YMMV / Digimon Data Squad

aka: Digimon Savers

• Americans Hate Tingle: Touma/Thomas is much less popular in the west because he's seen as arrogant and unlikeable, and the fact that his false betrayal would have gotten Agumon killed were it not for The Power of Friendship, as well as the fact that the entire cast just overlooked this detail was the last straw for many western viewers.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Kurata. Is he an unlikable villain or a case of Love to Hate? For those who see him as the former, he is disliked for his cowardice and pettiness and for lacking any coolness. Those of the latter camp praise him for being a morally deprived, genocidal maniac who lacks any redeeming values. Then there are some who see him as both or just don't care.
  • Yoshino. Sweet mercy, Yoshino. People either hate her for having a Dull Surprise (Japanese version only), being useless early on, or pointless to the overall story, while others see her as being as badass and necessary to the team as the guys, and appreciate that she's the second female lead after Rika to have her Digimon evolve all the way to the Mega level. Some also found her too whiny while others think this makes her more relatable than the other leads.
  • For that matter, Marcus and Thomas as well. Thomas is either an interesting, sympathetic and endearing character or a stuck-up, unlikable character who needs to get over himself. Marcus is either a total badass whose characterization is unique and original for a main protagonist in Digimon, or a thick-headed Jerkass with unengaging motivations and whose characterization is a stale cliche of Hot-Blooded fighter heroes we've seen dozens of times before in Shonen anime.
  • Yggdrasil. Some people revile him for his Kill All Humans plan, the fact that most of what he tries to do has been done before by Zhuqiaomon, Lucemon, and even Merukimon and SaberLeomon in this very series, and just being a rather forced Final Boss, while others appreciate him for being an Anti-Villain who, unlike some other versions of Yggdrasil, actually has an understandable reason for hating humanity (namely a human attempting genocide on his subjects completely unprovoked) and is in an "us or them" situation that was in no way his fault.
• Broken Base: Fans are split on how good this series was. Those who think it's good either love it or like it just fine. Those who think it's bad despise it.
• Complete Monster: Akihiro Kurata is a Mad Scientist and one of the single most despicable human beings to appear in the franchise. Planning on committing genocide on Digimon—due to nothing more than a petty grudge—while conquering the world, Kurata created the Gizumon that would kill Digimon and stop their natural reincarnation cycle, which he first unleashed upon a noble Digimon who had been a surrogate father to the boy Ikuto. Kurata's reaction to Ikuto sobbing over his father's loss was cruel, hysterical laughter. Kurata then created a weapon to kill thousands of Digimon in a single blast and blackmailed one of the humans into working for him by threatening to murder his sick sister, before experimenting on said sister. Kurata's hatred extended to awakening a monstrous demon and attempting to merge with it to obliterate everything he saw as an enemy.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Daimon Sayuri/Sarah Damon who is both a responsible adult as well as a supportive mother to both of her children. She's also one of the few parent characters in the series as a whole to accept the Digimon that inhabit the world and is seen as a strong mother knowing that her husband is trapped in the Digital World for most of her children's lives.
• Epileptic Trees: The dub director, Jeff Nimoy, believes that Yggdrasil/King Drasil was a computer created by Digimon Adventure's Izzy and the entire world was his simulation.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "MasaruDaimon" for Masaru. Guess why.
    • Masaru also has "Digimon's Chuck Norris". Also guess why.
  • Bio-Trio: Kouki, Ivan, and Nanami.
  • Agumon is "Takatomon", due to having the same English voice actor as Takato.
  • "Professor Kurazy" for Kurata was popular back when his Mad Scientist tendencies were at their most apparent.
  • Masaru's Agumon is known as "Agumon Burst Mode", if only because Bandai and Toei have said pretty much nothing at all about this form since its debut over a decade ago in the finale of Data Squad.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Masaru/Marcus is surprisingly popular for being one of the most unique Digimon main characters in the history of the franchise. Mostly due to his Memetic Badass status and actually contributing to fights instead of being a walking evolution battery unlike other human heroes. It also helps that he's very protective of his family which, while not exclusive to him even within the season, helps endear his motivations and desire to be stronger.
• Growing the Beard: With the debut of Falcomon and Merukimon, and if not by that point, then the debut of Kurata.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The main characters' Digimons who can evolve to Mega-level are color-coded in orange, blue, pink, purple, and red; the same color as those of the main characters of Doki Doki! PreCure. It doesn't help that both series are written by the same person, Ryota Yamaguchi. And it doesn't help that both series have a Tag Along Kid character who is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, either.
    • Still related to Pretty Cure franchise: according to post-series commentary, Miki and Megumi were created to invoke the images of "ink" and "snow" ^note Nagisa and Honoka's surnames roughly translate to "beautiful ink" and "snow castle". Years later, there are Cures named "Miki" and "Megumi".
