Kamen Rider Kabuto [2006-2007]
"Cast off! Change: Beetle!"
When I got into Kamen Rider as a franchise, I learned a lot about the other previous 'legend Riders' from crossovers. And out of all of the fancy older Kamen Riders, the one that has the most style, that catches my attention the most, is this dude with a slick metallic stag beetle outfit, an almost robotic look, constantly switching forms as he uses "Cast Off" to shed his metal armour pieces to access a sleeker form, and then "Clock Up" to move super-duper fast. Multiple crossover movies would basically have Kabuto team up with his fellow super-fast rider, Faiz, basically having him move in bullet time while the whole world slows around them, fighting against monsters that also move too fast for the eye to see.
And from style alone, Kabuto is perhaps one of my favourite-looking riders. No offense to any other Riders out there, Kabuto is probably who I point to for the most "classic" looking Kamen Rider design. And that's without taking into account just how goddamn cool the whole Cast Off and Clock Up mechanic ended up being.
And being intrigued, as I was, I ended up looking at what's going on with Kabuto's story. It's... it's pretty interesting. A Men in Black style organization called ZECT, who utilizes multiple Kamen Riders to hunt down an alien race called the Worm, who has the ability to perfectly mimic human beings even down to their memories? That honestly sounds like a pretty awesome sci-fi superhero stuff! Sure, it's kinda basic, but after going through some of the... weirder series, I was definitely interested to give Kabuto a try. Everyone I have met had something good to say about Kabuto as a series. I think it's one of the series people like to throw around as a great jumping-on spot to the franchise, and is credited as one of the larger causes of influx of non-Japanese fans into the franchise.
And... and honestly? I respectfully disagree, because I do have a couple of bones to pick with Kabuto. I still like the series enough to watch it to its end in a relatively timely manner, and I very much enjoy the style, but the more I delved into Kabuto as a series, the more I genuinely feel that the reason why Kabuto has so many defenders among the English speaking fandom is that it's one of the first Rider series to get a timely English-subbed release that didn't stop halfway through, making it many people's first complete series. And it's understandable -- it's got enough cool things going on, and it's definitely a relatively solid series (ending notwithstanding), but I definitely think it's far from being one of the best.
Overall, Mostly Spoiler-Free Series Review:
Now, to be fair... Kabuto isn't a terrible series. I've seen other shows that fare a lot worse than Kabuto. But while it certainly has some of the cleanest looking suits both on the Rider and monster side, and certainly has competent actors... the actual 49-episode show is a genuine drag to go through, and a good chunk of it is thanks to how you view Souji Tendou, the protagonist -- the self-styled "man who walks the path of heaven, ruling everything", a gigantic egomaniac who really treads the fine line where his ego is irritating or vaguely funny. And for a good chunk of the series, Tendou's ego falls into the irritating part. The show's also hurt pretty badly by poor pacing, with B-plots being stretched way longer than it should, as well as some bizarre disconnect in the tone the show's trying to show. We could have an episode where we get super-serious revelations about the tragic nature of Sasword, and then cut back to some bizarre deadpan humour about Tendou engaging in a cooking contest with cursed knives and a bizarre Jiiya doppelganger living in the mountain. Unlike most Kamen Rider shows, a lot of the humour in Kabuto is always played straight and utterly deadpan, and that honestly tends to lead to a lot of the supposedly-comedic moments sort of falling flat on their faces.
Throw in the fact that a lot of the revelations aren't sufficiently built up to, and that a lot of the Natives/Worms storyline doesn't really have much of a payoff, and the second half of the series in particular already feels like a mess. And Kamen Rider shows aren't known for their tightly-knit storytelling, but a stronger and more likable cast of characters would've made ignoring some of the bizarre flaws or unexplained plot holes a lot more bearable. Like, what's up with all of the bizarre space/time nonsense? It's brought up in one arc to justify where Dark Kabuto goes to, or where the Hyper Zecter comes from, and then never really mentioned ever again. Where did the Hopper Zecters come from? For that matter, are the Zecters really sentient, and how do they choose the owners? And even then, a lot of the concepts they built up -- the mystery behind the creation of the Zecters, the Shibuya meteorite, the mysterious time-traveling Hyper Kabuto, the specifics of Tendou's backstory... a lot of them all lead to pretty damn underwhelming reveals.
