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YMMV / Digimon Adventure

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  • Accidental Innuendo: Tai is especially guilty of this in the dub, particularly because of his tendency to say he needs to "hook up" with the others rather than use the much less sexual sounding "meet up". Examples of this include episode 22, in which he said he needed to "hook up" with the others, and episode 36, in which he told Sora to "hook up" with Matt. That definitely blew up in his face.
  • Adorkable:
    • Izzy is a socially inept computer geek. Digimon Adventure tri. takes it further, especially whenever he's in the presence of Mimi.
    • Joe Kido tries so hard to be the responsible Team Dad of the group, but is also a totally neurotic nerd. He starts to grow out of the neurotic nerd part of his personality later on, but no matter what his adorkableness remains.
    • Gabumon has his moments, like comparing Tai and Matt to ice cream flavors. Really shines through in Loss where Gabumon, having loss his memories of Matt, is nervous around him.
    • Gomamon is easily the dorkiest of the main digimon with his Comically Missing the Point when it comes to earth customs, playful, excitable personality, and his perpetual smiling :3 face.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: When the series was brought to Spain by Arait Multimedia, its voice actors were initially convinced it would bomb, as Pokémon was coming to its highest in the country and they thought Digimon would be considered just a cheap knockoff. The first sign that they were wrong is that, in midst of the dubbing process, they received a call that the series had been scouted and acquired by national TV, something that not even Pokémon had got. If that news and their subsequent, collective Flat "What" were not enough to prove them wrong, the meteoric success of the franchise over the next years and its quasi-legendary TV ratings surely did.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Etemon is regarded by some as an inferior villain to the previous Big Bad, Devimon, because he's too silly to be taken seriously. On the other hand, some find the idea of an Elvis-impersonating ape replacing a Satanic Archetype as the Arc Villain audacious and corny enough to have its own charm, while also noting that Etemon is a textbook case of Not-So-Harmless Villain whenever he directly confronts the heroes. And then there are those who think he's actually more intimidating than Devimon, who very rarely appeared in his arc and whose tactics were very Strictly Formula in nature, not to mention his taking on the Digidestined without a darkness-induced enhancement (at first). Etemon's Gazimon henchmen, on the other hand, enjoyed some surprising popularity among fans.
    • Matt has a strong fandom, but vocal parts of the Western community also find him frustrating. He is the most popular character in the series, according to the official Japanese polls and Anime Expo events in the United States. However, in the West, he is criticized mainly for his rivalry with Tai. While their rivalry is a big part of his Character Development, it also struck a nerve with others, particularly with fans who sided with Tai's point of view — Matt not only took his frustrations with himself on Tai, but he was also indirectly responsible for causing the group to break up for at least 5 episodes after he turns on him for real. Part of his hatedom also comes from the Ship-to-Ship Combat from Tai/Sora fans, especially with the ending to Digimon Adventure 02. Detractors also sometimes mention that his obsession with protecting T.K. can also be pretty frustrating, since they had a hand in Matt being jealous of Tai.
  • Catharsis Factor: Gatomon digivolving into Angewomon for the first time and killing Myotismon with her Celestial Arrow - finally getting revenge for his years of abuse towards her, and killing off the worst villain the show had seen yet. Sure he came back but doesn't negate how brilliant it was.
