23 Years since Digimon Premiered in English

[MarcFBR]

Anniversaries are always fun, and it is time for a big one!

It's been 23 years since the English dub of Digimon premiered.


It premiered on Fox Kids on August 14th, 1999 on Saturday in the USA! The first episode was "And So It Begins..."

We continue to get a ton of Digimon in English, with North America being one of the high priority areas for the brand.

Survive just came out. Adventure: is in the midst of being dubbed, and piles of products, both made for the US market and imported from Japan. Plus the English version of Season 1 currently being remastered for Blu-ray by Discotek (with general disclosure of me being the producer in charge of the release.)

And the general energy doesn't seem likely to stop anytime soon, with a new movie being worked on, more games and products in general to come, etc.




How/When did you first see the dub? Any fun memories about it?

 

[CrimsoniteX]

I was barely 12 years old when this show came out, spending the summer in upstate New York with my mother. I was still obsessed with the Tamagotchi Digimons I had gotten for my 10th birthday, and had brought them with me - one Blue and one Brown. With nothing better to do I watched a lot of TV, and this show in particular really struck a cord - for all the reasons we know and love.

Plus the English version of Season 1 currently being remastered for Blu-ray by Discotek (with general disclosure of me being the producer in charge of the release.)

That is awesome! Looking forward to it.

 

[Bancho]

the earliest memory I have of seeing Adventure is being on a camping trip with my grandma and seeing it playing on a portable TV. Togemon in particular was the design that stuck out.
I would have been 2 years old when Adventure's dub aired

 

[Unknown Neo]

Woo! This is where it started for most. I remember when they started over for some reason once they get to Devimon's first ep. That was weird. Weird like airing the SS Anne ep of Pokemon then starting over.

 

[Paruseruru mafubu]

I was barely fifteen when this premiered, and only knew of Digimon from the virtual pet a year earlier in '98 at Toys 'R' Us which had dinosaurs so I was already hooked. Had the brown one and ended up with Greymon first so that was my go-to Digimon especially after seeing him on the show.

Funny thing now looking back is we didn't have cable or even an antenna then so I rigged up a coat hanger into one so I could pick up Fox on my old analog TV and it worked. I had just started my freshman year of High School.

Adventure is like a time capsule for me like it is for many I'm sure. Growing up in the 90s, we loved Fox Kids going back a decade earlier with stuff like Batman, X-Men, Spiderman, etc., the old CBS and ABC programming from the 80s being moved there to Fox. Fox Kids was such a huge part of my childhood probably more than anything else, I was so sad when it was disbanded in '02. Adventure will always be the most special and important to me of this franchise. Got to go to Tokyo to see the real-life sites in 2013, own a huge amount of merchandise. It will never end for me so seeing it now growing in popularity again after almost 25 years is really awesome.

 

[Jmac28211]

My dad (may he Rest In Peace) introduced me to Digimon when I was five. The first episode was airing and he really wanted me to watch it with him. After about the second episode, I was hooked on it forever. To this day, Digimon always reminds me of my dad.

 

[Metalslademon]

I wasn't even 10 when it debuted, it was one of the first animes I ever watched. I regularly watched it and Adventure 2 on Fox Kids when I got the chance. My friend had a VHS of the movie and we loved it. We used to watch it all the time at his house.

 

[BlankShell]

I still can't remember how I heard of Digimon at first, and I may never recall, but I was definitely there for the first episode; I would have been 8 at the time, and bless my parents for letting me wake them up at godawful hours in the morning just to watch TV. Possibly just a Saturday morning cartoon block I was already watching and got sucked in to (although I definitely had a Vpet at one point??), but there was just something magical about the show. Funny, witty (the dub still holds up, don't care what anybody says) and never lost its sense of wonder. I could say more, but it wouldn't be enough to capture my appreciation. Stupidly excited for the remaster.

 

[Gabool]

I can’t remember exactly which episode was the first one I saw of Adventure, but I do recall being a kid and several moments in the series that left such a huge impact on me: The kids taking shelter from Seadramon, the fascinating map and world, and WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon pushing Piedmon through MagnaAngemon‘s gate.
I recall thinking the show was so cool, and I was very excited when I found out there was a game on PlayStation. Digimon World became my favorite PlayStation game ever, even though it was totally unrelated to the Adventure series. So glad I found this series and it continues to be one of my favorites.

