Lara Jill Miller landed the role of Kari easily; This role was her first voice acting gig.
Back when the Tamagotchi craze began in 1997, it was noted that they seemed to be more popular with girls than with boys, and toy execs looked for a way to make it appeal to boys as well. Thus were the first Digimon born, like Tamagotchi, only with the ability to link up and fight with one another. Yes, thathugelysuccessfulmulti-continuityfranchise started with what amounts to the Spear Counterpart of the Tamagotchi.
Disney held the American dubbing rights from 2002 to 2012, so the show aired on Toon Disney in reruns. The theme song was replaced, so the dub's Digimon Frontier theme was recycled for use in every Short Film that had yet to be dubbed by then.
Not many people who watch the anime only realize this but the term Tamer is a generic term used describe a child (or just human) with a digimon partner, has was a term that had been existence in the franchise long before the creation of Digimon Adventure. In fact the term Digidestined is a term that is unique to the Digimon Adventure world, and is a subset of a Tamer that was chosen for specific task. This is the reason why we have more children in the franchise officially referred to as Tamers than Digidestined.
This was the last series whose Finnish dub was overseen by Agapio Racing Team.
Adored by the Network: In the US, Digimon was Fox Kids's saving grace, at least for a little while. They immediately took advantage of the show's popularity and added extra airings, marathons, and special promotions. Many new episodes debuted in pairs, or even triads. One of the tracks from the second series was inserted into a promo for the entire programming block.
Dueling Shows: Referring to Digimon as a Pokémon ripoff will probably invoke much wrath. Not that that's stopped the Pokémon fanbase — claiming that a new disliked Pokémon looks like a Digimon is a sadly commonplace remark in the fandom, not helped that the Pokémon in question never actually look like any Digimon.
Prominent Digimon, especially from the earliest days of the franchise, tend to get the most new versions, Evolutions/Digivolutions, and subspecies over time. Special mention goes to Agumon/Greymon and Gabumon/Garurumon, the respective Digimon partners of The Hero and The Lancer from Digimon Adventure.
Mamemon was the first example of a trend in the original generation of v-pets for one of the ultimates to be a miniature, usually spherical monster, which includes MetalMamemon, Datamon (whose design has moved away from spherical), Giromon, and Tekkamon.
Hey, It's That Place!: In Digimon Adventure, the Chosen Children board a train and miss their stop. The town in question is Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics.
The dubbed anime never saw a proper home video release until all the way in 2013, when New Video Group licensed the first five seasons and released them on DVD. Digimon: The Movie initially saw a VHS release, but has never been re-released since, and the other movies that happened to be dubbed were only aired on TV while Disney owned the rights to the series, never to be seen again except in internet circulation since 2010.
The Japanese version is only marginally better; other than the movies and Digimon Data Squad, the DVDs all went out of print and were doomed to float around in rental stores, with limited-print commemorative compilation sets being released at one point, until Happinet finally licensed Blu-Ray box sets of Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 in honor of their respective 15th anniversaries. Only time will tell how long they stay in print and whether this will extend to the other series.
Kids' Meal Toy: Dairy Queen sold a set of seven plushes with trading cards in 2002. These consisted of Agumon, Gabumon, Guilmon, Impmon, Patamon, Terriermon, and Veemon.
Common, though the most notable example is Holydramon. Originally Holydramon was one of the evolved forms of Gatomon in Digital Monster Ver. S: Digimon Tamers. It didn't evolve from Angewomon until the Pendulums released a year later, which were the inspiration for the evolution lines in the anime.
The Ryo games and the AU manga. All we got in the West were different adaptations of the anime.
And all of the Virtual Pets aside from the first two.
Since the PocketStation didn't see release outside of Japan, so are the games made for it: the three Pocket Digimon World games, consisting of the first one, the Wind Battle Disc, the Cool and Nature Battle Disc, each three having different Digimon you can train on your PocketStation for battle with another user, and Digimon Tamers: Pocket Culumon, a Tamagotchi-like game featuring Culumon with minigames.
Sistermon Noir is not included in any Western products past Cyber Sleuth due to being a Naughty Nun. In the video games and card games, she is replaced by Sistermon Ciel, who is identical mechanically but has a different color scheme and weapon.
Voice actress Megumi Han is a childhood fan (see her recreation of a Digimon photo after fifteen years), and has since been cast in a multitude of works across the anime and video games - most notably Takeru in the PSP version of Digimon Adventure, in which she was specifically cast because she had watched the anime as a child.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Or rather, Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy makes the design. WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, commonly appearing throughout the franchise, were allegedly the first Digimon to be designed toy-first (instead of having their toys designed after them) due to having been produced with a Combining Mecha gimmick in mind for the two figures to physically combine into Omnimon. This was then done in spades for the main Digimon from Digimon Fusion, who are designed explicitly to combine with the aforementioned gimmick in mind. In fact, there were allegedly designs made for OmniShoutmon and ZekeGreymon figures for the second half of Fusion, which would've had them combine with the figures released earlier in the first half to form Shoutmon X7, but unfortunately the dwindling toy sales related to said first half led to them never getting a release.
Shown Their Work: While most Digimon strictly follow the Rule of Cool (okay, imagine a large, cyborg-headed dark dragon... ON FIRE!), there are many many different religious, mythological, or other creatures that you might not have ever heard of that nevertheless have a canon counterpart.note And chances are, it's on fire. The following examples are evidence of this:
The Seven Great Demon Lords have seals associated with them that are based on the obscure Seven Olympic Spirits, and are named after demons from Paradise Lost and The Lesser Key of Solomon. On top of that, there's 3 'Super Demon Lords' that are based on the Beasts of Revelation and they all match the descriptions quite well.
