Pokemon S01E01 Review: I Wanna Be The Very Best, Like No One Ever Was

Pokemon, Episode 1: Pokemon! I Choose You!

So yeah, this has kind of been a long time for me, at least. I've been really wanting to talk a bit about Pokemon on this blog, and I've ended up just talking about the designs of the monsters themselves as I thought that's a bit more unique than just reviewing the anime and/or the Adventures manga, which... there's been a fair bit of those online. But the recent surge of Pokemon stuff, from the Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee games, to the Detective Pikachu movie, to the revelation that Generation VIII is coming at the end of this year... yeah, it's a lot of stuff to re-kindle some real nostalgia in me. I ended up watching the Japanese version with English subs online, so... yeah.

I grew up with the English-dubbed versions, of course, and I still have a stack of old VCD's (god I am old) in my basement somewhere, but I thought that it's actually a neat incentive for me to go back and watch this original version. As a side-note, though, I'll still use their English names primarily, because you don't grow for two decades with these characters and not reflexively call them by that.

And this episode starts off pretty neatly, with the transition from the original Game Boy Red/Blue/Green 'cutscene' of Gengar fighting Nidorino rotating around and going from pixelated to pretty neat animation. The animation has aged pretty well for being 20-something years old, and I really do love this reference to the actual games that the series is based on. Sure, especially in earlier seasons, we do have a lot of continuity snarls with the game's rules, but hey. It's actually a pretty neat opening of what a Pokemon battle looks like, with Nidorino fighting with a Gengar, and then a trainer recalling Nidorino and summoning Onix to the battlefield.

We then get to see our main hero, Satoshi (or, as the dub calls him, Ash Ketchum), watching all of this televised Pokemon combat on television. It's a simple enough world-building piece -- and I really do love the little shots of Ash's room. Poliwag sharpeners, Clefairy coin cases, posters, a Voltorb-Pidgey cuckoo clock thing... and Ash is just very, very excited that he's come of age and is able to properly start his Pokemon journey. Of course, in the Pokemon world, apparently the legal age of going around, wandering and capturing monsters that breathe fire and lightning is ten, but, hey, kid's franchise. Got to appeal to the actual kids!

It's kind of a silly bit as Ash proves himself to be lovably dumb. I'm genuinely not sure why so many Japanese material aimed at young boys tend to portray their main characters as blockheads, but while Ash does kind of get a bit better throughout the series, watching this episode made me go "man, you are duuuumb". Apparently, while sleeping, he accidentally smashes his adorable Pidgey cuckoo clock and his mom doesn't care enough to wake him up for what basically amounts to, like, high school entrance examinations or something in this world. Silly mom!

We also get the brief introduction to Ash's rival, Gary Oak (Shigeru in the original Japanese), who... who's actually a lot less smarmy in the original Japanese. The English dub really plays up his jackassness and cockiness. And, sure, a lot of them still does come from the original script, but the Japanese delivery is more condescending and subdued. He still has a goddamn sports car and an army of short-skirted cheerleaders, and delights in telling Ash that he's the grandson of the renowned Professor Oak and mocks his jammies, so there's still gloating, but I am actually slightly surprised at how subdued the voice acting is.

Oak admonishes Ash for being late, because, of course, you really don't have any excuse for being late. We do get a particularly cruel bit as Oak just waits for Ash to slowly open one of the three supposed starter Pokemon that he would've gotten, only to go one by one and say "that one has been taken by someone who's not late". Oak, you snarky ass. I mean, Ash does deserve it, but still, that's kinda mean.

Of course, this leads to the fateful encounter that Ash has with the mascot of the series, the problem child, the little chubby electric rat Pikachu. God, he's so fat in these older episodes. And I really cannot understate how adorable Otani Ikue's voice for Pikachu is. And in this first episode... Pikachu is such a lovable asshole! He shocks Ash, and then Ash and Oak, and then the entire crowd that comes to see Ash off. Pika pika, indeed, and he looks so happy zapping everyone. Also adorable is Ash trying to get Pikachu into his poke ball, ending with the two of them basically batting the ball back and forth. That was fun.

And honestly, this first episode actually does a decent job at both focusing on the Ash/Pikachu dynamic as well as doing some world-building about Pokemon. We next see Ash literally dragging Pikachu along with rubber gloves and rope (Pokemon abuse, nooo!) along some nondescript countryside, before trying to properly befriend and understand Pikachu. "Do you hate me?" "Pika-pika". Thanks to the exposition machine that is the Pokedex (or Pokemon Zukan in the original Japanese), we learn that while most Pokemon do go into pokeballs... some really hate small places. Like Pikachu.

Pikachu just plain refuses to have anything to do with Ash, and he ends up going off to try and catch a Pidgey all on his own... but fails. Causing Pikachu to go hihihihihi on top of his perch, and it's adorable. He later tries to use his pajamas to wrap the Pidgey up, but ends up getting tossed around by Pidgey's Gust attack. And while he's being humiliated by a tiny pigeon, a Rattata goes off and steals Ash's food, and we get a particularly snarky bit from the Pokedex, who tells Ash that "Rattata sometimes comes out of their normal habitat to take food from careless travelers." Oh, man, the Pokedex is a snarky ass.

I also like, by the way, the slight attempt at deconstructing the concept of Pokemon trainers in general. Supplies being stolen, disobedient Pokemon, being physically thrown around by wild Pokemon... yeah, it's actually a neat little aspect of the episode I do appreciate.

Ash's next attempt, of course, involves throwing a rock (this ain't the Safari Zone!) and it hits a Spearow! Which the Pokedex quickly establishes as the meanest motherfucker around. The Spearow attacks Ash, and we get a pretty cool black-and-white "from the Pokemon's vision" bit of Spearow swooping around. It's a pretty fun scene, and Spearow ends up attacking poor, confused Pikachu on the tree. The Pokedex notes that wild Pokemon often attacks those with trainers out of jealousy? Pikachu uses all those thundershocks he's been lobbing around to zap Spearow to the ground, but the Spearow just calls an entire flock of Spearows from a tree.

In the first agreement they have had since leaving Pallet Town, Ash and Pikachu decide to run away from the massive flock of Spearow. And while doing this, Pikachu runs ahead and gets pecked by a bunch of them and gets severely wounded. And after spending half the episode being an irresponsible twit or a dumbass, Ash finally does something actually heroic, and cradles Pikachu and continues running, including a bit where he jumps into a river and narrowly avoids colliding with a motherfucking Gyarados. That's kinda scary.

This leads to a brief encounter with a red-headed girl fishing near a stream -- this is Misty (or Kasumi, in Japanese, which also means 'mist' anyway), our female lead... but her role in this episode is basically just quite literally fishing Ash out of the river, slapping him for being an irresponsible trainer and injuring Pikachu... and then as the Spearow flock arrives, Ash just 'borrows' Misty's bike and zooms off to Viridian City, wanting to go to the nearest Pokemon Hospital.

Like, okay, as a kid, I cheered for Ash to get away from those Spearows, but shit, considering that we've seen that the Spearows have no qualms of exchanging their target of ire, it's pretty horrible for Ash to leave Misty right there as the Spearows are encroaching, huh? It's a good thing the Spearows are still focused on Ash and Pikachu, and not flock and peck Misty to death.

And as some nice rainy weather hampers their way, the Spearows knock Ash and Pikachu off of their stolen bicycle, and the animation team really makes sick, wounded Pikachu look really... really injured. It's pretty well done! And Ash ends up telling Pikachu to, hey, get into the poke ball, even though you don't like it. That way, Pikachu can at least survive while Ash basically tanks the entire Spearow swarm by himself. It's a pretty ballsy move, especially as a last resort, and this self-sacrificial willingness from Ash's part ends up inspiring Pikachu enough to actually get his fat ass off the ground and do something. In a pretty neat frame-by-frame style of animation, Pikachu climbs up Ash's body and jumps towards the middle of the Spearow flock, channeling all of the actual lightning bolts from the storm and zapping the entire swarm away. Oh, and turning Misty's bike into a mangled mess in the process. Also, at this point, the anime's soundtrack uses a remix of the Red/Blue wild Pokemon battle theme, which is something that I'm not sure they did in the dubbed version, and it's something that I definitely appreciate a lot.

