[Matrixbeast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by guncannon109

Hire a horror director as their head writer?

It's not the director. It's what he did.
Characters were given depth. They grew and changed. Their actions had greater consequences, both by virtue of being in the real world and that the Digimon they were facing were legitimately malevolent from the get go, not just good guys under mind control for the first half of the season. The fights had far more weight because there was no Primary Village bullshit crutch to lean back on (Basically, death wasn't cheapened. Leomon never came back).
The actual story was a step up from the others, with the main characters not being shonen anime tropes but actual, sensible characters (Well, early Rika/Ruki wasn't, but when she mellowed out she became an actual character too).

Substance over style. I've always preferred it this way. I just want another series to place the story over the toy shilling (Note: Tamers shilled toys too. It just didn't do it every episode)