  • Common Knowledge: The Brazilian dub of the show (and sometimes its sequel) is sometimes mistaken by some fans in the country to be based on the Saban edit. This is because the dub used a localization of such opening theme as basis, as well as it used the American names for the characters, the Western logo,note  and depending on the broadcast, it also used the instrumental version of the Saban opening in the credits and such credits layout was very similar to the Saban one. However, despite those facts, the dub was really based on the Japanese one. Unlike the Saban dub, it kept the "Brave Heart" Digivolution theme and other background music, no visual edit was made, title cards and general text in animation were maintained in Japanese, and in the original broadcast, the original opening and ending theme used to be played. The reason why they changed the original opening to the localized one by Saban? Channel TV Globo decided to promote singer Angélica (who was the host of the block which used to broadcast the anime at the time) to perform such song, and chose the Saban version simply because it sounded funkier and "badder" than the original. That version was so "liked" that its cable broadcaster (Fox Kids)note  also used that theme later and it became the Bootstrapped Theme in the country.note  Such cable channel also used the Saban theme for the sequel mentioned before, (the reason for the previous parenthesis, while Globo broadcast a localized "Target"note ) however they didn't use the instrumental version in the credits of this season. In fact, in question of the rest of the localization, the short ending in TV Globo (which was also used by later in Fox Kids) was for giving space for other shows in their block and the American names were requested by Toei themselves. What really used to be broadcast with an editing by Saban there was their blended movie and, more than a decade later, Digimon Fusion.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Myotismon is a sinister Digimon with a sadistic streak a mile wide. Myotismon treats his underlings awfully, having taking Gatomon in when she was young and abusing her until she was a killing machine. When his henchmen fail him, he eagerly destroys them. When two harmless minions couldn't bring themselves to harm children, Myotismon killed them on the spot. When he invaded Tokyo, he proceeded to destroy much of it and held a number of children captive to identify the final child connected with Gatomon. He made it clear if it took too much time, he'd simply kill them all. Myotismon also proceeded to attack multiple young women and drain their blood, causing an epidemic through Tokyo. Any minions he hadn't already killed were cannibalized to fuel his Mega transformation. When he was thought destroyed, Myotismon's spirit survived to return as the final villain of the next season as MaloMyotismon. Using a man named Oikawa's sadness and despair to make him a pawn, he proceeded to consume him from within and upon manifesting anew, Myotismon repaid his perfectly loyal ally Arukenimon by sadistically torturing her to death and killing Mummymon when he tried to avenge her. With a near-unparalleled sadistic streak, Myotismon proved he was one of the vilest monsters in the franchise.
    • Piedmon is the most powerful of the Dark Masters, leading them in their conquest of the Digital World. He shows himself to be a complete psychopath who enjoys toying with his victims before finishing them off. Reducing his territory to a barren wasteland, he monitors the actions of his fellow Dark Masters and the main cast, allowing his allies to die without ever interfering. He causes the death of Sukamon by restructuring Digiworld into Spiral Mountain, kills Chumon himself, nearly kills WarGreymon, and then transforms most of the Digi Destined and their Digimon into keychains, planning to keep them all trapped as toys forever, while he hunts the two youngest members of the team down, intent on brutally murdering them.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The Bakemon planning to eat Jou and Sora? Not funny. The Bakemon catching them and separating them from their partners, putting them in actual physical danger? Also not funny. The Bakemon seasoning them with giant salt and pepper shakers? *crick* The dub dialogue doesn't help.
    Bakemon 1: Salt.
    Bakemon 2: Pepper.
    Bakemon 1: More?
    Bakemon 2: Why not?
    Sora: Salt and pepper? You're not really going to eat us, are you?
    Bakemon 1: (nonchalantly) You're a little on the scrawny side, but you'd be surprised what the right seasonings can do.
  • Cry for the Devil: Puppetmon is just as nasty and sadistic as his fellow Dark Masters. However, it's hinted he genuinely wants friends, but his nature makes it impossible for him to have true ones, as he's unable to understand what true friendship is. Therefore, fans ended up feeling sorry for him when he dies, still unable to understand the power of friendship.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Piximon (at least in Latin America). It was as if a Furbill swallowed a cherub. With a small lance. He was also a very powerful and wise Digimon that acted as a sort of Obi-wan for the Chosen ones. But it was his brave Heroic Sacrifice against the Dark Masters to save the DigiDestined that cemented his eternal badassery with the Fanbase.
    • The Gazimon with the sunglasses has a following among the Furry Fandom.
    • Hiroaki Ishida, Matt and T.K.'s father, is also quite popular when it comes to parent characters due to being a Badass Normal and he is often considered a Memetic Badass.
    • An interesting case is Machinedramon, the Dark Master with the least screentime but with the most fans between the four. This lends itself to his genuinely intimidating presence and voice acting, even within the dub. A healthy amount of snark and playing a factor in the birth of Millenniummon also helps, along with becoming more plot relevant in the 2020 remake.
