[answered on: 2/20/2022]

It's Digimon Tamers (Season 3) ! My #1 absolute fav...!! Though for the record I have only watched seasons 1-3 in full, and I've watched 4&5 very non-committally. Anything more modern I am completely clueless about though; I am not tapped into that. And I haven't watched Tri or the reboot of 01 (... and I don't plan to... XP) .... OH and I've played Digmon World DS&Dusk&Dawn and enjoyed them plenty. OK.

Tamers takes the cake for me when it come to the anime... Has my favorite characters, main digimon, and my favorite lore for what digimon are, how they work. Somehow the meta of it being a trading card game and video game series is like wait... yes... This totally works... Since! The point is digimon are 'digital', and rather inorganic... It 'explains' a lot to me, how digimon look/act/function, that they were literally made by humans -- I even like that digimon was originally a more Severe serious tech project by some genius college students before it was scrapped & then repurposed into games... It feels almost ah. Like creepypasta-y? The raw hubris of doing this. Of course, Darkness Later Ensues, you all were totally asking for it.

Of the main kids my favorite is Juri, unmatched. The gem of the series. But otherwise I like Ruki/Jian/Takato about the same amount, I would say they all stand in as my "second fav". I wouldn't say I have an OTP exactly, but I enjoy Juri and Takato's rship in canon and also I think Renamon deserves paydirt for simping for Ruki. Lopmon/Terriermon could kiss I would be down.

(WAIT BTW THERE'S A JP ARTIST THAT SHIPS AI AND IMPON AND THEIR ART IS GORGEOUS ALSO...?? I never conceptualized this on my own but I have to recommend them just on principal, HUGE brain. has made my absolute fav depictions of impon i've ever seen.. sweet best friend to littol girl. Please have a look...)

... anyhoo i just love Tamer's aesthetics more as well... errr I'm quiet nostalgic for it haha ^^; so some aspects are not necessarily harmonious with my modern day preferences in media but! it definitely appealed to me a ton around the time it came out! I really like Hypnos, this... secret government facility that is actually working towards containing & researching threats to people without them knowing. I like that the kids are thwarting scary men in suits with sunglasses kskdfgj it's so Edgy... I like the lengths that Takato has to go to harbor and sustain Guilmon -- your fantasy of keeping and hiding an awesome yet dangerous magical dinosaur pet fromy our parents... You have to work hard to keep guilmon but it is worth it!!

I like that everyone's partner digimon are of disperate sizes and their home lives necessitate different solutions for hiding their digis. I like that Jian is protective of Terriermon bc of having seen him hurt so badly from his careless days of playing with him as a virtual video game pet -- then having to see terriermon's torn up body IRL making him SOO upset that he CANNOT deal with the thought of him getting hurt... I liked Jian a lot as a kid actually, I think he used to be my fav character when I watched the series on TV back then. I just like that he is more ah nervous, severe, thoughtful boy... Terriermon being kind of a little brat is like funneh and a good foil. I like that it feels like it's terriermon who likes to climb and crawl all over Jian and be his hat and be like abuu [flops ears over] Cute dynamic...

Ruki has taken time for me to appreciate but when I rewatched Tamers as an older teen I could appreciate her a lot more. The layers of being a Girl gamer essentially thus being cold and aloof to maintain her appearance, not being good at making friends, strained home life, umm but her having a cute tender side within. She's fun. Though her and Renamon come off as two bad bitches I think renamon is a lot more sentimental and sensitive like a loyal dog about Ruki... As things improve between them i'm like aww girls.... Also I enjoy glimmers of Ruki/Juri friendship unit...

