Digimon Thread: Digivol- SHINKA! [Archive]

Granis

06-03-2008, 04:26 AM

In this thread we talk about Digimon. I will go on the record and say this right now, I hate the dub. I think it was poorly done over here, while they didn't fail in every reguard, it still was bad enough, in my opinion, to make people discount it as a very weak Pokemon clone.

I personally, after watching subs of it, still love it. it does so much different from Pokemon, the characters are very engaging, the story is great, and well, that why I feel like it's more like a Super Robot show (or even Tokusatsu in some cases.) and is truly great if you can see behind the butchered music among a great many other things in the dub. it's what got me into Mecha in the first place. had I not watched it, I probably would have had no interest in Big O (Konaka wrote Tamers, too.) and wouldn't have become the Super Robot fan I am today.

All in all, the Adventure continuity is my favorite. though Savers is also very excelent, and of course Tamers...Konaka wrote Big O. he can do no wrong. IMO Tamers is just as much a masterpiece as Big O and Lain are.

Truce

06-03-2008, 05:15 PM

...ah, the memories.

I don't recall anything bad in the dub, honestly. That might just be nostalgia tainting one of my favorite shows - but I don't think could stand to watch it in Japanese now. It'd be like watching Samurai Pizza cats subbed - it just wouldn't be the same.

...bad example. Samura Pizza Cats wasn't even a translation. But, Digimon just wouldn't sound right to my ears in its original language.

Tamers was my favorite season. If I had to pick out a specific moment, it would be Megidramon's appearance, and Gallantmon's after that. Or perhaps when Beezlemon used Fist of the Beast King to save Jeri.

POS Industries

06-03-2008, 05:20 PM

and of course Tamers...Konaka wrote Big O. he can do no wrong. IMO Tamers is just as much a masterpiece as Big O and Lain are.
Oh man, so that's why Tamers was actually pretty good? Okay, mystery solved. Thank you.

Julford Hajime

06-03-2008, 05:45 PM

Instead of watching Pokémon, I watched Digimon. I never watched a lot of the Pokémon anime, but Digimon grabbed me by the neck and dragged me through 2 seasons, and I never looked back or complained. Seriously, as far as my childhood shows go, the only one I liked more was Power Rangers.

What went wrong with the dub? Were there major chunks of the show that were ignored due to censoring or something?

And I actually didn't like Tamers when it first came out. I only watched up until the Zodiac beasts started appearing, though, so I know I missed out. I've watched a couple random episodes since then, and the show never managed to disappoint me.

Still, I've caught up on enough to know this: Impmon/Beelzemon is better then anything you can name about Digimon. ANYTHING. He alone renewed my faith that Tamers could be good; he was a character that wanted desperately to be strong, got his wish, and then proceeded to kill everything ever. He had a nicely developed character that wasn't "lawl i iz gud" or "You beat me, let's be friends!", but instead centered around his morality. Was he really this amoral scumbag that he showed to others, or was he just lonely and took his frustration out on those who try to get close to him?

I haven't watched any of seasons 4 or 5 yet, though. They any good? I might get around to them if I ever go back and watch through Tamers.

PyrosNine

06-03-2008, 05:48 PM

I mentioned it in the Digimon RP, but I've always found the Digimon anime funnier by far than the Pokemon one, because the Pokemon anime was so stock and cliche, and gets staler by the episode.

Digimon on the other hand, had humor! Inside jokes! Characters giving witty one liners at every occurrence of the weird, and some of the best moments were just when they sat around talking to each other freely. The people who dubbed it were sometimes just given free run to say whatever the hell they wanted, and mostly it made the dialogue a bit more fresh, a bit less "Hey (Ash's current debtor female), look at that (insert pokemon)!" "I know Ash, it's so (insert pokemon description)" (insert something bad happening to pokemon/Ash/Third party character specific to this episode)

Now I suppose in terms of building a story and having emotional characters you cared about, and having a serious story, the first two Digimon dubs didn't quite reach it due to a level of the silly that rarely left even in the darkest moments and some retarded characters in the second season.

And the movie we got was cut up nigh-haphazardly and rearranged into almost a parody of the original two movies it was made from, but it still had it's moments.

Izzy: "Try calling Sora again."

Tai: "Right!"

Robotic Women's Voice: "This number you have called is busy. Please try again later."

