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FINALLY watched Digimon!
4 years ago
I’ve heard for 20 years that the Digimon show is better than Pokémon, and today I finally watched the first two episodes…
Meh.
It felt more derivative than I expected and the characters were shallow. It's your typical cast of personality types thrown in to an unfamiliar situation, with all the animal companions having the same personality. I’m sure someone would tell me to just keep watching, and it probably will get interesting, but I’m just not interested. I really haven't known much about Digimon, and if you showed me one I'd think it's a Pokemon. I at least have a little bit of knowledge about them now.
SO THEN I WATCHED THE FIRST TWO EPISODES OF POKEMON...
Wow. Night and day difference. Just comparing the first two episodes, Pokemon blows Digimon out of the water. I actually never watched the first two episodes before, I only caught various episodes as they played on TV after it was already popular. The opening theme is engaging, the world is fleshed out right from the start(Digimon has only showed a forest), it's funny, and the story gets moving. I'd add in that I immediately cared about the characters and that they're more memorable, but that just comes with knowing about them for 25 years.
Also Team Rocket is awesome.
Meh.
It felt more derivative than I expected and the characters were shallow. It's your typical cast of personality types thrown in to an unfamiliar situation, with all the animal companions having the same personality. I’m sure someone would tell me to just keep watching, and it probably will get interesting, but I’m just not interested. I really haven't known much about Digimon, and if you showed me one I'd think it's a Pokemon. I at least have a little bit of knowledge about them now.
SO THEN I WATCHED THE FIRST TWO EPISODES OF POKEMON...
Wow. Night and day difference. Just comparing the first two episodes, Pokemon blows Digimon out of the water. I actually never watched the first two episodes before, I only caught various episodes as they played on TV after it was already popular. The opening theme is engaging, the world is fleshed out right from the start(Digimon has only showed a forest), it's funny, and the story gets moving. I'd add in that I immediately cared about the characters and that they're more memorable, but that just comes with knowing about them for 25 years.
Also Team Rocket is awesome.
There are certain themes that aren't really explored in Pokemon, such as the relationship between Matt and his little brother TK. It's a common theme in the 90s for parents to get divorced, but IIRC Matt went with their dad and TK went with their mom, and Summer camp is the first time they've seen each other in a while.
I watched both shows 20 years ago, and these characters grow up, move onto high school and college and pass the torch to a younger generation. Then there's Ash, the perpetual 10 year old who just wants to be the best and be friends with all the Pokemon.
It's too bad Digimon had a slow start for me, I definitely wanted to enjoy it, and it turns out Veemon isn't even in the first season.
Frontier is also its own thing.
Then I watched the second episode and THAT is the beginning I was hoping for! Great episode. Excited about the rest of the season.
I don't expect to finish the first season of Journeys before Friday, so I don't know what my goal is here. Maybe I'll skip to the newest season when it comes out, even if I'll get spoiled on things. After all, I already watched Scorbunny's journey to find Goh as soon as people started talking about that episode.