Hm what else... Aueerr I know 01-02 digimon is no stranger to Darkness and death, high stakes, but I think I enjoy Tamer's depiction of it the most? The atmosphere feels more melancholy overall, and I like that so many characters have to struggle with fear of digimon, genuinely... That Takato was gleeful when going to find guilmon because WOW THE OC I MADE CAME TO LIFE!! but upon seeing him in person it was like, daunting. Because you made a big red dinosaur that can blast holes in the wall. SCARY.. PARALYZINGLY SO!! I like how miserable Jian is about battling with Terriermon bc battles BAD, SCARY. UPSETTING. WISH YOU DID NOT HAVE TO. and when Growlmon and Gargomon happen I like that the evolution is lasting and cumbersome... Have to deal with this persisting upgraded kill form beyond the battle -- WHICH IS HARD!!

lesse uhm... OH i love calumon tons... I'm soo simple for mascot charas... precious bbyyy sooo sweet I loved him sm when watching the show as a kid and would draw him. I also would draw terriermon and lopmon a lot -- though not necessarily from this canon!! I sort of ID with Terriermon&Lopmon as a species, as a whole, as opposed to Tamers terri. actually I'm spiritually closer in demeanor to the one that Willis owns in Hurricane Touchdown (02 movie). But I love calumon like THE Calumon... baby is sweet, baby is precious... In my heart Calumon actually belongs to Juri, like he's her true partner digimon... (s-sorry leomon skdfjdgj) but ah I love how he is like a damsel in distress and doggedly by Juri's side when she is dead-eyed depressed within the D-Reaper... Ty for trying your best honey. I used to really feel a way also about how triggering digivolution was painful for calumon... -some sort of horny emotion-

hm what else... i mean i love the D-REAPER!!!!!!! SO COOL!! The final boss being neither digimon nor human is rly cool I like that it is just a program... I like that it is a primitive program that is meant to keep the population in check! It's goal is to simply make sure that digimon never reach past a certain #, because of limited space in the digital world. Makes a lot of sense this would be an aspect of the world...! I like to think the D-Reaper is also discerning on # of each digimon present, like making sure there are only so many agumons out and about, keeping the world functioning As It Should... like you don't want the world to be overrun by wormmon that's no good. This is the computer making sure the wildlife sim doesn't become overrun with anteaters randomly.

It makes sense that upon interacting with a human being, the D-reaper is like "...? ? ????....?????" and sends an agent to observe and collect data on humans. I love that it quietly begins to communicate with Juri opun studying her steadily over time... and that she is so mindbroken and depressed from her journey in the digital world that the D-reaper's perception of humans is very skewed! And it continues to learn in this flawed, corrupted way, seeing the persisting misery and sadness of the humans... It is entirely bewitching when the D-reaper starts speaking through Juri's handpuppet -- and we the audience do not know this -- and she is responding to it... she's so despondent and unwell that she doesn't question that her puppet is talking to her without her making it...? And it just leads her away... This entire sequence was so haunting for me as a kid. Again it is kind of creepypasta-y....!

Hm what else to mention... I only recently learned that the head writer of Serial Experiments Lain also wrote Tamers. This literally explains So Much and the overlap between the two works is really fascinating..! I think it explains why overall Tamers is understood to be the 'darker, edgier, mature' season of digimon. And I can't help but agree, I think its handling of the series is just what I wanted at... age, like 6, skdfdjgh... Actually I think around the same time I was watching Code Lyoko and i was SOO into it, and it.. actually has um, a similar flavor of? Like kids evading parents/school/government, secretly exploring a digital world, fighting a rogue AI...? At the time... It was utterly enchanting to me.

When I recall it all i can still feel the echoes of the emotions i felt when imbibing it for the frist time... I think Tamers for me now isn't something I can really create writing or art for but! It has a special place in my heart <3 and I like to look at art done by others for sure.

My final thing I want to mention is I was a pretty big fan of 01 as a tyke too! My fav kids are Hikari and Takeru and my favorite digimon are tailmon(gatomon), patamon, and gomamon! I like the pilot movie a lot and am really emo also about the first koromon that Taichi and Hikari befriended as little kids! T_T i always wish Hikari could reunite with that koromon.... it devastates me!! Hikari is my #1 fav of that series, I love that she is a good sweet girl, yet quiet and mysterious and eerie! Sickly! i like her mysteriously strong connection with digimon and how in-tune she is with them... She's just really cool!!!!!

OK I hope this has been an interesting read haha