Digimon?

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Overlord Zaru
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Digimon?

What is mechatalk's thoughts on Digimon? It has some mecha elements in it, and has been around for quite a while too(over 10 years IIRC?). So, what seasons are your favorite? What Digimon do you like? Hate? English or Japanese? Discuss here!

I'll start:

My favorites have been Tamers and Frontier, mainly because they are original in their own aspects.

Tamers: I loved Rika and Renamon in Tamers ALOT because they were awesome and their character development was nice. Takato was a bit bland for me, and Guilmon sounded annoying, and his evolution line was silly(in addition to the ole Fire Dino as MC D-mon). Henry was...okay at some parts, and his Digimon(forgot his name) had an okay Evo-line. Beelzemon was awesome though.

Frontier: I liked how they made the humans Digimon and introduced Lucemon as the big bad(in addition, I loved the Agunimon's evolution line. KaiserGreymon for the win). Duskmon was better as a villain before he was reduced to extra(Koji). Otherwise, the series was pretty solid.

Now, the original series was okay, as was S2, but the whole friggin Matt and Sora affair made me from loving the series to hating it, and Tai. Daisuke was also a bit bland too. Yolei and Ken were awesome in their own right though.

And I watched Data Squad and I just didn't like it. The MC was actually unlikable(and his english dub voice was grating to the ears) and the ole "Agumon" is back thing turned it off for me. And I didn't watch Xros Wars because Data Squad pretty much was the drop off point for Digimon for me, and I ain't gonna invest time in Xros Wars.

Oh, and I prefer the English dub. At least the males don't sound like girls.
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Destiny_Gundam
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Re: Digimon?

I watched until Frontier, which ended up being my favourite. Was intending to watch Savors when it started airing but never ended up doing it.
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Compass
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Re: Digimon?

Loved the first two seasons. Guilty of buying the OST when it came out. A giant blue letter D on a green CD. Awesome.

AND... owning the Japanese import version of THIS.

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/751/ ... 075319.jpg

Yeah, good times. I know it's merch, but I can't remember most of the mecha in this series, and certainly didn't watch it for "giant robots" more than giant everything.
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Destiny_Gundam
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Re: Digimon?

I had the english release of that digivice. I got some other toys still on my shelf, namely Agumon/BlackWarGreymon, Renamon/Sakuyamon, and Guilmon/Wargrowlmon.
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Compass
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Re: Digimon?

I didn't find the transforming toys to be cool. I thought they were rather creepy. I did have the original trading cards though.
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Dark Duel
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Re: Digimon?

MetalGarurumon FTW.
That. is. All.
I also found hilarious how tiny, wimpy Wormmon (I liked Wormmon) turned into this total badass when he digivolved to Champion-level (Stingmon). I despised Ken. But Wormmon was one of my favorite Rookie Digimon.
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Mu La Flaga
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Re: Digimon?

I've got the first season on DVD an official release here.
Season 2 is coming.

I have the Digigvolving toys for most of seasons 1&2.
I also have a working D-Terminal, my D3 doesn't seem to any more though, ack.

Tamers I didn't appreciate as much as first when it aired since it was like a new reality new cast, couldn't connect to them that much, but on a rewatch I liked it more then I first did.

Frontier I dspise because it was taking Digivolving in to rehashed Armor Digivolving.
Except that and the humans were the Digimon, they wasn't the human and partner Digimon interaction.

The Digivolving got silly later that you could tell they just kept fusing all their spirits and that was it.
01 had it's own thing, 02 had DNA Digivolving with sometimes interesting result.

That is all I'm going to say.
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SonicSP
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Re: Digimon?

