Thoughts on Digimon

[Surreal Kangaroo]

(Feel free to merge if there is already a thread)
I’ve been rewatching Digimon lately, for the first time in over 20 years. So far I’m enjoying it, even though I think I prefer Pokemon anime. Let me start with some history. When Digimon very first came to the US, I thought it was just some playground rumor (I never watched Fox Kids). After it was around for a month or two, I watched it after my dad saw it on the TV guide. I was really into (but not as much as Pokemon) for a while and I had a few friends who were fans. In hindsight, I seriously think I was only into it for a couple months because only the first 30 or so episodes seem familiar. Like I really want to say Augumon was the only one I saw reach ultimate form, but I could be off on this because some other characters and things from later in the series I remember, but like in a secondhand kind of a way. For example I know about Kari and Gatomon but like I just saw them in commercials or heard friends talking about it.

Fast forward to 2004 when reruns came to Toon Disney. My brother and I decided to watch it for the nostalgia, and I got borderline obsessed for like a month or two. And that’s the last I saw it until now. I applaud the dub for keeping most of the Japanese names and not censoring religious imagery (although they did censor poop).

A few years ago I had a friend say that he likes Digimon more than Pokemon (the anime). At the time I was like “That’s a hot take” but now I can kind of see it. I don’t agree but I get it. One thing Digimon had going for it is that the mons are more anthropomorphic so they can be more relatable characters (not saying the likes of Pikachu and Bulbasaur can’t be lovable). I think the main thing that holds the Digimon back for me (and these are personal problems) is the Japanese names of the creatures can be hard for me to remember sometimes and the evolutions sometimes seem random, making it harder for me to follow (for example Patamon into Angelmon, they are cool on their own, but together they don’t make sense to me).

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I absolutely ate both Digimon and Pokemon out. With Digimon edging it up a bit. I watched Pokemon until Diamond and Pearl. I never had any trouble with any Japanese names in Digimon.

 

[CartoonCF]

I'm certain I've watched it a bit when it was on tv(definitely leaned more towards Pokemon tho), & still have some toys. I like Adventure, 02, & the first couple eps of Tamers.

I think the characters in Digimon are interesting, & the designs of the Digimon can be really cool. My favorites would probably be the Gabumon & Veemon lines.

 

[CyberCubed]

There probably is some kind of irony that the Pokemon anime became more popular than Digimon overall. Back in the 90's (?) I remember everyone saying Digimon had a better plot than Pokemon, and I guess for some that could be true, but overall I guess the Pokemon anime won out?

Digimon went through a series of reboots and a constantly changed cast over 20 years, while Pokemon used Ash up till recently. I think in the end the Pokemon anime wound up superior, even with the weaker seasons of the show (like Johto and BW, etc).

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

There probably is some kind of irony that the Pokemon anime became more popular than Digimon overall. Back in the 90's (?) I remember everyone saying Digimon had a better plot than Pokemon, and I guess for some that could be true, but overall I guess the Pokemon anime won out?

Everyone who watched the two said Digimon had a better plot because... Digimon objectively HAD a better plot. Like you can argue the story and characters and animation all you want but in terms of things actually HAPPENING in the narrative leading to the overall momentum of the story evolving and having things CHANGE throughout, that would be Digimon. Like a Digimon vs Pokemon comparison in terms of story is kind of like comparing the story of Avatar The Last Airbender to... Fairly Oddparents. Like it is clear one is by far more TRYING with it's story then the other. Obviously story isn't everything and general world or appeal matter more in long term franchise building especially for material made for kids, but yeah Digimon did have the better story in it's season, helped by like... 90% of it not being filler in relation to the overall main quest and goals of the character.

And I don't want this to be a whole flame war between the two as that's not the point I'm just making that point. I will say though the only reason like many that I wathced Digimon back in the day because of my love for Pokemon so when I saw "oh hey there's another series involving kids obtaining monster pets they go on adventures with" I was sold and ate up that first season when it came out summer of 1999 and really loved that cast and their adventures. I admit 02 I wasn't as big on. I do remember being annoyed at especially the new kids in that season and wishing for more focus on TK and Kari over Davis Ken, Yolei and Cody let alone the other 01 Adventure kids but you know in retrospect there is a fair amount to enjoy about that season. I think how that ended though made me more luke warm on Tamers and made me really in earnest only start checking it out midway through but I eventually did watch most of that and yeah that is a really good season though I admit after that is where my love of the franchise died down. I did watch the first few episodes of Frontier (and the dub theme is easily one of my favorites of all time even as a kid I probably listened and played that like 50 times in a row) but I could never get into that season and yeah since then didn't keep up with many of the other seasons. Like the last thing I really watched was the big epic cross over battle at the end of fusions but even the reboot of the adventure series based off what I heard wasn't my thing so I did fall out with that franchise but those first 3 seasons I still feel hold up really well and still have a lot of great memories of it that I'll carry with me.