  • Unlike his Digimon Adventure counterpart, Piyomon's Champion stage here is Aquilamon from its sequel. Flash forward to Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time: Hawkmon/Aquilamon's partner Miyako shows up with Ikuto, who is an Official Couple with Piyomon's partner.
  • The twist that the main character's Disappeared Dad was fused with his partner monster who the hero has a complicated relationship with is something that Digimon's rival franchise would one day emulate.
  • This wouldn't be the last time a final battle's climax had a beyond Mega level Agumon pierce through a barrier of a threat beyond a Royal Knight and give their partner the chance to leap off them to get to the foe.
  • Banchou Leomon's outfit was clearly meant to emulate Jotaro Kujo's. In other words, he's a Jojo Lion.
• Improved Second Attempt: Previous series (with the exception of Digimon Tamers) received some flak for The Hero and The Lancer being the only ones able to reach Mega Level, which made the rest of the team be Overshadowed by Awesome. Not only does Data Squad have all the main quartet reach Mega Level, all of them also get access to Burst Mode, which was seen by many as an improvement and one of the better aspects of the season.
• Jerkass Woobie: Nanami and Ivan of the Bio-Hybrids. Nanami when solemnly monologuing about how she's been lonely all her life due to being socially isolated because of her intellect, and Ivan when it's revealed that he only works for Kurata because he needs the money to support his many little brothers and sisters, and is too dim-witted to truly realize what he's doing is wrong.
• Love to Hate: Fans sometimes praise the series for having a villain in Kurata who is genuinely despicable and hateful, not least of all because watching them get their just desserts is so satisfying.
• Magnificent Bitch: Nanami is a member of the Bio-Hybrid, a trio under the subservience of Akihiro Kurata. A genius who grew up isolated from everyone because of her prodigious intelligence, Nanami joined Kurata and hunted Digimon solely as an outlet to escape the droll in her life. Taking an interest in Thomas H. Norstein, Nanami undercuts his plan to protect the waterfall of the Sacred City located on ElDradimon by easily guessing where he'd be. Spending the entire scuffle against him and Gaomon predicting their every move with utter ease and mysterious grace, Nanami uses their shared experiences and her own dark charms to try and shake Thomas's faith in his friends. While undone by Thomas using a strategy unfathomable to both her and MirageGaogamon, Nanami gracefully accepts defeat only because she pushed Thomas into using someone else's power, not his own, and uprooting Thomas's strategy by destroying the coveted waterfall.
• Memetic Badass: Masaru. As the fandom put it, "MOTHERFUCKER PUNCHES MEGA-LEVEL DIGIMON IN THE FACE".
• Memetic Loser: ShineGreymon, or at least the GeoGrey Sword he wields, mostly due to the fact that after the first fight it debuts in, the weapon is borderline useless, usually getting knocked away or being destroyed. You'd usually find fans discussing how it's practically made of glass with how often it's destroyed, or how its purpose was quickly made obsolete by Burst Mode.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The above-mentioned "MOTHERFUCKER PUNCHES MEGA-LEVEL DIGIMON IN THE FACE" will always be mentioned whenever someone talks about Masaru.
    • Some fans of One-Punch Man call Masaru the predecessor of Saitama.
  • MASARU PUNCH!
  • When life gives you lemons, Data Squad gives you oranges instead.^ExplanationIn regards to the So Bad, It's Good Citramon edit
  • A certain scene from episode 28 where Agumon tends Masaru while Yoshino and Tohma tend their partner Digimons has become memetic in the Japanese fandom.
  • "Bear with it!"^ExplanationFrom episode 29, where Tohma silences Masaru by shutting the latter's mouth with his hand and making suggestive position in process. Yaoi Fangirl have some fun with this one.
• Mis-blamed:
  • The Tarzan-speak used by Falcomon's human partner was not added to the English dub; he actually spoke broken Japanese in the original version too.
  • In general, not all of the choices were made by the dubbing team, with many having been caused by Executive Meddling. The BomberNanimon/Citramon episode in particular was changed because it was either that, or Disney would have forced them to remove the episode entirely.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Narm: It's hard to take Keenan seriously whenever he spouts Rousing Speech because of his speech pattern.
  • Masaru's mother loses conciousness in one episode. The censorship led to a weak reply instead which kills all the drama.
  • Thomas beating up Masaru when explaining how violence is bad. Is this Zeta Gundam?
• Nausea Fuel: A great many things count, but most especially Kurata's head coming out of Belphemon's body.
• Squick: Part of the second opening's animations and the second half of the series seem to take a liking to pair up Ikuto with Yoshino. Nevermind the eight years gap between the two. And it's probably done to pair up their partner Digimons (Rosemon and Ravemon in particular) instead.
• Signature Scene: ShineGreymon's ascension into Burst Mode and the ensuing fight against Belphemon, ending with Marcus and ShineGreymon punching Kurata and Belphemon respectively.
• Superlative Dubbing: Not necessarily the entire series, but there is one dub only line that nearly everyone agrees was absolutely fantastic

