Beloved Monster Anime Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Digimon didn’t originally start as a manga or a video game like most anime. It actually was a virtual pet, similar to the Tamagotchi, which makes sense when you realize that Bandai is the company behind both.

The unique characters quickly gained popularity, and in 1999, a video game called Digimon World was released.

Later that year, an anime also came out. While there were several movies and series based on these digital monsters released throughout the years, the company focused much more on games, unlike a similar franchise, Pokemon.

Over time, the series expanded to include MMORPG, fighting, racing, and role-playing games. While Digimon never managed to reach the popularity of Pokemon, despite being a direct competitor, it was a pretty popular franchise. By 2000, it generated over $500 million in sales.

Though the franchise first started in 1997, it was a couple of years later that Digimon Adventure, the anime, came into existence. The anime focused on a group of children at a summer camp.

While at the camp, they are sent into the digital world, as they are thought to be the children destined to save the digital world.

These children destined to save the world are Taichi Yagami (Toshiko Fujita), Yamato Ishida (Yuuto Kazama), Hikari Yagami (Kae Araki), Takeru Takaishi (Hiroko Konishi), Koushirou Izumi (Umi Tenjin), Takenouchi Sora (Yuuko Mizutani), Jou Kido (Masami Kikuchi), and Mimi Tachikawa (Ai Maeda).

First released in 1999, Digimon Adventure celebrates its 25th anniversary. To celebrate, the team released a video. The video features Koji Wada singing “Butter-Fly,” which was the original theme song for the series.

While the song plays, the clip showcases some of the classic and memorable moments from the series, as well as highlights the main characters and their partners.

However, that’s not all the team did to celebrate Digimon’s 25th anniversary. At the end of the video, Agumon says that he will see Taichi later. While this could be a mild way to say goodbye, some fans thought it might mean that they’ll come back soon enough.

That information might have been hopeful thinking, had it not been for a post on X by the official Digimon team. Translated, the message roughly mentions that the 25th-anniversary clip isn’t all that’s coming. On January 5, the team has something else to announce, and they hope everyone will be ready.

While this could be any sort of announcement, fans are hopeful that it’s something big, like a new anime. This is possible, as new series are regularly being released, with Digimon Ghost Game having come out in mid-2023. A movie was also released in 2023, called Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning.

However, there’s no way to know if it is to be a new anime, a reboot, or something else entirely until the information is released at the beginning of 2025.

Want a taste of nostalgia? The original Digimon Adventure is available to watch on Hulu. If you want something a little more updated, the 2020 updated version is available to stream on Crunchyroll.