 

[Light Lucario]

I like Digimon. I remember watching it on Fox Kids back in the day. It was on their afternoon block, which started earlier than Kids' WB did, and I was so hooked on the cliffhanger where the Adventure kid couldn't get back to the real world that I just had to watch the next episode the following day. I also remember hearing about it initially and thinking it was a Pokemon clone due to its name. That was a really common assumption, but watching one episode made it clear how different they were.

Although it has some great characters and storylines, the franchise never quite clicked with me as much as Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! has. People constantly saying how much better it is than the Pokemon anime probably didn't help. I also find it kind of ironic how people would frequently praise the franchise for changing the cast with every series when they've been relying heavily on Adventures nostalgia since Tri. They still had other shows like Ghost Game and Appmon, but the Adventures nostalgia has been getting the bulk of the attention for years.

My favorite series is Tamers. I just really love the characters, the storyline and the bond between the kids and their Digimon. I haven't kept up with the new installments since Tri ended, but I did like Adventure Tri. One of these days I'll try to check out the more recent movies too.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I like Digimon. I remember watching it on Fox Kids back in the day. It was on their afternoon block, which started earlier than Kids' WB did, and I was so hooked on the cliffhanger where the Adventure kid couldn't get back to the real world that I just had to watch the next episode the following day. I also remember hearing about it initially and thinking it was a Pokemon clone due to its name. That was a really common assumption, but watching one episode made it clear how different they were.

Although it has some great characters and storylines, the franchise never quite clicked with me as much as Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh! has. People constantly saying how much better it is than the Pokemon anime probably didn't help. I also find it kind of ironic how people would frequently praise the franchise for changing the cast with every series when they've been relying heavily on Adventures nostalgia since Tri. They still had other shows like Ghost Game and Appmon, but the Adventures nostalgia has been getting the bulk of the attention for years.

My favorite series is Tamers. I just really love the characters, the storyline and the bond between the kids and their Digimon. I haven't kept up with the new installments since Tri ended, but I did like Adventure Tri. One of these days I'll try to check out the more recent movies too.

Another that was massively praised about Digimon was that they werent afraid to make the girls protoganists and fight alongside the boys but even that became less and less true as time went on.

 

[Light Lucario]

Another that was massively praised about Digimon was that they werent afraid to make the girls protoganists and fight alongside the boys but even that became less and less true as time went on.

I'm not sure if I've heard that praise before. I think that would only apply for the first three series. Frontier and onward typically only had one token female lead in the group.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I'm not sure if I've heard that praise before. I think that would only apply for the first three series. Frontier and onward typically only had one token female lead in the group.

Precisely.

 

[CyberCubed]

Another that was massively praised about Digimon was that they werent afraid to make the girls protoganists and fight alongside the boys but even that became less and less true as time went on.

I dunno, Pokemon more or less did the same. Even if Misty didn't have a real goal like Ash, she still jumped into the action enough at least early on before she got Togepi. Then May and Dawn were given more lead roles especially after and took the spotlight away from Ash for a large chunk of eps at a time.

In fact I think Pokemon probably has some of the best gender representation for a children's anime.

 

[Light Lucario]

I dunno, Pokemon more or less did the same. Even if Misty didn't have a real goal like Ash, she still jumped into the action enough at least early on before she got Togepi. Then May and Dawn were given more lead roles especially after and took the spotlight away from Ash for a large chunk of eps at a time.

In fact I think Pokemon probably has some of the best gender representation for a children's anime.

I wouldn't say that Misty jumped into action exactly. She didn't get a lot of battles, most of her Pokemon were pretty forgettable and her first attempt at battle was throwing out a Goldeen that couldn't do anything. She'd often talked a big game about being a Water Pokemon Master in training, but didn't back it up. May and Dawn were much better by comparison. They were much more proactive with their goals, had battle active goals and Dawn in particular was a co-lead with Ash in DP.

