Digimon: Data Squad

[Fritz]

The first official word that Season 5 of Digimon, known in Japan as Digimon Savers, is going to be coming to America.

www.toei-anim.com/

No word on networks, times, or how long it will be until it's on. It is suspected, though by no means confirmed, that Jeff Nimoy--the writer/story editor of most of Season 1 and 2 for Saban, and the Revenge of Diaboromon dub of two years ago--will be heading the project.

To keep up with any further developments:

www.thedigiport.com/

This just about guarantees I'll try and get the Digital Ectozone back up and running.

[Ghostbuster Don]

No Nimoy, please there be no Nimoy. He'll no doubt ruin the scripts with his plotholes & bad jokes involoving puns and American pop culture(Red leader my ass).

[SuperStantzio]

What's wrong with Niomy? Was he annoying or something?

[Fritz]

Farah: Jeff Nimoy was one of the directors and head script writer of the Digimon dub for most of Season 1 and 2. He was "controversial" in some quarters because of the reasons Donny mentioned: purists thought he overloaded the show with "dumb jokes" and "American pop culture references"

He also did the voice of Tentomon, the bug who got all the best lines (mostly because his mouth didn't move and they didn't have to match up to it)

Donny, after the Revenge of Diaboromon movie short especially, it became the understanding of most of the Digimon fan community that the "dumb jokes" were far more the fault of Nimoy's writing partner Bob Bucholtz, because Nimoy scripted and directed aforementioned short without Bucholtz, and it turned out a much more serious and "straight" translation.

And a lot of the plot holes in 02 come straight from the original version. They're the Japanese writers' faults.

Though of course as a guy who likes to fill his own stories with dumb jokes, the humor never really bothered me much.

[Ghostbuster Don]

admin said:

And a lot of the plot holes in 02 come straight from the original version. They're the Japanese writers' faults.

You're right, even if Nimoy ruined the character of Daisuke Motomiya by maing him an unbareable idotic jerk. I should have said countinuity errors.

Also I hope the company that gets don't do anything like cheap BGM and replacing death with "dungeons"(that ruined the entire mourning Pumpmon and Gotsumon scene in episode 33 doing that)

[Fritz]

Also I hope the company that gets don't do anything like cheap BGM and replacing death with "dungeons"(that ruined the entire mourning Pumpmon and Gotsumon scene in episode 33 doing that)

That one I'll definitely agree with. Dubs have been more likely to use the original Japanese music tracks than in the past, and with luck that will be the case here.

And yeah, even with the knowledge of how craven American TV executives are, especially with "kids" shows, that bit with Gotsumon and Pumpkinmon was lame lame lame. Especially as a few episodes later you have Wizardmon clearly dying.

And don't get me started on Revolvermon...

The fans on the Digiport are, at this point, hoping that it will make it onto the Cartoon Network; while Disney still owns the rights to Seasons 1-4 (because they bought Saban in 2002) we're hoping that both the Nimoy rumors and the appearance of the blurb on the Toei site means Disney is not necessarily involved with Savers/Data Squad, so a CN airing is possible. Certainly, there would be a lot less editing to complain about if the dub is along the lines of current hits like Naruto and Bleach, which are about as unedited as they think they can get away with on basic cable.

[OgreBBQ]

Here's hoping that they don't screw it up.

I've been jonesing for some new Digimon for a while now.

[Fritz]

withthewill.net/index.php?topic=2954.0

The guy who runs that board is pretty "in the know", so while this is not an official announcement, it is probably the next best thing.

The highlights:

Jeff Nimoy will be directing the dub

Steven Jay Blum will do Falcomon.

They haven't started work on the series yet, but have just finished recording for a video game (there was a Savers game called "Another Mission", which is believed to be the one referred to here, though that isn't confirmed)

[Fritz]

From The DigiPort

Chris McFeely is reporting that Colleen O'Shaughnessey is playing the role of Yoshino in the yet to be officially announced Digimon Savers dub. Colleen is best known for her roles as Sora in Digimon and Ino in Naruto.

Also, just as a note of Chris McFeely's crediblility, he was first to bring news about the dubbing of the Digimon movies that made it to tv a few years ago.

[EGBFan]

That's interesting, because Colleen O'Shaugnessey plays Danny Phantom's sister Jazz. ;D

I didn't know she was Sora - I seem to remember I rather liked Sora in those few weeks I spent watching Digimon (a rather more likeable character than Jazz, as I recall).

