Ever since the success of the first season of Digimon its clear Toei wanted to recreate that success with the same IP but without using the exact same castat least until more recently. Sadly despite the high praise for Tamers and the direct continuation with 02 none have come close to the popularity and nostalgia of the first season. Nevertheless Toei kept trying and one interesting idea was to create a Digimon series without partner Digimonopting for a Super Sentai/ Power Rangersstyle approach where humans transform into Digimon to fight. In theory this is actually pretty cool. While Digievolutions were always a highlight of the series Id argue that Frontier has the best ones even as early as their first transformations. In previous Digimon series Champion forms were still kind of cool but rather basic. Meanwhile even the earliest humanoid Digimon transformations in Frontier feel like a huge upgrade. Outside of the transformation gimmick and lack of partners Frontier surprisingly still follows the story formula of the first three seasonsfor better or worse. It features six human characters by the end all of whom get isekaid into the Digital World. They have personal struggles to work through while being stuck there for almost the entire series only reaching the human world near the very end which contrasts with previous seasons. At the end of the day this is still a shounen kids show so the emphasis is on flashy attacks and cheesy humor especially in the English dub. However theres still a degree of character depth. These middle school kids have to figure out how to escape understand the Digital World and confront their own issues which ultimately creates a simple yet surprisingly serious story at times. As much as I wish I could praise the series more there are many reasons why its considered one of the more forgettable mediocre or outright terrible Digimon entries. The story itself is a major issue. While the goal of capturing and purifying all the spirits is decent it just isnt as compelling as previous seasons. With only five human characters for most of the first half their interactions and development feel weak. They have potential depth and backstories but they lack the charisma and chemistry of previous casts. They arent necessarily bad characters but theyre not memorable and when theyre not getting direct backstory moments they just dont stand out. Even conflicts between characters like Takuya and Kojis natural clashes dont go far enough. Theres barely any leadership dynamic and every episode just feels like an excuse for the humans to transform fight and get a new spirit. Unfortunately the only female character Izumi/Zoe has it rough. Unlike the others who at least win some fights she barely gets any victories and many of her spirit battles dont end in success. The second half of the series only worsens things. When the sixth kid joins youd expect the group to fully bond and develop after everything they went through. Instead Frontier copies the worst aspects of the first two seasonsmaking Takuya and Koji the only characters who matter in fights. The first half at least let the others have some cool moments but in the second half theyre reduced to handing over their powers so Takuya and Koji can get their final transformations. This makes the series more boring and repetitive than it needs to be. It doesnt help that the characters never return to the human world midseries limiting their development. Theyre stuck with only each other and a few Digimon who dont know much about the real world or their personal struggles. To make matters worse about ten episodes in the latter half are just a rinseandrepeat cycle of Takuya and Koji fighting the Royal Knights. While the Knights have cool designs every episode plays out the same waygo to a new area fight them get beaten rinse and repeatuntil the real final boss shows up for the last few episodes. Its a real shame. I legitimately like the idea of a Digimon Power Rangersstyle series. There are cool designs fights and transformations and sometimes even interesting character depth. But limiting the cast to six removing partner Digimon skipping human world development and relying on a few comedic sidekicks ultimately hurt the series longterm appeal. While it was cool that Toei experimented and it led to some iconic designs and fights its for the best that future Digimon series returned to the traditional humanpartner dynamic.