Shownotes
Digimon is a sprawling franchise with manga, anime, movies, video games, trading card games, collectible figures, and peripherals. For many, it is a forgotten piece of childhood, yet the fanbase thrives. Ethan, the resident Digimon expert and longtime fan, breaks down for Sarah all the ways a newcomer can get into the Digimon franchise without being overwhelmed.
Content Warning: Strong language
Attributions
Intro Theme: Game Boy | Written by Andrew Stanton | Produced and Performed by Ender
Outro Theme: Faxel-Hecked | Written and Performed by Matteo Galesi
Featured Music Snippets
Digimon Adventure Opening Theme english dub | Paul Gordon
Butter-Fly | Composed by Chiwata Hidenori | Performed by Wada Kouji
Transcripts
Ethan, I've heard you like Digimon. Is that true?
Ethan:Ah, you're referring to Digital Monsters, right, Sarah?
Sarah:Yes, yes I am. And that might be one of the most prominent things I actually know about them is the theme song to the original series, I think. Now that you say Digital Monsters, that's all I'm hearing.
Ethan:Yeah, I mean, there are a few important things that you need to know about Digimon. The first is that they're Digital Monsters. The second is that Digimon are the champions, and more specifically they are champions of the digital world. But they're also monster friends to the boys and girls.
Sarah:I know you love Digimon and I know that I have been dragging my feet getting into the series and the games and I just live vicariously through you in the digital world of Digimon. But I think I'm ready to get started. I need your help.
Ethan:Well, Sarah, it is an intimidating series to try to get into. I mean, Digimon spans movies, TV shows, video games, card games, virtual pets, manga, web novels. There's a lot of content to get through. It's definitely hard to know where to start.
Sarah:That legitimately is the hardest thing for me getting into comics Digimon, long running TV series. I'm hoping you'll give me a good starting point, but I have a crucial question. Okay. Aren't Digimon basically talking Pokemon?
Ethan:I am. God damn it. I thought we were friends. I thought this was a safe space. I thought this was a conversation between two people who respected and cared about one another, and you do this. This is how you start our episode. I came here and I said to a friend ship and you deliver a knife into my back.
Sarah:No, hear me out. Hear me out. This is, I think, a common misconception. It has been so long since I have watched or thought about Digimon before I met you that I legitimately forgot they talked for one thing.
Sarah:They're like those other Pokemon, right? Which is not true. I know it's not true.
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:I'm giving you the opportunity to dispel that and guide people to the truth about Digimon, me first and foremost.
Ethan:Yes. While you have made it sound like I'm the leader of some kind of digital cult, I do appreciate it.
Sarah:I think you are.
Ethan:Fake anger aside. Yeah, that is a very common misconception about the franchise. It's definitely, I mean, growing up in, I guess, like the heyday of Digimon, like the late 90s when the series was first coming out.
Ethan:Like the TV shows were first coming out and it was establishing itself as a franchise. That's definitely like what you would hear on the playground, right? Like as a nine year old or whatever, who was like very into Digimon while all of my friends were mostly into Pokemon. That was the thing, which like to be fair, I was into Pokemon as well.
Ethan:But I was also really into Digimon and everybody was just like, what are those, who cares? Can you catch them in a ball? No. Then I don't want them.
Sarah:Off-brand Pokemon.
Ethan:Right. Yeah, I think a lot of, to a lot of people, it is very much a like Transformers versus Go-Bots kind of thing. But other than having very similar names and a very general conceit of having monsters in it, the two franchises are very, very different.
Sarah:I've heard. Some of the themes you've talked about. I'm like, yeah, that's very different.
Ethan:Yeah. And I think one of the core differences is like you've mentioned, like Digimon can talk. Like Digimon are characters. They have personalities and thoughts and feelings and opinions and stuff in a way that Pokemon like don't outside of, I guess, Meowth.
Sarah:Yeah, that little weirdo.
Ethan:And one of the other core differences is that in most Digimon media, and this isn't true across the board, there are exceptions, especially in the video games. But in most Digimon media, you have one partner Digimon and that's it. It's not like Pokemon where you're like collecting a bunch of different monster friends. Digimon is a thing where like you are bonded to one specific monster who is your partner monster / friend.
Sarah:Okay. Yeah. Sounds like if you tried to collect more than a couple of those, it would be a handful. I mean, that's why I don't have a large friend circle among other reasons.
Ethan:Right. Exactly. Depending on the specific piece of media, like there might be different reasons why that's the case in the original TV series, Digimon Adventure. It was very much presented as like kind of a soulmate type thing. Like you have a spiritual connection to this monster that makes it specifically yours.
Ethan:There are other shows where like that's not so much the case. In the most recent series. Digimon Ghost Game. There's nothing really like magical about it. It's just sort of this human and this monster became friends and like decided to be, you know, sort of monster and human partner or whatever. Um. But there's no like specific there. There are points in Ghost Game where like one character actually like helps a different characters partner evolve, which is not something that could happen in Adventure. That's another major difference, I would say, between the two between Digimon and Pokemon.
Ethan:Which is evolution is a thing in both of them. But it functions very differently in each franchise. Obviously, Pokemon a monster hits a certain level or meets some other prerequisite and it evolves into a different and stronger form. And that's that. And it's that Pokemon forever now, unless it evolves further, right?
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:Whereas with Digimon, things are a lot more fluid. In most of the anime series Digimon stay at their third life stage, we'll say, because Digimon have six stages of life. And most of the time in the shows, they stay up stage three as their sort of default form. And then they can evolve further into stage four, five and six if there is, you know, sufficient reason to do so. And then after they're like fight or whatever that they have at that higher stage, they revert back to stage three.
Sarah:Oh, yeah, that is a big difference. I kind of forgot about. And then don't they have like different like directions they can evolve in?
Ethan:Yes, that's that's one of the other huge differences is that whereas Pokemon generally speaking have one set evolutionary line with a few obvious exceptions like.
Sarah:Yes, like like gloom. Exactly.
Ethan:Obviously there are there are some Pokemon who have different different options of evolution. Digimon, everything has sort of multiple evolutionary paths. Some people in the fandom just sort of consider it that like anything can evolve into anything. Whereas other people tend to think that like certain, I guess, groups might stay together. Like if you have a an Agumon, he's like a little orange dragon guy, or a little orange dinosaur guy, I should say.
Ethan:Most people would say like any sort of stage four dinosaur is like fair game for Agumon to turn into. Right.
Sarah:Oh, that's quite broad.
Ethan:Yeah, exactly. In media, usually like if you're playing a video game or something, you usually have say between three and five options for evolution. So like in Cyber Sleuth, I think Agumon can evolve into four different potential like stage fours and stuff like that. But yeah, it's very fluid if you can find any kind of justification for why a stage three might be able to turn into a stage four. Like that's that's reason enough why it could totally happen.
Sarah:Oh, man. OK, so that is um I think even a little more intimidating trying to wrap my head around like a gosh, like just keeping it all straight sounds very unpredictable.
Ethan:Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's one of the things that I really like about it. It all goes back to the franchise's origins as a virtual pet. Because Digimon started out as the boy version of Tamagotchi, essentially, like Bandai was putting out Tamagotchi virtual pets. They felt that Tamagotchis were not very popular with young boys and they wanted to expand more into that market. So they created Digimon, which were similar to Tamagotchi. They were virtual pets. The whole purpose was to raise them successfully by feeding them, exercising them, paying them attention.
Ethan:But because they wanted to appeal to, you know, rad young nineties boys, they implemented features like like you could battle your Digimon against each other.
Sarah:Hell yeah.
Ethan:Yeah. And they also changed their character design philosophy quite a bit. You know, Tamagotchi was like fun, cute cartoon characters. Digimon, they started designing characters that were like sort of gritty, you know, big scary dinosaurs, demons.
Sarah:Demons, geez.
Ethan:Yeah. It was the nineties, so there was a lot of, you know, like cyborgs with like exposed, you know, organs and scars and belts and chains were everywhere. All that kind of stuff.
Sarah:This is probably why I was a tomboy growing up. It's just much more fun.
Ethan:That sounds rad.
Sarah:Yeah, I want. Yeah, if I'd given the choice between those two things as a kid, I would have been all over Digimon.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's really cool. But as part of that virtual pet experience, they, the original virtual pets, they had these divergent evolutionary lines because the point was the better you do at raising the monster, the more powerful its evolutionary form is.
Ethan:So you needed to have multiple possible evolutions to incentivize kids to actually like take good care of their pets, because if they took good care of them, they would turn into the cooler, stronger monsters.
Sarah:Ah. All right, it's all coming together.
Ethan:Yeah. And so that's carried through to the present day where multiple divergent possible evolutions are a really major part of the franchise. In a lot of media, in a lot of, I should say, in a lot of TV shows, in a lot of the anime series, Digimon will mostly follow a single evolutionary line.
Ethan:So for instance, in the original Digimon Adventure show, like everybody's partnered Digimon has one specific line that it evolves through and it never varies from those set evolutions. Agumon is always going to turn into Greymon. Greymon is always going to turn into Metal Greymon. Metal Greymon is always going to turn into War Greymon. With one notable exception, which is at about the midway point in Digimon Adventure, the main character, Tai, who is Agumon's partner, gets like obsessed with making Agumon evolve into a stronger form. And he starts to like mistreat Agumon to try to force him to evolve, which causes him to evolve from Greymon into Skull Greymon, who's a scary bone dinosaur.
Sarah:That's not cool. I mean, it sounds cool, but Tai sounds like an asshole.
Ethan:It's very cool. And that's like the one instance in the original show of a divergent evolution, but it did become a staple of the anime after that. Like in most seasons, there will be at least one point where a main character's Digimon turns into an evil bad version of an evolution. In more recent anime, there's also been more of a trend of having divergent evolutions. Ghost Game and the Adventure reboot both have monsters who evolve into like multiple different champion levels and stuff like that.
Sarah:Alright, you've mentioned a few different TV series now, which don't mean a whole lot to me, but if I were to get started, would I be starting with the original Digimon Adventures?
