Does anyone else feel like new life has been breathed into the Digimon franchise in the last few years?
The anime's coming back more often without 4-6 year gaps between the series
Digimon Story: Time Stranger has been received amazingly well, and according to Google Trends, more
people were searching Digimon during its release than any time since 2004!
Disenfranchised Pokemon fans are giving Digimon another chance after Pokemon's recent quality
Digimon's overarching message that the Digital world is an amazing place, but is full of threats and constantly under attack goes really hard in the 2020s
I'm not sure if it's just my algorithm, but I feel like more people on YouTube and social media are talking about Digimon again
Or did Digimon never stop being relevant any I'm just starting to see more of it again?
Digimon absolutely stopped being relevant and hasn't been for years at this point. It had its zeitgeist with Digimon Adventure and Digimon: The Movie, and went on free fall from there. None of the games were truly well received (not even the first World game, which became a cult classic), and the anime faded into obscurity. The fact that every game and TV series was its own thing with wildly different characters, setting, story, overall mood and even target audience didn't made them any favour in attracting and retaining fans.
It's only been recently with Tri, the new TCG and, more importantly, Time Stranger that I've seen people talking about Digimon again. I hope this serves as proof to Bamco that Digimon can be a relevant IP if they bother to invest money on it.