Pokémon vs Digimon

From when I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was watch Pokémon and Digimon. It was basically a Saturday tradition to wake up and watch them. The thing I remember the most was the constant Pokémon vs Digimon marathon battles they would have. And now into my adult life I have decided to finally answer the age-old question, “Which is better Pokémon or Digimon?”

A couple of things first, I am only looking at the anime associated with them, if I include other media (games) there isn’t even a debate which is better. Secondly, I am only looking at when they were in direct conflict with one another, so the first four seasons of Digimon and first five seasons of Pokémon (ends after Johto). Why? Two reasons 1. Without the direct competition it wouldn’t be as fun a comparison 2. Personal belief: Ash’s journey should have ended at Johto with him winning the Silver Conference. He had finally beaten Gary and proven himself a great trainer (part of the reason I did have a problem with him still being the main character in Johto was because he had not done this yet). They could have ended it with him winning and then fighting Red. Which could have had a backstory like he was a legendary trainer from Pallet Town that Ash idolized or something. I would have even taken the dad theory but no he lost and 600+ episodes later we are still following him. I get it, we all love Pikachu but there are plenty of other cute Pokémon. May or Brendan could have carried the torch just as well as Ash did in Hoenn, but I digress. On to the real matter at hand.

Pokémon

Big Happy Family

Basics

Just for a basic review of Pokémon: Ash starts off on a journey to catch-all of these creatures known as Pokémon with his trusty Pikachu at his side. Although, really Pikachu was not very trusty and helpful at the beginning but anyway. He quickly meets Misty, a girl who wants to be the world’s greatest water Pokémon trainer, although she is already 1/4 of a water gym leader. He also meets a rock gym leader named Brock who wants to become a Pokémon breeder. They are constantly beset by Team Rocket featuring Jessie, James, and Meowth. In addition, Ash’s childhood friend, Gary, is his friendly, yet annoying, rival throughout his quest. Ash makes his journey catching new Pokémon and fighting gym leaders to get badges so that he can fight in Pokémon league championship.

Characters

Ash to me was very inconsistent as a character. There were points he was completely arrogant and others he was a whine baby. He often made really dumb mistakes which would not be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that they often were the same mistakes over and over. Predominately though he was friendly, energetic, and very caring for his friends and Pokémon so I can’t fault him too much. Minor gripe too is because of his character inconsistency his overall development suffered.

Misty was a great female main character. She’s a little quick-tempered and every now and again a little whiny but overall she is very well written. Her back story with her sisters is brilliant. The amount that she cares for friends is amazing.The addition of Togepi cooled off her temper a little but she was able to maintain her strong demeanor. Overall her personality just meshed very well with Ash’s and Brock’s. Only real gripe, other than her occasionally being violent, is that her shipping with Ash sailed a long time ago, just saying.

Brock is kind of polarizing. On the one side by far he is the calmest, most helpful, prepared, wisest of the Three. Then Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny walks by and he completely loses himself and becomes a moron. I used to find his personality shift quite funny until about the tenth time or so. I mean, I get it, he’s supposed the pubescent teenager of the group, but could you not come up with some other jokes associated with that. His personality flaw did, however, add another dimension to Misty’s personality which was great. Still a great character overall.

Tracey…Brock 2.0, but with a sketch pad.

For Team Rocket, admitted they are completely incompetent and very stupid but I love Team Rocket. Jessie is sassy but fun. James is a perfect partner for Jessie, being a pushover yet still extremely stylish and over the top. Meowth is really, an extremely complex character, he wanted to be loved although he’s not, which helped fuel his overall sarcastic attitude towards life. After a certain point you can’t help but root for them a bit.

Plot Structure

As mentioned in the Basics section, each season ran very similar in Pokémon and the overarching plot was the same. Of course, that statement is ignoring the fact that the overarching plot, in many episodes, was not the main plot of that episode. Pokémon lead itself to have a lot of character/Pokémon of the day episodes that depending upon what was going on could have nothing to do with the main overall plot. This made for a lot of fun characters but also made for several just completely forgettable and unnecessary episodes. If you look at it though, if the only episodes we had were the ones directly associated with main plot it would be maybe a 13 episode season and we would miss a lot of great moments that are in the other episodes, so it’s a take the good with the bad type situation.

Let’s talk about the main plot for a minute. We all know it was gather Pokémon, take on gyms, and send Team Rocket blasting off but look at Ash’s actual gym wins (at least in Indigo). Versus Brock a stray Thunderbolt causes the sprinklers to go off, Ash forfeits Brock still gives him a badge. As for Misty, Team Rocket interrupted the battle although, honestly he probably would’ve won this even without Pikachu but her sisters gave him a badge. Lt. Surge he actually beat. Haunter mad Sabrina laugh, Ash did nothing. Erika gives him a badge for saving her Gloom from a fire. Ash beat Koga, Ash beat Blaine in an awesome battle. He beat Team Rocket admittedly using Giovanni’s Pokémon but still Team Rocket . Ash only actually beat 3 real gym leaders. Admitted this mostly rectified in Johto but still.

