Digimon (creature)

Digimon are fictional creatures from the Japanese Digimon media franchise. They are central to several anime series and films, manga, video games and other merchandise. The word "Digimon" is invariable in the plural, and stands for "Digital Monster". Digimon include almost all the creatures that reside within the fictional parallel universe called the "Digital World." There are currently 882 different species of Digimon, as well as unconfirmed and new generations of Digimon yet to be revealed. The rate of new Digimon species continuously increase as the Digital World expands each year.

Classification
Digimon species are given many different classifications. With the exception of level, these are generally only important in the Digimon card game, and play a very small role in Digimon anime.

Level
Digimon species are classified by their "digivolution level".

Digimon generally hatch out of Digitamas as Fresh level Digimon, the lowest and weakest level, roughly equivalent to human infants. Most Digimon of this level are small and do not have well-defined body parts.

Eventually Fresh Digimon digivolve to the In-Training level, a slightly bigger and more complex form that generally still has undefined body parts.

In the anime, most digimon encountered are of the rookie or champion level, ultimate and mega-level digimon are rarer. Digimon of one Digivolution level are generally far stronger than Digimon of the previous level. There are exceptions where a Digimon has been able to defeat an opponent of a higher level. There are also cases, such as with Lucemon and Arkadimon, where a Digimon is far more powerful than what its actual Digivolution level would lead one to think.

For most Digimon, there are six Digivolution levels:
 * 1) Fresh (幼年期 I Younenki I, translating literally as "Baby 1", also known as "Baby" in the English anime dub)
 * 2) In-Training (幼年期 II Younenki II, translating literally as "Baby 2")
 * 3) Rookie (成長期 Seichouki, translating literally as "Child")
 * 4) Champion (成熟期 Seijukuki, translating literally as "Adult")
 * 5) Ultimate (完全体 Kanzentai, translating literally as "Perfect")
 * 6) Mega (究極体 Kyuukyokutai, translating literally as "Ultimate")

There is also a level beyond the standard Mega, known as Super Ultimate.

There are also other levels, the most notable being "Armor" and "Hybrid". The "Armor" level appeared in the Digimon Adventure 02 series, and is reached when a Rookie (or Champion Level in Gatomon's case) Digimon uses a Digi-Egg to Digivolve into an Armor Digimon. The "Hybrid" level contains several sub-levels, and is exclusive to the Digimon Frontier series for Digimon who are formed by "Spirit Digivolution".

Mode Change
There are some Digimon species who have multiple "modes", and are able to "Mode Change" between them. Often, this involves going from their normal form to a special mode that is more powerful in some way. For example, Beelzemon and Beelzemon Blast Mode. A Digimon's different modes are generally very similar in appearance (in this case, Beelzemon Blast Mode is simply Beelzemon with a giant blaster on one arm, green eyes instead of red, and two pairs of wings (two large, two small)). Another example is Gallantmon and Gallantmon Crimson Mode where Gallantmon Crimson Mode is Gallantmon with red armor, a spear and sword, and the cape being replaced by angelic wings.

Different modes of a Digimon are generally considered to be the same species. This is because a Digimon who goes through a Mode change remains at the same Digivolution level (Imperialdramon (Dragon Mode), Imperialdramon Fighter Mode and Imperialdramon Paladin Mode are all Mega level digimon), and retain the same name (except with a suffix giving the name of the new mode).

Although Mode Changing does not result in a change in a Digimon's species or level, it is considered a form of Digivolution.

Attributes
All Digimon species are classified into four attributes - Data, Vaccine, Virus and Variable. Most Digimon fall into the first three categories, the fourth "Variable" category is exclusive to Hybrid Digimon. There is also one other group "Unknown", for Digimon who either do not have an attribute, or are classifed as being "Unidentified".

These attributes have a Rock, Paper, Scissors arrangement where Virus is generally advantaged against Data, Data is advantaged against Vaccine and Vaccine is advantaged against Virus. However, these attributes don't play a very important role in Digimon fights. A Digimon can generally defeat an opponent regardless of attribute if it is stronger than the opponent in Digivolution level and experience.

Most evil Digimon are of the Virus attribute (although not all Virus Digimon are evil; Ogremon, Wormmon and Guilmon are the most notable exceptions), and Vaccine Digimon are generally considered to be "good". In the Digimon card game, some Digimon species can have more than one attribute. For example, most cards for the Digimon species "Agumon" are of the Vaccine attribute, but there is a Virus version. Gabumon has versions for all three attributes. Different attribute versions of a Digimon are sometimes of different colors.

Family
Digimon in the card game are also classified into 10 different "Digimon families". These classifications are mostly trivial. They seldom appear in the Digimon anime series, except for the latter part of the first season, when "Wind Guardians" and "Deep Savers" are mentioned during the Dark Master saga. They have little bearing on actual gameplay in the card game.

Each Digimon family have a different colored background in the Digimon card game, and the Digimon within a family usually have something in common. For example, the Dragon's Roar family consists of Digimon who resemble dragons.

Type
As another form of classification, all Digimon species are given a "Type". This generally describes the physical appearance of the Digimon. So for example, Agumon is a "Reptile Type" Digimon, whereas Angemon is an "Angel Type" Digimon. Some types, such as "Insect Type", include dozens of Digimon, whilst others, such as "Ancient Insect Type" are unique and belong to only a single Digimon (in this case it's AncientBeetlemon.) A Digimon species is generally classified into only one "type".

Like the "Family" classification, "Type" is considered to be a fairly trivial and unimportant classification. It is referenced occasionally in the anime, and has some minor gameplay effects in the Digimon card game.

Notes and references
Digimon