Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Digimon Savers – episode 1

April 9, 2006 on 7:15 pm | In Digimon Savers | 9 Comments

“I am Masaru! Cockatorimon attacks!”

I had been hearing unfavourable reviews of this incarnation of Digimon, and so was wary about watching it. However, when I unleashed the digisoul that resides in my fist, I found that this was actually quite an enjoyable addition to the franchise!
Digimon Savers harnesses the conventions of shounen and Digimon in a way that makes this show click, but in a different way to previous offerings.

News at hand: Digimon Savers to be released in US in 2007. Oh well, I’m going to stick with the subs because number of Digimon properties released unedited? Zero.

Daimon Masaru befriends a fugitive Agumon and finds out from an agency known as DATS (the titular Digimon Savers) that the digital and real worlds are precariously balanced.
When a digimon attacks a hamburger place, Agumon is implicated as the culprit. Masaru rushes to defend Agumon’s honour and they team up to take the real fiend – Cockatorimon – down.

With the exception of Digimon Tamers, the incarnation of Digimon written by Konaka Chiaki, I have borne witness to each series of Digimon and generally enjoyed them. I got a lot of writing practise in 2003 by working on articles about Digimon Frontier, which was very good until I realised that they had not enough episodes left to conclude the story to a satisfactory degree.
Digimon has always been a show that had a surprising degree of complexity for a childrens’ show – at least in the context of the Australia of my adolescence – dealing with themes such as loneliness, disenfranchisement, and camaraderie. Any resemblance to Pokémon was purely superficial.
Digimon Savers seems remarkably more generic than that, or it could simply be that I’ve watched a lot more anime in the intervening years. Still, a light shines down upon this.

I think that it’s hilarious that this show starts with Agumon and Masaru having a fight that culminates in them punching each other at precisely the same moment – just like Gekigangar III! The friendships formed by punching each other are truly strong, and the bond formed between Masaru and Agumon seems real despite the stupidity of its origins. The only real problem I can think of is that Masaru fights digimon hand-to-hand, which really looks like a guy beating up animals. I’m still not quite cool with animal beating, but as the digimon become more monstrous and less like animals I doubt that I will still have that problem.

There are several new concepts here, such as the fact that the digivice (which looks like a bizarre iPod/mobile phone combination) can contain digimon and transmit their data into the real world (yes, rather like a Pokéball – but it took them ten years to take the idea, give them some credit). The world is futuristic, which is a remove from the previous series, which took its strengths from the fact that the protagonists were “contemporaries” of the young audiences watching. Similarly it does not look like this will ever be a trek across a magnificent world. It will be interesting to see if this can remain interesting if it remains static – I think that’s what Digimon Frontier did, but I can’t be sure.

The digimon on offer follow the traditions of Digimon, with a return to the fore from Agumon. Not, of course, the same Agumon of Adventure 01 and 02, but an Agumon nonetheless. As far as I can tell, all of the digimon who work at DATS are newly created for this series. The villainous digimon of this episode is the old standard, Cockatorimon, and next episode is Flymon; an offering of several opponents previously seen before daring to introduce new enemy characters. I have no idea who the villain of the whole piece is yet, and what their elaborate scheme will be. That’s the beauty of Digimon: it unfolds its story at its own deliberate pace.

The staff pedigree is actually fairly high, at least in the script department: the series composition is courtesy of Yamaguchi Ryota, who worked extensively on Escaflowne and somewhat on Cowboy Bebop. This first episode is both a good introduction of situation and characters that stands

Digimon Savers probably will not appeal to the vast majority of the establishment. I have key shows that set off a little fire deep inside my soul, and Digimon is one of them. I know I’m not alone in this fandom (although I wouldn’t really call my condition a “fandom”), but I do feel the detach inherent in my stance.