#digi know

I'll cover their names and origins under the cut!

— A Getting Into Digimon Master Post

▙▚ TOYS - ANIME - GAMES - COMICS & MANGA - NOVELS - CARDS ▞▟

I've been getting asked a couple times how to get into Digimon, so I figured I collect some posts and info in a master post!

Digimon is a multi media franchise, so there really is no one way to get into Digimon. But I hope this post can help people getting an idea what to look for.

Digimon Card Sleeve Artwork by Tonamikanji

—Digimon Fields—

Digimon are sorted into "Fields" based on their physiology, habitat or powers. Many Digimon have been associated with more than one Field accross time and different media.

Fields were first introduced to the franchise through the orignal Pendulum v-pet series starting 1998 and the original Card Game (AKA Hyper Colosseum) in starting 1999. The Pendulums versions 1-5 were Nature Spirits, Deep Savers, Nightmare Soldiers, and Metal Empire, with the addition of Pendulum ZERO, Virus Busters. In Hyper Colosseum, up to Booster 6, the field was initially only indicated by the background, but starting Booster 7 a symbol was added. Later releases eventually opted to use plain text.

This line of Fields are Nature Spirits [NSp], Deep Savers [DS], Nightmare Soldiers [NSo], Wind Guardians [WG], Metal Empire [ME], Virus Busters [VB], Unknown [UK] and Dark Area [DA]. In 2006, the new Digimon Card Game alpha released, and dropped the Unknown and Dark Area Fields, and added Dragon's Roar [DR] and Jungle Troopers [JT].

—Nature Spirits [NSp] This field covers many Digimon living in greenery, around lakes or desert areas. They're often considered simple and gentle. Starting the 2006-Savers-era this mostly only contains beast-like Digimon. —Deep Savers [DS] These Digimon live in the Net Ocean of the World. With the 06-era all water based Digimon started being included in this. —Nightmare Soldiers [NSo] Ghost and Demon type Digimon are in this field, as well as Digimon releated to Halloween. Many of them have a relation to darkness, but some are related to super natural themes. —Wind Guardians [WG] This field contains Bird Digimon, and generally Digimon associated with air or sky. Sometimes Vegetation-type Digimon are also included. —Metal Empire [ME] Machine, Cyborg, or Mutant type Digimon belong to this field. Later many "material" based Digimon or Filth Digimon get sorted into this field too. —Virus Busters [VB] Angelic and Holy Beast Digimon are in this Field. —Unknown [UK] This Field would include Mutants or Filth type Digimon. While a lot of modern media spreads these across other Fields, the Digimon Web still acknowledges it. —Dark Area [DA] Evil Digimon, namely Villains from the series, are in this field. —Dragon's Roar [DR] As mentioned above, this Field got introduced in 2006 and includes Dragon and Dinosaur type Digimon previously included in various other Fields. —Jungle Troopers [JT] Just like Dragon's Roar, Jungle Troopers had several Digimon from Nature Spirits and Wind Guardians added to it. It covers Insectoid and Vegetation Digimon.

While most Games don't include Fields, but rather some form of elemental classes based on primary attacks, Digimon World Data Squad does include the Fields as such, and the the DS games have "Species" categories that line up with the Fields: NSp > Beast, DS > Aquan, NSo > Dark, WG > Bird, ME > Machine, VB > Holy, DR > Dragon, JT > Plant/Insect. While the early DS games had one catergory for Insects and Plants, starting with Lost Evolution a Plant species was added.

What kind of elemental types are included and how they relate to each other varies strongly from game to game, the only constant being Fire. There's also multiple ones that overlap. Water and Ice are often grouped up, Electricity often includes Wind or vice versa. Nature, Earth and Combat often cover the same or similar ground too.

Bandai V-Pet Crossovers Part 2 (see Part 1 here)

With Tamagotchi's original launch in 1996, then Digital Monsters in 1997, Bandai and Wiz released Magical Witches in 1998!

While Tamagotchi were based on eggs, and Digital Monsters on cages, the Magical Witches v-pet is shaped like a book, cover and all!

