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Digimon started out as a dueling digital pet similar to Tamagotchi, which was called "Digital Monster" and was released by Bandai on June 26, 1997. The Digital Monster toy was enormously successful, and four different colors of the toy were released in November of the same year. In December of the same year, the second generation of "Digital Monster" was released. Many have criticized it as a clone of Pokémon, as the Tamagotchi was released in 1997 as opposed to 1996, however Bandai was already working on Digimon in 1995[1]), though it became popular in the United States before the latter. However, the Tamagotchi bears little resemblance to the Digimon TV show or card game. Digimon and Pokémon may have a few factors in common (being marketed toward children in North America and being part of the same genre), but differ in original target audience, concept, spirit and design.
For the cartoon, there were kids and monsters, and there were fights between Digimon, but that's where the similarities ended. The Digimon were friends to the kids instead of pets, and they fought on their own. Each kid had a Digimon they associated with, and unless it changed after the first season, there was never more than one digimon per kid. Digimon evolutions were temporary and they changed back to their former state after a fight. The main difference is that Digimon was not based on collection.