Anime Overview: Digimon

    There were a lot of anime in the late 90’s going into 2000 and it was a simpler time for it. Anime for the most part was like any other series of cartoons in the U.S. Good guys vs. bad guys, the only difference being the fun dubbing, and a variety of censors. Anime wasn’t the be all end of all that it sometimes feels like today, as a matter of fact, it was just beginning to enter that phase. Toonami held the bulk of the more memorable anime like Dragonball-Z (though UPN also had it), Rurouni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakuso and others, where WB had Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh! other series were known to Fox like Monster Rancher, Flint the Time Detective”, and of course Digimon. Honestly, out of all these that have been mentioned, Digimon is the one we will be discussing in all of it’s awesomness.

     When you look at it, Digimon looks like a carbon copy of Pokemon and on the surface you would be right. Digimon is about a group of kids who interact with creatures and often through a bond they share, the creatures are able to get stronger and take different forms. But ultimately that is it for the two, Digimon is completely different from Pokemon. Digimon is about a bunch of kids and their Digimon fighting evil to save the world (interestingly, this was the original premise for Pokemon) and that has lived on through all of its successor seasons. Often the problems in the Digital World where Digimon live have an effect on the real world, or the Digidestined are trapped and the only way to get home is to defeat the evil Digimon though for the most part it is the former.

      Digimon was certainly popular when it started, standing along other popular shows at the time like Sailor Moon, DBZ, and Pokemon but never really broke through as the time passed. It went from Fox, to Disney, to Cartoon Network, and it is currently residing on Nickelodeon and is barely making a show. Digimon has gone from being a major player capable of standing with DBZ, to pretty much being Beyblade, which is a bit sad. If I had to guess I would say it would be mostly due to Pokemon being just a bigger franchise, which while not better than Digimon offers something more than Digimon could, which is what we will be discussing at some point with this review. I’m going to cover every season of Digimon and point out fun little things in each season, maybe some things that Digimon has in common with another property.