I was a Pokemon fan before Digimon came to the television and I watched the first episode of Digimon out of curiousity. I've heard people say Digimon was just a rip off of Pokemon since then, and thought it was really strange since the only thing the two shows have in common is having many monsters that have attacks. There's no other relation whatsoever except for the fact that kids are involved (like in many cartoon shows) and possibly the way Rika thought in the beginning of season 3. She wanted to be the best at something then, so she wished she was a Digimon Tamer, and the Best Digimon Tamer there was. Ash wants to be a Pokemon Master and Misty wants to be a Water Pokemon Master. The difference is that Rika changes her attutude, and Misty and Ash still want to be the best. Also, the world Misty and Ash live in is a Pokemon World filled with Pokemon instead of animals, and there are many Pokemon Trainers in that world who dream the same thing. In any season of Pokemon there only exists a Pokemon World in which the existance of a Pokemon Trainer is nothing out of the ordinary. It's like a common occupation in the Pokemon World. In every season of Digimon, however, there are two main worlds. One is the real world, like the one we live in with animals, etc. The other is the digital world, a world inside the internet, whose history changes every season. When on earth the main characters are normally in Japan and in season 3 the term real is redefined. Rika lives in the real world- our world. There are people who have watched Digimon the TV show (seasons 1 and 2), played Digimon video games, and played the card game. There are fans of Digimon. The setting is real life. In real life if I told you I had a real digital monster would you believe me? Probably not... it's just a tv show, a movie, a cardgame, etc., so becoming a Digimon Tamer is very unusual (probably thought not possible), but you'll have to see Digimon season 3 to get the logical explaination behind that.
In Pokemon Ash Ketchum is the main protagonist of all it's seasons, and sometimes the only way to tell which season an episode belongs to, is to look at the theme song. All you have to do to figure that out in Digimon is look at the characters. In Digimon season one the show starts off with 7 children, soon to be called the digidestined, that unexpectedly fall into the digital world (also know as digiworld) meeting their own and only partner Digimon. They have no idea what happened, where there are, how to get home, or how the digital monsters exist. It's a complete twist from Pokemon in which if you saw a Pokemon you would think it normal and nothing unusual. Season 2 occurs 3 years after season 1. Past characters are older and there are 4 new main characters. In season 3 the kids with digivices call themselves Digimon Tamers. They are fans, so I guess they made up that name among themselves. Each of them has a different history of how they got their Digimon. In season 4 the main characters actually evolve into Digimon which is the wierdest concept (I think) that I've had to accept yet. I've watched Power Rangers but these aren't costumes. They actually evolve into and become Digimon.
In Pokemon Trainers can capture Pokemon in Pokeballs. Capturing Digimon is unheard of. A digidestined or tamer only gets one Digimon, and that Digimon can digivolve or dedigivolve, changing forms back and forth between the digimon power level's of Intraining, Rookie, Champion, Ultament, and Mega. They use attacks that are exclusive to only them. There are 3 types of Digimon- Data, Virus, and Vaccine. Normally good Digimon are data and bad Digimon are virus. Vaccine types consist of good and bad Digimon, and there is not much more to it than that. Pokemon consists of 17 different types, that depending on the type of Pokemon, have different strengths and weaknesses. They are Normal, Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Poison, Flying, Fighting, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Psychic, and Steel. Legendary Pokemon are normally the most powerful. Pokemon have levels 1 through 100. At certain levels they learn certain moves. Some Pokemon evolve once a certain level is reached and the more a Pokemon evolves the more powerful it gets. Once a Pokemon evolves it stays that way forever. Some Pokemon can't evolve at all; Others have more than one choice to evolve into, but can only evolve once. Besides leveling up some Pokemon evolve through evolution stones, Kings Rock, Dragon Scale, Trading, and friendly evolution. Digimon in seasons one through three digivolve depending on the emotions and qualities of their human partner, if their human is in danger, and if they have enough energy to do it. When a Digimon changes its form it goes to a different level or vice versa. Unlike Pokemon, Digimon can go down in their levels of power by dedigivolving. Each form of digimon has its own special attacks, except for one mess up of Digimon's dubbers who gave a Digimon a different name and an attack name that belonged to another Digimon. Unlike Digimon, there are many different Pokemon that share the same moves. Watergun and double team are two common attacks seen and heard on the tv show as just an example. Also, all Digimon names end in mon. The names of Pokemon don't end in mon, but nicknames can be given to Pokemon that end in mon. In Pokemon the tv show some nicknames are heard, but in Digimon (at least so far) no one has nicknamed a Digimon unless, taking off the 'mon' counts as a nickname, but anything is possible in real life.
In any season of Digimon at one point the goal is to save the digital world, real world or both. In Pokemon training Pokemon to battle and win battles against each other is like an olympic competition, and the major goal is always to be the best- best breader, best trainer, best water pokemon trainer, etc.. so the main major goals are different, even though some of the smaller goals demonstrated, may be similar. I haven't mentioned all the differences, and may have missed some tiny similaries, that I am not aware of at the moment, but I hope I gave you at least a basic idea of how they are two completely different shows with few similarities, and the fact that the shows titles both end in 'mon' (which I forgot to mention) doesn't mean that one was a rip off of the other. (I've even read that Digimon video games came out before Pokemon)
You can put a pocket monster in your pocket, but a digital monster is made of data (which I also forgot to mention) and it belongs in the digital world. Oh yeah... (here's a quote from Renamon) "Actually, Digimon aren't divided into genders." (like some Pokemon are now) :)
Personally, I think Pokemon has better movies, and good soundtracks. I like some of the older Pokemon episodes. I used to think that Pokemon had better videogames until I played Digimon World Dusk. I may own 10 Pokemon games but Digimon World Dusk is better than any of them. The game play is better than any RPG I've ever played, and the story is 20 times better than any story Pokemon has had. I also enjoy Digimon Rumble Arena 2 more that SSBM. I didn't care much for the original Digimon card game, but the D-Tector card game is awsome for fans (love it better than the Pokemon TCG); and Digimon has the best TV show ever made! (at least I think so! Season 1 and 2 together are awsome!!) :)
Pokemon Back to Main Samurai Pizza Cats Digimon
Other long explanations: Similarities of The Matrix Reloaded and Digimon Why I like Digimon