Ethan:I think that's what I would recommend. I think if you were looking to get into the franchise via anime, I think there are actually three fairly good options. Your best option is the original Digimon Adventure from, I think, 1998? If I remember right? Or 99? Shit.
Ethan:Anyway, it's the late 90s Digimon adventure, which is, yeah, the original anime series that kicked everything off. Well, I mean, the Virtual Pets kicked everything off, but it's the first anime. So that's what I watched as a kid that got me hooked. It's also the most, I guess, enduring Digimon series because it's like a Super Sentai show in the sense that every new season is basically like a completely different take on the franchise. Right? It's new characters. It's a different universe. There's not a sense of shared continuity in most cases.
Sarah:Gotcha. Like Final Fantasy, that other thing that we enjoy.
Ethan:Yes, exactly. The primary exception to that is the adventure series because there was the original Digimon Adventure followed by a second season called Digimon Adventure 02.
Sarah:Naturally.
Ethan:As a fun little aside, it's not called that because it's the second season. It's called that because it's set in 2002.
Sarah:All right. I thought it was logical for a, nevermind.
Ethan:I mean, keep in mind, the original series came out in like 1998 or 1999. So it was called that to indicate that there had been like a three year time skip and the characters were older now, which is relevant to the plot.
Sarah:Okay.
Ethan:And then so those aired way back in the day in whatever, 1999 and 2000 or something like that.
Sarah:Wait, wait. Wait, wait, hold on. Hold on. So the 02 is the year that the characters are in?
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:Not the year that it came out?
Ethan:Correct.
Sarah:Oh, okay. Jesus. All right.
Ethan:Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like it's called that to indicate like a time skip because it aired immediately following the first season.
Sarah:That sentence makes a lot more sense now because I thought that was very silly. All right. We're good. I'm on board.
Ethan:And then many years later in like 2015, I think is when this next series started. There was Digimon Adventure Tri, which was a sequel to 02. Then a couple of years ago, there was Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna, which was a movie follow up to Tri. And as of this recording in a couple of months, there's going to be Digimon Adventure 02 the Beginning, which is a movie that is a follow up to Last Evolution Kizuna. So it has a, and that's not counting some of the other interstitial movies that came out during the airing of the adventure, such as Our War Game and Diaboromon Strikes Back.
Sarah:And those are all part of the same cast of characters or lore?
Ethan:Yes. Those are all part of the same universe. So I really like Adventure. I recently went back and rewatched it as an adult. And I don't know, caveat, I guess that it is a kid's show from the 90s. So like it's a show that I, if someone were to tell me like I could not get into this, I would understand.
Sarah:Does it still have appeal to adults? Because I'm in my 30s and I still like watching yeah, cartoons that are definitely directed at kids, but you know, there's a little something there for me too.
Ethan:Yeah, I think, I think the thing that makes Adventure kind of a rough recommend is that it's very hard to get a hold of the original like subbed version. And the, yes, and the English dub was done by 4-Kids.
Sarah:No, no. I knew you were going to say that.
Ethan:So it's not, it's not the dub I would want.
Sarah:Got it.
Ethan:That is about to be alleviated because it was fairly recently as of this recording announced that Disco Tech was going to be putting out a like Blu-ray set that has subs and dubs. So the subbed version will be like easily available in the near future if you are willing to shell out for a Blu-ray set of it.
Ethan:So, you know, a still not necessarily the easiest way to get into it as a beginner. That said, the thing that I really liked about Adventure as a kid and that I still appreciate as an adult is that it really feels like an ensemble cast of characters and they feel, again with a grain of salt that like this is a 90s kids cartoon. So you have to give me some wiggle room when I say this, but like they feel like real people in so far as while the bulk of the show is about, you know, problems in the digital world with bad monsters and whatnot. Everybody has kind of a like real problem that a kid in the 90s might be dealing with in their own life. So there are eight main characters and they all have something going on. Two of them are siblings whose parents have recently gotten divorced and each of them live with like a different parent. And so a lot of their story arc is about dealing with the fallout of the divorce and the way that it's like straining their relationship as brothers because they don't live with each other anymore and it's like very hard for them.
Ethan:One of the kids is adopted and like found out because he overheard his parents talking about it, but they haven't told him directly.
Sarah:Ouch.
Ethan:Yeah. And it's, you know, he doesn't like he has a very hard time processing that information. You know, one of them is like the oldest kid in the group and feels like very responsible for the safety of the younger members, but is like he himself is like a nerd who like his parents are really strict and he's just like really focused on studying. And so he's like feels like it's his responsibility to be the leader, but is like not cut out for it. And like a big part of his character arc is like kind of learning to accept that like he doesn't need to force himself into that role and that there are other characters who are better suited to it and like he can let that go and stuff like everybody is that character specifically is named Joe and he's the character that as a kid I thought was like boring as hell, right? But as an adult, I was just like, oh, Joe is like maybe my favorite actually. Like he has a great character arc.
Sarah:Yeah, very relatable.
Ethan:Yeah. And one of the characters, the character who is my favorite as a kid is named Matt. And he's one of the two siblings that parents have been divorced. He's the older sibling in that duo. A big part of his arc is in like a way that I didn't understand as a kid, but as an adult, I'm like, oh, this is why this character is my favorite.
Ethan:Like his whole arc over the back half of the series is like dealing with like intense self-loathing and depression. And I was like, oh, okay. Now I know why I connected with this character so much.
Sarah:Oh, no.
Ethan:It's not just because he had a cool lizard pet.
Sarah:Is it explicit in the sense that like they're not hiding that behind kiddiness? Is it pretty obvious that he is a depressed character?
Ethan:I think so. I mean, like there's a whole, like there is a weird sort of patina of like, let's maybe not talk about this directly in like this one specific kind of two episode arc where he's like trapped in a weird cave that turns out to be like a physical manifestation of his like depression. And it's like a weird sort of like, it's a "magic sadness cave" kind of thing. Uhm. It's really.
Sarah:I have those.
Ethan:Yeah. Like it's a little weird about it, especially because right after he gets out of it, it then just happens to another character and he's like, oh no, the sadness cave is back. And then they like shoot it with their digital powers or whatever. And it goes away.
Sarah:They don't literally say sadness cave, right?
Ethan:No.
Sarah:Okay.
Ethan:It's a really like, I like the conversations that the character has with his partner while he's in the magical sadness cave. I like, I think that they actually pretty directly get to like the root of the themes that they're exploring with him. It's just like from a narrative standpoint, the reveal, because you don't know that it's a magical sadness cave until he's like gotten the pep talk from his Digimon partner and has broken out of it. And then it's like, it fades away.
Ethan:And it, like, it's a reveal that like, oh, he wasn't just in like a cave that he wandered into. It was a weird magic thing. And then like it again, like it kind of sort of happens to a second character, but it's like really brief. And it's just this weird moment of like, okay, narratively, there's not really a reason for it to have been like a magical thing. And it's not, it's not like they reveal that it was part of the bad guy's plan or something. And it's never addressed again.
Sarah:Okay. So it is left as kind of like a manifestation of depression.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Or at least it's not tied into anything in the plot.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:All right. I think it's good to have that kind of representation.
Ethan:I agree. It's, it's something that I appreciated about it when I was younger. It's one of the reasons that I really latched onto the series. I've always had a problem. It's not as much of a thing now that I'm in my 30s, but as a kid in particular, like I really didn't, I've always really bristled that being like, talked down to. And did you learn was a show that felt like it wasn't doing that?
Sarah:I'm, I'm just thinking of Pokemon where Ash runs around with his Pokedex. "What's that?!" And yeah.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. It's a sounds, it sounds interesting. It sounds like it would hold up.
Ethan:I think it does. What I was really surprised by is a season two, Digimon Adventure O2 has kind of a reputation for being not a great follow up to the original series. I think a lot of people, like when we were kids, the people who were watching it, like didn't like it as much for various reasons.
Ethan:I think there's a cast change. I think it's a big part of it. And like there are problems with it. It feels a lot less focused than the original series. There are some weird, like lore developments that kind of happen out of nowhere and don't necessarily make a ton of sense. So I, I understand those criticisms, but I actually found that as an adult, like there was a lot of stuff that I appreciated about O2 that I didn't get as a kid.
Ethan:I think the, I think the themes of O2 are really strong and delivered on really well, even if the narrative is like maybe not as good as the first season. And then everybody fucking hates, Digimon Adventure Tri? Except me. I think it's good, but whatever.
Sarah:Well, you're the only, the only voice here right now that matters anyways. Digimon Try? You heard it here is good.
Ethan:Yeah. I think it's a totally fine sequel series. I, I think of whatever we'll have, we can have an entire episode about try at some point where I defend it because I understand why people dislike some aspects of it, but I think it's good at any rate.
Sarah:You can try.
Ethan:Yes. At the- God damn it. At the end of the day, I think Digimon Adventure, If you can get past the dub or if you can find it subbed, I think it's a really good entry point. It has good, well-developed characters. It has a pretty good smattering of Digimon. It establishes lore that is used in most versions of the digital world in some capacity. I mean, it establishes how evolution works and like all that kind of stuff.
Sarah:What if I'm impatient and just want to jump into a more like modern, recent Digimon series?
Ethan:I think there are two options for that. It's the, at the time of this recording, the most recent two series. I think either one is a good choice. The first one that I'll only touch on briefly is in 2020, there was actually a reboot of Digimon Adventure. So if you see like Digimon Adventure 2020, it's on Hulu, for instance, or Crunchyroll. That is taking the same characters and loosely speaking, like the same broad concepts of the original series and updating them for the modern day. So it's reboot versions of the original eight main characters and their partners. It has similar story beats, at least for like the first half. It's longer than the original series.
Ethan:I can't say a ton about it because I haven't watched all of it myself and I've, according to the internet, it really falls apart in like the second half. So I don't know, maybe it gets bad after the point where I'm currently at. I'm like pretty early on still. I'm really enjoying it so far. It's like the series that I'm currently watching.
