Digimon

Related Topics:
Digimon :: Digimon_Series :: Digimon_World :: Digimon_World_2 :: Digimon_World_3 :: Digimon_-_Battle_Spirit

This article is about the franchise. For the anime, see Digital Monsters.

(short for Digital Monster) is a very popular Japanese series of children's merchandise, including toys, manga and anime, featuring monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World".

Overview

Digimon started out as a dueling digital pet similar to Tamagotchi, which was called "Digital Monster" and was released by Bandai on June 26, 1997. The Digital Monster toy was enormously successful, and four different colors of the toy were released in November of the same year. In December of the same year, the second generation of "Digital Monster" was released. Many have criticized it as a clone of Pokémon, as the Tamagotchi was released in 1997 as opposed to 1996, however Bandai was already working on Digimon in 1995. The Digimon Mini released in 2005 celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Digimon product), though it became popular in the United States before the latter. However, the Tamagotchi bears little resemblance to the Digimon TV show or card game. Digimon and Pokémon may have a few factors in common (being marketed toward children in North America and being part of the same genre), but differ in original target audience, concept, spirit and design.

Digimon first appeared in illustrated form with the advent of the one-shot manga C'mon Digimon, which was released in summer 1997. C'mon Digimon spawned the popular Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 manga series, which began on November 21, 1998. Digimon first appeared in game form on January 28, 1999 with the release of the popular Digimon World game for PlayStation and made its first foray into animation a few months later.

TV series

Following the release of the first Digimon movie in Japan in 1999, the first Digimon television series, Digimon Adventure began airing on Fuji TV in March of the same year; three other series followed in consecutive years and one several after: Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers, Digimon Frontier and Digimon Savers. Adventure 02 is a continuation of Adventure. The Tamers' only connection to the Adventure series is the character Ryou, whose story was explained through the Digimon games for Bandai's WonderSwan and the connection to the Tamers takes place outside of the first two series in our world, where Digimon is a tv show and merchandise line. Frontier has no continuity connections to the other three series. Additionally, there have been eight individual Digimon films released in Japan with all but the eighth spinning out of the assorted TV series. All the movies, except the eighth, have been released and distributed internationally. The Digimon series was thought to have ended with Frontier's 50th Episode (205th overall), End of the Line. For three years, it appeared that Frontier would be the final anime series. However, the fandom was pleasantly surprised to find that a fifth series was confirmed at Jump Festa 2006. The new series, titled Digimon Savers, first aired on April 2 2006 on Fuji TV. Digimon Savers has no continuity connection to the previous series.

Comics

C'mon Digimon

Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01

Digimon Next

Digimon Chronicle

D-Cyber

Dark Horse

Dark Horse Comics published American-style Digimon comic books, adapting the first dubbed 13 episodes of the first animated season. The conclusion to the story arc, however, was never released.

Panini

The European publishing company, Panini, approached Digimon in different ways in different countries. While Germany created their own adaptations of episodes, the United Kingdom reprinted the Dark Horse titles, then translated some of the German adaptations of second-season episodes, and finally began to print their own original stories, which appeared in both the UK's Official Digimon Magazine, and the official Fox Kids companion magazine, Wickid. These original tales danced in and around the continuity of the second animated season, before shifting to the third season, where the stories were more carefully thought out to fit between the tight storytelling of the animated series and would sometimes focusing on subject matter not covered by the show (such as Yamaki's past) or in the west (such as Ryo's story or the undubbed movies). Eventually, in a money saving venture, the original stories were removed from Digimon Magazine, which returned to printing translated German adaptations, this time of Tamers episodes. Eventually, both magazines were cancelled.

Yuen Wong Yu (TOKYOPOP/Chuang Yi) manga

The Digimon manga released by TOKYOPOP in North America and Chuang Yi in Singapore is a Chinese manhua written and drawn by Yuen Wong Yu, based on the television series and brought to North America, translated by Lianne Sentar. Covering Digimon Adventure in five volumes, Digimon Adventure 02 in two and Digimon Tamers in four, it is heavily abridged, though in rare occasions plays through events differently to the anime. This is the main attraction of the series. Three additional volumes exist, covering Digimon Frontier, but these have not been released in English by TOKYOPOP.

Shipping

Digimon fanshippers popularized the jargon of their specific brand of shipping by combining the first and last syllables of the relevant characters names [http://syldra.net/kenkeru/junk/meimi2.htm, rather than the standard American "/" or "x". This is most often done with the Japanese names rather than the English ones. For example, a relationship between Kari (Hikari) and T.K. (Takeru) is usually labelled "Takari". This is comparable to Japanese contraction, but done in the same fashion as English portmanteaux words.

Notable people

Akiyoshi Hongo - Creator of the original Digimon concept
Hiroyuki Kakudo - Director of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02
Yukio Kaizawa - Director of Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
Naozumi Itō - Director of Digimon Savers
Chiaki J. Konaka - Head writer of Digimon Tamers
Takanori Arisawa - Composer of the Japanese versions of Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
Jeff Nimoy - US Director of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02
Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - US Director of Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
Yuen Wong Wu - Author of the Digimon Adventure manga.
Hiroshi Izawa - Author of the Digimon Adventure V-Tamer01 manga.
Tenya Yabuno - Illustrator of the Digimon Adventure V-Tamer01 manga.

Notes

External links

English

Bandai of America's Digimon Site
JETIX U.S. Digimon Tamers website
The Digi-Zone.com
Megchan's Digimon Encyclopedia, archived at The Shining Evolution
Digimon Encyclopedia
Patamon's World
TheDigiPort
Wikimon, the Digimon Wiki
Digimon Himitsu
With the Will Forums

Japanese

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