Tai: Aw, it's busy. Better Try Matt.

Robotic Women's voice: "This number you have called is busy. Please try again later."

Tai: "Kari?"

Robotic Women's voice: "This number you have called is still busy. Please try again later."

Tai: "Come on Mimi!"

Robotic Women's voice: "DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME? IT'S BUSY!"

Tai: "Uh...Sorry lady."

Sadly though, the really dark and serious Tamers was actually almost a little bit too dark and serious for me, Kinda like how I felt about Lain at some times.

I've yet to see Savers though, and most of the end of Adventure (though it seemed a bit too much like Sentai and not enough Digimon. Also, too many naked kids!)

Bells

06-03-2008, 05:57 PM

I fo one loved how they slided in some undertoned Adult Themes in Digimon Tamers and in Digimon Frontier... which is pretty much why i loved Digimon 3 and 4. At least Theme-wize it was really well done... plus, all the transformations... specially in tamers!

But Digimon is ALWAYS better in Japanese

Ryong

06-03-2008, 05:58 PM

I really, really liked the first two ones. Everything else? Complete hate.

Kerensky287

06-03-2008, 07:20 PM

I don't really remember digimon much, having watched it back in elementary school, but I do remember liking it more than the Pokemon show. The Pokemon games were awesome, but I found it didn't really translate well to the TV screen... not in those words, but that was my basic opinion. Loved Digimon though. Watched up to the 3rd season, and then stopped for some reason that I forget. Maybe it was because it became sucky after that...?

Granis

06-03-2008, 08:10 PM

Well, Digimon could only ever be seen as bad, in my opinion, when you look at Frontier. Really, it was a very good idea, just executed very poorly. and well, don't discount Savers because of it, check it out through some Savers subs.

god, the evolution music is awesome alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgy5qs8O6a8&feature=related

Really, I find problem 1 with any Digimon dub is the fact they ALLWAYS take out the good music.

Regulus Tera

06-03-2008, 10:33 PM

Digimon Adventure was really sweet, and very accentuated by the awesome Latin American dubbing industry of old (which now sucks).

Digimon 02 sucked and nothing can make up for it.

Digimon Tamers was awesome and the great Latin American dubbing once again made it the more gracious.

Digimon Frontier was meh for me.

And that's about it.

Really, I find problem 1 with any Digimon dub is the fact they ALLWAYS take out the good music.

The Latin American dub kept the original music (save for the opening and ending, which were the same but had different lyrics because of the localisation).

Granis

06-03-2008, 11:13 PM

Hmm, I never get why everyone hated 02 so much, yes, the ending was bad, but everything else was perfect. Human characters dying and never coming back was a very good thing, it gaves thigns a more serious tone, and I guess all the Mecha I watch made me like that sort of thing. Oikawa was epic towards the end.

Lumenskir

06-04-2008, 08:08 PM

I watched the first two seasons, but I cut out my Saturday morning cartoon intake all together before the third and others started so I guess my Digi-love is lacking. Of course, I have however not bothered to fortify my memories with anything as garish as repeat viewings, so my opinion of the series is still the same from when I was a nerdy pre-teen and Tentomon was the most mindboggingly bitching thing anyone could ever think to air on T.V.

It definitely outlasted my adoration of the Pokemon series, mostly because Digimon didn't exist outside of the show so all of the digivolution lines were like a constantly updating form of crack, and the show rules of Pokemon never bothered to stay too close to the game rules.

Really, they could have just played that one clip of WereGarurumon riding MetalGreymon's missile into the bad guy over and over and I'd have still be orgastically happy.
And the movie we got was cut up nigh-haphazardly and rearranged into almost a parody of the original two movies it was made from, but it still had it's moments.
I caught the movie when it ran on HBO or something, and I was fine with it up until the end when it went from Omnimon asskicking to "HEYNOWTHETWOANGELDIGIMONAREMEGASORSOMETHINGANDWHYT HEHELLISTHISPARTTACKEDONGUYSITHINKWEMIGHTHAVESPLIC EDSOMETHINGWRONGSOMEWHTHEEND!"
why everyone hated 02 so much, yes, the ending was bad
I've seen a lot of hate for the 02 ending floating around, and it's always for a different reason and I haven't been really satisfied by any of them. I mean, the part where the group goes into that Subspace zone and all of their individual digivolutions get to fight together side-by-side is my second favorite Digimon moment. I've seen some hate for the "Big baddie killed by love of entire world thing" but that always reminded me of the Giygas fight in Earthbound and that game has had to evolve gills to breathe since it got stuck in that the ocean of cum. I can concede that the "20 years on" bit was a bit left field, but the people who complain about the kid's futures not reflecting their personalities seem to forget that all of the Digidestined were younger than 16, so it's never been that surprising to me that they changed their ambitions.

