Toei Launches Digimon, PreCure Online
As has been expected for sometime now, Toei Animation has officially added Digimon Adventure 02 & Pretty Cure to their OnDemand downloadable lineup. The first 15 episodes of Digimon 02 & the first 2 episodes have PreCure are the first of both series to be added. As with their first two properties, the episodes are all in Japanese with official English subtitles & retail for $1.99 each (to own, not rent like blasted Sony's doing). This is the first time the Japanese version of Digimon has been officially available in America, & the first time for any version of PreCure since 4Kids let their license of the series die.
Considering the long-time Digimon fan that I am, I bought the first few episodes from the Direct2Drive service. I must say, the video quality really leaves something to be desired. This is especially true considering the unusually large size of the files- over 300MB each & they still don't look that great? Aside from that, the subs use a weird combination of Japanese terms & English dub terms for the series. All the kids keep their original Japanese names, except they're called DigiDestined instead of Chosen Children. Evolve is Digivolve, & yet "DigiMental Up" is kept intact. Ken is properly referred to as the Digimon Kaiser here, but the levels of the Digimon are referred to their dub names. The names of the Digimon themselves are all over the place. It seems for the most part dub names were kept, such as Veemon (as opposed to V-mon), Flamedramon (Fladramon), Armadillomon (Armadimon). yet interestingly enough, Tailmon is kept as Tailmon. I guess Gatomon was too different from Tailmon for even them to justify the change. Piyomon is also kept, though.
There are also a few small spelling & grammar mistakes made throughout the episodes. & I STILL don't understand why they chose to skip the first season of the series & go straight to 02. 02 was probably my least favorite season of Digimon, but probably has mostly to do with how long the Kaiser arc dragged on for. But despite all these problems & issues, were finally getting an official subtitled version of Digimon after all these years, & us old fans of the series should appreciate that. The interchangeable dub names shouldn't be a real problem unless you're a hardcore original extremist. But I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we ALL fell in love with Digimon through the Saban dub, so it really isn't that big of a deal. So go & support Digimon by buying some episode! Oh, & Pretty Cure too. =b Your downloading begins here:
http://www.toei-anim.com/ondemand/