YMMV / Digimon Tamers

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Caturamon try to recruit Impmon for Zhuqiaomon on his own volition and the sovereign bird just enabled the whole Beelzemon rampage, or did Zhuqiaomon order him to smoothtalk Impmon to his good side? Given how Zhuqiaomon already lost ten Devas by the point the Tamers are in the Digital World, there's a chance he was desperate and knew that he needed stronger Digimon for the job (preferably something way out of the Tamer's management bracket), so he handed out the order to his subordinate rather than Caturamon having the idea and acted independently for his boss' sake.
  • During the transition to the final act of the series, Takato hits a Rage Breaking Point and forces Guilmon into a Superpowered Evil Side. Thing is, Takato having Unstoppable Rage at all is also wildly Out of Character, which has led to some speculation about what exactly happened. Was it just forced drama? Has Takato been secretly sitting on this giant stash of rage the whole time? Is it some kind of vicious cycle propagated by Guilmon and Takato sharing their anger through their Psychic Link^note Technically, it was the Digimon who first expressed rage? Is it some combination of them all?
  • One caused by dub changes. When he smiled and shook his head, did Jiànliáng/Henry forgive his father for causing the Tamers' digimon to need to return to the Digital world or not? In the original Japanese, Zhènyǔ admits to his son that what he did was unforgivable, and looks down in shame, however, in the English dub, Zhènyǔ just tells his son that things will get better.
  • Is ADR-01 (AKA J-Reaper) like the rest of the D-Reaper's agents, a mere puppet following the singular will of the program's directive of observe and destroy, or has it achieved some degree of independent sentience? Or is it perhaps somewhere inbetween?
  • Officially, Konaka's notes indicate that Ruki's Disappeared Dad is irrelevant to her personality, but many fans point out that Ruki as written has many characteristics of Real Life fatherless girls (that the absence of Ruki's father is what gives her mother the lion's share of influence in Ruki's life seems to unconsciously admit the point).
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • While Ryo's belated entrance into the story and poorly justified acclaim already made him a Base-Breaking Character, the lack of the Digimon Wonderswan Series abroad made him a complete stranger to foreign audiences, allowing them to focus on the other flaws in his character. (Indeed, the need for the Wonderswan Series to understand his character is sometimes counted as evidence of his bad writing.) It doesn't help that his writing also heavily contradicts those same games. Over time the aversion to his character has cooled off, but he has yet to gain any real acclaim.
  • While Tamers is held in high regard in United States, opinions towards it in Spain (a country where the Digimon franchise used to be a juggernaut) tend to be very polarized. However, Takato in particular is unambiguously counted as one of the least liked human characters in the franchise, with Spaniards putting him under any of his cast mates and even leads from more divisive seasons (like Davis or Takuya).
• Angst? What Angst?: Ryo is pretty cheery, considering that he is forced to whip his Digimon partner to stop him from attacking everything in sight and that because of him he had to travel through the Digital World, without seeing any other human being, for at least a year. If you interpret his Ambiguous Situation and Continuity Snarl to mean that the Tamers and Wonderswan incarnations of Ryo to be the same character, he also has a long and extensive backstory that involves at least one Sadistic Choice and a Stalker with a Crush.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The 2018 audio drama ends in a cliffhanger with the Tamers about to face their most dangerous enemy yet, "Malice Bot", an enemy Yamaki states to be infinitely more dangerous than the D-Reaper. Come the 2021 audio drama and... Malice Bot was swiftly defeated in a quick recap by the Tamers using a combination of Card Slashes. Konaka's blog posts explain that this happened because he grew tired of the idea, as he thought technology wasn't as much of a real issue compared to the way it is used.
• Anvilicious: The audio drama released for the 2021 Anniversary festival might as well be called "Political Correctness & Cancel Culture Are Bad, Mkay?" as it sees the Tamers pitted against a villainous entity known as "Political Correctness", which uses an attack known as "Cancel Culture". Chief Officer Yamaki characterizes it as "the greatest problem facing the internet and media" because it forces people to "conform to a single values system" and "censors real news to replace them with fake news." Real subtle, Konaka.
