Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Digimon

Go To

Works with their own YMMV pages:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime 

    Manga 

    Video Games 

YMMVs that apply to the franchise as a whole:

  • Adaptation Displacement:
    • Many Western Digimon fans do not know that the series started off as a spear counterpart of the Tamagotchi, or even that the Digimon franchise had three different manga, at least three video games, and a short film before the premiere of Digimon Adventure. (Granted, said short film basically served as a prologue to the aforementioned anime, but still.)
    • In general, the anime series always seems to take precedence in the memories of the fans over almost all other incarnations of the franchise, though this could be attributed to the lack of presence the series has in countries outside of Japan.
  • Archive Panic: 332 episodes, 9 movies, 6 manga series, and 22 video games. If you want to experience everything, good luck.
  • Audience-Alienating Era: The franchise entered one around The New '20s due to a nasty combination of limited promotion and an Uncertain Audiencenote , making it seem like that Bandai Namco Entertainment is unsure of what to do with Digimon and thus neglecting it. Digimon Liberator, a webcomic with another web novel made to accompany it, seems to be looking to help pull the franchise out of this funk, but only time will tell.
  • Broken Base:
    • The series' pre-existing fanservice elements became much more evident with the Audience Shift, causing some fans to have some polarized reactions to it.note  It's been particularly divisive among Western fans who only learned about the Hotter and Sexier elements through series' resurgence efforts like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and Digimon Adventure tri. and/or didn't realize that the Audience Shift has been going on within the franchise for much longer than they think.
    • Digimon having multiple evolutionary paths. Fans either hate this aspect since this sometimes results in questionable evolution paths, or love it because it gives Digimon a unique flair to the "evolving Mons" concept and means that different people with the same Digimon could end up with very different evolutions of said Digimon, facilitating uniqueness and individuality.
    • Do not invoke Subbing vs. Dubbing, especially for the different anime opening themes, unless you want to start a fandom equivalent of World War III.
  • Complete Monster: See here.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Naturally, with a cast of Digimon as large as it is, several of these were bound to show up.
    • Wizardmon. In the anime, he's a badass Anti-Hero. In general, he's a cool Cute Monster Guy with awesome magical powers. It doesn't hurt that in many of the games, he's also connected by Digivolution to the just plain adorable Candlemon.
    • Tsukaimon, a purple Patamon recolor originally intended as an opponent in the early Digimon World games. However, it became popular as the Evil Twin (With An F In Evil) of Patamon. It shows up with surprising frequency in the video games and card games, and is even frequently the "base form" of several other well-known evil Digimon.
    • Veedramon was the most popular Digimon in all of Japan during the early years, and he got a prominent place in the Wonderswan Seriesnote  and a certain Expy named Veemon.
    • In general, angel Digimon tend to popular among the fandom, mostly thanks to their designs and power (often, these Digimon are much more powerful than their level would have you think) and their treatment in Digimon Adventure, where their appearances almost always results in an awesome moment or two. This also extends to devil and demonic Digimon like Devimon and Beelzemon as well.
    • Angewomon and LadyDevimon retain great popularity despite being less prominent after Adventure. Angewomon gets her popularity from being one of the more powerful characters in Digimon Adventure, plus being an angel Digimon (which are almost always popular among the fandom), as well having a strangely fanservice-y design (despite being an angel) added too this. LadyDevimon is loved for being a sexy Evil Counterpart to Angewomon, taking after the already cool Devimon in design while being an Ultimate/Perfect level Digimon (making her stronger than Devimon by default). The combined popularity of the two resulted in them getting a new Mega/Ultimate form, Mastemon, who is a Fusion Dance between the two, in Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth.
    • Gundramon is a Digimon with relatively few major appearances, but is beloved and meme'd on for the sheer audacity of its design.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling Digimon a "Pokémon ripoff" is a very easy way to piss off a fan. Even though both series have similar names and are both about fighting monsters (some of which are partnered to humans) that evolve and grow in power, the similarities pretty much end there.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot: Has its own page here.
  • Fanon: Also has its own page here.
  • Faux Symbolism: Given how the Digimon franchise (like so many examples of the Mons genre) pulls inspiration from mythologies and religion around the world, it's not surprising that a few Digimon come with built-in religious function or symbolism that really doesn't mesh with the story at hand. Angel and Demon Digimon are especially popular, and the Angemon-Devimon clash at the end of the first arc in Digimon Adventure is a good example.