The Worms themselves are honestly what I personally feel to be the biggest waste, because after the first handful of arcs showing just how emotionally horrifying it is to realize that someone who walks and talks like someone you love might be an alien invader ends up being basically reduced to a generic shock-value revelation, and eventually, everything from the true nature of ZECT, the Native tribe, and the three-way war end up being just so utterly underwhelming and under-explained. We don't really see the Worms as actual people, and even when some members of the cast are revealed to be Worms, the focus is less about how they have been fooling everyone, but how other characters should shut up and appreciate who they are... while still massacring other random Worms. It's a huge disconnect, especially compared to other sympathetic monsters in other Kamen Rider series like the Greeed, the Gamma or the Roidmude.
Plus, the plot revelations just sort of randomly stack up without much buildup or payoff starting around the 30's -- something that Kabuto's staunchest defenders would admit -- making the last 15 to 20 episodes feeling particularly bizarre as the show tries to juggle comedy and underwhelming revelations. And unlike some shows (like Decade or Hibiki), Kabuto doesn't even have the excuse of executive meddling to justify any of these. Even a lot of the actual deaths that happen in the final 2-3 episodes felt less like huge resolutions, and more the show remembering that these characters have backstories that needed to be resolved.
Which is a shame, because the initial opening episodes of Kabuto are pretty solid. We establish the two main characters -- Arata Kagami and Tendou Souji. Arata's a typical Kamen Rider protagonist. A go-getter and just a regular dude who wants to help people out -- kinda generic, perhaps, and a bit of a wimp, but finds himself basically denied the chance to even do his job of protecting people from the Worms when the Kabuto Zecter flies to Tendou instead. Tendou, meanwhile, is an arrogant ass... who has that massive, inflated ego for a reason -- he is just that good. He quite literally is perfect, able to basically beat up any Worm or Rider in his path, he can cook, he can paint, he can speak French... he quite literally is a perfect man and everyone around him other than Arata and Hiyori acknowledges just how awesome he is.
And the thing about making a character with a big ego? You can't make him too perfect without flaws, and expect him to be likable. As problematic as Decade was, that's what the writing team does right. Tsukasa is kind of a Mary Sue himself, having random skills and having a massive ego, but the show and Decade's supporting cast constantly berate and tell Tsukasa off when he's being a dick. Whenever anyone in Kabuto tries to tell Tendou off, they either eventually kowtow to Tendou because of reasons -- there are a lot of the early scenes where Hiyori basically ends up finding herself cooking for Tendou because he tells her to, or things of that sort. The universe quite literally revolves around Tendou because he's so beloved by the writers, and while it's somewhat amusing for like two or three episodes, by the time I was in episode ten and Tendou just keeps looking more and more perfect while still acting like a massive dickbag, I just find myself really disliking him. As the series goes on, Tendou tends to pull new power-ups out of thin air, with the Hyper Zecter and the other non-Gatack Zecters quite literally being drawn across space-time to give him a power-up because he's just that worthy, but Tendou himself goes through very, very minimal character development -- he basically ends up vaguely respecting Arata in the last five or six episodes. Emphasis on the 'minimal'.
There are admittedly some huge revelations that inform us of what his actual plan is, but when we do get those revelations, Tendou's attitude in the earlier episodes berating everyone else for being naive for protecting some Worms and being sentimental ends up painting Tendou as a massive, massive hypocrite (Tendou's reason to wipe out the worms is to allow his Worm-sister Hiyori, who is also amnesiac, to live peacefully). The problem is, both the writing and the scripting are so firmly in Tendou's side that it paints Arata's questioning of Tendou as Arata being the unreasonable one. The climax even has Tendou go around destroying seeming anti-Worm weaponry without bothering to tell anyone else that the anti-Worm weaponry actually is a generic doomsday device that turns humans into Worms, expecting everyone to let him do what's best for them, while at the same time not even trying to explain himself.
The difference between Tendou's writing with other "me-first" characters like, say, Batman, is that Batman-centric narratives will highlight that Batman's loner attitude, while pragmatic, is harmful. With Tendou? He quite literally is the best, and even the writing doesn't acknowledge any of his many flaws. I'm not sure -- maybe if the writing was a bit more hammy, maybe if Tendou's actor was allowed to be a bit more expressive, I wouldn't be so soured by Souji Tendou? We've had assholish protagonists like Takumi and Tsukasa, or egomaniacs like Sento and Sougo, that still end up feeling likable, because their flaws were written as flaws, thus making them relatable. The end result is a bizarre show where Tendou has the personality of an arrogant "the world revolves around me" rival-type character and Arata's the typical plucky protagonist, but they never go through any of the expected character development, and Tendou's specialness continues through the end.
