This review will be for the entire Monster Rancher, or as it is more commonly known as Monster Farm, series. This means that I will be covering the entirety of the series including Episodes 49 through 72. That being said I will digress and actually begin my review of a show that opened my eyes to what anime was (minus Digimon, Pokemon, Medabots, etc.) in my little impressionable mind. As I sat watching Pokemon for the quadrillionth time on a Saturday eating a bowl of cereal, my eyes fixated on a commercial for what appeared to be a game where you could obtain monstersfrom CDs slated in your Playstation home console! I rushed to the store to pick up the game, which at that age was "Mommy can I buy this?" when we went out shopping. I looked at the instruction manual and saw that a Television show based on the first and second game (I had bought Monster Rancher 2 not knowing that Monster Rancher 1 existed) was going to be airing on FOX Kids and I had to watch it. Fast forward back to that awesome Saturday eating cereal and I found the FOX channel and watched some Monster Rancher.

Now to the actual review. The story, plot, characters, and general idea of the series is pretty similar to Pokemon and Digimon. Genki, your average, hyperactive, Ash/Tai/Protagonist you love to make fun of enters a tournament where he uses his Pink Suezo to knock out another kid's Golem. He wins the tournament and wins a Monster Rancher 20xx game! He ends up getting transported into the game and meets up with multiple monsters and has various adventures over a 48 episode arc that covers Genki attempting to get out of the Monster Rancher world (or attempt to stay in it!) and trying to find the mythical Phoenix monster to save the evil monsters from the evil Moo. Monsters rule, Monster rancher...*cough* That would be a line from the rap that began every episode of the American Dubbed series that was NOT dubbed by 4Kids surprisingly.

All in all I feel that the plot is different from Pokemon/Digimon but lacking in it's own way. The show uses all of its force to try to get kids to buy merchandise based on their respective series just like the other shows but really pushes their game to the point where they parody it in the television series. I loved the series growing up and have re watched it multiple times. The first story arc covering the 48 episode span was glorious in its run and it left me having a warm feeling in my heart. I would have given it an 8 but there was another "season" where from episode 49-72 Genki and friends enter tournaments to try to get a magic stone and revolves around the premise of the Monster Rancher games. That being said I love the games, so I feel like those episodes were kind of awesome but most people will feel it is fanservice in the sense that they want to sell more copies of their games. Either way I say watch the series at least until episode 48 for a feel good story that is similar to Pokemon/Digimon but it is darker, well written, and relatively animated well for its time.

Overall 7/10 First 48 episodes 8/10