Digimon Frontier

""It is time.""

- Ophanimon

Takuya Kanbara is an average city kid who one day gets a text message from an unknown source instructing him to board a train towards his destiny. Taking up the Call to Adventure, he finds the train in question and is whisked off to the Digital World, which is currently under threat from the malevolent Cherubimon. Cherubimon and his minions are consuming the very building blocks of the Digital World (its "Fractal Code") to increase their own power, and if nothing is done then the entire Digital World will be devoured.

All is not lost, however. Takuya and the other "chosen" children who boarded the train inherit the power of the legendary Warrior Ten, allowing them to transform themselves into Digimon. With their new powers, they fight to take back the stolen Fractal Code and restore the fractured Digital World to its former glory.

The fourth anime series in the Digimon franchise, following Digimon Tamers, and basically the antithesis of its predecessor. While it does have its share of dramatic, intense, and introspective moments, it is light-hearted, fun and often childish.

While not necessarily bad, the series was heavily criticised for basically discarding the Mons concept in favour of a safer, more marketable Henshin Hero gimmick, and suffered in the ratings for it. The lack of popularity forced the Digimon franchise onto hiatus for four years, eventually resurfacing with Digimon Savers.


 * Accidental Pervert: J.P. in "A Molehill Out of a Mountain". He does the "ladies first" bit, forgetting that Zoe is wearing a skirt. Cue Armor-Piercing Slap.
 * All Your Powers Combined: Susanoomon. Sephirotmon is an example on the villain's side.
 * Alternate Universe: The Digital World.
 * Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The English dub uses a completely new theme song, and while it's different from the Japanese version, it brings a whole different feel from the rap song that was used for the previous seasons.
 * Anti-Villain: Arbormon, played for laughs.
 * Bare Your Midriff: The Smurfettes of both sides.
 * Bazaar of the Bizarre: Episode 17, from beginning to end. The dub title copies the trope name, almost verbatim.
 * Beam-O-War
 * Big Damn Heroes
 * Big Eater: Zoe. See episode 17, eating contest
 * BFS: Beowolfmon's Beo Sabre should definitely count.
 * Bishonen Line: deliberately invoked, at least in reverse, with the new evolution system. (Which is immediately spun into a Running Gag for Ranamon.) Takuya and Kouji in particular cross back over the line at Mega/Ultimate level.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Blue with Shock: see episode 15.
 * Bond Villain Stupidity: Ranamon has two great opportunities to attack the kids while they are unable to Spirit Evolve in episodes 15 and 16. Instead, she wastes half her time bragging and the other half of her time being whisked off by her own Beast Spirit's spinning attack.
 * Book Ends: Though it didn't end up being the last season, Frontier appeared to be for a while. In the last episode, Susanoomon declares "AND SO, IT ENDS!" just before dealing the final blow, which parallels the dub name for the first episode of Digimon Adventure. Furthermore, the last shot of the episode has the caption "The End", rather than "To Be Continued" as it had for all the episodes of the show's US run.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy:
 * Tommy/Kumamon in "Welcome to My Nightmare".
 * Cameo: The Autumn Leaf Fair has several, but special mention goes to Gallantmon. He even has the same dual voice and refers to himself as "we."
 * Call Back: Like all Digimon runs save Digimon Adventure 02, the series has its own completely unique soundtrack and doesn't reuse from previous series... except for one single instance which falls under this trope. When Patamon is born, they play "Victory Theme of Good ", a lighthearted track from the Digimon Adventure soundtrack as an obvious callback to Patamon's role back then.
 * Call to Adventure: Literally. Ophanimon calls the kids on their cellphones.
 * Cavalry Betrayal: Inverted. Arbormon thinks Duskmon is there to lend him support. He is wrong.
 * Channel Hop: Because of the fact that Disney bought out Fox Kids/Saban a year prior, this one ended up airing on ABC Family and in the last season of Disney's weekday/Sunday block on UPN stations, "Disney's One Too" (a spinoff of One Saturday Morning over on ABC), though by this time it had dropped that name. (It likely didn't get onto ABC because Power Rangers was already on there, and it didn't make sense to have both former big Saban franchises on one network.)
 * Cheaters Never Prosper: ShadowWereGarurumon and Doggymon in episode 18. Unusually, they cheat quite openly and yet never get disqualified for it, but their dirty cheating habits annoy Takuya to the point where he ends up fighting them fist-to-fist on top of the Trailmon in a Traintop Battle.
 * Combination Attack: How the team beats Sakakkumon.
 * Combined Energy Attack
 * Conservation of Ninjitsu: Applied against the good guys in their second fight against Gigasmon.
