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Honestly, Tamers is the one I think is actually good and not just something I enjoy watching. It has the best characters, the best story and so on.
I love the first four seasons, but I have the most nostalgia for the first season of Adventure, and it still holds up really well. I just really love those characters. Tamers is my second favorite even though it is technically the best-written out of all of them. It was dark and took chances. I liked Frontier more than most. Of the original four, Adventure 02 is my least favorite since a lot of it feels repetitive, but it still has some great moments and characters like Black Wargreymon. I haven't watched Tri yet, and I never finished any of the other series because I couldn't get into them as much as I wanted to.
Tamers, by a long shot. Adventure hooked me from the getgo, but of the "original" series (ie, before the franchise went on its several year hiatus between Frontier and Savers), Tamers is the only season that really has any meat on its bones from the perspective of an older anime fan. It really took a chance by examining consequences and ramifications of the "reality" of the concept, rather than running purely on shonen anime logic. That said, haven't really made the effort to check out any of the post-Frontier series. I'm there day 1 when the English home video release of Tri happens, though.
Definitely Season 1/Adventure, especially the Myotismon/8th Digidestined Arc when they had to save their world. Then of course in Adventure 02 it was revealed Myotismon pulled a Perfect Cell and survived by the skin of his fangs as a cloud of data, using Oikawa as a host body until he was able to return as the final boss of the season as MaloMyotismon.
01 and Tamers 02 was good, but yeah it dropped the ball in a few places Frontier was average at best. Data Squad i can say was solid Xros Wars fluctuated very wildly. Started mediocrely, got to good during the Death Generals arc, and the Young Hunter stufff...blegh. There was nothing redeemable about that arc period. Haven't seen tri. yet. Waiting for the dub.
My order from best to worse: 01- Digimon Tamers 02- Digimon Xross Wars (both seasons) 03- Digimon Savers 04- Digimon Adventure 05- Digimon Adventure 02 06- Digimon Frontier 07- Digimon Xros Wars Young Hunters a.k.a. the worst thing to carry the name Digimon
I remember really liking Frontier a lot as a kid. I tried to rewatch Adventure a few years ago and I just couldn't. I don't have any memories of Tamers despise hearing it's the best one. eventually i'll have to go through the whole franchise again.
Tamers sits on top for me, I liked Adventure 01 but found most of the cast of Adventure 02 bar TK and Kari to be fucking insufferable so. Even more so when it became the Ken and Davis show.
After collecting my thoughts and going back to older reviews I wrote, here are my thoughts on each series (based on the Japanese version): 01- Digimon Tamers: No matter how much you try to convince me otherwise, this will always be my most favorite Digimon series and one of my top best anime shows period. I saw it in Arabic from beginning to end and I'm still p!ssed at it not getting a home release like the previous two parts because I really, really loved the dub and how it was handled "professionally" unlike any other early 2000s dubbed anime where they just didn't care, then I saw it years ago completely in Japanese raw format, and later English subtitled. I love the story a lot. This was the first Digimon series to take focus in the real world and for some reason I love that plot line. Maybe because in the Digital World the characters aren't afraid to go all out in battle, but in the real world there are more consequences and the characters need to be more vigilant than normal. It's a bigger clash of world than children stuck in an alternate dimension. And it was dark as hell and there were many creepy moments that lasted an impression in my head. The deconstrucion was also a nice addition making this series stand even more. I liked the card system used here. It gives a lot more variety to battles and it makes the Tamers strategies more and think of all possibilities to counter their opponents and the possibilities are endless as they can use anything. Ruki is still one of my earliest fictional crushes and I know some who were crushing on her as well and I'm not ashamed to admit it. She is the best female Digimon character and one of my most favorite female characters of all time period! And Guilmon. I love Guilmon so much I'd choose him over Agumon anytime in any game I play with Guilmon available. 02- Digimon Xross Wars: It's not that long since this was on, but I loved it instantly. It's a different Digimon story but in a good way. It's back to basics with the Digital World, but the army building and battles for territories was a genius idea and it hooked me in, especially with the added human factor. The first season may have ended with a Player Punch but the second season picked up rather good without losing any of its quality that made the first season excellent. The Xross ups was also a nice gimmick for the series and just like the card system from Tamers there were a lot of possibilities with the fusions and adds more variety to battles. 