Digimon Season 3 Review

Season 3

I'm not sure if it's fair to call this Season 3. This season is called Digital Tamers and it takes place in another universe with more focus on the real world. So forget about those sweet kids you got to know and love from season one and two.



In this season, humans that have a partner Digimon are known as Digimon Tamers. Although Digimon are neither known to be real, nor accepted by those that know of their existence, there is a card game that children play that is based of the same collectible card game that you and me probably collected when we were younger. In fact, tamers use these cards to digi-modify their partner's abilities providing them a power-up during battles.

The Tamers

So now we're introduced to Takato, Henry and Rika. They are all digimon tamers who become such as it was destined to be. Takato is the leader (sort of) of the group although it does take them a while before they all begin to cooperate. Takato meets his partner after swiping a blue card on his card reader which ended up changing it into a D-Power (Digivice) and as fate willed it, his drawings of a digimon he named Guilomon get swiped by the D-Power itself. Guilomon then bio-emerges from the digital world into the real world after the D-Power leads Takato to the place he would emerge from. His appearance and abilities all come from Takato's drawings.

Henry is a very kind and gentle kid. He's also very protective of his digimon and younger sister. He meets his partner, Terriermon, after playing a computer game, and having a strong desire to save Terriermon from the digimon that was attacking it in the game. Terriermon manages to digivolve to defeat the enemy and bio-emerges from the game into real life. Ever since, he has been very careful with Terriermon. After failing to control the power when it digivolves, Henry forbids Terriermon from digivolving ever again.

Rika's goal is to be the strongest tamer ever. She is extremely skilled at battling at digimon card game tournaments. This desire of hers allows her to choose her own partner, Renamon. When she first meets Takato and Guilomon she plans on defeating them and having Renamon loading (absorbing) Guilomon's data in order to become stronger.

Matrix Evolution and Biomerge Evolution

Guilomon Matrix Evolving into Growlmon

In Tamers, digimon don't just digivolve, they Matrix digivolve or even Biomerge digivolve. They still follow the same normal order from before, the names have just changed. The only difference is that in order to achieve their mega form, the tamers must digivolve together with their partners. The animations for this season are also all new and have improved graphics from before with a big emphasis on the fact that digimon are data.

Impression

It really feels like a lot of thought was put into Digimon Tamers. They improved the graphics and CGI a lot. The digivolution scenes didn't seem repetitive at all and were actually really fun to watch. The new scenes include the skin of the digimon being ripped off to reveal a 3D mesh model underneath. The complexity of the digimon is much greater than before. Guilomon has matching triangular markings on his face, feet, hands and chest. The tone of the whole story is much more serious. Instead of digimon being reborn after being deleted they have a more final death where their data is either loaded by other digimon or drifts off into nothing.

Overall

I'm very glad I watched this series. I think I would have loved it much more if I had watched it when I was younger. I do want to point out one thing I did notice: the leader from each season wears goggles. This is equally true for the seasons even after digimon Tamers, except for digimon data squad. I actually hate that season. I saw the first episode and threw up in my mouth a little. Even the animation was terrible. It looked like someone on a deviantart just took it upon themselves to make their own non-canon version. Which is why I was so grateful that Digimon Adventures 1 & 2 had some very beautiful (for the time) backgrounds and that Digimon Tamers decided to give it a face lift and adding more detail to the digimon, characters and digivolution scenes as well. The character development is great, especially in Digimon Adventure 2 with the introduction of the digimon emperor. I have to say that I think you'll be very satisfied with just watching these first three seasons of digimon alone. But don't take my word for it, watch it yourself and I'm sure you'll agree.