Digimon Marathon: Runaway Locomon... So long as its not Let it Go, you can start up a Barbershop Quartet for all I care

Remember those last few seconds of Such Sweet Sorrow? Yeah, that's the connection to this. Turns out they do get to keep their Digimon with no repercussions of them returning to the In training phase at all. But, if they're back, it means there's a new problem to deal with, and sure enough, this is no exception. Time to hit the railroad running, we've got a train to catch: Runaway Locomon.

Digimon Marathon: Battle of Adventurers... "Can't we have a break?"

So depression and the idea of lost was a common trend in Digimon Tamers, all building up to the D-Reaper. But Tamers also had two films linked to it, so you can guarantee that the themes will be there as well. Let's start with the first one: Battle of Adventurers.

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Tamers: Dark reboots before they were cool

It's not often you see the same team do a darker reimagining of their own idea. "You thought Adventure and Zero Two was to cheerful, well, time we hit you in the feels". It's a brand new world, new Digi Destined and the kid friendly version of hacking. Time for the Tamers to take the lead.

Digimon Marathon: Revenge of Diaboromon. You can never keep a good devil down

One thing of note about a lot of the Digimon movies, is that they aren't full movies length wise. So as a slightly longer episode, how does the sequel to Our War Game fair? Time to review Digimon: Revenge of Diaboromon.

(No cover as I can't find one that I can confirm to be the cover)

Digimon Marathon: Digimon the Movie: Look at how far we've come

Oh Fox, you truly know no limits when it comes to what you'll do for a quick buck... even when I'm certain it would have given you more money not to do what you did to these films. No that's not a typo, there are three movies spliced into one here... and it shows. Digimon fans hate this movie, and with valid reasons. But lets take a look at this blatant cash grab. Digimon the Movie...

Might I add, this is a crap promo poster. I thought we were past the days of bad box art...

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Adventures 02: "Why can't we send in the competent ones?"

Ah Zero Two. One of the most debatable seasons of the series out there. Both praised and hated by many. But as with Adventure, how well does it hold up now? Four new Digi-destined, new Digivolution (mechanics?) and more, Time to review Digimon Adventure 02.

Digimon Marathon: Digimon Adventure: Happy Birthday my two blogs, for your present: time to delve into the Digital World

Two days early? Yes, but still... Happy one year anniversary!!! This Wednesday will mark the launch of Blaster's Projects (pop quiz, who still remembers the original name of the site?) and one day later, the launch of Blaster's Reviews. Cue the dancers:

... Note to self, work on better theme integration...

So yes, almost one year on, I thought it would be fitting to have some sort of celebration, and what better way then to review something I talked about early in the sites life and a clear contrast to what my first review was: Digimon. Ah Digimon, the tabu of my Primary School. Everyone knew about it, but you either hated it as a Pokemon clone, or never looked at it due to several reasons (me being one of that second). I remember watching a few episodes randomly, Australian TV at the time wasn't known for its speedy and consistent arrivals. It wasn't until several years later where I'd sit down to watch them properly, thanks in part to vague memories and a friend of mine randomly mentioning it (good luck conducting the band for Violet by the way). As I mentioned last year, I prefer the Digimon Anime over the Pokemon one nowadays, but I think its about time to go into detail. From today, up until near the end of March, three posts a day, will be nothing but Digimon. I also want to stress that, aside from the last review due to lack of localization to my knowledge, I'll be covering the English Dubs as I can analyze them in greater detail. Time to delve into the past that was late 90's-early 2000's children's television and the generally accepted rival to Pokemon and how it has survived almost 16 years later (in two weeks, it'll have been 16 years since the original run). Time to start the Digimon Marathon, up first: Digimon Adventure.

Transformers Marathon: After 30 years, how is this franchise still alive and popular?