  • Evil Is Cool:
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Just who were the original DigiDestined? The novelizations implied that their Digimon became the Four Holy Beasts/Digimon Sovereigns, but who they were remained unrevealed for nearly twenty years until Digimon Adventure tri.. And a new question was raised - how were the Dark Masters able to defeat such Physical God-level powerful opponents?
    • Wizardmon's Mysterious Past. What was his past really like? Where did he get his truckload of powers? What is it that makes him different from most Digimon? What was his relationship with Tailmon like? We don't know, but it did invite to a lot of Wild Mass Guessing in the fandom.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • The season is often referred to in the Anglosphere fandom as 01, to contrast with 02, despite the "02" standing for "2002", the year 02 takes place.
    • Our War Game is such a popular name that people might have a hard time believing it is actually a fan nickname as well. The original Japanese title of the film is Bokura no Wo Gemu, which translates literally to English as Our War Game, but the official translation shown on the title screen is Children's War Game.
    • Izzy's laptop is quite obviously an iBook with the apples and logos replaced with pineapples, leading to the common fan nickname of "PiBook".
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: While Hiroyuki Kakudou had no intention whatsoever of pairing up Tai and Sora because he figured the match was cliche, they are the couple the majority of the fandom prefers, both in Japan and internationally. Ai Maeda (Mimi) and Mayumi Yamaguchi (Gabumon) have gone on the record saying they both preferred the pairing and had hoped they would end up together, and dub director Jeff Nimoy stated he thought Tai and Sora were a better match and his scripts reflected that, despite the dub removing nothing romantic between Yamato and Sora and adding nothing that could be interpreted as romantic between Tai and Sora that wasn't in the original, i.e. Taichi's and Tai's similar lines after Sora's crest first glows.
  • Fanon: The idea that Devilmon was reborn into either Demidevimon or Myotismon is a popular fan theory, although there are details that murks this in regards to Myotismon.
  • Faux Symbolism:
    • VenomMyotismon and his prophecy's use of the Number of the Beast. Not helping matters is that VenomMyotismon himself is basically a Big Red Devil.
    • The fact that Devimon, a Fallen Angel Digimon, curb-stomped six Digimon his own level, and was defeated by Angemon, an Angel Digimon. This happens again later, with Angewomon defeating LadyDevimon.
    • In the Japanese opening for the original Digimon Adventure movie, hidden among the blurry pixellating effects is a verse lifted from the Book of Psalms.
  • Fight Scene Failure: Due to the limited animation, fight scenes mostly consist of stock footage of the Digimon using their attacks, or the larger Digimon grappling statically with as little on-screen movement as possible. This is lampshaded in the English dub, when Centarumon defends Izzy and Mimi from Leomon.
    Izzy: It's like time is standing still!
  • First Installment Wins: Many longtime Digimon fans see this as the season with the most creativity and originality.
  • Franchise Original Sin:
    • While having only The Hero and The Lancer receive all the power-ups and majority of the involvement in the plot while leaving the other protagonists in the dust without any particular explanation isn't exactly unique to Digimon, this series wound up setting this trend for future instalments to blatantly follow for even more ridiculous reasons without having a proper explanation why it is so. Bonus points if the partner digimon of The Hero and The Lancer are always a dinosaur and a canine respectively.note 
    • The plot of invading the human world by hostile digimon. In here, Myotismon's invasion made sense as it had a proper In-Universe reason. The crest of Digidestined's Sixth Ranger is the Crest of Light, the perfect weapon against him who is a being of darkness. Subsequent media would repeat this plotline with various degrees of sensibility and motivation ranging from "Must invade and destroy due to proper motivation and/or reason" to "Filler that will not be missed".
    • One of the main criticized aspects of the reboot was the overreliance on 'Big Bad Digimon shows up, kids unlock Next Tier Power-Up to beat them before next big bad shows up' nature of most arcs. This was also true for the majority of arcs in the original as well; however, the original show managed to disguise this by tying the Next Tier Power-Up to the kid's personal growth and had a much slower pace to allow for the Big Bad to better show off their personality and goals. The reboots breakneck pace and over-reliance on action meanwhile makes it much harder for the kids and the villains to have time to develop and/or show off their personalities, resulting in the rather stale backbone of the show becoming more apparent.