Cheesy as hell, but hey, it's a kid's show, and it's actually a pretty neat, dramatic end to the Spearow chase. I'm pretty sure this episode also made me extremely suspicious about large flocks of birds, because holy shit, Spearows are mean motherfuckers.

And as Ash and Pikachu slowly walk towards the Viridian City in the horizon, they get to see a majestic, golden-coloured bird trailing sparkles in the sky. We now know that it's (an off-model) Ho-Oh, one of the main legendaries from Generation II, but I definitely remembered being confused, looking at the 150 Pokemon poster I received with the VCD purchases, because this definitely doesn't resemble Fearow, Pidgeot, Moltres or any of the birds in the original 150. The Pokedex notes that this is a Pokemon with "unknown data", hinting that there are many more creatures to be discovered in the world. And also being a stealth prequel to the sequel series Gold and Silver, which are presumably in development while the anime adapting the first series of games are in production. I was confused as all hell as a kid, but it's actually a pretty cool cameo.

Anyway... that's a pretty neat first episode! I'm not sure how far I'll go through with reviewing Pokemon. I'm pretty sure that after the first couple of episodes we'll basically lump them into two or three episodes together, especially when we get to the more filler-y stuff. We'll see. It's actually a pretty neat, if standard, meeting between a dumb but kind-hearted boy and his little jackass rat partner, and honestly, even after 20+ years, it's still a pretty solid entry point to the world of Pokemon. Anyway... see you guys for the next episode, where we prepare for trouble, and make it double.

Pokemon Index:

• Pokemon: Gengar, Nidorino, Onix, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Dodrio, Pikachu, Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Sandshrew, Mankey, Magikarp, Gyarados, Ho-Oh
• Humans: Ash, Delia, Professor Oak, Gary, Misty

Assorted Notes: 

• We're not going to do a segment as extensive as this particular review every episode, but hey, since it's the very first episode, I figured... why not? 
• Game Easter Eggs:
• The biggest one, of course, has to be the first shot of the episode, which is a recreation of the pixelated Gengar-vs-Nidorino fight that was the opening animation before the title screen of the original Pokemon Red & Green, before rotating around and replacing the sprites with actual animation. One of the downright coolest shit when I was a kid. 
• Nidorino's trainer is completely obscured, but he seems to borrow the appearance of Bruno of the Elite Four.
• Dub Changes:
• In addition to changing everyone's names and Japanese language in signage to English, the dub team also have to localize some jokes and censor some things. I'm not going to exhaustively list everything, but some of them that I do notice:
• A full on scene of Misty slapping Ash in the face for letting Pikachu get injured was cut from the dub version.
• A joke lost in translation with Ash telling Pikachu to 'talk' (hanashi) to him ends up with Pikachu showing off his teeth, a pun on ha nashi also meaning 'toothless'. In the dubbed version, this is actually pretty smartly turned into Ash realizing that, yeah, Pikachu can only say his name and can't really talk to him. 
• Theme Songs!
• The Japanese version is Mezase Pokemon Master (Aim to be a Pokemon Master) by Rika Matsumoto, which I still have nostalgic feelings for because as a kid, I watched the Johto seasons aired in their original Japanese version, so I am familiar with this fun, little peppy theme with short, speedy chorus. It's fun! My only complaint is the "through the girl's skirt" bit, not mostly because of the skirt but more because of the loud high-pitched scream that just bugs my ear. Still, I really do like it...
• ...But my preference still has to be Jason Paige's more bombastic rock theme of Pokemon Theme (Gotta Catch 'Em All), which is just... there's just something about how great it is, y'know? It just makes you get amped to watch the series and play the game and be the very best, like no one ever was. 
• Dare da? Pikachu! Or, in the dubbed version... Who's That Pokemon? Pikachu! An honestly charming little advertisement bumper that I felt was done far better than most other kiddy anime out there, and one that also gets the audience to learn about the 150+ Pokemon in the world. Most other anime tends to just have a brief clip of their main characters waving or some shit. 
• Ho-Oh was really off-model, huh? Apparently they just used whatever in-development sketch of Ho-Oh they had, which is why he looks so weirdly different. 
• The Bruno lookalike in the TV tournament uses a weird green Pokeball, which doesn't actually match any Pokeballs in the series. 
• Also, the Bruno lookalike keeps ordering his Nidorino and Onix to use Normal-type moves against Gengar (Horn Attack and Tackle, respectively), and as a Ghost-type, Gengar's completely immune to those. Silly show writers!

Reviewing Monsters: The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim, Part 3 [Dawnguard DLC]

This time around, we're going to be covering Dawnguard, the first expansion for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Including a bunch of additional areas in the continent of Skyrim, the expansion mostly revolves around two main storylines -- a group of ancient vampire coven called Clan Volkihar and their attempt to blot out the sun by fulfilling an ancient prophecy; as well as the Dragonborn's journey to prevent said prophecy throwing him into discovering a whole lot of backstory and ancient temples where the Falmer once lived.

In addition to new areas, quests, items and the like, Dawnguard also added its share of monsters, which, of course, is the main focus of these articles!
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Vampire Lord

Dawnguard added a bunch of new vampire variations (the Nightlord and Nightmaster Vampires), but the biggest appeal and selling point of the expansion pack is the Vampire Lord. Whereas previous depictions of vampires in Skyrim and previous Elder Scrolls games have basically been glorified regular enemies with some extra properties and powers, Dawnguard allows you to transform to an awesomely horrific, well, monster-vampire! You're less posh, wine-drinking Count Dracula and more Underworld-style vampires at this point.

Relatively quickly through the Dawnguard story's main storyline, you have the option to join one of two factions -- the vampire hunting faction called the Dawnguard, or the psychopathic bunch of vampires that reside in Castle Volkihar. Joining the vampires allows you to transform into a Vampire Lord by casting a spell (similar to how the werewolf system works), with the revelation that all the other vampires you've been fighting in Skyrim all these while are "lesser broods".

And, boy, the Vampire Lord is pretty badass! The model is pretty grotesque, which is kind of unfortunate but pretty appropriate for a demonic form. The desiccated wings, the hunched neck, the corpse-like face and the weird angles that the hands are... it's pretty badass! Throw in the fact that in addition to extra stats and general vampire powers, transforming into a Vampire Lord gives you a bunch of awesome additional powers. Health-draining spells, slowing down time, pulling enemies from a distance with 'vampiric grip', summoning gargoyles, paralyzing enemies, raising corpses... but two particularly badass abilities are "Night Cloak", which surrounds you in a swarm of bats that damage anything around you, and "Mist Form", which just turns you into ethereal mist for a brief period of time. You don't actually get all of these abilities immediately and have to level them up as you feed on people as a vampire lord, but it's pretty darn badass! Dawnguard also adds a similar skill tree for werewolves, but it's a lot less awesome IMO.

Now, my biggest gripe with Dawnguard, though? NO ONE ever turns into a Vampire Lord other than you, or Lord Harkon, the final boss of the DLC. Not Serana (your best friend and daughter of the main villain), not members of the Clan Volkihar should you side with the Dawnguard, and not the random high-level vampires dotting around the land of Skyrim. It's easily one of the biggest misses, I think -- it would be so easy to replace some of the stronger vampire bosses with the Vampire Lord enemy (since they clearly coded it in, what with Lord Harkon being a fightable enemy and all that). It's a huge, huge misstep, honestly.

Overall, definitely a pretty grotesque model and a whole ton of cool powers. I like it!

Gargoyle

One of the abilities granted by becoming a Vampire Lord is the ability to summon Gargoyles. Gargoyles themselves are also found in some Dawnguard-specific dungeons, and like most fantasy Gargoyle monsters, they hide around statues that look like themselves. Interestingly, though, unlike Draugr, they are actually statues and immune to harm until they burst out of the rocks covering their skin.