03- Digimon Savers: This was like Tamers 2.0 to me. It got a lot of similarities and I loved the additional and stylistic changes it got. Also credits for giving us a real human villain that's actually a villainous piece of crap and not a misunderstood or brainwashed guy who wanted to be loved. One thing I'm really not a fan of is using Agumon as the main Digimon lead. I know they did it because they made a poll, but I wished they had another one. 04- Digimon Adventure: Great nostalgic value here and the story still holds up, though some later parts got a little bit weak from overhyping the new badmons only to be defeated way too quickly and not living up to their terrors and other parts solved with Deus Ex Friendship. This was the start and set down the basics of the franchise, but it's not my top favorite. 05- Digimon Adventure 02: I wasn't too fond of it... New characters felt like a poor attempt to replicate the old ones, the first arc is a poorer version of the first arc from the previous series, the villain twist was poorly handled by actually telling us who he was from the beginning, and the lack of the survival theme from the old series via free transportation from and to the real world making it too easy for the characters to retreat to safety. Second arc however is where it starts to be good to me, but it was filled with bad writing and many wasted plots that didn't go anywhere and left little to no impact for the rest of the series. 06- Digimon Frontier: The one Digimon series I had no attachment to it at all and I grew up refusing to watch it because I hated the decision of getting rid of Digimon partners and make the humans transform instead. And for the longest time I saw Digimon as the partnership/friendship between the Digimon and tamers and Frontier abandoned it for that time and therefore did not interest me. But then I decided to give it a shot since I was marathoning Digimon at the moment. My first impression was feeling like it's heavily recycled from Adventure. The first one to evolve was the fire lizard and second was the blue wolf. The characters are also looking like they were recycled as well, but not to Adventure 02's degree. One thing I'd like drop is in my earlier days this series was mocked and called a "Digimon Power Rangers". Nowadays that I have some knowledge of the sentai, this doesn't sound that off. In fact, you could call any multi-colored team a Super Sentai. You get double points if the leader was the Red Ranger and a combined attack. Three points if it used the Sixth Ranger trope. Frontier feels like a Sentai series because the transformations make it even more closer to the Sentai than any other Digimon series (Though I think Savers should be called that because it's a team protecting the city under a commander and a base unit and they have uniforms) But at the end, a disappointing show for a long time Digimon fan like me. Frontier wasn't as good I hoped it would be. The writing was sub-par with overly padded plot lines and battles filled with false endings. Since the anime rushed the addition of new evolutions from the start it made the heroes more weaker than they should be and they kept losing and losing and spend a long time on one villain to the point it's no longer fun but rather annoying. They kept losing and failing their objectives and all this time I've been waiting for newer evolutions to make them stronger but they just held on them far too long to the point I just said "just evolve and be done already." Susanomon was the evolution I've been wanting to see because the Ancient Spirit Evolution annoyed me how only Takuya and Koji were the ones fighting and everybody else was sitting doing nothing but cheering on them and Susanomon was the chance for them to be together and when did they do it? The very final episode. By that point it was too late for me. And why wasn't there a Real World arc?!! If there's one thing about the Digimon franchise is they have a Real World arc if it starts with the Digital. This one did not and no, I don't count that episode when Takuya went back because that was one episode only and no real conflicts happened and I don't count the finale either because they didn't fight there. Some good parts: They lose some of their battles. It feels different when they don't constantly win their fights and they have to make tactical retreats from times to another. Unfortunately it backfired at the end when they took a bit too long till they kill their first major opponent which makes them a bit weaker than they should be as stated earlier. The other good thing and I didn't see it coming is the capability to steal other Spirits from their owners. I thought that was a great disadvantage to present and possibly to substitute the lack of Digimon partners to the possibility or robbing the Spirits or Digivices away and give the children a big disadvantage. More bad parts: I don't like how everyone obtained their Spirits. Most of the time it was mere coincidence they found their Spirits and didn't really work hard to get them. In the previous series' the evolutions were awakened by realizing their weaknesses or by their special trait. Here it's like "Hey, I found this Spirit behind this wall that I broke by accident." The only Spirit I found appropriately deserved was Tomoki's Beast Spirit because it came by helping Nanomon and by his honesty which is the closest thing to the normal circumstances of the