  • Franchise Original Sin:
    • Digimon Frontier was criticized for its use of Protagonist Powerup Privileges, which has actually been around since Digimon Adventure when Taichi and Yamato were the only ones of their team to get their own Digimon to Mega Level. What made it so egregious in Frontier was that it sidelined the rest of the team by requiring them to give up their Transformation Trinkets so Takuya and Kouji could become EmperorGreymon and MagnaGarurumon, respectively. This wasn't merely slapping them with Can't Catch Up, but effectively took them out of the action entirely. Adventure, 02, and Tamers had segregated power levels as well, but they also made a point of keeping the supporting team members relevant and involved, a tradition Frontier did not see fit to uphold.
    • Leomon's habit of dying went from a one-off incident to a trend in Digimon Tamers, something the show's creator specifically acknowledged was a reference to the original series. Both the original death in Adventure and the death in Tamers were generally acknowledged as high points of those shows; for one thing, it was still a surprise when it happened in Tamers—after all, plenty of characters died in prior shows, so it wasn't a Foregone Conclusion that Leomon would kick the bucket. Furthermore, the moments in question were well-written and used Leomon's Sacrificial Lion nature to its fullest extent, having long-term effects on the characters and being integral parts of each arc. Later shows, on the other hand, turned it into a borderline Running Gag, making it more annoying and meta than heartrending, and were at many points clearly just doing it because killing Leomon was a Recurring Element. This hit its pinnacle in Digimon Adventure tri., which brought back the original Leomon from Adventure and then killed him a second time, in a brutal manner that had little effect on the story—people were predicting the show would find some way to off him the moment it was revealed he'd be returning, and they were invariably more apathetic than shocked when it finally happened.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • While there was once an intense Fandom Rivalry with Pokémon during both franchises' heyday in the late 90s, it's mostly long since cooled off outside of fringes on both groups. There are far more crossover fan works and cases of overlap these days than there is earnest bashing, and some even would suggest a Digimon (most likely Series Mascot Agumon) as a Guest Fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as Bandai Namco (owner of the Digimon franchise) helped Nintendo with the game, and Digimon originating as a line of virtual pets (a game genre that has yet to be represented in Smash).
    • To a lesser extent, some Digimon fans are Godzilla-friendly, given it being similar in premise.
    • The Digimon fandom is rather close with the Monster Rancher franchise, as the original V-pets and the rebooted World games have very similar gameplay to Monster Rancher, as well as their respective anime airing on Fox Kids during its final years. Unlike Monster Rancher, the V-Pets and World games are still being made, so many MR fans have clung to Digimon in recent years.
  • Game-Breaker: For the virtual pets:
    • Monzaemonand the other weird-class ultimates were touted as this around the schoolyard, but in reality they were the physically weakest of the available Level V monsters in each v-pet; what made them stand out was their huge jump in power from their Level 4 selves (like Numemon), the weakest champions in each petnote . Anniversary releases of the old v-pets extend the Magikarp Power trend by including their evolved forms. The true Game Breakers of the v-pets were the fearsome ultimatesnote , who all shared the unquestionably highest base attack.
    • The Ver.20th v-pet adds Mega stage Digivolutions and Jogress, with all Mega forms having a minimum attack power of 169 and all that are capable of Jogress being a minimum if 188. Tai's WarGreymon and Matt's MetalGarurumon are unusually powerful at 199 attack each, and all Jogress Digimon have 238.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • Konaka's influence on the franchise, the Cosmic Horror elements in particular, are received much more favorably in the west than they were in Japan. Tamers reception was decidedly mixed in Japan, compared to its generally favorable reputation in non-Japan Asian countries and the States.
    • The franchise also has a big fandom in Latin America, where the anime is fondly remembered by 90s kids alongside more popular anime like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball. It helps that the Latin dub was mostly accurate to the original dub and didn't have much of the Gag Dub of the English Dub (they even had the original music and songs from Kouji Wada and co in, which was a godsend for many).
