The rivalry between Pokémon and Digimon has been raging for years and shows no signs of stopping. There’s not doubt that Pokémon is the more mainstream and popular of the two, but Digimon has a deep cult following that keeps it alive to this day.

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This rivalry has led to the creation of hundreds of memes comparing the two franchises, making fun of the differences between their creatures, the crazy logic of the evolutions and even criticizing the fan bases.

10 Protagonists

This funny meme illustrates that Digimon has experimented with a variety of protagonists over the years as every season introduces new characters to rise to the challenge of saving the day. There are fan favorites, but the show makers aren’t afraid to try new things and test out new character types.

Meanwhile Pokémon’s ever present protagonist Ash has remained in the spotlight for years and shows no signs of going anywhere. This wouldn’t be so bad expect the showrunners insist on making him ten-years-old no matter how much time actually passes.

9 Differences In Monsters

This meme seeks to illustrate the differences between the two monsters while doing a hilarious job of criticizing both franchises. On the one hand, the newer Pokémon look like plush toys with very little details or features suggesting the creators are getting lazy in their designs.

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On the other hand, Digimon creators make their creatures look very similar to the inspiration for the monster while lazily throwing on metal to make it look cool. The meme implies that both franchises have stooped to doing the bare minimum to create new creatures and aren’t using their imaginations.

8 Obtaining Monsters

In this meme, we see the obvious differences in how a human obtains a creature in each franchise. In Digimon, the monster is obtained automatically and it grows and develops as its bond with its human companion thrives. The Digimon reaches it’s full potential when it develops a strong and healthy relationship with the human.

Meanwhile, Pokémon are hunted down by humans who use their peers to weaken them to the point of capture and then lob pokeballs at them in the hopes they’re too exhausted to escape. Then the trainer hopes Stockholm syndrome kicks in enough for the Pokémon to enjoy captivity and fight on their behalf.

7 PokéDex Vs. Digivice

In both franchises, there are devices designed to assist the humans in accomplishing their goals, with some glaring differences. In Digimon, the Digivice is a powerful tool that can be used to analyze the Digimon, trigger evolutions and even transport the possessor between worlds. Losing one is absolutely detrimental as it can very well decide the outcome of battle and humans need it to return to the real world.

The Pokémon Pokédex, on the other hand, is simply a digital encyclopedia that will only spit out information about a Pokémon once the owner has encountered that Pokémon in the real world. Before then it’s an empty book, serving no functional purpose whatsoever.

6 Evolution Trees

Admittedly it’s an older meme and the evolution chains have become a little more complicated in the Pokémon world with the introduction of mega evolutions and what not, but even so, it’s a great example of how the Pokémon world likes to keep evolutions simple and Digimon does not.

Here we see Charmander evolving to a Charmeleon then finally a Charizard, a clear line of progression. Digimon is a convoluted mess of evolutions with other Digimon crossing over, conditional evolutions, devolutions and all kinds of nonsense.

5 Dragon Vs Dragon

This hilarious meme shows Ash and Tai arguing over who has the bigger better dragon with Ash scorching Tai with his Charizard. Tai reacts by having his Wargreymon generate a massive ball of fire that he supposedly uses to ironically turn Ash into ash.

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While there has been debate about who has the stronger monsters there’s no denying that in season one of both franchises Digimon clearly had some strong brutes. Wargreymon versus Charizard is hardly a competition, but a lot of debate could be made over Wargreymon versus Mewtwo.

4 Best Generation Debate

For Pokémon fans, the debate over which is the best generation has been an ongoing battle complicated by each new generation. An entire cult of generation one fans known as Genwunners has polarized the community by refusing to acknowledge any of the new generations.

Digimon fans  have relatively healthy debates about the best generation, largely because many generations aren’t an extension of the previous, but an entirely new idea. The anime series has often reimagined it’s Digimon and their world with new generations. As a result the fan base is a little more forgiving for its fans being divided on determining which is the best generation of Digimon.

3 Guns

Because it was a little more mainstream and recognized as a show for kids Pokémon was held to stricter standards when it came to Americanization. As a result, the showrunners vowed to censor any and all depictions of firearm appearances or use in the show.

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Digimon had creatures who were often depicted with blasters, guns, cannons, and other weapons as part of their body. It wasn’t afraid to give their characters weapons of mass destruction to save the day.

2 Mega Evolutions

This meme shows that while Pokémon has received a lot of praise, and a little controversy, for introducing Mega Evolutions it was far from being a revolutionary concept as Digimon had done it right out of the gate.

It also points out that Pokémon Mega Evolutions feel like a half measure to appease fans, a matter of swapping color palettes to justify making favored Pokémon stronger. Whereas Digimon used Mega Evolutions as part of its natural progression and made the high-end evolutions feel much more powerful by comparison.

1 Illogical Evolutions

This meme does a great job of poking fun at both franchises for it’s illogical evolution lines and the reaction of the fan base. Pokémon has absurd evolutions like a fish becoming an octopus that the fan base has criticized the creators for repeatedly.

But when Digimon has a ridiculous evolution line, like a flower becoming a bird, the fan base didn’t react with disgust or confusion but largely embraces it without question. What makes this meme great is that it can be interpreted in two ways, either the Digimon fan base is too clueless to be upset about this kind of logic or the Pokémon fan base is taking a fictional concept way too seriously and should simply relax and enjoy it.

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