The History of DIGIMON

0:00 digimon digital monsters digimon not the champions if you were a kid in the us during late 90s or early 2000s and you had access to a channel with the fox kids programming block you certainly remember this poetry from the anime digimon digital monsters their lyrics as beautiful and important as any national anthem but how did the digimon the little creatures from the digital world that we race to fight and evolve become the champions and how did a line of virtual pets eventually spawn a massive franchise that span across anime video games trading cards manga and adorable plushies to figure that out we have to go back to the ancient times of 1996 bandai developer akimata had just helped

0:46 to invent the tamagotchi and while it wasn't the first pet raising simulation game this brand of virtual pet caught on like a wildfire you could carry them around they were pleasant little blobs and all you had to do was remember the basic knees from time to time though marketed mostly to teenage girls by may 1997 bandai had sold over 5 million units around the world and the demand for them was so high that there was literally a tamagotchi black market where the virtual pets could be sold for anywhere from 20 to 60 times the store price fun fact i had one in korea and if i remember correctly i lost it on the way back to school and so bandai realizing that they should probably capitalize on this with more pocket-sized critters did the next logical thing they wondered what would happen if they

1:33 could make the little monsters fight the result was digimon short for digital monsters usually credited to akio shihongo which is actually a pseudonym that combines the name of a group of people who helped to create the series it was released in june of 1997. like the tamagotchi you had to birth it take care of it and if you didn't pay enough attention to it it died but unlike the tamagotchi you could also link up with a friend's digimon and battle your monsters in an all-out no-holds-barred violent war of really little pixels going back and forth across the screen about this big and by 2004 these tiny beasts had racked up 14 million units sold double fun fact i also had this in korea and i remember

2:19 dropping it in the rain drain the day after i got my digimon to digivolve into devi mon rest in peace devon however at this point i feel like it's the appropriate time to strangle a rumor that has plagued the monster fighting community and elementary school playgrounds for decades which came first pokemon or digimon well dance to that pokemon did come first the original game red and green were released for the game boy in japan in february 1996 over a year before the digimon came out but digimon hit u.s soils first with the virtual pet debuting in january 1998 about eight months before pokemon anime and games made their way to the tv screens

3:05 store shelves so there i guess that mystery solved more waves of digimon virtual pets were released over the next few years with the monster designs coming from kenji watanabe due to the popularity and influence of american comics in japan at the time watanabe worked to transform the monsters from cute roundish designs that were inspired by tamagotchis to creatures that were more strong and cool i mean look at devimon what a cool mod also they'd need as much monsters as possible and by the end of the year digimon weren't just limited to little battle squares they were poised to break out in just about every possible medium 1997 saw the release of the first digimon manga come on digimon that's the name of the manga i'm not telling did you want to come on come on digimon is a one shot for v jump

3:51 magazine the next year one of come on digimon's authors hiroshi izawa would go on to create the manga series digimon adventure v tamer01 and would introduce a version of a character that anime fans all know and love the big hair goggles wearing tai chi but we'll get to the side of digimon universe in a bit because 1998 would also be the year that the first digimon video game came out digital monsters version s digital tamers for the sega saturn and it much like the sega saturn has been mostly forgotten but some of that is probably due to the fact that a few months later bandai would launch a video game line that most fans associate with the series digimon world released in january 1999

4:37 in japan and showing off our boy metal grey mod front and center on the cover this adventure rpg was a modest hit selling only 250 000 copies by the next year that is a pretty far cry from the deafening success that pokemon was experiencing but its mechanics and his outlandishly cool character designs also gave fans an alternative to whatever professor oak was having you do at the time that said bandai was hopeful that digimon world would be more widely appreciated in the us and helped to launch a massive marketing campaign for it even offering limited edition digimon game cards to the first hundred thousand people who bought it and hundred thousand people would probably reasonably be into it see the children of the us were already well aware of what digimon was

5:22 as a certain popular programming blog was showing its anime adaptation nearly every single day of the week but let's backtrack for a second planning for the first digimon adventure series began in japan by the summer of 1998 with satoru nishizono at the scriptwriter and hiroyuki kakudo as serious director it was produced by and is still produced by toei the famed cat animation studio behind such anime classics as dragon ball one piece and sailor moon the anime's release was a one-two punch though as the day before the first episode premiered a short animated film called digimon adventure would be released in theaters it served as the prequel to the anime and features the anime main character tai as a little kid that's trying not to get squashed by greymon