Gargoyles are... they kind of look somewhat bland, I think, being just snarling demon-men with bat wings, a beast-like maw and goat horns. They really could've done more, although I don't dislike the pretty monstrous look that they ended up with. Gargoyles come in three variants (Gargoyle, Gargoyle Brute and Gargoyle Sentinel), they absorb health while attacking, and they will sometimes attack random cities alongside a group of random vampires -- which really doesn't lend any excuse as to why the Vampire Lord doesn't show up more often.

Death Hound

Another creature associated with the Volkihar clan of ancient vampires are the Death Hounds, which are... vampire dogs, I think? They look so much more monstrous than just a dog with vampirism, though, with glowing red eyes and that insane maw full of teeth. There are two that the Volkihar vampires keep as pets, which is adorable. They basically are just reskinned versions of wolves, albeit with a different set of loot and the addition of frost damage to their standard attacks, but damn, they do look pretty badass as hellhounds! Death Hounds are also the only enemy in this list who I remember encountering a lot outside of Dawnguard's main questline, which I do appreciate a lot!

Husky:

Equally adorable are the huskies wearing Dawnguard armour that hang around with Dawnguard. Like the Death Hound, the Huskies are basically just reskinned wolves, but they are fucking adorable. I love them. They are a whole lot more rare than the Death Hounds, though, only really showing up alongside Dawnguard members, and there are a lot less hostile Dawnguard members compared to hostile vampires. They're still adorable.

Armored Troll

Apparently armoured beasts are a thing that the Dawnguard uses, and huskies aren't the only things they strap armour on! See, some of the advantages of joining the Dawnguard, other than for role-playing purposes, is the ability to use huskies, crossbows... and to hire armored trolls. Which are basically just trolls with armour pieces and huge blades wrapped around their bodies.  They're basically near-identical to normal trolls with slightly higher health. Armored Troll and Armored Frost Troll variants are available depending on your level. I do find the idea of the Dawnguard domesticating trolls as basically attack hounds against vampires to be pretty hilarious. They're ultimately kind of useless in battle, and I kind of wish that there are ways to see these Armored Trolls beyond having to use them as followers, but I am glad that they decided to include this. It's hilarious.

Chaurus Hunter

Here we go! I've previously noted how the Chaurus monsters we've seen in vanilla Skyrim were apparently not an entire representation of the species as a whole, and that the giant centipede-beasts we've seen are apparently just the larval forms of the species. Their true adult form are added in Dawnguard not just into the huge, long underground Falmer dungeons that a significant part of Dawnguard's storyline takes place in, but also to other Falmer/Chaurus locales, which is awesome!

The Chaurus Hunter (or weaker variants, the Chaurus Hunter Fledglings) will burst out from their cocoons, similar to many real-life insects that undergo metamorphosis. This Chaurus Hunter is like a bizarre combination of multiple real-life insects. A creepy dipteran head, giant multi-segmented claws... the Chaurus Hunters basically battle you similarly to regular Chaurus, except for the fact that they zip around a bit faster due to the fact that they fly around. It's still pretty damn cool, though, and the first time I saw one of these it was definitely pretty horrifying to see a giant horse-sized mantis-fly monster burst out of nowhere.

Shellbug

Not exactly a monster, but the Shellbugs are 'harvestable' animals that only appear in a couple of places added by the Dawnguard expansion -- Forgotten Vale Cave and Sharpslope Cave. They basically function similarly to mines, and you mine them for Shellbug Chitin, used to create the Shellbug Helmet -- a relatively useless item -- but I  do like the fact that this utterly bizarre creature exists in the world of Skyrim. It's some sort of bizarre pillbug beetle hybrid with no apparent legs and seemingly just sits there rooted in one spot with its multi-eyed face poking out... a bizarre addition and a fun little Easter Egg for you to encounter.

Feral Falmer, Vampire Falmers & Frozen Chaurus

I'm just going to lump these all together here. Basically, as you travel and get involved in the whole Prophecy of the Sun storyline (whether you side with the Dawnguard or the Volkihar vampires, your objective is still to obtain the plot device) you end up travelling into the Forgotten Vale, a very, very long area where you eventually meet with one of the last living, non-corrupted Falmer, and the only one of the very few who were not transformed into the feral, animalistic troglodytes that the rest of the race were transformed into.

And the Feral Falmer (leftmost) inhabiting a sub-area of Forgotten Vale, the Darkfall Grotto, are basically naked Falmer with an extra 'covered by blood' texture. And... and while the regular Falmer are still pretty 'feral', it does illustrate how much more beastly these are when they don't even have any semblance of primitive civilization that the regular Falmer have.

The Frozen Vampire Falmers are, well, vampiric Falmer who are encased in ice, alongside a bunch of Frozen Chaurus-es. They dot the huge, huge hall of the Inner Sanctum where, like a Zelda boss fight, you walk through these ominous frozen monsters as you walk up to the other surviving Falmer, Arch-Curate Vyrthur. Without going into the specifics of Dawnguard's plot (it'll get too long) he will reveal himself to be a very powerful vampire sorcerer, and bring these Frozen Vampire Falmers and Frozen Chaurus-es to life, which is pretty damn epic for a boss fight. I've noted how vanilla Skyrim's biggest weakness is the lack of actually memorable boss fights (Alduin's ultimately another dragon, after all), but Dawnguard's penultimate boss, Vyrthur, is definitely memorable for the setup and the long reach to meet him and battle his 'adds'. Not bad for what's basically a bunch of reskins! 

Ancient Frost Atronach

Speaking of reskins, Vyrthur is accompanied by this bloke, the Ancient Frost Atronach... who uses a relatively unique body with a more rounded-off head, a paler tone and more prominent eye-holes! It basically functions like a souped-up Frost Atronach, but I did remember seeing this thing for the first time and realizing that, huh, it doesn't just look like a regular Frost Atronach. Not much to say here, but it's cool.

Frost Giant

Making a return from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the Frost Giants are... they're definitely interesting! The Frost Giants are found only in the Forgotten Vale, and act like sort of hidden mini-bosses, being found in only five locations, with only five of them existing. While they are the size of (and use the animations of) Giants, they look more like gigantic trolls, what with the horns and the elongated heads. They also have five eyes, in contrast to a troll's three. Ultimately, though, these are definitely pretty interesting variations of normal monsters, and I do kind of wish that they actually did show up a bit more in the rest of the world, because I completely forgot about these guys. 

Vale Sabre Cat & Vale Deer

Not much to say here, but the Forgotten Vale apparently have unique variations of the Sabre Cat and the Deer, with pretty cool neon tattoos. While most of the additional enemy variations that Dawnguard adds tend to just be souped-up recolours, these two are pretty dang neat. 

Boneman

So one of the locations you go through is the Soul Cairn, which is basically a nightmarish, hellish purple landscape where all of the souls that are soul-trapped in Black Soul Gems are sent off to languish for all eternity. The Soul Cairn itself is a pretty damn cool, nightmarish location, with all the purple and all the souls languishing around, confused at being trapped in this bizarre realm.

The main enemies in the Soul Cairn are basically reskinned skeletons that make use of names from an older Elder Scrolls spinoff game, Battlespire, but I do like what they did with the skeletons! Bleaching them blackish-purple, glowing eyes, a faint aura of mist around them... I did say that the Shades from the vanilla game should've appeared more, didn't I? It's a shame that the Bonemen only appear in the Soul Cairn or as summoned minions by you. 

Mistman

Unlike their name suggests, Mistmen are not able to turn into mist. They're basically just reskinned undead mages who use spells. And punch you if they somehow run out of mana. I do love the fact that they just float around without any lower body, though. 

Wrathman

Wrathmen are the strongest of the Soul Cairn undead, and are basically equivalent of Draugr, with armour and wielding higher-leveled weaponry. I do like the contrast of the pretty bulky nordic armour and the skinny-ass bone limbs. Again, not much to say here, but they do make for cool-looking glowing-eyed undead.