I have one last part of the Transformers Marathon. It’s not a review this time (though I’ll need a break from those as I said in my Transformers: Prime review), it’s a editorial. One of the things that crossed my mind as I’ve been going through the franchise is this, “How has the series survived this long and is still going strong?” There were series of the franchise that I didn’t look at in this marathon, I barely scratched the surface when it comes to the games and I haven’t even looked at its other mediums including the comics and the toys themselves, and even with those, the question still stands, how did the Transformers survive the test of time?

It would be too easy for me to say that the fan base kept it alive, and as such I won’t mention it until the end of this piece. There are other elements that kept this tale alive, one of which I mentioned in my first review for this marathon. One of the reasons I think that it survived is its overall simple plot. The classic Good vs. Evil stories have been around since the creation of the story. However, as time has gone on, the classic plot has developed, very few stories nowadays have that clear distinction of good and evil, the line has been blurred as there is always another side to the story, it’s a reflection of the world today. There’s no longer a clear villain in society as everyone could have dark intentions and it’s actually because of that, the classic tales of good and evil have kept alive. People want to believe that it’s just black and white, that there’s always a clear villain, so they cling to the stories that have that clear distinction. It’s a reason why the Harry Potter books became so successful (not the only reason, just a reason) and why they would likely survive the test of time and why some reinterpretations of older stories won’t. At the same time though, the story has to have differences to the concept and the way the Transformers franchise has done this is by moral choices, the reason why the plots of the episodes are more complicated then what they seem. Do you sacrifice a world, a civilisation, a race of sentient creatures just to save yours?  Do you protect creatures you’ve never met, that are probably afraid of you and will kill you just to protect themselves and risk the safety of your own race, or do you destroy them so that your race can thrive?  When is something going too far? These and other questions kids wouldn’t pay attention to when they first see the show, its something for the parents to see and the kids to notice when they are older and can understand the concepts and the consequences of the actions. The story that has always been a part of the Transformers Lore (not including Rescue Bots...) is a story that will be told in some form for years to come, because it’s a story that everyone will hear somehow. It’s a story that will never be dated due to human nature.

Every story needs its characters and while I might not agree with the decisions made with some of them, the personalities of each of the characters are distinct and memorable, even if sometimes they were poorly written. You remember Gears, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Bumblebee, Perceptor, Cyclonus, Demolisher, Override and many more. You even remember the Human characters: Spike, Rad, Alexis, Kicker and Coby, and I’m only mentioning the humans from the seasons I’ve reviewed here. And its actually for that reason why I hate the direction the Bay films are going. While I will openly admit that I like the first one (see review for why people wouldn’t like it) but from Revenge of the Fallen onwards, this includes what I’ve heard of Age of Extinction, the characters are turning into more emotional versions of the character in a M. Night Shyamalan film, bland and boring to watch.

The cartoons have always been a promotion for the toys, and the toys have helped in the popularity of the show and the franchise as a whole. The Transformers toys have been, and always will be, the fusion of a puzzle and a action figure. As time’s gone on, the toys have developed, become more complicated, harder to transform but does more in both vehicle and robot mode while still maintaining the core design of the character (some more obvious then others). I could show you 3 different versions of the Optimus Prime figure and you would be able to tell that they were all Optimus Prime because they always keep the core features of the original (they always have a red truck transformation, the head design is always the same and when the trailer is included, the trailer always has a transformation of its own (this isn’t including his Beast wars design but some of these also apply to Optimus Primal)) Megatron would be harder to distinguish but all of his designs have been offensive (a gun, to a cannon, a tank, a fighterplane, a batmobile esque car along with a plane ect), Starscream has always been some sort of fighter plane, Red Alert and Ratchet have always been ambulances as just a few other examples but over time, they’ve become more complicated. It would take less time for anyone to transform Optimus’s Generation 1 design then it would to transform his Evasion mode from the new Age of Extinction line of toys, even though they’re the same truck. As a result, kids still love playing with the toys and they watch the show to add to the experience, to use their imagination to make new stories for the characters.