    • Although Digimon is pretty much just a childhood curiosity in current Spain, there was a time at the Turn of the Millennium in which the franchise was a complete juggernaut there, thanks especially to a masterful merchandising campaign, some excellent dubs by distribution company Arait Multimedia, and an uncharacteristically smart broadcasting by RTVE (as well as the effects of The '90s' Mon fad). To illustrate better the point, and in an example of how deep even the mightiest can fall, in the old rivalry between Digimon and Pokémon, the latter was considered the underdog there. According to insiders, no Spanish TV's kids programming has ever come near the share RTVE got back then with Digimon and probably none will ever do.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: In an amusing inversion, there are several fans who don't really care about the Digimon and just watch for the interaction between the human characters. However there are exceptions of course, especially for any season past Tamers.
  • Magnificent Bastard: See here.
  • Memetic Loser: Some of these are even thought to be intentional by the franchise's staff.
    • Leomon, who always dies in the anime adaptations, with X-Evolution holding the record for quickest death at 3 minutes into the movie.
    • Seraphimon, who always falls prey to The Worf Effect, given his high status as a guardian Digimon. Even when he's part of the main good guys, he always comes up short, fueling even more jokes at his expense.
  • More Popular Spin Off: While Tamagotchi is still as big of a Cash-Cow Franchise as its younger brother in their native Japan, Digimon became the more popular of the two outside of their home country, mainly due to its slew of anime and video games making it more widespread during its heyday. The initial Fandom Rivalry with Pokémon also probably helped.
  • My Real Daddy: On the gaming front, Habu Kazumasa has effectively become the face of the franchise, being responsible for some of the best and most well liked games the series has ever seen. What makes this trope even more notable is Habu having recently left the game producer seat, though he assured fans that the seat would be passed down to a trusted director. Nevertheless, this caused some fans to proclaim that Habu's talents was being put to waste.
  • Nostalgia Filter: A rather strange case where the filter is reinforced by Executive Meddling. Because of Adventure's success, the franchise has insisted on certain recognizable Mythology Gags. The Leader is a spiky-haired brunet with Goggles — like Taichi — and often a draconic Digimon associated with firenote ; the rival will be an Aloof Ally, often but not always blonde — like Yamato — and usually with a mammalian partner, often but not always canine.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Many people who watch the Digimon anime don't realize that human villains have been in the Digimon franchise before the release of Digimon Adventure 02.
      • To clarify, the first antagonist ever was was the brat Shinichiro in the C-mon one shot, there were organizations of human hackers in Digital Monster Version S who served as the primary antagonists, V-tamer 01 had a handful of hostile tamers, in Digimon World we have Anologman, another hacker, who is also the primary antagonist (and responsible for the creation of Mugendramon, the most powerful Digimon).
    • Similarly not many people realize the term "Tamer" has been used to refer to a child with a Digimon long before the release of Digimon Tamers
    • The aspect of turning humans into Digimon Ultraman-esque has existed before Tamers and Frontier.
    • Monsters with no level existed before Fusion.
    • The series has always had fanservice elements from the beginning, with Digimon Data Squad, which was made before the series officially went with the Audience Shift, being the first one that made the most of it thanks to Rosemon, among other things.
    • A human character partnered with multiple Digimon at once? Yeah, that already exists in many video games far before Xros Wars.
    • Modern detractors of the franchise's Serial Escalation of power levels until they practically over-compensate is often unaware that even without side-materials taken into account (which is usually the reason why Digimon is hyped up as such like the more infamous Pokedex entries), the franchise has always been that ridiculous. In the pre-Adventure days, protagonists and antagonists alike often scale to entire universes like Ryo and his partner Millenniummon. It was only dialed down (slightly) when Adventure debuted to prevent breaking the Willing Suspension of Disbelief as to why cosmic entities would bind themselves to immature kids and how Earth hasn't been taken over in one day.
  • Pandering to the Base:
    • Every series contains a clear expy for Agumon and Gabumon, along with their respective tamers; a hot-headed lead, often sporting goggles and an introspective foil with a canine partner are common, though not present in every incarnation of the series. Said draconic and canine Digimon will get all the screen time in the later series, while the other Digimon and their tamers will usually serve as token teammates.
    • The early years, where Veedramon was the most popular Digimon in Japan, leading to it being a Com Mon in the WonderSwan games, on the cover of Digimon World 2, and getting an expy in Adventure 02. Agumon/Greymon became sort of a forced mascot.
  • Popular with Furries:
    • All Mons series have this to a degree, but Digimon is a notable example even among them. Unlike most Mons, some Digimon are remarkably humanoid (with some practically being outright designed as fanservice, particularly the female-esque Digimon) on top of sporting Talking Animals (to varying degrees).