Keeper

Dawnguard has a lot of one-off unique boss fights, huh? The Keepers here are part of a very intricate Easter Egg quest that takes place in the pretty large area of the Soul Cairn, and end up being pretty memorable boss fights! Sometime during the storyline, you end up having to destroy a barrier preventing you from meeting up with an ally, and you have to destroy the three boneyard Keepers, who live in their own ruined castles. It's not apparent from these screenshots, but the Keepers are massive, towering creatures easily double the height of an average person, and I really do love how they are just humanoids in armour with a gigantic cloud of black mist covering where their head should be, with nothing but glowing pinpoint-eyes to mark where their heads are. It's that simple detail that ends up making what's essentially another Draugr/Skeleton retexture feel so unique.

Durnehviir

Speaking of unique monsters, after killing the Keepers, you enter this huge arena where you can rescue your friend Serana's mother, Valerica... but not before you fight against this giant, rotting undead dragon! Vanilla Skyrim did have a brief boss fight against a Skeletal Dragon, but Durnehviir here is a fully-fledged undead, rotting dragon. His wings are rotten, and closer examination of his model really shows just how his flesh is truly corpse-like, with strings of cobweb-like flesh above bone.

Unlike most dragons you meet, though, Durnehviir isn't actually evil, he's just tricked by the Ideal Masters, the eldritch abominations that govern the Soul Cairn, into guarding Valerica until she 'dies'... except, y'know, Valerica is an immortal vampire, trapping Durnehviir inside the Soul Cairn for several hundred years, so much that the Soul Cairn's energies warped his body. After you defeat Durnehviir, he reveals that he is unable to be truly killed, but by falling in battle against you, he's been freed of his deal with the Ideal Masters. Tragically, he is unable to live outside of the Soul Cairn... but does lend you his name to be used as a dragon shout.

And when you do use his shout outside of the Soul Cairn, Durnehviir is so delighted to fly the skies of the real world once more, and is just so happy that he teaches you the words for another undead-manipulating shout. Oh, and Durnehviir is one of the few dragons to not just use one of the 'beam' shouts like Unrelenting Force, Fire Breath and Frost Breath, but uses Drain Vitality and a unique shout to him that summons Wrathmen, Mistmen and Bonemen. Pretty neat stuff! I always loved the tragic story behind Durnehviir's fate.

Reaper

The Reaper is yet another unique hidden boss in Dawnguard, and unlocking his fight is... it's pretty damn extensive. You have to collect a bunch of unique fragments in the Soul Cairn, at which point you'll have to bring them to a unique area. The reaper himself is a giant, ghostly thing with an executioner's hood, and a unique ability where he vomits poison on you. The area you fight him in is also pretty memorable, literally a small coliseum with mountains of bones around it. There's really no backstory to Mr. Reaper here, and he's just a bizarre giant undead oddity in the already pretty unsettling Soul Cairn. Pretty interesting boss fight, though!

Revered Dragon

While they ultimately function similarly to most regular dragons, using the same AI and animations, Dawnguard adds two brand-new dragon variants that are more powerful than the Ancient Dragon. Popping up at beyond level 59, Revered Dragons always looked pretty unique to me, with a tapering, broad neck and tail that look far more flat compared to other dragons, sort of like bearded dragons or something.

Two unique revered dragons in the Forgotten Vale, called Naslaarum and Voslaarum, serve as a dual boss fight around halfway through the area, bursting out of a giant frozen lake and fighting you with some unique mechanics that no other dragon in the game ever use -- bursting in and out of the frozen lake, causing you to have to watch out of attacks from above and below. Easily one of the most memorable fights in Skyrim for me, and for some reason these two are quite literally just random dragons in a lake.

Legendary Dragon

The pinncale of dragons, the Legendary Dragon are the mightiest of all the possible dragons that may spawn... and they honestly still really look like most other dragons, other than the unique texturing of their wings, and the curved horns on their head. A closer inspection of their faces would reveal that they actually have compound eyes, which is such an interesting feature on a reptilian-based creature like a dragon! Again, though, it's just such a shame that all the dragons ultimately behave similarly and you fight most of them from a distance. I dunno. They really could've done more with dragons, I think, although the Revered and Legendary variants at least looked pretty different.

Anyway, that's about it for Dawnguard. There are a bunch of additional enemies that are repaints of existing models without any real visual variation, so I'll be skipping those. Next up we're riding to Solstheim for the final Skyrim DLC, Dragonborn!

The Flash S05E16 Review: XSpresso

The Flash, Season 5, Episode 16: Failure is an Orphan

An... an interesting episode, for sure. Honestly, we're 16 episodes into the season and I'm honestly pretty much so tired with Cicada, and I really am thankful that the writers have some semblance of sanity and realize that they're not going to pull another Thinker and stretch a villain with so much material for an entire season. The thing is, honestly, while I'm willing to give any villain a chance, Cicada honestly just easily feels like the shittiest Big Bad in any CW show in that he genuinely never feels entertaining. I want to compare him to Ricardo Diaz as both Cicada and Diaz have always felt like they had an edge over their respective enemies simply because of plot contrivance, but Diaz was at least hammy and entertaining. Cicada just feels like someone trying too hard to sound scary, but ends up being one-dimensional and bland.

After a brief talk with Eobard Thawne in 2049, Nora ends up witnessing a "new timeline struggling to break through", which has the rather hilarious visual of a newspaper report fragmenting and transforming, which is honestly pretty silly. With Eobard warning her to get done with Cicada before this timeline breaks and they lose their chance, Nora returns to the present day (honestly, the fact that Nora can apparently only travel between 2018/2019 and 2049 is always something that bugged me) and begins pestering everyone about metahuman cases and the like.

Meanwhile, Iris wants to get a very overworked Nora to lighten up since it might be the last time they get to spend together (why, though? I mean, Nora's a time-traveler, she can pop around and say hi any time), while Barry works on making a speech to say to Cicada. Some fun little interactions from the charismatic cast, and Nora pulling out random Flash Pep Talks is pretty neat continuity nod. They find the plot device metahuman of the episode, "Acid Master", who probably ties with Sand Demon and Shade as the most bland and uninteresting villain of the week.

Meanwhile, Joe West's B-plot leads him and Cecile to interrogate dr. Vanessa Ambres, the doctor lady curing Cicada, and finally we get a name to her face, despite having being a recurring character for over 10 episodes. This leads to some hijinks as Joe gets intimidated by Cecile's truth-seeking abilities and gets thrown off his game, leading to an argument which, in turn, causes Barry to pep-talk Joe into apologizing. Honestly, this Joe/Barry moment was genuinely very well done, and I really realize how much the show has missed Jesse L. Martin.

Also, speaking of missing actors, Ralph is nowhere to be seen in this episode. Honestly, considering how great Flash has been at just having Cisco or whoever handwave absence, it's pretty weird why Ralph is consistently this character that disappears and reappears between episodes.

Joe and Cecile's investigation and interrogation of dr. Ambres ends up with the revelation that little Grace is also a metahuman, and when they manage to set up a string operation to get Flash to talk to Cicada... he opens his mask (which is kinda dumb, but Barry is dumb) and tries to appeal to Cicada as a father. Cicada wants to have dr. Ambres be present when they administer the cure, and also because they need to stitch up the wound that will reopen once Cicada's powers are nullified. It's... it's honestly a character change that I don't particularly like, but Cicada has honestly been such a one-dimensional character defined by vengeance for his adoptive daughter, that I can definitely buy him going "yeh okay" with all of this. Genuinely wished they had done more, but... eh, okay.

The operation is interrupted by a second Cicada, who the show tries to play up the mystery but is obvious that she's the same person from Grace's dreams. This Cicada seems to have Force-esque people throwing powers, too, so I guess both Cicadas have "random powers as the plot demands" as a similar point. Cicada II kills Ambres, the dagger also responds to her, and she kidnaps Orlin away and reveals herself to be a future Grace Gibbons.

