Digimon Zero Two, Vol. 1

Digimon Zero Two #1

by Lianne Sentar (Editor), A. Hondo

Three years after the defeat of Apocalymon, dark powers begin to rise again in the DigiWorld. The 'Digimon Emperor,' a human boy, is on a campaign to enslave all Digimon and a new team of warriors must come together to restore peace.

Genres: Manga

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 9, 2003

About the author

Hired off her Sailor Moon fanfiction to write the Sailor Moon novels when she was 17 years old, Lianne Sentar has worked as a rewriter in the manga and light novel industry for over a decade. She's adapted more than 100 books, including volumes of Fruits Basket, Saiyuki, Slayers, and Alice in the Country of Hearts/Clover/Joker. She's known for her love of innuendo, rhyming, and cuss words.

In addition to her adaptation work, she's served as head writer and editor of the angry manga/anime review collective sleepisfortheweak.org. She self-published two novels as a teenager and is currently writing the original English-language light novel series Tokyo Demons (http://www.tokyodemons.com).

She lives between the United States and Canada, depending on her feels.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So after reading and looking through the first one I eventually made it to the part 2 of the Digimon series. Yeah, apparently there's another part of the Digimon that takes place a few years after the original series. While it is interesting to see some of these characters grow up but still be connected to the Digital World and pass on the duties of protecting the Digital World to the next generation it is underwhelming to find out that you don't see the characters from the original series as much as you would expect.

While this is a cool idea, I'm just gonna point out that this Digimon manga is not as good as the first one. The jokes are very out of place and unbelievably corny. The villain is bland and forgettable. Not to mention that he turns into a hero around the end of this volume. The characters are okay but are not given as much personality as the characters in the first Digimon manga.

The only way that Digimon Zero Two can have any justice to it is to watch the show. It at least, attempts to give the characters some personality. It's just a bunch of action that wasn't really investing and surprisingly really fast. While the other one took at least five volumes to tell the story, this one uses two.

Isn't that . . . odd.

So yeah, this one is okay at best. The show is definitely better but it's okay.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Digimon.

Together with Pokémon, it was one of the anime series that made my childhood. Yes, I actually liked both - back in the day, you were considered a traitor for liking both Digimon and Pokémon at once. I still do like both as an adult, but Digimon kept me longer, because there's more focus on storyline and character development. Although Zero Two is probably my least favorite of the Digimon series I've watched (Adventure, 02, Tamers and Frontier), the book was the first book I bought in the Tokyopop series, which is why I've decided to have it be the first I review. I should note that I will be referring to the characters by their Japanese names, not their English ones, as I am not a fan of the English dub. With that in mind:

The pros:
- The art. As always, the art is very well done, and does a good job at staying close to the show's style. I was surprised to learn that the adaptation is technically a manhua, due to being written and drawn in Hong Kong rather than Japan, which explains the slight difference in art style - but in some cases, the characters are actually drawn better than they were in the anime.
- Daisuke is the narrator here, rather than Takeru in the original series. Together with Ken, Daisuke is my favorite of the 02 Chosen Children, so that's a nice change. Note that I refer to him as Daisuke, as opposed to Davis, his dub name, partly because original Daisuke is a lot nicer than his dub portrayal would have you think.
- Related to that change, the adaptation leaves out the rather inconsequential filler episodes from the original anime, and condenses several episodes' storylines into single chapters. It's smooth and brisk, but still works. And there's some characters I'm glad they omitted, namely Daisuke's sister Jun.
- The adaptation has several fights play out differently than they did in the anime, and in much more interesting ways, too. For example, Stingmon helps out during Iori and Armadimon's battle, but doesn't kill the fake!Thunderballmon, instead encouraging Iori and Armadimon, together with Ken. This triggers Armadimon's evolution, and he takes down the enemy.

The cons:
- Judging by the short length of the adaptation (only two volumes, compared with Adventure and Tamers, which respectively have five and four books), I'm guessing Yuen Wong Yu isn't a fan of 02. I'm not either, but a surprising omission is Ken's backstory episode, which I would have included.
- Some Digimon characters' debut scenes reuse their Toei model sheets, rather than drawing new illustrations, like the artist does for others. This happens a few times in the other adaptations, too, and it's as noticeable.
- Ken's nose is drawn unusually in several scenes, as can be seen on the cover. Yeah, that's being nitpicky, but he's my favorite Chosen Child in 02, with Daisuke a close second. Draw him better, especially because he's so well drawn as the Kaiser...maybe the artist prefers him that way? Admittedly, I kinda do.
- The original Chosen Children are almost entirely absent, sans...Taichi and Koshiro, who are given extra involvement. Guessing Yu likes those characters, but the others less so.
- Relating to that, it omits the bit about the original Chosen Children giving up their Crests, which left their partner Digimon unable to evolve past Adult level. Now, I'm not complaining about that per se, because it was an obvious excuse to keep them out of the story, and a bad one at that, so I'm happy to see it gone. Rather, my gripe here is that the adaptation doesn't explain the lack of involvement from the 02 kids. So...one plothole replaced with another? Not surprising, being 02, but just saying.
- The corny dialogue. Not that big a surprise, being influenced by the dub, but I dislike it just as much here as I do there. Thankfully, there's not a ton of it, but it still does negatively impact the scene when included.

Despite there being five cons and four pros, though, I ultimately like this volume. Which is fitting, because most of it is from the series' first half, which I liked - wasn't a fan of the second half, for the most part. Especially the ending...don't even get me started on that. I recommend the book if you're a Digimon fan, but prepare to spend at least $30, shipping included, on a single volume. Such a shame we never got reprints...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

My childhood! Of all the seasons, this one is my favorite. I always loved Ken the most! <3 The anime is better (which makes sense considering it came first) but this is a nice summary of the series.

[Nevaeh stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have seen this session and it is a great episode of digimon and have seen the rest except the last session and i,v only seen half of it because I did not have internet for has long because my brother dropped water all over the box

[Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really abridged version of the anime, but still done pretty well. The first series was done a little better.

[Loisannmullins]

hey digimon zero two