Digimon finally defeats Pokémon after 28 years of rivalry

Pokemon enjoys an elevated and unassailable status as the highest-grossing media franchise in pop culture, with its $113.7 billion in revenue surpassing the MCU and even Star Wars. It’s an astonishing feat for a relatively younger franchise, but Pokémon isn’t the same wholesome icon that fans may remember. In fact, it has lost ground in some key areas.

As competitors come and go in the creature collecting business, Pokemon the most emblematic rival is certainly Digimon, despite its digital origins. Each franchise delved into the world of ’90s pop culture, with anime adaptations, video games, and collectible card games. While Pokemon does not risk losing its dominance, Digimon developed a more stable public image.

Pokémon fans have lost patience with its main offerings

Beyond the total disaster that was Pokémon Scarlet and Purple, The franchise has been criticized since its transition to the Nintendo Switch for several concerning issues. Since then, the games have featured more strictly limited national Pokedexes, horrendous performance issues, and a general loss of trust from longtime fans.

Despite losing gamer goodwill, as Nintendo’s flagship brand and largest franchise, Pokemon still has a lot to gain with the October 16, 2025 release of Pokémon Legends: ZA. For millennials who grew up gaming Pokémon, it remains a nostalgic favorite, and new generations still accept the game wholeheartedly despite Brilliant diamond & Shiny pearl Or Sword and shield disappointments.

But Pokémon has become a different beast from its humble Game Boy origins. It is a very popular collectible card game, but it is plagued by speculation about market corrections and recurring problems. Pokemon card scalping problem. There is even a very popular anime. But by asserting his identity, Pokémon chose extremely unpopular battles.

Palworld brings out the worst in Pokémon

It was a bold move to market a survival sim collecting creatures with guns, but Pocketpair won the indie lottery with World Pal. The game hasn’t even come out of Early Access, but The Pokemon Company has remained acutely aware of it, taking extremely controversial legal steps that could be the precursor to an anti-competitive era for Pokémon.

However, that didn’t stop Pocketpair from confirming that Pokémon has yet to catch these hands. The company came together Pokémon patent action and September 2024 trial with various actions, including even making harmful updates to help distance itself from copyright infringement, a typical legal strategy in such lawsuits. But it’s a bad look for Pokémon.

Pokémon has little to gain if World Pal relatively responsive to their demands, but the legal action taken to protect their brand is prohibitive and raises industry-wide questions.

Pocketpair even contested this by citing the examples of Tomb Raider, ARK: Survival Evolved, Final Fantasy 14, and other games that would be affected by Pokemon numerous patents, including but not limited to summoning sub-characters. But a creature collecting game, despite being almost as old as Pokémon, has always avoided controversy in its niche, and that’s Digimon.

Digimon wins a different battle

In terms of pro-consumer availability, Digimon stay miles ahead Pokemon with its new version, History of Digmon: Time Stranger, thanks to the market’s large combined install base of PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. But beyond simple availability, Digimon The new game is showing impressive staying power, recently peaking at 84,468 players according to SteamDB.

Beyond a stable cross-platform player base, Digimon also stayed in its lane, with recent offerings mixing into a Shin Megami Tensei feel with the rest of its gameplay. It’s noticeably more mature, aimed at the aging audience who, coincidentally, still buy Pokémon, but also offers stable and convincing gameplay that cannot reasonably be compared to Pokémon.

Digimon will probably never see the sales peaks of Pokemon insurmountable income, but he also did not see his own, as Stranger of time and previous bestsellers like History of Digimon: Cyber ​​Sleuth to show. Digimon game offerings are marketed in an inoffensive manner, often without trashy production values ​​while still building on the brand. To the discerning buyer looking for a story, Digimon is always the best choice.

Pokémon anime will never surpass Digimon

Custom image by Diana Acuña

As anime becomes more and more common in the pop culture zeitgeist, both the Pokemon And Digimon franchises have attempted various anime adaptations. It’s part of a rich tradition of the video game to anime pipeline, with Pokemon dominance as the creature collector anime constantly fought. But Digimon stands above the rest.

It’s not even like everything Digimon anime is better than Pokemon anime, but rather, that most Digimon Anime features a clear plot and solid storytelling, with some being genre-defining proto-isekai masterpieces. Digimon tamers, with the help of editor Chiaki J. Konaka of Lain serial experiments fame, is an astonishing achievement Pokemon will never reach television.

Part of Digimon winning call with Tamers in particular, its combined ability to appeal to the children it is aimed at, while also aging well for older audiences looking for Digimon at its best. With an undeniably dark and mature existentialist dive into the relationship that a creator can have with his creations, Digimon Tamers holds up incredibly well.

But beyond comparing nostalgic favorites to each other, Toei Animation’s project Digimon Beatbreak threatens to drive viewers away from its rival’s current series, Pokémon Horizons. Although it is too early to say if Beatbreak will stand the test of time, fans familiar with both series are generally familiar with each other’s track records, trusting Digimon tell a story that actually goes somewhere.

Digimon’s true success is probably just beginning

Even with a dedicated fandom across Digimon in the anime, gaming, digital pets, and collectibles markets, it’s still a relatively niche product. And this despite even Toei Animation, Digimon anime home, boasting of the franchise’s increase in its vital sources of licensing revenue through merchandising and the launch of the new anime in 2025.

While even Digimon sparked mild controversy over simple issues like a name change, it’s a stable product thanks to wins like Digimon Story: Time Stranger’s critical and commercial success. It continues to be among Dragon Ball And One piece like Toei’s brightest stars. She knows her market and her reward is continued success.

Instead of long legal battles, Digimon has cultivated a reputation for having equally excellent monster designs without dragging down competitors for similar ideas. He even had many mediocre games, but improved, rather than Pokémon stagnation model. In the eyes of the fans, Digimon wins his war with Pokemon without even fighting.

Created by

Akiyoshi Hongo, Kenji Watanabe

First film

Digimon Adventure