Other Thoughts

I will say this how Ash “lost” in the Indigo League to me was just a pathetic cop-out. I didn’t have a problem with him losing for the reason that I stated above, he still hadn’t defeated Gary, but to just have Charizard taking a nap be the way that he loses was horribly written. Have him lose because Charizard’s weak to Electric-type moves or something a legitimate loss is all I’m asking for.

Show of hands who remembers Ash winning the Orange Islands? The first full onscreen 6 v 6 battle in Pokémon history and honestly one of Ash’s better performances basically ever, is often forgotten at this point. He was great, extremely strategic and systematic in what he was doing. Honestly, other than the overpowered Dragonite, Drake was completely out of Ash’s league in the fight, which was awesome. I think this fight is forgotten on the basis that it was in Orange Islands which was a filler season.

Indigo League will always have a place in my heart due to nostalgia purposes and that it’s a single season that completed the journey of a region. I will say that the most consistent season overall though was Pokémon: Master Quest. From my perspective, there were not as many meh episodes in that season. Although it could just be that the pure awesomeness of the fights vs Gary and Harrison and the emotional goodbye of the dream team making me say that.

Digimon

Basics

Just for a basic review of Digimon: a chosen group of 3 to 8 kids get digimon and digivices and go on a journey to save the digital world. Along the way, they learn how to digivolve their partner digimon to higher levels and fight more difficult opponents until they finally fight the ultimate evil. Through all of their strife they use the power of friendship and love to beat the ultimate evil. Note: I am being very general here as each season of Digimon is slightly different, with different settings and characters.

Characters

Again unlike Pokémon, Digimon has different characters every season. However, they usually fit into similar roles across all seasons. That being said that even though the characters do have archetypes that doesn’t completely mean that they completely adhere to that archetype. For example, Takato from Tamers is clearly a gogglehead, literally he wears goggles on his head, however unlike most of them he starts out without natural leadership skills. Another example is Zoe from Frontier, I’m pretty sure she is the caring Team Mom character, but she was a tease to the guys. Another thing, none of our 6th Ranger sorry I mean 8th Child characters were at all similar.  One other thing to note is that the digimon actually each have their own personalities. Some very similar to their Digidestined, others completely different. For the former, you have Davis and Veemon which are two peas in pod. Both good leaders, a little abrasive but still very kind, willing to work with anyone, follow their heart and slightly crazy but in a good way. While the later is very well by Joe and Gomamon. Joe is a constant worrywart about everything and everyone. He feels he is responsible for everyone thus he worries a lot. Gomamon on the other hand tries to get Joe to calm down and chill. He is constantly fun-loving and wants to have fun with his Digidestined. Overall the digimon’s individual personalities were a great addition to the plot development.

Plot structure

Each season of Digimon has a very basic plot structure. Firstly, the Digidestined get there digimon and digivice in the first episode. By the next episode, usually the gogglehead will have had his digimon digivolve to the champion level. After that the rest of the main characters will have their digimon digivolve over the course of the next 5 or so episodes a first main villain will usually be seen within the first 8 to 10 episodes and they are usually defeated by about episode 15 or so. Then another big bad has his arc for another 10 to 13 episodes. In the 2nd arc there is usually 3 or 4 complete filler episodes that highlight one of the main characters that is not the gogglehead but with no digivolution. 3rd big bad arc happens with additional digivolutions coming each with a highlight episode. Then they finally start setting up your what you think is the final big bad. Usually this occurs with about 13 to 15 episodes to go. Then the final 2 episodes bring the, usually, out of left field real big bad. Note: similar to Pokémon most of the episodes are digimon of the day episodes. There is a huge difference in that the overarching plot line is usually still present for Digimon even in more filler-like episodes.

The thing to note is the original series of Digimon was only going to be 13 episodes. They made the series specifically as a money ploy, to help sell their virtual pet digimon. If you watch the whole season everything was build up to episode 13. In episode 13, they beat the Digital World’s equivalent of the Devil which is usually the ultimate evil. However, it became very popular so they made new episodes. So that season ended up like 4-13 episode mini-seasons versus a real cohesive story line. With the other seasons there was more of an overarching plot because they knew they had a full season to develop everything.

