kids return home to hopefully enjoy Christmas, but of course evil strikes again, this time with Digimon coming through the Digital barrier and attacking cities all over the earth, this is how they find out they are only the Digidestined from japan and there are many more throughout the rest of the world ready to help fight against the forces of evil. After this filler-esque adventure they return home to eventually find out the REAL mastermind behind all this was Myotismon from Season One, seriously. Long story short, they beat him once and for all while freeing the captured children he meant to use as his power source.
The show uses the same art style and similar character designs as the original series, heck most of the background are almost exactly the same, just a few different objects that you could tell where intractable and meant do either be used or broken during the episode. Pretty common stuff in anime shows so I can’t blame them for using that technique. One issue I could not believe I hadn’t picked up on in my earlier years was the fact that so much footage was reused during the Digimon’s fights. Something else I picked up on was actually fixed around episode 12 where one of the Digimon says his title and then changes it stating “I feel like I’m much smarter now” or something along that line as it had previously been stating a completely different phrase than what his Digivolution was based on.
In this box set I got a nifty little booklet showing me most of the Digimon that are introduced during the show, albeit with their Japanese names instead of American so most people would probably read it and go “what the hell am I reading, these are all wrong” while on the subject of English and Japanese, this is the second season of this show that has been released in ONLY English, I really would have loved if it had came with English subtitles and Japanese audio, just so I can experience the originality.
Something else I noticed during the last few episodes there was an episode missing and honestly it was an important one where the kids are trapped in their own little dimensions where their wishes are granted, one to be reunited with his dead father, another where Digimon and humans live together in harmony and so forth. Aside from this issue there wasn’t any other missing footage or obvious screw ups.
All in all a very solid addition to the Digimon franchise and one I would recommend to any fans of the series, just ignore the silly humor as always.