    • Another aspect criticized of the reboot is the number of times the group gets forcefully split. The group in the original also got split quite a bit, but only once is it because of the Big Bad. The other times, the writers managed to make it more believable why the gang would get split up.note  Meanwhile, the reboot over relies on the Big Bad of the current arc splitting the kids up that it feels like a cheap way for the writers to justify why they all aren't just ganging up on the current villain from the getgo. Furthermore, the group was still together more often than they were apart in the original, which is not the case in the reboot.
    • Design wise, one of the most criticized aspects of later series is the amount of Digimon (Megas in particular) whose design could be summed up as "human in armor". The original was also pretty guilty of this as well; Angemon, Angewomon, and Myotismon all could pass a humans cosplaying as angels and vampires. The difference was back then, there was still an emphasis placed on more monstrous designs as well, and the humanoid ones at least still fell into the Beast Man trope rather than being full-on human-like. (Compare WarGreymon◊ to Diarbbitmon◊ from Digimon Ghost Game, as one example.) As the franchise went on, the overreliance on human and humanoid designs has caused the concept to become hyper-oversaturated; to the point fans are often overjoyed when a Digimon's final Mega isn't humanoid in any way like Bryweludramon.
  • Genius Bonus: Myotismon's name is a reference to a genus of bats, certainly not something your average kid would pick up on.
  • Good Bad Translation: The infamously poor first Finnish dub of the show has produced a lot of memes in Finland. They include the DigiDestined's rather flat scream when they're falling in one episode, Joe sounding like he says "Fuck, doesn't Andromon have a weak spot?" (He's actually saying "hitto", the Finnish equivalent of "heck"), and Takeru, after learning to ride a bike, exclaiming that he's riding a horse.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • While the Devimon and Etemon storylines contain some good, mindless fun (especially Etemon, who is delightfully silly), most fans agree that the series, along with the entire franchise, didn't really come into its own until Myotismon burst onto camera for the first time, with the far longer and more epic plot arc around him taking the show in a completely different direction than other Mons shows (and into places most "kids" shows never dared to go).
    • The dub as well. Early on it was in pure Gag Dub territory, but by the end it kept the vast majority of the serious moments serious and allowed for plenty of character development and gave the actors, a fair few of whom were already acting veterans, surprising room to flex their chops for a "children's show". This uptick in quality once again coincides roughly with the start of the Myotismon arc.
    • The Swedish dub followed a similar pattern with it being very rough at the start with questionable acting and inconsistent voice-work. This was in large part due to the cast being made up of many first timers, including children, as well as some veterans mixed in. Like the English dub, it started to noticeably improve during the Myotismon arc as the child actors became more experienced and the veteran ones starting to get comfortable in their roles. While it never becomes an exceptionell dub, the difference between the beginning and the end is quite noticeable.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • A rather awkward one in episode 30. Joe references to a supposed terrorist bombing in the street outside where the DigiDestined all once lived. It turns out to be an unintentional coverup story for the events of the pilot movie. To add salt to the wound, in the dub he claims: "It was one of the worst terrorist attacks of all time!" Following the September 11 Attacks, these lines where cut out from the dub reruns for a time.
    • Episode 25 reveals that Mimi spent Tai's absence enslaving a castle full of Digimon. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be the last DigiDestined to do this...
    • In a similar vein, Tai gets the wrong idea after Izzy explains the nature of the Digital World and assumes nothing in it, including himself, is real, so he can do anything he wants because there are no consequences. Fortunately, it takes him less than an episode to realize he's wrong. The next kid to make that mistake? Not so much...
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The English dub cover up of Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon's death to being "sent to the dungeon" in the Digital World. In Digimon Fusion, one episode has a Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon in a dungeon in the Digital world!
      • Additionally, if their story in the short The Shibuya-ish Heroic Saga of Pump and Gotsu is to be believed, they didn't die after all, so the dub change may have been closer to the truth than anyone realized.
    • During the eight child storyline Tai tells Sora to meet up with Matt, and in the dub Tai's line is "I want you to go hook up with Matt". Fast forward to Digimon Adventure 02 where they do become a couple.