[Fritz]

Sora was one of my favorites too. I easily become pissed to this day that the producers of the second season pulled a GB2 on us by having her like Matt out of the blue, when they'd spent a year and a half (not to mention two or three movie shorts) dropping hints about her and Tai.

Anyway...

More news:

Posted by a user named DillonDsylexia on the DigiPort forums:

www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k7/apr/apr340.php

MUMBAI: Toei Animation has licensed the fifth season of its popular animated series Digimon to Disney ABC Cable Networks Group for a fall 2007 debut on Toon Disney’s Jetix block, it was announced by Yosuke Kobayashi, President and COO of Toei Animation, Inc. Los Angeles.

Toei Animation is producing 48 new episodes of Digimon Data Squad which will bring the total number of Digimon half-hours to 253.


The Digimon franchise has achieved major global success, having secured international broadcast deals with over 40 countries throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Following in the tradition of the Digimon brand, Toei Animation is looking to develop a successful licensing program for the 5th installment of the series. The hit animated property has already retailed approximately $ 72 million in merchandising sales for Japan alone.

Said Kobayashi: “We are delighted to continue our association with ABC Cable Networks Group in bringing the newest season of the perennially popular Digimon to the Toon Disney Jetix block. The popularity of Digimon continues to build, attracting new generations of fans which is the hallmark of a successful evergreen property.”

With The Will also seems to be offering some backup of this story:

withthewill.net/index.php?topic=3071.0

[Fritz]

Straight from the typing fingers of Jeff Nimoy himself:

with The Will
The DigiPort

Marcus (Masaru) - Quinton Flynn [Kon/Bleach, Iruka Umino/Naruto]
Yoshi (Yoshino) - Colleen O'Shaughnessy [Sora/Digimon, Ino/Naruto]
Thomas (Tohma) - Crispin Freeman [Kouichi/Digimon, Holland/Eureka 7, Itachi Uchiha/Naruto]
Commander Sampson (Satsuma) - Jamieson Price [Mr. Wong/Digimon, Norb/Eurkea 7]
Kudamon - Sam Riegel [Zaku Abumi/Naruto, Shuichiro Oishi/Prince of Tennis]
Agumon - Brian Beacock [Takato, Bokomon/Digimon, Yumichika Ayasegawa/Bleach]
Miki - Stephanie Sheh [Orihime/Bleach, Eureka/Eureka 7]
Megumi - Kate Higgins [Talho/Eureka 7]
Lalamon - Dorothy Fahn [Lillymon/Digimon]
[dub name undecided] (Ikuto) - Brianne Sidall [Calumon, Tommy/Digimon]
Falcomon - Steve Blum [Guilmon, Yamaki/Digimon, S-CRY-ed/Kazuma]
Kristy (Chika) - Melissa Fahn [Rika/Digimon, Ed/Cowboy Bebop]
SayuriMary Elizabeth Mcglynn [Ophanimon/Digimon, Major Motoko Kusanagi/Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]
Yushima - Kirk Thornton [Gabumon, Mummymon/Digimon, Kisame Hoshigaki/Naruto]

[Fritz]

thedigiport.com/cutenews/show_news.php?subaction=showcomments&template=&id=1182389577

Quote from: TK Takeru
According to himself at NarutoFan, Skip Stellrecht is set to play Gaomon:

Hey Guys! Very busy as of late. Did a couple of more games for Naruto. Not a lot of Gai but some. One of them was for Wi. Started working on Digimon today. It's going to be a lot of fun. Really looking forward to it. I am playing Gaomon. It seemed to go well. Hopefully they will like what I did and keep me around for a while.

Stellrecht is probably best known for playing Might Guy and Itachi Uchiha (episodes 29-30) from Naruto.

[Ghostbuster Don]

I'm pretty miffed about it going to Disney, I thought TOEI would know not to deal with them after Frontier. Which that itself is my least favorite Digimon series.

[Fritz]

I admit I was hoping for Cartoon Network myself, because they probably wouldn't have to do as many edits.

Still, it wasn't a total surprise: Disney were the ones who bought out Saban six years ago, and inherited their stake of the Digimon franchise. They're the ones who've kept reruns in pretty steady rotation for the last five years. It may have been in the contracts that they got, at the very least, right of first refusal or something.