Trivia / Tamagotchi

The franchise in general

• Cash-Cow Franchise: In Japan, anyway; the franchise brings in a steady stream of income there. Ironically, Bandai did not initially expect Tamagotchi to be financially successful, and only produced them in small amounts in 1996. When it proved to be incredibly popular, Bandai turned around and tried to bank hard on it...only for the fad to die out, leaving Bandai's finances rather dire.
• Content Leak: The Instagram story of one of the developers for My Tamagotchi Forever showed an image of Mimitchi eating at a table a week before her addition to the game was announced.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: It's common for news outlets and eBay listings to refer to Tamagotchi as a "giga pet" instead of "virtual pet". Giga Pets are a specific type of virtual pet made by Tiger Electronics that are unrelated to Tamagotchis other than using the same concept. It was also fairly common, before Tamagotchi was overtaken by some of its more popular competitors, for said competitors to be called "Tamagotchis" in the media.
• Fandom Life Cycle: In Japan, the toys became a big fad overnight (stage 4/5). By the time enough toys were being produced to meet demand, the popularity had died down and the fandom went through stage 6(a). Went through Stage X in 2004, when the toys were relaunched. This also applies for America, except it hasn't had quite as much of a Newbie Boom.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Both the virtual pets and the 2009 anime have gotten McDonald's Happy Meal toys, though the latter only got them in Japan.
  • In 1998, the original toys got a line of keychains that feature a Tamagotchi character alongside a non-functional version of the handheld.
  • In the late 2000's, the Japanese toys came with a DVD featuring an OVA with the Tamagotchi characters. Three were produced in total; the first of them features the characters working at a McDonald's restaurant.
• Licensed Game: Goes both ways.
  • Several licensed Tamagotchi video games have been made for multiple platforms, with the Corner Shop games on the Nintendo DS and Sega Saturn de Hakken!! Tamagotchi Park for the Sega Saturn (predictably enough, given its title) being two examples.
  • Besides this, the Tamagotchi toys themselves have become a platform for licensing, as virtual pets have been made based on Mothra, Doraemon, Sanrio, Pokémon, Disney, Shoujo magazine Ciao and Aikatsu!, among others.
• The Merch: All sorts of merchandise based on the toys has been made, with candies, cards, bath bombs, playsets featuring figurines of the characters, plush toys, and keychains being just some of the pieces of merch they've put out. The TV show has also had merchandise relating to it.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • Kandentchi, the Annoying Video Game Helper battery Tamagotchi who appears when your color model's battery is low, is the winner of an early contest held by Bandai.
  • The My Tamagotchi Forever character Neliatchi was the winner of a contest held prior to the game's release where fans had to come up with their own Tamagotchis.
• Screwed by the Network: The virtual pet apps, launched early in 2013, were pulled at the end of 2014, despite being free apps. It doesn't help that the apps got little to no advertising, merchandise or promotion, and the biggest development the brand had gotten after launch was having Jennette McCurdy do one photoshoot in March 2014.
• Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: Japan fully embraced this when the franchise was relaunched in the 2000's. Most of the tie-in merchandise for this era was either pink, featured Mametchi, Memetchi and Kuchipatchi alongside a few female characters like Violetchi, Mimitchi and Makiko, used symbols girls like such as candy and hearts, or was a girl's activity toy like an accessory maker or a diary. In addition, apparel with the characters on it only came in girls' sizes and styles with no boy ones to be seen. It got worse when the anime came out, with most merchandise not only mainly using the tactics described above, but prominently featuring new female character Lovelitchi and having many of the male characters not named Mametchi and Kuchipatchi not appear on it. It got to the point where the toys themselves were then marketed exclusively to girls. For instance, most of the recent Tamagotchi Meets ^note  Tamagotchi On overseas devices have feminine shell designs featuring hearts and rainbows on them, and many of the post-2009 collaboration Tamagotchis are with franchises aimed at young girls like Sanrio and Aikatsu!. Overseas, this was inverted, as the merchandise for the franchise is mostly gender neutral with the exception of the Tamagotchi Friends line, which was mostly marketed to girls.