Ethan:I think it's fun. I think the way that it suffers is that as far as I've seen the character development is not there. Like I think it's a much more, I guess, traditional or expected version of a kid's monster show. It's mostly just about, look at these cool monsters fight, and there's not the same level of depth to the characters.
Sarah:Wow, that's unfortunate. I mean, if that's what people are into, good for them.
Ethan:Right. But if you just want to dive into the world of Digimon and see some cool monsters fight, there's lots of cool monster fights. It's pretty recent, so the animation is pretty good. It kind of varies episode to episode, but it's cool. There is some cool fights, and you can watch the dub on Hulu or the subs on Crunchyroll.
Ethan:So I think that's a totally fine option. The other more recent series is Digimon Ghost Game, which I think is a really good starting point for a few reasons. First of all, like it's completely unrelated to any, you know, it's a standalone series. You don't need to have watched anything else. At the moment, there's no sequel series or movies or anything like that. It's really, really episodic. Like there is kind of an overarching story, but it's the kind of overarching story where like they establish sort of a plot in the first episode, and then every like 20 episodes, they're like, remember, that's still a thing.
Sarah:Oh no.
Ethan:And then in the last like three episodes, they're like, all right, let's resolve this now.
Sarah:Oh my gosh.
Ethan:Yeah. So like the pacing is bad. The ending feels really rushed and not very good. However, I still think it's a good place to jump in if you just like want to see some Digimon, right? Like it's it's a very episodic show.
Ethan:Every episode, you're going to get some kind of new weird Digimon. I like the characters. Like I don't think that they have the same level of development as something like Adventure, but like I think that they are all interesting and like individual characters with distinct personalities. They're not just like flat, nothing characters. It's kind of loosely horror themed, which is like Super My Jam. It focuses on a lot of Digimon that are based on like Yokai or.
Sarah:OK.
Ethan:Urban legends.
Sarah:I was jokingly going to ask if it's spooky. I didn't think it would be spooky.
Ethan:It is. It is spooky sometimes. Yeah, I just think like it's a lot of fun. It's low investment. Because like I said, like there's not a lot of plot. It's pretty episodic. So it's something that you could just throw on an episode now and again, and you're not going to be like sitting there thinking like, ah, fuck, like what happened last time? You can just kind of take each episode as it comes. If there's a monster that's like not working for you, just move on to the next episode. Like. And I really like the protagonists. They're three main characters. And I think all of them have like really fun partners that have cool evolutions.
Ethan:So I think Ghost Game is solid if you don't want to have the kind of investment that you might, you know, need to fully enjoy the Adventure continuity.
Sarah:Right. But if we want to if we want to catch up with that movie coming out.
Ethan:Right. Yeah. If you want to if you want to be ready for Digimon Adventure O2 the Beginning in October, then get binging now.
Sarah:These names.
Sarah:So if I want to get into the series, I know where to start with television, and it'll probably be for me, the Adventure series. I do want to catch up to that movie so we can chat about it. But you kindly gifted me a video game on the Switch that I have not started yet. Cyber Sleuth.
Ethan:Yeah. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth.
Sarah:I lost a few words. But yeah, that one. I assume that's a good place to start. Otherwise, you wouldn't have directed me to it.
Ethan:I think so. Yeah. So sort of like the old axiom about Digimon compared to Pokemon, something that you'll see said a lot if you go to like the Digimon subreddit or something like that is Digimon has the better anime. Pokemon has the better video games.
Sarah:I don't know if that's true anymore.
Ethan:That's a sentiment I've started to see a lot, actually.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:But historically, if we don't count the last five years, say, that's probably been pretty true. But Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, I think, is a really good place to get into the franchise for beginners. If you aren't really that interested in watching the anime, it is a very traditional turn based role playing game. Where you control a party of three Digimon in just good old standard, no frills, turn based combat. It's not a game that has a ton of mechanical depth in the fighting. But if you're a fan of like really old school Final Fantasys, Dragon Quest, those kinds of games, it's a totally solid, if not like impressive one of those. Right?
Ethan:The thing that it layers into it that I really enjoy is the evolutionary mechanics for your Digimon that make up your party. You can have three Digimon in combat at a time. But every Digimon that you have in your party takes up a certain amount of memory. So memory is this like sort of resource that you gain more of as you progress the story. The more memory you have, the stronger the Digimon you can have in your party. So it's like a little bit of a balancing act because you can you can have up to, I think, 11 monsters in your party. Only three of them are like in combat at a time.
Sarah:OK.
Ethan:But it's like how you can have up to six Pokémon, but only one goes out at a time or whatever. There's just this sort of extra balancing mechanic of like if you only have 30 memory, like is it better to bring three guys that are 10 memory a piece or one guy who's 25 memory and one guy who's five memory? You know what I mean? It's this little sort of balancing act for your party mechanics.
Sarah:I'm not very good at math, but... No, it sounds sound simply enough.
Ethan:Yeah, like so I find that kind of interesting. But more specifically, the way it handles evolution, I think is really cool where as you bite Digimon in like random encounters and stuff like that, you scan them. Once you hit like 100 percent scan rate on a monster you can just like hatch it and get that monster for your party. And then as they level up, they can evolve into different things. And so say you have let's just use Agumon as an example, since that's what we were talking about earlier, if you have an Agumon, you can go into your little like evolution menu, click on your Agumon, and it'll show you like, OK, it can evolve into four things, right? And if you've never evolved an Agumon before, like it won't tell you what those four things are, they'll just be these black silhouettes. Once you've evolved into something for the first time, you add it to your like basically your Pokedex. Then you can just see it from then on, like it won't be a silhouette anymore in your evolutionary tree.
Ethan:But it'll be like, OK, Agumon, if it's level 20 and it has strength of, you know, 60 or higher and defense of 60 or higher, it can evolve into Greymon or something. If it's only level 15 and it has, you know, strength of 45 and speed of 30, it can evolve into this guy instead. And like, so it's all it's all stat based. So you have to like raise your monsters to have like fulfill specific statistical conditions in order to get the evolutions that you want. As the kid whose dream in Pokemon was always just to complete the Pokedex. This is that's where Cyber Sleuth really got it hooks into me. It was like, well, I have to get everything to evolve into everything. Like I have to fill out all of these evolutionary trees. And I found that part of the game really fun.
Sarah:Yeah, that sounds like a good way to to get you hooked, like you said.
Ethan:Yeah, it's I think it's really good for for newcomers because it's a system that I feel like is just the right level of complexity where it's like it's complex enough that you have to like think about it and be kind of deliberate with your choices, but not so complex that it's like a really confusing and overwhelming. And I think the way that it's set up where like, if you're new, every evolution is going to be this cool surprise because like, you don't know what any of these guys are. Like when I started playing Cyber Sleuth, I could look at Agumon's silhouetted evolutionary tree and be like, OK, well, that one's Greymon. This one's GeoGreymon. That one's going to be Growlmon probably, you know what I mean? Like I could look at these silhouettes and have a pretty good idea of like, yeah, that guy shaped like this guy that I know from the anime or whatever.
Ethan:But if you are unfamiliar with the series, then yeah, like every time you evolve a new guy, it's going to be like, well, what kind of weird fucking monster is it going to be this time?
Sarah:Is Doggymon in there?
Ethan:I don't. No. Doggymon's not in Cyber Sleuth.
Sarah:Oh, OK.
Ethan:I hate Doggymon.
Sarah:Me too. And I all I've seen is a picture. Does Cyber Sleuth introduce new Digimon? Like were you surprised by anything?
Ethan:Hmm. Not that I can remember. Like there were certain things that I found surprising as a longtime fan. There's a character who has a partner, Digimon, that is the character is like a protagonist, like he's on your side. But the partner that he has is traditionally like a big bad of, you know, he's he's not not a good dude, generally speaking. So it was like a cool surprise to be like, oh, wow.
Ethan:Like,
Sarah:OK
Ethan:That guy has has him as a partner. That's neat. Hacker's Memory, which is like a kind of sequel to Cyber Sleuth. It's another game built in like the same engine and it's in the same universe.
Ethan:They kind of the two games are happening kind of simultaneously, narratively speaking. Hacker's Memory like really surprised me because late in the game, they introduced a new villain who's like from Digimon V Tamer, which was like the original manga for Digimon. And this particular Digimon has like never shown up in anything else. So for him to show up in the game was like, holy shit, like this guy hasn't been in media for like 20 years.
Sarah:That would be really cool. Yeah, I can I can feel that excitement.
Ethan:Yeah. So there are some surprises like that that uh I really appreciated.
Sarah:All right. I will play it soon.
Ethan:Yeah, no rush. Yeah, I Cyber Sleuth, I think, is probably the best entry point video game wise. I do want to very quickly touch on two other video games that are somewhat recent. One of them is very recent.
Ethan:The other one is not that recent, but it did just get ported to the Switch like a couple months ago. So the first one I want to mention really quick is Digimon Survive, which is a it's mostly a graphic novel, but it does have combat that plays out in like tactical grid based combat. But the majority like it's it's 90 percent a visual novel. And I really liked it. It was sort of controversial, I guess, when it came out because, well, mostly because people are stupid and they don't pay attention to marketing and people were like, why is this a visual novel? I thought it was a tactics game. And it's like they were they were very clear that it was a visual novel the whole time. This shouldn't have been a surprise if you were paying attention.
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:But at any rate, Digimon Survive is essentially the main conceit is what if Digimon Adventure, but for adults.
Sarah:All right.
Ethan:Or older teens, at least, you know, for an older audience. Yeah, Survive has a very similar premise to Adventure, which is eight kids at summer camp are suddenly transported to the digital world and don't know what the fuck is going on and have to survive with the help of their partner Digimon. But all of the characters are a bit older because in Adventure, they're like 10 to 12 and in Survive, they're like 16 to 18 or something like that. It's it's exploring a very similar premise, but with an older audience in mind, there's multiple paths for the story to take, depending on decisions that you make. Characters can die.
Ethan:It gets kind of dark sometimes. And yeah, it's really good that the characters are all sort of like very loose parallels to characters from Adventure, depending on what like branch of the story you're on, your your Digimon partner evolves into different things, which is a neat little aspect of the game. And yeah, if you like visual novels, I think it's really cool and like would definitely recommend if you don't like visual novels, then, you know, it's not going to do anything with the genre that would that would fix that for you.