The Celestial Digimonnote Ophanimon, Seraphimon, and Cherubimon are named for the three highest choirs of angels: the Ophanim, Seraphim, and Cherubim. Ophanimon also incorporates elements from all three of these. She has wheels attached to her pauldrons and spear note Ophanim were depicted as wheels. Yeah, they're weird, just roll with it., she has the face of a human and her helmet has the faces of an eagle, a bull, and a lion as well note Cherubim had the faces of a man, an eagle, a bull and a lion, all at once. Face it, angels make no sense whatsoever., and Ophanimon C has fiery wings and a red-hot spear note Seraphim literally means 'burning ones'. What, expecting a pun?.
Countless other Digimon reference other Biblical creatures and concepts, including multiple levels and depictions of angels and demonsnote VenomMyotismon's "crotch monster" is more than likely a reference to a fairly common but unusual depiction of Satan with a monster, such as a snake, in place of his penis. Yyyyyeah. and multiple creatures are named for the Apocalypse, like Apocalymon, Armageddemon, and Megidramonnote From the Greek name for the end of the world according to the Bible, Apocalypse, the Hebrew name for the final battle, Armageddon, and the mountain for which it is named, Har Megiddo
The Olympus Twelve take their names from the Roman names for the gods of Classical Mythology: Apollo, Bacchus, Ceres, Diana, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Neptune, Venus, and Vulcan. Pluto is also present, though only outside of the group. Interestingly, Merukimon's design bears more similarity to the jaguar warriors or even Tezcatlipoca of Aztec Mythology.
The Royal Knights are saturated with references to old religion and mythology.
Gallantmonnote Gallantmon's spear is named for Sigurd's sword Gram and his support mecha Grani is named for Sigurd's horse; his shield, however, is named after Aegis, the shield of Athena and Zeus. In Crimson Mode, he gains Odin's spear Gungnir, and the giant Heime's sword, Blutgang., Yggdrasil note The World Tree from Norse Mythology, and especially Sleipmonnote Sleipnir (literally "slippery") is the name of Odin's eight-legged horse, and Sleipmon wields the crossbow and shield Muspellsheimr and Niflheim, both named for two of the nine worlds of Norse Mythology. derive from Norse Mythology. Gallantmon also has a slight nod to Classical Mythology.
The remaining Knights have tons of references to Arthurian Legend.note The fact that there is thirteen knights, Alphamon's place in the group is known as the "Empty Seat", just like the Siege Perilous at the Round Table, Craniumon's Claiomh Solais and Avalon and Examon's Caledfwlch and Ambrosius are named for people, places, and weapons from Celtic and Arthurian myth. One of Examon's attacks, Pendragon's Glory, is named after King Arthur himself, and Caledfwlch is another name for Excalibur.
Not to forget the necessary references to computing; The ABC being the first digital computer, ENIAC being the first Touring Complete digital Computer, the story behind the D-Reaper (which already is a wall of text), and, arguably, "matrix evolution" being a reference to college level mathematics (combining two matrixes produces a matrix identity). Considering that is suggested that human made digital information is what shapes the digital world, this could go on for quite a while...
Although many aspects of the franchise were inspired by old and new beliefs, it has, to some extent, interpreted events in order to add to its own; for example, Millenniummon stands for the millennium bug, commonly known as Y2K, thus is an evil god of time. Diablomon/Diaboromon is also literally the Y2K Bug.
It may seem odd that there are two different monsters to represent the same, until you realize that at the time, people didn't know whether to celebrate the new millennium in 2000 or 2001. Furthermore, Milleniumon was created in 2000, which is the date that would cause the computers to fail. Diaboromon created later, representing the fear that if it didn't happen in 2000 it would happen in 2001.
The Devas are based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac, as Henry points out. note If you're really familiar with it, you'll recall that the rabbit represents peace, which gives away Antylamon's Heel–Face Turn.
The Dracomon family of Digimon created for the tenth anniversary were originally intended to have three distinct evolutionary lines known as the Heavenly Dragons, Earth Dragons and Almighty Dragons. However, the Almighty Dragon line had its Champion (a yellow version of Coredramon) and Ultimate (an unnamed white dragon which is quadrupedal like Groundramon and has developed wings like Wingdramon) scrapped. The intended Mega form (Slayerdramon) was then instead made Wingdramon's evolution, while the latter's intended evolution (Examon) became the result of a Fusion Dance between Slayerdramon and Breakdramon. This is why Slayerdramon has very little visually in common with the rest of its line and why Examon resembles Wingdramon.
The Vital Bracelet toy released in 2021 was originally planned to feature only brand-new Digimon, however due to there already being over a thousand Digimon, the idea was scrapped as the production team felt it would be a waste to not include some of the older generation Digimon.
According to this Chinese article, Digimon was intended to have a Licensed Game for the Monon Color (梦龙彩色掌机), a Chinese handheld. It got cancelled when the Monon Color itself was discontinued.
You Look Familiar: Sound Familiar, in this case. Many of the voice actors involved in the Saban/Sensation dubs of Adventure through Frontier could often be heard on Power Rangers or other Saban shows — the ADR department handled all of Saban's shows, both live-action and anime dubbing. Derek Stephen Prince, the dub voice of Veemon from 02, was the voice of Elgar from Power Rangers Turbo and In Space (and in an episode of the latter, used the eventual Veemon voice to avoid Divatox).
), and has since been cast in a multitude of works across the anime and video games - most notably Takeru in the PSP version of Digimon Adventure, in which she was specifically cast because she had watched the anime as a child.