    • One of MetalSeadramon's minions is an anomalocaris-based Digimon aptly named Anomalocarimon. When the Digimon was shown in the U.S, it was named Scorpiomon due to its vaguely scorpion-esque design, as well as the fact that Anomalocarimon is kind of a mouthful. Shortly afterward, an actual scorpion Digimon with the same name (localized as SkullScorpiomon) would be introduced.
    • In the dub, Joe defeats Lord Bakemon through "mind over matter" instead of the Buddhist chanting that the original went with. In Digimon Adventure: (2020), this method is exactly how he helps defeat Mephistomon, albeit by accident this time.
    • In the climax of Episode 28, Taichi has to choose which of two monster cards will complete the pattern that will open a gate to Japan. Unable to figure it out, with the gang under attack and the castle collapsing around them, he turns both cards upside down and draws one at random. In retrospect, it looks like he decided to let the heart of the cards guide him.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: In Japan, Matt/T.K. was one of the popular couples among (mostly female) fans of the Yaoi Genre aside from Tai/Matt and others. Similarly, Tai/Kari was very popular among male fans, partially because of growing interest in the Little Sister Heroine and Moe genres. Kari's character centric episodes also tended to focus on her close relationship with Tai. In a live stream in August 2018, producer Hiromi Seki mentioned that she had to warn Mamoru Hosoda (the director of the episode) that their relationship "didn't seem like a parting of ways between siblings, but a different kind of relationship."
  • It Was His Sled: Gatomon is the eighth child's Digimon partner. On the first watch through the series, this is a massive reveal. But of course the Adventure 02 season has her as a regular from the start, and merchandise from after depicts her with Kari.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Even being enslaved and tormented, Gatomon still remains a ruthless Dragon until Wizardmon helps her do a Heel–Face Turn.
    • Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon. Sure, they may enjoy stealing from others, but since Myotismon killed them (or in the English dub's case, banished them back to the Digital World), it's hard not to feel sorry for them.
    • Puppetmon. He's a horrible, nasty, psychopathic little jerk, but he really does want company to play with and his inability to grasp how much of a problem he has with making and keeping friends is just plain sad.
    • Elecmon is a lighter example of this. While he may be overprotective of the baby Digimon to the point of being rude, he's absolutely devastated when the Dark Masters destroy Primary Village. His cute character design only amplifies the sympathy factor.
    • Etemon's Gazimon henchmen. Sure, they act like a bunch of schoolyard bullies but you also must factor in that they have to deal with Etemon 24/7 (who basically abuses them and yells at them over some of the dumbest things, like dancing to his music and even giving helpful advice). Add to this their Ugly Cute character design and you just gotta feel sorry for those poor bunny bastards.
    • Joe Kido. Nearly every time he opens his mouth, he winds up filing some sort of complaint yet he clearly has self-esteem and anxiety issues to deal with. It's especially notable in the File Island arc.
    • Matt Ishida also counts. He's always butting heads with Tai, is very overprotective of T.K., often to the point of being smothering, and can lash out at the other kids if enough pressure is built up around him. We see that he's got a lot of issues stemming from his parents' divorce that cause him to act the way he does. He even admits to Gabumon that he tries to look cool and distant, but it's just a front to hide his emotions.
  • Macekre: How much the Saban dub was either this or a Woolseyism is up for debate, but there are examples of the former — most notably, the dubbing of Apocalymon. He was meant as the Digidestined's most powerful and fearsome foe, but the dub changing most his lines to truly awful jokes and metaphors made it very hard to take him seriously. Doesn't make him any less quotable, though.
    WHY DO YOU ALL GET THE PIZZA, WHILE I GET THE CRUST?!
  • Memetic Molester: Not to an extreme degree, but the scene in which a controlled Leomon (who is effectively a hulking, barechested humanoid) strangles Tai against the wall of Devimon's crumbled mansion (with Tai being solely in his briefs at that moment) became an unintentional target of nasty, sometimes quite age-inappropriate jokes.
  • Moe: Kari is one of the earliest examples when the moe boom first gained momentum in the late 90's. Part of it may have to do with her resemblance to Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura, who made the trope popular.
