Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time (pronounced "Cross Wars") is the third and final arc of Digimon Fusion (Xros Wars in Japan) and is not officially considered its own season* , but rather a part of Digimon Fusion/Xros Wars. Its change of name is just a subtitle.
Set one year after the end of The Evil Death Generals and the Seven Kingdoms arc, Taiki Kudou and Yuu Amano have gone on to form the Xros Heart street basketball team; joining them is the incredibly eager Tagiru Akashi, who stumbles into the alternate dimension of DigiQuartz, a world between the Human and Digital Worlds. There, Tagiru meets his Digimon partner Gumdramon, as well as three adversaries: Ryouma Mogami, Airu Suzaki, and Ren Tobari, along with their Digimon partners Psychemon, Opossumon, and Dracumon. Shoutmon and Damemon return to fight alongside their old partners Taiki and Yuu. What is the secret of DigiQuartz, and what does it mean to be a "Digimon Hunter?"
The arc is different from other arcs in this season, in that there's much less focus on a plot; most episodes focus on Tagiru (and occasionally other characters) instead of just Taiki dealing with a Monster of the Week. However, there is a story running quietly in the background. The hunt right now is all fun and games, but it turns out that the DigiQuartz is spreading, endangering the rest of the world.
Early sources indicated that this was partially going to be a Milestone Celebration in the vein of Kamen Rider Decade and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. The past leaders of each previous Digimon series, and some of the other characters, make cameo appearances in Episode 68 and return in Episode 76.
It's followed up by Digimon Universe: App Monsters.
This is a continuation of Xros Wars, so please use the official episode numbering used by Toei
, TV Asahi, and Crunchyroll in order to prevent confusion. Remember that this is an arc, not a season, so its episode numbering just continues from where the last arc left off.
Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Kiichi's Blush Sticker, the messiness of his hair, and the tone of his voice do remind one somewhat of one of Makiko Ohmoto's more famous roles
- Affably Evil: The rival Hunters, even though they're all clearly jerks (some moreso than others), have been kind of worried about Tagiru facing MetalTyrannomon alone, and Airu Suzaki even hinted that they might have helped him out.
- Alternate Universe: And for once, it's not the Digital World! Rather, it's an area between the two worlds called DigiQuartz.
- And the Adventure Continues: Despite Quartzmon's defeat, Digimon are still lost in the real world, and our heroes run off to start the hunt anew.
- Animation Bump:
- The dogfight sequence in episode 64 is spontaneously gorgeously animated.
- The Grand Finale. While the animation for the rest of the arc was rather unremarkable, the final episode looked so much better than the rest that one almost has to wonder if Toei had saved up half the series' budget for that episode alone.
- Art Evolution: It's subtle and not as drastic a switch as Digimon Data Squad, but there's a notable difference between Young Hunters and its predecessor's animation styles.
- Also inverted: the animation gets noticeably poorer as the series neared its end. The final episode did get a big Animation Bump, however.
- Artistic License – Geography: In episode sixty-seven, no matter where Kiichi takes people on Locomon, it's always nighttime, even when they've clearly crossed several time zones.
- Book Ends:
- In a very meta-sense. Myotismon was a constant threat to the Chosen back in Digimon Adventure/02, and in 79 of this arc an army of Myotismon appear in all his established forms.
- In a more traditional sense, the arc begins and ends on a basketball court. The first arc began with a game of basketball as well, making this valid for the Xros Wars series as a whole.
- Call-Back: The beginning of this arc opens with a basketball game, much like the first episode of Fusion. This serves both to re-introduce Taiki and Yuu, and to show us Tagiru... and how different he is from Taiki.
- In episode sixty-three, Akari and Taiki have a conversation that is a direct call back to the same one they had in the first episode of the series, with Taiki thanking Akari, Akari repeating him and saying she doesn't want to hear it, finally ending with her scolding him to take better care of himself.
- Calling Your Attacks: In addition to the use of this trope common to previous Digimon series, episode sixty features the kendo variant of this trope: calling the body part that the attacker intends to strike.