• Ass Pull:
  • The entire premise of "Not As Seen On TV,"—in which Growlmon simply cannot be made to devolve back to Guilmon, no matter how many strategies Takato tries or how much advice he asks—is blatant Author on Board forced drama, and its resolution, which happens due to some combination of Takato's Inelegant Blubbering and Everything's Better with Rainbows, is equally inexplicable.
  • Despite its many divergences from Adventure and 02, Tamers still runs on franchise-standard wish magic (just with extra Technobabble), so many of the plot devices and how they work can seem arbitrary and forced. The D-Reaper, as such, is ultimately defeated by a Deus ex Machina put together by Hypnos and the Monster Makers, but there is only some weak, last-minute Foreshadowing for the Cruel Twist Ending that demands the Digimon have to go away along with the D-Reaper.
  • Ryo being able to matrix evolve with Cyberdramon just happens and has no explanation. This ironically fits his entire character, but it doesn't make it any less egregious.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Takato is surprisingly divisive, especially when compared to the other "goggle boys" of the franchise. Views of him range from a more realistic and freshly different main character to a Wangst-ridden crybaby who doesn't deserve the leader status. The last note is telling, as there is a popular current that making either Rika or Henry the series' central protagonist would have made it much more interesting.
  • Rika's fans like her for having a vastly different personality and design compared to other female leads in the Digimon franchise and appreciate her Character Development into a Defrosting Ice Queen, while her detractors dislike her for trying too hard to be the "tough girl" archetype and being inititially an unreasonable jerkass to the other characters.
  • Henry. While some praise his levelheadedness and intellectual approach to his problems, others feel his internal doubts are too near Wangst territory, which also makes him not different enough from Takato to be a good Lancer to him.
  • Alice - some feel that her brief moment was powerful, but others feel that her complete lack of foreshadowing makes her and Dobermon come off as a Plot Device - others forgive her because there was a Dub-Induced Plot Hole.
  • Ryo. There is debate as to whether being aware of his extensive backstory that never actually gets brought up in the show retroactively justifies his presence and improves his role in the story, or whether it was ultimately still a mistake to try to cram him in for Pandering to the Base, whether he fit or not. Worse, the show creates a Continuity Snarl by giving him a Tamers-specific backstory that explicitly denies he's from the Adventure verse.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Guilmon growing a phantom version of Megidramon's tail to smack away Beelzemon's bullets.
  • Vajiramon and Pajiramon eating electronics to stabilize themselves on Earth, something which no other Digimon ever showed the need to do.
  • The possessed talking owl that appears when Sinduramon comes to earth and prophesies about the Deva, only to fly off during Sinduramon's attack and never be seen again. It would already be bizarre, but the dub gave it all the scenery it could chew and even more to chew in Henry's flashbacks.
  Owl: Hail to the Day-vuh, he who drinks of the light of man and expands himself and looks like a right BIG chicken!
  Henry: "He who drinks of the light of man"?
  Takato: "A right big chicken"?
  Owl: Yes! The great and mighty chicken of vengeance that shall rule all of us!
  Takato: "Chicken of vengeance"? Is that like kung pao chicken?
  Henry: Why do you want to be ruled by a digital chicken?
  Owl: Because he is the DAY-VUH!
• Broken Base:
  • There are two kinds of Digimon fans—the fans that love this season the best for being Darker and Edgier and overall more mature than Digimon Adventure and Zero Two, with a focus on Character Development and psychological realism over constant monster-of-the-week action, and fans that hated this series for taking too many elements and plot points from Adventure, sometimes feeling like a retread, and not any less for taking place in another universe, thus completely dropping the characters they have come to love over the course of two years.
  • There is debate about whether Tamers should stand out as a deconstruction of the Mons genre in comparison to the rest of the Digimon franchise. Detractors usually point out that everything that makes Tamers gain said label (death presented as dramatic, battles with traumatic consequences, mons losing control horrifyingly, loved ones threatened for real, angst, alienation) was already present in Adventure, and some even believe that vital plot points like the leader's Digimon going berserk (Skullgreymon/Megidramon) or a character dear to him being kidnapped (Kari/Jeri) were actually better played back in the first series. On the other hand, defenders often counter by arguing that Tamers is deeper and more mature in its deconstruction, that its more realistic presentation increases the impact of these darker notes, and that it does a better job at exploring its psychological themes overall.