6:08 and paramom that one is directed by mamuro hosoda who you might know from stuff like summer wars one piece baron omatsuri and the secret island and other films digimon adventures would set the standard for all digimon series to come after it with its now familiar storyline a group of kids or digi destined in this case tai mat sora joe mimi izzy tk and eventually kari find some digimon partners for themselves end up saving either the real world or the digital world or both they fight a long string of nefarious foes all while running into copious obstacles as they just try and figure out how to live their lives from there it's a well-worn formula at this point but it's super effective the show was a success but unlike pokemon it wouldn't take

6:54 almost a year and a half for the anime version to make it to the u.s saban entertainment who had in the early 90s helped turn japan's tokusatsu franchise super sentai into america's wildly popular mighty morphin power rangers was no stranger to churning out hits for the fox network and so they licensed digimon adventure releasing it as digimon digital monsters on august 14 1999 on fox kids of course accusations followed that it was just trying to ape pokemon's success but fox kids and sabon didn't give pokemon had been a raiding smash for kids wb and now fox kids had finally a contender to the throne and they would end up airing it on monday

7:39 tuesday wednesday thursday friday and saturday meanwhile a digimon card game would be released but despite how enthusiastic the shouting children are in the commercial fort it never really attained the cultural relevance that pokemon had in the same area in the u.s however in japan it was hugely popular for a while with over 500 hobby shops serving it as official stores more virtual pets would be released as well with the device eventually being modeled after the evolution supporting digivice seen in the anime and the video game series would continue to pump out titles for the playstation and even the very short-lived wonder swan the japan exclusive handheld that you and i probably never got to get our hands on the digimon adventure television series would lead to a direct continuation with digimon adventure

8:26 0-2 which featured a new crop of kids the older returning cast from adventure and the nefarious digimon emperor who of course has cool goggles and a cape to die for it was also directed by kakto but digimon wasn't meant to last on the small screen forever though as most digimon time films are short films and so fox decided it was time to cash in but here's the thing unlike pokemon the first movie which was a full actual movie digimon the movie is cobbled together from multiple films including the aforementioned digimon adventure short and another short film that hosada also directed our war game remember how excited you were about the prospect of a digimon film only to be treated to shifting art styles and barely comprehensible story

9:12 well now you know so in october of 2000 american children and the baffled parents that bought the ticket got the beautiful mess that is digimon the movie which is mostly remembered nowadays for his bizarrely timely soundtrack which featured a pre-shrek use of all star by smash mouth one week by the barenaked ladies less than jake and the most oddly inescapable song of the late 90s and early 2000s fatboy slims the rockefeller skank you know the song the one that goes right about now brother check it out now brother check it oh yeah the movie despite the fact that it opened with an angel anaconda short which is the most late 90s things ever it did 16 million dollars in the box office on a

9:57 budget of 5 million not pokemon numbers but not a disaster either i guess that's just the power of fat boy slam but when digimon adventures 1 and 2 ended and it came time to make an inevitable third series the directing and writing team had no clue of where to take it even after a few days of thinking about it enter new series writer chiaki j konoka konoka is known for things like birdie the mighty the big o helsing and serial experiments lame basically he's the godfather of everything a lot of anime fans got pumped up about in the 90s to 2000s and he's never been shy about taking a familiar genre and flipping it on its head he was concerned that if the trends in the past series continued the monsoon-like spirit of the digimon would be diminished

10:45 and so he decided to rethink what it is to be a digimon what followed was digimon tamers aka season three of digimon digital monsters a series that many fans feel is best in the franchise darker than previous installments tamus take place in an entirely different world from the first two series where in this world digimon is already a popular franchise and card game intent by digimon cards kids here the standard digivice used to aid in the evolution of digimon of the last two series became a d power a device that when you use a special card on it it could do special things to your digimon pals with tamers koloka conceived a return to the primary theme of the original virtual pet in which a monster's main method of communication was battling and only after that did it

11:30 evolve into friendship that gave tamers an edge and also allowed it to go to places that the previous series didn't just let you know this series was sad y'all beloved characters die the kids frequently feel awful and the growing feeling of we're all in this together that you often get from adventure is largely absent super fun stuff but while digimon was experiencing a sort of creative renaissance the once popular fox kids was on its last legs despite hosting two straight years of digibol an event that pitted digimon series against one another that was hosted by nfl broadcaster terry bradshaw and putting digimon in what seemed like every available time slot fox kids would soon cancel its daily afternoon programming blocks