- The Cameo: Taichi Yagami, Daisuke Motomiya, Takato Matsuda, Takuya Kanbara, Masaru Daimon, and their respective Digimon cameo in Episode 68, signifying their return.
- It's not just the leaders. As of Episode 76, Mimi Tachikawa and Ruki Makino also appeared.
- Ken, Stingmon, Jou, Gomamon, Yamato, MetalGarurumon, Tentomon, Grani and Tomoki also show up in Episode 78.
- Carnivore Confusion: Episode sixty-one gives us Jagamon, who is attacking children who eat potato chips. Why is he doing this, you might ask? Because Jagamon is a potato monster.
- Chromatic Arrangement: Shoutmon (red), Gumdramon (blue), Damemon (yellow). Sadly, their partners' Xros Loaders don't quite fit the configuration, since Tagiru's is also red and not blue. However, their shirts do match up.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu:
- Remember Myotismon and his two Mega forms Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon? He was easily one of the strongest villains from Digimon Adventure and 02, able to hold his own against multiple ultimate digimon and later Mega digimon simultaniously. The final battle of YHT involved not just 1, but a freaking ARMY of Myotismon, who later digivolve into THREE Venommyotismon and several dozen of Malomyotismon. But although they have the main characters in a pinch at first, once the other leaders and their (mega level) digimon partners show up, the various Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon start dropping like flies.
- Remember the shadowy Dagomon/Dragomon from Adventure 02, back when he looked a powerful antagonist who fortunately for the heroes (and unfortunately for the audience) never bothered to act as a villain? He is now a cartoonish Monster of the Week who gets forgotten after one episode.
- Continuity Nod: Episode fifty-seven features nods to the Dust Zone arc from the first arc, with the Pinocchimon from that episode returning, and the Sweets Zone arc, when Taiki recognizes GigaBreakdramon as a version of the same Digimon he's seen before.
- In the following episode, Tokio, the student focused on in the previous story, is seen in the background as a member of Tagiru and Yuu's class.
- Episode sixty-one has Gumdramon lead the Pagumon to the location in DigiQuartz of the same pool that Sagomon was based in the fifty-six episode.
- Episode sixty-four flashback has Nene in her outfit from the first arc of Digimon Fusion.
- Episode seventy-one has the same Gargoylemon and Piximon from Heaven Zone in the first arc policing the Digital World.
- The Corruption: A human's desires can both attract a Digimon and cause them to run wild in the pursuit of power, which in turn can cause that same individual to do the same.
- Crisis Crossover: With Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers, Digimon Frontier, and Digimon Data Squad.
- Doubles as a Crossover Finale, since this is used to wrap up the series.
- Dark World: The DigiQuartz is a ruined version of Earth covered in some kind of glowing moss. It's also a side-effect of the Big Bad's presence.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Every time "Chou Shinka!" is screamed twice during an evolution sequence.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Tagiru's capture of Dagomon in episode 73.
- Marcus introduces himself by punching a VenomMyotismon and dominoing two others behind it in episode 78. He punches some MaloMyotismon as well later in the same episode.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In episode 64, Nene sings portions of "New World" and "Stand Up," the opening songs for the second half of the original Xros Wars and the current season respectively.
- Emotion Eater: Most of the weekly monsters draw their power from the negative emotions of children.
- The End... Or Is It?: Is the old clock shop owner really a reincarnated and reformed Bagramon, or was he just some old guy with vast knowledge of the workings of the Digital World who thought it would be funny to mess with Taiki's head?
- Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The Watchman, a mysterious old man with a Clockmon, who produces the Xros Loaders used by the children participating in the Digimon Hunts.
- Evolutionary Levels: More common than before, where everyone can evolve. Despite that, it still follows what the first two arcs established - that evolution here is treated as age and the Xros Loaders simply allow them to access their future forms.
- Technically this is true in the previous seasons for early digimon stages from digitama/digiegg to Baby II/Intraining but not true, but its quite as true for child and above.
- Excuse Plot: The actual plot and characters get nearly zero development. The show is mostly just about Tagiru wandering around and solving some random kid's problem without learning anything or developing himself. Even the crossover even is just an excuse for him to defeat the bigbad without needing to improve himself. All he needs is is shonen guts and two tries and everything falls before him.