Havent been following it lately, but I've always been a Digimon fan back from the "Tamagochi pet days" which I played while I was a kid. Yes, the one where you have to feed the Digimon, treat it better so it would evolve into something cooler and more powerful. Yes, the one that looks like this. That's how Agumon used to look like when it was on the screen and I'm pretty sure that's Seadramon on the right. My first one was the same color as the ones here too. Ah, the good old days when you raise them, battle them with your friend's, and eventually only to see them die, cry for it before starting the whole process all over again. I also played some of the "Digivice" toys, that were sort of the evolution of these but without the taking care part and using Digimon from the anime. I had the ones for Adventure I and Adventure II and I love them because they're strangely deep for such handheld simple games, especially since the shaking factors into the battles and you have to plan when to digivolve, what to digivolve to in a specific battle ans whatnot. God I really miss the Digivice electronics, memories are flooding back now as I write.

My classic will always be Agumon and his evolutions. Greymon, MetalGreymon (for the record, the evil blue debuted was made first and was part of the Version 1 family; I cant recall whether the orange one was created later or made only for the anime) and WarGreymon from Digimon Adventure. Agumon up until Metal Greymon was in version 1 of the Digimon pet game as well, which was my first experience with it as well. I also love the Agumon from Savers who got to GeoGreymon and then RizeGreymon. RizeGreymon has gotta be my favorite design of the Greymon line period, with those wings and that awesome hand cannon on the arm. ShineGreymon was awesome as well but I love WarGreymon more.

As for my experiences with the games, I played all three Digimon World games from the PS1. The first one would always be my favorite though even if the controlling yous monster in battle was annoying. I didnt like the mazes in 2. 3 was better than 2 I guess but I couldnt finish it for some reason. A few years ago I played the Digimon World games from the DS, which I enjoyed and I guess are my favorites of the Digimon World games.

As for the anime, I've only watched Adventure, Adventure 2 and Savers. Adventure was really awesome and I really enjoyed it. Adventure 2 I also liked because of the continuing story and the initial evil Emperor and and Black Towers conquer the Digiworld stuff (and how it blocks normal Digivloving without usage of armors). There more variants and and parrelel levels I guess because of the DigiArmors before the usual Champions, Ultimates and Megas are introduced. Still liked Adventure 1 more though, especially because of the sense of adventure (rather than say go into the Digiworld on free time). I watched a bit of Tamers but dropped it at some point so I don;t consider it as part of my complete watched list.

Watched Savers like 4 or 5 years ago and loved it. Can't recall the storyline at the moment but it was my first Digimon anime after awhile so I really enjoyed it I guess. Although I do love the DATS concept and the older characters.

I have watched the anime in a lot of versions though. I watched Adventure I as the Asian English dub version (basically took the original Japanese episodes and dubbed them and kept the names and songs, unlike the American dub version), watched Adventure II as a Malay dub on TV and watched Savers as the original Japanese with subs.
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Mu La Flaga
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Re: Digimon?

I have to say Sonic that with 02 I agree and also it was interesting to have it be that the first new enemy was a human.
Not a Digimon Evil conquering type like before, thus they had to deal with some quite smart and could think outside of the box a Digimon could normally do.

I did forget to mention with the games, I never played the PS1 entries, I did play Digimon Rumble Arena 2 for PS2, was fun and simple like Smash Brothers.
I have played Dawn and Dusk DS entry games of Digimon world and I found it rather fun, if somewhat simple at times.

I would like to try some more entries in the series to see if the gameplay has improved or not.
sweet-d
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Re: Digimon?

I like the first 3 seasons, and I thought savers was okay. I'd say I liked the second season and tamers the most. Actually around the adventure 02 is when i really started to watch anime online a lot. I also had a tamogochi as a kid i played it all the damn time. I still have the digimon trading cards too except for the a few of the movie cards. My favorite digimon game is digimon world i remember my first digimon turned into crap.
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SonicSP
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Re: Digimon?

sweet-d wrote:I like the first 3 seasons, and I thought savers was okay. I'd say I liked the second season and tamers the most. Actually around the adventure 02 is when i really started to watch anime online a lot. I also had a tamogochi as a kid i played it all the damn time. I still have the digimon trading cards too except for the a few of the movie cards. My favorite digimon game is digimon world i remember my first digimon turned into crap.
Yeah, I kept getting Numemon a few times. Which sucked both in that game and in the original tamagochi. You could use that suit in Toyland to turn it into an extremely powerful Monzaemon though, but you could only do that once without raising it to the best of requirements for it to evolve into it naturally.

