It's crazy that Toei had years of successful anime fests, then just one bombs and they go "well, this is dead to me now" Though, as a Digimon fan, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising...
Yeah it's interesting! I couldn't get any box office numbers for 2001, 2000, 1999 etc but maybe the Anime Fairs were doing worse and worse every year? All we know is that the 2002 Summer fair was bad enough to be declared a failure.
I wonder if it could have been influenced by Bandai as well. Bandai has a habit of just dropping support completely for things the moment they drop into the negatives profit-wise and if the big merch company backs out...
I love Frontiers and still do, but this movie (or whatever you wanna call it) wasn’t good. But the series was good, but the second half wasn’t that great. I hated how Takuya and Koji had extra evolutions and the others didn’t. And the Unity Evolution was much worse. Tommy, Zoey, JP and Koichi had to give up their spirits, thus making them completely useless and vulnerable, giving them to Takuya and Koji making them do everything. And they didn’t even bother to animate a Beast Evolution sequence for Koichi…
this movie made me think of what frontier could have been. I love it for what it was but they could have larger-scale battles or conflict between human and beast and find a peace with their to show that it was possible to live together
I really liked Frontier because it was different. Plus the idea of kids turning into Digimon as a kid was amazing. I wanted to turn into burninggreymon do bad
I am a gigantic Frontier fan, even if I am critical of its many severe faults. It was the Digimon season that ignited my love for Digimon and cheered me up on bad days (elementary school was a rough time). And as far as this movie is concerned...It is OK. Like you said, it's serviceable. I think it has the same struggles that the original Frontier anime did- fun and interesting ideas, but poor or anti-climatic executions. That and *once again*, Takuya and Kouji are the ones who get to do the cool fighting while everyone else remains support. I had no idea that this film was THAT poorly received, though. Over the years I have heard other Digi-fans call Frontier the season that almost killed the franchise and I thought they were just being pessimistic. Guess there is some truth to that...
Frontier is my favorite because of the power ranger aspect. There's always a bit of a disconnect when humans just stand there while the mons fight. So getting every character involved as digimon was top tier.
Frontier is still one of my all time favorites the writers just needed to cook it more before putting it out. A simple change of just making their spirits sentient would have made a huge difference
THANK YOU. THANK FUCKING YOU. I BEEN SAYING THAT THE WHOLE TIME. We know the spirit live one point. But WHY is it a one side to it. That few last EP of frontier. Where there talking AND side by side with the kid. THAT WHAT I WANT TO WATCH. ITS EVEN IN THE DAMN INTRO SONG
While a neat idea, I had 0 issues with the Spirits+Humans fusion thing. The glaring issue for me was "the women are portrayed as helpless/useless", and it's still irritating. Plus, the plot point of the season being "teh devul is teh bad guy"... also irritating, and could have been so much better.
@@solariaserpentia6509 ... Mate, the devil was the literal bad guy for the first arc of the first series. Devil got killed by an Angel for God's sake. Some pun intended
The most I can say about the movie is it introduced me to one of my absolute favourite Digimon, up there in my top 5... Dinohumon. Underrated mon with an awesome design.
Frontier is pretty much one of, if not my favourite digimon seasons so the extra analysis on the movie and its implications were really appreciated! Sad to hear it wasn't as well received in Japan though
4:24 It also completely broke the rules of how slide evolution is supposed to work. According to Digital Monster 25th Anniversary Book Digimon Device & Dot History, slide evolution is supposed to be between the same stage (which was usually hybrid to hybrid, though -Sephirothmon- Sephirothmon is clearly the rough equivalent of at least ultimate stage and apparently Mercuremon somehow beast spirit evolved into it instead of slide evolving)
i did like frontiers, where it fell off for me was when it was the lucimon arc. fusion evolution was so hype for me and unexpected tbh. kinda wish the rest of the cast got fusions and felt like even using the other spirits would have been cool. Def hard when you only have 50 ep to work with to keep it interesting
I honestly kinda felt it was similar to the Dark Masters arc, where gabumon and agumon were the only ones that could warp digivolve. The only difference is they had more variety of enemies. But then again they literally did that with the first arc of frontier for the variety part
I always liked this series. As a lifelong Power Rangers/Tokusatsu fan, mixing Digimon with the concept of Henshin Heroes is pretty cool to me. It feels like an evolution of the concept of biomerge digivolution that was introduced in Tamers. Surprisingly, I've actually seen this movie. I remember seeking it out a little over a decade ago. I only watched it the one time. I thought it was okay, nothing to write home about.
I was always curious why future seasons didn't get films, besides the sole Data Squad film. Anyways, I watched Frontier and its film for the first time back in July and, for the season itself, thought it was pretty good, the film being just OK. Glad to see that I'm not alone thinking some of the battle sequences felt short.
One thing that always struck me as odd in this movie was the camera! The shots are taken as if everyone is too close or too far away to the point the first time I watched it online I thought I had gotten a cam recorded version of a cinema screening, where the person recording couldn't frame the entire screen.
I noticed that when I was watching and I’m like wait a minute she doesn’t have her spirit we’ve got a big plothole here my dad even commented didn’t I see her lose her power to that mole creature when did she get it back (dad sometimes caught it while he was getting ready for work and walked in on me watching the series while eating breakfast before school
I always assumed the movie took place after Zoey got her spirit back. I need to rewatch Frontier I haven't seen it since Jetix stopped airing it in 2007 I think. Seasons 3&4 haven't aired Stateside in a long time. Still disappointed that Nicktoons didn't air them 10 Years Ago after Seasons 1&2 were rebroadcast. Nicktoons instead chose to abandon anime at about that time, despite hopes for more Classic Yugioh & more Digimon from fans of those series. Oddly enough Nicktoons dropped Yugioh during Season 4 which was the same point Cartoon Network did in 2005 in favor of GX.