  • Moral Event Horizon: See here.
  • Narm Charm: A lot of the stuff listed under Narm is also fondly remembered by fans of the dub as being enjoyable because they're goofy. Especially Hey Digimon, probably because it usually accompanied the good guys delivering a righteous beatdown on their opponent. It's also used, where the Japanese version used ''Butterfly", for when the children say goodbye to their Digimon as they return home and the more folksy, happy nature of the song is definitely better fitting in this context than in the context of battle.
  • Never Live It Down: Many people still hold ill will against Matt for betraying the group and attacking Tai on Cherrymon's advice, even though he himself regretted it and left the group in disgrace and later rejoins the group with no ill feelings towards them.
  • No Problem with Licensed Games: The PSP game has been highly praised by the fanbase, having tightly designed RPG mechanics and being a faithful adaptation of the original series while bringing in its own flavor of Adaptation Expansion that gives all of its casts even more cases of A Day in the Limelight. It's a shame it never got an official western release, but that's what the fan-translation patches are for.
  • Padding: Take a 30-second long Transformation Sequence. Play it in every single episode. Then several times per episode, even when it would be largely dispensable. Then for several levels of evolution. By the end of the series, even though it is often abridged (thankfully), this animation has probably padded a good hour of running time. And that's without mentioning the large amount of Stock Footage for the Digimons' attacks.
  • Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Officially, Hikari and Taichi are just close siblings, but Mamoru Hosoda's direction of Hikari's debut actually made producer Hiromi Seki warn him about writing Incest Subtext (see Incest Yay Shipping above). In the years since, the franchise has leaned into the scandalous implications—in the 10th Anniversary CD, Hikari states that the person she loves the most is Taichi; a Valentine's Day Otomedia article for Digimon Adventure tri. says that Taichi would hide chocolate he received from the Cute Sports Club Manager from Hikari, while Hikari would make chocolates for all her friends but made the absolute best for Taichi (not helped by promotional Fanservice of the tri. girls making Valentine's Day chocolate during a Swimsuit Scene).
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Tensions between Matt/Sora fans vs. Tai/Matt fans vs. Tai/Sora fans have been going strong since the original show's release. Hiroyuki Kakudou's belated announcements that he'd always planned for Matt/Sora getting together and the then-upcoming Digimon Adventure tri. have only re-fueled the ship wars between them. That is, if you don't go the Tai/Sora/Matt route.
  • Signature Series Arc: The Tokyo/Eighth Child Arc, which stretches roughly from Episodes 21 to 39, may be the most popular arc due to moving the action from the fantasy realm of the Digital World to modern Tokyo, leading to some thrilling moments as Digimon wreak chaos in "our" world, plus the seven Digidestined's frantic search for their eighth member before the arc's Big Bad Myotismon finds them himself. The arc's popularity may be why Myotismon was brought back in Digimon Adventure 02 as the Greater-Scope Villain responsible for everything bad that ever happened.
  • Subbing vs. Dubbing: One of the most notable ones. The dub is either a Woolseyism or Macekre depending on who you ask. Some absolutely adore the dub, partly due to nostalgia and refuse to watch the original Japanese because they can't get used to hearing new voices and don't want ruin what they remember Digimon as. Or they simply consider it better, preferring it due to enjoying the voice-acting, music, and self-referential humor. Others hate it for making serious moments into comedic ones, multiple plot holes, censorship, poor recording quality, changing characterizations, and replacing the original music. There's a third camp that considers the Japanese original superior but has a soft spot for the dub because of all the jokes in it, and appreciate both groups of voice actors for what they bring to the table. Then there's people that consider them both equally good and don't see what the fuss is about. That is not even mentioning the Filipino dub, which keeps the original names and songs while being Truer to the Text, though the delivery is a lot more wooden.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: A fair amount of the Japanese background music is basically slight reworkings of the Sailor Moon score for its original Japanese (and VIZ Media's uncut English dub) score. Both series' scores were penned by the same man, so it can't be coincidental.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Episode 25 was one that focused on Mimi, and it was the first instance of when her Crest activated. They easily could've had Lillymon make her debut in the episode, and allowed her to earn her first major victory against a powerful Ultimate Level Digimon. But instead, they chose to have MetalGreymon be the one to deliver the finishing blow. Lillymon's debut comes several episodes later and her performance there, where Myotismon shows up and incapacitates her, leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Some feel the Dark Masters arc is a lot weaker than the Myotismon arc, if only because the Myotismon arc is a lot more extensive and climactic than the Dark Masters arc, with the most personal stakes for the heroes and the most developed villain.