And... okay, that could be cool. I'm not a big fan that the first Cicada is honestly just a bland, boring flat character that basically serves as this origin story accessory for a potentially more interesting second Cicada. And there clearly are a lot of parallels being shoved down our throats, with both Grace and Nora being future daughters that come to the past to engage in this conflict... but it's a fun twist, and hopefully one that's not as bland as original Cicada has been.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Acid Master, a.k.a. Phillip Master, is a minor Superman villain from the golden age, although instead of being a metahuman, the comic-book Acid Master was a treacherous chemist who betrayed the USA to work for other countries. 
• Eobard mentions "Anthro the First Boy" and "Kamandi the Last". Both are characters that received comics in DC before they became exclusively superhero-characters -- with Anthro being a caveman and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, living in a post-apocalyptic flooded world where he is the only human in a Planet of the Apes style world with beast-men being the dominant species, but have basically been canonized in DC canon as being the "first human" and the "last human" respectively, and the two have made multiple cameos over the years in various DC crossover comics. 

Gotham S05E07 Review: Batman Needs The Joker

Gotham, Season 5, Episode 7: ACE Chemicals

Oh, boy, I love this episode. I have always enjoyed Gotham's version of the Joker, setting him up more as a myth passed down from one crazy man to the next. Sure, thanks to the DCEU studios being meanies they can't actually call Jeremiah or Jerome straight-up "the Joker", but honestly? This version of the Joker and his utter obsession with Bruce is perhaps one of the better Joker/Batman interactions I've ever seen. And, sure, the same argument of this happening before either of them have donned their personas permeates all of the Gotham show as a whole, but I honestly think that it doesn't matter that much. Gotham has done a lot of the legwork to make the history of the characters work, that I've even started to subconsciously refer to Jeremiah as "Joker" in my head. He's certainly far more Joker than the embarrassing 2Edgy4Me Tattooed Gold-toothed Gangster version from the Suicide Squad movie, anyway.


And honestly... I enjoyed this episode a lot. Part of it might be my own bias and general fanboying for general Joker/Batman stories, but the episode itself is built up pretty well through short scenes slowly unveiling bits and pieces of Joker's master plan before finally exploding into a full episode of its own. The cold open with random firecrackers and random people killed by the Joker laughing gas is pretty creepy while having that whimsical 'sick joke' mentality that a lot of modern adaptations of Joker have completely forgotten. See, the Joker's whole point is that he dresses up all of his maniacal crimes with some comedy, some punch-line that's ridiculous but funny in the right circumstance. Take that away to make him more 'serious', and he's no longer the Joker and just some clown-themed serial killer. But I digress.

I do like that the episode goes straight into Bruce already discovering Alfred missing and is basically recruited the GCPD to help look for him, but then Bruce himself gets led to Jeremiah's huge plan with a bunch of newspaper showing the Wayne deaths, as well as the pearls... and ends up crossing the underground tunnel to the mainland, seeing Jeremiah having hypnotized Alfred and two random people who's been facially reconstructed to look like Thomas and Martha Wayne, and it's so, so fucked up.

The hypnotism angle is a bit of an ass-pull, although I suppose the Mad Hatter has worked with a Joker before? It's pretty sick, honestly, and that lunch scene as Jeremiah rants about wanting to be Bruce's best friend, and the way to do so is to have Bruce re-experience the most important day of his life and connect to him. It's definitely an interesting angle of Joker's character, less about the whole 'one bad day' or 'everything burns' mentality, but moer of his obsession of being Batman's arch-enemy. We get a genuinely tense and well-shot scene of Bruce getting Alfred to duck into the tunnel before Jeremiah's bomb explodes.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot of this episode, we get some genuinely bizarre hijinks about Barbara wanting Leslie to be her Obs/gyn doctor, which is just so utterly impossible to take seriously, and perhaps it is this aspect that made this particularly insane plot twist work. I don't really care about any of Gordon and Leslie's romance-not-romance storyline going on in this episode, honestly. Meanwhile, Penguin and Selina are trying to figure out how to pass the river, and apparently there are mines in the river? I'm not sure how that works. Either way, the two go on their own merry way as they go through the B-plots, with Selina backstabbing Penguin and working alongside Barbara, and both Gordon and Leslie getting captured by Mad Hatter and Echo.

I'm not sure where the Selina storyline is going, honestly, and her suddenly breaking cover and holding Penguin at knifepoint seemed a bit random and just there to further the storyline along, and get Alfred to recruit Selina to help out Bruce.

Aaanyway, back to the meat of the story, we get Bruce being brought to the theater where we get to see what Jeremiah was doing with all those people that he killed in the beginning with 'Z' carved into their bodies, and apparently it's a sick re-enactment of the Mark of Zorro, the movie that young little Bruce Wayne watched and was so scared of that he begged his parents to exit the theater. It's a fun little speech from Jeremiah, telling Bruce that if he managed to conquer his fear, maybe his parents could still be alive, in a neat variant of the Batman Begins storyline. In a fun bit of improvisation by the villains, Jeremiah decides to swap out the plastic-surgery randoms with a hypnotized Gordon and Leslie to be the 'Thomas and Martha' that he kills, which is... it's actually well-done and I didn't see this coming. Oh, and there's a master plan of unleashing the laughing gas all over the city to deny aid from coming into the city. Which... which is kind of ridiculous, but that's the sort of comic-book governmental nonsense that I've came to expect from these shows.

Of course, Jeremiah immediately monologues about the cruelty of this particular hypnosis, that Gordon and Leslie will be released fro their hypnotism the moment the pearls hit the ground, which... okay, I actually would buy that Jeremiah would be that cruel and petty. Selina shows up for the rescue, and we get a three-way fight as Gordon deals with the firework bombs, while Bruce and Jeremiah fight atop the chemical vats, leading to the honestly surprisingly well-done confrontation between the two, where Jeremiah rants that Bruce "needs him", because he's just a "joke without a punchline" without him. Yeah, Batman needs the Joker, all that. Because of origin story tropes, the struggle leads to Jeremiah plunging into the bubbling chemical vat, and we later see his scarred, apparently brain-dead-but-still-alive body.

He's not going to be out for long, of course, but it's a neat exit for his character for the moment. Meanwhile, Gordon only manages to drive the fireworks van into the Gotham River, preventing the airborne dispersal of the Joker Gas, but doesn't prevent it from released into the river, and extending this No Man's Land storyline for a bit. The epilogue throws in a bunch of developments, with Oswald recruiting Riddler as an ally, them wanting to construct a submarine with Barbara, and Gordon and Leslie having a whole slap/slap/kiss nonsense going on. Not the biggest fan of Barbara's entire storyline honestly just revolving around her being pregnant, but eh, at least it leads to some gems from the story-writers.

Anyway, a pretty masterful episode from Gotham, and even if this is the last appearance of Joker in this continuity, he definitely went out with one hell of a bang.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Lots of various references to various incarnations of the Joker:
• ACE Chemicals is the location in the comics where Batman fought the 'Red Hood gang' (or a pre-Joker version of Joker, depending on the continuity) and during the struggle, Joker gets thrown into a vat of chemicals and transforms him into the madman he is now. While Jeremiah's already kinda crazy before, the fact that it takes place at Ace Chemicals and involves a struggle leading to his fall is definitely a reference to this. Ace Chemicals itself has shown up in many other adaptations of Batman.
• The Joker's utter obsession in becoming Batman's super-duper arch rival has been a running theme going on as long as the two characters have existed as fictional characters, particularly explored in Dark Knight Returns. 
• Jeremiah trying to kill Batman's parents is an allusion to the Tim Burton 1989 Batman movie, where he was the one responsible for their deaths. 
• The Mark of Zorro, the movie that young Bruce Wayne watched as a kid before the faithful night of the encounter, get referenced a couple of times in the episode. The fact that Jeremiah alludes to young Bruce apparently being too afraid of the violence and begging his parents to go home (and meeting the gunman) is an allusion to Batman Begins. 
• Wayne Manor's blown up a couple more times than you think, notably in the Batman Begins movie and the Arkham Knight game. 