And I guess we'll quickly go through the side-characters in quick succession before we jump to the spoiler section. Kabuto is a show rich in riders, with Gatack, TheBee (hee hee hee), Drake, Sasword, Punch Hopper and Kick Hopper all being pretty well-defined secondary characters, and that's without counting the non-transforming ones. But that's honestly not really enough to carry the series forwards. Gatack/Arata is perhaps the one we spend the most time with, but while he definitely is better written than Tendou and has a lot of neat character moments, the show wiffle-waffles on how they want Arata to be. Is he always second best to Tendou, or is he going to carve his own path? Arata's overall story is pretty neat, but it suffers from the fact that it's basically the same character arc with a lot of other characters in the franchise as a whole, and his naivety and emotional outbursts are repeated way too many times.
TheBee, despite having the best Rider name ever, never really has a proper, permanent user, jumping from minor character to minor character until eventually just phased out entirely -- it's basically a way to work Yaguruma and Kageyama into the show and make early ZECT feel more alive, before their eventual expulsion from ZECT and the two of them being the most hilarious parody characters in the show, the Hopper Bros. Which are admittedly kind of hilarious, with Kageyama and Yaguruma basically going around as this pair of emo punks talking about how they can "see hell" and acts all emo and shit, but they never really outgrow their ridiculous antics which they also play straight with deadpan humour (it works for the Hopper Bros, though), but the way it's concluded felt sudden and shoehorned.
The two other Riders that are kinda wild-cards are Kazama Daisuke (Kamen Rider Drake), who basically weaves in and out of the show for short three-episode arcs a couple of times, an aesthetic who has a relationship with an amnesiac little girl called Gon, and... and he's honestly just kinda there, y'know? An interesting recurring character, but not enough to be super memorable. Kamishiro Tsurugi (Kamen Rider Sasword) is the exact opposite. He shows up around halfway through the series, and is basically just in every episode proclaiming that he is "the man who stands at the top of [X]!", and Tsurugi is kind of a parody of Kabuto himself, basically claiming to stand at the top of cooking, or romance, or failing, or anything at all, while actually being the sheltered princely son of the Discabil family. While Sasword does have a tragic story involving his past, it's ultimately dragged on and on until you just really don't care anymore, while the actual character just cavorts around and acts like a complete buffoon, repeating the same old "sheltered rich boy has no idea how the real world works" plotline over and over again.
The non-rider characters don't fare much better. A lot of them are just there to add extra bodies to either ZECT or the civilian hangout of the show, the shop where Hiyori works in, but ultimately despite a bunch of the ZECT characters hanging on till the end, the only one that honestly really matters ends up being Hiyori, who turns out to be super-duper important to the plot despite her amnesia, and... and she ends up being spirited away for 20+ episodes, before returning back and basically being used as nothing much more than a plot device. The actual main villains of the show are pretty bland, with the Native Worm representatives being pretty obviously not on the good guys' side and not having a lot of personality, while Dark Kabuto, despite being a clone of Mr. Perfect Heaven's Path himself, ends up being so notably outclassed that I never actually bought him as a threat.
And... and ultimately, I ended Kabuto with a sense that the show could be so much more. It took me a long, long while to finally finish the series, with me going through Drive, OOO and Ryuki in-between the time that I started episode 1 of Kabuto and ended at episode 49, because it's honestly kind of hard to really sit through. I do admit that the Clock Up fights are really fun, but they eventually just kind of drop the super-speed stuff entirely when Kabuto gets his Hyper Mode. Which is a shame -- Kabuto genuinely looks visually great, and I will always enjoy any action scene featuring him, but as far as the actual series goes, I honestly do find it as perhaps one of the weaker entries among the Heisei Kamen Rider series. Power to you if you actually love Kabuto, but between the hard-to-like protagonist and the inconsistent tone and pacing, I really do feel like this one could've been a lot better.
Finally, we've reached the final part of Digimon Savers! You guys probably won't see it since these articles are coming out relatively regularly, but I do a lot of my Digimon Review writing in bulk and in advance, and it was so hard to get through this huge chunk of Savers-era Digimon. I'm not sure why because I do genuinely like Digimon Savers as an anime, but I had found it so hard to talk about some of these.