Ethan:It's a very, very, very much, you know, 90 percent reading. But I really enjoyed it. And I think if you like Adventure, it's a it's a cool sort of follow up piece, thought experiment. Then I also just want to very briefly touch on Digimon World Next Order, which is.
Sarah:Oh. OK, I remember one of the Digimon World games. And boy was I confused with the child.
Ethan:Yeah. So Digimon World is like the original Digimon video game, right? And the thing that's really interesting about the original Digimon World and Digimon World Next Order, which is essentially like a direct sequel that was made, you know, 20 years later or whatever. Is that they are essentially video game versions of the virtual past. So while Cyber Sleuth is a very traditional sort of RPG where you just Digimon level up from fights and then once they hit certain levels, you can choose to evolve them and like all that kind of stuff.
Ethan:The Digimon World and Digimon World Next Order games are much more about like the raising and care of Digimon. So you have your little guys that follow you around. You need to take them to the gym to train them. You need to feed them when they get hungry. After they eat, they have to use the bathroom. So you have to come to the bathroom or else they poop on the floor and that counts as a care mistake.
Sarah:Oh, that's too much. I do that with my dog.
Ethan:Yeah. So those games, if you want to play something that you won't really get anywhere else, like if you want to have a uniquely Digimon experience, then check out Digimon World Next Order. It is. It's super not for everyone. I have fun with Next Order because I have such fond memories of playing Digimon World as a kid and like you said, being super fucking confused by it and not understanding what was happening at all.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Now as an adult, I'm like, oh, okay, I get these mechanics eventually.
Sarah:Even as an adult.
Ethan:Yeah. So I think it's fun. I enjoy that game for what it is, but of the three, it is the one I would least recommend because it's very weird and different. But if that's what you're looking for, that could be a really cool way into the franchise.
Sarah:Right. Some people like weird and different. Yeah. And Sims, it sounds like a simulation type game.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. And the aspects of it that I really like are you have a town that is sort of your home base. And as you explore the world, you are recruiting different Digimon to your town. And so your town keeps growing and you get new shops and new stuff at the gym and new things that you can do in town that influence how your Digimon evolve and how the story goes and stuff. So I like that aspect of it a lot. It's cool to just be exploring and wandering around and run across some Digimon that instead of fighting you, talks to you and is like, hey, can you get me this item? And if you do, I'll come join your town.
Sarah:I almost immediately forgot that I talk. I was like, it's asking you for what now?
Ethan:Yeah, so.
Sarah:That is a jarring.
Ethan:So that sort of town building aspect of it, I think, is fun.
Sarah:So that covers the video games and the series. Are there any other entry points into Digimon? I know there's the cards because you have mentioned the trading card game and uh.
Ethan:Yeah, I think there are two other good ways to get into the franchise. The first is, as you just mentioned, the card game. If you like trading card games, if you enjoy Magic or the Pokemon card game or Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever, and you're interested in maybe picking up a new one, the Digimon card game is really good. In my opinion, I think it has some really neat mechanics that actually do a good job of representing things like evolution or some of the weird kind of gimmick concepts from certain seasons like Jogress or Digi Crossing. We don't need to get into what those are.
Ethan:But the card game has all these cool mechanics that reflect different stuff from the show. It's pretty easy to learn. It has a it does a couple of things that I just think are fun for a card game. I like the way that like turns happen. It's not like Magic where you have like kind of a specific breakdown of steps in a turn and once you've done all of the steps, your turn is over. The way Digimon works is like every card costs a certain amount of points. And once you spend a certain amount of points, it passes over to the other player.
Ethan:So you have to be really like sort of careful and tactical about how you play cards when you want to play certain things. My favorite aspect of it is the way it models evolution. So it's it's from, I think, the same people who did like Card Fight Vanguard, which I have heard of, but never played. I think it this I think it has a similar mechanic of like stacking cards on top of each other to sort of grow their power.
Ethan:Anyway, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds. The card game is really fun. If you are interested in Digimon and you like playing card games, you know, I say grab some of it. It's got cool. It's got good card art that can introduce you to a lot of the monsters. And yeah, it's a good time.
Sarah:Well, what's what's odd about it to me is it has that it has that phone app that you can learn how to play in like a very limited capacity. And it has all of that built out, but you can't play online.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:So there's a great way to just kind of demo it and see if you like it before you even buy cards. But I just wish we could play online because we're we're not in the same state. It would be great if we could do that.
Ethan:For sure. I would love I would love an online client for it. It would be fantastic.
Sarah:Are you listening Bandai? Have the demands.
Ethan:Yeah. And then the other way to to break into the franchise, I think, is something that we touched on a little bit in our previous episode about hobbies, which is the the vital bracelet. Vital bracelet is sort of the modern equivalent to the classic V pets.
Sarah:It's like uh come full circle.
Ethan:Yeah, it's not as intensive as the old V pets. With the vital brace that you don't have to feed your monsters. You don't have to clean up their poops. None of that. You just you just have them in there and you walk with them and you have to fulfill certain objectives for them to evolve into different things. You know, you have to have a certain number of steps with them or have them fight a certain number of battles or what have you. I really, really like the vital bracelets.
Ethan:And it's again, like like we kind of said last time, if you just have if it's the kind of thing that you think would be effective in getting you to exercise a little bit more, then it's like totally worth getting. There's a phone app. As long as your phone is NFC enabled, you can use the phone app and like transfer your monsters from your bracelet to your phone. It's got a little Pokedex kind of thing on there that you can fill out.
Ethan:So it's again, like a great way to if you're not familiar with the series, just buy the little microchip card things that you put in to get new monsters are called BEM cards. So just like buy, you know, a couple of BEM cards that you think look cool and just raise up some monsters and then you'll get the little codex entries explaining their like lore and stuff. And yeah, it's like a super easy chill way to just like learn about some of these weird little guys.
Sarah:Despite it involving raising Digimon and a peripheral, it feels like a low investment way where you don't even have to spend time on it. Like it just passively is there and you get to enjoy Digimon without sitting down for a series or learning a card game, playing through hours of video games. I think that's very approachable. And you get cute little monsters, cool, cool monsters. I'm sorry, got appealed to the 90s boys.
Ethan:Some of them are cute, such as Cutemon.
Sarah:Oh, for fuck's sake.
Ethan:Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's a really and they're not super expensive. There's... It's 60 bucks for like the current model of vital bracelet. It's not crazy. And because the original vital bracelet was, I guess, enough of a hit and Bandai owns 80 percent of the anime titles that you love.
Ethan:They've been branching out. So if you want to check out a vital bracelet, but you're not totally sure that Digimon is for you, go ahead and buy one. And then you can just get the My Hero Academia cards or the Jujutsu Kaisen cards or any Tokyo Revengers, Demon Slayer. They got it all.
Sarah:This this got. Oh, no, can someone raise a little Nezuko? This is bad.
Ethan:I think so. I'm pretty sure.
Sarah:Oh, no, Demon Slayer card.
Ethan:I fucking know these goddamn vampires. You're going to put out some Gundam cards at some point and take even more of my fucking money. There we go. Yeah, you're screwed. But that'll be the best day ever, right?
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:When Ethan is not talking about Digimon or Final Fantasy, he's talking about Gundam or Scream.
Ethan:or Scream. Yeah, I was just
Sarah:One of these is not like the other.
Ethan:I was just thinking, I haven't worked a scream reference into this episode yet. I need to get on that.
Sarah:You missed your chance with Ghost Game.
Ethan:Yeah. Or just, you know, talking extensively about late 90s media in general.
Ethan:Yeah, those those those are my four main recommendations. I think one of those should work for you, like no matter what, you being the audience in this case, not you specifically, Sarah.
Sarah:But I do have my plan of attack. I think I'll I'll give the original Adventure as a try and I'll start Cyber Sleuth. And then if I actually like Digimon, I have a whole host of options to pick from.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. There are I mean, there's a bunch of anime. There's many other games, although most of them are probably pretty hard to get ahold of these days, because they're mostly older.
Ethan:But yeah, there's there's a lot out there. But I think, you know, I think if you want to check out the anime, try out Adventure. If you want to check out the video games, try out Cyber Sleuth.
Ethan:If you don't want the time investment that either of those have, check out the card game or the vital bracelets. The nice thing about it being so broad is that like most of the entries are not directly related. So you can really start anywhere with a with a few minor exceptions. Like don't start with Digimon Adventure Tri, because that will be confusing. But, you know, you could pick up Digimon Tamers, which is season three of the anime, or Digimon Survive or whatever, and like not really be lost if you wanted to. But those are my recommendations for how to get into the franchise as a newbie.
Sarah:Awesome. And even though, you know, we talk about Digimon, because it's one of your your hobbies and interests, this actually is it really is intimidating, like trying to figure out what will okay where the hell do I begin when there's decades of media? And I think I think that's something we want to cover with other series, because I have the same problem with comics and Gundam and just, you know, Final Fantasy. There's so much to wade through. And oh, yeah, I'm looking forward to figuring out.
Ethan:Yeah, we should definitely do one on Gundam at some point. Gundam is, I think, even harder than Digimon.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:It's not just because it's been been on longer, but it has.
Sarah:No, we don't.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Don't go down this path yet.
Ethan:It's just it's much more complicated for many reasons. Yeah.
Ethan:Oh, one more thing that I want to say about Digimon really, really fast is you mentioned that the top of the episode, I think. I don't remember we had a wacky, wacky intro, so maybe it got cut. I'm not totally sure at this point. The original series theme song is somewhat infamously, just the very repetitive, like.
Sarah:Yeah, I can hear it in my head.
Ethan:Yeah. Right.
Ethan:It's it's the English theme song is is infamous for good reason. But the original Japanese theme is called Butterfly. It was composed by Koji Wada and it's great. And they did a like remix version of it for Digimon Adventure Tri that has like the entire cast singing it. And it whips ass. It's a great song.