Spirit Evolution was a logical endpoint of the kids' involvement in the battles when you look at previous series. Adventure: The kids act as emotional fuel for the Digimon to evolve. Adventure 02: The kids have to find Digimentals so the Digimon can evolve. Later, this is replaced with fusing the Digimon together. Tamers: The kids can modify the Digimon and even merge with them. Frontier: The kids *are* the Digimon. I'd like to see them revisit this concept some time in the future.
Always love the humans turning into digimon idea. It was great seeing the digimon i picked in digimon world 3 showing up in the movie Dinohumon one of my favorite looks. Seeing the clips it interesting to noticed that most of the digimon were armored digivotions.
To me this movie was what Frontier should have been. Beast vs Human plot, more focus on the lore. Not the shit it turned out to be because of too much attention on the twins thing. It also showed how they could write every relationship between the kids so well: Takuya and Tomoki, Junpei and Takuya, Izumi and Kouji, Junpei and Izumi, Kouji and Takuya, the trio of Junpei, Izumi and Tomoki. Everyone was useful and the team worked very well
What was wrong with Koichi? Takuya & Koji got forms at the expense of everyone else so we never saw anyone else get forms like Aldamon & Beowulfmon. They couldn't even fight because of Emperor Greymon & Magna Garurumon taking their spirits.
I liked the concept, but overall, it felt like there was a lot cut and the story moved too quickly to form any thought form of the movie itself. As far as Frontier, it's such a great concept. I had an entire friend group that Role Played it. But i can see how this season would be its downfall and the movie just didn't hold a plot well. I got the concept and it fit with the whole war that made the ten legendary warriors. But at the same time... Kids didn't want things like this. I remember beyblade OG being more popular than Frontier. But I'm so glad someone else loves Frontier like I do.
Frontier has a lot of great ideas for the world and lore of Digimon, but it flubbed the execution. The spirits being the successors of the Ten Warriors is awesome, but it doesn't really come up much thematically. There was already a comment that the spirits should've been sentient and communicated with their human, but how interesting would it have been to also see the kids interact with the original Ten Warriors in order to unlock the fusion spirits. Taking "look to the past, as we head towards the future" quite literally. I know it's a dub thing, but it just fits the vibe of what Frontier was setting up.
If you like power rangers then you should cover more tokusatsu. Usually, a lot of anime films like dbz from toei get bundle in to their tokusatsu movies in the 80s and 90s as double or triple features to make the total length time a hour and thirty minutes. Frontier level scaling always bothers me even before cross wars and their connection with the legendary warriors wasn’t unlock until the very end. It was so weird to see the evil digimon generals they fought before the royal knights end up being part of the heroes again in the very end.
This movie is what Frontier should have been. It's like all the good writing was out here and it left Frontier with gross fanservice, empty characters, bad writing, and lore that's never delved into. This film is seriously the only time we ever see the Human VS Beasts digimon conflict at all. Unfortunately the main cast still gets sidelined for Takuya and Koji but it's way easier to watch in a movie than 10 awful, slogs of episodes .
What gross fanservice? All I remember was the Takuya & Koji show where they kept losing until every bit of the Digital World they explored was devoured by Lucemon. Frontier Kids had the highest loss count of any Digimon Season that I actually want to see a count of how much they lost & how it compares to other seasons in an actual video.
back in the day, and to this day, people in older circles always said "frontier flopped so hard it killed the franchise" and still blame it to this day for digimon's declined state and many woes. this film definitely vindicates that belief. of course, digimon's risen to higher highs since, and sunk to lower lows. perhaps there's some merit to the belief that frontier dealt a mortal wound to digimon as a whole, or maybe digimon recovered far better than assumed. only time will tell....
I think what Frontier killed was Digimon's potential as a franchise. The show bled viewers like crazy, and when it ended there wasn't really anything for those people to watch and get back into Digimon, so it led to the franchise becoming dormant. Compare it to Pokemon where they always have something new to keep people coming back, whether it be a continuously airing anime or a new game every year. The long droughts of content isn't good for the continued health of a franchise
Frontier is my fav/most nostalgic digimon season (hench pfp) I understand its flaws and IMO a sequel to expand upon would help it overall. Who knows maybe that Jan 5 2025 anime announcement by Toei could be that or smth related. This film tho I never knew about it till the hype for Tri started and gave it a watch. It was alright, that all I got to add.
The movie was fine, but Frontier killing Digimon for a while not sure. Apparently, the virtual pets fad was fading around the time, Japan was suffering from low merchandisingm and America didn't help since Disney didn't care and only got the rights after buying from Fox. Frontier just had the worst timing being part of when this was all happening, but it's a bit unfair to blame it exclusively for the three year hiatus.
Definitely additional factors came into play like toy & merch sales, but the low low interest in the latest tv series and movie would have contributed big time. The small spike in tv viewership between 02 and Tamers suggests it wasn’t diminishing returns and that there was a CHANCE for Digimon to crawl back up, if the show interested audiences.
Thank you for doing this! I think Frontier deserves better, both with it season and movies! Hell, I would pay big money for Toei to make a Digimon Frontier sequel movie like Last Evolution Kizuna and The Beginning (it needs to be a two parter), showing the kids older and focus more on Koichi, as well as give the other characters, besides Takuya and Koji their fusion forms as well as include the kids from episodes 40 and 41 and give them the other four spirits (Water, Earth, Steel, and Wood).
I knew the concept of the humans becoming Digimon was kinda weird for the west but I always thought Japan would’ve eaten that shit for breakfast. Maybe we’re not so different after all 😂 in all seriousness I did enjoy the storyline and character designs of Frontier more than the average Joe, so it’s unfortunate that most of the world didn’t
Digimon was supposed to end with Frontier, THANK GOD the Digimon X Evolution movie was a success that convinced Bandai and Toei to continue with the brand.
Loved watching Adv 02 and Tamers as a kid, but when I first saw the main cast of Frontier, I didn't even give it a chance. That feeling holds to this day.
