SPOILER WARNING
To say the digimon fandom was surprised at the announcement of a reboot to the beloved digimon adventure anime from the late 90s would be an understatement. Keep in mind this is following from a mixed reception sequel series from the mid 2010s which followed on from original adventures s2, and then a movie (last evolution kizuna) which received positive reception but seemed pitched as a final farewell, so a reboot was the last thing we expected, but in hindsight maybe it makes sense. Then Adventure 2020 ends leaving itself open to a season 2 which could be a reboot take on the original season 2... except that a week after Adventure 2020 finished, a brand new digimon anime in a new universe/continuity started and has since finished and outside of a movie following up on kizuna but focused on the original s2 cast (anyone else losing track of things?), we have no idea what is next in terms of the digimon anime.
Buts lets not worry about that and instead worry about Digimon Adventure 2020, because thats what a lot of people did before it aired and as it aired. The original Digimon series is beloved and holds a special spot in many peoples hearts, mine included, so naturally you worry that this new one may tamper with the old one but to me, they are always two separate entities and one does not subtract from the other. Thats how I still feel after now having watched the whole series.
I'll start with the good because I don't want to seem pessimistic about the series as on a whole, I'm glad I watched it and I don't mind that it exists even if I believe the original to be better, if anything this has made the original age better in some regards like story telling and character arcs. 2020 does win in some areas though, the main ones for me being:
To expand on those, I loved how many digimon were shown in this series that I had never seen before. I feel like digimon media for many years would just recycle the same 100 or so digimon and put everything else into random side media or games. I really hope to see a lot of these show up in the next digimon story game. I loved the score as well, especially the song that plays during ultimate evolution scenes but it has a lot of bangers throughout. In terms of characters, unfortunately a lot of the kids don't get the same level of development and characterization that they did in the original, and even less so the digimon partners, but I think Joe and Mimi are the two exceptions here so I'm happy they got some time to shine, Queen Mimi forever and always based as fuck. The animation overall isn't the best I've ever seen and some episodes feel a bit cheaper and restricted than others, but its a big improvement over all the recycled scenes from the original show.
This is where a bit of the negativity comes in though. I've alluded to some of it above but to be more specific, a lot of the kids and all of the digimon fall short of what they were in the original, and a lot of this is due to the series hyper focusing on Tai and having him be the leader even more so than he ever was. Hes in every episode bar one and will always play a role in saving the day, yet outside of one or two specific episodes, also gets very little personal development and Agumon even less so. This fixation on Tai also impacts the show in other ways, as he is only one of two characters that has dedicated digievolution sequences that, while they look beautiful, make me wish the other kids and their partners got the same treatment. It feels like Matt only got it because eventually he has to form Omnimon with Tai. Speaking of Omnimon, come on cuh, why did he appear so early and again randomly halfway through the series. You can't have Omnimon be the ultimate solution to the final boss when hes already shown up twice previously in the series, and then to lose that consistency, they don't need him for Millennium. At least be consistent with a bad decision. However, seeing Alter S Omnimon in the ending was very fucking cool as that was new to me.
The other big weakness with the show for me is its pacing. The original series had good arc layouts and a natural sense of strength progression for the kids, even if all but Matt and Tai got shafted by not getting their megas, at least they all got it here and some even had branching evolutions which was very fucking cool to do. But the pacing here is all over the place, nearly all the kids get to ultimate by like episode 20 and then outside of Tai the others dont get their megas until the last handful of episodes in the series, which completely kills the pacing as we have to now have seven or eight episodes in a row of filler mixed with mega focused episodes and those can be very hit or miss. It feels like the writing team swapped halfway through the series because the first 30 or so episodes feel rushed but structured in a sense, while the back half feels unstructured and drags with filler, the back half is also weirdly funnier with more quips but maybe thats just me.
There is probably a lot I'm forgetting but overall, Digimon Adventure 2020 is a fine watch but is by no means a replacement or significant overall improvement over the original series, yet I'd still recommend at least giving it a bit of a watch for anyone who is already a fan. I don't think I would recommend it as an on boarding series to new fans, I still think the original series and even others like Tamers are better overall to get you into the fandom.
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