I'm not sure about Pokemon having the best gender representation for a children's anime either. If we're talking specifically about how it handles female representation, I think it's a lot weaker. May, Dawn and arguably Serena were all handled well, but the rest of the female leads are more of a mix bag. Journeys couldn't even bother to make Chloe a proper female lead and had her stay behind at the lab most of the time while the boys had cool adventures with Pokemon. That isn't to say that all other female leads were handled poorly. I honestly like Chloe a lot more than other fans, but I think that there are some issues with it as representation.

 

[CyberCubed]

I'd definitely say Pokemon has a well rounded different personality cast for females casts though. Think about it, we'd had a whopping 9 different female companions on the cast, all of them have very distinct personalities from each other, and most of them usually get some character development or arc over the series. Now of course as we know some of them were handled better than others, but the writers still made an effort with all of them and they weren't treated like "damsels in distress" or just stood around waiting for Ash to do everything.

I watched a lot of other anime, especially shonen anime, where the female characters are just kinda pushed to the sidelines while the male characters do all the fighting. Even in ones where the female characters "fight" too, they tend to get sidelined as a series goes on. Pokemon is not really like that.

 

[Light Lucario]

I'd definitely say Pokemon has a well rounded different personality cast for females casts though. Think about it, we'd had a whopping 9 different female companions on the cast, all of them have very distinct personalities from each other, and most of them usually get some character development or arc over the series. Now of course as we know some of them were handled better than others, but the writers still made an effort with all of them and they weren't treated like "damsels in distress" or just stood around waiting for Ash to do everything.

I watched a lot of other anime, especially shonen anime, where the female characters are just kinda pushed to the sidelines while the male characters do all the fighting. Even in ones where the female characters "fight" too, they tend to get sidelined as a series goes on. Pokemon is not really like that.

I've watched other anime with worse treatment of female leads too, including other franchises that I like. That being said, I don't know how much credit I'd give Pokemon in regard to female representation. The female leads do have distinct personalities with different storylines, which is good, but only a few were battle active. We haven't had a battle active female lead since Dawn. Even if you count Iris, BW was still a long time ago. I have heard that Liko has been doing more battles, but her goal isn't battle related from what I can tell. Chloe wasn't a damsel in distress or waiting for Ash to do everything, but she was put on the sidelines, staying at the lab most of the time even after becoming a trainer while Ash and Goh got to have more adventures. And this wasn't an issue specifically to Chloe. The anime had been moving away from female leads being into battles for years.

The overall treatment of female characters in Pokemon is not bad, but I also wouldn't consider it a highlight of the anime or necessarily think it is significantly better than how other female characters are handled in other toyetic series.

To bring this back to Digimon, the female leads after Tamers weren't bad from what I remember, but they didn't really get to stand out much compared to the male leads either. Having fewer female characters in the main cast didn't help matters either.

 

[Vuxovich]

I have only watched the Serbian dub of Digimon Adventure's first installment. It was 100% based on the original Japanese version. But I wonder. Why most of the Digimon Adventure 01's dubs (including German, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish etc.) were inspired by or based on the Saban dub, with one notable excepton being the Serbian one? I enjoyed Digimon Adventure 01 so much that I swore in my head that I will never watch the certain Powerpuff Girls anime. I eventually did watch PPGZ for Cartoon Network's 30th anniversary.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I have only watched the Serbian dub of Digimon Adventure's first installment. It was 100% based on the original Japanese version. But I wonder. Why most of the Digimon Adventure 01's dubs (including German, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish etc.) were inspired by or based on the Saban dub, with one notable excepton being the Serbian one? I enjoyed Digimon Adventure 01 so much that I swore in my head that I will never watch the certain Powerpuff Girls anime. I eventually did watch PPGZ for Cartoon Network's 30th anniversary.

Because they sold the same toys, the characters names had to match the toys in those regions. But rest assured, other than France, most regions used the Japanese version but had the USA names.

 

[RegularCapital]

I have only watched the Serbian dub of Digimon Adventure's first installment. It was 100% based on the original Japanese version. But I wonder. Why most of the Digimon Adventure 01's dubs (including German, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish etc.) were inspired by or based on the Saban dub, with one notable excepton being the Serbian one? I enjoyed Digimon Adventure 01 so much that I swore in my head that I will never watch the certain Powerpuff Girls anime. I eventually did watch PPGZ for Cartoon Network's 30th anniversary.

