The type of project for which the saying "too little, too late" was coined

jephtha

"Data Squad" is a curious piece of work. Some praise it for renewing a more serious approach, whereas others deride it for its apparent lack of originality and stark departure from the common style seen in the past. Interestingly, Jeff Nimoy, the director of the English version of Digimon, regards this one as his favorite. Here is my impression of it all.

There is a paradoxical departure from earlier styles with a sense of trite familiarity. Consider the animation, which has a more traditional anime look. The obvious intention was to give the series a comparatively sophisticated style, but it jettisons the spirit of the original series and is on average, frankly, less pleasant to look at, more flat and artificial. Recycled footage is thankfully scarce and nighttime sequences are occasionally atmospheric, but the backdrops are less interesting and "emptier" than those in previous seasons. Both the digimon and Digital World possess virtually no sense of discovery, feeling more like generic fantasy elements than distinct creations. Not to mention, the typical rehashing of monster ideas from previous seasons (i.e. a Greymon subspecies and wolf based creature) has really become annoying at this point.

The repetitious first act devotes minimal time to establishing the heroes and is peppered with lazy melodrama, but by the second act "Data Squad" begins to come unto its own as a tale of misunderstandings and inter-dimensional relations. This portion of the story has the most pay-off, largely from the schemes of the main villain. Unfortunately, this section is often told on autopilot, the primary reason for which being the choppy subplots. Some, like the clash with the bio-hybrids, are distractions, while others, like the roles of Merukimon and Saberleomon, are severely truncated and would have enriched the primary conflict. Minimal interactions between the heroes and main villain do not help, reducing the credibility of the grudge between both sides.

Typical stumbling in the final act rears its ugly head, as everything is repackaged in the form of a comparatively uninteresting, tacked on world ending crisis involving that stupid marketing gimmick known as the Royal Knights. Sure, the digimon leaders eventually set aside their distrust of humans, but consider how much more poignantly the problem was resolved in "Tamers". There, humans created digimon and misunderstand them, and have to cooperate with them to undo the consequences of their own technology. Here, both sides just hammer away at each other until some mutual respect is produced; any claims of humanity's propensity for destruction are perfunctory. Furthermore, the route they took to have the primary antagonist defeated in the middle act and show the consequences of his actions in the final act is ineffectual, because these secrets and developments do not enhance other parts of the series by providing a clearer understanding of earlier events. No one is going to be more fascinated by Kenan's life or Merukimon's death after watching the conflict with King Drasil. One of the few exceptions is the revelation that Kudamon is actually one of the Royal Knights, which supplements the effort for harmony between the two worlds.

The cast is a remarkable example of potential obfuscated by adherence to conventions. Every one of the heroes demonstrates unique characteristics or experiences that are not capitalized on. The spotlight hogging Marcus, for example, suffers from many moments that are perfunctorily lifted from Tai's history, but he also developed a penchant for fighting to cope with his father's absence. That's fairly new as far as this franchise is concerned, yet not explored until towards the end. Thomas and Yoshi, likewise, have some unique concerns (isolation from intellectual gap, insecurity from sibling rivalry), but these are sporadically visited, brushed to the side in favor of conventional stuff. It also doesn't help that simply getting overly emotional too often passes for "pivotal character moments". An interesting group dynamic is buried here that may have expanded the horizons of this franchise, especially considering that this is the oldest group yet, but these guys are denied the relative nuance and appealing personalities that made other groups enduring.

Data Squad's by the numbers feel leaves it bereft of the essence that made its predecessors so appealing. For all its flash and semblance of edginess, it's largely just another dumb action show. Out of all the Digimon seasons I have seen, this is probably the one that I have the least amount of feelings for; it would not have made much of a difference to me had it never been made. I admire it on certain levels and may have fully recommended it if not for the combination of its time of release and placement in the franchise.

score 6/10

jephtha 21 March 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3206116/