Monzaemon in the original Tamagochi version 1 was a beast, literally the strongest Digimon of the Version 1 evolution tree. I recall getting it once or twice.

Also, regarding the Tamagochi devices, I recall one of the things we used to do was try to "cheat" in order to automatically get strong Digimons. You can do this while putting the tabs in and out while pressing a bunch of buttons and doing it in many variation techniques. I recall me and my friends would spend hours trying to do it to get powerful Digimon without raising it naturally. The "letter type" of your tamagochi is important as well because it would determine how easy it would be to get certain powerful monsters via these methods.
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Outlaw
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Re: Digimon?

SonicSP wrote:Havent been following it lately, but I've always been a Digimon fan back from the "Tamagochi pet days" which I played while I was a kid. Yes, the one where you have to feed the Digimon, treat it better so it would evolve into something cooler and more powerful. Yes, the one that looks like this.
Believe it or not I still have one of those lying around. The key ring and manual are missing and the box is a little worse for wear from fifteen-ish years of things being piled up on it. I had honestly forgotten about it until I read this topic.

I still remember getting up and spending time with my younger brother watching the anime on TV, ah nostalgia.
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Kratos
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Re: Digimon?

I'm surprised at the number of people here who haven't seen Tamers. Having watched the first 4 "seasons", it's pretty easily my favourite, and certainly has the best character writing. Little slow in the beginning, though.

Adventure is also good, but 02 and Frontier...eh. I guess they aren't bad, but I could take 'em or leave 'em. I tried watching a bit of savers, and couldn't really get into it, but I know Xros Wars has a decent following.

Anybody else ever seen X Evolution? What a strange, strange movie that was.
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hotlimit
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Re: Digimon?

Kratos wrote:I'm surprised at the number of people here who haven't seen Tamers. Having watched the first 4 "seasons", it's pretty easily my favourite, and certainly has the best character writing. Little slow in the beginning, though.

Adventure is also good, but 02 and Frontier...eh. I guess they aren't bad, but I could take 'em or leave 'em. I tried watching a bit of savers, and couldn't really get into it, but I know Xros Wars has a decent following.

Anybody else ever seen X Evolution? What a strange, strange movie that was.
I watched up until Tamers, skipped Frontier, and then saw part of Savers when it was first airing. Tamers was one of my favorites because I was really into card games at the time, and I liked the idea that they used cards to power up their digimon, hahaha. It's kind of surprising that the series (all of them) still hold up today even though I'm a lot older. When I rewatched 01 I thought it'd be like, "Aghhh, it was all nostalgia!!", but it's still really good.
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Mu La Flaga
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Re: Digimon?

Kratos wrote:I'm surprised at the number of people here who haven't seen Tamers. Having watched the first 4 "seasons", it's pretty easily my favourite, and certainly has the best character writing. Little slow in the beginning, though.

Adventure is also good, but 02 and Frontier...eh. I guess they aren't bad, but I could take 'em or leave 'em. I tried watching a bit of savers, and couldn't really get into it, but I know Xros Wars has a decent following.

Anybody else ever seen X Evolution? What a strange, strange movie that was.
02 has it's unnique strengths but also some small flaws.

Namely the newer kids with less guts Yolei, Cody tend to hesitate from using deadly force unless they have to, since they got used to fighting dark rings or spiral controlled Digimon.

02 also did the first human villian and Frontier's spirit evolution is a rehashed armor digivolving.
It was also just simple and predictable and I couldn't really latch on to the characters much.

Tamers I appreciate far more so now I'm older and I want to see it in full if Madman release it down here.

They released season 1, 02 is coming out later this year due to Adventure's huge success.
Last edited by Mu La Flaga on Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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SonicSP
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Re: Digimon?

A memory just popped back out.