The Michael bay films might be making more money in a week then most people will ever see in their lives, but its the cartoons and the toys that will keep Transformers going. It’s the Generation 1’s, the Unicron trilogies’, the Animated’s and the Prime’s that will keep the franchise alive long after the movies have finished. On top of that, it’s the fans that have grown up with the franchise since Generation 1 exposing their kids to the newer seasons and playing with their kids’s Transformers toys that keeps the name alive. It’s the lessons it teaches with characters that you want to be. It’s been 40 years, and let’s hope it lives for 40 more, or until all are one.

Transformers Marathon: Transformers: Cybertron. Why? Because "OUR WORLDS ARE IN DANGER" and we must protect them "Till all are one"

Now to a personal favourite of mine, while Armada might have been my first season of Transformers and this my last because they weren’t shown on Free to air TV here, Transformers Cybertron will always have a place in my heart. But does it still hold up when I look at it as a reviewer? This is my review of Transformers Cybertron. 

Transformers Maraton: Transformers Energon. Let's mine with Transformers

After the Unicron saga of Transformers Armada, the people at Hasbro, combined with the writers of the show believed that there was more that could be done in this continuity. It’s because of this reason, Transformers Energon is this review. Do note that it’s recommended that you see the finale of Transformers: Armada as this review will contain spoilers.

Transormers Marathon: Transformers Armada. Lets build up a army of robots that are smaller then our enemy to help take down said enemy when they could be crushed. GENIUS!!!

And now it’s time to look at the series that got me into Transformers, Transformers: Armada. This was a “return to roots” series for Transformers as the last English series was Beast Wars and its sequel. The issue it has however is that it retreads old ground with a new concept. I’ll be comparing Generation 1’s four seasons to Armada a lot in this review but not taking the movie into consideration (it’s unfair to compare a movie to a TV season, regardless of the age).

Transformers Marathon: The Transformers Seasons 3 and 4. "THE FACES OF oh wait, wrong franchise..."

Unfortunately, we’re not done yet with Generation one of Transformers as there were more episodes of the TV show based after the events of the movie, so if you haven’t seen the movie, well then you’re going to be lost as to what the hell is happening in this new episodes. Time to look at Transformers: Generation 1, wave 2. This review is going to be short as a lot of the issues I had with the first two seasons are still apparent for the most part with a few exceptions.

The plot follows on from Transformers the Movie, and like the seasons before it, it doesn’t do anything aside from that as each of the episodes are self contained. That being said though, the stories themselves are stupid a lot of the time, as if the writers ran out of ideas. In one episode, the Autobots have to deal with a Zombie Optimus Prime and then, a few episodes latter, Daniel (Spike’s Son) and Grimlock are sent to the Transformers equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins. When the Decepticons (THE MAIN VILLAINS OF TRANSFORMERS) are the villains, most of the time they come off as pathetic or (in Galvatron’s case) outright insane. The reason why I say “When the Decepticons are the villains” is because a new threat is introduced: The Quintasons, the creators of the Transformers (and scrambling the nonexistent cannon of Generation 1). Are they good villains? Well they come up with good plans, but their still not good villains. The Quintasons are the Transformers equivalent of the Terminators, calculating but don’t do much (unlike said terminators). They come up with the plans, but even when they say the odds of sucsess, you know they’re going to fail so there’s no point. On top of that, they had a 5 part intro at the start of Season 3 called “The five faces of Darkness” (hence the joke in the title) which, in terms of story, is boring to no end. I criticised Season’s 1 and 2 for having fast delivery of its story and it’s ironic now that I’m saying that the delivery in those five episodes (six technically) was to slow because of the amount of padding in it.

