Digimon: Digital Monsters Review By Rashad Moore
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	Audience:	G
	Genre:	Fantasy/Adventure
	Contains:	mild violence, deadly cuteness
	Rating:	D+

I do have to admit, I pretty much hated Digimon when I first watched it. (And for some reasons I still do.) I saw it as a cheesy (yet extremely successful.) rip-off of the all-encompassing Pokemon. What turned me off to it was the overblown cuteness and chessy dubbing. Plus, I never really cared for the one-dimensional characters as much as I did for Ash and the gang. The first(well, actually second) of the latest onslaguht of "monster anime fever" that is infecting the U.S. (along with "Monster Rancher" and the (hopefully) arriving "Card Captor Sakura.")

Supposedly based off the raise, connect, and battle Tamagotchi/Giga Pet(remember those?) spinoff. The Digimon Anime tells the story of seven young children.(Key: the well-rounded hero and heroine, Tai and Sora; the brain, Izzy, the snobbish beauty, Mimi;Matt(Cloud? Is that you?) and his little brother T.K. and the panicky, but heroic Joe.) are suddenly transported to the Digiworld(which in my opinion quite possibly exists inside a computer.) and in a rather abrupt meeting ("I'm your friend, I'm your friend!") team up with Digimon, creatures that habit the Digiworld and team up to protect the newcomers. (They start off as talking heads, but evolve to stronger, more hulking forms.) But little do they know they are rumored the be the Digi-destined, and are soon caught in a struggle to save both Earth and the Digiworld from evil forces.

Once every blue moon, a show becomes so popular, that SOMEONE has to borrow from it to make some moolah off it too. Digimon was practically such a blatant rip-off of Pokemon, that it lacked everything that make Pokemon a quality anime. I found the first episodes extremely weak(yet fast-paced.) I just couldn't get into them as I did Pokemon.(Although both series properly

introduce their characters in their own way.) Plus, the monsters seemed as if they were oddly mutated versions of Pokemon. (Which try to go for some cute moments themselves, but fail miserably.) One major difference is that the Digimon are given the gift of gab, and some Digimon even share some human qualities. Another turn-off I found on Digimon was the overblown cuteness on some episodes, while Digimon does have it's violent moments,(especially later in the series) other episodes were practically cringeworthy when it tries to be adorable, which somewhat ineffectively spilts it's target audience. Older children will enjoy the super-evolved Digimon action scenes.

On the plus side, Digimon does conquer Pokemon when it came to one thing, the storyline. Beneath it's veneer, Digimon offered a way more complex and mysterious storyline than Pokemon. (Which definitely shows later in the series.) and most episodes contained quite a bit of mystery, and other times an eerie and strange feel to it. While Pokemon's simplistic plot was overshadowed by it's humor and effective cuteness, Digimon tells a good story with surprising effectiveness. The show did managed to get better,(mostly the episodes involving the Eighth Child and Myotosmon.)

The animation is average, the background are surprisingly still, but colorful, but it nowhere near approaches the bright, light-hearted world of Pokemon. The character designs are not very detailed.(On the other hand neither was Pokemon.) But the highlight of the animation came from the evolved Digmon battles,(The super-evolved Digimon tranfromation sequences even featured some impressive CG animation.) The music is ranged from average to good, the orchestrated music(once again from Shuki Levy) seems recycled from other cartoons, (Some of the music was taken from Spider Man) but they do manage to have their moments, but do they always have to play the same @%#* song at the climax of each episode?! (But the opening theme is surprisingly catchy.)

Digimon seems to be becoming a runaway hit, maybe it's because Pokemon is getting old.(I still enjoy the show though.) The characters on Digimon eventually managed to grow on me and the action and story heightens, but to me, it was too little, too late. One thing almost made me rate Digimon with a D-, and that name is Mimi. Nuff said.

Available from Bandai, Fox Network. Image shown is not created by atek studios.   Review by Rashad Moore. Mar 00.