I never knew exactly why the Digimon movies were produced, why there were two per series, and why they stopped after one with Frontier. It all makes sense now. Thank you for this! I agree that the movie has a great concept (especially for a kid's show) that just falls a little flat in the execution. Make's me wonder what they would have come up with for a second movie had the chance come.
Am I the only one that remember that frontier came out on like Fox kids as it aired and half way through it switched to like jetix (a channel kind of exclusive to satellite iirc) (in the USA)
I remember it airing on UPN Sunday morning cartoons (basic television). This was like 23 years ago, so before Jetix I think. But that Sunday morning station progressively shortened it's time block. I remember it just had digimon, Recess, and like 2 other shows to just do 2 hours instead of the standard 4 hours like most Saturday morning cartoons blocks were. But it was like plagued with a few moments where there were issues with licensing or something. Because they would stop at certain points and just re-run right from the start (which was annoying because it was from the beginning. I think there were enough complaints so they just jumped back a few eps). It took them forever to finish airing the entire series, and once they did UPN basically stopped having cartoons and took off that kids block
Nah, Tamers was the last season to air on Fox Kids but then transitioned to Jetix midway through (also proven by their music). Frontier was just at UPN from the start and then moved on to Toon Disney. It also had episodes that aired during days of the week and had breaks in between.
Frontier is one of my favorite series in the franchise, I feel like it had a strong first half, but the second half felt really rushed. And I have seen the movie, and I liked it.
I remember really liking this movie as a kid, but on the rewatch as an adult it just felt pretty meh to me. The plot never rly stuck to me and the main villain was kinda generic for the most part.
I think Frontiers deserves a second chance. It's got cool ideas that just needed some touch ups and more time. And if not the series itself, then just the general concept.
I did know about this movie and was always curiosa about it, specially for being the only proper appearance of AncientGreymon and AncientGarurumon, and how it pissed me off "D'Arcmon" was made a bad guy (maybe Liberator can give her a Evo line of her own?). Seeing that mural, anyone else wants an Ornismon vaccine based of those colors? PS: Am I the only one that thinks "PrimalGreymon" and "PrimalGarurumon" are better names?
Thank you for this. Digimon Frontiers was around when i dropped Digimon during its initial run. I just couldn't get into the humans turning to digimon, plus i felt Digimon Tamers satisfied me enough with Digimon. But its nice to hear about the movie Frontiers had.
I literally only learned this movie existed, like, 2 weeks ago. I've had the entire Frontier series for over 5 years now, but 2 weeks ago was the first time I ever heard anything about Frontier having a movie
I remember it being the 4th of the Special Dubbed Digimon Movies on Toon Disney about 20 Years Ago. Revenge of Diaboromon, & Both Tamers Movies were the other 3. Sadly the Data Squad Movie & X Evolution were never dubbed for Disney XD.
I’d say that Darcmon vs Hippogryphomon is, on paper, a fantastic villain concept. We’ve had some civil rights and civil war villains in American animation a lot in the last 10 years or so. The problem is that you can tell that the people writing the not so great ones either accidentally do the “you’re lying and creating your own oppressor” for the twist, get to attached to the world they’ve made to make it bad or swap out the interesting conflict for satan. Darcmon… Murmukusmon is theoretically a good version of this, playing both sides and ruining so many lives in order to instil enough fear that they get what they want. Which so happens to be bird satan. Problem is, we don’t really spend time with either Darcmon or Hippogryphomon to really flesh them out, capitalise on the premise or explore the ramifications that such a premise would create.
As a frontier fan this was such an interesting video! I didn't know any of this thank you! It does make me sad that frontier has that negative connotation to it. Still fun to look back on it though good or bad
Glad you enjoyed! I know the video title is a little provocative but I wanted to make it clear in the video that I also ENJOYED Frontier both as a kid and now in 2024. But those TV & Movie stats were shocking!
I did! I knew about x evolution back in the day too! I think the main issue with frontier was the later part of the season wasn't given an overall goal. It went from, find the star, to stop the royal knights, too stop lucimon. They failed too tie the themes together and slowly became more episodic until it was encounting the royal knights episode after episode falling back into the adventure episodic lull that the english dub had. And the world building and most of the characters character development either stopped or reverted back too how they where before if they weren't Takuya or Koji
I knew about X evolution as well. Digimon Frontier was actually the first one I watched with fansubs so I probably found out about X evolution from the fansub group but I don't clearly recall.
I watched Frontier in it's entirety for the first time this year and I felt some rushed parta at the end that made me go "Wait what? Already?" Like it felt like they really didn't have much to work with but had really good concepts. And after the masterpiece that Tamers was to me, it was gard to ever top that. I will say that nowasays I prefer the music from Frontier better than thenonenin Tamers but it's a close call. At least they got thag going for me. This movie recently got fandubbed in latin american spanish keeping as many of the original cast as possible but I haven't seen it yet. But I gotta say, that's quite the fandubbing feats to actually hire the voice actors from the official run of the anime for all the old digimon movies that never got dubbed. That's true love for the classics from our childhood.
To be honest I haven't seen this Digimon Frontier movie since the early 2000s on Jetix but I do remember the commercial about it when Takuya was sneezing 🤧 I finally got to watch this movie on the internet 2 weeks ago
The frontier movie was just ok, but the series is my favorite. I’m a huge fan of Tokusatsu, and becoming one with your digimon was an amazing concept that I’m glad tamer’s introduced because we wouldn’t have frontier. Also frontier had a banger English opening. Digiknow you have to look at the beta version of what frontier could have been the beta versions of flamon live rent free in my head. KarnEx did a great video on it. Also Digimon legendary skies was a supposed frontier sequel.
I loved the movie. Feature my favourite Digimon, Bearmon, and it's a more tame insight about cycles of hate and horror of war. Just wish the movie lasted more to properly treat all of what potentially has to tell.
I recently watched this series and this movie again. The English Dub opening theme is great. I think Digimon frontier needed about fusion evolutions, we only get to see 2. When these fights happen the other characters feel left out. Some of villains are divisive. I like the dark spirit storyline towards the end. This is not my favourite series. This has grown on me. I loved Digimon Data Squad.
