Digimon Tamers

Ten-year-old Takato Matsuda loves playing the Digimon card game with his friends and immersing himself in its imaginative world. One morning, he finds an unfamiliar blue card in his collection and swipes it through his card reader. Little does he know, his decision leads to its transformation into a D-Ark Digivice. When the mysterious device scans his designs for an original Digimon named Guilmon, it generates a Digi-Egg that later hatches into a living version of his own creation!

Although Takato is thrilled to have a real Digimon, his idealized fantasy shatters when he realizes that his rambunctious new companion requires constant supervision. Adding to his troubles, Guilmon is targeted by Ruki Makino, a rival tamer who commands her partner, Renamon, to gain power by defeating other Digimon and absorbing their data. Luckily, Takato finds allies in his schoolmate Li Jianliang and his sassy Digimon partner Terriermon to help him on his journey as a real-life tamer.

With sinister foes appearing at an alarming rate, Takato must strengthen his bond with Guilmon to protect both the human world and the Digital World.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Impmon Main

Takahashi, Hiroki Japanese

Terriermon Main

Tada, Aoi Japanese

Guilmon Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Makino, Ruki Main

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Renamon Main

Imai, Yuka Japanese

Matsuda, Takato Main

Tsumura, Makoto Japanese

Li, Jianliang Main

Yamaguchi, Mayumi Japanese

Culumon Main

Kaneda, Tomoko Japanese

Katou, Juri Supporting

Asada, Youko Japanese

Leomon Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Seki, Hiromi Producer

Kaizawa, Yukio Director

Kakudou, Hiroyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Imamura, Takahiro Episode Director

Reviews

May 23, 2025

TrendFox

Recommended

Despite any shortcomings, I believe Digimon Tamers was an excellent attempt at evolving the franchise beyond its exciting start. It was like watching a franchise itself growing up from its whimsical, adventurous, and childlike story into something older, more mature, and more introspective and nuanced. Tamers wasn’t just asking the characters to grow up, it was asking the audience to do it too.

The tone, the drama, the pacing, the themes, the subtext, and the character exploration pushed the audience to think beyond what they already knew about Digimon. It brought a reality to the wish fulfilment of having your own digital monster without trying to ... make it gloomy or melancholic. The monsters these characters had to face could not simply be destroyed with a fireball or the power of friendship but through self-reflection and personal growth, which is often a much bigger enemy than any Digimon.

Chiaki J. Konaka and the creative team looked at Digimon Adventure and Digimon as a concept, found the most interesting parts to explore and just did it as well as they could while trying to stay within the limitations of the brand.

And I will always appreciate creators who can find something familiar behind the fantastic, something deeper behind the shallow and something mature behind the childish. To me, that is evolution.

Want to see the Full Analysis? You can find the video here. (Spoiler Warning)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CRxnI-kMzI

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 17, 2026

LancelotSB

Mixed Feelings

The intro song is so catchy and sets the perfect tone for the series. The voice cast is great, even though their performances could have been better. The concept is really cool, and the new Digimons bring a lot of excitement, but the pacing is a bit off.

The storyline feels a bit basic and familiar, but it's interesting to see the new characters and Digimons, especially Renamon's evolution line.

The animation quality is good, but not quite as impressive as Digimon 02. Some of the new Digimon skills are not that great, except for Renamon.

The pacing of the season is a bit all over the place, ... with a slow first half and a rushed ending. The sound quality is okay, and both the opening and ending themes are super catchy.

There are some good character developments, but some parts of the plot feel like they're overlooked as the series ends. The ending isn't as strong as in the previous seasons, probably because of the weak portrayal of the villains.

For someone new to the series, I might suggest starting elsewhere.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 3, 2017

Avgasblomman

Not Recommended

Basically, Digimon Tamers is a good show trapped within a horrible show.

The Good: The characters are quite well-realized and their growth is interesting, especially Ruki and the ties between her character arc and Renamon's powerset. Impmon was surprisingly engaging as well, and I enjoyed tracking the subtle development Culumon underwent.

Beyond that most characters, except the one-off monster-of-the-week baddies were fairly likeable; the adults were surprisingly well individualized and the side-kicks did not feel like they were wasting my time that often.

The overall themes present are ones I sympathize with, and they were explored with some nuance.

The general art direction was hit or miss; I liked ... the backgrounds, but the digimon designs range from pretty good to awfully overdesigned.

The bad: The problems with the show come down mostly to the technical stuff. The transformation sequences were too frequent and too lengthy, the animation quality in general was incredibly poor.

Beyond things like repeated transformation sequences, there were quite a few times when the show seemed to be wasting time; fights were padded and several episodes seemed like they weren't contributing to the plot in any significant way.

A lesser complaint, but the sound design was generally poor when it came to all the different growls and grunts the mons made- they very much sound like someone making an impression of something.

So, all in all, the show has many good things in it, but so much of it is wasted by poor choices in production that I could never really enjoy it; I watched it because I was interested in it, but with very few exceptions it was with the feeling that I "just want to be done with this".

If you have patience for the issues with presentation there is a lot to like, but otherwise I would recommend you to stay away.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Digimon Tamers Episode 1 Discussion philautia_ - Oct 10, 2009	15 replies	by SwornCrow »» Nov 17, 2025 11:53 AM
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