Trivia / Digimon Tamers

• Acclaimed Flop: Despite being one of the favorite series among older Digimon fans, Tamers actually did incredibly poorly with its target demographic, with children either finding the themes too dark or frightening (and the dub being hosed by corporate changes and local TV stations in America didn't help). It's thought this is why the next anime series was so drastically different from the base Digimon formula.
• Acting for Two:
  • Aoi Tada as Terriermon and Lopmon; Yuka Imai as Renamon, Rika's mother, and Rika's grandmother; Steve Blum as Guilmon, Kenta, and Yamaki (all except the latter are in the Japanese version). Ebonwumon has one head does most of the talking, including on behalf of the other.
  • Juri and the D-Reaper, naturally. That was kind of the point.
  • In the English dub, Jeri and her stepmother are both voiced by Bridget Hoffman.
• Ascended Fanon: Konaka gave this response when confronted with the fan hypothesis that Alice is a ghost.
• The Cast Show Off: Good thing Fumiko Orikasa and Melissa Fahn can really sing, or otherwise Ruki might not have had a song all to herself in the second movie.
• Channel Hop: During this season's run, Disney bought the dubbing rights along with the other Saban/Fox Family stuff; while the show did finish its' run on Fox Kids in June of 2002 (Fox Kids was replaced by the Fox Box two months later), it immediately began airing in reruns as part of of Disney's block on UPN stations (previously called Disney's One Too, a spinoff of Disney's One Saturday Morning, which had become ABC Kids, resulting in the UPN block becoming unbranded) alongside new episodes of Digimon Frontier.
• Creator Backlash: Chiaki Konaka apologized in 2017 for killing Leomon and starting the Running Gag of one Leomon dying per continuity, noting that if he ever did return to the franchise, he'd have the character survive to break the tradition.
• Defictionalization: While Tamers largely relied on cards already published in the card game, several cards introduced were unique to the show (and often pulled out of thin air). Many if not all of these show-unique cards, such as "Alias!", would be later made into real cards.
• Depending on the Writer: Although at first glance the Ryo that appears in Tamers has a different personality from the one in the game, he was in fact written by the same person who wrote his character in the games, according to the main writer.
• Dub Name Change: Interestingly, many of the name changes are still valid Japanese names.
  • In the English dub (and the Spaniard one, with some exceptions):
    • Takato Matsuda -> Takato Matsuki
    • Jiànliáng Lǐ -> Henry Wong
    • Ruki Makino -> Rika Nonaka
    • Juri Katou -> Jeri Katou -> Jen Katou (German dub)
    • Hirokazu Shioda -> Kazu Shioda
    • Xiǎochūn Lǐ -> Suzie Wong
    • Zhènyǔ Lǐ -> Janyu Wong (note that Janyu is a valid transliteration of Zhènyǔ).
    • Makoto -> Mako
    • Nami Asanuma -> Nami Asaji
    • Hajime Katou -> Tadashi Katou
• Executive Meddling:
  • The series itself exists because Digimon Adventure 02's meddling got bad enough that much of the team was willing to leave and break contract. Bandai's response was to let them make this.
  • Juri's initial character concept, original name Mishio, was going to have parents who ran a prostitution business (as if she didn't have enough problems already), if Toei's executives hadn't intervened.
  • Chiaki Konaka hadn't originally wanted to include Ryo, but was forced to do so by Bandai. See Writer Revolt below for how this was handled.
• Follow the Leader: A Deconstruction of a highly popular Mons series, that doesn't pull any punches in being realistic and happens to be the third chronological installment? Where have we heard that before?
• God Never Said That: Many claim that Digimon Adventure being a Show Within a Show in Tamers is an invention of the dub, and there was a different, unrelated Digimon anime in the Tamers universe. Konaka's website directly contradicts this, and in the Digimon Adventure PSP game, Taichi meets Takato in a crossover dungeon and Takato is ecstatic to meet his hero. The misconception might stem from the dub outright namedropping Adventure characters in dialog, whereas in the Japanese version they don't explicitly refer to Adventure and it's All There in the Manual.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: If you want to get the original Japanese version but live outside of Hulu's supported territories (the USA and Japan), you'll have to get it online from unofficial sources as the Japanese DVDs are out-of-print. The American dub got a complete season Region 1 DVD release on June 2013, and the Japanese version finally got a Blu-Ray release in 2018. If you want to watch it subbed legally and can't access Hulu, you're still out of luck.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": In the West, Kai's first appearance was a cameo in one of the later episodes. The Battle of Adventurers movie (where Kai plays a role) wasn't released until years later.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Notably Pajiramon, whose English voice is a homage to Kate Mulgrew - Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who voiced Pajiramon and was this season's voice director, had guest-starred in a Voyager episode.
