On February 27th, 1996, Nintendo published two quaint little cartridges called “Pokémon
Red” and “Pokémon Green.”
Twenty three years and countless games, animes, jet skins
and inside-out plushies later, Pokémon has earned over $95 billion dollars, making it
the most profitable media franchise in the world.
But what if… it wasn’t?
Where would we be, as a culture, if instead of Pokémania
we experienced Pokénnui?
What if Digimon had won?
We’re about to step into an entirely fictitious alternate timeline – a Digiverse, so-to-speak,
where the media we had access to in the 90s was different. It takes only a few small tweaks
to create a new, bizarre world, and those tweaks ripple out like the flapping of a Butterfree’s
wings, creating a future so different, it makes the Digiverse unrecognizable
in just 15 years.
When the first Pokémon video game arrived in Japan in 1996, it was instantly popular
– enough to spin off into a card game and anime within a year of its release. The anime
was so popular that 600 Japanese Pokémon fans were taken to the hospital after watching
“Dennō Senshi Porygon” before the year was out. After the so-called seizure episode
aired, the anime went on hiatus for four months before returning to TV Tokyo. Later that year,
the show debuted in America, prompting parents across the Stoeber household to say “is
that that japanimation I’ve been hearing about?”
Meanwhile, Digimon was hatched to Japanese markets in 1997 by Bandai in the form of a
virtual pet, designed to capitalize on the Tamagotchi craze — but “for boys,” which
is a nonsense marketing phrase that means “with fighting.”
The accompanying anime didn’t premiere until two years later, after Pokémon was already
established. Despite being a very different franchise, Digimon was never really able to
shake off the perception of being just a Pokémon clone.
It’s like how stamp collectors are
always getting dunked on by coin collectors just because they both collect systems of
symbolic buying power. It’s like get over it, guys.
In America, the seizure episode warranted a few articles, mostly referencing this unheard
of Japanese cartoon. In Japan, it was a huge incident. Nintendo’s stock dropped 5% and
Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare investigated.
This is where we find the catalyst for the new timeline. Can you imagine a world in which
concerns about “Dennō Senshi Porygon” weren’t put aside?
Take my hand and let me guide you through the Digiverse.
This article from TheJapanTimes includes an innocuous closing line. TV Asahi would have
concerns. One of the owners of this network was Toei Company, who also own Toei Animation,
the studio responsible for uhh a few animes you may have heard of.
And who holds Toei Company?
Bandai.
TV Asahi wasn’t the only company concerned. When “Dennō Senshi Porygon” aired, GameFreak
was still negotiating with Nintendo to bring Pokemon state-side. Gail Tilden, vice president
of product acquisition for Nintendo of America, was already hesitant about bringing it over.
RPGs on the GameBoy hadn’t sold well in America, and Tilden had fair and legitimate
concerns about the anime.
In the Digiverse, TV Asahi never brings the Pokémon anime back from hiatus, and it quietly
disappears. Like other Nintendo franchises with shameful TV histories, Pokémon remains
primarily a video game property.
And with the anime gone, Tilden still green-lights the release of Pokémon Red and Blue, but with
a drastically reduced marketing budget. So, no Volkswagen Pikachus.
With these two logically-sound, very plausible choices, we have destroyed Pokémon’s footprint
in America, leaving space for a different animal-battling franchise to step up.
Digimon sees the chance to capture the market in North America; Bandai goes all-in on promoting
the release of its flagship franchise. We’re talking Time Square Billboards and giant Agumon
bus spreads. Bandai sends out hundreds of digivice watches, telling kids across the
country that they, too, can become digidestined.
In this timeline, Topeka, Kansas never gets the chance to renamed itself “Topekachu.”
Instead, Montgomery, Alabama is briefly renamed “Agumontgomery” to hype Digimon’s arrival
in America in 1999.