Also, I'm going to put the series on a hiatus for a while. I've got drafts up for the Dawn/Dusk games, so that might go up later this year, but I've been on a HUGE Digimon burnout, and it doesn't help that I really just don't feel like talking about a lot of the designs between Frontier and Savers, which... are still fun to talk about, but I'm just feeling a massive sense of fatigue. So I'm going to put "Digimon Reviews" on an indefinite hiatus, probably at least until the end of year. I still plan to at the very least do it up until Xros Wars, but whether I'll continue on after that is going to be up for debate.
That said, though, I'm definitely not going to let up on other franchise's monster reviews. Currently I'm going through mainly Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh, although expect some other games with smaller monster pools like Dota 2 or Darkest Dungeon to creep into the blog every now and then. Despite my fatigue, it has been fun talking about Digimon for the past couple of years.
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Pafumon
Anyway, the final member of Savers' secondary cast is Satsuma Rentarou (a.k.a. Richard Sampson in the dub), who acts as the overseer and general Nick-Fury-esque captain of DATS. He spends most of his time as the stern mentor, until around the halfway point of the series when he shows off the fact that he is actually pretty damn badass. I've excluded him from the past couple of pages because his partner Digimon is kind of part of a set.
Anyway, it's interesting that Kudamon received a Baby I form, Pafumon, when so many of the Savers-era partner Digimon only got a Baby II one. I do like Pafumon! He really does feel like a "puff" Digimon, a little blob with a cute face, bunny ears and a lower body that's just a bunch of hairy broom-like structure. Its bio even details a unique ability where when threatened, Pafumon will inhale air and then expel it to escape like some sort of airborne octopus. Neat-o!
6/10.
Kyaromon
Kyaromon is... it's interesting. It's this weird little hairy blob with huge rabbit ears and a tail, and disproportionately large eyes. It's the Baby II form of this evolutionary line, and... and it's fine, I guess? I'm just not a particularly huge fan of Kyaromon, but I certainly don't dislike him. He does look like some sort of mammal that could conceivably have evolved on Earth if things have taken a different turn somewhere. It's interesting to note that the bio notes that Kyaromon's insides have been "mostly empty", selling this entire line as some sort of weird, almost-ethereal beast. Kyaromon's a neat design, I just don't personally really like it.
4/10.
Kudamon (and Kudamon II)
Kudamon actually debuts with one of the Accel Genome virtual pets, but the year of that particular V-Pet coincides with the year that Savers debuts, so I figured I would just talk about both of them in one go. Anyway, the Kudamon with purple markings wrapped around some golden cylinder is the original Kudamon from the virtual pet, and the one with yellow markings on the right is the Kudamon that appears in the anime.
Kudamon borrows its name and general concept from the Japanese yokai, the kudagitsune, or pipe-fox, which are ethereal spirits that live in bamboo pipes -- something we covered before with Sakuyamon, I believe. The original Kudamon is noted to always wrap itself around a holy catridge and never separates after it, and in combat, Kudamon will hide in the cartridge and basically just levitate it around to whack people. It's a far more faithful, if obvious, adaptation of the kudagitsune legend. Also love just how ethereal Kudamon looks, really selling the concept of a spirit-fox. The ghostly, long snake-like body that tapers off also works relatively well to give Kudamon a more distinctive look. The anime's version of Kudamon basically spends most of his time wrapped around Rentarou's neck instead of a golden cylinder and acts as his advisor, and I always loved the visual image of a towering monolith of a man like Rentarou partnered with such a cute, adorable little snake-weasel. Anyway, Kudamon is another one of the Child-levels that I instantly love from Digimon Savers.
7/10.
Reppamon
Kudamon's Adult evolution, Reppamon, is a pretty damn cool evolution! It's sort of based on the Kamaitachi (sickle weasel) combined with a fox, and I do like the general design! It is kind of slightly messy, but the focus of Reppamon's design is drawn to the awesome fox mask face, as well as the gigantic zig-zag blade-sickle. Also interesting to note is that the blade has its own eye, noting that it's actually sentient. Hilariously, Reppamon tends to "quarrel with its own tail during battle". Reppamon's design and general look really sell him as a swift Digimon that zips around and cuts its enemies down before they have any time to react. Overall, a pretty damn cool, if ever-so-slightly cluttered, design.