  • Whether "Runaway Locomon" and/or "Message in a Packet" are canon. Well, not so much which is "canon" so much as whether to accept "Message in a Packet" banishing "Runaway Locomon" to Canon Discontinuity or to subject "Message" to Fanon Discontinuity in favor of "Runaway".
  • The Tamers being able to power up their Digimon with trading cards. Some believe it makes the human characters much more useful than in previous installments and is a good representation of the franchise's popularity in-universe. Others see the gimmick as blatant Product Placement that made the heroic Digimon seem overpowered.
• Character Perception Evolution: Ryo and Alice were very divisive when the series first aired outside of Japan (See their entries on Base-Breaking Character above). However, as time went on, people started to learn things that happened behind the scenes such as Ryo's Japan-only backstory or Alice's Dub Induced Plothole. The fandom became more forgiving towards them in The New '10s, though they are still somewhat base-breakers.
• Complete Monster ("The Icemon Cometh!"): IceDevimon is a cruel, ambitious Digimon seeking a tamer as ruthless as he is so as to attain even further power. A mass murderer of Digimon who has systematically frozen hundreds alive so as to slowly destroy them and absorb their data, IceDevimon uses their deaths to empower himself for further mayhem. IceDevimon sets his sights upon Rika to be his tamer, and after failing to sway her to willingly ally with him, IceDevimon decides to murder her entire group of friends while she watches to break her spirit and force her into evil.
• Death of the Author: Konaka's notes indicate that Jian being half-Chinese and Ruki living in a fatherless home is merely character trivia based on contemporary demographics, and explicitly denies that Ruki's lack of a father has anything to do with her twisted personality^note That particular denial may be a response to the Runaway Digimon Express heavily implicating Ruki's father in her fragile trust. Many fans cry foul on this stance. Indeed, between her icy facade, mommy issues, and fear of abandonment, Ruki is pitch-perfect for a fatherless girl.
• Epileptic Trees: There's a Casting Gag in the English dub with the teacher Miss Asaji being voiced by Lara Jill Miller, who also voiced Kari in the first two seasons and in the epilogue of 02 grew up to be a teacher herself. This combined with the fact that she does resemble a grown-up Kari led many young viewers to come up with theories about how she was secretly Kari, who somehow jumped from her dimension to this one.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Westerners prefer Takato with Ruki, overriding Juri's status as Takato's Love Interest.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • There's a whole sub-genre of Takato-Rika romance fics comprised entirely of Adaptational Alternate Endings to "Runaway Digimon Express", where Renamon isn't a Moment Killer like she was at the end of the original.
  • Undoing the Bittersweet Ending by reuniting the tamers and digimon or writing stories dealing with the separation is also common.
• Fan Nickname: Fans have given the Jeri-Type Agent of the D-Reaper several nicknames, including the "J-Reaper", "Fake Jeri", "Evil Jeri", and, at least in the US, "Scary Jeri."
• Fanon: Ai and Makoto are not twins (Ai is clearly older than Makoto), but good luck finding a different reference to them in fanworks.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • As mentioned elsewhere, the CD drama which retconned the second movie. The fans, however, gleefully ignore it, or try to connect them anyway.
  • The audio drama released in 2018 with the Blu-Ray boxset, which reveals that Jianliang became a researcher, Ruki became a motorcycle stuntwoman, and that the kids still haven't reunited with their Digimon after nearly twenty years.... then again, the Drama makes use of time travel so its canonicity is heavily debatable.
  • The audio drama released for the 2021 Anniversary festival entered this to some as the entire story deals with the kids facing the personification of “Political Correctness” who literally uses Cancel Culture as an attack. Some fans go a step further and use this, along with Konaka's statement that Ruki's Disappeared Dad has nothing to do with her personality, as reasons why his statements shouldn't be taken as canon.
• Faux Symbolism:
  • Dukemon Crimson Mode has an attack named Quo Vadis^note Latin: Where are you going?. The phrase refers to a Christian tradition depicting Peter and Christ meeting on the road; Peter asks "Quo Vadis" and Christ responds that He is going to Rome to be crucified again. Dukemon CM's attack basically vaporizes a city's worth of enemies at once. You find the connection!
  • On rewatch the series is fascinating to explore because it borrows a lot of concepts from mythology, current technology, pop culture, fairy tales and religion to not only build worldbuilding and lore, but character development as well.
