Oh the late 90's.
Nostalgia for this time period is so rich it gives me a straight up nipple boner.
Things were pretty good back then.
9/11 hadn't happened yet, there was an economy, and I was a kid so I didn’t even know what
an economy was.
One thing I knew for sure though was that there was a lot of cool stuff that I wanted,
and it seemed like every year there was even cooler and cooler knick-knacks for me to collect.
Things were really taking off at that point, and we witnessed some of the biggest franchises
and cultural phenomena to ever exist get their start.
What helped this the most was that multimedia companies had finally nailed down their business
strategy of selling toys through tv, and tv through toys, and video games through tv,
and toys through video games and comics and books and trading cards, and clothes and...
well you get the point.
Everything for young kids was being saturated to the ultimate and we just ate it up.
It was great!
Now this practice wasn’t new, it had been going on since the 80's but it really hit
the ultimate stranglehold in the 90's.
Obviously the biggest and best example (besides maybe Harry Potter) was Pokémon.
Originally a video game, but inevitably an all-encompassing, bank account emptying, super
fad.
It took my generation by the balls and squeezed until it was on its knees.
There was no stopping Pokémon, and to this day it's one of (if not THE) most successful
franchises of all time.
It had it all my dudes, the merch, the cards, the anime, the sweet, sweet dolla bills y'all.
But with great success also comes room for emulation and innovation.
Something about having a pet that you could order into a death match not only worked in
Japan, but really struck a chord in America and across the rest of the world as well.
There was room for more, and so more came.
The late 90's was also a time when video games had really established themselves for the
first time as not just a young boy's plaything.
With Sony now in the market it was becoming increasingly obvious that not only were adults
also playing, but girls too!
(SARCASTICALLY) Who knew that their little fragile girl thumbs could ALSO press buttons???
But once again, with the realization of new markets come new enterprises!
And since it was discovered that girls also enjoyed some good old-fashioned video games,
it was time to expand.
Enter: the Tamagotchi.
For those of you who may not know what these things are, Tamagotchi were little virtual
pets that shit themselves and died.
That was pretty much it.
However, for a time they were one of the best-selling toys in the world and they were aimed specifically
at young girls.
But I didn't care, man!
I had one of those cause I was woke AF as a kid.
Crossing boundaries and stuff.
Too cool for my time.
Early on the cultural changes.
A visionary.
But there was a lot of little boys who simply couldn't sheath their fragile masculinity
and enjoy a screaming beeping egg that crapped itself in 8-bit pixels.
So sad.
Obviously because Bandai (who made Tamagotchi) was making an assload of money, they wanted
more!
It was time to branch out to the boys...but how?
Well the answer was simple, DIGIMON.
Yes, originally Digimon were little boy versions of Tamagotchi, they were cooler, and you could
battle them too.
They were pretty awesome little devices, and if you still have one you can sell it on eBay
for a ton of money.
So maybe think about that.
These devices caught on like wildfire and sold millions, more than enough for a second
and even third run of the toys, so naturally Digimon needed a TV show too!
In late 1999 Digimon dropped on Fox Kids, and playgrounds across the US lit up with
kids fighting over which was better: Pokémon or Digimon.
But why?
Why even compare the two really?
And most importantly, which one was better!?
Well that’s what we're here to find out.
Because underneath every stupid fad there's a little nugget of truth, and this just happens
to be the truth of Digimon Vs. Pokémon.
The REAL truth.
I don't think it's too much to say that the original debate over Pokémon and Digimon
came from the simple fact that the titles of both franchises ended in "mon."
There's a simple reason for that: they're Japanese!
All languages tend to do a little adopting of other languages and Japanese is no exception.
I'm sure you've seen quite a few anime where a character will say "lucky" in the Japanese
audio.
I dunno, I guess they like that word.
Either way, putting "mon" at the end is just an abbreviation of "monster."
In fact, the entire titles of both shows are abbreviations.
"Pokémon" for pocket monsters, and "Digimon" for digital monsters... and then there was
Monster Rancher, but that might be a topic for another video...or not?
