STORY (5/10) To sum it up the premise is basically Power rangers Men in Black Digital Monsters.
Random teenagers wearing funny costumes work for a secret agency to keep the monsters from destroying the world and if you're STILL not convinced then they made it obvious by the use "neuralizers" and it also strives to be all dark&edgy but refuses to actually be mature&logically coherent like Tamers was its all flash and no substance.
For ex: In the older seasons(Adventure&Tamers) adults&children alike interacted with each other like actual human beings but here the characters act like they're from a sitcom even in extremely serious&dangerous situations the characters are busy throwing snide nonchalant remarks at each other whereas parents of the teens are just stock characters who are less believable than the monsters.
And to top it all off unlike the other seasons where children had to rely on their partners&parents and bond with them to survive here that complex character development structure is reduced to DBZ logic,screaming&willing for power basically gives them more power and people can be brought back from dead there is no need for personal introspection, its mostly about being rebellious teens who have a dysfunctional relationship with each other and mostly apathetic relations with their own parents. That's pretty much the gist of it nothing really substantial happens till Ep 24 mark,avoiding any major spoilers the "Kurata Arc" is pretty much the high point of this season and then after that it starts recycling old plot elements from tamers&adventure.
CHARACTERS (3/10) Marcus:- let me inform you that THIS guy is the main protagonist of this season,80% of spotlight is reserved for him,if you don't like him the very least the chances are you're not going to like the entire season.
Our main "protagonist" is a 15 yr old street thug with an IQ of a rock(he goes to school and doesn't know what is a VIRUS is!). His physical feats are outrageous he can Jump 40 ft in the air and still manage to give a K.O punch to a giant monster AND land perfectly fine without fracturing his legs if that's not absurd enough for you then he can also nosedive his fist directly into a giant titanium shield AND break it.
So putting THAT aside he is just an unlikeable jerk! his attitude is impulsive,rude&inconsiderate and he NEVER changes,he has no chemistry with any of the other main characters he even treats his partner like a subordinate thug. It is in stark contrast to the original season where kids had vibrant personalities and they all worked with each other like a family and they learned NOT to be impulsive&inconsiderate but here the show glorifies Marcus's thuggish shenanigans.
Yoshino:- If you search for "Token Anime girl" online you'd most likely see yoshino's photo on the front page.. she's the textbook definition of that she's bland,boring,shallow,whiny and much like marcus she never changes! despite being a main character she has ABSOLUTELY ZERO relevance to the plot like AT ALL.
Thomas:- He's yet another moody pretty boy child prodigy he's basically batman if he was a 15 yr old with too much estrogen. TBH compared the psycho thug and the miss bland universe Thomas is likable&interesting, he has a decent backstory but his character arc is rushed, his relationship with his sister just isn't built up as well as taichi's bond with Kari or the bond of henry&suzie. In other words Thomas's sister's(much like marcus's sister) is a very generic moe girl NOT written like a real life child.
Kurata:- He's easily the best character in this season, too bad he's just a 2d Evil scientist, most of villains in the series have been just evil for no good reason but Kurata is a human which makes it unique i guess. Nonetheless he's a joy to watch he's sleazy, he uses politics and dirty tricks to archive his goals.
Keenan/Itsuno:- A feral child raised by a monster and even though almost all monsters can speak fluently he speaks like Tarzan "Me hate Hoomans!" i guess he's just retarded, whatever he's still better than the psycho thug, too bad the show again rushes his mother's relationship thus ending his character arc.
ARTSTYLE (4/10):- The artstlye is kind of a mixed bag, its vivid and doesn't have the series's trademark artstyle, on the surface it just looks like another generic anime. The main problem is with the animation and the character&monster designs, the animation is very inconsistent in quality, sometimes its very choppy, sometimes its smooth, sometimes the black outline is overly prominent, the adult 30 women look like they're in the early college years.
And then there's Digimon's butchered proportions, to understand the problem you have to first consider the fact that the official designs for most of the monster designs from Bandai were not supposed to be that Big, yet Savers takes the liberty to make monsters who were never intended to be taller than your average 10 yr old taller than a skyscraper.
CONCLUSION (6/10):- This is a decent Shonen/action anime which takes painfully long to start going somewhere and it doesn't feel like its part of the Digimon series, its too mean spirited, lacks any semblance of realism(character wise),maturity&mysticism which the series is known for, if you aren't a fan of the series and are just looking a fun action packed anime watch Hellsing OVA instead.
