Digimon Reference Book

The Digimon Reference Book (デジモン図鑑) is a section of Digimon Web, Bandai's official Digimon website, that contains the definitive profiles for many Digimon. It was launched on June 25, 2007 and has steadily grown since then, originally adding two Digimon a week but settling into its a rate of once a week in 2012 and then a few a month in 2017.

The site's profiles are sorted by name by default, but can also be sorted by level. The profiles themselves consist of the Digimon's name at top followed by its official romanization and then an image of the subject Digimon. It follows with its level, type, and attribute where applicable and then concludes with a list of its attacks and then its official profile.

Bandai Asia also launched its own Digimon Reference Book to coincide with its own dub of Digimon Xros Wars, titled Digimon Fusion Battles. It focuses on Digimon who make appearances in Digimon Fusion Battles and contains a Digimon's Japanese, English, and Chinese names as well as their attacks, also in each language. It features the Bandai art for many Digimon, though it sometimes confuses a Digimon with its X-Antibody version or one of its variations, uses an incorrect Digimon, or even places a question mark in its place. Despite this, it also features the official Bandai art for some Digimon which hadn't been released prior to its inclusion in this version of the Digimon Reference Book. Later profiles, however, decreased in the amount of information they provided until they were essentially bare-bones.

Prior to December 26, 2017, Digimon who originated in Digimon Xros Wars lacked both level and attributes. On that date, they gained the official level of Xros Wars. On September 25, 2020, Bandai announced they would be retconning all Xros Wars level Digimon to have regular levels and attributes, with the change occuring on October 2. Digimon of the Xros Wars level had standard levels added to their original Xros Wars level and gained attributes.

On August 10, 2021 the Reference Book was updated to allow users to search by Type, as well as search specific words with the intention being to search for attack names. They also added X-Antibody to the profiles of Digimon with the X-Antibody.

In late 2021 and early 2022, various profiles were slowly updated to have translations/localizations in English, Korean, and Chinese, with the English version named Digimon Field Guide. During Digimon Con, on February 27, 2022, Bandai announced all profiles had now been updated to include translations into said langagues. Simultaneously, the Digimon Field Guide was renamed to Digimon Encyclopedia.

Errors and minor revisions
Originally, the Reference Book had two listings: sort by name, and sort by level. Occasionally, profiles would be posted to the server without being added to one or both of the Reference Book directories, or would be placed incorrectly therein, but these were eventually corrected. Additionally, while the content of the article is unaffected, some pages have conflicting urls with their topic.

Sometimes, profiles will be revised to add or subtract information from the Digimon descriptions. Following the, profiles that mentioned earthquakes or tsunamis were revised to redact these references. Around the same time, footnotes and translation aids were removed from several published profiles. The profiles redactions were later returned, but the translation aids were left out. When appropriate, several profiles have also been modified to correct information or include descriptions of techniques or other characteristics that were being showcased in concurrent media.

Jesmon X was originally listed as Vaccine but was later changed to be Data. Gyuukimon was originally listed as Virus and changed to Data to match what was stated in Digimon Ghost Game, but was changed back to Virus a few weeks later.

When the Reference Book was updated to mark carriers of the X-Antibody as such, several formerly identified species were left unmarked. It is currently unknown whether this is an error or is intended as a retcon.

Although most of the profile images used within the Reference Book are crisp, full-size versions of released Bandai art, there are a few that are either blurrier than other released art, or shrunken to use up only a portion of the allotted 320px square. Some images may instead contain other errors, such as incorrect designs, images of other Digimon, or graphics errors. In some cases, these images will be replaced with the correct profile image.

Fiction
The Digimon Reference Book is written by many researchers, one of which is Agumon Expert.