When Digimon kicked off in 1999, it was dismissed by many as being a rip-off of the already massively successful Pokémon franchise. But people who glossed over it missed out on a franchise that was so much more than just another cartoon for children.

What started as a simple virtual “Digital Monster” pet toy, similar to the popular Tamagotchi of the mid-1990s, turned into a multi-series media franchise with multiple films, several manga spin-offs, a trading card game, video games, and more.

The plot and characters vary wildly between each season of the television show, but the core is largely the same. School-age children get sucked into the Digital World, where they meet their partner Digimon and work to combat the threats that world faces before they spill into the real world. Each of these stories is largely a coming of age tale; as the Digimon evolve (or “Digivolve”) and become stronger, so do the children. While the Pokémon series has always maintained an easy, light, monster of the week format, Digimon instead tackled subjects other children’s shows weren’t willing to address, such as divorce, loss, grief, rejection, and even death.

The franchise has seen ten television series with the most recent, Digimon Beatbreak, premiering in October 2025. There have been nearly two dozen Digimon films, the latest of which was 2023’s Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning. In manga format, Digimon has continued new stories with publishers in China, the US, and Italy.