8/10.
Tyilinmon (a.k.a. Qilinmon/Chirinmon)
Reppamon's Perfect stage is Tyilinmon, based on the mythological Chinese beast, the Qilin -- a creature that some Western translators have tried to romanize as 'unicorn' or 'giraffe', neither of which really have anything in common with the mythological Qilin beyond being equine. Without going too in-depth about the legend of the Qilin, it's basically one of the greatest holy beasts in Chinese mythology alongside the dragon and the phoenix. And Tyilinmon's design does manage to show this off, being a horse with wings, Chinese dragon whiskers, a horn, and a bunch of Chinese ornaments on its legs and tail. Tyilinmon's noted to be as powerful as an Ultimate-level despite being a mere Perfect-level, and it despises conflict and wishes to guide others to peace.
It's actually a sentiment that Savers' Kudamon has throughout all of his evolutionary forms, which I thought was pretty neat. It's a bit of a shame that Tyilinmon's design ends up honestly being way too cluttered... but it is still a pretty cool Digimon adaptation of a mythological beast. Not much to say here -- Qilins are cool, and Tyilinmon's a neat enough Qilin approximation. Look at this artwork!
7/10.
Sleipmon (a.k.a. Kentaurosmon)
The huge plot twist as to why Kudamon is so damn powerful compared to the rest of the cast comes up in the final arc of Digimon Savers. Kurata and Belphemon are defeated, and DATS have brokered relative peace with the Digimon... but the the 'god' of the digital world, Ygdrassil, commands its Royal Knights to lay waste to the human world as retaliation for what Kurata has done. Turns out that Kudamon is actually the Child form of one of said Royal Knights, Sleipmon, and he has fallen in love with the world of the humans and ends up taking arms against his own comrades to defend the Earth. Also, for whatever reason, the English dub team decided to rename Sleipmon the decidedly less cool name of Kentaurosmon. Sleipmon, of course, draws his name from the mythological Sleipnir, the mythological eight-legged horse of the Norse god Odin, and I really don't think anyone will complain because of Norse legends? I dunno.
And Sleipmon is... well, he's a six-legged centaur, with his two human-like arms counting as the fourth pair of horse legs, I suppose. I kind of find Sleipmon's design to be utterly cluttered with way too many random accessories, like those huge golden wing-things, the huge amount of stuff around his head and chest... but I don't know. I guess I'm just really taken in by Sleipmon's appearance and portrayal in the Savers anime? Sleipmon's bio notes that Sleipmon is, of course, really fast, and is noted as an anomaly among the Royal Knights for "not having a human form". Racist much, Royal Knights? I do like the face that his crossbow is called "Muspellsheimr" and that his shield is called "Niflheimr", named after two of the nine realms of Nordic mythology. Perhaps in refernce to said mythology, Sleipmon is noted to reside in the icy pole of the digital world. A six-legged centaur knight is cool, and we do have a pretty cool character associated with him. I also appreciate that the designers still allowed Sleipmon to keep a more bestial face that does look like it evolves from Tyilinmon. He's not my favourite design in this evolution line, but he at least does look pretty damn majestic. Really could've cut down on the details, or have his official artwork be in a less confusing pose.
7/10. (bonus 1 point for manliness.)
Craniummon (a.k.a. Craniamon)
Basically most of the Royal Knights that had showed up in previous series show up in Savers as antagonists, although some, like Magnamon and UlforceVeedramon, end up just having glorified cameos of standing in the background. Out of the Royal Knights, though, the one to have the most dialogue and the one that acts as the 'mouthpiece' of the group is Craniummon, who acts as a recurring undefeatable enemy. Even when some of the Royal Knights fall left and right when the main cast achieves their Burst Modes, I remember Craniummon requiring a combined effort from basically the entire cast to actually bring down to his knees... and after that, he sort of gets a bit of a heel-face-turn and realizes that for all of his loyalty to Ygdrassil, it's "way" is now corrupted and he's going to fight alongside the good guys.
Craniummon's character is neat for what could otherwise be a bland villain, but his design is... it's kinda m'eh? He's just a black-armoured knight with a skull helmet! At least Craniummon looks distinctly memorable compared to some of the other Royal Knights, I suppose. Craniummon's profile notes that he's an extremely proud warrior to the point that it's almost a character flaw. While in the anime he's just a normal fighter, Craniummon's profile notes that his spear, Claiomh Solais (named after a sword from Gaelic mythology) is apparently able to curse an opponent to 'dance to death'. Anyway, Craniummon's kinda cool! I'm pretty sure if it's not for his characterization in Savers he's not going to get this mark from me, though.