  • For example, some fans have pointed out how fitting each evolution line for the main Digimon fits well with their respective trainer: Takato, who was originally written as a self-insert for the kids in the audience, gets the Digimon that evolves into stereotypical things boys are known to like: dinosaurs, robots and knights/superheroes. Jen, the most tech-driven kid of the cast, gets a Digimon that slowly turns into a full-on mecha with each evolution. And Ruki, who comes from a more traditional Japanese family, gets a Digimon that fully embraces elements of Japanese culture in all her evolutions.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • Tamers initiated the trend of recycling character traits and arcs from Adventure in new incarnations of the franchise, as while Digimon Adventure 02 had already introduced Chosen Children inheriting traits from the originals, those coexisted with them in the first place and allowed the whole plot point to be directly addressed. By contrast, in Tamers their elements were remade as if by a blueprint, with Takato receiving Tai's most characteristic ordeals while Henry and Rika crammed attributes from Yamato, Koushiro, Sora and Mimi between the two. Ironically, even then this was still not as bad by this point — it turned out Digimon Frontier could be even more unsubtle at remixing Adventure than Tamers.
  • The Running Gag of Leomon dying was spawned because the writers decided to repeat that event from Adventure. Konaka has since apologized on his Twitter for starting this trend and came out saying if he ever makes another story for Digimon, he'll make it up by having Leomon survive to the end.
• Genius Bonus: The show features a litany of references to Real Life computer science and information technology, including but not limited to:
  • The Reaper Program.
  • Echelon, the real-world American counterpart to Hypnos
  • The method by which the general populace provided processing power when fighting the Big Bad.
  • The Big Bad being described as a quantum computer (which explains why particles inside it seem to be travelling faster than light)
  • Entelecheia. More can be seen on the Analysis page.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Tamers is such an borderline-Cult Classic among fans from the Anglosphere that it might be shocking for those to learn the series did not do especially well in Japan or any other country. One of the reasons behind this, aside from the typically polarizing Continuity Reboot, is that Chiaki Konaka and his works are actually very niche in his native country and tend to do much better abroad, particularly in United States. Reception in Japan and other countries has improved with the years, though, and Tamers has ended up being among the more well-remembered of the Digimon anime productions, but it is still tepid in comparison to how loved it is in English fandom, and especially when compared to the enduring might of Adventure's popularity.
• Ham and Cheese: The possessed owl from Sinduramon's episode in the dub, whose sole function in the whole series is to vaguely allude to the otherwise Generic Doomsday Villain Sinduramon's Evil Plan so Henry can figure it out later. The original Japanese version actually tried to play it for spookiness by having it talk in an eerie monotone, but the dub leans into the Big-Lipped Alligator Moment by making the owl a southern-fried preacher.
  Owl: The Day-vuh has arrived-uh! Oh, yeah-yuh!
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The whole Hypnos organisation in regards to the NSA surveillance scandal.
  • Leomon's quote about fate is supposed to represent how anyone can say screw destiny and carve their own and Jeri does break out from grieving Leomon and change for the better. However, it gets taken to the darkest, most literal conclusion in Digimon Survive, where if characters go insane from losing their loved ones (actual humans, not Digimon), their destiny is a nice death and there's nothing you can do to change them because the deaths are pre-determined by route.
  • Reika's line in Episode 44 about people trying to control the network brings to mind the 2017 fight against the FCC's repeal of Net Neutrality or the controversies over censorship by social media at the dawn of The New '20s. This is made even worse with the CD Dramas that reveal a new threat in the form of a personification of Political Correctness that uses "Cancel Culture" as an attack.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Takato, Jian, and Ruki are each associated with the primary additive colors (red, green, and blue), while the fourth tamer Juri is associated with the subtractive primary color yellow. Televisions and computers use the same Chromatic Arrangement. In 2010, Sharp added yellow into that protocol as a fourth color when they rolled out their Aquos Quattron LCD TV.
  • This series introduces DigiGnomes as a separate digital lifeform from Digimon themselves. Digimon Frontier gives us Grumblemon, a literal DigiGnome.
