Digimon
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:LOGODIGIMON.jpg Template:Otheruses4
Template:Nihongo (short for Digital Monster) is a Japanese series of children's merchandise, including toys, manga and anime, featuring monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World". Digimon contains many of the typical themes associated with mon (monster).
Contents |
Overview
Digimon started out as a dueling digital pet similar to Tamagotchi, which was called "Digital Monster" that was released by Bandai on June 26, 1997. The Digital Monster toy was enormously successful, and four different colors of the toy were released in November of the same year. In December of the same year, the second generation of "Digital Monster" was released. Many have criticized it as a clone of Pokémon, as the Tamagotchi was released in 1997 as opposed to 1996, though it became popular in the United States before the latter. It should be noted that the Tamagotchi bears little resemblance to the Digimon TV show or card game. Digimon and Pokémon may have a few factors in common (being marketed toward children in North America and being part of the same genre), but differ in original target audience, concept, spirit and design.
Digimon first appeared in illustrated form with the advent of the one-shot manga C'mon Digimon, which was released in summer 1997. C'mon Digimon spawned the popular Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 manga series, which began on November 21, 1998. Digimon first appeared in game form on January 28, 1999 with the release of the popular Digimon World game for PlayStation and made its first foray into animation a few months later.
TV series
Template:Main Following the release of the first Digimon movie in Japan in 1999, the first Digimon television series, Digimon Adventure began airing on Fuji TV in March of the same year; three other series followed in consecutive years: Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier. Adventure 02 is a continuation of Adventure. Tamers' only connection to the Adventure series is the character Ryou, whose story was explained through the Digimon games for Bandai's WonderSwan. Frontier has no connections to the other three series. Additionally, there have been eight individual Digimon films released in Japan with all but the eighth spinning out of the assorted TV series. All the movies, except the eighth, have been dubbed and distributed internationally. The Digimon run ended with Frontier's 50th Episode (205th overall), End of the Line. For three years, it appeared that Frontier would be the final anime series. However, the fandom was pleasantly surprised to find that a fifth series was confirmed at Jump Festa 2006. The new series, titled Digimon Savers, first aired on April 2 2006 on Fuji TV.
Comics
C'mon Digimon
Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01
Digimon Next
Digimon Chronicle
D-Cyber
Dark Horse
Dark Horse Comics published American-style Digimon comic books, adapting the first dubbed 13 episodes of the first animated season. The conclusion to the story arc, however, was never released.
Panini
The European publishing company, Panini, approached Digimon in different ways in different countries. While Germany created their own adaptations of episodes, the United Kingdom reprinted the Dark Horse titles, then translated some of the German adaptations of second-season episodes, and finally began to print their own original stories, which appeared in both the UK's Official Digimon Magazine, and the official Fox Kids companion magazine, Wickid. These original tales danced in and around the continuity of the second animated season, before shifting to the third season, where the stories were more carefully thought out to fit between the tight storytelling of the animated series and would sometimes focusing on subject matter not covered by the show (such as Yamaki's past) or in the west (such as Ryo's story or the undubbed movies). Eventually, in a money saving venture, the original stories were removed from Digimon Magazine, which returned to printing translated German adaptations, this time of Tamers episodes. Eventually, both magazines were cancelled.
Yuen Wong Yu (TOKYOPOP/Chuang Yi) manga
The Digimon manga released by TOKYOPOP in North America and Chuang Yi in Singapore is a Chinese manhua written and drawn by Yuen Wong Yu, based on the television series and brought to North America, translated by Lianne Sentar. Covering Digimon Adventure in five volumes, Digimon Adventure 02 in two and Digimon Tamers in four, it is heavily abridged, though in rare occasions plays through events differently to the anime. This is the main attraction of the series. Three additional volumes exist, covering Digimon Frontier, but these have not been released in English by TOKYOPOP.
Fan Influence
As Digimon continues to grow in popularity internationally, the fanbase around the show and manga continues to grow with it in a manner akin to other fandoms. As with most anime, this includes extensive shipping. Digimon fanshippers popularized the jargon of their specific brand of shipping by combining the first and last syllables of the relevant characters names, rather than the standard American "/" or "X". This is most often done with the Japanese names rather than the English ones. For example, a relationship between Hikari (Kari) and Takeru (TK) would be Takari; whilst a relationship between Taichi (Tai) and Yamato (Matt) might be called Taito or Yamachi.
Due to the relative quickness and more accurate translation of the dubbing of the third season, American and Japanese fandoms were somewhat aware of each other and contributed to each others fandoms.
Many fandoms sprouted from Digimon, including a popular fandom called "FDD" (Fictional Digimon and Digidestined) that had a large fandom for Digimon from 1998 onwards and is still alive today. Their purpose was to create fictional Digimon and Digidestined teams (or now Tamers) and exchange stories, ideas and drawn images. The fandom is still active in select websites. They would create their own Digimon and Digidestined and write stories about their adventures.
In Latin America, the popular soundtrack was dubbed by Mexico's Intertrack.
Notable people
- Akiyoshi Hongo - Creator of the original Digimon concept
- Hiroyuki Kakudo - Director of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02
- Yukio Kaizawa - Director of Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
- Naozumi Itō - Director of Digimon Savers
- Chiaki J. Konaka - Head writer of Digimon Tamers
- Takanori Arisawa - Composer of the Japanese versions of Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
- Jeff Nimoy - US Director of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02
- Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - US Director of Digimon Tamers and Digimon Frontier
- Yuen Wong Wu - Author of the Digimon Adventure manga.
See also
- List of Digimon
- Tamagotchi
- List of human characters in the Digimon series
- List of Chosen Digimon
- Digimon: Digital Monsters (anime)
- Digimon families
External links
English
- Bandai of America's Digimon Site
- JETIX U.S. Digimon Tamers website
- The Digi-Zone.com
- Megchan's Digimon Encyclopedia
- Digimon Encyclopedia
- Patamon's World
- TheDigiPort
- Wikimon, the Digimon Wiki
- Digimon Himitsu
- With the Will Forums
Japanese
- Toei Animation's Digimon Adventure website
- Toei Animation's Digimon Digimon Adventure 02 website
- Toei Animation's Digimon Tamers website
- Toei Animation's Digimon Frontier website
- Toei Animation's Digital Monster X-Evolution website
- Toei Animation's Digimon Savers
- Bandai of Japan's Digimon website
Template:Digimoncs:Digimon de:Digimon es:Digimon fr:Digimon he:דיג'ימון nl:Digimon ja:デジモン ko:디지몬 어드벤처 pl:Digimon pt:Digimon fi:Digimon sv:Digimon th:ดิจิมอนแอ๊ดเวนเจอร์ zh:數碼寶貝