Digimon was originally a dueling digital pet ("digi
pet"), or tamagotchi, called "Digital Monster"
created by Bandai on June 26th, 1997, although it had
been clear that Bandai had been planning Digimon since
the beginning of that year. The Digital Monster toy was
an enormous success, and in November, four different colors
of the toy were released. In December of the same year,
the "Digital Monster Version 2" was released.
Digimon first appeared in illustrated form with the advent
of the one-chapter manga, C'mon Digimon, which was released
in summer 1997. C'mon Digimon then spawned the popular
58 chapter Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 manga, which began
on November 21st, 1998, and ended in August 21st, 2003.
V-Tamer was the last of the Japanese Digimon manga. Digimon
first appeared in game form on January 28th, 1999, with
the release of the popular Digimon World game for Playstation.
On March 6th, 1999, the franchise was given animated form,
with the first of the Digimon movies airing in theaters,
and the next day the first Digimon television series,
Digimon Adventure, began in Japan.
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