Digimon Reviews, Episode 16: Wormmon and Friends

So thanks to the advancement of technology, the virtual pets (D3, I think they're called) released during the 02 era each contained two main evolutionary lines, which is two of the protagonists of the cartoon. Each of these Child-levels can turn into all the armours, and there's like a mini story-mode where your Digimon will fight a bunch of NPC bosses, which I'll cover in the corresponding Digimon. As you could probably guess, Veemon is paired with his Jogress partner, Wormmon.

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Leafmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby I
• Type: Slime
• Attribute: None

The Baby I stage this time around isn't just a smaller chibi Wormmon, but a unique design! I did say most of the Babies in this era onwards are bland, but not all. Leafmon here clearly isn't! He's adorable, this cute little blob sucking on the cutest pacifier ever, with its tail looping up as a little umbrella-leaf. The Bandai profile is kind of generic, sadly, just noting that it's part-plant and apparently it can calm people down just by being around? Sort of like how people get instantly relaxed when they see a cute puppy or kitty, I guess. Leafmon here is admittedly the only member of this evolutionary line to not actually be a bug and rather a plant, but considering the same franchise had plants that evolve into birds and tadpoles, I'll let it slide.

 9/10.
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Minomon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby II
• Type: Larva
• Attribute: None

Leafmon evolves into a very adorable little Baby II form based on the bagworm larva (Megalophanes viciella), putting Pokemon's minimal-effort Burmy into shame. But it's not just based on a fascinating insect, but it's a very, very adorable adaptation of one. LOOK AT THIS THING! Look at how adorable it is, being a little bug-head baby with a funky little mouth that opens sideways, two chubby baby arms holding the edge of the pinecone blanket thing, and also it can float around above the ground for no reason, but when it really wants to cosplay a bagworm, his little hair-antenna can attach to surfaces. Adorable. Look at him! Apparently, it throws around real pinecones, too.

In addition to being the Baby II form of Ken's Wormmon in 02, Minomon serves as minor antagonists in a filler episode of Frontier, used as minions of a villainous Snimon. Interestingly, the Minomon are used explicitly because of their adorable looks, masquerading as friendly guards to a facility that hides a darker secret. Minomon's also shown up in Xros Wars as background characters in Jungle Zone. Overall, easily one of my my favourite Baby II's in Digimon.

 10/10.

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Wormmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Larva
• Attribute: Free

And this chubby grubby boy is why poor Kunemon is so under-utilized. And while under any normal circumstance would definitely prefer the more monstrous bug  monster... Wormmon is so cute! It is so chubby and you can just imagine him just waddling around, and he likes to perch on his partner's shoulder like a little grub-parrot. Oh, and that adorable pair of anime-eyes is matched with a pretty badass looking sideways-mouth, which I've always thought was a cool feature that reminds us that, yes, as friendly and happy and adorable as Wormmon is, he's still a bug! And both the English and Japanese dub do a great job at making Wormmon's voice adorable... even doing a bit of a Droopy-esque deal with his English voice.

Anyway,  Wormmon here, just like the six Digimon that can undergo armour evolution, is stated to be the desccendant of an ancient Digimon species, but is itself harmless. Hey, don't knock Wormmon like that! Wormmon here is one of the few partner Digimon to actually have a character arc himself, and his partner Ichijouji Ken is easily the only properly-developed main character in 02. See, for the first half of 02, the main villain isn't a Digimon. No, it's the self-proclaimed Digimon Kaiser (Emperor in the dub), who is one of the Chosen Children that entered the digital world before the current cast, and managed to develop some technology to enslave what he thinks is a virtual game. Of course, later episodes and Wonderswan games would reveal that Ken turning into the Kaiser wasn't done willingly, and under some sort of Dark Spore mind-corrupting stuff, but at the same time, he is a megalomaniacal tyrant that straight-up enslaves armies of Digimon and sends them to their deaths wily-nily. Even Taichi's Agumon got victimized by this!

We also learn that Ken is like the sort of anime character that's inherently better than everyone else. He's handsome, loved by girls, super-popular, athletic and all those tropes common in these sort of characters... but we also learn that he's struggling with a gigantic amount of survivor's guilt when his older brother (who he's always trying to compete with) got hit by a van and died. Throw in a pair of parents who are used to over-achieving children, and some corruption that fed on darkness that's already there, Ken became a villain and got a badass cape. He made Kimeramon and shit, ready to destroy the digital world... and then realizes that he was never really in control. But it was Wormmon that made him realize what's wrong. See, Wormmon has been very, very, very helpful, acting as the Big Bad's little sidekick, but not in a sycophantic way like PicoDevimon. No, Wormmon clearly wants to help Ken, even though in his hubris Ken only sees Wormmon as a little grub Child-level. Wormmon faithfully helps Ken, loves Ken and would literally die for Ken. Which he did. Noooo!

For a good chunk of the second half of the series, though, Ken tries to redeem himself,  and it's Ken's acceptance of his guilt that actually caused Wormmon to be reborn. Ken would go as a bit of a lone vigilante hunting down evil Digimon and the minions of the actual villains of the show that had manipulated him, before finally being integrated into the main group. Interestingly for these sort of Sasuke-style rival characters, after the Kaiser bit was beaten out of him... he's no longer arrogant and snotty, and actually is a pleasant, well-mannered boy! And none of it would be possible because of Wormmon, the charmingest little grub boy ever.

Anyway, I love Wormmon. Is that a surprise?

 9/10.

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Stingmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Insect
• Attribute: Free

You know, you'll probably expect me to rant a bit about how Stingmon is humanoid and I would prefer something more monstrous like Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon. But no! Stingmon's cool! He's humanoid, yes, and I can't really say that I wouldn't prefer Wormmon to evolve into something more bestial, but if they're going for the humanoid route, Stingmon's easily the best-case scenario. As Wormmon's default Adult-stage evolution, Stingmon here is kind of like a Kamen Rider style monster, a humanoid, armoured bug... and I love him. His expressionless bug face, his long green-red antenna, those wings... and best of all, the black armour that he wears! The spiky shoulder-things and his metal claws and his wrist-mounted spike cannon are all pretty damn badass, and Stingmon has a lot of badass scenes in the anime. Stingmon here is the only real stage that Ken's Wormmon is only ever shown to transform into in the anime, because his Perfect stage is a Jogress fusion with ExVeemon, but damn if it isn't a cool warrior bug-man.

Also, I played a lot of Digimon Rumble Arena (Tamers: Battle Evolution in Japan) as a kid, and while every other playable character transformed into their most badass Ultimate stage, with characters like WarGreymon and Dukemon and Holydramon and Beelzemon and Imperialdramon... humble old Wormmon evolves into a mere Adult-stage Stingmon and can kick ass as well as any of them.

Other than 02, Stingmon was a major supporting character in Xros Wars, being the hero of Jungle Zone, and is apparently in a relationship with Lilamon. Well, when your parents talked about the birds and the bees, in the Digimon world it's apparently literal! Stingmon is shown to be pretty damn capable as a fighter, although since he's not one of the main characters, tended to serve as the fall guy. He's also one of the Xros Wars character to recur down the line, too. Overall, Stingmon's pretty damn badass! I like the bug man Kamen Rider, is that a surprise? 

 9/10.

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Dinobeemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Free

So when fused between ExVeemon and Stingmon with Stingmon as the 'main' part of the Jogress, they transform into Dinobeemon here. 

Moreso than Fladramon, Holsmon, Paildramon, the Frontier boys or any of the other designs that were designed with transforming toys in mind, Dinobeemon feels like an afterthought. I actually have the exact ExVeemon/Stingmon/Paildramon transforming toy, and... you can kind of move around the various folding and unfolding parts to create this.

It's just a real, real mess. In Transformers toy lingo, there's just a lot of "kibble" -- things from the toy's other forms -- that's just hanging around randomly, namely Stingmon/Paildramon's arms that are just hanging off behind the bug wings, and ExVeemon's dragon wings on the hips. The distribution of colours are messy, and while I appreciate the idea of a more "beastly", a more "monstrous" Jogress fusion between ExVeemon and Stingmon... this doesn't look like a mutant or a chimera. This looks exactly what it is -- a mistransformed toy.

