The Digimon Universe Appmon Project is about to begin! Every single time i made
a video about this there's always been a lot of people asking what's an Appmon?
or why this Appmon idea? I've been wanting to make a video about this for
a while. Let me go ahead and try to answer those two questions and also what this
means for Digimon in general going forward. We'll first start off with what
exactly is an Appmon. Let's first look and answer that for Digimon. What's a
Digimon? Literally from the name 'Digimon', we get digital monsters or monster made
out of data. There are also other things involving Digimon. Digimon living in
their own world the digital world, the concept of DigiEggs.
But let's keep it simple for now. By their definition, Appmon are AI lifeforms that have
the ability to think and act. These Appmon existing the boundaries between the
human world and the digital space. They allow people and systems that have
interfaces to interact. Basically these Appmon are digital creatures that embody
an App, like the ones on your smartphone. For example go ahead and look at your
phone.
I'm sure you either got a twitter app or the one for google maps. An Appmon for
those two would be Tsubumon or Navimon. You could think of these two as
living AI creatures that are responsible for making your app do what it does in
the background. When we take a step back
they don't appear to be two different. A Digimon is a digital creature an Appmon
is also a digital creature. Just a more specialized one. Based on this it seems
that Appmon could be simply seen as a subset of digimon. It seemed similar to
what Armor Digimon, Spirit Digimon, and the Xros Digimon are. They're
subset of Digimon but altogether still Digimon. So this turned out to be a long
way of saying that Appmon are also digital creatures, hence Digimon, right?
Turns out, it might not be so simple.
We'll get back to this question. Let's move on to the important question. Why
Appmon? Let's look at a few things before i try to answer that. We just got a better
idea of what these Appmon actually are but why go in the direction of Appmon?
Someone in one of my past videos for Appmon asked a great question. Are these
Appmon just a spin-off of Digimon? I had to think about this for a while. I personally
like to think that the frontier season and the Xros series are best seen as a
spin-off of Digimon. It's really just based on how they're so different from
the seasons that came before them. Just my opinion and Appmon seems to fit this.
If you go by the actual definition of a spin-off, it doesn't necessarily apply to
this whole Appmon project. From everything we've seen about Appmon so
far, the project seems like it's a complete refresh. In other words a fresh
start.
Yes, Appmon are digital creatures just like Digimon but that's about it. This whole
Appmon project seems less and less like a spin-off but instead more like a
complete new franchise. They're trying really hard with this Appmon project to set itself
apart from digimon altogether.
With that in mind let's go back to the original question, why Appmon?
Perfect timing! A new interview with the producer and supervisor of this Appmon
series just came out from Animedia. I already had thoughts about this Appmon
project and this really just helps to add more evidence to what I originally
thought.
It's a pretty long interview but here are the points that they do mention. They
went into this Appmonn project to create a new non-Digimon series.
The goal was to remove digimon from digimon. Something like escaping out of
the shackles that digimon has become. The idea behind this is a modern era Digimon.
We could think of this as, what would Digimon be if it were created today with our
current technology. The part about removing digimon from digimon seems
a little confusing but they do expand on that. They mention how old Digimon
anime after Digimon Adventure were restricted. They were pigeonholed into
the model that the first series has set up. For example, the series keeping some
Chosen or Destined Children, Digidestined in the dub. The concept of
Digivices, the digital world, and similar Goggle head main characters. They talked
about how a lot of this stuff seems outdated to them. The idea of this device
in a world where smartphones are everywhere. I actually happen to agree
with a lot of their points. I do have to mention though how the main character
has an Applidrive. It's basically a new digivice. It actually seems more like a PET
from the megaman NT warrior series. Rest in peace Megaman. What's interesting
is that they do mention a very strong focus on AI for Appmon. The 2045 AI problem
is brought up. For those not familiar,
this is a prediction that AI will surpass human intelligence by 2045. Still
a while ago. Around 30 years at this point.
Skynet will be awakening or was it Genesis now? They hope to explore some of these
questions in this new anime: What's the difference between AI and humans?