Sarah:That is sweet sounding. Yeah. Awh, I don't even I'm not even attached to Digimon. And that just sounds cool.
Ethan:Yeah, that's all. I think that pretty much covers it.
Sarah:All right. Well, thanks, Ethan, for going over that and giving me a place to start. And I hope that helped anyone who decided this was an interesting episode to listen to. And if you are here listening to this episode, thank you.
ah: Eh:an, I've heard you like Digimon. Is that true?
Ethan:Ah, you're referring to Digital Monsters, right, Sarah?
Sarah:Yes, yes I am. And that might be one of the most prominent things I actually know about them is the theme song to the original series, I think. Now that you say Digital Monsters, that's all I'm hearing.
Ethan:Yeah, I mean, there are a few important things that you need to know about Digimon. The first is that they're Digital Monsters. The second is that Digimon are the champions, and more specifically they are champions of the digital world. But they're also monster friends to the boys and girls.
Sarah:I know you love Digimon and I know that I have been dragging my feet getting into the series and the games and I just live vicariously through you in the digital world of Digimon. But I think I'm ready to get started. I need your help.
Ethan:Well, Sarah, it is an intimidating series to try to get into. I mean, Digimon spans movies, TV shows, video games, card games, virtual pets, manga, web novels. There's a lot of content to get through. It's definitely hard to know where to start.
Sarah:That legitimately is the hardest thing for me getting into comics Digimon, long running TV series. I'm hoping you'll give me a good starting point, but I have a crucial question. Okay. Aren't Digimon basically talking Pokemon?
Ethan:I am. God damn it. I thought we were friends. I thought this was a safe space. I thought this was a conversation between two people who respected and cared about one another, and you do this. This is how you start our episode. I came here and I said to a friend ship and you deliver a knife into my back.
Sarah:No, hear me out. Hear me out. This is, I think, a common misconception. It has been so long since I have watched or thought about Digimon before I met you that I legitimately forgot they talked for one thing.
Sarah:They're like those other Pokemon, right? Which is not true. I know it's not true.
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:I'm giving you the opportunity to dispel that and guide people to the truth about Digimon, me first and foremost.
Ethan:Yes. While you have made it sound like I'm the leader of some kind of digital cult, I do appreciate it.
Sarah:I think you are.
Ethan:Fake anger aside. Yeah, that is a very common misconception about the franchise. It's definitely, I mean, growing up in, I guess, like the heyday of Digimon, like the late 90s when the series was first coming out.
Ethan:Like the TV shows were first coming out and it was establishing itself as a franchise. That's definitely like what you would hear on the playground, right? Like as a nine year old or whatever, who was like very into Digimon while all of my friends were mostly into Pokemon. That was the thing, which like to be fair, I was into Pokemon as well.
Ethan:But I was also really into Digimon and everybody was just like, what are those, who cares? Can you catch them in a ball? No. Then I don't want them.
Sarah:Off-brand Pokemon.
Ethan:Right. Yeah, I think a lot of, to a lot of people, it is very much a like Transformers versus Go-Bots kind of thing. But other than having very similar names and a very general conceit of having monsters in it, the two franchises are very, very different.
Sarah:I've heard. Some of the themes you've talked about. I'm like, yeah, that's very different.
Ethan:Yeah. And I think one of the core differences is like you've mentioned, like Digimon can talk. Like Digimon are characters. They have personalities and thoughts and feelings and opinions and stuff in a way that Pokemon like don't outside of, I guess, Meowth.
Sarah:Yeah, that little weirdo.
Ethan:And one of the other core differences is that in most Digimon media, and this isn't true across the board, there are exceptions, especially in the video games. But in most Digimon media, you have one partner Digimon and that's it. It's not like Pokemon where you're like collecting a bunch of different monster friends. Digimon is a thing where like you are bonded to one specific monster who is your partner monster / friend.
Sarah:Okay. Yeah. Sounds like if you tried to collect more than a couple of those, it would be a handful. I mean, that's why I don't have a large friend circle among other reasons.
Ethan:Right. Exactly. Depending on the specific piece of media, like there might be different reasons why that's the case in the original TV series, Digimon Adventure. It was very much presented as like kind of a soulmate type thing. Like you have a spiritual connection to this monster that makes it specifically yours.
Ethan:There are other shows where like that's not so much the case. In the most recent series. Digimon Ghost Game. There's nothing really like magical about it. It's just sort of this human and this monster became friends and like decided to be, you know, sort of monster and human partner or whatever. Um. But there's no like specific there. There are points in Ghost Game where like one character actually like helps a different characters partner evolve, which is not something that could happen in Adventure. That's another major difference, I would say, between the two between Digimon and Pokemon.
Ethan:Which is evolution is a thing in both of them. But it functions very differently in each franchise. Obviously, Pokemon a monster hits a certain level or meets some other prerequisite and it evolves into a different and stronger form. And that's that. And it's that Pokemon forever now, unless it evolves further, right?
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:Whereas with Digimon, things are a lot more fluid. In most of the anime series Digimon stay at their third life stage, we'll say, because Digimon have six stages of life. And most of the time in the shows, they stay up stage three as their sort of default form. And then they can evolve further into stage four, five and six if there is, you know, sufficient reason to do so. And then after they're like fight or whatever that they have at that higher stage, they revert back to stage three.
Sarah:Oh, yeah, that is a big difference. I kind of forgot about. And then don't they have like different like directions they can evolve in?
Ethan:Yes, that's that's one of the other huge differences is that whereas Pokemon generally speaking have one set evolutionary line with a few obvious exceptions like.
Sarah:Yes, like like gloom. Exactly.
Ethan:Obviously there are there are some Pokemon who have different different options of evolution. Digimon, everything has sort of multiple evolutionary paths. Some people in the fandom just sort of consider it that like anything can evolve into anything. Whereas other people tend to think that like certain, I guess, groups might stay together. Like if you have a an Agumon, he's like a little orange dragon guy, or a little orange dinosaur guy, I should say.
Ethan:Most people would say like any sort of stage four dinosaur is like fair game for Agumon to turn into. Right.
Sarah:Oh, that's quite broad.
Ethan:Yeah, exactly. In media, usually like if you're playing a video game or something, you usually have say between three and five options for evolution. So like in Cyber Sleuth, I think Agumon can evolve into four different potential like stage fours and stuff like that. But yeah, it's very fluid if you can find any kind of justification for why a stage three might be able to turn into a stage four. Like that's that's reason enough why it could totally happen.
Sarah:Oh, man. OK, so that is um I think even a little more intimidating trying to wrap my head around like a gosh, like just keeping it all straight sounds very unpredictable.
Ethan:Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's one of the things that I really like about it. It all goes back to the franchise's origins as a virtual pet. Because Digimon started out as the boy version of Tamagotchi, essentially, like Bandai was putting out Tamagotchi virtual pets. They felt that Tamagotchis were not very popular with young boys and they wanted to expand more into that market. So they created Digimon, which were similar to Tamagotchi. They were virtual pets. The whole purpose was to raise them successfully by feeding them, exercising them, paying them attention.
Ethan:But because they wanted to appeal to, you know, rad young nineties boys, they implemented features like like you could battle your Digimon against each other.
Sarah:Hell yeah.
Ethan:Yeah. And they also changed their character design philosophy quite a bit. You know, Tamagotchi was like fun, cute cartoon characters. Digimon, they started designing characters that were like sort of gritty, you know, big scary dinosaurs, demons.
Sarah:Demons, geez.
Ethan:Yeah. It was the nineties, so there was a lot of, you know, like cyborgs with like exposed, you know, organs and scars and belts and chains were everywhere. All that kind of stuff.
Sarah:This is probably why I was a tomboy growing up. It's just much more fun.
Ethan:That sounds rad.
Sarah:Yeah, I want. Yeah, if I'd given the choice between those two things as a kid, I would have been all over Digimon.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's really cool. But as part of that virtual pet experience, they, the original virtual pets, they had these divergent evolutionary lines because the point was the better you do at raising the monster, the more powerful its evolutionary form is.
Ethan:So you needed to have multiple possible evolutions to incentivize kids to actually like take good care of their pets, because if they took good care of them, they would turn into the cooler, stronger monsters.
Sarah:Ah. All right, it's all coming together.
Ethan:Yeah. And so that's carried through to the present day where multiple divergent possible evolutions are a really major part of the franchise. In a lot of media, in a lot of, I should say, in a lot of TV shows, in a lot of the anime series, Digimon will mostly follow a single evolutionary line.
Ethan:So for instance, in the original Digimon Adventure show, like everybody's partnered Digimon has one specific line that it evolves through and it never varies from those set evolutions. Agumon is always going to turn into Greymon. Greymon is always going to turn into Metal Greymon. Metal Greymon is always going to turn into War Greymon. With one notable exception, which is at about the midway point in Digimon Adventure, the main character, Tai, who is Agumon's partner, gets like obsessed with making Agumon evolve into a stronger form. And he starts to like mistreat Agumon to try to force him to evolve, which causes him to evolve from Greymon into Skull Greymon, who's a scary bone dinosaur.
Sarah:That's not cool. I mean, it sounds cool, but Tai sounds like an asshole.
Ethan:It's very cool. And that's like the one instance in the original show of a divergent evolution, but it did become a staple of the anime after that. Like in most seasons, there will be at least one point where a main character's Digimon turns into an evil bad version of an evolution. In more recent anime, there's also been more of a trend of having divergent evolutions. Ghost Game and the Adventure reboot both have monsters who evolve into like multiple different champion levels and stuff like that.
Sarah:Alright, you've mentioned a few different TV series now, which don't mean a whole lot to me, but if I were to get started, would I be starting with the original Digimon Adventures?
Ethan:I think that's what I would recommend. I think if you were looking to get into the franchise via anime, I think there are actually three fairly good options. Your best option is the original Digimon Adventure from, I think, 1998? If I remember right? Or 99? Shit.