Just like the original lines of Tamagotchi and Digimon, Kenji Watanabe was also the designer for the Magical Witches. Besides going through different stages, the Witches were also divided into four different clans each representing a different magical element. Which tribe of Witches you would raise depends on the version of the v-pet you have.

The clans and their respective magic are as follows:

Eneruge, who specialize in fire magic, Earthlin, who specialize in Earth magic, Baluluna, who specialize in wind magic, and Aquary, who specialize in water magic.

As your Witch grows, it can study other elements of magic! They cannot learn their opposite element until Gen 4 (and master it by Gen 5). So a Eneruge Witch has to learn Earthlin and/or Baluluna magic before they can learn Aquary magic.

[images from gotchi-garden]

Unfortunately this franchise never took off, and no further lines were created past the original line up. The toys are now quite the rare find and any online listings are super expensive.

But part of the franchise lives on within the Digimon franchise!

The Land of Witchelny is now portrayed as another dimension, so to speak, another layer to the Digital World we know. According to offcial DigimonWeb profiles, the land is ruled by elders of each clan and three sages that lead a council governing the clans.

Witchelny is split into four blocks for each cardinal direction, each occupied by a clan, and in the center lies Mount Brocken. On the top of Mount Brocken, the clans have established a joint magic school. Those who master magic (advanced programming language) at said magic school, move on to travel to the Digital World we know.

Here is a list of Digimon, who have been confirmed to have come from Witchelny: Wizardmon /X (master of fire and earth magic), FlareWizardmon (master of fire magic), Sorcerymon (master of light and ice magic), Witchmon (master of wind and water magic), Mistymon (master of various magics, of which fire is its forte), MedievalGallantmon (a legendary hero, who protected Witchelny in ancient times) and Wisemon (born in a magic-less region of Witchelny).

Furthermore, Hexeblaumon is a Digimon that came to Witchelny from the Digital World, and mastered ice magic there.

On the Option Card, Absolute Blast, which features HexeBlaumon, you can also see the symbol of Aquary!

Absolute Blast BT5-097 by Shin Sasaki from BT-05 Booster Battle of Omni

Comparing the original Magical Witches evolutionary charts to the what magic we know these Digimon to be proficient in, we can make some possible connections.

Wizardmon being a master of fire and earth magic, and Witchmon being a master of water and wind magic, these original Witches line up with their abilities.

[Wizardmon: Eneruge native master top, Earthlin native master bottom] [Witchmon: Aquary native master top, Baluluna native master bottom]

However with official artwork, such as the one below, portaying fire and water magic as their respective specialties, I believe the top sprites would be more likely.

With Mistymon being proficient in all magic, only the "Soul" type of Witch applies, which is the same in all clans.

I find this stuff super interesting! But wait... doesn't that one face look familiar...?

SATAN?!

Bandai V-Pet Crossovers Part 1 (Part 2)

In 1996 Bandai and WiZ inc. released the original Tamagotchi. To their surprise, the toy proved to be popular among boys as well, despite it being mostly marketed for girls. And in 1997, as a more targeted approach to this demographic, Digital Monsters was born!

A huge virtual pet boom followed and not only did Bandai and Wiz release new versions of Tamagotchi and Digital Monsters, and try multiple v-pets with a variety of styles within the next couple of years, but other companies also tried to bandwagon on the success of these virtual pets!

(Such as Nintendo in 1998 with the Pocket Pikachu-)

While the Tamagotchi was shaped like an egg (jap. tamago) with a crack in its shell where the screen is, the Digital Monster was shaped like a brick cage with bust-open bars! It also featured the ability to connect and battle! Otherwise they both use the same three button layout and similar menu icons. On the Tamagotchi, the toilet icon is portrayed by a duck themed potty, which is also used as the look for the Portable Potty items in many Digimon games.

Now with how closely these two franchises were developed, there's bound to be more that connects the two, right?

One such thing is Tamagotchimoji and Digimoji/DigiCode!

You can see that the two scripts are basically identical, just stylized differently. While Tamagotchimoji got used sparsely until they stopped using it in 2004 (But had a surprising comeback in one social media post on April 10, 2023?!), Digimoji has been used, and still is being used everywhere in the Digimon franchise! There is also a separate set of characters for the Latin Alphabet.