What exactly is AI? For those of you guys that mentioned that this does not feel
like Digimon at all,
Perfect! That's been one of their intentions all along. We now come back to
the original question. Why Appmon? I think given us a pretty clear answer.
They want to create a story for children or kids that are growing up in our
current world. A world where smartphones and tablets are everywhere.
Reading between the lines a little bit, basically a lot of ideas of Digimon are
outdated. So it does seem like they want to start completely fresh with this. From
the report they released this Appmon project is targeting kids are anywhere
between 10 to 12 years old, or younger. All of us old school Digimon fans are
just too old now. Ff we just look at the Digimon audience here on YouTube, over
seventy percent of us are between 18 to 34 years old.
Mostly male too by the way. We're way beyond the people they hope to target. So
as to why Apmon, well, we just got their reasons. They seem to be going all out
with this Appmon project. There's a new anime in October. There's a 3DS game
coming out pretty soon. They're even starting out for the free extended demo
starting next month.
There's two upcoming Appmon manga that are going to be released soon too.
We've already seen all the Appmon toys. There's a ton of them!
This includes the Appli Drive and all those Appmon chips. There also this
Appmon trading card game. They even have some function with some arcade machines.
Llet's also not forget, at this point Digimon is almost two decades old. It's
already pretty well established and it has a lot of baggage.
Despite their best efforts, it's really only been a modest success so far. I
might get into this in a future video. One hope with this Appmon project is to
start off with a clean slate.
After all this you might be wondering to yourself, why even associate this with
Digimon? The Appmon project from the start was announced as being part of this
Digimon universe. There's really just one word for it.
Marketing. The Digimon brand may not have turned out to be the success that they
wanted, money wise, but there are millions of people worldwide that do know of it. By
tying it together with Digimon, at least part of the older existing audience will
be familiar and might even check it out.
I'm sure hardcore did my fans must also be wondering right now, what about
Digimon? Digimon as we know it?
What's going to happen to it? Is this the end of Digimon?
It's honestly tough to answer that completely at this point. The ideal scenario
for us would be that these two franchises live in parallel with each
other.
Hopefully they continue to release new the Digimon story and Digimon World games.
A new anime is pretty unlikely at this point right now. We still got Digimon Tri for a
while.
What happens next for Digimon honestly really all depends on whether this Appmon
project is a success or not. Ironically, a huge success could be
bad for Digimon as we know it.
Worst-case scenario, Appmon is huge.
People go crazy for it worldwide. Executive now shift most of the
resources towards Appmon and Digimon gets less and less attention. At the same time
Appmon might try to distance yourself from Digimon more and more. You can bet money
on it that the Digimon logo will start getting smaller and smaller.
It might even just go away. It's not all terrible news though.
Gaming-wise, we do have some hope right now. We do have Digimon Masters that we
all love to hate. It seems like this is more or less coming to an end soon.
There is great news for mobile though. Digimon Heroes just got released earlier
this year globally and it's making a killing.
There's also Digimon Soul Chaser that just got expanded to new areas just recently.
And finally we also have Digimon Linkz. Out of all the Digimon games out so far
this one might make a killing worldwide too. It's really just a matter of time
until they do release it. At least looking at the current digimon game map,
they could have decided that it's better to stick with mobile for Digimon. Expect
to see more and more Digimon stuff on mobile in the future.
All hope isn't lost just yet for Digimon. We're very likely going to keep on seeing more
future Appmon based on Digimon that we all know and love. With that said, go
ahead and check out the top Digimon that I'd like to see get an Appmon version. We
just found out about the great demon lord getting an App-ified version. I wonder
who's next?
Go ahead and let me know how you guys feel about this whole Appmon project!
Especially after what I just went over. Do you guys think this could be the end
of Digimon? Be sure give the video a like if you enjoyed this breakdown! I would
really appreciate it.
At this point I'm finding myself spending more hours on making videos
than even hours i'm putting into my full-time job. It's pretty crazy. For more
awesome and in-depth videos like this, one be sure to subscribe to the channel.
There are several videos coming out each week and I'll see you guys later!