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Digimon is a Japanese Anime-style television show, and the name of the
digital monsters in the show which inhabit the "Digital World", a universe
parallel to ours (the "Real World") that is the inhabitable manifestation of
the global Internet. The story tells of a group of pre-teens (the group
changes per season) who help the Digimon to defend their world from various
evil forces, both Digimon and human.
Contrasting rumors claim that there will be between four to seven seasons
of the Digimon television series; nothing has been officially confirmed. As
of 2003, there are four seasons: the former two make one storyline, and the
latter two, Tamers and Frontier respectively, have similar but unrelated
plots. The third season makes reference to the television and commercial
enterprises of the first two. In addition, there are several movies and
video games based on the three storylines.
Digimon is produced by Saban and Bandai. Originally, the series showed on
Fox Network's Fox Kids and Fox Family, but after Disney's acquisition of Fox
Family (renamed ABC Family) during the third season, the first three seasons
stayed on ABC Family and the fourth premiered on UPN.
A group of young teens named Tai, Mimi, Joe, Izzy, Matt, T.K., and Sora
and their Digimon friends (in the US) become the "Digi-destined" and try to
save the digital world from evil. Each Digi-destined was given a 'Digivice'
which selected them to be transported to the digital world. The digices help
their digimon allies to 'Digivolve' into stronger creatures in times of
need. The digimon digivolve to stronger forms as more items are collected
and bizarre incidents occur that trigger them to digivolve to these higher
forms.
Long on pointless battle sequences, short on plot or characterization in
its first few episodes but has begun to develop (as many television series
do) as time went on. It covered such difficulties kids face when growing up
such as making friends, being courageous and standing up to bad people,
lending a supportive hand to people even though they may be different,
saying goodbye to the ones you love, and much more. This has best been
displayed by the collection of 'crests' that the children collect to help
make their friends the Digimon 'digivolve' into stronger beings to help them
stop the evil forces. The crests embody: Love, Hope, Friendship, Sincerity,
Courage, Knowledge, Reliability. The crests won't work unless the bearers of
the crests exhibit the quality that their crest represents and this has lead
to the children expressing the trait they didn't know they had, sometimes
with interesting emotional and dramatic results.
The children realized that the world that they were in was not a game and
the creatures there had feelings and could feel pain. Digimon expressed
every quality that humans do but they didn't look human. They decided
without much thought that they had to defend the strange creatures in the
Digital World because they didn't want the creatures there to suffer, and
they were the only ones that could help. The Digi-destined never tried to
destroy any Digimon unless the Digimon were evil and gave them no other
choice.
In the next season Tai's little sister Kari joined the crew. Her
involvement expanded the scope of the show as a new dark world was
introduced and a description on how the digital world got besieged by the
'Dark Masters' was added. There was even a suggestion of a preceding story
before the first Digi-destined in the series landed in the world but that
was not explored very well. In the next season there was more information
provided on the dark dimension but there was still a visible gap in detail,
suggesting that what we have witnessed in the series is just a small story
out of a much larger.
The Movies
At around this point the movie came out. Divided into three separate
stories:
The first was when Tai and Kari were mere toddlers and they (and what
would become the rest of the Digi-destined were watching nearby) saw and
participated in their first digimon battle after raising a quickly growing
digimon.
The second story showed many of the Digi-destined but only four ended up
saving the day when an artificially-made Digimon constructed by a nice
young, but careless boy genius named Willis, got infected with a computer
virus and raised havoc all over the globe through the Internet. The kids
must stop the evil digimon quickly before the nuclear warheads it launched
destroy Japan (where the kids are) and Colorado (where Willis lives). Two of
them are so worried about their digimon that are fighting the monster that
they actually phase into the Internet and mysteriously give them the power
to destroy the enemy in time.
The last story involved the next generation of Digimon kids after they
travel from Japan to the U.S.A. and meet up with a grown up Willis (who is
American) and they must help him stop the mess that he created as the virus
mutated and infected one of his digimon (he was given two for some reason)
who is wreaking havoc in the real world. The movie was very humorous,
fast-paced, had action-packed battle scenes, a great soundtrack and
demonstrated that everything you do in life can have repercussions for many
years to come.