[Tamagotchimoji on the left, Digimoji on the right, respective Hiragana above the character]

Just like we know it from the Digimon Franchise, the Tamagotchi also grow through evolutionary stages along a branching path, depending on how well you take care of them! The original line of Tamagotchi as well as Digimon owe their designs to Kenji Watanabe! Generally all Tamagotchi's names end in "-tchi" or "-chi", similar to how Digimon names end in "-mon".

In these evolution charts, the Tamagotchi and Digimon are arranged by how well they've been taken care of / how good they are, with the top line being the best, and the bottom being the worst.

But that Tamagotchi chart is actually just the international version, which had "Bill" (aka Gaijintchi/Ketotchi) as secret character past the adult stage. Instead the Japanese version featured "Oyajitchi" (jap. oyaji means "old man").

But wait, doesn't that face look familiar...?

According to the Digimon Reference Book, Nanimon's true identity is unknown and it in fact came from another dimension, where it was known under the title OYAJI. In order to survive in the new environment of the Digital World, Nanimon had to go through a lot of training and battling.

Nanimon's name is also a play on its bizarre nature. In Japanese, "nanimon" is a casual abbreviation of "nanimono" which means "what (thing)". So, with intonation indicating a question, "nanimonda" can mean both "What are you?" or "I am Nanimon".

This joke is even included directly in Digimon World when the player encounters Nanimon.

「ん？なにもんだ？！」 "N? Nanimon da?!" “Huh? What are you?!” 「ナニモンだァ！」 "Nanimon da!" “I’m Nanimon!”

Nanimon's nature as an alien to this World is also reflected in his trait in the Card Game being "Invader".

Nanimon BT6-058 by Kenji Watanabe from BT-06 Booster Double Diamond

So yeah, Nanimon is supposed to be Oyajitchi who came from the Tamagotchi World to the Digital World.

Stay tuned for next friday when we talk about another World connected to the Digital World!

Special thanks to: tamagotchi wiki, gotchi-garden and tamatalk for being great resources!

Although only referred to by their baby names, Gummymon and Chocomon, both Terriermon and Lopmon had their debut in the Movie Digimon Adventure 02: Vol.1 Hurricane Touchdown!!/Vol.2 Transcendent Evolution!! The Golden Digimentals.

[If you have only seen the English Digimon The Movie, I highly recommend watching the japanese original for each of the 3 movies cut together for it. This movie alone has about 50% of its content cut.]

Most of you will easily remember Terriermon, but Lopmon only shows up in its child form in this ending illustration done by the late Yasuo Ōtsuka.

Instead of Kenji Watanabe or other Bandai staff, Terriermon and Lopmon were designed by the movie's director, Yamauchi Shigeyasu himself, for the movie.

On the design sheet, we can see several points in which Terriermon and Lopmon were supposed to be distinct from each other in their body style. On this sheet, Terriermon is 1.7 heads tall, while Lopmon is 2 heads tall. Even if they would fall straight down, Lopmon's ears also appear to be shorter than Terriermon's. Lopmon's visible canine is a design element still used today, even though in terms of size and proportions, the twins are identical in modern media.

Due to its popularity from the Adventure 02 movie, Terriermon was chosen as partner for Jianliang Li/Henry Wong in the next anime season, Digimon Tamers, and by association, Lopmon was chosen as partner for Jian's sister Xiaochun/Suzie.

According to the Reference Book, Lopmon is the lonely crybaby type, while Terriermon is calm and robust. Both have the move Petit Twister, while Terriermon's signature move is Blazing Fire and Lopmon's is Blazing Ice. Furthermore, the Reference Book entries of their Baby I stages Zerimon and Cocomon state that they're the only Digimon that are born as twins, but the reason why is still unknown. They also aren't exclusively born as twins and can hatch alone from eggs individually as well.

On the Digimon Web Twitter, Terriermon and Lopmon appear on various occasions, including the celebration of ふたごの日 futago no hi Twins Day. (5th of February)

The Card Game also features them together on some of their cards! And there's even official card sleeves with the two.