The city latches onto the franchise as part of its 2001 downtown
revitalization plan. From 2002-2010, the city hosts a yearly Digimon festival, DigiCon,
and brands itself as the digital capital of America. This has the intended effect, and
the city begins soliciting bids from large tech companies to build their headquarters nearby.
With just two small boardroom decisions, Montgomery, Alabama becomes
the Silicon Valley of the South. Incredible.
But that’s just the beginning.
In the Digiverse, Pokemon Red and Blue (1998) are still modestly successful, mostly purchased
by people who already had a Game Boy.
Compared to our timeline, “modestly successful” is an embarrassment for Pokémon. Of the top
10 best-selling games for the GameBoy, five are Pokémon games. The franchise didn’t
necessarily “save” Nintendo or the Game Boy – both were already successful before Pokemon.
But it did create a monopoly for the Game Boy hardware, like electronic kudzu.
It just strangled out any competitors.
The only real handheld competition was the WonderSwan, which was designed specifically
to beat the Game Boy,
by the man who designed the Game Boy, Gunpei Yokoi. It was cheaper,
had better graphics and battery life – by all accounts it should have been the electric
type to Nintendo’s water type.
But it had poor sales, and was never released in America.
Without a powerhouse IP like Pokémon backing up the WonderSwan, there was no way it could
defeat the Game Boy.
But the WonderSwan was made by Bandai. And in the Digiverse, with its new media landscape
we’ve created, it makes sense to expand it into America. Bandai had previously worked
with Mattel to import the Intellivision to Japan, and now Mattel repays them by bringing
the WonderSwan stateside. It sells okay, staking a place in the market.
Then Digimon Adventure: Anode Tamer and Cathode Tamer are released, and sales of the WonderSwan
make it the number one handheld console. Because it directly ties into the anime, both ventures
experience synergistic boosts.
Digimon – and Bandai – have arrived.
To imagine how weird this would be, take a moment to say out loud:
Do you have the WonderSwan in stock?
With the success of Digimon, Bandai releases several other games based on their manga and
anime properties, including those developed for female audiences. They promote these games
with commercials that take direct shots at the Game Boy for being short-sighted and sexist.
The fighting game Outrageous Fight, Sailor Moon! and the RPG Card Capture Sakura sell
well to audiences of all genders.
Anime remains a niche interest in the Digiverse, so these properties never appear on broadcast
TV. Late-night cable channels air blocks of anime to fill time, and there are a few anime
cons in America, but it never breaks free from of its ultra-violent, ultra-sexual aura.
This is one of the worst aspects
because it means Digiverse-Jenna has never heard "A Cruel Angel's Thesis."
[brief sound-up of "A Cruel Angel's Thesis," an excellent song]
But it’s not just that a few iconic anime and their total-bop theme songs don't make
it to VHS at your local mall’s Suncoast shop. For many Gen Y kids, now known as Millennials,
Pokémon was their first experience with anime. What if it were Digimon instead?
In the Digiverse timeline, Digimon is never considered second-best, and it becomes a runaway
success, praised for its complex character arcs and thoughtful world building. The digivice
becomes a beloved icon that anyone - not just Digimon fans - can identify. Friend groups
form around what Digidestined you are – teen Jenna thinks she’s a Sora
but she's really an Izzy.
Tai and Agumon are household names. Or should I say –
Tyler and Agumon?
See, in this new timeline, any anime airing in America
has to be Americanized within an inch of its life. Whole story arcs are discarded for being
perceived as “too foreign.” Guilmon is re-colored to be red, white, and blue. Tai
Kamiya becomes Tyler Cameron. Sora Takenouchi becomes Sarah Townsend.
Without the mainstreaming effect Pokémon had on anime, Disney predicts a much smaller audience
for the importing of Ghibli movies, and limits the theatrical releases of Princess Mononoke
(1998) and Spirited Away (2002) accordingly. Spirited Away isn’t even nominated for an
Academy Award. Ice Age wins instead, but this has absolutely no effect on the rest of history.