Ethan:Anyway, it's the late 90s Digimon adventure, which is, yeah, the original anime series that kicked everything off. Well, I mean, the Virtual Pets kicked everything off, but it's the first anime. So that's what I watched as a kid that got me hooked. It's also the most, I guess, enduring Digimon series because it's like a Super Sentai show in the sense that every new season is basically like a completely different take on the franchise. Right? It's new characters. It's a different universe. There's not a sense of shared continuity in most cases.
Sarah:Gotcha. Like Final Fantasy, that other thing that we enjoy.
Ethan:Yes, exactly. The primary exception to that is the adventure series because there was the original Digimon Adventure followed by a second season called Digimon Adventure 02.
Sarah:Naturally.
Ethan:As a fun little aside, it's not called that because it's the second season. It's called that because it's set in 2002.
Sarah:All right. I thought it was logical for a, nevermind.
Ethan:I mean, keep in mind, the original series came out in like 1998 or 1999. So it was called that to indicate that there had been like a three year time skip and the characters were older now, which is relevant to the plot.
Sarah:Okay.
Ethan:And then so those aired way back in the day in whatever, 1999 and 2000 or something like that.
Sarah:Wait, wait. Wait, wait, hold on. Hold on. So the 02 is the year that the characters are in?
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:Not the year that it came out?
Ethan:Correct.
Sarah:Oh, okay. Jesus. All right.
Ethan:Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like it's called that to indicate like a time skip because it aired immediately following the first season.
Sarah:That sentence makes a lot more sense now because I thought that was very silly. All right. We're good. I'm on board.
Ethan:And then many years later in like 2015, I think is when this next series started. There was Digimon Adventure Tri, which was a sequel to 02. Then a couple of years ago, there was Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna, which was a movie follow up to Tri. And as of this recording in a couple of months, there's going to be Digimon Adventure 02 the Beginning, which is a movie that is a follow up to Last Evolution Kizuna. So it has a, and that's not counting some of the other interstitial movies that came out during the airing of the adventure, such as Our War Game and Diaboromon Strikes Back.
Sarah:And those are all part of the same cast of characters or lore?
Ethan:Yes. Those are all part of the same universe. So I really like Adventure. I recently went back and rewatched it as an adult. And I don't know, caveat, I guess that it is a kid's show from the 90s. So like it's a show that I, if someone were to tell me like I could not get into this, I would understand.
Sarah:Does it still have appeal to adults? Because I'm in my 30s and I still like watching yeah, cartoons that are definitely directed at kids, but you know, there's a little something there for me too.
Ethan:Yeah, I think, I think the thing that makes Adventure kind of a rough recommend is that it's very hard to get a hold of the original like subbed version. And the, yes, and the English dub was done by 4-Kids.
Sarah:No, no. I knew you were going to say that.
Ethan:So it's not, it's not the dub I would want.
Sarah:Got it.
Ethan:That is about to be alleviated because it was fairly recently as of this recording announced that Disco Tech was going to be putting out a like Blu-ray set that has subs and dubs. So the subbed version will be like easily available in the near future if you are willing to shell out for a Blu-ray set of it.
Ethan:So, you know, a still not necessarily the easiest way to get into it as a beginner. That said, the thing that I really liked about Adventure as a kid and that I still appreciate as an adult is that it really feels like an ensemble cast of characters and they feel, again with a grain of salt that like this is a 90s kids cartoon. So you have to give me some wiggle room when I say this, but like they feel like real people in so far as while the bulk of the show is about, you know, problems in the digital world with bad monsters and whatnot. Everybody has kind of a like real problem that a kid in the 90s might be dealing with in their own life. So there are eight main characters and they all have something going on. Two of them are siblings whose parents have recently gotten divorced and each of them live with like a different parent. And so a lot of their story arc is about dealing with the fallout of the divorce and the way that it's like straining their relationship as brothers because they don't live with each other anymore and it's like very hard for them.
Ethan:One of the kids is adopted and like found out because he overheard his parents talking about it, but they haven't told him directly.
Sarah:Ouch.
Ethan:Yeah. And it's, you know, he doesn't like he has a very hard time processing that information. You know, one of them is like the oldest kid in the group and feels like very responsible for the safety of the younger members, but is like he himself is like a nerd who like his parents are really strict and he's just like really focused on studying. And so he's like feels like it's his responsibility to be the leader, but is like not cut out for it. And like a big part of his character arc is like kind of learning to accept that like he doesn't need to force himself into that role and that there are other characters who are better suited to it and like he can let that go and stuff like everybody is that character specifically is named Joe and he's the character that as a kid I thought was like boring as hell, right? But as an adult, I was just like, oh, Joe is like maybe my favorite actually. Like he has a great character arc.
Sarah:Yeah, very relatable.
Ethan:Yeah. And one of the characters, the character who is my favorite as a kid is named Matt. And he's one of the two siblings that parents have been divorced. He's the older sibling in that duo. A big part of his arc is in like a way that I didn't understand as a kid, but as an adult, I'm like, oh, this is why this character is my favorite.
Ethan:Like his whole arc over the back half of the series is like dealing with like intense self-loathing and depression. And I was like, oh, okay. Now I know why I connected with this character so much.
Sarah:Oh, no.
Ethan:It's not just because he had a cool lizard pet.
Sarah:Is it explicit in the sense that like they're not hiding that behind kiddiness? Is it pretty obvious that he is a depressed character?
Ethan:I think so. I mean, like there's a whole, like there is a weird sort of patina of like, let's maybe not talk about this directly in like this one specific kind of two episode arc where he's like trapped in a weird cave that turns out to be like a physical manifestation of his like depression. And it's like a weird sort of like, it's a "magic sadness cave" kind of thing. Uhm. It's really.
Sarah:I have those.
Ethan:Yeah. Like it's a little weird about it, especially because right after he gets out of it, it then just happens to another character and he's like, oh no, the sadness cave is back. And then they like shoot it with their digital powers or whatever. And it goes away.
Sarah:They don't literally say sadness cave, right?
Ethan:No.
Sarah:Okay.
Ethan:It's a really like, I like the conversations that the character has with his partner while he's in the magical sadness cave. I like, I think that they actually pretty directly get to like the root of the themes that they're exploring with him. It's just like from a narrative standpoint, the reveal, because you don't know that it's a magical sadness cave until he's like gotten the pep talk from his Digimon partner and has broken out of it. And then it's like, it fades away.
Ethan:And it, like, it's a reveal that like, oh, he wasn't just in like a cave that he wandered into. It was a weird magic thing. And then like it again, like it kind of sort of happens to a second character, but it's like really brief. And it's just this weird moment of like, okay, narratively, there's not really a reason for it to have been like a magical thing. And it's not, it's not like they reveal that it was part of the bad guy's plan or something. And it's never addressed again.
Sarah:Okay. So it is left as kind of like a manifestation of depression.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Or at least it's not tied into anything in the plot.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:All right. I think it's good to have that kind of representation.
Ethan:I agree. It's, it's something that I appreciated about it when I was younger. It's one of the reasons that I really latched onto the series. I've always had a problem. It's not as much of a thing now that I'm in my 30s, but as a kid in particular, like I really didn't, I've always really bristled that being like, talked down to. And did you learn was a show that felt like it wasn't doing that?
Sarah:I'm, I'm just thinking of Pokemon where Ash runs around with his Pokedex. "What's that?!" And yeah.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. It's a sounds, it sounds interesting. It sounds like it would hold up.
Ethan:I think it does. What I was really surprised by is a season two, Digimon Adventure O2 has kind of a reputation for being not a great follow up to the original series. I think a lot of people, like when we were kids, the people who were watching it, like didn't like it as much for various reasons.
Ethan:I think there's a cast change. I think it's a big part of it. And like there are problems with it. It feels a lot less focused than the original series. There are some weird, like lore developments that kind of happen out of nowhere and don't necessarily make a ton of sense. So I, I understand those criticisms, but I actually found that as an adult, like there was a lot of stuff that I appreciated about O2 that I didn't get as a kid.
Ethan:I think the, I think the themes of O2 are really strong and delivered on really well, even if the narrative is like maybe not as good as the first season. And then everybody fucking hates, Digimon Adventure Tri? Except me. I think it's good, but whatever.
Sarah:Well, you're the only, the only voice here right now that matters anyways. Digimon Try? You heard it here is good.
Ethan:Yeah. I think it's a totally fine sequel series. I, I think of whatever we'll have, we can have an entire episode about try at some point where I defend it because I understand why people dislike some aspects of it, but I think it's good at any rate.
Sarah:You can try.
Ethan:Yes. At the- God damn it. At the end of the day, I think Digimon Adventure, If you can get past the dub or if you can find it subbed, I think it's a really good entry point. It has good, well-developed characters. It has a pretty good smattering of Digimon. It establishes lore that is used in most versions of the digital world in some capacity. I mean, it establishes how evolution works and like all that kind of stuff.
Sarah:What if I'm impatient and just want to jump into a more like modern, recent Digimon series?
Ethan:I think there are two options for that. It's the, at the time of this recording, the most recent two series. I think either one is a good choice. The first one that I'll only touch on briefly is in 2020, there was actually a reboot of Digimon Adventure. So if you see like Digimon Adventure 2020, it's on Hulu, for instance, or Crunchyroll. That is taking the same characters and loosely speaking, like the same broad concepts of the original series and updating them for the modern day. So it's reboot versions of the original eight main characters and their partners. It has similar story beats, at least for like the first half. It's longer than the original series.
Ethan:I can't say a ton about it because I haven't watched all of it myself and I've, according to the internet, it really falls apart in like the second half. So I don't know, maybe it gets bad after the point where I'm currently at. I'm like pretty early on still. I'm really enjoying it so far. It's like the series that I'm currently watching.
Ethan:I think it's fun. I think the way that it suffers is that as far as I've seen the character development is not there. Like I think it's a much more, I guess, traditional or expected version of a kid's monster show. It's mostly just about, look at these cool monsters fight, and there's not the same level of depth to the characters.
Sarah:Wow, that's unfortunate. I mean, if that's what people are into, good for them.