I kinda like the Japanese BGM in Adventure 02 when they armor Digivolve, very catchy. Also liked that they used the original Digivolving theme from Adventure whenever the new Digimons digivolve to Adult through non-Digiegg natural methods. Oh, and the Jogress Digivolving theme was wicked as well.
Dean_the_Young
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Re: Digimon?

Huh, hadn't thought about Digimon in a long time. It was my first real break-in into anime, and even now I'm not ashamed to have enjoyed it. While I certainly don't enjoy the style now, especially the good-old 'shout your attacks', Digimon had some surprisingly good character development. I always felt that a large part of its strength was that it was a bildungsroman, a development story, of the maturation of a bunch of otherwise normal people with normal flaws.

The digimon were fun enough as monsters, sure, but it was the friendships between them and the children that really resonates with me to this day: partners weren't just friends you might want, but the friends you needed. They counterbalanced and helped their partners, mitigating their flaws and enhancing their strengths: sometimes by being the more responsible one, like Hawkmon, but sometimes by forcing the partner to be responsible (Guilmon and Takato). That increased power in evolutions went hand-in-hand with emotional maturity made it better: in 01 it was crests, while in 02 it was partnership and DNA evolution.

While it's definitely a kid's show in presentation, a lot of the things they touched on are issues that people have even into adulthood: themes of disconnect, of responsibility, of personal growth. If you looked past the attack-shouting and ending everything with 'mon', you could easily make a story of young adults rather than children.

Heck, a lot of untapped issues could have arisen just from the resolution of 02: governments trying to use digimon to bolster their strength, Virus/Data/Vaccine divides, the resources of the digiworld as a means to solve Earth problems, even the various mythologies enabled by the digiworld trying to fulfill themselves. Imagine a prophesy of the Apocolypse playing itself, for example.


I never watched 04, since the lack of partners turned me off, and 05's animation also drove me away though to be honest I was largely out of the phase as well. But I certainly greatly enjoyed 01, 02, and 03 for different reasons: 01 was an excellent maturity tale, 02 carried that on and began linking the digital world to the real world in ever more interesting ways, and 03 in particular was a great implementation of 'kids with monsters in the real world' that I greatly enjoyed.

Even though the animation is dated, I certainly would recommend the franchise to anyone who likes strong characters and stronger character development.
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hotlimit
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Re: Digimon?

Woah, woah, woah, if you think 01's animation is dated, what do you think about the original Gundam?! The only thing that really dates Digimon for me is the old CG during their ultimate transformations.
Admiral Larsen
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Re: Digimon?

While I admit that this wasn't my cup of tea, I really had no problem with this series and thought it was fun. Season 2 had some problems in my view and from what I have heard over the years, I'm not alone with well my thoughts that Season 2 had some pretty big problems in the later stages.

And of course like many others, I also liked Season 3 a lot more. There is nothing spetacular like monsters ravaging in the skyscrapers in Tokyo. :mrgreen:
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SonicSP
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Re: Digimon?

You know, I'm playing Digimon World DS again right now and I discovered something I find weird.

RiseGreymon basically just stops at Ultimate, it doesn't have a Mega form period. Contrast this with MetalGreymon who in the game gets WarGreymon, BlackWarGreymon and Omnimon as a choice for Mega (I have two Agumons in the game and have digivoled them into seperate Greymon/GeoGreymon lines).

What I thought weird was that, the game is partly attributed to Savers. It has nothing to do with it gameplaywise or storylinewise, but it does use the three Savers main Digimon in the title screen and I'm pretty sure the Digivice used by the player in DW:DS is the same design of the one in Savers. I thought its kinda weird that one of Savers' main Digimon's Mega form is being omitted here especially when its Champion and Ultimate forms are included.

Was Digimon World DS released before Savers ended (or ShiningGreymon appeared)? That's kinda of the only reason I can think of why they won't put ShiningGreymon in it and end it at just RiseGreymon. Wish they gave me some Mega form to work with at least. The game has some weird Digivolution lines already, so I wish they gave BlackWarGreymon or some random Mega as an option for Rising.
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