The toys

• Author's Saving Throw: The Uni, which is an improved version of Smart, changed some features back to what fans would recognize and like, such as the traditional 3-button controls, and the Tamagotchi walking around the room instead of staying at a corner. The gameplay is similar to that of Pix's, but also improved a few things, such as allowing the user to pick the egg color at the start of a generation, furnitures are not limited to one side, and users who use the toy infrequently can keep their Tamagotchi by refusing their request to leave, compared to the Pix where having your Tamagotchi stay is only avaliable if your relationship is "Best Pals" which requires some grinding.
• Blooper: On the P1, Tamatchi's arms go missing when fed food and snacks or playing the "Left or Right" game.
• Content Leak: Several virtual pets were leaked thanks to store sites listing them before they were officially revealed. These include the 2018 replicas of the original models, the Evatchi, the Hello Kitty Tamagotchi, the Demon Slayer Tamagotchi and the Tamagotchi Pix. Others were leaked through trademarked such as the Tamagotchi Smart and the below mentioned Tamagotchi Uni:
  • The Tamagotchi Uni is a huge example of this. It was first leaked through a trademark, then several online stores listing it with its name and its ability to connect via Wi-Fi alongside a picture of a purple colored Uni with a Mimitchi on it before removing them. By the time the reveal teaser was released in late May 2023 (which doesn't show its name), almost everyone knows that it's called "Uni". But that doesn't end there, the day before the announcement (June 6) it's packaging was leaked, revealing several character and mechanics. Later on, there were also leaks of new Uni colors like "Sanrio Characters", "Monster" and "Angel".
• Delayed Release Tie-In: The Evatchi was made to tie in with the fourth Rebuild of Evangelion film, which had its original June 27th, 2020 release date postponed due to many, many coronavirus cases causing movie theaters to close. The Evatchi itself wasn't affected, though, making it to stores on June 13th as planned with no problems.
• Demand Overload: The reason for Tamagotchi's early fall from grace in the 90s; Bandai wasn't producing enough to meet demand, and only started getting more out just as the fad was dying.
• Dueling Products: There were loads of virtual pet copycats in the late 1990s, one of the most notable being Tiger Electronics' Giga Pets. However, Tamagotchi seems to be the most popular and longest-lasting.
• Dummied Out:
  • Looking into a Tamagotchi's ROM or activating debug mode typically results in seeing characters that never made the cut to the final toy, but can still be accessed and raised if hacked.
  • An absurdly extreme case on the Tama-Go; there are nearly as much characters dummied out as there are ones the player can actually obtain.
• Franchise Killer: The Ocean did not do many favors for the Tamagotchi line's popularity due to its insane difficulty. The Morino's international release was canned not long after and the Ocean remained the last to go international until the 2004 reboot, and only a few releases (including the expensive Yasashii and the pedometer Arukotchi) would come afterwards in Japan until just after the start of the following year.
• Follow the Leader: Their popularity in the 1990s spawned legions of virtual pets, one of the more prominent being Tiger's Giga Pets.
• Hey, It's That Sound!: Most post-2004 releases share the same sounds for certain events (hatching and the evolution sound for instance.) However, since the noise when you pull the battery tab, reset the device or replace the battery is now replaced by a short musical jingle and a screen showing text that says "DIGITAL FRIENDS OF THE WORLD" on the color releases beginning with the Tamagotchi iDL, the original activation sound is instead used for the death sequence.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Since many of the toys use a website for functions related to passwords, items and characters that require them (such as special character dating cards on the Entama and the souvenirs on multiple releases) become this once the websites shut down. While players have discovered the patterns of logout codes on some of these models, some other models don't have such patterns (like Music Star), and as such contents exclusive to the websites are impossible to obtain.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition:
  • Shareholder Shells are special edition designs given exclusively to Bandai shareholders. Five were released in the vintage era, and an additional five in the reboot era, with the Ura Tamagotchi Plus model being the final and rarest.