- Fix Fic: Since the finale, there has been much fanart and fanfic that has Ryouma reunite with a purified Quartzmon as Psychemon/Astamon.
- Foreshadowing: Partially combined with Early-Bird Cameo, Pay attention to The Watchmaker's eyes in the final episode's segment before the Quartzmon battle. Notice how one of the eyes is glowing red through the glasses? Now which Big Bad does that remind you of?
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you pay attention, you can see Tagiru knock another player's teeth out during the basketball game in the episode 55.
- In the episode in Hong Kong, Airu and Ren can be seen in the background in the tram that the boys take early in the episode. Exactly why they're there is a mystery, as they have no other appearances or role in the episode.
- Fusion Dance: DigiXros is still in effect here, as Hunters can Xros their partners with Digimon captured during hunts.
- Goggles Do Nothing: In addition to Tagiru and Taiki, Gumdramon's evolution Arresterdramon gets in on the act, being the first partner Digimon to sport goggles himself.
- Tagiru later adds FlaWizarmon to his team, who also wears goggles.
- Hoist By Her Own Petard: In episode fifty-nine, Airu and Opossumon are ensnared in one of their own traps.
- Hurricane of Puns: Episode 71, involving Betsumon, whose main attack is to tell a really bad joke to freeze his opponents. This trope crops up around the 3/4 point.
- Imagine Spot: Tagiru and Gumdramon have one when imagining what Gumdramon's DigiXros with a miscellaneous Digimon would be like.◊
- Informed Ability: For all the hype the rival hunters have been building for themselves, they really don't accomplish very much throughout the arc.
- Internal Homage: Plenty of them.
- Before the title shot, the original "Digital Monsters" logo from the virtual pets is effectively recreated.
- There is also the title shot in the opening, showing many children holding up Xros Loaders with their Digimon standing in front of them. It's something of a direct homage to similar shots in the opening of Digimon Tamers.
- It goes even further than that; the opening also features the shadows of Digimon passing across real world buildings, which is another iconic shot from the Tamers opening animation.
- Gumdramon's evolution sequence is very similar to those from Tamers, specifically the whole "data is peeled off the Digimon's skin and replaced with the new form" thing.
- Arresterdramon's evolution into Superior Mode incorporates several evolution scenes from previous series. A ring of light appears around Tagiru's arm, similar to the Digicode from Frontier, a burst of light shoots out from his Xros Loader, similar to Burst Evolution from Savers, and a blue Chinese dragon is seen, similar to Imperialdramon's evolution scene from 02.
- Yet another from the opening; Arresterdramon, OmegaShoutmon, and Tuwarmon launching their attacks at the screen in succession is reminiscent of similar sequences from both the Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier opening.
- And yet again, we have the final shot of the opening with everyone standing together in a circle... just like the end of Frontier's opening animation. This may be due to the fact that all three series share a director.
- The sixty-seventh episode has a reference to the second Digimon Tamers movie, in the form of a plot involving a runaway Locomon and a Parasimon controlling him.
- The seventy-seventh episode has a Keramon causing trouble. At one point, it mocks Tagiru through his mother's cell phone, similar to the second Digimon Adventure movie.
- Taiki passes his goggles to Tagiru to seal the change of leadership, just as Taichi passed his goggles to Davis.
- Jumped at the Call: Tagiru was incredibly eager to enter the Digimon Hunts from the moment he wandered into DigiQuartz.
- Kaiju: Volcdramon certainly qualifies. It's so large that Tagiru is barely as tall as its claws and the heat it gives off menaces a local town by causing geysers to erupt everywhere. Its attacks are also incredibly destructive.
- Kids Are Cruel: Used occasionally to give the character of the week a reason to ally with a Digimon. Most noticeable in the card game episode, where some bullies pick on a kid for having weak cards, throw him from his seat so that they can take a turn, and laugh at him when all his good cards are stolen from him despite the fact that he's obviously weakened and shellshocked at that point.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The Watchmaker's shop is never in the same place twice...
