Digimon Savers Overview
Digimon Savers aka Digimon Data Squad in the United States is the fifth season of digimon to be produced by Toei Animation which premiered on FujiTV in 2007. After taking a 4 year break after Digimon Frontier (which ended in 2003) this series returns to the regular formula of partner digimon. Many fans considered the series to be taking a number of aspects from the slightly more "mature" Digimon Tamers franchise while trying to re-celebrate the original Digimon Adventure series. Set in a modern style real world, it shares resemblence to Tamers in that digimon are constantly passing from the digital world into the real world and a government agency has been set up to deal with the problem this is causing.
One difference the series of old and this new series is that the opening and endings have been reduced down to 60 seconds from the traditional 90 seconds. The series featured 48 episodes total as well as two opening themes and two ending themes. Unlike previous seasons, Digimon Savers was not picked up in English (USA) until well after the series ended broadcast in Japan. Seeing as how Digimon Series had orginally been picked up for broadcast the Fall of the same year the series began airring, this initally led to serious doubts about the chances that the series would be licensed.
The primary cast contains only three members and manages to maintain only an increase of a single member later on in the series. The three primary characters are Masaru, Touma and Yoshino and their respective partners Agumon, Gaomon and Lalamon (sometimes also refered to as Raramon). Though Agumon makes a return as a partner digimon, Savers has given him an alternate evolution path that is different from the Agumon seen in Digimon Adventure.