sure, there are a bunch of pokémon, but there's still a concrete number. there's an infinite possibility as to how many digimon there are, because digimon are raw data. not only can one digimon reconfigure its data to become any number of other digimon, but also, if you think about it, new data is constantly being added to the world, and old data - no matter how much you send it to the recycle bin - can never be destroyed. (it's almost like the universe in that sense: they're both constantly expanding.) all that data out there can configure itself any way it wants, with either itself or other data. thus, you have an infinite amount of possible digimon. (another explanation for this is if you look at digimon tamers. takato creates guilmon from his own imagination, and come on, who would argue that possibilities are anything but infinite when it comes to your imagination?)

some people are also bringing up the issue of evolving vs. digivolving. the two, while similar, are different tools, and you have to take that into consideration. when a pokémon evolves, it's growing up. it's reaching its full potential. through battling and earning experience, it grows until it reaches full maturation. a digimon, however, doesn't digivolve to grow. it can digivolve for a number of reasons, but what is by far the most common trend is a digivolution to protect its partner. when a digimon's partner is in need, it can reconfigure its data - both changing current and collecting new - to create a stronger digimon that can fulfill the need at hand. (armor digivolutions really drive this point home: armadillomon, for example, has two armor digivolved forms, digmon and submarimon. digmon is a land digimon, whereas submarimon is a sea digimon. if an issue is on land, armadillomon can digivolve using the digi-egg of knowledge and become digmon. if an issue is in the sea, he can use the digi-egg of reliability to become submarimon to face the issue in the sea.) once there is no longer an issue, a digimon no longer needs the excess data to deal with the situation, so it dedigivolves. (it can also dedigivolve if it doesn't have the energy to maintain its reconfigured form.) pokémon evolution is growing up, while digivolutions are simply rising to an occasion. they're two different functions.

that said, i hate comparing pokémon and digimon. they're apples and oranges.

pokémon are concrete. they fit into a certain species. yes, they evolve, but each pokémon evolves in a certain way. charmander always evolves to charmeleon to charizard. (granted, certain stones change the way an eevee, for example, evolves, but a certain type of stone will always have the same effect.) digimon are fluid. there are no guarantees. two of the same rookie digimon can digivolve into two different champions. sometimes even a digimon that's digivolved to a specific form in the past will digivolve to a different form (tai's greymon becoming skullgreymon as opposed to metalgreymon, for example).

pokémon - while more intelligent than your average pet - are still, for lack of a better term, animals. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying they're not capable of love or loyality - they are! - but they're not sentient beings. they're not on the same level as humans. digimon, however, are sentient. they have cultures, they have complex societies. they're capable of building both structurally and architecturally sound buildings. (granted, there are some pokémon who meet this criteria, such as team rocket's meowth and mewtwo. i'm not sure if mewtwo counts, though, since he was engineered. that's another topic all on its own.)

on that note, as higher beings than pokémon, humans know a great deal about them. they're able to create pokédexes, identify types, abilities, and different types of moves, and - like in the case of mewtwo - engineer pokémon. humans are able to breed pokémon, and they've proved to successfully study them. digimon, however, are an enigma to humans (with the exception of the digi-destined and a few select others, such as gennai). humans knew nothing about them until, going by the first two seasons' canon, the parrotmon/greymon incident. even following, they still just assumed it to be some kind of monsters, and let it go. prior to that, even, digimon were just causes of ancient japanese myths (the four gates of kyoto, and how it is a huge gateway for spirits, and all digimon-fueled legends, for example, as discovered by yolei). humans do begin trying to learn about digimon (the agency hypnos, for example, tracks down digi "bio-emergences" into the real world), but never really succeed. to humans, digimon remain a mystery.

the purpose, too, of pokémon and digimon in relation to humans is different. humans catch wild pokémon - as many as they want, although they can only carry six at a time - and choose to breed them, groom them and enter them in contests, or train them. trainers constantly pit pokémon against each other in both contests and battles. when it comes to digimon, however, not all humans know about their existence, and not even all humans who are aware of them get to come into close contact. a select few humans, or "digi-destined," got digimon of their own, and they only were paired with one digimon, as opposed to any number of them. that digimon, too, was not of their choosing (with the exception of, to some extent, tamers takato, henry, and rika). once a human and digimon were paired together, they became partners (whereas pokémon was a relationship where there was a clear master: the trainer). digimon and human worked, planned, and fought together. the main purpose of digimon, though, it seems, was to work with their respective digi-destined to defeat the forces of darkness when the digital world (and sometimes human world as well) was in imminent danger. digimon would not willingly fight against each other - they're a peaceful group - unless one was under the influence of darkness or posed a threat to either the greater good or the proper flow of the universe (such as the digital world, human world, and any other worlds coming together). only once any threat subsided could humans and digimon do anything else, and those things they did as a team, such as matt and gabumon's landing on mars, or sora and biyomon's fashion lines.

another difference is that pokémon and humans cohabitate in one world, whereas digimon - while they can cohabitate in our world - are mostly created and function in their own world, the digital world. there are times when the two worlds cross over, and there are gates between the worlds, but, for the most part, the two worlds stay separate.

keeping all of that in mind, we have to remember that apples and oranges, while hugely different, both have one of the bigger pieces of their existence in common: they're both fruits. both digimon and pokémon are really fantastic stories, with rich worlds and cultures behind them. they're both really great stories that stress the importance of core values, like teamwork and the importance of friends. they're about how you can form really strong bonds, and, most importantly the value of love.

all that said, which one do i like more? i really do like them both equally. i've been watching digimon more lately, but that's just because pokémon isn't on youtube. i do like to think about digimon more though, because the logistics of it are better than a ripe game of brain age any day. i play yellow and diamond every day, and still buy pokémon cards at target sometimes (they're way super cheaper than they used to be!), if not just for old time's sake. i have a pokémon tshirt i wear probably more often than i should, and a pikachu stuffed animal my best friend gave me before he moved away that still sits on my bed. i don't think one is copied off the other, regardless of release dates. they're both huge parts of my childhood, and i wouldn't be the same without either. i know it sounds lame, but i'm super grateful to have them in my life.