  • The Special Asian Design collection is a series of twelve shell designs (6 gen 1 and 6 gen 2), each representing a country in Asia and Oceania. Several of them came in specially sealed boxes with a certificate of authenticity and a keychain.
  • Golden Tamagotchi shells have been released for the Generation 2 (1997 and Toys R Us exclusive), Version 3 (USA) and Version 4 (UK).
  • The Extellatchi, a Tamagotchi Nano model based on Fate/EXTRA, was distributed exclusively with the Fate/EXTELLA Celebration BOX, a commemorative box set celebrating the tenth anniversary of EXTRA's release.
  • The Star Wars R2-D2 Tamagotchi was sold in a special platinum shell and commemorative packaging exclusively at Star Wars Celebration 2022.
  • Special edition shells of the gen 1 and 2 devices were distributed exclusively at San Diego Comic Con in 2018 and 2022.
• Meaningful Release Date: Since 2004, most new Tamagotchi toys are released on (or close to) November 23rd, the same date the original Tamagotchi launched in 1996.
• No Export for You:
  • Many of the 1997-1998 Tamagotchi toys never made it outside Japan. The Morino Tamagotchi nearly made it to America as the Tamagotchi Garden in the summer of 1998, but it was cancelled.
  • Until the Meets was released overseas as the On, the iD L was the only color Tamagotchi to see the light of day outside of Japan in parts of Asia.
  • On the other hand, some models like the Music Star, Tamatown, Friends, Dream Town Digital Friends and Pix weren't released in Japan.
  • Many Tamagotchi Nano models are released exclusively in Japan, and one model, the Jordy Tamagotchi, was exclusive to South Korea. Conversely, the Pac-Man Tamagotchi and Hello Kitty Tamagotchi were released globally but never in Japan.
• Promoted Fanboy: Promoted fangirl. The Japanese fashion model Rola, who was a huge fan of the Tamagotchi craze when it originally started, was given a Tamagotchi character based off of her named Rolatchi to promote the Tamagotchi 4U. Rolatchi also makes several cameos in the fourth installment of the anime series, GO-GO Tamagotchi!.
• Release Date Change: The Jujutsutchi, a Nano model based on Jujutsu Kaisen, was meant to release in December 2021, but was pushed back to January 2022 due a coronavirus outbreak in Vietnam, where many Nano models are manufactured.
• Short Run in Peru: The Tamagotchi Pix and the Tamagotchi Uni were both released in some European countries a few weeks before their intended release date.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The toy was originally going to be designed as a wrist watch but was changed into a keychain due to the cost of plastic and in order to emulate a pocket watch. The Smart and Uni are eventually designed to be this.
  • Bandai had plans to make a revived Tamagotchi that was a cellphone-esque device that the user could take care of using cards and used new characters rather than the existing ones. Toei Animation then approached Bandai and thought that a show based on this virtual pet could be profitable for them if it was successful. That show eventually became Futari wa Pretty Cure.
  • The original Tamagotchi Connection patents reveal a number of features that never made it to the final release:
    • One connecting minigame was meant to be tug of war, which would later be implemented on the Keitai and Version 2.
    • There was meant to be a dating system where the user could select one character out of four to arrange a marriage, and the success of the proposal would be determined by the Tamagotchi's overall health and a hidden "good luck" value. The ability to choose from multiple potential spouses at once would be utilized in the color releases, and dating and proposals affected by multiple factors would be integral in the m!x and On.
    • If the Tamagotchi's weight reached 99, it was meant to turn into an obese-looking character, similar to Debutchi on the Mesutchi and Osutchi, and the user would have to reduce the weight down to 80 before it would return to normal. This concept would be used for the Tama-Go.
  • A second version of the Music Star, dubbed the "World Tour Edition", was meant to be released in 2009, and would have featured the user's virtual pet traveling across the Earth to play different genres of music. The version was only mentioned in a press release and never materialized.
• Some characters like Himespetchi appeared in the trailer for Tamagotchi Smart, but they didn't get a chance to appear as a DLC character as the TamaSma cards stopped their productions as Uni was close to its release.