Both of them appear to be very popular and are featured in many parts of the franchise, Lopmon in particular, being chosen as a partner Digimon for characters in a number of games.

As you can see, they each have a "regular" and a "dark" evolution line. In Lopmon's case, the "dark" evolution line specifically has a corruption theme. This is, of course, because Lopmon and its entire "dark" line were designed for the movie Hurricane Touchdown, which had its corruption as the main plot point. As a result, Lopmon's lines are very different from each other, while Terriermon only gets simple classic recolors.

Possibly the most corrupted among them is Wendimon.

Wendimon first gets introduced in the movie, and it posesses a chilling presence throughout all of it. However, not just Hurricane Touchdown, but all iterations of Wendimon, across the franchise's media, depict it as somehow corrupted beyond reason, usually not even being able to talk in cohesive sentences.

I wanna take a short moment to talk about its name origin. I'll not delve into too much detail, as I'm sure there are more educated people on this topic, but Wendimon is named after an evil spirit from Anishinaabe cultures, which name you are not supposed to say, as to not draw the spirit to you. I just wanted to share, in case some of you weren't aware.

But, moving on

The "regular" adult levels Gargomon and Turuiemon. Comparing the two, I really like how Gargomon has a long-range armed combat theme and Turuiemon a close-range combat theme. Gargomon, as mentioned before, appeared in Hurricane Touchdown and appeared plenty in Tamers as Jian's partner. Turuiemon, unfortunately, didn't have any big appearances until recent years. It had its debut in December 2001 as a card in Hyper Coloseum, in a Tamers themed booster.

Next up are Lopmon's perfect Level evolutions, Antylamon and Antylamon (Deva). The original Antylamon from Hurricane Touchdown is a Virus type. For Tamers, they decided to have Antylamon as the Deva representing the Hare, and so a Data type variant was created. It had its debut in Hyper Coloseum, in a booster featuring all Deva, a month before first seen in the anime at the end of 2001. The biggest visual difference is the purple scarf of Antylamon (Deva), but it also has a crest, like all Deva, on its chestplate (more on that maybe at some point?). Video games predominantly feature Antylamon (Deva) over Antylamon (Virus).

Now, if you remember, Terriermon and Lopmon were specifically designed for the movie Hurricane Touchdown. With Terriermon first showing up in its child form and Lopmon in its adult form, Wendimon, Gargomon and Antylamon are each twins' first evolution we get to see them actually evolve into during the movie. Because of this, it's interesting to me that these two share a distinct symbol, Antylamon on its arms and Gargomon on its face.

Another evolution we get introduced to in the Hurricane Touchdown movie is Rapidmon (Armor). Most people are probably more familiar with the green Perfect level Rapidmon as we see it in Tamers. Looking at the Digimental of Fate, you can see the classic Armor Digimon - Digimental resemblance. Rapidmon's abdomen comes from the sphere part of the Digimental, the base below that resembles its boots, and the wing on top resembles the ear-wings. Because the Perfect level Rapidmon uses essentially the same design, the jump from Gargomon to Rapidmon seems a lot bigger than the one from Terriermon to Gargomon. On a little side note, the official Bandai artwork of Rapidmon (Perfect) has an open helmet, even though the anime uses a closed helmet like the Rapidmon (Armor). BlackRapidmon, despite being a recolor, has a closed helmet as well.

Lastly, a short look at Cherubimon (Virtue) and Cherubimon (Vice). Both of them, again, debuted in the movie Hurricane Touchdown, which influenced their design. We get to see the corrupted, mad Cherubimon (Vice) first and only briefly see it in its Cherubimon (Virtue) form.

I believe the simple but effective changes between their designs were in part to allow this nice transition at the end of the movie.

Sistermon Noir debuted along with her younger sister Sistermon Blanc in Digimon Collectors back in 2012. They later appeared in 2017 in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker's Memory's Chapter 7, as well as being obtainable as partner Digimon.

When the game was localized, Sistermon Noir was changed to Sistermon Ciel, due to her invoking religious imagery being considered a no good for North America.

The European version did not get censored though. Some screenshots for comparison:

[Japanese version | European version (German) | North American version]