I grew up watching anime on TV, but I didn’t know it was anime. Digimon was a show my brother watched as it aired, and while I did love the digivices and the movie, the rest of the series was a little…too scary for my 6yo self.
I had no issues with Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, or Dragonball Z, but I guess seeing the actual kids get hurt by these….(let’s be honest) sometimes ugly and scary looking creatures, who sometimes had actual guns and missles attached to them, I just stayed away. It was easy to do since I watched YTV and Teletoon while it aired on Fox.
So anyways, when I entered middle school, I decided to give the series a second chance on Youtube and I fell in love! While watching, I noticed the “Japanese Opening” in the recommendations, and I thought ‘huh, didn’t know it got translated’. But once I heard Butterfly, my life was changed. Why was their song so much more beatiful, meaningful and epic than ours? After doing research, I learned this was the original, and that Digimon was an anime…along with many of my favourite shows. I also gained more interested in Japanese music.
Thus, I owe Digimon a lot and I truly hold the series dear to my heart. It is my favourite and it’s taught me a lot of lessons about kindness, friendship, and team work. I know it isn’t ‘the best’ anime out there, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.
Over the years, I have amassed quite a library full of Digimon songs. If you didn’t know, the series probably has over 1000 songs at this point. You can expect at least 12 songs with lyrics (openings, endings, evolution songs, character songs, bonus songs), and then there are a lot of background music as well. Let’s not even get started on the music in their games!
While the openings have maintained some kind of popularity over the decades, especially openings 1-4, I felt there were a lot of underrated gems that people don’t seem to talk about, nor do they ever cover. While it was tempting to make a top 15 or ranking opening kind of article, I decided to name my favourite hidden gems from each season.
If you’re a fan of the series and love some songs that are or aren’t listed here, please share your favs in the comments! Let’s bring some love and attention to the wonderous world of Digimon music!
And if you’re interested in learning more vocabulary and kanji so you can watch anime and dramas, read manga, sing J-pop at karaoke, or play raw Japanese video games, check out my 250+ Kanji for Japanese Media (+Sentences) article and my Japanese Study Guide!
Adventure
Of course, Butterfly and Brave Heart are some of the best songs. The ending songs are also beautiful. This was a tough race between this song and Matt’s song “Run with the Wind”, but this song will always have a lasting impression on me ;_____; After writing this article, I decided to make this song my first Guitar cover ever on Youtube. You can check it out here if you’d like <3
Seven
Adventure 02
This season definitely gave us more darker sounding, rock based hits like “Break Up”, and honestly, Target is my favourite song from the series. The piano version was something I’ve always wanted to learn and finally did so.
But when it comes to underrated songs, I have to give it to this gem. There’s just something so nostalgic hearing both the singers of the openings and endings (Kouji Wada and AiM), along with all the characters as they say their goodbyes:
Bokura no Digital World
Tamers
While everyone was obsessed with the opening “Biggest Dreamer”, there was one song from this series that I loved so deeply, I even had a long argument with an ex who said “Slash” was better. Do I still feel this way? ….Yeah, I think so, haha
One Vision
Frontier
Now, I don’t care what anyone says, Frontier has the BEST soundtrack in the whole series. Hands down, no question. Fight me if you dare. Adventure has some pretty and nostalgic songs, and I also really like Xros Wars, but I could listen to every song of Frontier without any skips.
There is the beautiful opening “Fire”, the two epic evolution song “With The Will” & “The Last Element”, and there are so many others that I would love to add like “Ore wa Tsubasa de” and Junpei/JPs song “Spark”…I really couldn’t settle on one because I love these two songs for very different reasons, and I know majority of fans don’t know about either, so I want to give them some love <3
Salamandar
Blader
Savers
I got into Digimon after it stopped airing on TV, so Savers was one of the seasons I got to see soon after it came out. The first opening, “Going Gouing My Soul”, is definitely a fun and memorable hit. Believer is also an amazing evolution song that is beloved.
While the song below is also an opening, I don’t really hear it talked about nor covered by musicians. I probably would have forgotten about it myself if I didn’t actively seek Digimon music, because we are so used to seasons only having one opening throughout.
Hikari
Xros Wars
This was the first series I watched while it was airing and first time I eagerly waited for the next episode of a series to air. As mentioned in Frontier, I think this has one of the best soundtracks as well.
Unlike other seasons where it is a single team effort and everyone has the same evolution song, we got our main team with their theme song “We Are Xros Heart”, then we also have our rivals with their theme song “Blazing Blue Flare”, the the two later have 2 collab “Evolution & Digixros songs” (Oh it’s so good!), and there’s just a lot of songs throughout the show, so it was a hard choice. Below, I have placed my all time favourite song of the series, along with my favourite underrated song that just gives me chills.
X4B The Guardian
Dark Knight
Xros Wars: Boy Hunters
While Xros Wars is high up on my list and Taiki is my favourite goggle boy, I wasn’t really feeling the Boy Hunters arc. It felt quite episodic (like Pokemon) and didn’t have much momentum. However, I stuck it out because I was looking forward to the end where every Digidestined so far made their infamous return.
Most of the songs in this series was forgettable, so my favourite song that you probably didn’t hear if you didn’t watch the show would be the evolution song.
Tagiru Chikara
Conclusion
Digimon is definitely a gem of a series and the soundtrack is no different. I personally haven’t finished applimonsters as it was quite slow, but I heard great things so I’ll definitely return to it and add a song to this list when I’m done. I haven’t finished the 2020 remake (was watching while airing, stopped around episode 25) and I know Ghost Stories is out too, so I got a lot of catching up to do.
I hope something will give me that original charm of relateable kids dealing with unusual circumstances in a new world, but if they chose to do a more episodic and childish approach to keep the series going or sell merch, I guess it is what it is. If anything, I’m just happy the series is alive and well, especially since I got into it quite late.
And if you’re interested in learning more vocabulary and kanji so you can watch anime and dramas, read manga, sing J-pop at karaoke, or play raw Japanese video games, check out my 250+ Kanji for Japanese Media (+Sentences) article and my Japanese Study Guide!