The 2009 anime

• Acting for Two:
  • Chiwa Saitō voices Moriritchi, Furifuritchi, and Clulutchi.
  • Katsuyuki Konishi voices Gotchiman and Oyajitchi.
  • Satomi Koorogi voices Hapihapitchi, Doremitchi, and the narrator from GO-GO Tamagotchi!.
• Adaptation First: The anime was the first part of the Tamagotchi franchise to be released in South Korea due to the Japanese cultural products ban. The toys would not see a release there until 2014, with a release of the English-translated Tamagotchi iDL.
• Amateur Cast: The English dub that aired in Australia has voice actors that seem to have acted on no other shows, likely because with the exception of Kuchipatchi, the characters seem to be voiced by children.
• Bad Export for You: The anime's first official stint in America and several other regions was as Tamagotchi Friends, a dub of the Yume Kira Dream story arc... but only the first seven episodes. And they're shortened from 24 minutes long to four minutes long. And the dub got released on the Tamagotchi Friends website instead of being televised.
• Children Voicing Children: Prominent in the English dub of the 2009 anime, where teens and kids voice the main characters.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Mametchi is voiced by Stephanie Sheh in Let's Go! Tamagotchi and Tamagotchi: The Movie, then by Erica Mendez in Tamagotchi Friends - in fact, Erica Mendez as Mametchi sounds NOTHING like a male.
  • Let's Go! Tamagotchi! also has Ichigotchi voiced by Marc Thompson.
    • Speaking of the series, Veronica Taylor voices literally everyone in Tosakatchi's band, including you-know-who.
    • Evelyn Lantto voices Kuchipatchi in said series.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • There are two Cantonese Chinese dubs of the show with different voice actors; one airs on ViuTV while the other is broadcast by TVB. There are a few differences between the dubs besides the voice actors as well, such as their titles (the TVB version is called 寵物反斗星 [Chǒngwù fǎn dǒu xīng] and the ViuTV version is called 他媽哥池 [Tāmāgēchí]) and Himespetchi's catchphrase "Gigakyun!" not appearing in the ViuTV dub.
  • There are also two Thai dubs of the show, each with their own voice actors. One airs on MCOT Family, a channel owned by the Thai government, while the other airs on True Spark, a children's channel owned by the cable company TrueVisions. These dubs have a few differences between each other, not unlike the Cantonese dubs; for example, Kikitchi's voice in the MCOT Family dub sounds pretty fitting for a kid like him, but in the True Spark dub he sounds nothing like a little kid.
• Dueling Shows: The anime was this with Pretty Cure at the peak of its popularity, another Merchandise-Driven girls' anime created by Bandai which eventually won out over this show. Ironically, Pretty Cure was conceived as what would later become the Tamagotchi Connection toy!
• Executive Meddling: The magical girl and idol singer themes in Yume Kira Dream were thrown in at the request of Bandai to capitalize on the Japanese idol singer trend that was emerging at the time.
• Fandom Life Cycle: In Japan, this anime is easily at around level 4, similar to the digital pet toys from which they were adapted. Outside of Japan, however, the fandom is at level 2 and the anime is noticeably more obscure than the toys; this is most likely because the anime has never seen a full English release (the first 26 episodes were aired in English in Australia only, and the first few episodes of the Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream installment were adapted as a webtoon called Tamagotchi Friends, but other than that there's nothing).
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The Australia-exclusive English dub is no longer available legally, but people have uploaded most of the English dub on YouTube. However, the dubbed versions of episodes 9 and 26 (part 1) have not been found yet. The three aforementioned episodes were uploaded once, but have since been taken down. Averted with the original Japanese dub, as all of the episodes were released on DVD in Japan.
  • "More! Tama Talk at the Earth", the special segments placed at the end of Tamagotchi! Tamatomo Daishu GO! episodes, is likely to not get a home media release since that part of the anime series is otherwise just reruns of already-existing Tamagotchi! episodes.
  • In 2012, a Filipino dub of Tamagotchi! aired on GMA Network in the Philippines. Aside from a promo for GMA's anime lineup at the time containing a brief clip of the show, none of this dub has surfaced.
• Late Export for You: The United States technically did get the anime in the form of the Tamagotchi Friends webtoon, which comprises dubbed and shortened versions of Yume Kira Dream episodes. The webtoon released in 2014 whereas the anime in general premiered in Japan in 2009.
• No Export for You: The anime has never aired in America. However, the original series WAS brought to Australia and New Zealand for a short period of time, airing only one season there. However, this was eventually averted worldwide with the release of Tamagotchi Friends, which is a localization of Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream... and even then there's a catch - the episodes are edited to be three minutes long, not to mention only the first 7 episodes of Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream were dubbed.
• Real Song Theme Tune: All of the songs that Dream5 performed for the Tamagotchi! and Yume Kira Dream incarnations ^note  though they were edited to add references to Tamagotchi, and in one case, the opening theme version of the song was done at a lower octave than the real one. and Baby I by Ariana Grande as the closing for episodes 26 through the final episode for GO-GO Tamagotchi!.
• Reclusive Artist: All of the voice actors from the English dub that aired in Australia are this, to the point where trying to find any of the names listed in the credits brings up no results for voice actors with the same name.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Home media releases of GO-GO Tamagotchi! replace "Baby I" with the insert song "Nanairo Melody".
• Screwed by the Merchandise: The Tamagotchu 4U toy was made to tie in with GO-GO Tamagotchi!. The toy's poor sales and reception (mainly in regards to the touch spot being replaced by infrared sensors that failed to work a lot of the time) lead to the anime being cancelled, though they were able to throw together a proper finale for the Tamagotchi anime show.
• Screwed by the Network: When the anime aired on GO! in Australia, only 26 episodes aired before it got canned for more airings of Animaniacs. As a result, Australian Animaniacs fans rejoiced when the aforementioned series got more airings whilst Tamagotchi fans begged to differ.
• Unfinished Dub:
  • The Australian English dub covers only 26 of the 271 episodes.
  • The English Tamagotchi Friends webtoon only covers portions of the first seven Yume Kira Dream episodes.
  • The Filipino dub is of a length similar to the Australian English dub.
  • The Thai dub goes up to Miracle Friends, with no information on whether GO-GO Tamagotchi! is dubbed in the language.
• Voiced Differently in the Dub:
  • Mametchi's voice in the English dub of the original anime, while fitting, is completely different than his original high-pitched voice.
  • Kikitchi has a high-pitched boy's voice in the Japanese original, but in the Thai dub aired by True Spark, he has an adult man's voice. The other Thai dub aired by MCOT Family gives him a voice more like the Japanese version.

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