evolution process. Izumi's Fairymon comes close second. Adventure had the same issue when they were looking for the crests but the difference there is they found them but couldn't use them yet. The other problem I have and it's a big one, is this is possibly the most sexist Digimon series I've ever seen yet! They REALLY made their only female character the weakest of all. How weak? Izumi did NOT win her first evolution fight. That's a good sign, right?! In every other Digimon series when a character gains a new evolution they win their first battle. Here not only Fairymon failed in that matter, but she needed the help of another male to finish off the enemy instead of her. And even after gaining her Beast Spirit she still didn't finish off her enemy. How weak do they want her to be after making her the first to lose her Human Spirit?! And really guys? Everyone gets a cool looking Digimon and you give your sole female character a fairy in underwear?! Because, you know... for kids to watch!! And it gets even worse for her. While the dudes get powerful elemental abilities, she uses kicks and her butt. Her BUTT as a special ability! And it's shame because Izumi is possibly one of the better female Digimon characters out there. Sure she might be recycled from Mimi and Miyoki but she got a better personality than them. Too bad as a Digimon she sucks. Another aspect I hate is the show was REALLY pushing the "Beauty Equals Goodness" message, like a lot! They were really into the "If you're sexy, you're good. and if you're ugly, we no longer like you.", like awkwardly! Who wrote this crap anyway?!! This series was so bad it gave me even more reasons to dislike instead of one stupid reason. And thank God I didn't grow up with it and focused on other cooler stuff. 07- Digimon Xros Wars Young Hunters: But as much as I don't like Frontier, THIS is my most hated Digimon series ever. My God, it was a disgrace for the whole Digimon franchise. Why did they even make it?! Oh, yeah... to sell toys. If they've ended it with the end of the Seven Kingdoms it would've been great. A real conclusion. But no. They had to make this train wreak. What I think is wrong with this season: 1- Hunting?! HUNTING?!! Who the EFF thought it was a great idea? That was the thing that separated Digimon from Pokemon. It wasn't a collector game or aiming to be the best of something. I admit, the army building from the previous season was great and broke away from 1 character=1 Digimon formula, but the Digimons joined on their own free will, and were not hunted like wild animals. And what was with the 1 Digimon limit? Again, that's another Pokemon rip-off. 2-No real plot. Digimon have always been a Good vs Evil story. Sure some seasons took a while to get a build-up, but they did show us antagonists from the start and it didn't drag out like this. The story was dumped down with none of the usual Digimon seriousness that we got used to. 3-The main protagonists are annoying and too childish compared to other seasons and, what else? treated this thing like a game. 4- No sense of real team work. The characters were like players putted against each other in a contest. 5- Xros Up names are SO lazy. No combined names or new ones, no. It's always "Xros Up----mon" 6-Cameos were just fan service and didn't serve a thing worthy for their appearance. They were just there for the sake of being there. They didn't even have enough interactions with the current cast. ((I really wanted to hear Masako Nozawa's Guilmon again)) Yeah... despite being a Digimon fan since Adventure, this is really the worst one ever. Not even the cameos made it better for me. It's as bad-- or even worse than Power Rangers Super Megaforce! Let's hope the new Digimon show will be better than this.
The only Digimon I saw and have memories of watching were Adventure and Frontier, and unfortunately, the only one I still distinctly remember after 15 (?) years was Frontier, so that gets my vote. I remember having TiVo record episodes for me to watch as it was ongoing and getting gripped by its story as much as 8 (or 10? I don't remember) year old me could. I'm pretty sure if I watched it now then I'll hate it, though.
Frontier isn't really that bad, even though it's something of the black sheep of the "Original Generation" series. It essentially comes off as a remake of Adventure with a better sense of direction (less slapping of story arcs on top of each other willy-nilly to extend the series length, with more defined "goals" to achieve throughout the series). Biggest strike against it is that it gets somewhat repetitive in its final arc, and most of the characters get relegated to cheerleading roles as the main duo are the only pair strong enough to fight the villains.
No, it wasn't the same thing. In 02 the characters were still able to fight while in Frontier when Takuya and Koji evolve to Susanoomon everybody is totally unable to do anything because they gave their powers to them leaving them regular humans just standing by the sidelines completely useless.
Well, Imperialdramon Fighter Mode does do something similar, if only because the gap in power between him and the 02 fusions felt a lot larger than the power gap between Wargreymon/MetalGarurumon and the Adventure Ultimate/Perfects. It's not as horrid as Frontier's, since the 02 protagonists can still actually participate, though.