I watched this movie maybe 3 times in total, in 2003, maybe 2012 or so out of nostalgia in the drought after X wars. Then recently maybe in 2022. As a nerd I did read the synopsis a few times in 2002 I can’t believe it’s been so long I was 9-10 at the time. I only watched it to see ancientgarurumon and ancientgreymon in action. I was hype about the tcg card back in the day. I was sad that the movie flopped in Japan tho, I was watching the original Japanese airing, at the point I found a working link to this movie subbed Takuya and Koji already had their fusion evo forms but prior to the unified forms. I was wishing for a movie around the Lucemon battle or possibly after. Or pull a dragon ball and give the same plot but with an alternate character as the anime. But I understood why it failed. As a 9-10 year old at the time I was leaning on the beyblade, sonic and megaman anime more after this point. I couldn’t even convince my friends to watch any of the new “toy” anime at the time tho. 2002 really was a turning point in the states for that brand of anime, while One Piece set sail and the other shonens took off
I could be mistaken but if I remember correctly after Kotemon died the human and beast Spirites of fire and light were taken from Koji and Takuya during the fight in order to awaken the 2 ancient spirits
No, obviously not. They're still making more Digimon. Frontier ended over 20 years ago and since then we've had Data Squad which arguably is a much worse series, Fusion, Tri, Digimon Universe App Monsters, Adventure 2020 reboot, and Ghost Game. There's also been seven different Digimon movies after Frontier. Seems like the franchise is still alive and well to me. If anything it feels like Xros Wars killed the franchise, at least in America because 4Kids never dubbed the third season of it for Digimon Fusion and we haven't gotten a new dub in America since Fusion.
Gonna be honest. I HATED frontier when I was a kid, an amazing feat, since I liked digimon AND I liked power rangers. lol Living in Brazil we got the original japanese soundtrack which was awesome, and the digital world in frontier is arguably the richest and most imaginative. That's it, I even liked 02 better than frontier, and 02 is pretty bad. That being said, I actually liked this movie! First because I absolutely ADORE bearmon lol, but also the humanoid vs beast digimon conflict was better explored in it than in the series.
I personally dont think Digimon had ever a down right bad Season. There were weaker ones like Fusion but even Fusion was a solid show even if it wasnt the best Digimon. Digimon Fans often fall into 3 Camps. 1.The fans that refuse to watch anything after Season 1. 2.The fans that think Tamer was the pinnacle of Digimon (which to befair it kinda is) and everything else is trash. 3. The Fans that kept an open mind and generally enjoyed most of the Seasons. Specially Appmon was a great Show that brought Digimon back to its roots but wasnt given the chance it deserved by many.
Toei giving up after one bad film fest is such a corpo thing to do lol, a film fest that was obviously not going to do well with that lineup. Like, bro, just make sure next year you HAVE something to sell tickets! There's no need to throw in the towel so quickly! haha
you know I think I heard that Digimon frontiers had a movie and I think it was actually in jetix/toondisney but I think it was actually a different country it was from and for me the bummer part is that I never saw it
Unlike the Adventure/02 movies which has this Evangelion/Ghibli quality to it, this looks no different from the TV show, so the mystic is gone. Frontier in general is not released in many countries to this day.
Whaaaat this movie sunk toei?! I remember really enjoying this movie in like middle school 😂 really liked frontier as a kid Funny because I never watched savers or any of the seasons after frontier
![[Live] : ONE 169 วันนี้!! "อนาโตลี vs อูมาร์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IK3YZVWuFJg/mqdefault.jpg)
It's crazy that Toei had years of successful anime fests, then just one bombs and they go "well, this is dead to me now"
Though, as a Digimon fan, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising...
Yeah it's interesting! I couldn't get any box office numbers for 2001, 2000, 1999 etc but maybe the Anime Fairs were doing worse and worse every year? All we know is that the 2002 Summer fair was bad enough to be declared a failure.
I wonder if it could have been influenced by Bandai as well. Bandai has a habit of just dropping support completely for things the moment they drop into the negatives profit-wise and if the big merch company backs out...
I love Frontiers and still do, but this movie (or whatever you wanna call it) wasn’t good. But the series was good, but the second half wasn’t that great. I hated how Takuya and Koji had extra evolutions and the others didn’t. And the Unity Evolution was much worse. Tommy, Zoey, JP and Koichi had to give up their spirits, thus making them completely useless and vulnerable, giving them to Takuya and Koji making them do everything. And they didn’t even bother to animate a Beast Evolution sequence for Koichi…
this movie made me think of what frontier could have been. I love it for what it was but they could have larger-scale battles or conflict between human and beast and find a peace with their to show that it was possible to live together
I loved this group because they did something instead of just standing by!
I understand why the movie failed, its because the movie needed more runtime
Ya that’s what it was
I still can't believe that both frontier and Naruto premiered on the same year what a lucky break the seiyuu had
I really liked Frontier because it was different. Plus the idea of kids turning into Digimon as a kid was amazing. I wanted to turn into burninggreymon do bad
I am a gigantic Frontier fan, even if I am critical of its many severe faults. It was the Digimon season that ignited my love for Digimon and cheered me up on bad days (elementary school was a rough time). And as far as this movie is concerned...It is OK. Like you said, it's serviceable. I think it has the same struggles that the original Frontier anime did- fun and interesting ideas, but poor or anti-climatic executions. That and *once again*, Takuya and Kouji are the ones who get to do the cool fighting while everyone else remains support.
I had no idea that this film was THAT poorly received, though. Over the years I have heard other Digi-fans call Frontier the season that almost killed the franchise and I thought they were just being pessimistic. Guess there is some truth to that...
I liked seeing Takuya again.
Frontier is my favorite because of the power ranger aspect.
There's always a bit of a disconnect when humans just stand there while the mons fight. So getting every character involved as digimon was top tier.