 * Contemplate Our Digivices: Regularly. Very regularly.
 * Cooking Duel: "You Want Fries With That?" leads to a literal one, including Onion Tears.   This quickly turns into a Lower Deck Episode; Takuya and Kouji keep going while the others enter battle.
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: Tickle torture in episode 23.
 * Cool Train: The Trailmon, or at least some of them, like Buffalo and Worm.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Snimon in episode 5, who tries to kill Agunimon and his friends because they destroyed part of his factory.
 * The Corruption: A pervasive dark force emanating from Cherubimon causes otherwise good digimon to become mischievous at best, positively evil at worst.
 * Cross-Popping Veins
 * Cross Counter: Episode 7 has Takuya and Kouji defeat a group of ShadowToyAgumon by making them do this after they've combined into a pair of Humongous Mecha.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: The Royal Knights arc can be described as follows: 1) The Royal Knights target an area to absorb its data. 2) The heroes try to stop them. 3) The heroes  4) Wash, rinse, repeat  The series will Never Live It Down.
 * Cyberspace: Digital World
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Kouichi,
 * Dead to Begin With:
 * Department of Redundancy Department: One of Beetlemon's attacks is called Lightning Blitz, 'blitz' being the German word for 'lightning.'
 * Devour the Dragon:
 * Designated Girl Fight: Zoe and Ranamon.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: J.P. to Zoey.
 * Elemental Powers: The 10 Legendary Warriors each command one element: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Metal, Thunder, Ice, Wood, Darkness, and Light.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Kouichi. And Kouji to an extent.
 * Everything's Better with Spinning: Vritramon, Shutumon, Bolgmon, Calmaramon, Gigasmon, Arbormon, and Sakkakumon all have attacks with spinning.
 * Expy: Expies of many of the previous series' Digimon (in various evolutionary levels) appear here.
 * The main characters also bear notable similarities to the Digimon Adventure cast.
 * There is also Icedevimon's impression... of Christopher Walken.
 * To be more exact:
 * Takuya is an obvious Taichi/Tai expy, and his evolutions bear many striking similarities to Greymon, including EmperorGreymon, who is basically a WarGreymon on roids.
 * Kouji is an expy of Yamato/Matt, and his evolutions likewise resemble Garurumon's (especially Garmmon/KendoGarurumon).
 * Zoe/ Izumi combines traits of Mimi and Sora together, although her evolutions are only vaguely similar at best.
 * Tommy/Tomoki is an expy of Takeru/TK, although his evolutions are closer to resembling Gomamon's and Terriermon's.
 * JP/Junpei is a mix of Koshiro/Izzy and Jo/Joe, or at least sort of. His evolutions are similar to the Kabuterimon line.
 * Koichi is pretty similar to Ken (making him to only throwback to someone out of the original Adventure) and his evolutions are similar to Leomon.
 * and finally,.
 * Failure Hero: All of the heroes are turned into this during the Royal Knights saga.
 * Faux Action Girl: Zoe. She loses her first fight (compare to the way most Digimon in the franchise are invincible and often break out a multitude of one-shot powers in their debuts, to the point that in Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny message board topics, "he only did that once, in his debut fight" is a nigh-universally accepted argument when saying no, X couldn't beat Y.) and must be saved by a male character, and circumstances don't get much better for her afterwards. The only enemy she defeats by herself his her Arch Enemy, Dark Action Girl Ranamon, in a Designated Girl Fight and even that's somewhat hard to buy. And of course she's Overshadowed by Awesome by Takuya and Kouji, but then again, isn't everyone?
 * Oddly enough she still manages to accumulate the most spirits (4) out of the group after Takuya who leads them all (5).
 * Faux Affably Evil: IceDevimon chats enthusiastically with his victims, to the point where you wonder if he's Obliviously Evil or Obfuscating Insanity.
 * Mind you, the things he says are pretty psycho. "It would be so joyous, all the pain and the suffering!" (Quote from dub.)
 * Five-Bad Band
 * Big Bad: Cherubimon.
 * The Dragon: Duskmon
 * The Evil Genius: Mercurymon
 * The Brute: Arbormon and Grumblemon.
 * Dark Chick: Ranamon
 * Five-Man Band: A really obvious one.
 * The Hero: Takuya
 * The Lancer: Kouji
 * The Big Guy: J.P.
 * The Smart Guy / Kid Appeal Character: Tommy
 * The Chick: Zoe
 * Sixth Ranger: Kouichi
 * Forgot I Could Fly: Zoe in "A Molehill Out of a Mountain". She's as scared of falling as any of the others, when she could just turn into Kazemon and fly up.