Does anyone care about Monster Rancher?
Yeah...didn’t think so.
Anyway, at the time America and Japan were just starting to do a little cultural cross
pollination.
There really wasn’t a wide standard knowledge of Japan at the time, I mean, there still
isn't, but if someone said something was "kawaii" you'd probably know what they mean now.
It means cute.
Regardless, back then a lot of people thought Digimon was just a stupid rip off of Pokémon
because of the name, and because the shows were focused around kids with pets that spit
fire and crap and evolved into other pets that breathed more fire.
Adults really didn’t get the intricacies of either franchise, let's be real.
Another reason for the confusion was due to the fact that Pokémon had already had a serious
foothold in the worldwide market by the time the Digimon anime came out (which was literally
at the peak of the Pokémon craze).
At the time, fans of Pokémon were so die hard that they weren't about to let some other
pretender "mon" show come in and take away from the Poké lifestyle.
No way dog.
But I wasn’t one of those kids, I watched the crap out of some Digimon!
I never played the games, but I was a huge fan of the show for the first three seasons
or so, but we'll get into that in a bit.
Either way I liked both quite a lot and for very different reasons.
First, the Pokémon games are amazing and were one of my earliest "true" gaming experiences.
Also, the fact that it was so popular at the time meant making friends was easy.
EVERYONE loved Pokémon, so almost everyone had common ground.
But if we're being real, the Pokémon anime...
well it doesn’t suck, but it's formulaic to the max.
Many of the episodes are totally pointless or feature a Pokémon that’s been featured
a million times.
There's very little story, and some would say there's really none at all.
I mean, how often does Ash reflect on his past - maybe twice a series?
The Pokémon anime is snack time TV.
Each episode is basically a stand-alone piece, like Spongebob or something.
Sure, Pokémon was addicting as hell, but Digimon had story.
Honestly, if this was simply an anime debate, Digimon would win hands down.
It’s just got more layers.
And besides the ‘mon’ titles and the fact that there are little monster pets that evolve,
there are few other similarities between the two franchises.
For those of you who don’t know, the first Digimon series followed seven kids who got
sucked out of their summer camp and into the digital world, which is essentially a materialization
of the internet mixed with that island Tom Hanks ended up on in Cast Away.
But instead of a volleyball the kids got Digimon, which are little monsters that inhabit that
world . The kids are known as "digidestined" and they and their digital friends have to
fight evil to save the real and the digital world.
Unlike Pokémon each kid gets 1 Digimon, and that’s it (some of them lucked out more
than the others).
Also instead of evolving permanently at a certain experience level like Pokémon, Digimon
'DIGIVOLVE".
Its DIFFERENT okay?
They also digivolve through the digivice, from simply being upset, or from other tools
the kids pick up in the digital world.
However, after the need for their digivolved form passes they revert to their base form.
Also Digimon are mostly intelligent creatures that actually speak a language instead of
just repeating their name over and over like a yellow electric Hodor.
What makes Pokémon "Pokémon" is the themes behind it.
Not necessarily the fact that there's little animals that have special powers.
Pokémon is about living in a world with humans and Pokémon side by side.
The games focus primarily on catching them, training them, trading them, and battling
them to win cash or gym battles, or to defeat the elite four.
But there's also breeding, research, travel and adventure.
It's just a part of life in the Pokémon world.
Not only that but you have options: there's Pokémon types.
Team building is important, and then what you do with them is up to you.
Digimon is literally nothing like that.
Only the digidestined (at least in the first couple series) have digimon, which only exist
(for the most part) in the digital world.
The digital world is a completely different place than the real world, although they are
connected.
The reason the digidestined have digimon is simply to protect the balance between the
two worlds.
There's no collecting, theres no trading, theres no mastering, there's no being the
best there ever was.
It's simply a mission, save the world from evil.
Where Pokémon created a universe, Digimon created a story, or at least a series of stories.
They also may have created furries... and at least a couple of fetishes I mean...
LOOK at some of these things!
Dayumm.