Frontier is still one of my all time favorites the writers just needed to cook it more before putting it out. A simple change of just making their spirits sentient would have made a huge difference
Totally agree, let them talk to the spirits in their minds or something
Definitely.
THANK YOU.
THANK FUCKING YOU.
I BEEN SAYING THAT THE WHOLE TIME.
We know the spirit live one point. But WHY is it a one side to it.
That few last EP of frontier. Where there talking AND side by side with the kid. THAT WHAT I WANT TO WATCH.
ITS EVEN IN THE DAMN INTRO SONG
While a neat idea, I had 0 issues with the Spirits+Humans fusion thing.
The glaring issue for me was "the women are portrayed as helpless/useless", and it's still irritating.
Plus, the plot point of the season being "teh devul is teh bad guy"... also irritating, and could have been so much better.
@@solariaserpentia6509 ... Mate, the devil was the literal bad guy for the first arc of the first series. Devil got killed by an Angel for God's sake. Some pun intended
0:14 I remember seeing that movie on TH-cam over a decade to a decade and a half ago
The most I can say about the movie is it introduced me to one of my absolute favourite Digimon, up there in my top 5... Dinohumon. Underrated mon with an awesome design.
The biggest thing I remember from this movie are the psychedelic party tanks.
D-Arcmon should have brought one in Ghost Game.
Frontier is pretty much one of, if not my favourite digimon seasons so the extra analysis on the movie and its implications were really appreciated! Sad to hear it wasn't as well received in Japan though
I like the idea of Frontier. Just the execution could've been better.
4:24 It also completely broke the rules of how slide evolution is supposed to work. According to Digital Monster 25th Anniversary Book Digimon Device & Dot History, slide evolution is supposed to be between the same stage (which was usually hybrid to hybrid, though -Sephirothmon- Sephirothmon is clearly the rough equivalent of at least ultimate stage and apparently Mercuremon somehow beast spirit evolved into it instead of slide evolving)
i did like frontiers, where it fell off for me was when it was the lucimon arc. fusion evolution was so hype for me and unexpected tbh. kinda wish the rest of the cast got fusions and felt like even using the other spirits would have been cool. Def hard when you only have 50 ep to work with to keep it interesting
I honestly kinda felt it was similar to the Dark Masters arc, where gabumon and agumon were the only ones that could warp digivolve. The only difference is they had more variety of enemies. But then again they literally did that with the first arc of frontier for the variety part
I always liked this series. As a lifelong Power Rangers/Tokusatsu fan, mixing Digimon with the concept of Henshin Heroes is pretty cool to me. It feels like an evolution of the concept of biomerge digivolution that was introduced in Tamers. Surprisingly, I've actually seen this movie. I remember seeking it out a little over a decade ago. I only watched it the one time. I thought it was okay, nothing to write home about.
I was always curious why future seasons didn't get films, besides the sole Data Squad film.
Anyways, I watched Frontier and its film for the first time back in July and, for the season itself, thought it was pretty good, the film being just OK. Glad to see that I'm not alone thinking some of the battle sequences felt short.
One thing that always struck me as odd in this movie was the camera!
The shots are taken as if everyone is too close or too far away to the point the first time I watched it online I thought I had gotten a cam recorded version of a cinema screening, where the person recording couldn't frame the entire screen.
I liked the movie but when it takes place Zoey doesn't have her spirit back yet
I noticed that when I was watching and I’m like wait a minute she doesn’t have her spirit we’ve got a big plothole here my dad even commented didn’t I see her lose her power to that mole creature when did she get it back (dad sometimes caught it while he was getting ready for work and walked in on me watching the series while eating breakfast before school
@frankietafuro530 I love how your dad was a passive watcher but still remembered more plot details than you 😂 A true weeb born too soon hahaha m
Oof
Island of Lost Digimon clearly is out of continuity with the show. Such a shame.
I always assumed the movie took place after Zoey got her spirit back. I need to rewatch Frontier I haven't seen it since Jetix stopped airing it in 2007 I think. Seasons 3&4 haven't aired Stateside in a long time. Still disappointed that Nicktoons didn't air them 10 Years Ago after Seasons 1&2 were rebroadcast. Nicktoons instead chose to abandon anime at about that time, despite hopes for more Classic Yugioh & more Digimon from fans of those series. Oddly enough Nicktoons dropped Yugioh during Season 4 which was the same point Cartoon Network did in 2005 in favor of GX.
Spirit Evolution was a logical endpoint of the kids' involvement in the battles when you look at previous series.
Adventure: The kids act as emotional fuel for the Digimon to evolve.
Adventure 02: The kids have to find Digimentals so the Digimon can evolve. Later, this is replaced with fusing the Digimon together.
Tamers: The kids can modify the Digimon and even merge with them.
Frontier: The kids *are* the Digimon.
I'd like to see them revisit this concept some time in the future.
Then savers: Marcus himself fights the digimon, sometimes
I don't know, it feels a too far removed from the whole concept of Digimon.
Yeah I want a tamers and frontier movie when they are adults fr
They planned a sequel via a manga.
@@umitenchoand where is that manga right now
Always love the humans turning into digimon idea. It was great seeing the digimon i picked in digimon world 3 showing up in the movie Dinohumon one of my favorite looks. Seeing the clips it interesting to noticed that most of the digimon were armored digivotions.
To me this movie was what Frontier should have been. Beast vs Human plot, more focus on the lore. Not the shit it turned out to be because of too much attention on the twins thing. It also showed how they could write every relationship between the kids so well: Takuya and Tomoki, Junpei and Takuya, Izumi and Kouji, Junpei and Izumi, Kouji and Takuya, the trio of Junpei, Izumi and Tomoki. Everyone was useful and the team worked very well
What was wrong with Koichi? Takuya & Koji got forms at the expense of everyone else so we never saw anyone else get forms like Aldamon & Beowulfmon. They couldn't even fight because of Emperor Greymon & Magna Garurumon taking their spirits.
@@WaterKirby1994 he was boring and added nothing to the team. If I remove him, I wouldn’t feel any difference
I liked the concept, but overall, it felt like there was a lot cut and the story moved too quickly to form any thought form of the movie itself.
