I've now watched every Digimon anime released to date and I... have opinions. First, let's rank them from best to worst in my opinion:
1 Digimon Tamers
2 Digimon Frontier
3 Digimon Adventure 02
4 Digimon Xros Wars
5 Digimon Adventure
6 Digimon Xros Wars - The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time
7 Digimon Universe Applimon
8 Digimon Data Squad
9 Digimon Adventure Tri
10 Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna
11 Digimon Adventure: (2020)
Unranked: Digimon Ghost Game (Incomplete currently)
Now for my opinions: Digimon as a franchise struggles to take hold due to lack of consistent vision, marketing, and merchandise. It feels like the rights holders don't know what to do with it, but they know people resonate with it. So far the current Digimon Card Game is the best thing they've ever made, and while quality has been increasing across the whole franchise for the last decade, it's still lacking consistency. Also it feels like there's a certain lack of media literacy within the Digimon community. I see people complaining about lack of lore in Young Hunters and Ghost Game all the time, yet they constantly fed it to us, even while being more episodic than overarching narratives. One of the biggest complaints I heard about Young Hunters is the end isn't built up to, and yes one part seems to come out of left field, but overall it was actually pretty well built up. Overall though, I have to say the franchise as a whole is legitimately entertaining and deserves a look at by everyone, but we even lack releases of most of the series in the US. There is no legal way to watch Savers/Data Squad for instance. The others are all on Hulu, Crunchyroll, and TubiTV, with an expensive DVD release of the first 4 seasons years ago and a modern blu-ray release of Digimon Adventure as well as the Tri Movies and Last Evolution Kizuna. In the end though, the biggest reason the franchise failed in the west wasn't lack of interest from fans, it was every video game until around 2013 being a completely different take on the franchise, no consistent universe, literally no merch other than for the main partner digimon until the Vital Bracelet line, and a failure to differentiate it from Pokemon, a series it's still accused of being a clone of. This is entirely on the rights owners and even DigimonCon 23 shows they still don't know how to push the product. But for now, it's over, in a few weeks Ghost Game ends and then all we'll have left is the Adventure 02 movie and the new webnovel which I can only hope isn't terrible.
I can now post my final rankings:
1 Digimon Ghost Game
2 Digimon Tamers
3 Digimon Frontier
4 Digimon Adventure 02
5 Digimon Xros Wars
6 Digimon Adventure
7 Digimon Xros Wars - The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time
8 Digimon Universe Applimon
9 Digimon Data Squad
10 Digimon Adventure Tri
11 Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna
12 Digimon Adventure: (2020)
So that means it's time to UPDATE THE RANKING LIST! Also I just realized I never put Digimon the Movie on the list so it's on there now, as well as the rest of the specials/movies that I forgot to rank.
1 Digimon Ghost Game
2 Digimon Tamers
3 Digimon Frontier
4 Digimon Adventure 02
5 Digimon Xros Wars
6 Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning
7 Digimon Adventure
8 Digimon the Movie
9 Digimon Xros Wars - The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time
10 Digimon Adventure 02: Revenge of Diaboromon
11 Digimon Frontier: Island of Lost Digimon
12 Digimon Tamers: Battle of Adventurers
13 Digimon Universe Applimon
14 Digimon X-Evolution
15 Digimon Tamers: Runaway Locomon
16 Digimon Data Squad
17 Digimon Data Squad: Ultimate Power! Activate Burst Mode!!
18 Digimon Adventure 3D: Digimon Grand Prix
19 Digimon Savers 3D: The Digital World in Imminent Danger
20 Digimon Adventure Tri
21 Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna
22 Digimon Adventure: (2020)
I have now watched the Super Evolution Stage Digimon Adventure Tri. ~The Adventure of August 1st~. Now to rank it... and you may be shocked....
1 Digimon Ghost Game
2 Digimon Tamers
3 Digimon Frontier
4 Digimon Adventure 02
5 Digimon Xros Wars
6 Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning
7 Digimon Adventure
8 Digimon the Movie
9 Super Evolution Stage Digimon Adventure Tri. ~The Adventure of August 1st~
10 Digimon Xros Wars - The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time
11 Digimon Adventure 02: Revenge of Diaboromon
12 Digimon Frontier: Island of Lost Digimon
13 Digimon Tamers: Battle of Adventurers
14 Digimon Universe Applimon
15 Digimon X-Evolution
16 Digimon Tamers: Runaway Locomon
17 Digimon Data Squad
18 Digimon Data Squad: Ultimate Power! Activate Burst Mode!!
19 Digimon Adventure 3D: Digimon Grand Prix
20 Digimon Savers 3D: The Digital World in Imminent Danger
21 Digimon Adventure Tri
22 Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna
23 Digimon Adventure: (2020)
Wait, are we seeing this right? I LIKED SOMETHING FROM TRI?! Will wonders never cease? But yeah, it's in my top 10. It was fun, Etemon was fantastic, they did well with the limitations of a stage play, AND THE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY ACTED LIKE THEMSELVES FOR THE MOST PART UNLIKE THE REST OF TRI! So yeah, great watch.