Top Ten Biggest Changes in the U.S. Dub of "Digimon Adventure" and "Digimon 02"
This two series, the latter being a sequel/spin-off to the first one, are my favorite anime series.I loved them as a child, and when I re-watched them as a teen (already a film buff), I was stunned at how epic, emotional and even surprisingly deep they were.
Then I read on most American websites that people see it as a cheap Pokémon knock off, and found out that the US dub of the series has a completely different tone and many things changed.
The German dub is largely based on the original Japanese version, only the names have been westernized.
Sorry if you are from the US and this maybe ruins your childhood a bit...
...but the Digimon getting killed in the series actually die.
While the US soundtrack is not bad in any way, and the funky electronic/hip hop sound used as both the theme song and the digivolving music is a really cool and catchy song... the epic J-Rock of "Butterfly" (Digimon Adventure theme), "Brave Heart" (Digivolution theme in Adventure), "Target" (Digimon 02 Theme), "Break Up" (Regular Digivolution Theme in 02) and "Beat Hit" (DNA Digivolution Theme in 02) set a whole another tone.
The US version implies action and awesomeness, the Japanese version implies epicness. And I don't mean epicness in a way most teens nowadays use it, I mean epicness in a way of a big story. Just listen to "Target" and then imagine the whole series in that tone.
While Pokémon also had a whole lot of dub edits, the US did not really change its tone. They used different music, westernized everything, and yes, also had a few cuts here and there, but the overall tone is also light hearted in the Japanese version.
As the two Digimon series proceed, it however gets pretty dark and actually has themes and scenes that are very much PG-13, especially in Digimon 02. Characters suffer from depression amd question the meaning of their existence, and there are parts when the individual characters get in conflict with their morality because saving the world also means killing their enemy.