 * Similarly, in "The Swiss Family Digimon", Zoe was the only member of the crew who still had her Digivice. Everybody else had their Digivices stolen, and the (non-dangerous) thieves flew to a (non-dangerous) nearby island that's specifically stated to be inaccessible by sea. Rather than just have Zoe fly over to collect the Digivices herself, the crew fusses over trying to find a flying Digimon for a while, then opts to just build a raft.
 * Forgotten Phlebotinum: In one episode, Takuya learns that
 * The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Lucemon's message plays on every screen in the world... and finally, on yours.
 * Friendly Tickle Torture: Kouji is briefly tickled by Takuya and J.P.
 * Fusion Dance: The Advanced Hybrids are combinations of the Human and Beast spirits, while Susanoomon is the combination of KaiserGreymon, MagnaGarurumon and two or more of the Chosen themselves.
 * Gender Bender: In The Movie, the male Beast Digimon Hippogriffomon can slide evolve to the female Human Digimon Darcmon. His true form is Murmukusmon (male), who speaks with both their voices at first.
 * Genre Savvy: J.P. invokes this (via the use of Horror Tropes) to prevent Takuya stupidly running after Kouji, complete with American-esque comic Art Shift.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: Takuya, this however is averted, as he uses his in a few occasions in the show.
 * Gone Swimming, D-Tectors Stolen: This befalls almost everyone in episode 14. Zoe is spared, in no small part because she used a separate dressing room.
 * Gratuitous Foreign Language: Many of the Digimon in this season had names in Gratuitous English, but were changed for the English dub (presumably to preserve their exotic flavor). The most notable instances were Fairymon becoming Kazemon, Wolfmon becoming Lobomon, and Grottomon becoming Grumblemon.
 * However, the dub did keep the Gratuitous Italian provided by Izumi/Zoe.
 * Gratuitous German: This time around, the original loved to use this for attack names.
 * Heel Face Turn: The four Dark Legendary Warriors' spirits after they have been defeated and purified.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hero of Another Story: Katsuharu, Teppei, Chiaki, Teruo, and Angemon.
 * I Know What You Fear: Sakakkumon's ploy near the end of his arc is to torment the heroes with their own fears.
 * I'm Not Afraid of You: When Takuya (as Flamemon) confronts his hallucinations of Duskmon in the real world.
 * In the End You Are on Your Own
 * Incendiary Exponent: Agunimon's Salamander Break and Vritramon's Flame Storm.
 * Inconsistent Dub: Frontier marks the point where Bandai of America simply stopped giving a shit about keeping Digimon consistent. None of the dub supporting material's information about attacks is even remotely consistent with the dub itself for Digimon introduced in Frontier, and even several names are way off! The dubbed show itself certainly isn't devoid of problems - it had a chronic habit of mismatching attack names with the correct attack, though it at least had the decency to keep names straight. It's also worth noting that the first episode of the dub had "spirit evolution" called "digivolution," which is the only time the series calls it that.
 * Ironically enough, in Japanese episode 33 Blitzmon says "Lightning Topper" while using "Golden Thunder."
 * Internal Homage: A number of minor characters are references to Digimon from previous series. Most apparent in a episode in which the heroes visit a school, consisting of the baby-forms of many main character Digimon from previous series, plus a Tsunomon who can evolve to Gabumon. The dub played this up by having most of the homage characters use their previous voice actors - including one who was a Fusion Dance originally. Gallantmon the store owner - originally a non-speaking role - brought back Steve Blum and Brian Beacock to say "Wish we could help" in the simultaneous voice of Guilmon and Takato.
 * Oddly enough, when a pack of Gomamon made an appearance, the one obvious reference wasn't made: having R. Martin Klein (who voiced Gomamon in Adventure) reprise the role. Klein had already done a large number of roles in Frontier before the episode, notably a Toucanmon in the same episode that sounded exactly like Gomamon.
 * Jumped At the Call: Takuya
 * Kiai: Dear god, Frontier loved it. Everything involved shitloads of yelling, especially later forms of Spirit Evolution (giving the impression that the process was in fact quite painful). It got to the point where so much yelling was required that Michael Reisz (Takuya) point-blank refused to voice EmperorGreymon for fear of permanently damaging his voice; Dave Wittenberg instead filled in there - where, ironically, almost no shouting was involved.
 * Knight of Cerebus: Things get serious whenever Duskmon shows up.
 * Lady of War: Crusadermon in the dub.