- Loophole Abuse: You can only bring out one Digimon per time and DigiXros only two of them. Taiki quickly figures out that he can overlook this rule by sending Ballistamon and Dorulumon to Yuu's XrosLoader and use DoubleXros to bring Shoutmon X4 to the battle.
- Monster of the Week: Episodes are playing out rather similarly to Digimon Data Squad in this respect - a Digimon is causing trouble in the real world, and the three heroes have to go hunt down and capture said Digimon to put a stop to its shenanigans. No longer in effect as of episode 76.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Parodied in one episode focusing around a card game where, during a card battle, Yuu repeatedly screams "Another ULTRA-RARE CARD!" only for Tagiru to follow with "AWESOME! ...Right?".
- Mythology Gag: In episode 77, Akari is seen wearing the second outfit she wore in the Digimon Xros Wars manga, sans kneesocks.
- Nerf: Xros Loaders in this series are much more limited than they were in the previous series, only able to reload one Digimon at a time and only able to DigiXros up to two at a time. However, DoubleXros and GreatXros are still effective, allowing Yuu and Taiki to bring forth Shoutmon X4 and later Shoutmon X7 with Kiriha and Nene.
- Considering that Digimon hunting is considered a "game" in universe (with an actual rulebook to boot), these rules are likely in place specifically to keep returning characters like Taiki from completely wrecking the game balance.note
- Justified by the fact that this limitation is revealed to be caused by Quartzmon's power.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: SuperStarmon's captives are all clearly based on real-life figures - amongst them are lookalikes of Barack Obama, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, and The Beatles.
- Not Drawn to Scale: While there's always been some flex in digimon scales between series, the heroic digimon usually stay within a certain limited range. Here the returning heroes digimon wildly variable from their home universes. Shinegreymon, Omnimon and to a less extent Imperialdramon are tiny in comparison to their normal appearances.
- Ocular Gushers: In episode 61, Pagumon ends up producing these... with them pouring out of Tagiru's Xros Loader.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Episode 59 sets up a badass fight where Taiki takes on Ryouma and Ren one-on-two... then the plot goes off to follow Yuu, Tagiru, and Airu, and the epic offscreen fight is never referred to in the rest of the episode.
- Omake: Continuing from Xros Wars is the "Digimon Introduction Corner", which spotlights a different Digimon at the end of every episode, followed by a "joke" DigiXros between the subject of the segment and another Digimon.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: In episode 61, this occurs between Gumdramon and Tagiru. Justified by the fact that they're both hot headed and immature, and are shown to quarrel fairly often.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: Lets just say when the 5 heroes from past seasons come back, they're not guaranteed to be as strong (or weak) as you remember them. To wit:
- In 02, Imperialdramon failed to kill even a single Mega digimon outside of Paladin mode. Here, he delivers the coup de grace that takes down multiple Megas
- Takuya's Advanced Hybrid form, Aldamon, is in his original series strong enough to absolutely curbstomp ShadowSeraphimon, a Mega Fallen Angel Digimon. Here he is unable to even scratch the similar (if somewhat stronger) MaloMyotismon (and for some reason only used a single blast from what was supposed to be a spam attack
- Additionally, he is not granted access to EmperorGreymon, who is stronger by magnitudes than Aldamon. His final form, Susanoomon, should be leagues stronger than any of the returning digimon (with the possible exception of Omnimon) and a universal threat but he only restrains the enemies for Imperialdramon
- Gallantmon Crimson mode wiped out numerous mega equivalent digital beings on his debut. He should be able to cleave a path through the lot of them and drop the big bad without much fuss
- Omnimon can defeat 16,000 Piedmon+ level opponents in a few moments with no injury or visible effort. He shouldn't have even had to try to end this threat, yet his big contribution is taking out fewer MaloMyotismon than Wargreymon did.
- Progressively Prettier: The returning characters when compared to their Xros Wars designs. note Especially Nene, who is now a bombshell in comparison.
- Redemption Demotion: Justified for the hunted Digimon since most of them were leeching energy from humans before their "redemption" or have a similar excuse not to be as powerful later.
