Similar to the Tamagotchi Mini seven months before it, the Mini was not just marketed as a pet, but also as a fashion device. "Digimini-style" was a major campaign point for Bandai's latest pet, advertising how fans could integrate the Mini into their daily fashion, whether that was on a tote bag, a dog tag, or a key ring. Tellingly, the Mini was excluded from that year's D-1 Grand Prix, while the preceding Digimon Accel and succeeding Digivice iC and Burst both had their own competitions. Although it was briefly the subject of the manga Digimon Next, it wasn't a device primarily targeted at children.
The Mini was advertised in its promotional video as "compact, light, and historic." The Mini restored the background images that the previous Accel pets had ignored, and also reverted the sprites back to the more nostalgic 16x16 instead of the 32x32 sprites that had been used since the Progress toys in 2002.
The Digimon Mini's relationship to the original Digimon Monster series was similar to that of the Tamagotchi Mini and its own forefather. The Mini was about 70~80% the size of original Digital Monster series, 3 x 4 cm vs 4 x 6 cm. The Mini was popular enough to lead to a cross-promotion deal between Bandai and clothing brand UNIQLO, creating five different special editions, each promoted with a corresponding article of clothing.
It ultimately came in the third-largest variety of color variations among any Digimon pets, after the Pendulum and original Digital Monsters. At least thirteen varieties of Mini were distributed in its lifetime; two colors for each original release, five special editions with a limited production run, and two giveaway exclusives.
Archived promotional image from the official website. |
In addition to the Vaccine > Virus > Data triangle from the Pendulum series, the Mini introduced a Super Ultimate evolution for each version, which evolved from that pet's Ultimate by having 100 or more wins. For Ver. 1 this was an evolution from War Greymon to Omegamon, for Ver. 2 this was Heracle Kabuterimon to Tyrant Kabuterimon, and for Ver. 3 this was Holydramon or Piemon to Lucemon Satan Mode. Bizzarrely, there was never a Data-attribute Ultimate or Super Ultimate available on the Mini. All fully evolved Digimon on the Mini were either Vaccine or Virus-attribute.
The Ver. 1 Mini is notoriously more difficult than the Ver. 2 or Ver. 3, as on the Ver. 1 even with a cumulative winning percentage of 80~100%, the probability to evolve to the Perfect and Ultimate stages is lower by as much as 30%. This was likely to compensate for Omegamon having an overwhelming advantage versus the Ver. 2 and Ver. 3 Super Ultimates.
Xros Wars Mini |
At present Minis average $65 for new-in-package on the secondary market, one-third the price of packaged Digital Monster pets, and about equal with loose DM toys.
Happy tenth birthday, Mini!
You know where can i find it for a reasonable price?
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