Another big issue I have with Season 3 and Season 4 is the cast. While the cast from Transformers the Movie was good for the movie, they can’t hold a tv show, let alone two seasons with a combined total of 34 episodes. On top of that, the issues with the cast in the movie are increased here, like Blur and Wheelie (who I didn’t mention in the movie review because he was bearable).Wheelie is almost as annoying as Blur because his voice is so annoying and he says everything in rhyme with Blur becoming almost unbearable. Galvatron on the other hand, what did they do to you? Not only are you insane, but your new voice is awful. Rodimus Prime’s personality is bland and dry (like Ultra Magnus). It’s just awful. Is it sad when Grimlock is the best character in the main cast?

Season 3 and Season 4 are set in space, as the Autobots and Decepticons travel to other planets which, while good in theory, also brings up problems. Setting the fight in space means that the designers can have alot of fun with the design for the other races of other planets. WHEN THE RACE ISN’T MACHINE, THEY LOOK UGLY. It might just be my opinion but most of the alien races in these seasons look ugly and horrible and when their machines, they look almost exactly the same as Transformers, even having similar abilities (aside from the Quintasons) so what was the point? My other issue is their definition of the term “planet”. If by today’s standards Pluto isn’t a planet, then most of these shouldn’t be anything close to the term. For examples, look Up Quintessa, Goo and Junkeon (yes, those are the names of some of the planets).

It sounds like I’m on the attack when it comes to Season 3 and 4 and there are a few reasons to it. While the most likely is because I’ve been marathon’d all of generation 1 in the space of a week when its supposed to be taken at a slower pace and I’m just sick of it. The other, big reason is because they didn’t need to exist. Transformers the Movie was a great way to close the generation as it sorted out almost everything. While Season 4 is a better way because it sorts out everything, the process of getting to it is so bland and bleak that you don’t care by the time it comes. Season 3 and 4 loves to kill off characters; my only wish is that they KILLED OFF THE BLAND CHARACTERS INSTEAD OF THE GOOD ONES. Finally, Season’s 3 and 4 fall under the same category as the seasons prior, they have not aged well and the movie only made them worse as they went back to the style of Seasons 1 and 2 , animation errors and all. They essentially took the bad aspects of the movie, and turned them into two seasons. If you’re going to watch them, you can both watch them before the movie and ruin the movie, or after and have an awful time, you can’t win with them. I will admit though, there are some great scenes in all of generation 1 including the rise of the Dinobots, Tripticon's scenes and seeing Cybertron in its golden age again are just a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. In short, Seasons 3 and 4 didn't need to exist as the movie was the best way to end Generation 1. Up next in the Transformers Marathon, it’s time to leave the 80’s and move into the new millennium with the start of the Unicron Saga, Transformers: Armada.

Transformers Marathon: Transformers the Movie. "You've got the touch, you've got the power!"

With the ongoing success of the first wave, it makes sense for a movie to me made of the series, and before you all panic: no it’s not the first Michael Bay film (that’s coming latter in this marathon). In continuation with this marathon, it’s time to look at Transformers the Movie. Be forewarned, this will make more sense if you read the review of the first wave.

The plot of the movie? Unicron (the Transformer’s equivalent of Galactus from Marvel comics but can transform into a planet) is going to eat Cybertron but before it can do so, the Autobot Matrix of Leadership must be destroyed or taken away from the Autobots. Cybertron itself (several years after the end of season 2) is now completely controlled by the Decepticons with the Autobots occupying facilities on the moons of Cybertron and Autobot City on Earth. Optimus Prime sends several Autobots, including Ironhide and Ratchet to Autobot City to try and collect enough Energon so that the Autobots can start a attack on the Decepticons (this movie is not for the newcomers of the franchise or the show) Megatron, Starscream and several iconic Decepticons take over the shuttle, killing all the Autobots onboard (this is a running trend in this movie) and plan to use the shuttle to launch a attack on Autobot City. Optimus Prime is called in to provide back up along with the Dinobots and arrive after the City is almost destroyed. Why am I telling you this? Because of the following: if you watch the credits to the movie, you would notice that Optimus Prime isn’t in the initial, character showcase along with Megatron. The reason? Optimus prime gets killed and Megatron is thrown off of Astrotrain because he was too damaged. Megatron is turned into Galvatron (sporting a new voice actor in the form of Leonard Nimoy) and is sent to destroy Ultra Magnus who now holds the Matrix of Leadership as Prime passed it to him in his dying breath (kinda...).The rest of the movie turns into the survivors of Autobot City trying to return to Cybertron to stop Unicron before Unicron can destroy Cybertron.