As far as Frontier, it's such a great concept. I had an entire friend group that Role Played it. But i can see how this season would be its downfall and the movie just didn't hold a plot well. I got the concept and it fit with the whole war that made the ten legendary warriors. But at the same time...
Kids didn't want things like this.
I remember beyblade OG being more popular than Frontier.
But I'm so glad someone else loves Frontier like I do.
Frontier has a lot of great ideas for the world and lore of Digimon, but it flubbed the execution. The spirits being the successors of the Ten Warriors is awesome, but it doesn't really come up much thematically. There was already a comment that the spirits should've been sentient and communicated with their human, but how interesting would it have been to also see the kids interact with the original Ten Warriors in order to unlock the fusion spirits. Taking "look to the past, as we head towards the future" quite literally. I know it's a dub thing, but it just fits the vibe of what Frontier was setting up.
If you like power rangers then you should cover more tokusatsu. Usually, a lot of anime films like dbz from toei get bundle in to their tokusatsu movies in the 80s and 90s as double or triple features to make the total length time a hour and thirty minutes.
Frontier level scaling always bothers me even before cross wars and their connection with the legendary warriors wasn’t unlock until the very end. It was so weird to see the evil digimon generals they fought before the royal knights end up being part of the heroes again in the very end.
I like the Frontiers concept. It's cool to change into the Digimon.
This movie is what Frontier should have been. It's like all the good writing was out here and it left Frontier with gross fanservice, empty characters, bad writing, and lore that's never delved into.
This film is seriously the only time we ever see the Human VS Beasts digimon conflict at all. Unfortunately the main cast still gets sidelined for Takuya and Koji but it's way easier to watch in a movie than 10 awful, slogs of episodes .
What gross fanservice? All I remember was the Takuya & Koji show where they kept losing until every bit of the Digital World they explored was devoured by Lucemon. Frontier Kids had the highest loss count of any Digimon Season that I actually want to see a count of how much they lost & how it compares to other seasons in an actual video.
@@WaterKirby1994 I think they're referring to some instances of fanservice with Zoe/Izumi
back in the day, and to this day, people in older circles always said "frontier flopped so hard it killed the franchise" and still blame it to this day for digimon's declined state and many woes. this film definitely vindicates that belief.
of course, digimon's risen to higher highs since, and sunk to lower lows. perhaps there's some merit to the belief that frontier dealt a mortal wound to digimon as a whole, or maybe digimon recovered far better than assumed. only time will tell....
I think what Frontier killed was Digimon's potential as a franchise. The show bled viewers like crazy, and when it ended there wasn't really anything for those people to watch and get back into Digimon, so it led to the franchise becoming dormant. Compare it to Pokemon where they always have something new to keep people coming back, whether it be a continuously airing anime or a new game every year. The long droughts of content isn't good for the continued health of a franchise
At least the movie used the plot of human and beast digimon conflict I mean kerpymon used it to become evil but in this it was used perfeclty
Frontier is my fav/most nostalgic digimon season (hench pfp) I understand its flaws and IMO a sequel to expand upon would help it overall. Who knows maybe that Jan 5 2025 anime announcement by Toei could be that or smth related. This film tho I never knew about it till the hype for Tri started and gave it a watch. It was alright, that all I got to add.
The best soundtrack in the entire digimon franchise, period. Also the one who never got release on cd.
The movie was fine, but Frontier killing Digimon for a while not sure. Apparently, the virtual pets fad was fading around the time, Japan was suffering from low merchandisingm and America didn't help since Disney didn't care and only got the rights after buying from Fox.
Frontier just had the worst timing being part of when this was all happening, but it's a bit unfair to blame it exclusively for the three year hiatus.
Definitely additional factors came into play like toy & merch sales, but the low low interest in the latest tv series and movie would have contributed big time. The small spike in tv viewership between 02 and Tamers suggests it wasn’t diminishing returns and that there was a CHANCE for Digimon to crawl back up, if the show interested audiences.
Thank you for doing this! I think Frontier deserves better, both with it season and movies! Hell, I would pay big money for Toei to make a Digimon Frontier sequel movie like Last Evolution Kizuna and The Beginning (it needs to be a two parter), showing the kids older and focus more on Koichi, as well as give the other characters, besides Takuya and Koji their fusion forms as well as include the kids from episodes 40 and 41 and give them the other four spirits (Water, Earth, Steel, and Wood).
#1 english digimon intro and it is not close, i heard that joint in the club one time
9:35 Now I'm curious have you done a review of the Savers movie?
Nope! I'll have to do that in the near future! Going to focus on finishing Beyblade V Force first though
I knew the concept of the humans becoming Digimon was kinda weird for the west but I always thought Japan would’ve eaten that shit for breakfast. Maybe we’re not so different after all 😂 in all seriousness I did enjoy the storyline and character designs of Frontier more than the average Joe, so it’s unfortunate that most of the world didn’t
Digimon was supposed to end with Frontier, THANK GOD the Digimon X Evolution movie was a success that convinced Bandai and Toei to continue with the brand.
They need to re-do the anime.
Loved watching Adv 02 and Tamers as a kid, but when I first saw the main cast of Frontier, I didn't even give it a chance. That feeling holds to this day.
I never knew exactly why the Digimon movies were produced, why there were two per series, and why they stopped after one with Frontier. It all makes sense now. Thank you for this!
I agree that the movie has a great concept (especially for a kid's show) that just falls a little flat in the execution. Make's me wonder what they would have come up with for a second movie had the chance come.
I loved this movie!! 😭😭😭 Kotemon and Bearmon!! A total fox and the hound esk friendship
Just a heads up. Fox and the Hound-esque. Hope that helps in the future.
Am I the only one that remember that frontier came out on like Fox kids as it aired and half way through it switched to like jetix (a channel kind of exclusive to satellite iirc) (in the USA)
Yah it was a bit hard to watch in North America. Dedicated fans really had to put in the work huh
For me it aired on an odd channel. Back when they did weekday cartoon. In time it would air on Jetix.
