DIGIMON ADVENTURES 02 is a Fun Sequel with Awesome Ideas and Wandering Narrative
I’ve been revisiting the Digimon anime series to see how they hold up over time. Roughly a month ago, I wrote about watching the first season of the franchise and I’ve recently finished season two. Digimon Adventure 02 was the second Digimon anime that fans were exposed to and I want to share my thoughts. It takes place 4 years after the first season and is a direct sequel with many of the characters from season one playing roles in this season. If you’d like to watch Digimon Adventure 02, you can watch it all on Hulu.
In Digimon Adventure 02 we follow a team of 5 DigiDestined that consists of T.K. and Kari from the first season along with three new characters, Cody, Davis, and Yolei. I think they did a good job with the new characters as they feel familiar, yet unique. You can definitely see and hear influences from older characters in the new characters, but they still have their own personalities.
Another great part of the season is the introduction of Armor Digivolving and the streamlining of DNA Digivolving. The former is especially a really cool highlight of the season. The team did an incredible job of taking the new Digimon (Veemon, Hawkmon, and Armadillomon) as well as Gatomon and Patamon and creating inspired creatures that also feature aspects of the Digi-Egg used and the associated Digimon with the Digi-Egg.
That being said, Digimon Adventure 02 does have faults. There are a few things that are just off like Digmon saying he was the Drill of Power for the first half of the season instead of Drill of Knowledge. There’s also a time where some of the Digimon can Digivolve to the Champion stage but Patamon can’t for some reason. There’s also the matter of how weird the power levels of Digimon are. You would think that Ultimate Digimon beat Champion, etc. but it just seems all over the place in this season and it doesn’t help that it’s not clear where Armor and DNA Digimon fit into the mix.
Also, the format of the show changed. During the first season, the DigiDestined were trapped in the Digital World and having to go on something that felt a bit more survival/adventure. This season, the DigiDestined have daily adventures in the Digital World before coming back to the real world in something much more akin to a “monster of the week” format for the majority of the season. In the later half of the season, things do get shaken up a bit more with Arukenimon, Mummymon, and BlackWarGreymon, but too often those moments just felt less good. I did really like BlackWarGreymon’s story but it felt like it got a little lost in everything else going on.
The season starts with this “monster of the week” feeling and then it shakes things up with the other storyline, but then so much happens in there. You have BlackWarGreymon questioning his existence, the mystery of who Arukenimon and Mummymon work for, then all the stuff happening in the real world. Then, that translates to the Oikawa part of the story and MaloMyotismon. It just feels like it goes from very basic to very jam packed in an episode or two. It just feels too busy for me at the end.
Also, for some reason I had a huge nostalgia hit with the “Digimon World Tour” episodes. I really like that there was some globetrotting. The teams made little, if any, sense at all, but it’s still fun to see DigiDestined from all over the world. However, this begs the question of why things are really only happening in Japan. During the episodes, crap is happening all over the world, but why is all the other stuff centralized in Japan?
Digimon Adventure 02 is not a bad season and honestly, it comes down to taste. I think I prefer the first season for its sense of adventure. For me, the second season wanders a bit too much, but there are definitely some awesome parts to it.
Digimon Series Rankings
Digimon Adventures
Digimon Adventures 02