Julford Hajime

06-04-2008, 10:19 PM

I don't think Earthbound's ending was why everyone liked it. I always thought it was more or less the obsurdity and humor used throughout. I mean, you fight blue KKK members!

Note that the blue KKK was as far as I got, so who knows. Maybe the ending really was bitching, and I'm just missing out.

Either way, I can't say that I particularly liked Season 2's ending because it wasn't "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" like Season 1 was, and instead we got "We beleive in a good future" and the baddie just went *Poof* because of that. It felt really anti-climatic, after all the build-up of "Oh no he's the strongest thing ever and we need several copies of each of our digimon just to stand a chance." That really got me pumped, and then we just get that. That was the only part of the ending I didn't like, but it was a fairly big point.

I mean, TWO Imperialdramon's at once? YES PLEASE. And then they just get negated like ten seconds later when the kids all step out of Cthululand.

The "We're all grown up now" part was fine by me, since it was pretty much just a "Everything will be good forever" type thing, and I didn't pay any special attention to things, really.

h4x.m4g3

06-05-2008, 01:46 AM

Granis

06-05-2008, 02:10 AM

Digimon season 2 to me was like the Buu saga in Dragonball Z. After everything that happens in Season one you have it ending with Magna Angemon being as strong as the Mega's and TK starting to stand up and fight for himself and etc.

Then in Season 2, TK starts out as a whiny brat, and Davis hogs the spotlight and TK is reduced to rival for Kairi's affection!! Then Ken shows up and everyone except Davis and Ken just kind of fades into the background. Not to mention "The Dark Realm" just kind of showing up in a few episodes as the "true great evil" then being forgotten, then showing up at the end. Not to mention never fully explaining the whole "Kari = Light!" thing that shows up every now and again.

Really Season 2 is full of baiting me on good plot lines then abandoning them for more "DAVIS MUST SAVE THE WORLD with Ken" and pushing Kari and TK even further into the background. The only good memory of Season 2 I have is the MagnaAngemon vs BlackWarGreymon episode.

Takeru was fairly badass in the original version. it's just most of the episodes where he's playing a major role in the dub, were butchered by bad dubwork. (See, Episode 13, "Their Master's Call." or it's original name. "The Call of Dagomon.") I hate how they ruined the Lovecraftian episode. most of 02's suckage came from how bad the dub was. Takeru and Iori were epic with Shakkoumon, But I really liked Daisuke. He was a far better character in Japanese. he wasn't the idiot he was as Davis in the dub. he was more comparable to Taichi in the manga, or more like a Super Robot pilot, like Taichi was, except I thought his Digimon was cooler. He had a Digimon that was essentially a huge Mecha Reference, from Cyborg Guy (Magnamon) to.Mazinkaiser/Shin Getter Robo 1 (Imperialdramon Fighter Mode.) The other characters were cool and did stuff. just.... not in the damn dub, or the lame jokes distracted from it.

Magus

06-05-2008, 03:27 AM

I watched this show as a kid, I didn't really have the opportunity of watching Pokemon around that time, but maybe a year or so after I stopped watching Digimon I saw I think the first season of Pokemon and yes, Digimon was much better. At the time, of course (I don't think I could stand it nowadays, or I'd be rolling my eyes constantly while laughing at the show's inanity, or what have you).

Anyway, I stopped watching it at the point wherever the original characters were replaced by four annoying new characters and a bunch of lame stuff was added to make the series seem fresh or what have you. Either I thought it was lame, or I got too old for it. If this is the end of the second season everyone is talking about, then that is the point I quit watching it.

Granis

06-05-2008, 04:13 AM

Julford Hajime

06-05-2008, 08:44 AM

He could've been talking about the beginning of Season 2, when they introduced Armor Digivolution and threw out all of the old members except for TK and Kairi.