12:16 and then a bit later sell at saturday morning airspace to four kids entertainment who you may remember as the people that licensed the pokemon anime disney would acquire the broadcasting rights to digimon from saban for a while in 2001 and tamers along with next series digimon frontier with aeron stations like abc family in frontier the main kids could merge with the ancient spirits to become digimon themselves all in the quest to defeat the evil lusoman a former ruler of the digimon world who is now just kind of a jerk this concept is neat and really made for an underrated season if that idea makes you think that digimon needed a break after five years of relentless production in well every area of everything you're not alone because after 2003's frontier ended and

13:03 the accompanying digimon frontier film bombed it would be over three years before another series aired in japan and after digimon world 3 came out in 2002 we wouldn't get another one of those until 2005. digimon and what had become the two biggest parts of his empire took a much needed rest and then boom at jump festa 2006 toei announces digimon savers and remember your little blizzard bro agamon the lead digimon from the original adventures he's returning as the main character meanwhile if you wanted new games around the same time you could shove digimon world 4 into your ps2 or gamecube and if you were a man of refined taste you would soon be sinking weeks and months of your life

13:48 into digimon world ds digimon was back baby well sort of see that long break thing would become kind of the norm for digimon anime series going forward in 2006 we got savers or digimon data squad in the us which dealt with a government organization that handled problems between the human and digital worlds the main character marcus and his pals eventually have to as is familiar by now save both the digital and the real world from both people and digimon who can't leave well enough alone in 2010 we got digimon cross wars or digimon fusion in the u.s where the monsters can be fused together to create more powerful ones here the main kids and their eventual horde of digimon are called the fusion fighters and unlike the other series

14:34 cross wars is divided into three different seasons with 79 episodes among them this is the longest digimon series to date in 2015 and 2016 we got the return of the og digidestined in the series of six digimon adventure tri movies here the former fourth graders are now in high school and have to experience every bit of angst and the massive digimon outbreaks that come with that super relatable stuff to everyone in high school right you know we all had our angst and massive digimon outbreaks there was also digimon universe at monsters where the critters lurk in mobile apps and our heroes have to take on an evil artificial intelligence called leviathan basically it's the closest thing to a black mirror episode that digimon ever got and in 2020 we got to send off to those aforementioned

15:22 og digidestined with the film digimon adventure last evolution kizuna where the group of kids that you grew up with have to say goodbye to their digital partners it's very very sad then also in 2020 there was a glorious reboot featuring new versions of the classic digimon characters called digimon adventure it follows a lot of the same beats as the original digimon adventure but with enough twists that new and long time fans should find something to enjoy in it it also streams every week on crunchyroll.com check it out the last five years have also seen a return of the digimon video games to international markets with digimon cyber sleuth being one of the most notable a new installment of the card game recently made a resurgence in japan and those are classic virtual pets well

16:08 along with various new versions of those they also did make some 20th anniversary editions which is in the classic original design all you got to do is get your friends to buy one and then you're set to crush them in battle all of this might sound a little sad i mean we get a new pokemon game roughly every six seconds nintendo and the pokemon company will announce a new puzzle game a new app and pokemon let's go brush the teeth so digimon is obviously the loser in this battle right well not really because despite appearing in the shadows of pokemon by people trying to desperately to market at the same time digimon is very much his own thing they do cover many of the same themes like is it really good to be using these monsters that obviously feel emotion and pain to fight one another

16:54 and is it the best plan to send out a 10 year old or a group of 10 year olds out to solve the world's problems and save it but there's one thing that digimon has always offered that keeps it definitely separate from pikachu remember back when i talked about digimon pets dying if you don't take care of them well that happens quite a bit in digimon monsters lose in battle and while often reincarnated as eggs to begin a new life it still means that life and death are on the line and the characters you love from the adventure branch of the franchise tai mat izzy sora mimi jo tk and kari yeah well they all grow up and get their own lives and eventually have to grapple with the fact that adulthood doesn't really mesh well with having a 2 foot tall monster pal that follows you around

17:39 i don't know why so if you're hesitant to dive into the new adventure series don't look at it as a remake maybe look at it as the egg that comes into being when the old timeline passes on digimon reborn for a new life of tv series and video games and collectible cards and manga and virtual pets and who knows maybe you'll like it i mean they are the champions after all thank you so much for tuning in and we all know the drill at this point but i'll say it again if you guys like this video please subscribe and check out those little rectangles and circles that pop up at the end of the videos and with all that digimon digital monsters digimon not the champions digimon digital monsters digimon not that champions i forgot how to help them alright see you later bye