Another Digimon anime completed, this time I’ve finished Adventure 02; the direct sequel to Adventure (shocking, I know). It’s set 3 years after the events of the last series and centers on a somewhat smaller main cast, focusing on an older TK and Kari alongside 4 new characters in Davis, Yolei, Cody and Ken. Tai and the other older kids are still around, but they take a pretty major backseat, mainly being relegated to support roles due to various plot restrictions placed on them, it’s still really nice to see how they’ve changed / matured during the time skip though; none of them feel out of place, and a good balance is struck where they’re decently present but don’t outshine the new characters.
On the new characters themselves, they’re pretty good! Starting with Davis, he’s sort of an analog to Tai, being super headstrong and always charging into action; but the leadership aspect is heavily downplayed as the others frequently ignore his suggestions. Yolei is headstrong like Davis and shares traits with Izzy, being an often-blunt computer whiz; her family also owns a convenience store, which supplies the group with a healthy amount of snacks. Cody is similar to Joe insofar as he has a cautious disposition and often serves as the “voice of reason”, but we get insight into his family life and how his father’s death has impacted his worldview later on. Their Digimon are also quite good, playing more or less the same role as last time around. Finally, TK and Kari are fairly similar to their portrayal in the original series; just with new designs and a general increase in maturity.
A big change between 02 and the original Adventure is that the kids aren’t trapped in the digital world; in the first episode, the new kids get special digivices that allow them to transport in and out of it freely at specific gates, which creates a more episodic formula where the group will head into the digital world to accomplish a task before heading back out before the end of the episode. It’s not inherently a bad set up and allows for more focus on the kids’ family lives, but it reduces the cohesiveness of the digital world in my opinion; instead making it feel more like a series of disconnected biomes since the kids usually just pop out in the area they’re needed instead of having to manually travel there. The new characters also get invested in the digital world / digimon a bit too fast for my taste, just kinda deciding to care about the fate of it right away instead of them only slowly coming around after spending an extended period of time in it like in Adventure. Luckily it’s not too big of an issue as the show starts strong with the “Digimon Emperor” serving as the first major villain.
Throughout the first 22 episodes, the Emperor absolutely terrorizes the digital world, erecting Control Spires that allow him to send out Dark Rings that enslave Digimon; the evil Digimon from Adventure were decently threatening but mostly mindless bad guys. But there’s sort of a cat-and-mouse quality to this first arc where the Emperor actively adapts to the kids’ meddling while we see just how brutal and sadistic he is. About halfway through the arc, he’s revealed to be a child prodigy named Ken, and after he’s defeated, he goes through easily the best character development of any Digimon series I’ve watched to this point.
We get nearly a whole episode focused on his relationship with his family and brother Sam, as well as him trying to come to terms with his litany of terrible actions. I really love how, while he’s able to get his Digimon back and a second chance after losing him post-defeat; he isn’t just instantly forgiven. A lot of the Digimon still (justifiably) despise him, and many of the kids are very hesitant to trust him. He has to work and actively make amends over an extended period of time before he’s able to move past his previous actions and eventually become a full member of the team. His stint as the Digimon Emperor isn’t invalidated, he has to process his feelings and make things right before he’s accepted again. Being ruled by regrets and fear (though not to the same extent as Ken of course) is something I’ve struggled with myself, and the message from his arc that you can move on from the past through good faith effort really resonated with me.
The animation is also substantially better in 02 compared to Adventure, it’s not genre-defining stuff or anything. But the fights feel more dynamic and are much less reliant on obvious stock animations; though transformation sequences still go on for far too long. The music is also far better, with actually fitting tracks being used instead of chill songs like “Hey, Digimon” being played over tense fight scenes. Even the general environments and character movements / expressions feel higher quality this time around.
Unfortunately… the show really loses steam after the Digimon Emperor arc outside of Ken’s development. There’s a “Dark Ocean” plotline started in EP13 where Kari is teleported to a mysterious 3rd world, but it’s never resolved in a satisfying way. There’s an international theme during the second third of the series, with the kids having to travel around the world to send Digimon back to the digital world that’s barely present in the first and final thirds. This villain named “Daemon” appears then leaves with virtually no explanation. And finally, Myotismon from Adventure is revived after being revealed to have been hiding in this other character named Oikawa (who’s also connected to Cody’s dead father) in the penultimate episode and serves as the final super duper final villain. That’s not even mentioning Mummymon and I’m-not-even-going-to-try-to-spell-it spiderladymon who are villains for quite a while but just kinda… die in the final battle, BlackWarGreymon’s reason for having emotions while the other control spire Digimon don’t never being properly explained, the dark spore thing also never being properly explained, really a whole bunch of stuff never being properly explained. If this paragraph feels like a mess, that’s because the second half of the series goes off the rails and throws way too much, too fast at the viewer without properly wrapping up half the plot threads. I did like the epilogue since the kids definitely deserve a happy ending after all the crap they’re put through. But the show really would’ve benefitted from an extra 10 episodes or so to flesh out some of the ideas it just tosses to the side as it runs to the next shiny plot point. Overall, it’s a decent time with fantastic high points, but I definitely need a Digimon break for the next while after this series.