The thing is, you could do something with that. You could make the secondary Stingmon arms actually be a second pair of arms like Chimairamon. Hide one of the wings. On paper I actually like the concept of a more predatorial, more buggy fusion, but one with enough draconic DNA to have giant muscular blue dragon-man arms to choke prey. But the execution is quite, quite bad.

 1/10.

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GranKuwagamon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Free

It doesn't help that the more "Wormmon" Ultimate stage was GranKuwagamon... which makes most fans associate it as the convenient final form for Adult Kuwagamon and Perfect Okuwamon! This means that poor Wormmon and Stingmon doesn't really "get" a dedicated, easy-to-associate Ultimate stage like most of the other main characters.

GranKuwagamon is... a bit messy, although I can see that they're going for a parallel with HerakleKabuterimon's centaur-esque body configuration. GranKuwagamon here is certainly a design that looks better with a bit of streamlining, because the Bandai art doesn't really do it any favours. It's got the Kuwagamons' distinct stag-beetle horns, and a fun face with two little pincers on it. I kinda like how GranKuwagamon's "hands" are formed out of the middle set of limbs instead of the front ones, making it not 'quite' a centaur body layout. GranKuwagamon is, as expected, described to be the rival to HerakleKabuterimon and have an eternal, legendary beef.

I had thought that it would be a design that would look better in motion, but in GranKuwagamon's appearances in Tamers, Frontier and Xros Wars they are shown to be relatively static when moving. Despite Kuwagamon's general reputation as a villain in these anime shows, GranKuwagamon's Tamers and Frontier roles had it be part of a 'cavalry' of Ultimate-level Digimon fighting against the D-Reapers and Royal Knights respectively, which I thought was interesting. 

I do still ultimately like this bug-centaur monster, particularly as we slowly move away from this design aesthetic for bug monsters... but it's still a design that I wish was a bit less cluttered. It is surprising that I actually like this 'ultimate' Kuwagamon a lot less than all the Kuwagamons and Kabuterimons before it! 

 7/10, could be 8. 
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Shadramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Insect
• Attribute: Free

Wormmon got the full set of 10 Armour evolutions in the virtual pets, but not a single one made it into the 02 anime -- once Ken and Wormmon joined the side of the good guys, the show (and promoted toys) have shifted to the Jogress evolutions. I do wonder if some of these weren't originally designed to be "alternate transformations" or "toy repaints" at some point?

Shadramon here looks too much to be using Fladramon's "chunks of the Courage Digimental split into armour" look, after all. There are some differences, of course, the two most obvious ones being the addition of flaming moth wings and a bug head with Wormmon's mouth. I also like the jagged lower arms. A punch from those would probably hurt a lot. Interestingly while most of the 'inner' body has Stingmon's dark green skin, the veiny flesh and the ears look more like a Veemon armour.

The official profile notes that Shadramon here is apparently a Digimon that has an "unfortunate adverse reaction" to the digimental of courage and became evil? What? Uh... Wormmon is straight-up allergic to the digimental of courage? That's unexpected.

Shadramon didn't show up in any anime or manga for the longest time until Ghost Game, almost two decades after its initial debut... where a Shadramon was fused into a human and began to slowly possess the poor host!

 6/10.
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Searchmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Insect
• Attribute: Free

I'm not going to do any of these armour evolutions in the same order as I did with Veemon's, and will list whatever I think is a bit more relevant first. For Wormmon, it's the bugs! Wormmon's Knowledge Armour evolution is Searchmon. I think Searchmon might be one of the more obvious ones where all the Armour evolutions actually have the sigil/crest from the Adventure anime incorporated into its design in some way, with Searchmon's being on its huge radar dish. 

Searchmon is a neat-enough robot beetle or cricket of some sort, with the giant radar dish glued to its back. It looks quite sleek and not quite the style of 'robot monster' that Digimon used to have -- think of Mechanorimon, or MetalGreymon, or Andromon -- and it's a shame that we never actually got a proper 'cyborg bug' in that aesthetic. I don't want to be mean and rag on Searchmon for using a different artstyle, but I have to admit I find him way more boring than he could've been. 

Searchmon's specialty, of course, is searching -- it can detect the presence of enemies as long as they make any small sound or vibration, before unleashing debilitating 'jamming waves'. Searchmon would make its anime debut in a cameo in Xros Wars... but surprisingly would get a relatively major role as a recurring character in Adventure: 2020, as the evolution of a Tyumon/Chuumon of all things! The 'radar' bit was themed more as a scavenger's metal detector instead of a military equipment, which I thought was quite clever. 

 5/10. Not my favourite, but he's all right. 
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Kongoumon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Insect
• Attribute: Free

Wormmon's Miracle Armour (which gave us deus ex machina powerup Magnamon) is the rather disappointing Kongoumon. He's a six-armed golden cartoon bug monk holding a bunch of vajras. He's got Wormmon's mouth. and I... I don't really care for it? The concept would be interesting if they made Kongoumon a bit more serious, but it doesn't do either the comical or the imposing aesthetics particularly well. I feel like it's trying to do a bunch of interesting themes together, but fails to deliver on either one of them satisfactorily. 

Kongoumon's profile notes that it is "an agent of God on earth since ancient times, separate from Angel Digimon'... but does not go on and elaborate anything about what this golden bug does as an agent of God.

That's really a shame! Kongoumon had brief cameos in Frontier and Savers, but I remember him the most from Xros Wars where he was an arc villain. A Kabuterimon was forcibly transformed into an evil Kongoumon and acts as one of the generals that led a bug-themed army that's trying to conquer one of the zones. 

 4/10.

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Archelomon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Reptile
• Attribute: Free

This one is a cool one! Archelomon is Wormmon's Sincerity Armour evolution, which is tied to Gomamon and Joe. It draws its name from Archelon, an extinct genus of giant sea turtles. Archelomon's design itself is pretty nice, with a nice set of spiky shell, blades for flippers, one of the very few Wormmon armours to have the green antennae sprout out to establish that this is an 'armour'. I'm not the biggest fan of the pink hair and beak, but otherwise I like Archelomon quite a bit. 

Most importantly, Archelomon's shell? That's the shell that Gomamon's Perfect form Zudomon lugs around as back armour! The implication being that all Zudomon, at some point, have slain an Archelomon to wear their shells on their backs. This is a great little nod that the profiles don't point out, but I do really like that detail. Digimon Adventure 2020 even references this, having the specter of an Archelomon appear and bequeath its shell during the transformation sequence of Ikkakumon to Zudomon!

Again, I kind of wish that we got this cool design with the older, less simplified-to-be-a-plastic-toy art style. It most definitely looks better in animated form, which gives it more organic details and better proportions. Archelomon appears in Tamers as a hostile enemy, and in Xros Wars as a senile old turtle-man. This one is all right! I like it. 

 7/10, could be 8

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Togemogumon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Mammal
• Attribute: Free

And those are any of Wormmon's Armour evolutions that actually feel like they are related to Wormmon. And that's honestly because those are all bugs. As the next batch are going to demonstrate, none of these have the 'oh, look at Veemon's blue skin beneath the armour' vibe that Veemon's evolutions have, and it's going to be a running theme for the rest of the 02 armour evolutions. A bit of a shame, if they had committed to the Armour evolution stuff I might have respected it a bit more. 

Togemogumon is Wormmon fused with the Friendship Digimental, which if you need a refresher, was originally associated with Yamato/Gabumon and turns Veemon into Raidramon. It turns Wormmon... into a giant mole. A very awkward-looking mole, too, with overly chunky legs, and a very bland-looking face. This one surely should've been an Armadimon Armour?

There is the slight gimmick that Togemogumon's crystals are ice crystals, which doesn't prick you so much as freeze you. That's... that's all there is to it. Togemogumon made cameos as citizens in Xros Wars. I just feel like this one felt like a rough concept, like they just rushed to draw an animal they haven't made into a Digimon yet and called it a day. 