- Red Herring: In a poster, the Xros of Arresterdramon and Dobermon was shown fighting alongside the past heroes' Digimon against Quartzmon. Despite this, said Xros was actually never used in the show a second time after its debut.
- Sequel Hook: In the final scene, the old watchmaker reveals himself to be a reincarnated Bagramon... somehow and implies that he's searching for his brother, DarkKnightmon, somewhere in the world.
- Ship Tease: Episode 63 is pretty much dedicated to teasing Taiki/Akari. Tagiru even plays the role of Shipper on Deck for them.
- Shout-Out
- The series' title is, itself, a reference to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
- Shoutmon's new design is a walking homage to both Kamen Rider and Getter Robo, the latter finally completing his evolution into a walking Super Robot homage.
- Look at Gumdramon's name. Then at his powers, which involve stretching. He reminds one of a certain other Rubber Man. He even has a red vest!
- Meanwhile, his "Fire Vortex" technique is basically Sonic the Hedgehog's Spin Dash technique. That, or Flame Wheel.
- When Tagiru feeds Pagumon, he starts producing evil duplicates that cause havoc all over town.
- Taiki has a Kamen Rider Fourze poster in his room. Even more so, Phelesmon's motivation and disguise were basically dark reflections of Fourze's own motivations and costume (Particularly the head).
- Episode 67 is an homage to The Polar Express. Fitting, in that said episode aired on Christmas.
- Episode 74 and its allusions to Yu-Gi-Oh!. One of the players should even remind you of a certain bug-themed card player in the anime.
- Tuwarmon's DigiXros with SuperStarmon has him have a second face on his chest (SuperStarmon's), which wears Cool Shades. Sounds really familiar, doesn't it?
- The Smurfette Principle: Airu is the only female partnered with a Digimon, out of six such people, and she's still not even one of the main characters! There are more who show up occasionally though.
- Taken for Granite: Tagiru, Arresterdramon, and OmegaShoutmon in episode 69. The Power of Friendship saves them.
- Terrible Trio: Ryouma, Ren, and Airu serves as the rival trio, along with their partners Psychemon, Dracumon, and Opossumon.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Much like the various Shoutmon forms and army themes in the previous series, Tagiru, Taiki, and Yuu and their respective digimon individually have their own.note .
- Tickle Torture: A swarm of Zenimon and KoZenimon does this to the Watchmaker in episode 77.
- Time Skip: This series takes place one year after the previous series.
- Transformation Sequence: The Digi Xros and super evolution sequences.
- Surprisingly, the returning characters from previous seasons don't get any Transformation Sequences, instead, we get to see how their evolutions would look in reality. Even then, there are still nods to their respective transformations, such as Agumon doing a flip before Warp-evolving into Wargreymon, Veemon and Stingmon flying through the air while blue and green streams of light follow them, resembling strands of DNA, Imperialdramon blowing up a VenomMyotismon immediately after evolving, Takato falling on top of Guilmon slowly, and Takuya being covered in silhouette.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In the middle of a kendo match, Tagiru and his opponent are visibly whisked away into DigiQuartz. After resolving the plot there, they return to the same spot and manage to persuade the referee to continue the match as though nothing happened. Indeed, most of the plots don't seem to launch investigations despite people turning into trees or disappearing for days at a time, and to drive it home, during the trading card game episode, players who were pulled into DigiQuartz seemed to be more concerned that their cards were being stolen than they were about the fact that they were just dragged into another dimension.
- Voodoo Doll: Airu makes one of Yuu after failing to capture Cutemon from him.
- Warrior Therapist: The main trio use a variation of this trope to resolve the incidents in the early episodes, addressing the emotional problems of the people who accidentally summoned the Digimon and subsequently taming the Digimon. This approach separates the main trio from the rival trio, who only care about hunting Digimon.
- Whack-a-Monster: Episode 61 has this portrayed, literally, with Gumdramon (complete with tail hammer) and the mole-like Jagamon.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Once again, Xros Wars instead of Cross Wars, and accordingly the Xros Loader and DigiXros (again, sometimes rendered by fans as "X Loader" or "Digi X").
