THE TV SHOW

In Monster Ranchers, they don’t evolve or digivolve. Monster Ranchers is probably the most realistic one of the shows. The plot is good, the TV show is good; it’s the best.

—Adin

The first thing you should know is that unlike a lot of TV shows that have the same title and characters as a video game, Monster Rancher was a video game first—in Japan it was called Monster Farmer. Then it became a manga and then a TV show. And then the sequel to the video game, Monster Rancher 2, came out.

Why is this important? It’s important because the writers actually put the Monster Rancher video game into the show.

The show is like this—Genki is a kid who loves the video game Monster Rancher. As a matter of fact, he’s a champ at it. One day, he gets a disk and inserts it into his game system. Suddenly—whamo!—he’s sucked into the TV and the game.

Once inside the game he meets a young girl named Holly and her pet monster, Suezo. Almost immediately he has to help them escape a pack of bad monsters. Once they are safe, she explains the situation to him.

Holly and Suezo are searching for the legendary and mythical Phoenix—no, Phoenix is not a city—it is a creature that will help her defeat the evil Moo. You see, Moo has turned all the good monsters bad.

The Phoenix exists on a mystery disk and without the Phoenix, Moo will succeed in his evil plans. Of course Genki agrees to help them—hey, what else does he have to do, right?—and they set off on their adventure after Genki unlocks a pet monster of his own, named Mocchi.

The show features some really great anime and a ton of exciting plots.