Following on from day 4 in the Kizuna Countdown, today I’m writing about my first Digimon memory, or, in my case, memories, as I am indecisive! I’ll talk about virtual pets as well as the Digimon anime.

I’ve mentioned my memory with one of my very few battles with the virtual pet at a hospital as a child before and of course, getting my Taomon evolving figure, but I’ll try to dig even earlier than that.

I have a few fairly old memories of Digimon from when Digimon first come out, so I’ll share them as they’re all fairly weird short bits.

My First Digimon Memory (or Memories. I’m indecisive)

Wrong Digimon Names and my first Digimon

I got into the Digimon virtual pets before I even knew about Digimon. Digimon wasn’t that popular yet at the time but when I was in Year 1, the Digimon virtual pets were all the rage, every kid had one, and after weeks of begging, so did I.

None of us knew the names for the Digimon so we sort of formed our own names for them – Devil, Flame Man, Wolf, and because we were 7, we even named one after the male genitalia (Tsunomon became Dickhead), which seven year old me did not like, so I just called this one ‘Cutie’. The concept of the different versions weren’t really known. We just thought they were all the same version and it was just really hard to get other Digimon (I pretty much only got the exact same evolution path and never managed to get it to evolve past Adult).

Due to their overwhelming popularity in Primary Schools causing distractions, theft, and arguments, my state put out a school wide ban on all Digimon and similar virtual pets. Kids snuck them into school and had them confiscated.

I was lucky enough to have my parents work at the school who could take care of my Digimon for me, however, this also meant that one day my Digimon was stolen from my Mother’s bag.

Eventually kids lost interest and went off to play with the next fads such as Beyblades, Bionicle, and Crush Gear Turbo. Tamagotchis weren’t really as popular, I only heard of Tamagotchi existing about a year or two after the Digimon pet craze died down when somebody brought in a Tamagotchi board game for a games day. Nobody knew what it was and nobody played

First evolution to Champion

I was on a holiday in New Zealand with my parents when I was around seven or eight and got separated from them, I was really scared and started to cry when my Digimon started to beep and it evolved to Adult! My kid brain thought this was very exciting. It’s kind of dumb but it always stays in my mind. When it evolved I felt really, really great! I think I found my parents pretty soon after too. I think I just sat down and talked to my Digimon at a fountain in the middle of this park or something.

It was so long ago, but it’s always my go to first Digimon memory, despite it being hazy and short.

My First Digimon Memory (anime related)

None of my friends really knew about the Digimon anime – it wasn’t actually that popular when I was in Primary School, but one day I decided to watch TV in the morning and saw my first episode of the Digimon anime – it was episode 43 of Digimon Adventure “Playing Games”. I think it was on at a weird time in the morning, so I could only catch it on holidays or if I didn’t have school. Following seasons aired at a more reasonable time (02 onwards, I think).

Even as an adult I think of that episode as the best episode in all of Digimon Adventure, so it was a good first episode to start!

What’s your first Digimon memory, or memories? I’d love to know! Is it from the anime, the virtual pets, the games, or something else!

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