Likely because Fox Kids didn't have a Serbian audio track on the Central Eastern Europe feed and Saban was probably less strict as they won't be airing it.

 

[LinusFan303]

Digimon is my thing! I know there was a like a Pokémon vs. Digimon thing going on , I was more into the later (the former I really didn't get much into until the XY series) but found that kind of strange since they weren't same thing just both ending with mon. I knew the difference since my best friend was a Pokémon person. I only lost any track of it when it left UPN and ABC Family, until Xros Wars (Fusion) made it to Nickeldoen/Nicktoons. I liked Ghost Game it was an entertaining and fun series.

The idea of them switching characters for different series is nice to see how different characters and Digimon interact and different ideas. Especially since it was a more serialized show. (Not a knock on Pokémon) It is kind of shame it doesn't seem to be catching on as much for people versus how long lasting other things are. Ghost Game hasn't been released with a dub yet for example, neither was App Wars. Xros wars never completed a dub, I think, I know it was dropped from Nicktoons before it ever got to finish. Digimon has a place in my heart.

 

[Light Lucario]

Digimon is my thing! I know there was a like a Pokémon vs. Digimon thing going on , I was more into the later (the former I really didn't get much into until the XY series) but found that kind of strange since they weren't same thing just both ending with mon. I knew the difference since my best friend was a Pokémon person. I only lost any track of it when it left UPN and ABC Family, until Xros Wars (Fusion) made it to Nickeldoen/Nicktoons. I liked Ghost Game it was an entertaining and fun series.

The idea of them switching characters for different series is nice to see how different characters and Digimon interact and different ideas. Especially since it was a more serialized show. (Not a knock on Pokémon) It is kind of shame it doesn't seem to be catching on as much for people versus how long lasting other things are. Ghost Game hasn't been released with a dub yet for example, neither was App Wars. Xros wars never completed a dub, I think, I know it was dropped from Nicktoons before it ever got to finish. Digimon has a place in my heart.

I think that Xros Wars aired all of its dubbed episodes on Nicktoons. I don't believe that the Young Hunters series was dubbed. Outside of Adventures and maybe Tamers, I don't think that most Digimon series have been huge in the U.S. The video games must be doing well for them, but I don't think that there's a lot of merchandise compared to other toyetic franchises.

 

[LinusFan303]

I think that Xros Wars aired all of its dubbed episodes on Nicktoons. I don't believe that the Young Hunters series was dubbed. Outside of Adventures and maybe Tamers, I don't think that most Digimon series have been huge in the U.S. The video games must be doing well for them, but I don't think that there's a lot of merchandise compared to other toyetic franchises.

I meant season 3 of Xros Wars wasn't dubbed, I believe so the entire series isn't. Nicktoons did air all the episodes that were dubbed.

 

[RegularCapital]

Really enjoyed Digimon Seasons 1-3, I remember watching them on Fox Kids and CITV, we never had season 4 here (although it was rumoured to air), I assumed that it was a rights issue due to the sale to Disney, I did eventually talk to an ex-Fox Kids/Jetix Europe employee, and said that it might be the reason why. By then, interest in Digimon wained and the focus was on Yu-Gi-Oh!

x.com

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I did eventually watch Season 4 "Frontier" (which had a DVD release too), it felt like a different show, it removed the friendship dynamic between Human and Digimon partner and also there was no action in the real world. Season 5 "Data Squad/Savers" was okay I guess, I think I could give it a rewatch, funnily enough that actually aired here but years later.

Although Fusion/Xros Wars aired here I couldn't get into it, I think that was when my watching experience with Digimon (with new characters and plotline) ended, haven't bothered with App Monsters or Ghost Game. It takes some effort for me to sit down and watch a show, but when I do I am invested in it, as I try to find out everything about it. As it was based on the original series, I did watch Digimon Adventure Tri and made an attempt on Digimon Adventure (2020).

Seasons 1-3 felt like a real adventure, with a sense of endangerment, with its mature themes it was a lot more adult compared to Pokémon (although in Pokémon's case that's usually reserved for the movies). Thanks to this show, I got to watch Serial Experiments Lain and also Summer Wars too.