 * Light Is Not Good:
 * And
 * Lighter and Softer: The series certainly wasn't complete sunshine and rainbows and did have very dark and introspective moments (especially around Kouichi), but considering that its immediate predecessor was Digimon Tamers and its successor was Digimon Savers... yeah, this was inevitable.
 * Love Triangle: Takuya <-> Zoey <- J.P. and show up with some regularity in canon, and of course Fanon interprets more as existing.
 * Luminescent Blush: Various, particularly Takuya, Zoe, and J.P.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: Kouichi's image song is an upbeat, catchy rock song... but it's titled "With Broken Wings" and its lyrics contain things such as "a stray dog without a collar is laughing at me".
 * Merchandise-Driven: Some criticized the series for appearing notably moreso than the previous series. Takuya, Kouji and Kouichi's combined forms, as well as their respective Ancient Digimon, were quite clearly designed as simple amalgamations of their earlier Hybrid forms and thus easily able to be made into toys. Susanoomon, the final hero, was also a visible amalgamation of EmperorGreymon and MagnaGarurumon. Of course, considering Digimon always was based on a toyline to begin with and that the toy necessity otherwise had no effect on the series, the criticism isn't the most valid.
 * Missed the Call: A group of four kids, including two who bullied Tommy. They were explicitly told to turn around and go home after the real Chosen were picked out of the masses, but
 * Mistaken for Spies: KaratsukiNumemon, upon hearing that the children are Legendary Warriors in episode 6, confuse them with Grumblemon's lot, and dangle them over a cliff, trying to persuade Grumblemon into returning his hostages in exchange for "his". Naturally, the bad guy totally didn't care if the good guys got thrown off a cliff, and they had to escape on their own to fight him and save... the guys who were dangling them off a cliff a minute ago.
 * Mons
 * More Than Mind Control:
 * Near Villain Victory: They're able to completely destroy the world and its three moons before they're stopped. The world gets better.
 * New Powers as the Plot Demands: In all fairness, this is a Digimon series and a shounen series. In an amusing case, one episode had Takuya realise he could draw strength from the weather... then never used this ability again.
 * Although it isn't weather, he later uses heat/fire to make his attacks stronger.
 * No Export for You: Live in the UK, Malaysia, or Morocco? Raise your hands.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Bokomon, Neemon,
 * No Social Skills: The Digimon Analyzer says that Datamon is "good with machines, but not so good with people."
 * One-Winged Angel: The Double Spirit Evolution, a rare example of the heroes undergoing OWA.
 * Out-of-Clothes Experience: The transformation sequences involve characters' clothing instantly dissolving, though conveniently reappearing upon turning back. We also get Tamers-esque naked spirit scenes Barbie Doll Anatomy is thankfully in full play.
 * Out of Focus / Overshadowed by Awesome: Everyone who isn't Takuya and Kouji in the final arc of the series.
 * Pastel-Chalked Freeze-Frame
 * The Power of Friendship: Emphasized heavily throughout the series, most notably during the Sakakkumon arc as part of the tests.
 * Precision-Guided Boomerang: Sepikmon
 * "Previously On...": Rika in the dub, until Melissa Fahn left to join the cast of Wicked. Bokomon took over, and wasn't nearly as good at it.
 * The Psycho Rangers: The Dark Legendary Warriors,
 * Public Domain Soundtrack: In the Frontier movie, Zoey hums a tune by Maurice Ravel in the beginning. This was kept in the dub!
 * Purely Aesthetic Gender: Tamers's dub established it, but Frontier averts it completely. Different universes allows for different interpretation.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: As above.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Takuya and Kouji, who of course are associated with red and blue respectively.
 * Reset Button:
 * It's actually part of the Digivices. Returning the data taken by the Monster of the Week and seeing the area restored stops happening really early on, but after their final victory, the entire world gets the treatment.
 * The Sacred Darkness: The element of darkness theoretically enjoys the same sanctity and importance as the other nine.
 * Sacrificial Lion: Even if he isn't a Leomon, Kouichi's forms are lions and thus he is still considered to carry on the tradition. In Japan, JagerLowemon's name is KaiserLeomon; while he wasn't in this form when he died, this is typically counted as yet another victim claimed by the Leomon curse. Also, IceLeomon, a Monster of the Week; Agunimon suspected that he was being controlled by Sakkakumon and thus had to destroy him. However, as no digi-egg was left behind, it seems likely that he was not a real Digimon to begin with
 * Sailor Earth: Most of the time, they are created to either fill in the roles of the keepers of the remaining four spirits, or give the series more girls so Zoe isn't alone.
 * Save Both Worlds
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: . Also Icedevimon.