The production value in the movie is higher and a lot of effort has gone into the story to give it a better pace then the show. The character reactions feel more genuine then the show could ever do at that point in time and the personalities work well in cinematic form, both older characters and newer ones introduced for the story, such as Hot Rod and Arcee. The cinematography in the movie is also much better than the show, making the once clunky fights from the show look like epic battles. This is the Sherman dam fight from the first season (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkCQDMf3_S0) compare that to this from the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7GeisRaias) (credit to original team behind the show and a thanks to the people who uploaded the videos). In fact, the animation itself is on a higher quality compared to the show, granted it’s because it is a movie instead of a 25 minute weekly TV show, but even still. The best examples of this are, in my opinion, Unicron’s Transformation scene and when the Matrix of Leadership is used. The voice acting is much better in the movie as well, with one of the only two exceptions being Starscream but he bites the dust early on so it’s not too bad. The other voice acting problem I have is Blur but it’s mostly because of his dialogue and rushed delivery (big understatement if you see the movie...).

The soundtrack for the movie is better than the show, but it’s still mostly forgettable. Most of the track in the movie are vocal, generic 80’s songs that don’t stand out much better than the instrumental’s in the shows with the exception being “You’ve got the Touch”, but that because it’s used in the pinnacle moments of the movie, but it is still a great song because of how different it is compared to other battle themes such as (insert your own choice here).

Overall. Transformer’s the Movie has aged better then the first two seasons have, and there are reasons why it is regarded as the best Transformers movie to date (but considering most of its competition, that’s not saying much) and I agree to a extent, this is a brilliant movie and one that Transformers fans should watch. We’re up to the final third of the 80’s now, the next review: Transformers: Generation 1, seasons 3 and 4. The aftermath of the battle against Unicron.

The Transformers Marathon. The start of the war: Transformers Generation 1, the first wave

With the release of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction coming soon, I thought it would be fitting to countdown its release (and most likely finish past its release) in cinemas with a marathon of Transformers. What is there to say about Transformers? It’s a series to which its plot has never developed past your basic Good vs. Evil. So why is it still popular to this day? Why do the toys keep selling? I want to say I was around 7-9 (I’m not exactly sure but I do remember the first Transformer I ever got) years old when I got into the series and while I haven’t seen every season of Transformers (such as the Japan exclusives) or played every game, what I’ll be reviewing is still a decent portion of the franchise. With that said, time to start things off with the first ever generation, The Transformers (more commonly referred to as Transformers G1). This review will just be covering the first two seasons (what I will be calling “first wave”) with the last two seasons reviewed latter on in this marathon.

The plot of the first half of generation 1? Well for the first season at least: the Decepticons want to steal Earth’s energy to take over the universe (insert stereo typical “OF COURSE!” scene here) and the Autobots have to stop them... Doesn’t seem like a compelling story does it? The writers do however provide interesting stories that fall under this basic, overarching concept, such as multi planet stories, shifting from Earth to Cybertron and back again. The main reason why the story kept people watching was when they introduced new Transformers. Over the course of the seasons, new transformers would join either the Autobots or the Decepticons including Skyfire, the Dinobots, Constructicons, Astrotrain and more. The other aspect of the plot is this, while the overarching plot is bland, the individual episodes were quite interesting. There are times however where the story felt rushed, with one of the worst examples being the pilot episodes. There was a argument between Optimus Prime and Spike and Sparkplug about their help fighting the Decepticons. Spike and Sparkplug say that they know more about the planet then they do and Optimus just agrees then and there, it was poorly written and could have been better.

