The series was originally licensed in North America by Saban Entertainment, aired in the US from September 2001 to June 2002 as the third season of Digimon: Digital Monsters.

Takato meets Henry Wong and Rika Nonaka, two other children who are partnered with Terriermon and Renamon respectively, as well as Calumon and Impmon.

Meanwhile, Hypnos, an intelligence agency led by Mitsuo Yamaki, has been capturing the Digimon and sending them back to the Digital World.

[clarification needed] The team was satisfied with the release of Digimon Tamers, as Kakudo believed the setting could have also been applied in the previous anime.

As a result, Konaka wanted to explore the primitive nature of Digimon, where they instinctively harm other creatures to become stronger and would learn morals from their partners.

[19] While making the series, Konaka had conceptualized the idea of the Tamers combining with their Digimon to reach the highest level of evolution, Mega.

As a result, the staff decided to portray death as a shocking event by using Leomon like in Digimon Adventure, even though Konaka had doubts about it.

"[12] Producer Hiromi Seki had wanted the three main characters to be of mixed genders and consist of an immigrant or someone not raised in Japan.

[26][27] However, Toei Animation had rejected the pitch; Konaka claimed it was due to casting problems, particularly in regards to having some voice actors reprise their roles or play older versions of their characters convincingly.

[33] An edited English-language version was produced by distributor Saban Entertainment and aired on Fox Kids in the United States from September 1, 2001, to June 8, 2002 as the third season of Digimon: Digital Monsters.

Saban's version received various changes to character names, music and sound effects, as well as edits pertaining to violence and cultural references.

The show also began airing on ABC Family in 2002, after Disney had acquired the rights from Saban Entertainment, which later also included a package deal with Digimon Frontier.

[37] The series was added to the Netflix Instant Streaming service on August 3, 2013 in separate English dubbed and Japanese subtitled versions.

The film takes place during the Tamers' summer vacation, where Mephistomon sends Digimon to invade the Real World through a virus called the "V-Pet."

[44] Digimon Tamers 1984, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and illustrated by Kenji Watanabe, was published on July 5, 2002 in Volume 5 of SF Japan, a Japanese science fiction magazine.

[45] Due to its differences from the first two Digimon series, Tamers received mixed reviews when it first aired in the United States (September 1, 2001).

[47] Regarding this, Konaka believes that Calumon and Terriermon were able to tone down the grim and serious atmosphere of the occasionally tough scenes throughout the series.

She points out the metafictional story of Tamers where "bits of forgotten computer data have fused to become a separate world inhabited by live creatures".

Through the existence of intangible communication networks as a "product of human ingenuity", she concludes that "those of us in the 'real' world have become so good at playing creator, at making 'things' appear much like 'real' creatures, that we tend to confuse the two.