Other Thoughts

I’m going to come clean and admit that Digimon Tamers is one of my favorite shows of all time. Each of the 3 main characters were very unique, particularly considering that Digimon is all about composite archetype characters. Takato was again not your normal gogglehead. He showed fear and had to develop as a leader. He also has arguably the biggest fail moment of any of the goggleheads when he almost caused Guilmon (or Megidramon really) to destroy the Digital World. Rika was just too awesome. She was a lone wolf who ended up being one of the kindest most caring characters in Digimon history. Henry was just the always cool, calm, smart, and obviously a great friend to everyone. The series was very dark and complex for a kid’s show. Death was permanent on the show. In fact, at the beginning it was a race to absorb as much of your opponent’s data as possible which doesn’t sound bad until you realize that all to digimon data is their life force. Leomon was permanently killed onscreen. The D-Reaper is basically a program that tried to destroy both the Real and Digital by complete eradication of them because both digimon and humans were unsuitable to live. The D-Reaper used Leomon’s death to completely jack Jeri’s mind. As a kid, I did not realize the level of depth of this show. I re-watched as an adult and it went from a strong 2nd place among just Digimon seasons in my eyes to one of my favorite shows ever. My mom, who stresses about almost everything, even hears me tell her “Momentai,” quite often when I talk to her and thankfully she knows what it means. I just loved this show, but I tried my best to this commentary subjectively.

A problem I always had with Digimon was the character’s personalities were usually fairly consistent with logical maturity to them throughout the show, but then you would have some arbitrary episode where a character’s would develop a huge personality flaw that’s not seen elsewhere. Notoriously bad for this is Digimon Frontier, which not as many people watched, but the point is still valid. If you look at Frontier it was the fun-loving season after the dark Digimon Tamers season. And for the most part, the characters are energetic, fun, and work great together. Then we get their backstory episodes where they all have no friends and hate everything about themselves. Where did that come from? I understand it for Koji and maybe J.P. but the rest I never understood. Do you look Zoe and think this girl has no friends? This happens in other seasons too. To me, as a kid, the one that always bothered me was the Sora Crest of Love episode. She was the basically the Team Mom and yet somehow she doesn’t have any love at all. That didn’t even make sense to me back then. In season 2 of Adventure, the Kari to the dark ocean episodes. Her being the Digidestined of Light it made some sense that she was susceptible to darkness but her entire personality changes for one episode here or there.

And yes, I know Pangoro didn’t exist in time frame I’m referencing.

  Verdict

 This age-old battle royale between Pokémon and Digimon really boils down to what you are looking for in a show.

Pokémon put a lot of emphasis on individually showing off every Pokémon that they could into the show over the course of the episodes. The problem that arose for them is that by trying to fit in every Pokémon they have not put enough effort into developing the 3 main characters. That is not to say they had no character development it just a took an overall backseat to showing off the different Pokémon. Obviously, the developers of the show figure what do the people want to see? Their favorite Pokémon of course. One can say that as far as the character development goes at least the character’s personalities were consistent…other than Ash from my personal perspective. Consistent personalities is actually more realistic, people don’t just change personalities on a drop of a hat. The stories were almost always self-contained too. Because of that Pokémon is for someone who wants to be entertained and doesn’t necessarily want to watch 50 episodes to get what’s going on. You can watch almost any episode of Pokémon and be just as entrenched as the guy that has watched every episode.

Digimon put more emphasis on developing their characters and overarching plot lines. They did this by having a character learn something before defeating the digimon of the week. And they would go around the horn getting each character an episode. The development was also helped by digimon actually being able to talk. This ability allowed addition avenues to look into what’s going on with the Digidestined of the week. The overarching plots gave you a truly villainous presence to despise. That being said even though a lot of episodes you could watch cold there were also a lot you couldn’t. The other thing with Digimon is each season is different with new characters. If you don’t like a character or plot you can skip that season but still watch another one.

So the answer is:

For a single episode any random point in the series-Pokemon

For a full season-Digimon

If we include all other media: Pokémon by a landslide and a half

Best season between the two: Digimon Tamers (season 3)

Definitely a cop-out but truth be told, how I watch these shows is different. If I’m going to watch Pokémon I’m not in it to watch the general overarching plot line, I just want entertainment for 30 minutes. You are only going to get the overarching plot line once every 3 to 4 episodes. Every episode though you are going to get a cool new pokemon (and usually a human character too) that Ash and friends befriend that help them blast off Team Rocket and that’s what I want out of pokemon. If I’m going to watch Digimon I’m expecting to be in it for the full season long haul. You’re not going to watch some random episode of Digimon, unless it’s at the beginning, and know what’s going on. Basic example for Digimon, if you just watched the gogglehead failure episodes you think all the gogglehead were the worst human beings ever, when they are clearly not. All the episodes build upon one another. Not to say you couldn’t be entertained with a mid-season random episode but much less likely than Pokémon. So in summary both shows are still awesome, insanely re-watchable, and great for different reasons.