The animation on the other hand is... dated. The animation is quite nice considering other shows at the time, but doesn’t look good compared to newer animations. The fight scenes are slow and clunky. On top of that, there are several times where the animation and the sound don’t match up and scenes that just don’t make sense to what’s happening. It might be because of the versions I watched but these could be actual issues with the show. There are times where there were animation errors, mainly lack of colour in small portions of the shot, but these are forgivable as they don’t really matter in the long term... most of the time. There are rare cases of obvious miss colours of transformers, including multiple Starscream’s in the same shot. My big complaints with the animation are some of the transformations, with Megatron, Soundwave and Reflector being some of the worst when it comes to this. The sizes of some of the transformations don’t make sense. Megatron shouldn’t be able to transform into a gun that size, Soundwave shouldn’t be able to turn into a tape recorder (did I mention that it was a 80’s cartoon) and the three transformers that make Reflector shouldn’t be able to turn into a camera. A lot of the smaller Autobots also fall into this category but not to the same scale, I’m more likely to believe that Bumblebee, who’s only slightly bigger then a human, can transform into a normal size Volkswagen bug, then I am to believe that three transformers can turn into a standard camera (for the time).

The characters themselves do have distinct personalities, even if they are rushed some times (most of the time...). Optimus and Megatron’s personalities conflict in several ways, giving a subtle reason for the war, the human characters are distinct enough however they don’t really develop during the story (or if they do, it’s so slowly that you don’t notice). I would go into more detail regarding personalities, but because of the sheer number of characters that are in the story, it would be a review in itself. I will say however, the personalities of the characters don’t change from this generation if they appeared in this generation (for the most part).

It’s understandable for something like Transformers’ first season to have these issues; it was a 16 episode season with obviously low budgets, but what about the second season? The animation quality for the second season is better, as there are fewer animation errors (and the ones that are there are far between). The budget also shows a improvement as the backdrops are much bigger in comparison to the first season and the season itself is much longer. The plot still feels a bit rushed but its better then season 1. As for the soundtrack of the two seasons, most of the tracks are really forgettable and repetitive. There wasn’t any standout background track and after a while, they become ear grading as they just become annoying (though that might be because I watched the seasons in a week, with little distractions in terms of other entertainment). I will admit though that the theme song, like a lot of 80’s cartoons, is great with my personal favourite version so far (for generation 1) being the version for season 2. There is a reason why fans wanted the theme to be in the Bay films.

The first two seasons of Transformers did their job’s well. It introduced kids to the concept and it set the stage, standards, and lore of the entire franchise. If you intend to watch it, you have to switch your mind off and acknowledge that the shows are 30-40 years old now. If you’re a fan of the Transformers series, I would recommend watching them, just to see how far the franchise has come. For people new to the franchise, Generation 1 (at least seasons 1 and 2) isn’t the best generation to start in comparison to the latter generations. It’s flawed but the concept itself is still great to this day. But there are aspects to the first generation that I haven’t covered yet so up next: Transformers the Movie.

The First Season of K-On Anime... I got nothing for this...

It's hard to put into words what I think about K-On overall, there are aspects that I like but a big issue that I have...

I should explain the plot though, the story follows four high school girls Yui Hirasawa, Mio Akiyama, Tsumugi Kotobuki and Ritsu Tainaka with Azusa Nakano joining in around half way through the series (you can thank Wikipedia for the names) as they keep the light music club alive, including song writing, a few gigs, ect. The characters themselves are ok, their personalities and the way they behave are consistent but the big issue I have with the series is one thing: THE PERSONALITIES BELONG TO THOSE OF (Middle school???) (this is a Australian talking where the educational system is literally Primary School (Prep (5 years old) to year 6 (11-12 years old) and then High school which is essentially Middle school and High school in other places combined, from there its straight to University). I guess it should make sense in that regard but because K-On loves to shove it down your throat that it's set in Japan, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The story itself is mediocre at best. The day to day episodes are ok but there are a lot of gaps in a year. When they managed to fit two years in 13 episodes and then have enough material for a second, larger season, it comes off as a bit lazy to me. I get that their High school students but a Year is a long time...