  Kurata: Please! H-have pity on me!

  Marcus: Pity is all I ever had for you...KURATAAAAAAAA!

• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Much of the fandom scorned (and still scorns) the season for the demographic shift.
  • Many returning Digimon who fared less well in Data Squad than in previous series got this reaction. Piyomon/Biyomon arguably has it the worst, not least of all because the director made him male, subjected him to The Worf Effect, and made him much larger. Had he been another species, the fans would probably have viewed him as The Woobie.
    • Many Monster of the Week Digimon were good guys in previous series. A lot of people were rather unhappy with seeing so many of their old favorites shoot at the good guys for a few minutes and then die. Examples include Digmon, Garurumon, Togemon, Garudamon and Zudomon.
    • The Digimon you would usually root for in the previous series^note specifically, Omnimon, Magnamon and Gallantmon, are bad guys, as members of the Royal Knights. Well, at least until the final battle.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Only Masaru was able to actually fight Digimon. The others still fought conventionally like in Adventure, though Ikuto would occasionally throw his boomerang to assist Falcomon. It would have been interesting to see how the others channelled their Digisoul.
• Toy Ship: Keenan and Kristy.
• Unfortunate Character Design: The Data Squad redesign of Yatagaramon suffers from this. He has a white mane that really stands out thanks to his mostly black and purple design. Said mane is braided into a single rope that dangles freely with a bell to each side of it. Guess we should call the Data Squad version the four legged crow.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Yggdrasil is meant to have a point about how Humans Are the Real Monsters and uses that as justification to destroy the human world to save the Digital World after Kurata destroys the barriers separating them both. However, 99% of the evil humans did against Digimon were entirely on Kurata's initiative, and Yggdrasil didn't lift a finger to stop either of his genocidal campaigns. When Kurata was defeated by humans and digimon working together, only then did Yggdrasil get off his ass... to commit genocide against humanity.
• Vindicated by History: While not exactly disliked on its first airing, there were many that were put off by how different Data Squad was at the time, especially considering its main characters. Over time though, many appreciate the directions made with Data Squad allowing the series to stand out and have its own identity.
• The Woobie: There are at least three: Keenan, due to his tragic backstory and conflicting feelings over his own human-Digimon identity; Thomas, due to his family struggles and the loss of his mother; and Yoshino, who suffered from a severe childhood-rooted inferiority complex for the first third of the series.
• Woolseyism:
  • Masaru/Marcus makes a pun on Thomas/Touma's name when they first meet and calls him "Tonma" (This means something along the line of "Stupid" or "Fool"). Because it's a Japanese pun, it doesn't translate well... however another nice pun works, too. In the English Dub, Marcus/Masaru calls him "Nerdstein", a pun on his last name. Doesn't have exactly the same meaning as the Japanese pun... but instead keeps the bit about Masaru making fun of Touma.
  • Also Citramon, a fruit-based knockoff of Nanimon, who was a BomberNanimon in Japan. Doubles as being Bowdlerized, since a gruff and hairy male chucking bombs to destroy large structures for no reason reads "terrorist" to a lot of people.

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