 

[FrankieFiasco]

I don't quite recall the first time I watched it back in '99, (I was about 7 then) all I know is that it's been one of my favorite anime ever since. I have one fond memory of walking around a mall along with my godmother, carrying a small Digimon book describing the monsters in the show. I brought it EVERYWHERE back then, and then I ended up losing it that same day at the mall, I think. That was the day I learned whatloss and true heartbreak was, something so small and insignificant just disappearing.

Yet that still couldn't prepare me for the Tri movies and they're absolute torture on my fickle mind. I've also scratched up my Digimon: The Movie DVD up something good with so many replays over the years. Very excited for everything coming over to the states!

 

[Leoil01]

Started with 02 but Funnily enough i got into digimon because my parents wouldn't let me watch pokemon been a fan since so the whole digimon is a pokemon clone argument back in the day is what drew me to the franchise

 

[Illu]

Ahhhhhh, Digimon Adventure, my first love! Discovering it was a complete accident for me to be completely honest. Back in 2011 when Digimon card game Alpha was introduced, my cousin was hooked on the Arcade machines that were all the rage in south-east Asia. When I went to visit him, he gave me a few of the cards and we played with them. (Not properly though, Card Game Alpha was too complex for a couple of 6 year olds to understand) and we had a lot of fun. I remember that he had left all the cards in Singapore one time when we were in Malaysia, so in boredom, we turned on Netflix and I searched up Digimon. And by pure coindience, there was Adventure on Netflix in Malaysia at that time. My cousin wasn't too interested, but I became hooked and it's been my favourite franchise the past 9 years.

 

[Miragecoordinator]

How/When did you first see the dub? Any fun memories about it?

I watched the very first episode when it came out and followed the Digidestined from File Island to the Dark Masters. Most of my Digimon-related memories are lunch table discussions at elementary school and getting Digimon cards for my 11th birthday.

Woo! This is where it started for most. I remember when they started over for some reason once they get to Devimon's first ep. That was weird. Weird like airing the SS Anne ep of Pokemon then starting over.

I think that was so that people who didn't watch the first few episodes could get caught up.

 

[Unknown Neo]

No idea. I just thought it was a weird thing that happened.

 

[Yamato-san]

Anniversaries are always fun, and it is time for a big one!

23 is a big number?

At any rate, I was there way back when the series premiered on Fox Kids that Saturday morning. I was JUST getting into anime in general through Pokemon and Toonami's airings of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, and while I had no idea what this Digimon thing is, or why its name sounds so similar to Pokemon, it seemed interesting enough that I'd give it a watch. I remember the first episode giving me the impression "Okay, this is definitely based off of some kind of video game", and it wouldn't take me long for me to discover the franchise's origins as a V-pet (through websites that used the very early localized names, which left me confused a few weeks later when "Teddymon" was suddenly being called "Monzaemon"..... incidentally, that same episode also had me witnessing Numemon's poop now having a pink color and being called "sludge" XD).

Come to think of it, I was also pretty impressed at all the Japanese text present on things like the Digimon profile screens and the evolution sequences. I've had a much more negative view of the English dub since then (especially the music.... I was still new to anime and just finding out that changing soundtracks was apparently a thing that localizers do, and while there was too little information about Japanese Digimon online to confirm whether or not its soundtrack was changed too, I couldn't shake off this feeling that it was when it started reminding me WAY too much of that mid-90s Spider-Man cartoon which was also by Saban, and this was well before the "Hey Digimon" stuff kicked in), but one thing it definitely deserves credit for is not hiding its country of origin. A rarity in those days (as I recall, even the Sailor Moon dub was kinda 50/50 on whether to leave scenery text in or paint it over, and they never expressly referred to their home as Tokyo until the delayed airing of R's second half).

 

[FrankieFiasco]

but one thing it definitely deserves credit for is not hiding its country of origin. A rarity in those days (as I recall, even the Sailor Moon dub was kinda 50/50 on whether to leave scenery text in or paint it over, and they never expressly referred to their home as Tokyo until the delayed airing of R's second half).

And this, methinks, is the reason I have grown to appreciate the Japanese culture so much (read: weeb). I always thought it was so cool to see different characters on screen as opposed to English letters, gave it a sense of mystery and amazement, at least to my tiny nine year old brain.