  • Impmon's dub voiceover is a very deliberate imitation of Joe Pesci. Interviews also reveal that Beelzemon's voiceover was originally supposed to mimic Sylvester Stallone, but this was scrapped due to Executive Meddling and he ended up with a voice somewhere in-between Pesci and Stallone.
• No Export for You:
  • The official Japanese version with English subtitles is available on Hulu, which currently only serves the USA and Japan.
  • DVDs with the original Japanese audio were released—only in Japan. And now they're out-of-print. They were re-released on Blu-Ray in 2018, however.
• The Other Marty: In one of the English dub promos, Takato is voiced by Brian Donovan. In the series proper, he is voiced by Brian Beacock, who later rerecorded that promo.
• Production Lead Time: The second movie, Runaway Digimon Express, was released on March 2, 2002, while the final episodes weren't released until March 24 and March 31. Despite being ostensibly set after the series, the movie doesn't even seem slightly aware of the finale or how the Digimon were sent back to the Digital World.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Renamon is conspicuously absent from the controversial 2021 script reading because her voice actress retired in 2018 to look after her son after he was diagnosed with mental illness.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: In one of his live blog posts, series creator Konaka has warned people about searching for Renamon with safe search turned off.
• Screwed by the Network: In the West, the series had some unfortunate timing when it was aired: 2001 was pretty much the peak of the Mons fad, and at the same time, Fox Kids (the program block that Digimon aired on) was also being cancelled (half the affiliate base didn't air Fox Kids whatsoever, and others shifted it around to strange times, or even to sister stations in the same market). with its' assets sold to Disney; this left Digimon to appear on a different channel, at inconvenient times, which was also something that was already in motion before the Tamers dub even premiered.
  • In the UK, ITV's CITV block only aired the first 5 episodes before pulling it completely, likely due to its darker nature. Oddly enough, they were aired as the block was airing 02 during its Christmas arc (implying this may have been to satisfy some sort of legal requirement).
• Shrug of God: Chiaki J. Konaka on whether or not Alice is a ghost.
• Star-Making Role: Takato was Brian Beacock’s first anime role and would lead him into getting more.
• Throw It In!:
  • Konaka originally did not intend for Suzie Wong to become a Tamer. However, when he saw that the animators included her in the opening with a Digivice, he decided to give her one in the show. A lot of her comedy moments were this, too— the character designer "couldn't stop" drawing pictures of her playing with Terriermon, and Konaka felt "it would be criminal" not to use them. See Chiaki J. Konaka's character notes here.
  • He also mentions that Kiyoyuki Yanada (Guardromon) was prone to adlibbing lines during recording, which Konaka himself asked to be kept in the final version.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Word of God states that Impmon was originally conceived as Takato's Digimon! When that was shot down, Impmon/Beelzemon was then intended to be the Big Bad of the series, but was replaced by the D-Reaper and became The Atoner instead. This may explain why Impmon is portrayed in typical Big Bad fashion in the earlier promotional material.
  • Tamers was originally planned to be a direct sequel to Adventure continuity.
  • The earliest design notes referred to Rika's partner as "Lunamon". That name was used years later for a different Digimon.
• Word of God: Arguably has the most All There in the Manual info out of any Digimon series due to Konaka's blog being publicly available and packed with information, and with an English translation to boot so that non-Japanese speakers can read.
• Writer Revolt: Konaka wasn't pleased when Bandai forced him to include Ryo Akiyama in Tamers, especially after they had promised him not to meddle much again. While he did comply by adding in Ryo as they wanted, Konaka deliberately minimized the amount of screen time and importance that Bandai wanted him to have in Tamers's plot.

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