Without a regular anime series, Nintendo basically cancels Pikachu. Pokémon: Yellow is never
released. Neither is the first Pokémon movie, Pokémon: The First Movie, thus robbing us
forever of the time capsule of Roger Ebert’s 2-star review.
In 2001, Nintendo releases a different Pokémon movie, following Ash as he tries to decide
how to evolve his faithful, lifelong companion-pPokéemon: Eevee. The movie is successful in Japan, and
goes straight to video in America, which leads to low sales of the Eevee-centric follow-up
game, Pokémon: Eeveelution.
Despite pre-dating Digimon by a few years, Pokémon is seen in America as just a rip-off,
like how Hydrox predates Oreos by a few years but if you post about liking them on the cookie
boards you’re “just a fake cookie girl.”
Digimon Adventure features a large cast of distinct characters with rich inner lives,
struggling with real world issues. Like the fact that Matt and T.K. were estranged because
of their parents’ divorce. Although we see that more in modern children’s media, it
was still really uncommon in the late ‘90s. In the Digiverse, this story helps a lot of
kids deal emotionally with that struggle, but it also means we’re all up in our brain
about cartoons way earlier.
The DeviantArt message boards become the go-to place for fandom
and feelings.
Digimon characters also have story arcs that allow them to grow. I mean literally, the
characters in Digimon have aged over the years, and long-time fans get to see these characters
mature. They start careers, get married, have kids, and then those kids also get Digimon
for some reason.
A lot of children’s media in 90s America was about rejecting adulthood and staying
young forever but as you may now realize,
that’s not how time works.
Pokémon stories were often specifically about not embracing change,
but I don’t think we can blame Nintendo
entirely on this. I'm looking at you, dorm room Digimon bedsheets.
But Digimon was unique in presenting serialized, arc-driven programming for children. In the
Digiverse, cartoon producers perceive character growth - like, literally growing older - as
essential to getting kids to tune in, week-to-week. Season-long arcs become the standard in children’s
media, and by the mid-2010s, TV critics cite Digimon alongside Hill Street Blues and The
Wire as popularizing this format.
Cartoon characters age in relative real-time. By the late-2000s, older shows like The Simpsons,
whose characters never age, are seen as outdated, unnatural, and limited, like a modern sitcom
with a laugh track. It’s canceled before it can be... canceled.
Other shows change to follow this format. The 17th season of Arthur is about grappling with
aging after he blows out his knee in a pick-up basketball game.
Thus begins the era of planned merchandise obsolescence. Each season of a cartoon features
new character designs – which means last year’s Kimpossible lunchbox isn’t going
to cut it. Keeping up with the most recent version of a character becomes prohibitively
expensive, and a clear class-marker for children. Which means in this new timeline, we would
have been bullied for entirely different things.
And isn’t that fun!
Because the Digimon cartoon has very little “collecting,” it avoids the widespread
criticism that Pokémon received about being akin to hoarding. Instead, concerns are raised
about how, ah… bodacious some of the Digimon are.
Although the furry fandom has existed in some form since the 1980s, the prevalence of buff,
cognizant, anthropomorphized animal creatures in the Digiverse timeline awakens a huge number
of teens to that community. Specifically on DeviantArt, one of the country’s top 5 social
media sites. By the mid 2010s, most furries cite Digimon as their first notable exposure
to the subculture.
Digimon normalizes the furry community in the eyes of the public, so furries are assimilated
into mainstream culture much earlier than in our timeline. Any media that can be made
furry-adjacent is greenlit.
Richard Curtis’ 2009 movie Cats shatters the box office revenue records, only to fall
from grace with the hastily-produced and ill-conceived sequel Cats 2.
It doesn’t land on its feet.
HBO’s Redwall is a dark, adult tale about Matthias, a mouse monk, fighting against Cluny
the Scourge. The series is praised for its practical and lifelike effects, and becomes
a cultural force the likes of which we rarely see.