    • To this day, WarGreymon, WereGarurumon, Leomon, and ExVeemon (among a few others) maintain a strong LGBT following, especially with the Bara fans. Bulkmon has also proven to be up there with them in terms of popularity. Guilmon in particular is just as—if not more—popular with the furries as well, with Flamedramon being a close second. Not to say there isn't at least a small female audience toward these same Digimon also.
    • Renamon deserves special mention since not only does this Digimon also have a strong furry following, but is one of the most popular characters within the Furry Fandom period thanks to its vulpine and feminine looking design, on top of its role in Digimon Tamers.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: The Digimon virtual pets are much more popular than the Tamagotchi series, but they're rife with a number of frustrating features.
    • In several releases such as the original vpet, Digimon will age in their sleep in contrast to how Tamagotchi would only age when they are awake. This also has the added bonus of them either evolving or dying in their sleep, complete with noisy sound effects if the sound is on. The Ver.20th v-pet rectified this so that while Digimon will age in their sleep, they will only evolve or die upon awakening.
    • The trick with setting the time on a Tamagotchi in order to pause it doesn't exactly work with the original Digimon if it's awake, not at all helped by how a Digimon ages in its sleep. The Pendulum thankfully changed this so that it stops growing altogether while the clock is being set, and newer releases added actual pause functions or the ability to make a Digimon take a nap during the day with the added benefits of restoring stamina.
    • The Pendulum will play the death tone regardless of whether or not the sound is turned on. It's already bad enough that the original Digital Monster v-pet and the Pendulum have some of the creepiest death tones in the series, but what makes it worse is that Digimon on the device can also die in its sleep and therefore start playing an unnerving flatline in the middle of the night. Sweet dreams.
    • The vpets that can save progress only do so upon digivolution (and on several devices, death), whereas Tamagotchi save progress upon waking up, connecting and several other events. While it can be convenient to abuse if you screw up with an evolutionary requirement, it isn't as helpful if you've recently acquired a rare item or completed a difficult challenge and have to start from scratch.
    • If a Digimon on the Pendulum X fails to evolve after all the evolution lights turn on, it dies, with the same occurring on the iC and Burst if no evolutionary requirements are met. This has the added side effect of making the lifespans of Champions and Ultimates on the Pendulum X much shorter than those on other devices.
    • The Pendulum X's training and battles don't just rely on shake counts, but also on the number rolled by the XAI. It's incredibly helpful if you roll a six or seven to get every attack to turn into a megahit regardless of the shakes, and incredibly frustrating to roll a one which makes every attack a single shot (especially during training as it will completely ruin the session). Similarly, the D-Cyber made death prevention a Luck-Based Mission - on the Pen X you just need to shake as much as you can to revive your Digimon, but on the D-Cyber you also need to get a high XAI roll. Several Digimon can only be gotten by preventing death a number of times, so one would need incredible luck to pull that off on the D-Cyber.
    • On the Twin, a Digimon's strength will be empty when they wake up and just like any other situation involving an empty stat it will need to be replenished quickly lest a care mistake occur, and the problem only becomes worse given that they wake up relatively early.
    • People who like to keep a single Digimon around for a while will likely be displeased by the shortened lifespans on the Pendulum Ver.20th, as convenient as it is to raise a myriad of different Digimon quickly. Mega Digimon become incredibly needy by a mere seven days old and will be lucky to surpass a fortnight without attempting to die, even quicker than they do on the Digital Monster Ver.20th.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: While every series has multiple incompatible ships, nothing quite comes close to the world of Digimon Adventure and its myriad sequels and spin-offs. At the heart of this kerfuffle are two Love Triangles, the first between Taichi, Yamato, and Sora, and the second between Daisuke, Takeru, and Hikari. It's hard enough figuring out who to ship right there, and that's if you don't throw the other characters in there, such as, in no particular order, Miminote , Ken, Miyako, or Meiko.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many Western fans blindly reject one or more specific series simply because they're different in aesthetic and design from Adventure or Tamers. Digimon Frontier and Digimon Xros Wars are often victims of this; the former for not having (traditional) Digimon partners and having the humans themselves become Digimon (a la Power Rangers/Super Sentai or Kamen Rider), and the latter for ignoring Power Levels and making Giant Mecha-styled Fusion Dancing the main way of powering up throughout the show.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: MedievalGallantmon is said to be the leader of the Vortex Warriors, a group of Magic Knights who protect Witchelny and fight using weapons crafted with wind sorcery. Much like the Olympus XII, they seem to serve as their world's chief protectors in lieu of the "standard" Digital World's Royal Knights, giving them the potential to flesh out Witchelny's lore. The problem is the fact that not a single other member has been confirmed since the group was first mentioned when MedievalGallantmon was added to the Digimon Reference Book back in 2010. This was made especially egregious in 2019, when the Blucomon line was added to the reference book. Hexeblaumon, Blucomon's Mega, is stated to be an ice-based Magic Knight-type Digimon who is said to have crossed dimensions and moved to Witchelny. Yet despite the obvious set-up, it has no ties to the Vortex Warriors.