Season Two
Indeed, the next season involved the main enemy they thought they
destroyed in the previous season, but has been manipulating events from
beyond the grave. In this season the original Digi-destined grew up into
high school students (save Kari and T.K. who were the youngest) and could no
longer watch over the digital world and be with their digital friends. All
of a sudden a young kid later found out to be named Ken Ichijouji, but
calling himself 'The Digimon Emperor' rampaged through the digital world
attacking digimon, putting them under mind control, making them into slaves
and making them fight with the help of 'Dark Rings', 'Dark Spirals' and
'Dark Towers'. A new generation of Digi-destined named Yolei, Cody and
Davis, along with former original Digi-destined Kari and T.K., are given
devices known as D3's which allow them to be transported to the digital
world. Here they must stop Ken and find out that he became the Digimon
Emperor after his brother died in a hit-and-run car accident. It was about
this time that we learn that there are Digi-destined children from all over
the globe that were fighting evil forces all over the Digital World the same
time the original Digi-destined were in the first season, and probably even
before that. Ken was one of the original Digi-Destined with another group
than the originals in the series where he was attacked by a 'Dark Spore'
that got stuck in his neck. The spore made him great in sports and his
schoolwork but it made him evil. After Ken it brought to by his own digimon
after being told that the Digimon the other kids had were like 'human
babies' he cast off his gear and slumped to the ground crying. Later on
after much hesitation he joined the other Digi-destined as they fought a
human who was using two evil digimon 'made from his own DNA' to make the
Dark Spires into super-strong soulless Digimon. This man also scans the Dark
Spore inside Ken and implants it into other children who volunteered for the
job to be like their soccer hero Ken. The spores develop into flowers that
harvest the kid's energy. Eventually they confront this evil man, who turns
out to have been a friend of Digi-destined Cody's father, a cop who died in
duty when Cody was young. The man and Cody's Dad were reportedly the first
ever to see the Digimon at home when playing old video games when they were
young. Distraught over the loss of his only friend he accepted a deal from a
voice he heard out of nowhere that said he could make him see his friend
again. This voice inhabited the man's body and made him do all these bad
things and from the energy harvested from the kids (not the Digi-destined)
he springs from the man's body and the Digi-Destined recognize him as a
stronger version of the evil Digimon they destroyed before. This season
ended with the help of all the other Digi-destined from all over the world
lending a hand, using the light that existed inside each one of them and
their dreams to kill the bad guy. The 'final installment' of the Digi-destined
ended here with the boundary between the Digial and Real world being broken
down, everyone in the world getting their own companion digimon and
fulfilling their dreams.
Season Three
The new season (year 2001) has changed the whole nature of the series.
this season shows a alternative universe were Digimon was just a game and a
TV series but somehow kids: Takato, Henry and Rika (with more on the way);
get their own digimon friends and have to fight 'bio-emerging' (digimon who
cross the barrier between the information network, begin synthesizing
proteins and become real) digimon. Based more on the card game version (and
downright dependent on it as kids use the cards to make their digimon
digivolve as well as give them powerups. Can you say 'strategic item
placement'). Takato creates his digimon when he slips a mysterious blue card
he found in his deck through his hand-held card reading device and it
changes into a digivice. Next his sketches of a digimon he created on
notepad paper get mysteriously scanned into the device and the digimon
bio-emerges and is found later by Takato.
The origins of Henry finding his digimon have not been revealed and Rika
(the 'Digi-Queen' as the local kids know her because of how well she played
the card game) was approached by her digimon (and many others) and asked her
to make her stronger.
Along the way the kids learn to be responsible of the digimon as a man
tries to stop the Digimon from coming to the real world at any cost.This
manifestation of the Digimon series depends more on character development
and an increasingly growing plot...Will Rika learn its ok to love and trust
others...why is the man trying to stop the digimon...what are the details of
the project that Henry's father was involved in that created the
digimon...where are the blue cards coming from...and who is the man in the
yellow jacket. Right now the new Digi-destined are fighting a series of evil
Digimon calling themselves the Devas who think its disgusting for a digimon
to be paired up with a human. After dealing with the Devas, the new
digidestined had to fight a malevolent computer program called D-reaper,
which threatens both the real and digital worlds.
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