Who has the better design, bias aside?

Charizard obviously has had vastly more success as a mascot but I wonder if thats owed more to Pokemon's fame and Charizard's role as an early game, very accessible dragon-like partner coinciding with their appeal towards nostalgia. However his simplicity gives a lot of room to project personal touches onto said partner. Design wise though his only major standout feature is the flaming tail and unique body shape.

Greymon on the other hand arguably has more iconic features like the helmet and stripes, he has a design very typical of the era's kaiju, specifically Gomora from Ultraman.
Though in fairness, Charizard himself was also playing trends by mimicking the dragons of Dragon Quest so closely.

But which one would you say has the better design in the end?

Attached: 165237169541589121.png (628x325, 291.5K)

what the fuck is a greymon

Greymon

You know what a Greymon is

Pretty easily Charizard.

Charizard, and it's not even close. Fuck off digitard.

I like the left better. I like charizard but I've always hated his stubby little arms and shoulders.

Please have a reasoning deeper than "Because Digimon sux"

Charizard is a Dragon, Greymon is a Dinosaur, do the math.
When I first watched Digimon, I felt everybody else to have stronger and cooler digimon than Tai.

as far as mascots go, Charizard

Greymon as a lot more interesting about him I guess, but Charizard's design has a lot more room to appeal to a much broader fandom. Charizard can be a warrior, a smug leader, or even just a big dog because the design doesn't lean too hard in any one direction. the silhouette also is much stronger from how bottom heavy Charizard is with the flaming tail and long neck and wings, especially with how entirely bipedal dragons typically are less common in media. Its like how Mickey Mouse isn't a terribly interesting design but theres a lot of flexibility to them.

Greymon on the other hand really just succeeds Charizard as a sort of "tough warrior" design. His design is far more complex and a bit more uniform as a cool kaiju monster, and while that does attract the target audience a lot harder, I can't really imagine Greymon in as many roles as Charizard. Someone who likes cute approachable monsters or animals might find Greymon terrifying what with his scary helmet and stripes that look like battle scars.

Given how Digimon was DESIGNED specifically to appeal to boys more from Tamogatchis, its no surprise Greymon was designed to be more hardcore than a typical monster in media. Greymon resembling this battle torn kaiju chuffing out flaming meteors is definitely quite a lot more metal than Charizard.

But that focus does cost him the overall appeal that Charizard has.

Heck, Charizard even comes off a bit more supernatural since Greymon essentially is an armored dinosaur but Charizard is a flying dragon fueled by fire on his tail, which could catch the eye of people more.

though it is worth pointing out that Pokemon being so much more popular and famous than Digimon kinda automatically leads into people favoring Pokemon on basis more so seeking out a sincere debate for this on Any Forums is gonna suck.

TLDR: Charizard is a far more broadly appealing design but Greymon is far cooler as a sort of "shounen" monster

I wouldn't say it's just broader appeal
The idea of pokemon is that, aside from legendaries, they're all supposed to be part of a bigger ecosystem
Charizard looks less like a shounen monster because, name aside, it's not supposed to be a monster, it's supposed to be a supernatural animal

What you said about the multitude of roles, follows from that, it has to be versatile because animals are versatile, and charizard, by necessity, needs to both act as a dangerous opponent, and a potential loyal pet or loving mother

That said I like both Greymon and Charizard, like you said, they both succeed at reaching the goals set out for them

Worth mentioning that Rhydon is a beloved Pokemon for that simple direction of just being a cool tough kaiju, which Greymon does even better at. So being just a "cool monster" isn't exactly a small niche.

But again, its hard to imagine Greymon as much more than a fighter, where I can imagine Charizard being any number of things while still being a cool monster, even if not as cool. Even WITHIN Digimon itself, Greymon is relegated to just a form taken for fighting.

I think Greymon suffers from peaking at the greymon stage and gradually getting worse from that point onwards

Charizard is only popular because it's from a Nintendo game.
The design is a rip off of Dragon Quest and it's pretty bland and generic.
Both Digimon and YGO have better vidya dragons

blue eyes white dragon is fucking ugly as shit and you know it

Ecosystems are a good point.
Pokemon's ecosystem doesn't exactly support Pokemon as monsters when you fully consider their elemental abilities and potential, but the similarities with our own world combined with how approachable the series is, a lot of them could sensibly be understood as supernatural animals

Meanwhile so many Digimon are built like shounen protagonists with wildly escalating potential that they reasonably could only exist in a place as random as the Digital World, though said Digital World is so inconsistent with how its depicted that both Digimon and the world seem entirely dependent on what story is being told for the characters.
Now this isn't a BAD thing, but its a lot harder to explain

I can tell you where Tyranitar or Electabuzz lives. I can't even surely tell you where a Greymon would live if they're not with a Tamer.

Virus MetalGreymon and SkullGreymon are honestly great follow ups.

VirusMetal comes off a lot less random when you realize they were not only first but intended to be this Frankenstein's Monster desperate for power, and SkullGreymon is like a surprising twist in that Greymon's *skull* ended up being the dominant theme.

But Metal Greymon normally is just an NFT and WarGreymon is basically just a mecha pretending to be a monster

>don't say the truth
???

Only if you are a tranny

does your mom know you're gay

Yeah I generally agree as far as mascots are concerned, but looking at just mascot potential misses the bigger picture. Pokemon can't revert forms, so they can't afford to go too much in the "cool" direction with their designs. Every single design has to be balanced in terms of coolness, goofiness, friendliness, etc. Digimon actually can afford to go full throttle on maximizing a particular design trait, whether it be cool, goofy, or beautiful, simply because the ability to devolve is an option. Greymon doesn't have to be cute or friendly, because that's what Agumon capitalizes on. That dynamic is something that I like about Digimon. The ability to devolve makes it so they can maximize certain design aspects on evolution.

There's a few exceptions like Aggron and Rayquaza, but it isn't the rule.