Digimon

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About

Digimon (デジモン Dejimon,) short for Digital Monsters (デジタルモンスター Dejitaru Monsutā), is a Japanese media franchise consisting of toys, anime, manga, films, and video games. The franchise revolves around the eponymous creatures, who live in the Digital World, a universe spawning from human communication networks, such as the Internet. Every incarnation of the franchise involves human characters bonding over time with the Digimon, who are able to assume different forms, generally by a process known as "Digivoluion." The franchise is similar to Pokemon.

History

The franchise was first created as a series of virtual pets, similar to Tamagotchi toys, released on on June 26, 1997. The creatures were first designed to look cute and iconic even on the devices' small screens; later developments featured creatures with a tougher style influenced by American comics. A second generation of virtual pets was released in December of the same year. The franchise released its first anime released in Japan on March 6, 1999, in the form of a short animated film titled Digimon Adventure. A television series of the same name began airing the following day. To date, six Digimon anime series have aired. In the United States, the first four series were aired as four seasons of one show, Digimon: Digital Monsters, produced by Saban Entertainment. On October 6, 2000, Digimon: The Movie, which intertwined three different Digimon films into one story, was released.

Reception

The franchise gained popularity and momentum with the release of Digimon Adventure, as well as the Digimon World video game for the PlayStation which was released on January 28, 1999, in Japan and in North America on May 23, 2000. The fandom quickly spread to the internet, featured on the now defunct LELOLA.net, an anime sharing website that featured other anime series such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Cardcaptor Sakura^[3].

Fandom

On July 16th, 2010, the r/Digimon subreddit^[11] was created by redditor Enforte. As of September 2014, the subreddit has gained over 7,000 readers. As of September 2014, the official Digimon Facebook account^[6] has gained over 1.2 million likes and DeviantArt ^[7] has over 260,000 fan art submissions tagged Digimon. As of September 2014, Fanfiction.net^[8] has gained over 36,000 fanfiction submissions. Fan sites include Digimondelta^[9] and the Digimon Wikia.^[10]

Renamon

Renamon^[4] is one of the several Digimon species. While Digimon are generally designed as androgynous, the Renamon in Digimon Tamers is depicted as female, and as a result, fans and media identify her as such. Renamon has since arguably become the most popular Digimon. The character was quickly latched onto by the growing Furry fandom on the internet, and has spawned her own collection of fan created content. On April 17, 2010, the Renamon Facebook fan page^[20] was created, and as of September 2014, the page has gained over 1,000 likes. On March 31 2013, the Tumblr blog goldenfoxrenamon^[20] was created, which focuses on Renamon. As of September 2014, DeviantArt^[19] has over 26,000 pieces of fan art tagged Renamon.

Digimon vs Pokemon

Pokemon vs Digimon refers to the online debate between the two franchises. On April 11th, 2010, the Facebook page Pokemon vs Digimon^[13] was created. On December 2nd, 2011, Debate.org^[14] created a Pokemon vs Digimon page. On November 4th, 2012, Neoseeker^[15] started a Pokemon vs Digimon debate on their forum. On June 7th, 2014, YouTuber TamashiiHiroka^[12] published a video titled "Pokemon vs Digimon," As of September 2014, the video has gained over 280,000 views.

On July 21st, Buzzfeed^[11] published a post titled "16 Reasons Why Digimon Is Obviously Better Than Pokémon."

Matt x Sora

Matt x Sora or "Sorato" threads regularly appear on /a/ as a form of trolling. It refers to a ship involving two characters from the series Digimon Adventures.The characters involved in this ship include Taichi (Tai in the US version), Sora, and Yamato (Matt in the US version).