by start learning Japanese, I mean more than just pick up a few random words I heard about on fan sites (I was interested in Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball a bit before Digimon hit US shores, and there were quite a few fansites that mentioned things like "Sailor Senshi" means "Sailor Soldier" or "Kami" means "God" or what have you). But I mean actually get into things like the writing and whatnot.... Digimon was also the first anime I saw in a Japanese format, since I had pretty bad luck with downloading things and couldn't buy DVDs before Digimon Tamers came out. With Digimon Tamers, Japanese episodes started to become more widespread on the internet, and I happened to stumble upon places to find episodes. I couldn't really experience the language firsthand until then.
Anyway, the problem with some Pokemon fans is that they'll treat Digimon like a rip-off, which is entirely not the case. However, it's likewise wrong to bash on Pokemon because you say Digimon's a lot better. I just like monster-raising franchises (particularly monster-raising video games) regardless, though I can agree with you that Digimon does have the better storylines. They just stick with one plot that's set to go for about 50 episodes, and the plot is unique and original rather than wh*ring out some existing video games, and not dragging the story with episodic plots waiting for the next game's release for that matter (Digimon started as V-pets, so in essence, the franchise didn't even have a storyline until more complex games like Digimon World were released). I like that, and I do wish Pokemon's anime would be more like it. But if they must advertise the games, at least execute it correctly, like the Special manga does. [cough] But I should probably stop, considering I likely contradicted myself already on what I said earlier about bashing one franchise based on things the other franchise does.
Macross? Heard of it, but never saw it.