Nobody owns the concept of furries, so companies like Hot Topic cash in, leading to off-the-rack
fursuits that are poor quality, but which make the lifestyle more accessible.
Because a patamon flapped its wings, it’s cool to be a furry in the Digiverse.
But that's not the only benefit.
Pokémon was a huge money-making endeavor, so a lot of talented designers became cogs
of that machine. So what happens when the talent, freed from chasing that fresh green
Pokémoney, can pursue their own projects?
The Pokémon Card Game was developed by Creatures, Inc, a company founded by former employees
of Ape Inc, makers of cult classic hit EarthBound. Without the extensive Pokémon work on their
plate, Creatures, Inc. is free to return to the Mother franchise unhindered. Instead of
the staggered, 12-year development cycle, the studio releases Mother 3 in 2001.
Great for Mother fans, but what about the rest of us?
We know from interviews in our universe that the N64 version of Mother 3 was going to be
a darker, more adult game, but the writer Itoi’s vision for it softened over the long
development. In the Digiverse, Itoi doesn’t get that time, and the version of Mother 3
that’s released - in Japan and America - is a big tonal shift for Nintendo. The game is
hugely successful and proves that there’s room to mature Mario and Zelda and other Nintendo
IP into hardcore, R-rated media.
Which means no more baby games, game babies.
Nintendo all but abandons chipper, slice-of-life games, which means that Animal Crossing withers
before it can be shaken from the tree.
Digimon claims yet another Nintendo IP.
In the Digiverse, Toei Company focuses on importing more of its live-action shows to
America, with the help of Saban Entertainment, who also localized Digimon. This includes
Super Sentai Series, which in both timelines is recut and renamed Power Rangers. Bandai
holds the toy licenses for these series, of course, and makes a mint from merch sales.
Saban Entertainment quickly becomes a powerhouse in children’s media. In our world, Saban
found success producing the X-men cartoon, even funding additional episodes after Marvel’s
bankruptcy in late 1996. But a Saban-produced Captain America cartoon never aired due to
lack of funding.
In the Digiverse, Saban Entertainment has that funding.
They not only produce the
show, but they swoop in to purchase Marvel in 1998.
Saban launches their own Marvel Studios, and taking a cue from Saban’s Power Rangers,
focus on shows featuring strong team dynamics. Saban’s Captain America is reformatted into
Saban’s Captain America: Super Team, featuring some familiar faces, each piloting a different
limb of a giant, red-white-and-blue mecha.
It is hugely popular, running for several
seasons before being turned into a live-action movie in 2004.
This kicks off a Saban-Marvel
vs DC Comics cinematic race, culminating in a head-to-head summer blockbuster showdown
in 2010.
The Avengers fighting Fin Fang Foom in Saban’s Avengers Assemble!
and the Justice League battling Starro in Super All-Star Justice League.
Neither is able to beat the current box office record-holder:
2006’s Digimon Danger, the live action
sequel to the Digimon Data Squad cartoon.
To save on costs, all of these Saban productions are filmed and edited for international release
the same way Saban’s Power Rangers was; the masked portions of the film remain untouched,
while the sequences where you can see the heroes faces are re-shot, with different actors
filling the roles depending on the intended market;
a format that comes to be known as "sentaing"
This trend is rightfully criticized, but that doesn’t stop it from becoming a widely accepted
mainstream approach to cinema. In 2012, Arise, Dark Knights becomes the first sentaid movie
to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
All because Digimon won.
By the mid 2010s – 15 years after the digi-vergent point – the media landscape caused by Digimon’s
success looks fundamentally different from our own.
So much so that I can no longer speculate
with any accuracy what the future holds.
The world is a different place, and so are its denizens.
Or should I said digizens?
You open your phone with its signature clipped corners, play a few rounds of Digimon Go!,
then hop on DigiTube to watch some vids - and what’s that, your favorite DigiTube channel,
Polygon, has a new video?
It’s called “What if Pokemon had won.”
It’s 2020, and Digimon rule the earth.