 3/10.
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Bullmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Mammal
• Attribute: Free

Yeah, there really was no rhyme or reason here. Wormmon Armour-digivolves with Patamon's Digimental of Hope into Bullmon. Who is a bull wearing tacky blue armour and a bright red cape. I get that the cape is a reference to matadors and bullfighting. Bullmon is described as a simple-minded brute that is very powerful, but can only charge forwards and can't control itself, and gets angrier and angrier.

I get that bulls aren't the most exciting creature out there, but they really could've made this one look a lot more interesting visually. Bullmon appeared cameos in Frontier and Xros Wars, and finally became a villain-of-the-week in Adventure: 2020 where it teamed up with fellow bull Digimon Minotarumon. 

 3/10. Kind of boring. 

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Owlmon

• Alternate Names: Aurumon (alternate romanization)
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Bird
• Attribute: Free

This is Wormmon's evolution with Sora/Piyomon's Digimental of Love... and... yeah, even without the expectation that this is supposed to be a Wormmon evolution, it's just bland, isn't it? A lot of these are just 'draw an animal and give them a couple of accessories', huh? Owlmon is just... it's just an owl with some quasi-robotic details, a set of sci-fi goggles and a set of metal 'ear guards'. 

Owlmon's profile describes its ability to detect enemies in the dark, making it essentially a more night-vision themed Searchmon. Owlmon hasn't really appeared in any media beyond being minor video game enemies. Really, I would've commented much more about it if it wasn't so boring. It's just an owl! 

 2/10.

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Nohemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Puppet
• Attribute: Free

I actually really like Nohemon. Yes, part of it was because their random, one-off scene in Digimon Tamers to demonstrate how unsettling and strange the Digital World can be stuck with me as a kid. But I just like scarecrows as an enemy in general, and while creepy jack-o-lantern monster scarecrows are cool, these less aggressive-looking, dumpy Wizard-of-Oz designs are also neat. 

Nohemon evolves with Palmon/Mimi's Purity Digimental, which kind of makes sense. Most of the Purity-related armours are plant-based somehow, and scarecrows kind of loosely count on account of being made of straw. 

The most important thing about Nohemon, however, isn't just that it is a scarecrow with a scribbled-on face (and a bow and arrow) -- it's that the bird puppet is the real Digimon. You can actually see it even in the base art, where the bird on the arm has actual eyes, while the entire face on Nohemon is just scribbled on. Those familiar with Japanese culture will recognize the markings/face as a henohenomoheji, a common way to draw a face using hiragana characters. That's actually very cool! Puppets have been a running theme in old-school Digimon, but this is one that uses a puppet body as a distraction and a weapon. That bow-and-arrow isn't for show!

I talked about Nohemon's cameo in Tamers above, but they also make brief background appearances in a Frontier movie. A Nohemon gets to be an ally-of-the-week in Adventure: 2020, which really got a lot of mileage with the confirmation that it's the bird that's alive, and the Nohemon's voice comes entirely from the bird. I really like Nohemon -- I like that it manages to be both friendly and creepy without resorting to the expected 'creepy stalking scarecrow' tropes. 

 9/10. I actually like this one! It's so weird!

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Coatlmon

• Alternate Names: Quetzalmon (EN dub)
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Mythical Beast
• Attribute: Free

Wormmon evolves with the Light Digimental into Coatlmon, and... it's pretty cool, isn't it? It's a great-looking 'holy beast'. Based on Quetzalcoatl (and called 'Quetzalmon' in the English dub), Coatlmon draws from Aztec mythology and gives us a cool armoured winged serpent. I really like the details of those golden runes running down its body, interspaced with red snake-like patterns. The snake head and the wings look neat, and while I'm not sure why there's a giant bush of green hair (that's a Stingmon thing? But why does Stingmon have hair?) but it actually does a great job at breaking up the otherwise monotonous white and red. 

Coatlmon here is noted to be a sacred being that is the embodiment of the sun and wind, and while normally well-tempered, it will cast deadly curses on those that attack it carelessly. It really does look quite majestic, and I could see it being the lower-evolved form of other 'holy beast' Digimon like Goddramon or Magnadramon. 

Coatlmon gets a rather major role in Digimon Savers, where one of the human villains is able to transform into a 'Bio Coatlmon'. Coatlmon would also later make a creepy appearance in Ghost Game, explicitly portrayed as a 'sinister angel' enemy. Pretty cool design overall, and I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this one. 

 

 8/10.

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Pucchiemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
• Type: Fairy
• Attribute: Free

Bizarrely, you'd think that Wormmon's own crest, Kindness, would give him an armour evolution that's particularly suited or themed around him. And it turns Wormmon into... Pucchiemon here, who is like a humanoid fairy? Um??

Taking away that expectation, I do find Pucchiemon kind of all right as a cute fairy-imp, with those long ears and a design that generally looks like some kind of a department store mascot. The art style with the chunky gloves and boots brings to mind designs like Impmon in general. Pucchiemon also shows up in two versions, a red one and a green one.It's a bit surprising that they bothered to. 

I've warmed up to this one, mostly because it at least isn't 'just' an animal with some accessories. Pucchiemon is noted to like to share secrets with others, and its mood swaps depending on whether you pat its head (it'll be happy!) or if you touch its tail (it'll be angry!). Pucchiemon's ability allows it to calm down the aggression and fighting spirits of hostile Digimon.

Since then, Pucchiemon's shown up as background and filler characters in Frontier and Xros Wars, often as 'peaceful' Digimon. A pair of them show up as supporting characters in Adventure: 2020, and a surprisingly creepy-cheerful interpretation as a 'payback' karma stalker in Ghost Game. All things considered, they are all right fairies/angels -- I'm happy to have them look more like abstract chibi humanoids. 

 4/10.
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Deathmon

• Alternate Names: Ghoulmon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Demon Lord
• Attribute: Virus

The Ultimate-level Deathmon (Ghoulmon in the dub) is one of the bosses in the D3 virtual pets, and quickly ended up being featured in many other video games. I think his most prominent appearance is in the V-Tamers manga, where he was formed from the Jogress evolution of a Megadramon and Jyureimon (of all things) and nearly killed the protagonist and his Veedramon. Deathmon here is, like most demon Digimon, a high-ranking Angel Digimon that was corrupted and transformed into a Demon Lord... but is noted by the profile that it's not wicked or evil the way your Devimons, Vamdemons and Piemons are, but rather does its best to straight-up maintain a position of neutrality. Hell, some sources even state that Deathmon is a Data type despite being a demon lord! Deathmon comes in gray and black flavours, and apparently when the time comes for a certain Ragnarok-style "final battle", it will transform into that jet-black state.


Deathmon's a pretty unique design, and I really do like how unconventionally weird he is for a demon. Just this huge formless body with mean-looking claws, demon wings stapled on his back, and a giant eyeball with a little black chitin helmet. Sort of looks like a fun D&D monster, really, and I love the additional eyeballs on its claws, as well as the chunk of pink flesh around his eyes and within his fingernails. Anyway, Deathmon's pretty neat -- not my favourite design, but definitely a neat contrast to all the humanoid demons out there. Deathmon here is one of  those Digimon I keep forgetting is an Ultimate, by the way, because I kept thinking that he's a Perfect-level. I know he's powerful, but his design is so neatly low-key that I don't remember that. It's still cool, though.

 7/10.

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Crossmon

• Alternate Names: Eaglemon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Giant Bird
• Attribute: Vaccine

I really didn't care about Crossmon here, who is the Ultimate-level evolution assigned to Parrotmon. It's basically the same 'beastly birdman' vibe as Parrotmon, only completely covered with golden armour and with very bent arms that look particularly awkward in its official Bandai artwork. 

Crossmon would appear in Digimon: 2020, which evolves its obligatory Parrotmon into Crossmon to fight our heroes. And... I just don't particularly care for him, he sure is a bird-man dude with wings? Newer art styles does make the wings and the eyeless mask a bit cooler, but I still find Crossmon (or 'Eaglemon' in the dubs) quite underwhelming. 

 3/10.

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