greenwolvesoforion-902-707610
*Sorry for the long review!* I remember when Pokemon and Digimon were first broadcast in England. Pokemon came out first, at that seemed pretty cool. My brother loved it, and I liked it... But a few weeks later when I saw the adverts for Digimon I thought ''that looks like Pokemon, it must be as good''. I was wrong... IT WAS 50 BILLION TIMES BETTER!!!!!I found Pokemon same-ish and boring after four episodes. it was literally: "Wow! A new pokemon! Lets get it! Oh no, Pikachu's been stolen by Team Rocket, Lets get him back and blow them up!" That was pretty much the story in EVERY SINGLE STINKIN' EPISODE!! In Digimon, OK I admit the animation isn't 100% and the jokes are pretty bad sometimes... and the English dub probably isn't as half as good as English Subtitled Japanese episodes but ignoring that, you have one of the most brilliant anime/TV shows on the face of the Earth! (Series 1 was the best, Series 2 was pretty cool, Series 3 I loved, Series 4 I had to watch online as it was never broadcast in the UK... And I can see why, it was just an epic fail... First three series? BEST TV SHOW EVER!!!)My brother loved Pokemon and he claimed Digimon was rubbish. So what did I do? Made him watch an episode, and another... and another... Then he watched the whole series, with me, quite happilly. I was fascinated by the characters in Digimon and how they changed. They were so real! Tai was the leader of the group, Matt was the cool kid, Sora was like the friend to everyone, Izzy was the computer-obsessed smart kid, Joe was a bit of a geek, Mimi was the person who went shopping at the mall, TK was a little kid, Kari (Who appears later in the series)is another little kid... It's amazing how much they change in the series! Tai was a bit 'Everything has to be done my way!' Without letting the others get a word in, but as the series continued, he changed and let everyone else have their say. Matt was a loner, but he became more of a team member later. TK and Kari the little kids, while still being 8 year olds and the end of the series, grow up and become more mature (Just because you're tall it doesn't mean you've grown). Mimi, who thinks she's perfect and the world will always be perfect for her, changes as friendly Digimon die and she begins to realise that bad things happen and that you have to deal with them. (My favorite characters were Sora, Matt, Gabumon, Biyomon, Gommamon, TK, Patamon, Kari, Gatomon... OK that's a lot of favorite characters, but still)Digimon's probably the reason I'm like I am now. When I first watched this as an 8 year old, I didn't really understand what was going on, but watching it again, so many years later, I can understand it, and I can see a lot of the characters personalities in myself... And I'm still learning from it. I had an argument with a friend, and thought they were to blame. I went home and watched an episode of Digimon 'Princess Karaoke' which was focusing on Mimi and how she treated Tai and Joe, and how her nightmares were trying to tell her she'd done something wrong, and Sora helped explain... And I realised that I was probably the one who'd done something wrong. Thanks to Digimon, I still have one of my best friends today, instead of losing them over a silly argument.Don't dismiss this as a cheesy kid's show, it actually has a lot of meaning hidden in it. It's surprisingly WAY more than it first appears. When I was 8 and first watching this show, I wished I could go to the Digital World too... I wish I could have been part of the group with my own digimon friend...
TheLittleSongbird
I started watching this show fearing it was going to be awful. I had heard that it ripped off Pokemon and was inferior to it. I have to say I disagree, I think it is better than Pokemon(and Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh) and it is not a rip-off I feel. It does have a great concept, so did Pokemon but it jumped the shark far too early, apart from one or two uneven seasons Digimon was surprisingly good. And on a side note, even the movie was better than I expected it to be, even if the final third was rushed and not as focused it was better than any of the Pokemon movies combined.So what were the good things? The animation is mystical and enchanting with well drawn characters and surprisingly good attention to detail. The music I am not a huge fan of but I can tolerate it. There are some original story lines, funny and touching dialogue and endearing characters(heroes and villains). Even the voice work was good, not outstanding but it was dynamic and expressive enough.I do agree the quality of each series is variable. The first and last are brilliant, and the second is very good. The third is okay and the fourth falls short, this was when some of the stories became a little unoriginal and repetitive and the characters less appealing. Thank goodness it redeemed itself though. So overall, a good show, uneven but I do agree it is misjudged and mis-interpreted. 7/10 Bethany Cox
manga-ka
Oh, and the US is totally incapable of making crap? Get the eff off your high horse, American cartoons suck so bad most of the time, there is rarely any good effort put in "American" animation(We all know like 99% of all animation from the US and some from Japan is done in Korea), and you say the stuff that comes from Japan is all crap? Neither Pokemon nor Digimon are a copy of each other, it's just Japanese culture to be fond towards "pet simulators"; plus the naming thing is another Japanese quirk, it's like how we acronym things, like S.W.A.T. Despite your lambasting, Digimon is actually well written given the demographic, it's got strong messages about morality, life, and how good and evil isn't all that simple, and it can be thought provoking at most times. The character design isn't bad, there's a wide range actually, it's quite imaginative. If anyone else argues that, I'd like to see you draw something that appeals to a lot of people. As for the literary aspect, these characters are well written and fully realized, the wonkyness of the cast and plot is mostly attributed to the awful localization of the first two seasons. For gods sake, don't be ignorant and put something down just because it doesn't appeal to you, I may be biased though, since as young as I remember, I grew up watching Digimon, and I'd like to say it has made me a much moral, thoughtful, intelligent person with a deep respect for life. Seriously, this series has its good points, and I'm not crapping on people's opinions otherwise, but you should know just how infantile you are flaming a series just because it gets on your nerves or how you don't like it. I doubt you can come up with any good reason why this series is bad.
Meuron
OK, I began watching this before Pokemon, I liked both anime series, however I thought this was way better the Pokemon, why? Because it wasn't quite as predictable. Once the first season or so of Pokemon came through, I saw it being just milked for all it was worth, more Pokémon being added etc.Digimon, although released a while after Pokemon, had several differences - mainly the evolution and the actual layout of the story.However like all TV series however good, future seasons become more dragged along and lose the main characters of the first original season.Still, if I had the choice between watching all Digimon series/movies and playing the games etc. to Pokemon's movies/series and games, Digimon would win.