The anime's themselves were also polar opposites.
When the Pokémon anime came out I thought it was really cool, and I always watched it
when I saw that it was on.
But Digimon...
I got STOKED for digimon!
Mostly because as a show it was really good, as long as you can get over how the english
dub wrecked the culture out of it worse than Brock and his jelly donuts.
It was on every Saturday morning on Fox Kids and I'd actually wake my ass up on the weekend
to watch it.
Specifically because it was a continuous story that dealt with the characters really well.
Just like Dragon Ball Z, if you missed an episode of Digimon you may never see it again.
And that mattered because each episode played into the next.
The battles were epic and on going, so it was important not to miss it.
Pokémon you could just watch whenever because that didn’t matter as much.
The only real episodes that were important were gym battle ones, which were spread really
far apart.
There was a lot of darkness to Digimon as well that Pokémon never touched on.
It handled concepts like fear, death, loneliness, loss, and other adult emotions really well.
Which was a lot to handle for a kid, but it also made it incredibly interesting.
I mean, I guess Pokémon had that butterfree episode...
But, most importantly, unlike Pokémon, Digimon ended.
Then the second series passed the torch to the next generation so they could have their
own adventures.
the series had a unique story to tell which spawned off little itty bitty 8-bit pocket
pets.
It told it, told it WELL, and then it moved on to the next.
Pokémon on the other hand just went ON and ON and ON, and is still going.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan but you can't deny we're still watching the same main
character, the same Pikachu, the same goal.
After the initial wave of the Digimon toys died down it was really the anime that continued
to carry the franchise.
They've put out quite a few movies and games, as well as card games that all had varying
degrees of success.
Every once and a while I'll hear about a "good Digimon game", but what I hear far more often
is the subject of Digimon being brought up, and somebody saying its stupid, or a bad rip
off of Pokémon.
Which, you’re entitled to your decision, but it's really not.
It's more or less entirely its own thing.
The title was ill conceived and the franchise premiered at a bad time (at least when the
idea of longevity is involved) but besides that looking back now I can honestly say that
at one point Digimon was my favorite show on TV.
It was that good.
But comparing it to Pokémon is a lot like comparing apples and oranges.
You can still compare fruit (don’t give me that apples to oranges bullshit), but there
are just so many differences that make each one unique.
I think Pokémon was an amazing game series that has a good TV show spin off; and Digimon
was a toy fad that had a GREAT anime spin off.
And if we're being real, both of them were designed to prey on children and their parent's
wallets so who cares?
What it really comes down to is that it bums me out when I see people pass up on a good
thing because of something as stupid as "brand dedication".
You will only watch treesicle you will only watch treesicle you will only watch treesicle
Or just out of plain ignorance.
There's a lot of good things out there you might be missing out on because you were being
stubborn, or just didn’t want to take the time to see if it was for you.
Maybe there was a lot more we could've gotten out of Digimon, but it didn't happen because
so many people decided it was a stupid franchise.
Simply because it shared a couple similarities with a far more popular franchise.
Do you know how many anime are similar???
Do you know how dead anime would be if everyone thought like that?
It’s ridiculous!
Simply put Digimon vs. Pokémon is a moot argument.
They're both good children's (CHILDRENS) franchises that have a lot to offer in varying departments
of entertainment.
They have similarities, but not enough to consider Digimon even close to a rip-off.
And if you want to get a decent view of what it was like to be a kid back then you should
watch both, ya derp!
And that’s the Real Truth.
Hopefully this gave those of you 20 years on the fence the little push that you needed
to check out some of that digi action.
Obviously at this point the anime is dated all to hell but there's a lot of things that
are still enjoyable within it.
And for those of you who've heard of this controversy I hope this gave you a little
historical perspective on some playground balony that just never died.
Either way, I'm Ryan and if you liked this video why don’t you check out my shows here
on Treesicle?
I like to cover things that are a little farther outside the box here so you'll probably find
something you enjoy.
But for now, thanks for watching everyone, and I'll see you
all next time.
Toodles!