  • This series portrays Digimon as feral beasts who feed off of other Digimon in order to grow stronger. Unlike its predecessors, human children form partnerships with Digimon as opposed to being "chosen," who then battle other Digimon (and occasionally other Digimon who belong to Tamers), using cards to give them weapons and powers. Digimon, both good and bad, break out into the Real World by creating Digial Fields, which the children and their Digimon must enter in order to battle them. Takato, a fan of Digimon, finds himself on a narrative collision with Ruki, who believes Digimon should only fight and has no time to make friends. This is in contrast to the previous series, where children formed a team and fought side by side. Furthermore, Guilmon was introduced as a monster brought to life by a drawing Takato made (Konaka is an Ultraman fan, and was likely inspired by an episode of the original series, where something similar happens). The show premiered in 2001; a month before it ended in 2002, Kamen Rider Ryuki premiered, which featured Riders forming contracts with monsters who break out of another dimension, and were created from drawings the Big Bad made. The Riders also fought using cards to power themselves up, and the main conflict involved Shinji Kido, an idealistic young man, going up against other Riders who rejected his ideas of what a hero should do. Notably, both Shinji and Takato have a partner monster that is reptilian and primarily red. Monsters in Ryuki must also eat other monsters to grow stronger, much like the Digimon of Tamers.
  • Adding to the above, Ryuki is often cited as having a heavy influence on Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Tamers using the Digital Fields as a way for Digimon to break into the Real World—and Konaka's notes about how the Fields bring part of the Digital World with them and warp surrounding scenery—makes the Digital Field something of an early forerunner for Madoka's Witch Labyrinths.
• Hype Backlash: After being Vindicated by History, the series is so often promoted as "like Neon Genesis Evangelion but with mons instead of Humongous Mecha" and similar expressions that many new viewers could easily find it underwhelming or simply not living up to such a description, mainly because, despite its substantial Periphery Demographic and darker themes, it is ultimately still a kids' show.
• Iron Woobie: Ryo. That back story alluded to under All There in the Manual? It's not a happy one. Aside from his reluctance to really bond with others, you'd never guess based on his normally jovial attitude.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Whenever the series's faults are noted, a recurrent one is that Tamers recycles several plot points and character dynamics of Adventure and exploits them in much longer arcs (like the main character's Digimon going berserk, or the kidnapping of a female Chosen Children deprived from her partner, or the cast's blue oni having family issues and a canid Digimon, with an additional second blue oni having an endangered younger sibling and another canid Digimon) despite being a reboot in a new continuity which otherwise tries to be a commentary on the original. This makes it especially noticeable, as at some points the plot is ruthless on going Darker and Edgier, while in others it feels like it is trying to adhere closely to Adventure when possible on the fear of becoming too unfamiliar.
• It Was His Sled: Impmon is Beelzemon and the true Big Bad is a computer program called the D-Reaper. Oh, and Leomon dies. The first two in particular were surprising at the time, but nowadays even people who haven't seen the show know them.
• Jerkass Woobie: Impmon/Beelzemon, is a jerkish bully turned deranged murderer, but his insecurities and backstory elicits sympathy from the audience and he eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ruki is shipped with pretty much any and every one of her friends. Renamon also has a handful of ships.
• LGBT Fanbase: Renamon has many, many nonbinary fans due to coincidentally having the exact same color scheme as the nonbinary flag, and also the line about Digimon being genderless.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The first episode ends with the "cliffhanger" on if the main character will be annihilated by his own partner. It's not that kind of show... yet.
• Memetic Molester: IceDevimon, who, let us remember, went to disturbing lengths to convince Ruki to be his Tamer.
• Misaimed Fandom: Ruki made a very strong first impression as a sharp Foil to the girls of Digimon Adventure and 02; her Ice Queen Action Girl and Little Miss Badass tropes led to her being lauded by some Western fans for being a Strong Female Character. These same fans lost interest when her Character Development led to her actually Defrosting and becoming kinder, friendlier, and more emotional^note A development that was long premeditated, since Ruki's ruthless violence was a coping mechanism and her rejection of her femininity hinged on her Mommy Issues, both of which she eventually let go.. None of this development caused her to lose agency, and she remains one of the core Tamers for the whole series. She also still retains her less feminine interests and competitive streak, eventually growing up to be a freestyle motocross rider.
