Hello and welcome to fawnmon's guide to the chief animation directors of the Adventure verse!!
Below you will find lists of which artists worked on which episodes as well as a section for each artist noting the differences in their work, and finally some charts comparing them all.
Disclaimer: This is by no means a definitive guide and fawnmon built it off of the limited information available. All opinions here belong to fawnmon and are not meant to be taken seriously. Every single one of these artists is incredible for cranking out so many iconic episodes of Digimon for us and should be celebrated for their hard work!
Yoshitaka Yajima | Shigetaka Kiyoyama | Setsuko Nobuzane | Toshio Deguchi | Tomoko Itou | Yukio Ebisawa | Masahiro Naoi | Yoshihiro Takeda | Comparison Charts
Each section lists which episodes the artist worked on, and a comprehensive list is available on the Japanese Wikipedia articles for Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02.
Episodes
- Adventure: 1, 6, 11, 17, 24, 31, 36, 42, 48, 54
- 02: 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 37, 45, second bumper
did the first episode of both adventure and 02! i love their drawings, they’re so cute and expressive but simply constructed. they get a lot of funny episodes/scenes.
Episodes
- Adventure: 9, 18, 25, 32, 41, 49
- 02: 2, 10, 18, 25, 34, 42
not one of the most distinct i don’t think, but all solid drawings, yamato and ken look pretty
Episodes
- Adventure: 2, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 43, 50
- 02: 3, 9, 16, 23, 32, 41, 50
another very solid one, they got some REALLY important episodes (S1E21, S2E23, and the very last episode!). honestly not even sure what else to say about them specifically, just good.
Episodes
- Adventure: 3, 8, 16, 23, 30, 38, 46, 52
- 02: 4, 11, 17, 24, 33, 39, 48
sorry man. you’re a b-teamer. you DID however give us some good gay in both seasons lol (involving hands??). but yeah these drawings are not great, interesting to note that they did both of yamato’s evolution episodes in adventure (3, 23) and then both of the daiyama episodes in 02 (4, 11).
Episodes
- Adventure: 10, 15, 20, 27, 34, 39, 45, 51
- 02: 5, 12, 19, 26, 31, 40, 47
one of THE most solid artists here, did the GAYEST episodes in both adventure AND 02, thank you for promoting the gay agenda tomoko-san… daisuke’s hair tends to be sort of vertical lol, ken always looks SO pretty, they draw good sad boys and really nice emotional close-ups!
Episodes
- Adventure: 4, 13, 22, 29, 37, 44, 53
- 02: 6, 13, 20, 27, 35, 44
some of the WONKIEST drawings in 02… they weren’t quite as bad in adventure but still some goku ass lookin yamatos and shit… also interesting to note that occasionally the quality in their episodes VASTLY IMPROVES, specifically in S2E44 (to the point that i think they must have another artist working on some of the ken van scenes), but to a lesser extent the post-jogress scenes in S2E27 and maybe even the angemon scene in the 1st screenshot here (S1E13).
Episodes
- Adventure: 5, 12, 19, 26, 33, 40, 47
- 02: 30, 38, 46
in lots of adventure episodes, but only THREE episodes of 02!! (two of which happen to be significant blackwargreymon eps lol.) these are some pretty b-teamy drawings but i think they draw the characters really cute anyway… they stood out to me while watching adventure. the are eyes really big and far apart (sliding off face lol) and noses very small… long bangs.
Episodes
- Adventure: a few scenes in episode 52
- 02: 7, 14, 21, 28, 36, 43, 49, second ending ("Itsumo Itsudemo")
THE HAIR!!!! oh my god the beautiful hair… very soft and detailed, lots of wrinkles and shadows on the clothing. big sparkly anime eyes. only seen in digimon adventure 02 (aside from featuring in some scenes of episode 52 of adventure)! used in a lot of key episodes and very distinct.
below are some helpful charts showing the differences between the artists that i found on tumblr and made a few edits to where they were wrong or i personally thought they were misrepresented!
Digimon Adventure (original here)
Digimon Adventure 02 (original here)