Ethan:Right. But if you just want to dive into the world of Digimon and see some cool monsters fight, there's lots of cool monster fights. It's pretty recent, so the animation is pretty good. It kind of varies episode to episode, but it's cool. There is some cool fights, and you can watch the dub on Hulu or the subs on Crunchyroll.
Ethan:So I think that's a totally fine option. The other more recent series is Digimon Ghost Game, which I think is a really good starting point for a few reasons. First of all, like it's completely unrelated to any, you know, it's a standalone series. You don't need to have watched anything else. At the moment, there's no sequel series or movies or anything like that. It's really, really episodic. Like there is kind of an overarching story, but it's the kind of overarching story where like they establish sort of a plot in the first episode, and then every like 20 episodes, they're like, remember, that's still a thing.
Sarah:Oh no.
Ethan:And then in the last like three episodes, they're like, all right, let's resolve this now.
Sarah:Oh my gosh.
Ethan:Yeah. So like the pacing is bad. The ending feels really rushed and not very good. However, I still think it's a good place to jump in if you just like want to see some Digimon, right? Like it's it's a very episodic show.
Ethan:Every episode, you're going to get some kind of new weird Digimon. I like the characters. Like I don't think that they have the same level of development as something like Adventure, but like I think that they are all interesting and like individual characters with distinct personalities. They're not just like flat, nothing characters. It's kind of loosely horror themed, which is like Super My Jam. It focuses on a lot of Digimon that are based on like Yokai or.
Sarah:OK.
Ethan:Urban legends.
Sarah:I was jokingly going to ask if it's spooky. I didn't think it would be spooky.
Ethan:It is. It is spooky sometimes. Yeah, I just think like it's a lot of fun. It's low investment. Because like I said, like there's not a lot of plot. It's pretty episodic. So it's something that you could just throw on an episode now and again, and you're not going to be like sitting there thinking like, ah, fuck, like what happened last time? You can just kind of take each episode as it comes. If there's a monster that's like not working for you, just move on to the next episode. Like. And I really like the protagonists. They're three main characters. And I think all of them have like really fun partners that have cool evolutions.
Ethan:So I think Ghost Game is solid if you don't want to have the kind of investment that you might, you know, need to fully enjoy the Adventure continuity.
Sarah:Right. But if we want to if we want to catch up with that movie coming out.
Ethan:Right. Yeah. If you want to if you want to be ready for Digimon Adventure O2 the Beginning in October, then get binging now.
Sarah:These names.
Sarah:So if I want to get into the series, I know where to start with television, and it'll probably be for me, the Adventure series. I do want to catch up to that movie so we can chat about it. But you kindly gifted me a video game on the Switch that I have not started yet. Cyber Sleuth.
Ethan:Yeah. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth.
Sarah:I lost a few words. But yeah, that one. I assume that's a good place to start. Otherwise, you wouldn't have directed me to it.
Ethan:I think so. Yeah. So sort of like the old axiom about Digimon compared to Pokemon, something that you'll see said a lot if you go to like the Digimon subreddit or something like that is Digimon has the better anime. Pokemon has the better video games.
Sarah:I don't know if that's true anymore.
Ethan:That's a sentiment I've started to see a lot, actually.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:But historically, if we don't count the last five years, say, that's probably been pretty true. But Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, I think, is a really good place to get into the franchise for beginners. If you aren't really that interested in watching the anime, it is a very traditional turn based role playing game. Where you control a party of three Digimon in just good old standard, no frills, turn based combat. It's not a game that has a ton of mechanical depth in the fighting. But if you're a fan of like really old school Final Fantasys, Dragon Quest, those kinds of games, it's a totally solid, if not like impressive one of those. Right?
Ethan:The thing that it layers into it that I really enjoy is the evolutionary mechanics for your Digimon that make up your party. You can have three Digimon in combat at a time. But every Digimon that you have in your party takes up a certain amount of memory. So memory is this like sort of resource that you gain more of as you progress the story. The more memory you have, the stronger the Digimon you can have in your party. So it's like a little bit of a balancing act because you can you can have up to, I think, 11 monsters in your party. Only three of them are like in combat at a time.
Sarah:OK.
Ethan:But it's like how you can have up to six Pokémon, but only one goes out at a time or whatever. There's just this sort of extra balancing mechanic of like if you only have 30 memory, like is it better to bring three guys that are 10 memory a piece or one guy who's 25 memory and one guy who's five memory? You know what I mean? It's this little sort of balancing act for your party mechanics.
Sarah:I'm not very good at math, but... No, it sounds sound simply enough.
Ethan:Yeah, like so I find that kind of interesting. But more specifically, the way it handles evolution, I think is really cool where as you bite Digimon in like random encounters and stuff like that, you scan them. Once you hit like 100 percent scan rate on a monster you can just like hatch it and get that monster for your party. And then as they level up, they can evolve into different things. And so say you have let's just use Agumon as an example, since that's what we were talking about earlier, if you have an Agumon, you can go into your little like evolution menu, click on your Agumon, and it'll show you like, OK, it can evolve into four things, right? And if you've never evolved an Agumon before, like it won't tell you what those four things are, they'll just be these black silhouettes. Once you've evolved into something for the first time, you add it to your like basically your Pokedex. Then you can just see it from then on, like it won't be a silhouette anymore in your evolutionary tree.
Ethan:But it'll be like, OK, Agumon, if it's level 20 and it has strength of, you know, 60 or higher and defense of 60 or higher, it can evolve into Greymon or something. If it's only level 15 and it has, you know, strength of 45 and speed of 30, it can evolve into this guy instead. And like, so it's all it's all stat based. So you have to like raise your monsters to have like fulfill specific statistical conditions in order to get the evolutions that you want. As the kid whose dream in Pokemon was always just to complete the Pokedex. This is that's where Cyber Sleuth really got it hooks into me. It was like, well, I have to get everything to evolve into everything. Like I have to fill out all of these evolutionary trees. And I found that part of the game really fun.
Sarah:Yeah, that sounds like a good way to to get you hooked, like you said.
Ethan:Yeah, it's I think it's really good for for newcomers because it's a system that I feel like is just the right level of complexity where it's like it's complex enough that you have to like think about it and be kind of deliberate with your choices, but not so complex that it's like a really confusing and overwhelming. And I think the way that it's set up where like, if you're new, every evolution is going to be this cool surprise because like, you don't know what any of these guys are. Like when I started playing Cyber Sleuth, I could look at Agumon's silhouetted evolutionary tree and be like, OK, well, that one's Greymon. This one's GeoGreymon. That one's going to be Growlmon probably, you know what I mean? Like I could look at these silhouettes and have a pretty good idea of like, yeah, that guy shaped like this guy that I know from the anime or whatever.
Ethan:But if you are unfamiliar with the series, then yeah, like every time you evolve a new guy, it's going to be like, well, what kind of weird fucking monster is it going to be this time?
Sarah:Is Doggymon in there?
Ethan:I don't. No. Doggymon's not in Cyber Sleuth.
Sarah:Oh, OK.
Ethan:I hate Doggymon.
Sarah:Me too. And I all I've seen is a picture. Does Cyber Sleuth introduce new Digimon? Like were you surprised by anything?
Ethan:Hmm. Not that I can remember. Like there were certain things that I found surprising as a longtime fan. There's a character who has a partner, Digimon, that is the character is like a protagonist, like he's on your side. But the partner that he has is traditionally like a big bad of, you know, he's he's not not a good dude, generally speaking. So it was like a cool surprise to be like, oh, wow.
Ethan:Like,
Sarah:OK
Ethan:That guy has has him as a partner. That's neat. Hacker's Memory, which is like a kind of sequel to Cyber Sleuth. It's another game built in like the same engine and it's in the same universe.
Ethan:They kind of the two games are happening kind of simultaneously, narratively speaking. Hacker's Memory like really surprised me because late in the game, they introduced a new villain who's like from Digimon V Tamer, which was like the original manga for Digimon. And this particular Digimon has like never shown up in anything else. So for him to show up in the game was like, holy shit, like this guy hasn't been in media for like 20 years.
Sarah:That would be really cool. Yeah, I can I can feel that excitement.
Ethan:Yeah. So there are some surprises like that that uh I really appreciated.
Sarah:All right. I will play it soon.
Ethan:Yeah, no rush. Yeah, I Cyber Sleuth, I think, is probably the best entry point video game wise. I do want to very quickly touch on two other video games that are somewhat recent. One of them is very recent.
Ethan:The other one is not that recent, but it did just get ported to the Switch like a couple months ago. So the first one I want to mention really quick is Digimon Survive, which is a it's mostly a graphic novel, but it does have combat that plays out in like tactical grid based combat. But the majority like it's it's 90 percent a visual novel. And I really liked it. It was sort of controversial, I guess, when it came out because, well, mostly because people are stupid and they don't pay attention to marketing and people were like, why is this a visual novel? I thought it was a tactics game. And it's like they were they were very clear that it was a visual novel the whole time. This shouldn't have been a surprise if you were paying attention.
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:But at any rate, Digimon Survive is essentially the main conceit is what if Digimon Adventure, but for adults.
Sarah:All right.
Ethan:Or older teens, at least, you know, for an older audience. Yeah, Survive has a very similar premise to Adventure, which is eight kids at summer camp are suddenly transported to the digital world and don't know what the fuck is going on and have to survive with the help of their partner Digimon. But all of the characters are a bit older because in Adventure, they're like 10 to 12 and in Survive, they're like 16 to 18 or something like that. It's it's exploring a very similar premise, but with an older audience in mind, there's multiple paths for the story to take, depending on decisions that you make. Characters can die.
Ethan:It gets kind of dark sometimes. And yeah, it's really good that the characters are all sort of like very loose parallels to characters from Adventure, depending on what like branch of the story you're on, your your Digimon partner evolves into different things, which is a neat little aspect of the game. And yeah, if you like visual novels, I think it's really cool and like would definitely recommend if you don't like visual novels, then, you know, it's not going to do anything with the genre that would that would fix that for you.
Ethan:It's a very, very, very much, you know, 90 percent reading. But I really enjoyed it. And I think if you like Adventure, it's a it's a cool sort of follow up piece, thought experiment. Then I also just want to very briefly touch on Digimon World Next Order, which is.