I only remember Digimon Frontier aired on Jetix.
I remember it airing on UPN Sunday morning cartoons (basic television). This was like 23 years ago, so before Jetix I think. But that Sunday morning station progressively shortened it's time block. I remember it just had digimon, Recess, and like 2 other shows to just do 2 hours instead of the standard 4 hours like most Saturday morning cartoons blocks were. But it was like plagued with a few moments where there were issues with licensing or something. Because they would stop at certain points and just re-run right from the start (which was annoying because it was from the beginning. I think there were enough complaints so they just jumped back a few eps). It took them forever to finish airing the entire series, and once they did UPN basically stopped having cartoons and took off that kids block
Nah, Tamers was the last season to air on Fox Kids but then transitioned to Jetix midway through (also proven by their music).
Frontier was just at UPN from the start and then moved on to Toon Disney. It also had episodes that aired during days of the week and had breaks in between.
Frontier is one of my favorite series in the franchise, I feel like it had a strong first half, but the second half felt really rushed. And I have seen the movie, and I liked it.
I remember really liking this movie as a kid, but on the rewatch as an adult it just felt pretty meh to me. The plot never rly stuck to me and the main villain was kinda generic for the most part.
I think Frontiers deserves a second chance. It's got cool ideas that just needed some touch ups and more time. And if not the series itself, then just the general concept.
It's kinda sad that crush gear was part of the cause since the anime is such an amazing part of it
I enjoyed it, but wish it was done better & yeah even savers didn't have a decently length movie
I did know about this movie and was always curiosa about it, specially for being the only proper appearance of AncientGreymon and AncientGarurumon, and how it pissed me off "D'Arcmon" was made a bad guy (maybe Liberator can give her a Evo line of her own?).
Seeing that mural, anyone else wants an Ornismon vaccine based of those colors?
PS: Am I the only one that thinks "PrimalGreymon" and "PrimalGarurumon" are better names?
The movie was short but enjoyable.
Thank you for this. Digimon Frontiers was around when i dropped Digimon during its initial run. I just couldn't get into the humans turning to digimon, plus i felt Digimon Tamers satisfied me enough with Digimon.
But its nice to hear about the movie Frontiers had.
I literally only learned this movie existed, like, 2 weeks ago.
I've had the entire Frontier series for over 5 years now, but 2 weeks ago was the first time I ever heard anything about Frontier having a movie
I remember it being the 4th of the Special Dubbed Digimon Movies on Toon Disney about 20 Years Ago. Revenge of Diaboromon, & Both Tamers Movies were the other 3. Sadly the Data Squad Movie & X Evolution were never dubbed for Disney XD.
I’d say that Darcmon vs Hippogryphomon is, on paper, a fantastic villain concept.
We’ve had some civil rights and civil war villains in American animation a lot in the last 10 years or so. The problem is that you can tell that the people writing the not so great ones either accidentally do the “you’re lying and creating your own oppressor” for the twist, get to attached to the world they’ve made to make it bad or swap out the interesting conflict for satan.
Darcmon… Murmukusmon is theoretically a good version of this, playing both sides and ruining so many lives in order to instil enough fear that they get what they want. Which so happens to be bird satan. Problem is, we don’t really spend time with either Darcmon or Hippogryphomon to really flesh them out, capitalise on the premise or explore the ramifications that such a premise would create.
As a frontier fan this was such an interesting video! I didn't know any of this thank you! It does make me sad that frontier has that negative connotation to it. Still fun to look back on it though good or bad
Glad you enjoyed! I know the video title is a little provocative but I wanted to make it clear in the video that I also ENJOYED Frontier both as a kid and now in 2024. But those TV & Movie stats were shocking!
I did! I knew about x evolution back in the day too!
I think the main issue with frontier was the later part of the season wasn't given an overall goal. It went from, find the star, to stop the royal knights, too stop lucimon. They failed too tie the themes together and slowly became more episodic until it was encounting the royal knights episode after episode falling back into the adventure episodic lull that the english dub had. And the world building and most of the characters character development either stopped or reverted back too how they where before if they weren't Takuya or Koji
Well said
I knew about X evolution as well. Digimon Frontier was actually the first one I watched with fansubs so I probably found out about X evolution from the fansub group but I don't clearly recall.
I watched Frontier in it's entirety for the first time this year and I felt some rushed parta at the end that made me go "Wait what? Already?" Like it felt like they really didn't have much to work with but had really good concepts. And after the masterpiece that Tamers was to me, it was gard to ever top that. I will say that nowasays I prefer the music from Frontier better than thenonenin Tamers but it's a close call. At least they got thag going for me. This movie recently got fandubbed in latin american spanish keeping as many of the original cast as possible but I haven't seen it yet. But I gotta say, that's quite the fandubbing feats to actually hire the voice actors from the official run of the anime for all the old digimon movies that never got dubbed. That's true love for the classics from our childhood.
We need to talk *about this
my favorite digimon series i watched all series and this has a special spot in my heart !
I still love frontier, this concept was super different and had amazing designs.
It is absolutely funny to me that Ancient Greymon was a Fusion in DW3 long before the movie came out.
To be honest I haven't seen this Digimon Frontier movie since the early 2000s on Jetix but I do remember the commercial about it when Takuya was sneezing 🤧 I finally got to watch this movie on the internet 2 weeks ago
Frontier was acrually really good! And all the digimon in the digital world had more fleshed out characters. We got to see so many more digimon.
The frontier movie was just ok, but the series is my favorite. I’m a huge fan of Tokusatsu, and becoming one with your digimon was an amazing concept that I’m glad tamer’s introduced because we wouldn’t have frontier. Also frontier had a banger English opening. Digiknow you have to look at the beta version of what frontier could have been the beta versions of flamon live rent free in my head. KarnEx did a great video on it. Also Digimon legendary skies was a supposed frontier sequel.