 * Separated at Birth:, not quite birth but a very young age.
 * She's a Man In Japan: Camp Gay LordKnightmon became the dub's female Crusadermon.
 * Ship Tease: Takuya/Zoe, Kouji/Zoe, and J.P./Zoe all had their moments.
 * The Smurfette Principle: Zoe is the only girl amongst a squad of guys. Ranamon is her Psycho Ranger counterpart. The other four kids also have only one girl member.
 * Solomon Divorce:
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Crusadermon has a borderline ridiculous case of this, not helped by multiple instances of Inconsistent Dub.
 * Spoiler Opening: The series' second Japanese ending is one of the franchise's most notable examples. It begun playing at the end of the episode revealing, and showed  !
 * Stock Footage: The spirit evolution sequences, which are reused and almost never edited down; par for the course with Digimon. Another use of Stock Footage also caused continuity problems in the last episode.
 * Swiss Army Tears: Thrice, no less.
 * Synchronization: Susanoomon
 * Technicolor Blade: Duskmon has a pair of red swords, which he uses when utilizing his Lunar Plasma attack.
 * The Sweat Drop
 * Theme Twin Naming: Kouichi and Kouji - literally "Light First" and "Light Second".
 * Those Two Guys: Bokomon & Neemon.
 * Two Plus Four:
 * Transformation Sequence: Fairly impressive ones that get used as Stock Footage.
 * Transformation Trinket: D-tectors and Spirits, such that when Gigasmon steals the Kazemon and Kumamon spirits, or the Toucanmon steal their D-Tectors, the kids concerned (which at one point is everyone except Izumi) swiftly become The Load to their comrades and worry about it.
 * Trapped in Another World: Much less action occurs on Earth than in any other animated season.
 * Trash the Set:
 * Troubled but Cute: Inevitably Kouji and/or Kouichi.
 * Unwitting Pawn: A lot of characters turn out to be this during the Sakkakumon and Cherubimon arc. It's implied during Agnimon's fight with IceLeomon that even the enemies the kids face in Sakkakumon are being controlled or manipulated by Mercuremon.
 * Verbal Tic: Many baby-level digimon.
 * Wacky Racing: "Trailmon vs. Trailmon."
 * We Can Rule Together: Cherubimon and Duskmon. In fact, Cherubimon was merely using him as an Unwitting Pawn and subjecting him to The Corruption.
 * What Could Have Been: The first character design sketches released in V-Jump showed some of the characters with different color schemes. Additionally, Kouji was originally going to sport long, black slacks instead of the grey capri sweatpants he eventually dons in the show. One of the fanbooks reports that Kouji was originally going to be a female character.
 * It was once rumored that Lowemon was originally conceived as the combined form of Duskmon and Velgmon, and that Duskmon and Velgmon were originally going to be retained rather than appear as the Spirit of Darkness' "corrupted" forms purified after Duskmon's defeat.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: against Takuya.
 * Sakkakumon, known as Sephirotmon in Japan, is shaped like the 10 aspects of God in Judaism, the Sephirot. Fittingly, that's the same number as legendary warrior spirits; and each orb contains one enemy corresponding with one of the ten elements. One of these orbs contains Mercuremon. Yes. Mercuremon exists inside himself.
 * Lucemon is full of symbolism. Not only is he specifically based on and named for Lucifer, his attack is called "Paradise Lost Punch". Also, he has what looks like a Dharmachakra (Buddhist Wheel Symbol) on his chest in Chaos Mode.
 * What You Are in the Dark: When the heroes are trapped inside Sakkakumon, each one has to confront something like this. The most extreme example is Junpei, who is tormented by his darker self and is willing to destroy himself along with it, just to get it to shut up.
 * Xanatos Gambit: Mercuremon pulls off an impressive one roughly halfway through the series, during the Sakkakumon arc.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Arbormon loses his beast spirit to Wolfmon. According to Duskmon, that makes him useless to the evil legendary warriors. Duskmon then disposes of him, giving the horrified kids a taste of what to expect in the following Wham! Episode.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Sorcermon in episode 13, to hold off the Dark Legendary Warriors and buy the kids time to escape.
 * Xanatos Gambit: Mercuremon pulls off an impressive one roughly halfway through the series, during the Sakkakumon arc.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Arbormon loses his beast spirit to Wolfmon. According to Duskmon, that makes him useless to the evil legendary warriors. Duskmon then disposes of him, giving the horrified kids a taste of what to expect in the following Wham! Episode.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Sorcermon in episode 13, to hold off the Dark Legendary Warriors and buy the kids time to escape.