Sarah:Oh. OK, I remember one of the Digimon World games. And boy was I confused with the child.
Ethan:Yeah. So Digimon World is like the original Digimon video game, right? And the thing that's really interesting about the original Digimon World and Digimon World Next Order, which is essentially like a direct sequel that was made, you know, 20 years later or whatever. Is that they are essentially video game versions of the virtual past. So while Cyber Sleuth is a very traditional sort of RPG where you just Digimon level up from fights and then once they hit certain levels, you can choose to evolve them and like all that kind of stuff.
Ethan:The Digimon World and Digimon World Next Order games are much more about like the raising and care of Digimon. So you have your little guys that follow you around. You need to take them to the gym to train them. You need to feed them when they get hungry. After they eat, they have to use the bathroom. So you have to come to the bathroom or else they poop on the floor and that counts as a care mistake.
Sarah:Oh, that's too much. I do that with my dog.
Ethan:Yeah. So those games, if you want to play something that you won't really get anywhere else, like if you want to have a uniquely Digimon experience, then check out Digimon World Next Order. It is. It's super not for everyone. I have fun with Next Order because I have such fond memories of playing Digimon World as a kid and like you said, being super fucking confused by it and not understanding what was happening at all.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Now as an adult, I'm like, oh, okay, I get these mechanics eventually.
Sarah:Even as an adult.
Ethan:Yeah. So I think it's fun. I enjoy that game for what it is, but of the three, it is the one I would least recommend because it's very weird and different. But if that's what you're looking for, that could be a really cool way into the franchise.
Sarah:Right. Some people like weird and different. Yeah. And Sims, it sounds like a simulation type game.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. And the aspects of it that I really like are you have a town that is sort of your home base. And as you explore the world, you are recruiting different Digimon to your town. And so your town keeps growing and you get new shops and new stuff at the gym and new things that you can do in town that influence how your Digimon evolve and how the story goes and stuff. So I like that aspect of it a lot. It's cool to just be exploring and wandering around and run across some Digimon that instead of fighting you, talks to you and is like, hey, can you get me this item? And if you do, I'll come join your town.
Sarah:I almost immediately forgot that I talk. I was like, it's asking you for what now?
Ethan:Yeah, so.
Sarah:That is a jarring.
Ethan:So that sort of town building aspect of it, I think, is fun.
Sarah:So that covers the video games and the series. Are there any other entry points into Digimon? I know there's the cards because you have mentioned the trading card game and uh.
Ethan:Yeah, I think there are two other good ways to get into the franchise. The first is, as you just mentioned, the card game. If you like trading card games, if you enjoy Magic or the Pokemon card game or Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever, and you're interested in maybe picking up a new one, the Digimon card game is really good. In my opinion, I think it has some really neat mechanics that actually do a good job of representing things like evolution or some of the weird kind of gimmick concepts from certain seasons like Jogress or Digi Crossing. We don't need to get into what those are.
Ethan:But the card game has all these cool mechanics that reflect different stuff from the show. It's pretty easy to learn. It has a it does a couple of things that I just think are fun for a card game. I like the way that like turns happen. It's not like Magic where you have like kind of a specific breakdown of steps in a turn and once you've done all of the steps, your turn is over. The way Digimon works is like every card costs a certain amount of points. And once you spend a certain amount of points, it passes over to the other player.
Ethan:So you have to be really like sort of careful and tactical about how you play cards when you want to play certain things. My favorite aspect of it is the way it models evolution. So it's it's from, I think, the same people who did like Card Fight Vanguard, which I have heard of, but never played. I think it this I think it has a similar mechanic of like stacking cards on top of each other to sort of grow their power.
Ethan:Anyway, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds. The card game is really fun. If you are interested in Digimon and you like playing card games, you know, I say grab some of it. It's got cool. It's got good card art that can introduce you to a lot of the monsters. And yeah, it's a good time.
Sarah:Well, what's what's odd about it to me is it has that it has that phone app that you can learn how to play in like a very limited capacity. And it has all of that built out, but you can't play online.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:So there's a great way to just kind of demo it and see if you like it before you even buy cards. But I just wish we could play online because we're we're not in the same state. It would be great if we could do that.
Ethan:For sure. I would love I would love an online client for it. It would be fantastic.
Sarah:Are you listening Bandai? Have the demands.
Ethan:Yeah. And then the other way to to break into the franchise, I think, is something that we touched on a little bit in our previous episode about hobbies, which is the the vital bracelet. Vital bracelet is sort of the modern equivalent to the classic V pets.
Sarah:It's like uh come full circle.
Ethan:Yeah, it's not as intensive as the old V pets. With the vital brace that you don't have to feed your monsters. You don't have to clean up their poops. None of that. You just you just have them in there and you walk with them and you have to fulfill certain objectives for them to evolve into different things. You know, you have to have a certain number of steps with them or have them fight a certain number of battles or what have you. I really, really like the vital bracelets.
Ethan:And it's again, like like we kind of said last time, if you just have if it's the kind of thing that you think would be effective in getting you to exercise a little bit more, then it's like totally worth getting. There's a phone app. As long as your phone is NFC enabled, you can use the phone app and like transfer your monsters from your bracelet to your phone. It's got a little Pokedex kind of thing on there that you can fill out.
Ethan:So it's again, like a great way to if you're not familiar with the series, just buy the little microchip card things that you put in to get new monsters are called BEM cards. So just like buy, you know, a couple of BEM cards that you think look cool and just raise up some monsters and then you'll get the little codex entries explaining their like lore and stuff. And yeah, it's like a super easy chill way to just like learn about some of these weird little guys.
Sarah:Despite it involving raising Digimon and a peripheral, it feels like a low investment way where you don't even have to spend time on it. Like it just passively is there and you get to enjoy Digimon without sitting down for a series or learning a card game, playing through hours of video games. I think that's very approachable. And you get cute little monsters, cool, cool monsters. I'm sorry, got appealed to the 90s boys.
Ethan:Some of them are cute, such as Cutemon.
Sarah:Oh, for fuck's sake.
Ethan:Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's a really and they're not super expensive. There's... It's 60 bucks for like the current model of vital bracelet. It's not crazy. And because the original vital bracelet was, I guess, enough of a hit and Bandai owns 80 percent of the anime titles that you love.
Ethan:They've been branching out. So if you want to check out a vital bracelet, but you're not totally sure that Digimon is for you, go ahead and buy one. And then you can just get the My Hero Academia cards or the Jujutsu Kaisen cards or any Tokyo Revengers, Demon Slayer. They got it all.
Sarah:This this got. Oh, no, can someone raise a little Nezuko? This is bad.
Ethan:I think so. I'm pretty sure.
Sarah:Oh, no, Demon Slayer card.
Ethan:I fucking know these goddamn vampires. You're going to put out some Gundam cards at some point and take even more of my fucking money. There we go. Yeah, you're screwed. But that'll be the best day ever, right?
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:When Ethan is not talking about Digimon or Final Fantasy, he's talking about Gundam or Scream.
Ethan:or Scream. Yeah, I was just
Sarah:One of these is not like the other.
Ethan:I was just thinking, I haven't worked a scream reference into this episode yet. I need to get on that.
Sarah:You missed your chance with Ghost Game.
Ethan:Yeah. Or just, you know, talking extensively about late 90s media in general.
Ethan:Yeah, those those those are my four main recommendations. I think one of those should work for you, like no matter what, you being the audience in this case, not you specifically, Sarah.
Sarah:But I do have my plan of attack. I think I'll I'll give the original Adventure as a try and I'll start Cyber Sleuth. And then if I actually like Digimon, I have a whole host of options to pick from.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. There are I mean, there's a bunch of anime. There's many other games, although most of them are probably pretty hard to get ahold of these days, because they're mostly older.
Ethan:But yeah, there's there's a lot out there. But I think, you know, I think if you want to check out the anime, try out Adventure. If you want to check out the video games, try out Cyber Sleuth.
Ethan:If you don't want the time investment that either of those have, check out the card game or the vital bracelets. The nice thing about it being so broad is that like most of the entries are not directly related. So you can really start anywhere with a with a few minor exceptions. Like don't start with Digimon Adventure Tri, because that will be confusing. But, you know, you could pick up Digimon Tamers, which is season three of the anime, or Digimon Survive or whatever, and like not really be lost if you wanted to. But those are my recommendations for how to get into the franchise as a newbie.
Sarah:Awesome. And even though, you know, we talk about Digimon, because it's one of your your hobbies and interests, this actually is it really is intimidating, like trying to figure out what will okay where the hell do I begin when there's decades of media? And I think I think that's something we want to cover with other series, because I have the same problem with comics and Gundam and just, you know, Final Fantasy. There's so much to wade through. And oh, yeah, I'm looking forward to figuring out.
Ethan:Yeah, we should definitely do one on Gundam at some point. Gundam is, I think, even harder than Digimon.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:It's not just because it's been been on longer, but it has.
Sarah:No, we don't.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Don't go down this path yet.
Ethan:It's just it's much more complicated for many reasons. Yeah.
Ethan:Oh, one more thing that I want to say about Digimon really, really fast is you mentioned that the top of the episode, I think. I don't remember we had a wacky, wacky intro, so maybe it got cut. I'm not totally sure at this point. The original series theme song is somewhat infamously, just the very repetitive, like.
Sarah:Yeah, I can hear it in my head.
Ethan:Yeah. Right.
Ethan:It's it's the English theme song is is infamous for good reason. But the original Japanese theme is called Butterfly. It was composed by Koji Wada and it's great. And they did a like remix version of it for Digimon Adventure Tri that has like the entire cast singing it. And it whips ass. It's a great song.
Sarah:That is sweet sounding. Yeah. Awh, I don't even I'm not even attached to Digimon. And that just sounds cool.
Ethan:Yeah, that's all. I think that pretty much covers it.
Sarah:All right. Well, thanks, Ethan, for going over that and giving me a place to start. And I hope that helped anyone who decided this was an interesting episode to listen to. And if you are here listening to this episode, thank you.