One of the best “sad songs” to come from the movie. And the official soundtrack has never gotten a release
I def didn’t that’s awesome! I loved frontier!
I loved the movie. Feature my favourite Digimon, Bearmon, and it's a more tame insight about cycles of hate and horror of war. Just wish the movie lasted more to properly treat all of what potentially has to tell.
Are you getting the release of the first 3 ovas?
100%
I Loved Frontier. It's Digimon/Power Rangers. Just play any Power Rangers theme over it and Bam
Frontier was always okay in my opinion not great but not bad Either same with this movie, still consider it a master piece compared to kizuna though
I recently watched this series and this movie again. The English Dub opening theme is great.
I think Digimon frontier needed about fusion evolutions, we only get to see 2.
When these fights happen the other characters feel left out.
Some of villains are divisive.
I like the dark spirit storyline towards the end. This is not my favourite series.
This has grown on me.
I loved Digimon Data Squad.
At 8:27 I’ve seen that first one piece movie but also does that picture look like a DVD case that holds two movie disk just wondering
🔥🔥🔥🔥 imma check this out after I finish the series
Keep up the good work lol 🏆🫡
I watched this movie maybe 3 times in total, in 2003, maybe 2012 or so out of nostalgia in the drought after X wars. Then recently maybe in 2022. As a nerd I did read the synopsis a few times in 2002 I can’t believe it’s been so long I was 9-10 at the time. I only watched it to see ancientgarurumon and ancientgreymon in action. I was hype about the tcg card back in the day.
I was sad that the movie flopped in Japan tho, I was watching the original Japanese airing, at the point I found a working link to this movie subbed Takuya and Koji already had their fusion evo forms but prior to the unified forms. I was wishing for a movie around the Lucemon battle or possibly after. Or pull a dragon ball and give the same plot but with an alternate character as the anime. But I understood why it failed. As a 9-10 year old at the time I was leaning on the beyblade, sonic and megaman anime more after this point.
I couldn’t even convince my friends to watch any of the new “toy” anime at the time tho. 2002 really was a turning point in the states for that brand of anime, while One Piece set sail and the other shonens took off
4:36 that’s an art for one of the option cards in the Digimon TCG!
I could be mistaken but if I remember correctly after Kotemon died the human and beast Spirites of fire and light were taken from Koji and Takuya during the fight in order to awaken the 2 ancient spirits
9:16 Hoo boy the Savers movie...
I loved the concept of humans becoming the digimon.
Unfortunate they didn’t make a second film with Koichi.
I prefer this movie over 02 the beginning it had more action and conflict while the beginning was mostly all talking
Which 02 movie? The return of Diaboromon or Hurricane
@@multilad816 no, I mean the newest on the beginning the one realeswd after kizuna
lol I was just talking about this movie this passed Wednesday with some digimon friends
they got the philosophic more complex each season
it has bearmon so it's a win for me personally
Glad that im not the only one who think frontier is actually a good idea
No, obviously not. They're still making more Digimon. Frontier ended over 20 years ago and since then we've had Data Squad which arguably is a much worse series, Fusion, Tri, Digimon Universe App Monsters, Adventure 2020 reboot, and Ghost Game. There's also been seven different Digimon movies after Frontier. Seems like the franchise is still alive and well to me.
If anything it feels like Xros Wars killed the franchise, at least in America because 4Kids never dubbed the third season of it for Digimon Fusion and we haven't gotten a new dub in America since Fusion.
Is this a reupload? I sworn I already seen it since you finished all the digimon movies and moved on to beyblade.
Nope never reviewed this movie. Never watched it until this week. And I haven't finished all the Digimon movies. Maybe you're thinking of Billiam?
i loved Digimon Frontier its one of the best seasons of digimon i think
Gonna be honest. I HATED frontier when I was a kid, an amazing feat, since I liked digimon AND I liked power rangers. lol
Living in Brazil we got the original japanese soundtrack which was awesome, and the digital world in frontier is arguably the richest and most imaginative.
That's it, I even liked 02 better than frontier, and 02 is pretty bad.
That being said, I actually liked this movie!
First because I absolutely ADORE bearmon lol, but also the humanoid vs beast digimon conflict was better explored in it than in the series.
I personally dont think Digimon had ever a down right bad Season. There were weaker ones like Fusion but even Fusion was a solid show even if it wasnt the best Digimon.
Digimon Fans often fall into 3 Camps.
1.The fans that refuse to watch anything after Season 1.
2.The fans that think Tamer was the pinnacle of Digimon (which to befair it kinda is) and everything else is trash.
3. The Fans that kept an open mind and generally enjoyed most of the Seasons.
Specially Appmon was a great Show that brought Digimon back to its roots but wasnt given the chance it deserved by many.
Toei giving up after one bad film fest is such a corpo thing to do lol, a film fest that was obviously not going to do well with that lineup. Like, bro, just make sure next year you HAVE something to sell tickets! There's no need to throw in the towel so quickly! haha
I remember this movie!
you know I think I heard that Digimon frontiers had a movie and I think it was actually in jetix/toondisney but I think it was actually a different country it was from and for me the bummer part is that I never saw it
Best digi-tuber
Thank you! I think Karn EX is way better haha (i know it's not a competition but he's great). Still I appreciate the compliment!
Yeah I saw this. It was weird.
Interesting.👍
I loved frontier it's my favorite digimon series
Unlike the Adventure/02 movies which has this Evangelion/Ghibli quality to it, this looks no different from the TV show, so the mystic is gone. Frontier in general is not released in many countries to this day.
I always thought frontier was epic. It wasn't till years later on the internet I learned that it wasn't very well received.
Nvr watched the film but I thought the film was when all the 10 ancient Digimon 1st debate.
Whaaaat this movie sunk toei?! I remember really enjoying this movie in like middle school 😂 really liked frontier as a kid
Funny because I never watched savers or any of the seasons after frontier
No. No it didn't. It just unperformed and it didn't do so alone as it was triple-billed.