• Narm:
  • It's incredibly difficult to take the final episode seriously, especially the emotional finale with the parting of the Tamers and their Partners, when everyone's cross-eyed, stiff, and slightly deformed.
  • Leomon's debut is a clumsy mix of Big Damn Heroes and Everything's Better with Rainbows played for maximum girlish fantasy (clearly for Juri's benefit). Watching the Beast Man slowly emerge from a rainbow and then stand on it is like as not going to generate snickers.
  • Vajiramon and Pajiramon gulp down CDs to power up, something that breaks their otherwise really serious menace in their episode. (Not helped by the fact no other villain in the season or series even do this).
  • Dukemon/Gallantmon's voice in the English dub meshes Guilmon's goofy nasal voice with Takato's, making the very imposing looking Digimon sound closer to a cartoony jester than the serious knight he's supposed to be.
  • Compared to the episode title sequences of Adventure and 02 (using art in black silhouettes), the ones for Tamers look closer to clipart of the show that's been perspective warped in Photoshop,◊ contrasting too much with the serious sounding jingle.
• Narm Charm: Just like with Digimon Adventure 02, Fox Kids had a "Digibowl" special with Digimon Tamers to crossover with the Super Bowl promotions, where Terry Bradshaw would comment on action scenes in the show while communicating to Hikari and Lee's dubbed video clips. It's as hilarious as it is entertaining.
• No Yay: One of the obstacles the Ryo-Ruki ship tends to face is that, according to Konaka's notes, Ryo is fourteen-years-old while Ruki is merely ten, which shunts this particular ship into a dramatically Unequal Pairing.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Alice shows up for just one episode, but she proved to be so popular there are entire theories, fanart, and fanfics on her.
  • Among the Digimon that show up to fight the D-Reaper, one can spot Hououmon, Grankuwagamon and Plesiomon. Fans who knew that these were the original Ultimate forms of Piyomon, Wormmon, and Gomamon were overjoyed, but the battle sadly happens off-screen, as the Digital World arc concludes just as they show up.
  • Similarly, two of the original Dark Masters and friggin' Diablomon cameo in the same scene, but have no lines and only serve as Fanservice.
• Periphery Demographic: Although it's a kids show, Konaka wanted to create a show that adults can enjoy as well, and it shows by the large amount of adult fans, some whom watched as children and appreciated the deconstruction elements more as they got older, and a few who aren't even fans of the Digimon series as a whole! In fact, Konaka wrote the Digimon Tamers 1984 side story specifically for the adult fans.
• Popular with Furries: Renamon is an immensely-popular sex symbol in the Furry Fandom.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: After the divisive/disliked 02, Tamers is often viewed in the West as a much improved successor to the original series and is commonly praised for its much darker and more thematically complex writing. It helps that unlike the series that have come before or since, this is the darkest and edgiest that Digimon has ever really gotten. After all, this was penned by the same guy who wrote Serial Experiments Lain of all things, and the series edges so extremely close to the Cyberpunk genre it might as well be one.
• Theme Pairing: A lot of people have gotten to like the Renamon / Impmon couple not only due to their interesting interactions but also because many found fascinating their contrasts and similarities. For one, their character arcs have them starting with a deep disdain toward humans and a craving for power. Furthermore, they are loners who awkwardly start friendships. If that doesn't seal the deal, then their reversed Color Motifs (purple and yellow) and contrasting evolutions (Renamon's evolutions call to concepts of purity and goodness in Japanese mythology/religion, Impmon/Beelzemon recalls iconography often associated with evil and the devil in Western/Christian mythology) ought to do it.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: With the retooled continuity reboot, some fans of the original Adventure series stopped watching the show because of how different the setting was.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Beelzemon keeps up with the main cast in terms of importance and plot relevance... until his near-fatal injury at the hands of the D-Reaper. After that, he's completely side-lined, and Ryo takes his spot in the final battle, which for some is just rubbing salt in the wound.
  • Guardromon after it becomes Kazu's partner. It's obvious that Guardromon is capable of getting better as it started off as an Andromon before an intense battle against an Orichimon exhausts it to the point of reducing down to Guardromon. Yet despite that, Kazu never chooses to digivolve Guardromon at any time throughout the rest of the show.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Beelzemon vs. Megidramon. There's a little bit of grappling, then Megidramon is anticlimactically knocked out by a few punches.
