Digimon is turning 30 and quietly launching a brand new anime

Fuji TV is handing over its Saturday morning slot to fan voting. Starting October 4 at 9:00 a.m. in Japan (October 3 at 7:00 p.m. EDT), the network begins airing favorite episodes from the first four Digimon anime series, chosen by fans around the world as part of the franchise‘s 30th anniversary celebration.

And that’s not the headline. The bigger news dropped Saturday, when the staff behind the Digimon anime confirmed a new project is heading to broadcast next year.

Details are thin. That’s the point.

What we actually know

A new anime project. Broadcast next year. That’s the announcement in full, which means the speculation is going to run hot for months and nobody has anything concrete to argue with yet.

Meanwhile the current series is still going. DIGIMON BEATBREAK, the franchise's newest TV anime, kicked off its “Kyō Arc” with the show’s 38th episode on July 12. It premiered on Fuji TV and other channels on October 5. Crunchyroll streams it as it airs, and there’s an English dub streaming there too.

Thirty years of pocket monsters that aren’t those pocket monsters

The math checks out if you start at the toys. The first Digital Monster digital pets hit shelves in 1997, and the anime followed in 1999 with Digimon Adventure.

Digimon Adventure 02 ran 2000 through 2001. Digimon Frontier put up 50 episodes in Japan between April 2002 and March 2003. Digimon Ghost Game, the most recent entry before BEATBREAK, premiered in October 2021 and wrapped with its 68th episode in March 2023.

That’s a lot of series for a franchise most people file under “the other one.”

The fan vote is the interesting part

Networks don’t usually let the audience program a broadcast block. Fuji TV is doing exactly that with episodes from the first four Digimon anime, and the results are going to function as a public record of what this fandom actually values after three decades.

Which episodes made the cut says more about Digimon’s legacy than any anniversary press release could. You’ll find out October 4.