Every season has done something to keep it seperate from the preceeding seasons: Season 2 had Armor Digivolving, Tamers had the whole card thing going for it, Season 4 (Frontier, is it?) had the kids turning into the digimon, and... Well, I haven't seen any of Season 5, but I imagine that there's SOMETHING to differentiate itself here.

Major Blood

06-05-2008, 04:26 PM

Oh man, i loved Digimon a while back. Still do really.

Though i must say this, anyone who claims to enjoy the dub opening needs to be committed.

Naqel

06-05-2008, 04:28 PM

Every season of digimon is a separate story(except for 1 & 2), while most digimon fans would like to continue the story from Tamers or Adventure(other seasons have a bit less fans than those). But what actually makes digimon better than pokmon is that at least the -mon's are not retarded(some of the human too) while in pokemon even the world it takes place in is somewhat "inconsequent".

Even poor english dub can't make digimon worse than pokemon.

BTW: Pokemon is a digimon that pokes stuff. :D

Regulus Tera

06-05-2008, 05:58 PM

That's cool and all but Pokémon > Digimon. Both gamewise and character design wise.

As least the first 151. From then on they became too Digimonish.

Rokrin

06-05-2008, 06:26 PM

I remember being a big fan of 1 and Tamers...I even liked the second season to some degree, but I really liked the color blue and Veemon in that time.

There's a Tamer's MMO out there....and a website that explains the entire website (since it's Korean) in english. It's actually not bad.

h4x.m4g3

06-05-2008, 06:59 PM

Takeru was fairly badass in the original version. it's just most of the episodes where he's playing a major role in the dub, were butchered by bad dubwork. (See, Episode 13, "Their Master's Call." or it's original name. "The Call of Dagomon.") I hate how they ruined the Lovecraftian episode. most of 02's suckage came from how bad the dub was. Takeru and Iori were epic with Shakkoumon, But I really liked Daisuke. He was a far better character in Japanese. he wasn't the idiot he was as Davis in the dub. he was more comparable to Taichi in the manga, or more like a Super Robot pilot, like Taichi was, except I thought his Digimon was cooler. He had a Digimon that was essentially a huge Mecha Reference, from Cyborg Guy (Magnamon) to.Mazinkaiser/Shin Getter Robo 1 (Imperialdramon Fighter Mode.) The other characters were cool and did stuff. just.... not in the damn dub, or the lame jokes distracted from it.

Unfortunately back then I barely knew such things as subs existed, didn't realize the butchering in translation that often occurred, and had no ideal how to acquire these sacred items.

I always found everything about digimon>pokemon except maybe for the first few games on PS1.

Julford Hajime

06-05-2008, 07:18 PM

I liked the first Digimon World and the card game (Me = sucker for cards) for the psx, but DW 2 and 3 felt odd, and I could never get that into them.

As for the Tamers MMO? I had that installed on my comp, but it always froze on me when I tried to play, so I had to uninstall it. I was really looking forward to having an Impmon later on, too >.>

Sky Warrior Bob

06-05-2008, 09:28 PM

Honestly, I don't care for Digimon, both in look & in the fact that they constantly repeat the same story, just with slight twists. Bad dubbing can be blamed only so much, but the visuals & overuse of the digivolving theme (strategy was rarely used to take out a tougher opponent, it almost exclusively involved just digivolving more).

Tamers was the best of the ones I've seen, but even still, it isn't flawless.

Not to say that Pokemon is all that much better. Where I felt Digimon was clearly better than Pokemon, was the fact that Digimon usually has direction & Pokemon just wanders aimlessly.

Personally, I say nuts & bolts to the both of them, and say you should stick with Medabots.

SWB

Naqel

06-06-2008, 05:40 AM

Medabots are awesome!
Someone should make a thread for them too(and maybe an RP).

But on topic: I agree that pokemon were better than digimon until there was 151 of them, but by no means this applies to the TV show.
Pokemon anime is just "fight>move to next location>fight>friendship shit>fight>move>" repeated till the end of the world, while in digimon we've got a story with a beginning, a plot and an end, that really makes it worth a watch, even if the only strategy for fighting is digivolving higher than the opponent.