  • The whole concept of Digi-Modify where the Tamers rely on trading cards to provide power-ups to their Digimon gets increasingly phased out as the show goes on. Most usage of Digi-Modify in later episodes is just the Tamers using digi-evolution cards to digivolve their Digimon.
• Vindicated by History: When it first aired, many Western fans of the Adventure series were disappointed and confused by the lack of relation between the stories, and much of the themes and subtext were lost on younger viewers. This is even the case in Japan, as viewership had dropped off considerably during the show's initial run. Over a decade later, thanks to both access to the Japanese version in the west and a higher demand for more cerebral, deconstructive series, Tamers gained a large amount of popularity, and is easily the second most popular Digimon series on both sides of the Pacific (not so much of the Atlantic, but it's still one of the ever-popular "Big Four" series in the European side). To put it into perspective, Tamers' 20th anniversary saw it getting two sets of promotional Dim Cards for the Vital Bracelet v-pet; that's quite the far cry from how the show's reception started.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Tamers' art and animation is some of the best that the franchise has ever seen even two decades after it aired, and as per usual of Digimon the Mega digivolution sequences are nothing short of gorgeous. Guilmon and Terriermon's feature polygons rippling off as they warp to Dukemon and SaintGalgomon respectively, and while Renamon's evolutions are all traditional animation as was the case with the previous partner Digimon who weren't part of the primary duos, Sakuyamon's sequence is bursting with fluid movement that matches the quality of the other two as lights rush around and strands of hair blow in the breeze.
• Wangst:
  • Takato's helpless Inelegant Blubbering after repeatedly failing to get a newly-evolved Growmon to degenerate back to Guilmon tarnished his reputation for a lot of his detractors.
  • Takato's emotional turmoil over Guilmon being "a bunch of data" midway through the digital world journey is unfortunately deflated by the fact that it comes after spending the first third of the show establishing a strong, heartfelt connection between them, which makes it look like Takato caught a belated Conflict Ball right smack in the face. It would've been much more thematically relevant in the first arc of the series, when other characters like Ruki and Yamaki were also arguing What Measure Is a Non-Human?.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • Very much of the "was this content really created with children in mind?" variety. Head writer Chiaki Konaka, frustrated by the lack of gravity death is typically treated with by children's media, made it a point in Digimon Tamers for death to be permanent and traumatic. Which some people found rather troubling.
  • And, hell, one of the whole reasons for the Broken Base was due to feelings that the Moral Guardians might be in the right—showing the show to the later-elementary-age kids who are the (nominal) primary target of the show is a crapshoot as to whether they'll "get" it. Showing it to the kindergartenders on the young end of the target demo usually ends in tears and nightmares and is not recommended. (Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, these same elements made it and continue to make it vastly more popular with nearly every over-school-age periphery demographic.)
  • The very first episode. A Malidramon lunges at the jugular of a DarkTyrannomon, which explodes as it evolves into MetalTyrannomon, which then squashes the Malidramon with its palm. Pretty concisely sets up the stakes for the series' action beats.
  • Beelzemon killing Makuramon be hoisting him by the face and crushing him in his grip. At that point it may not matter whether you're a child or an adult.
  • Really evokes this from episode 34 onwards, with all the themes of PTSD, death, and Eldritch Abominations.
• The Woobie:
  • Jeri/Juri... goodness. Even some members of Jeri's Hatedom (wrought by her high-pitched voice, dub and sub) want to hug her after everything she endured.
  • Impmon has a couple Woobie moments too, though mainly he's a jerkass one.
  • Renamon is often depicted as a Stoic Woobie in fanfiction that is at least partially set prior to Rika's defrosting.
  • DarkLizardmon in the episode "Juggernaut". She just wanted to find a human partner... Instead, she got tortured to death.
  • Takato becomes this in the last story arc (although has shades of it earlier than that), particularly with how desperate he becomes to rescue "Katou-san" (Juri).
  • Calumon suffers quite a bit, being a Living MacGuffin who's frequently attacked, captured, put in danger and even suffers physical pain when having to use his powers in some circumstances. Not to mention his terrified reaction to Makuramon coming to take him implies that his time as the Devas' prisoner was rather traumatic.

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