  • Tough Act to Follow: The examples below also double as First Installment Wins.
    • General consensus among involved Digimon fans who analyze them critically is that Digimon Adventure 02 is nowhere near the worst anime series overall, and that the writing quality varies from series to series, but the high amount of vitriol aimed at 02 and the progressively lower audience for each new series regardless of perceived quality stems from the fact they had to come after and change the formula from the critically acclaimed Digimon Adventure. The announcement of Digimon Adventure tri. was thus received with much positive acclaim purely on the virtues of it being another Adventure sequel. However, this began to change after the release of Loss when more and more plotlines were being brought up without proper resolution, the writing and animation quality began to falter and the padding issues became more apparent, especially in Coexistence. Not to mention the reboot that ultimately failed to deliver to most fans by the end.
    • In a similar but less prominent vein, the genre-shifting Digimon World games after the first were received with far less attention, forcing the subseries to return to the first game's Raising Sim format with Digimon World Re:Digitize and having the Digimon Story series fully branch off, retaining the "World" subtitle internationally until the release of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.
  • Toy Ship: Rampant everywhere, thanks to there being about 30+ kids throughout the franchise.
  • Ugly Cute: Some Digimon pull this off—mostly younger level ones but some older level ones, too. The way many Digimon are rendered on the virtual pets, particularly the releases that have a maximum 16x16 sprite size, definitely adds to the appeal.
  • Unfortunate Character Design: WarGreymon has this in spades. He has a mostly human anatomy. He also eschews pants in favor of a skimpy black banana hammock. The front of said banana hammock features a piece of armor with a very suggestive shape.
  • The Woobie: Enough for a page.
  • Woolseyism: Some of the Dub Name Changes towards the Digimon themselves, as well as certain terminologies, are actually a little more liked amongst the English-speaking community. Part of it is nostalgia, but even after seeing fan subs, some actually still prefer certain English names.
    • Most commonly, Myotismon — adding in a bit of a Genius Bonus. A good number of fans still prefer Crusadermon to LordKnightmon, and even like that Frontier made the feminine looking pink-armour-clad knight female. GuardiAngemon as well, due to sounding more like "Guardian Angel" rather than "Slash Angel". Then there would be "Beelzemon" over "Beelzebumon", maybe to how the former rolls of the tongue easier than the latter.
    • Averted with Creepymon, which is generally seen as an inferior name to Demon or Daemon, the latter of which was its original dub name change and what many wish had stuck for the Digimon.
    • Many of Digimon types' names are also changed in the localization. Basically, any Digimon type's names that have religious or mythological contexts or deemed "too scary for kids" are changed into more generic names, such as Holy Knight into Warriornote  or Exalted Knight; God Man and Demon Man into Wizardnote ; Ogre, Devil, Mini Devil, Fallen Angel, Demon Beast, and Demon Lord into Evil; Undead into Ghostnote ; Cyborg into Androidnote ; Beast and Beast Man into Animal; Holy Beast into Animal or Exalted Beast; Holy Dragon into Exalted Dragon; Demon Dragon and Evil Dragon into Dark Dragon, Archangel into Angelnote , etc.
    • Even detractors of the dub will agree that "Digivolution/Digivolve" is a much better term than simply "Evolution/Evolve", as along with it just being more catchy, it helps the franchise differentiate itself from Pokémon a bit more.
    • In most Chinese media, WereGarurumon's translated name 兽人加鲁鲁/Shòurén jiā lǔ lǔ/"Beast-Man Garuru" stands out as the only Digimon whose name doesn't end in the standard "-mon" pattern, due to the Chinese term for "mon" being the exact same term used for "beast" (兽/Shòu) and wanting to avoid creating a Repetitive Name.

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top