Weekly Digimon Comic: Digimon Tamers - page 25

Yeah, I don't often accuse Tamers of having missteps beyond the most nitpicky little things, but this is one of the few full-on gripes I have. The version of the Digital World seen in this series is possibly the least engaging out of any Digimon series I've seen (including that disclaimer just in case Appmon is hiding some kind of astonishingly lame surprise in the later episodes that I haven't watched yet). Some shows, like Frontier or Savers, manage to make their DigiWorlds feel fully lived-in, like they have an actual history and culture to them. Even simpler incarnations like the one in Adventure wee at least full of wacky set pieces and visual gags to keep things interesting. But the Tamers version of the Digital World just feels too empty and barren. Maybe a show with a bigger budget might have been able to crank up the atmosphere and present these spaces as something vast and alien, especially seeing how hard the show hits the whole "eldritch abomination" vibe later. But as it is, there's too many episodes where I find the settings as just boring, too unpopulated to feel like it has a life of its own and too few visually-memorable landmarks to make things exciting to look at.

Then again, maybe my whole problem is just that the first half of the show was set in a Real World full of busy locations and secondary characters and stuff to look at that my "things-happening-on-screen" quota got set unrealistically high. I mean, in concept, the big CG effect in the sky is really memorable and cool, so it's not like they didn't have ANY ideas for creating a unique DigiWorld. I just never bought into the result.

...and I'm also not saying I WOULDN'T have liked a more Tron-like aesthetic. I do like those shots with all the cyberspace effects, and you can't say there's not stuff happening on screen. I just want to be clear that I'm not ONLY ragging on the art direction because there's not enough glowy grids. I'd have gladly let that go if they alternative the show provided was more engaging. It just wasn't.

...and I can't think of a clever segue from that into plugging the vote going on for the next Weekly Anime Comic once Baccano wraps up. But there is one, and you should vote on it!