Often considered to be the lesser Pokémon, Digimon started in much the same way as Pokémon did, with its anime series being incredibly popular and running around the same time as its competition. While Digimon never reached the same heights that Pokémon would go on to reach, it has its dedicated fan base that has stuck by it through the highs and lows.
There are many similarities between Digimon and Pokémon, most notably in the creatures themselves, but there are also enough differences in both the games and the anime to make it stand on its own and differentiate it from its more popular cousin.
10 Used More Main Characters
Pokémon, for the most part, focuses on the adventures of Ash and Pikachu as they journey across whichever new region they have discovered alongside a handful of traveling companions, keeping the cast fairly small. In Digimon’s case, the cast is usually much larger, not just in the Digidestined but also their Digimon partners, who are much more fleshed out characters than many Pokémon partners from Pokémon. This isn’t always the case, with Digimon Tamers having a very small cast for the bulk of its run, but it allows for more diversity among the main cast that isn’t shown in Pokémon.
9 Swapping Out Its Main Characters
A point of contention among some Pokémon fans is that, despite the series having run for over 20 years, Ash has only aged by one year, with his last canon birthday occurring in the Kanto region as he celebrated the one year anniversary of his and Pikachu’s adventure starting. Digimon takes a much more realistic approach, actively aging its main characters and swapping them out for new cast members between series, giving new groups of Digidestined time to shine aside from Tai and Agumon.
8 Went Super Meta
One of the strangest, and best, series in Digimon was Digimon Tamers, set in a world where Digimon was a popular media franchise not unlike how the creators wish it was in the real world. This meta-narrative not only allowed the show to use some much darker storylines than Digimon Adventure ever did, but also presented the basic premise more realistically.
It’s easy to think that children would stand in awe as their Digimon partners morphed into huge, powerful dinosaurs with machine guns for arms, but Takato’s reaction to Guilmon’s first digivolution was much closer to home than had been shown before, as he cowers in terror at the monster he has created and set lose on the world.
7 Took Major Inspiration From Power Rangers
Digimon Frontier is often looked down on as one of the worst series of Digimon, but there’s a lot to love about this weird take on the Digimon formula. For one, the Digidestined become the Digimon themselves, allowing the show to focus more on the children rather than needing to spend time on their partners as well. On the other hand, it is incredibly campy at times and not always in a charming way.
6 Killed Off A Main Character
Digimon Tamers started off quite dark compared to other series, with Henry worried his Gargomon would cause too much destruction, and Guilmon terrifying his tamer on multiple occasions. The darkest moment in the series comes when, after feeling abandoned by his tamers, Beelzemon killed Jeri’s partner, Leomon, who didn’t make a miraculous return like Patamon did in Adventure. Digimon would do this again in Frontier, with Koichi dying trying to reach his brother, though it was heavily toned down in the English dub to say he was in a coma instead.
5 Made Digimon Actual Partners
Probably the biggest difference that separates Digimon from Pokémon in their respective universes is the relationship between the creatures and their partners. While Pokémon often says that their caught creatures are their partners, their relationships rarely stretch beyond that of a loving pet and their owner. Digimon, on the other hand, makes their partners closer to being the Digidestined’s best friends, making a point of making them characters in themselves rather than extensions of their human carers.
4 Their Version Of Mega Evolution
One of Pokémon’s most divisive additional features in recent years was Mega Evolution, which added another, more powerful form on top of a final evolution. Since Digimon isn’t as popular these days as it once was, it’s easy to forget that Digimon actually did this mechanic first.
Both versions of a Mega form are vastly different, though Digimon’s is much more powerful simply as a result of how digivolution works. Mega forms in Digimon also usually require not only a close bond between human and Digimon, but also a threat to their lives that forces both of them to break through their perceived limits.
3 Has Multiple Mainline Game Series
The gameplay of Pokémon’s mainline series of RPG’s may be tried and true, but Game Freak and The Pokémon Company have also never really branched out into other kinds of games, usually leaving that for third-party developers to do for them. Bandai Namco has a different approach to Digimon, with there being multiple different alternatives to the core RPG mechanics between different games. The Digimon World series is a much different game than and the Digimon Story series, but both are mainline Digimon games in their own right.
2 Detachment From Nostalgia
Up until Digimon Adventure tri, Digimon was happy to continue moving forward with its franchise, leaving both human and Digimon characters in the past and never looking back. This is in stark contrast to Pokémon, which is continuously appealing to the nostalgia of longtime fans by keeping old favorites like Charizard, Pikachu, and Mewtwo at the forefront of both their anime and game designs. While it’s nice to see old favorites stick around for a while, it would also be nice if Pokémon focused a little less on a few Pokémon in particular.
1 Has Good Storylines
In both the games and the anime, Pokémon has stuck to a very consistent kind of story that, while not at all bad, is also very predictable and hasn’t changed since Red and Blue. Although Pokémon Journeys is looking to finally change the old formula, it only comes after decades of playing it safe. Digimon, on the other hand, focuses much more heavily on an overarching story rather than the characters in them, rather than a never-ending journey of self-improvement.
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