  • Ugly Cute: Gabumon, so very much. He's a lizard-dog-unicorn thing who looks weird, but very huggable at the same time, and he has a good-natured personality.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: With the heavy emphasis on digital communications and the internet that the series has, and the rate at which Technology Marches On, this is a given. For a start, plots where the heroes are separated (at least, in the real world) without communication look very dated once cell phones became cheap and commonplace enough that a lot of older children and teens had them, even if only for emergencies. Koushiro/Izzy having access to a laptop is unusual, and in Digimon Adventure 02, despite taking place in 2002, personal computers are expensive commodities that are not ubiquitous in every home, as the new Digidestined require access to their school's computer lab to access the Digital World for a sizeable part of the series, and Yamato/Matt's father balks at being asked to buy one.
  • Values Dissonance:
  • Wangst:
    • The plot of Sora hiding from the others because she feels she's incapable of love because she and her mom didn't see eye to eye and because DemiDevimon lies to her. Even in the dub, Tai points out her reasoning is ridiculous.
    • In the dub, Sora's insecurities in episode 51 come out of absolutely nowhere, and it feels bizarre that the cave does nothing to Joe, the one who was going through the same self-doubts as Matt. In the Japanese version, Sora putting more pressure on herself following the group breaking apart was more evident before this point, and Joe going through self-doubts at this time didn't happen, as it was an invention of the dub.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For a series that targets children, Adventure contains shocking amounts of hard-hitting violence, scary creatures, deep emotional drama, worries in an endless variety of forms, villains that are evil in a very realistic way, and even intellectual concepts of some complexity (death is treated just as Serious Business as it is in any adult medium, even if it usually amounts to a rebirth as a digi-egg in this series, and things like the nature of good and evil and the need to fight are a constant discussion). Pepa Agudo from the Spanish dub went on to say outright that Adventure was actually a young adult series disguised as one for children.
  • The Woobie:
    • Gatomon. Her life with Myotismon makes it impossible not to feel bad for the poor girl. Then Wizardmon's death and seeing her break down and cry.
    • Gabumon could also be seen as one. In one episode when he was talking with Matt, he said he had no friends in the Digi-world until Matt came along. There's that and the fact that he's shy, gets picked on by Tai quite a bit and makes consistent Puppy-Dog Eyes. He's also one of the nicest of the digidestined Digimon. Quite a few fanfics centered around Gabumon make him into an even bigger Woobie.
    • Elecmon also qualifies once the Dark Masters turn the Primary Village into a wasteland. He looks so utterly defeated, it's hard not to want to hug him after something like that.
  • Woolseyism:
    • In the original, Etemon was a monkey imitating a typical Japanese pop star. In the dub, he's an Elvis impersonator. And in the Norwegian dub, he speaks Swedish... badly. Evidently he's trying and failing to be a Swedish crooner.
    • The name of WarGreymon's attack in the original is 'Gaia Force.' In the dub, they called it 'Terra Force,' which keeps the reference to the Earth as well as making a reference to computers (it's even the next step up from 'Giga Blaster').
    • Zudomon's "Thor's Hammer" became "Vulcan's Hammer" in the dub. While it departs from the lighting aspect of the attack, Vulcan was the Roman God of fire, metalworking, and the forge, which makes sense for a hammer-wielding character.
    • The renaming of Joe and Mimi's crests are this in the way of removing Values Dissonance, as both of them are based around Japanese cultural traits that don't fit quite as well with western sensibilities. Joe's Crest of Sincerity becomes the Crest of Reliability, fitting with his overall personality as a paternal individual who looks out for the others, while "Sincerity" ends up being the new name for Mimi's Crest of Purity, reflecting Mimi's honesty and the fact that she's no one but herself.

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