Because the plot is based around the idea of belonging to the "Light Music Club", there are a lot of singing in the show. I watched the dub and while the non singing parts were ok, I was grateful that the dub kept the Japanese songs and subbed them. The songs have a nice melody to them but shouldn't be herd or read (if you want a good example, listen to the Lucky Star theme in Japanese and then English).

You'd have to be a specific target demographic to like something like K-On, it might be because I don't watch a lot of High School anime (this being my 3rd ever), it didn't keep my interest very well. I've started watching the second season to see if they improve but my hopes are low. If you like High School anime, then by all means watch it if you haven't already, but otherwise just skip it.

One of the most well known nerdy battles. Pokemon verses Digimon

Well, it might not be a Tamer’s review, but I thought that this might be a good intro to Digimon (my review at the moment has a lot of backstory and it that reason why I haven’t posted it yet). For this, I’m reviewing the Digimon Franchise and its pros and cons over its rival, the Pokémon Franchise.

I should note, before I cover the games, I have only played (and still working on) the DS games, Digimon World DS, Digimon World Dawn and its counterpart Digimon World Dusk so my review might be a bit biased. That being said, the Digimon World games haven’t held my interest like the Pokémon Games have. The plot is pretty simple, you’re a kid who has either been sucked into the Digital World (the world of the Digimon, they are digital monster’s after all) or has been living in the Digital World already (these are for the before mentioned games so intro might be different depending on the game). For World DS, because your being sucked into the Digital World, you can choose your partner, who are the three “In Training” forms of the partners in the, current at the time of release, main members of DATS, the organization in Digimon Data Squad, more on that latter. From there, you complete objectives to improve your Digimon’s residence, collect information about other Digimon and raise your Digimon so that they can “Digivolve”. Dawn and Dusk’s plots might be similar to the late game as DS (again, haven’t played that much of it yet at the time of post). You are a member of one of two organizations (depending on which version you play) and you have to stop something from causing havoc on the Digital World using the Digimon you already have and anymore you collect on the way. While I haven’t played a lot of the games, I do like the evolution method the games use. When your Digimon reaches a certain level and has a specific number of special experience based on the species (Insect, Machine, Dragon ect) it can Digivolve to the next level. In order, these are Baby/Newborn, In Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega and some species have the ability to go further, but I’ll explain latter. What makes this better then Pokémon for me is that most Digimon can Digivolve into multiple forms depending on the circumstances. Take the “mascot” for example, while I won’t explain how, Agumon can turn into either Greymon and from there it can turn into Metal Greymon and then War Greymon, or it can turn into GeoGreymon, RiseGreymon and then ShineGreymon (this is a basic toned down version but you get the point). This gives the game a lot more replay ability because you could choose the same In Training Digimon but get a different Mega.

For Pokémon, on the other hand, you’re a 10 year old kid who gets either a Grass type, Fire type or Water type Pokémon as your first Pokémon (unless you’re playing Yellow in which case you get Pikachu). You go out, get 8 gym badges from other cities, take on the Elite 4, champion, enter hall of fame and congratulations, you’ve beaten the game, go onto post game if you wish. While it might seem that I’m hating on the plot of the games (and I am) for some reason, this keeps my interest unlike the Digimon Games. My guess is because, to me, Pokémon gets to the point faster and lets me play faster than the Digimon World games have. I prefer games that get to the actual gameplay fast (which is why I dropped Skyrim after I left the first town…). It could also be 9 years of playing Pokémon to 2 years of Digimon but I digress. The Pokémon games are much easier to get into unlike Digimon because all the Pokémon games assume you don’t have prior knowledge of games (which is good until you see the “How to catch a Pokémon Tutorial for the 50^th time which often resorts to myself saying to the game “I’ve been catching Pokémon since before you were programed”. I guess the nutshell is, Pokémon is baby’s first RPG with Digimon being the next phase up, they are worth a look but you have to have knowledge of the series (for Digimon’s case anyway) to understand what you’re getting yourself into. One of the things I like the most though in Pokémon is that it feels a lot more like a world then the Digimon games ever did, but I’ll explain why latter.

