Digimon Fusion: Ending 1

In this episode, we set things straight about this dub, prepare for hibernation, and make plans for the new season... and the NEW new season.

There isn't actually a new ending between the different arcs of Xros Wars, because Xros Wars doesn't have endings at all. It also throws the opening in the middle of the episode, which is a little weird. But if we didn't pretend there was, we would have nothing to post until next year. We can't have that now, can we?

If a second season of Fusion hadn't been announced by now, we probably would have just switched over to Japanese and kept plowing away. Thankfully, the Death Generals arc will be coming stateside... and will certainly not be called the Death Generals arc. Ideally, they won't call it anything so we can keep referring to it as such, much like we call seasons 1-4 by their original names. So we'll keep reviewing it in English, and yes you should consider it a good thing.

While it does mean an extended break for the site, it also means that we'll get the entirety of Xros Wars proper (while a Hunters dub would be fun for a couple reasons, it's hardly essential to closing out the story). They can dress it up all they want, but the first arc ends with the bad guys winning, and that just can't be the last we see of Digimon Fusion.

The dub does deserve to continue. Yes, it's guilty of some aggressive censorship. Yes, it refuses to acknowledge that the human characters are Japanese or that death is on the line. Yes, it has spelling errors and inconsistent pronunciations. It's also a better production than the first two seasons. Both the writing and the acting are better. It doesn't reach the height of Tamers or Frontier, but the former's lack of network notes and the latter's overall quality spoiled us.

The show itself is solid. While it suffers from the usual problem of taking forever to get going, going from kids vs. bad guys to a four-way fight for the throne is a fun concept. It allows for kids to be a little less ethical than our usual digidestined, along with alliances, backstabs and varied opponents that rotate in and out. While Mikey is the least interesting of the three generals (although the dub added some intrigue with his terrible treatment of Angie and his insistence on helping others being almost disturbing), the story dragged him along. He did have his share of good moments, and the Fusion Fighters as a whole proved to have a nice chemistry about them. The grades for the first arc averaged higher than the first season in fact, although that may be attributed more to the first half of Adventure being generally lousy.

Speaking of Adventure... we have a new season announcement! They're going back to the well with an adventure that takes place during Tai's high school days! And that's... about all we know right now. That hasn't stopped mass speculation, most of which is focused on shipping and/or either explaining or undoing Zero Two's epilogue. This, incidentally, is why time skip epilogues are bad ideas. There isn't even confirmation that the other digidestined are in the series. You get the feeling people are going to be disappointed no matter what comes out. I'm just hoping for a quality series that doesn't use nostalgia to mask a half-hearted story. And yes, of course we're going to review it.

While the site itself will be in hibernation until the next arc of Fusion airs, we're not going away. We like to keep the site focused on the reviews themselves, but there is a companion Tumblr page that offers additional random commentary (including extended thoughts on the new season). Expect more regular thoughts there, more general thoughts about the franchise as a whole, and preliminary comments on the new Adventure series (which really needs at least a name). Thank you for reading, use our Amazon marketplace, and we'll see you next year!