"Movies" I would rate on the pokemon side thought, digimon movies are usually regular episodes that were placed in time or location different than the series and added five(5) minutes for a new song or something.

greed

06-06-2008, 07:01 AM

Digimon was a much better series than Pokemon, I only saw 1 and 2 but they actually had a story and some drama, though frankly I think the battles were much better pokemon, Cinnabar Island Gym was epic. Monster Rancher was still the best monster anime though.

Rokrin

06-06-2008, 07:55 AM

I really enjoyed both Monster Rancher and Medabots; I remember when I was younger, the english subsidiary (don't remember who it was at that time) had a website where you could make a Medabot in 3D and battle them, and I used to play a lot. The mechanics needed work, but fundamentally it was ok.

I enjoyed Digimon as an anime more than pokemon, but I enjoyed the Pokemon games better (that's excluding the MMO, and even then I think a well-made Pokemon MMO could beat up the digimon one). That being said, just like Digimon has the potential for better games, I think Pokemon has the potential to be a good anime. I say potential because without any substantial evidence of a regular, non-gym-oriented plotline, it's hard to justify that point.

Emong

06-08-2008, 03:32 PM

There's a Tamer's MMO out there....and a website that explains the entire website (since it's Korean) in english. It's actually not bad.

I used to play that alot, (I had an impmon.) but the digivolution lines for alot of the the digimon are screwed and it is almost impossible to get more digimon. (The catch rate is .01%)

PCD

06-17-2008, 02:48 AM

I still love Digimon with a huge, huge burning passion. I'm still kicking myself in the head for laming out on the RP here.

I was a kid during the first four seasons, and completely unaware that things like subs existed in general, so I was quite happy with the option I was given. Maybe I was just young, but I really liked the first three seasons almost indiscriminately; 02 got wonky at the end, and god there was NO point to the cards in Tamers, but I still worshiped that show pretty much religiously.

I hated Frontier, not just for the change in plot style and lack of partners, but mainly because Takuya and Koji got ridiculously overpowered at the end. The other four just got to sit and watch while the 'leaders' went off to kick butt. It was really annoying to me.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I can give a proper analysis of Savers, since I watched it when I was five years more mature, when I've not gotten to watch much of the past seasons since, and I got to watch the entire thing with proper subs, but I freaking loved it. It was both mature and fun enough to keep me interested through the whole way, but I can't say for sure whether or not it's a favorite without bias.

As for the Poke-Digi battle, I prefer the Digimon shows by far (Sure, the first few seasons of Pokemon were fun, but even those never stuck with me quite the same way Digimon did), but I never get sick of the old Pokemon games... though, hell, most Digimon games were for systems I didn't have, so it's not exactly a fair comparison.

All in all, HEY DIGIMON HEY DIGIMON, MONSTER FRIENDS TO THE BOYS AND GIRRRRLS.

TopHatAssassin

06-17-2008, 09:03 AM

I never liked Digimon when I was younger, it was always - in my mind - a bad Pokémon clone with a lazy creator who just slapped "mon" at the end of all the creature's names and said, "There! It's done!" I suppose you can't really be too hard on the job they did with the dub, but I'm going to anyway and say it was far too sappy to enjoy.

The only redeeming qualities I ever thought of for the show were some of the evolutions (they were kinda cool) and that one movie, because the animation was pretty neat and I likes me some good animation.

Otherwise, Pokémon was the winner. But now I just don't care.

Truce

06-17-2008, 11:00 AM

There's something that always bothered me in both Pokemon and Digimon.

Exactly what did everybody eat? I mean, in the real world, it's obvious that Digimon ate the same stuff as humans did. But, food magically seems to appear in the digital world - and it's never explained what it is.

In both cases, I would imagine it would be tough being a vegetarian - considering that the plants themselves tend to be sentient.

Possum Knight

06-24-2008, 03:59 PM

Ah, yes digimon. One of the few things i bought cards for and yet never even learned how to play the freakin thing...

Season 1 and tamer was good. Season 2 kept gettin me upset cause its like....by all means everyone from season 1 should be able to go mega and reck face but noooo. They just had to have a plot device to hold them back and let crappier digimon get the line light. The ending was pretty meh as well, it didn't live up to season 1 at all. Also, the fact that that had to rehash an enemy from season 1 out of NO WHERE to be the final baddy was dissapointing to say the least.