And now for the ne thing that people remember the most when it comes to Digimon, the anime. I will be looking at the English Dub’s for this so to fans, I apologies. That being said, I really enjoy the anime, it does a lot of things that the Pokémon Anime would never do. For example

1.       Changes the main character. While Ash is STILL the protagonist of the Pokémon anime, the Digimon anime changes its group of lead characters at the end of almost every season and even then, the group is generally larger than the Pokémon series. While there are 3-4 primary characters in Pokémon every season, Ash still gets the most screen time trying to flesh out a character that has run dry in my opinion. Granted I still like characters like Misty, May and Dawn, its primarily due to their personalities and how they grow as trainers. The Digimon group has 3-8 characters per season and they all have decent air time and fleshed out characters by the end of their series. Because of the new characters, it is understandable for them to get information on all the Digimon, even if it is just for the viewers but for Pokémon, it is becoming harder and harder to take ash seriously because he is using the Pokédex on older Pokémon, THAT HE HAS ALERADY SEEN AND IN SOME CASES CAUGHT!!!

2.       Darker themes. While yes, Pokémon has gotten away with some dark themes, a lot of those episodes have gotten banned as a result. Remember when Ash got his 30 Tauros, I don’t. What about when Castelia City was destroyed, nothing comes to mind…. The only dark theme that I remember in the anime was in the first move, in the “Try not to cry, cry a lot when you first see it” scene where Ash dies (And after almost 20 years, spoiler warnings are thrown out the window). But in the Digimon series, they cover death quite a lot in all the seasons. The “Digi-Destined” also have to learn how to live with their decisions “when is it alright to kill”. Family is mentioned constantly in the first season. Digimon Tamers has been regarded as one of the darkest seasons to date for several reasons. In the past seasons, when Digimon “die” their data is reconfigured and they are reborn in a special area of the Digital World. In tamers, that is never mentioned so it is assumed that if someone dies, their dead for good, so when one of the heroes, Leomon is killed, on camera, uncensored (he slowly breaks down into raw data and dissolves, the equivalent of bleeding to death) and then the famous line by the leader of the group “I’ll make you hurt, I’LL MAKE YOU PAY”, which then leads into the final ark where the villain uses the hero’s mental states against them…

Probably my only complaint with the Digimon anime is the fifth season, Digimon Data Squad and its really just a personal opinion. In the past, it has been shown that Digimon are based off of kids imaginations (hence why you can have a giant dinosaur that fires missiles out of his chest) so it seems weird to me to see late teenagers-early adults being Digi-Destined. While yes, the cast of the first two seasons are shown to have matured and become adults while still having their Digimon, they got them when they were kids so I’m willing to let that slide. Again though, its just a personal thing to me

In conclusion, I highly recommend giving both a shot, to get your own opinions on both franchises. I haven’t covered anything about the other aspects of the franchises, including the toys ect and that’s just because of a lack of experience.

Welcome

Welcome to the site that will be hosting my reviews on games, movies, anime, TV (rarely because I don't watch a lot of TV) and stuff I think I should critique. I want to turn these into videos someday but I don't want to until I have the capabilities to do so. For those who are interested, I have a second blog that talks about a concept that I designed called Super Smash Brothers: Fan Disagreement. If people would like to find out more, click on the link here -> http://fandisagreement.blogspot.com.au/. Otherwise, enjoy.

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