7/10.
Duftmon (a.k.a. Leopardmon)
One of the new members of the Royal Knights introduced in Savers is Duftmon, who I distinctly remember as quite literally appearing randomly in one episode when the rest of the Royal Knights' lineup (which does not include Duftmon) had been prominently displayed earlier. Probably because "Duftmon" isn't a name that inspires badassery, he was renamed "Leopardmon" in the dub. Duftmon's a glorified villain of the week, though, basically showing up and being hyped up as one of the most powerful Royal Knights or whatever. His profile notes that he's the 'strategist' of the team.
He's also able to transform into a leopard mode, but somehow that glorious blonde locks still remain. It's honestly kind of a pretty transparent "transforming toy" gimmick, and I've never really been all that taken in by Duftmon. He just looks so underwhelmingly generic, and as part of a team of similarly humanoid knights, Duftmon just doesn't stand out and his "Leopard Mode" is honestly a pretty bland gimmick that is basically the only memorable thing out of him.
4/10.
Algomon I [a.k.a. Argomon]
We're almost done with Savers' cast, I think, and just like all the previous series, we've got a tie-in movie. Basically the only real memorable part of the Savers movie is that it stars exclusively just the Digimon, and that Lalamon beat up a bunch of Goblimon with sausage nun-chucks. The main villain of that movie is Algomon here, sometimes referred to as "Algomon Perfect" because Algomon evolves into a subsequent form also called Algomon. Jeez, Algomon, Arkadimon did it nearly a decade before you did, and then Lucemon did it too. Stop trying to try to act cool with the "my name remains the same through all my evolutionary stages" nonsense. Algomon is apparently 'generated from a bug in an algorithm', and he's just this generic humanoid form with random eyeballs on his armour, and he attacks the world with gigantic vine-like tentacles. The concept of a vine-based plant enemy is kinda neat, but Algomon is... he's just so underwhelmingly bland, just a cluttered humanoid design with spiky armour.
3/10.
Algomon II [a.k.a. Argomon Ultimate]
Algomon Ultimate is a wee bit more monstrous, with a disturbingly small head and a long, bent neck. A lot cooler looking and more monstrous than Algomon Perfect, but I still find his design ultimately generic. Again, the gimmick that he initially displays in the movie is interesting enough -- the monstrous core of a gigantic, city-wide infestation of vines that puts humans into a deep sleep while his small army of Ogremon and Goblimon take over the human world... but the execution basically has him as a pretty generic random big bad evil Digimon that needs to be taken down. Honestly, they really could've done more with the parasitic vine theme than just have a bunch of them hang out of Algomon's body.
5/10.
Examon
Other than Jesmon (who will show up much later) Examon here is one of the last members of the Royal Knights to be introduced. Poor Examon misses out on the party of Royal Knights terrorizing Japan, though, being released after Savers' conclusion in a video game. The artwork is hella confusing, focusing a lot on the gigantic, long, tapering wings, but Examon is basically a humanoid dragon with some really, really huge, wide wings. It's... it's a pretty neat design, I suppose, if kind of 'safe'. He's just a dragon-man holding a huge lance, with oversized wings and tail. At least Examon does manage to look relatively distinct, making him way more memorable in my head than poor Duftmon there. Examon mostly shows up in video games, with his sole animated appearance being a brief cameo in Xros Wars.
I do really like the backstory given to Examon, though -- it is such a huge creature (his name is from exa-byte, apparently, which is 10 to the power of 24) that older computers are simply unable to render him. Interestingly, Examon's bio notes that his gigantic wings are sentient and are called Caledfwich, the Welsh name for Excalibur. Caledfwich can apparently transform on its own from those ridiculously large set of wings into a shield. Interestingly, Examon's lance Ambrosius can apparently shoot shells containing viruses, which is an interestingly odd and kinda-dishonourable way to fight for a Royal Knight. While I didn't have the best impression of Examon due to the ridiculously bad perspective of his official Bandai artwork, he's... he's neat, I suppose, and a cool enough design to be sort of the 'ultimate' Western style dragon Digimon. They probably could've done a lot more to make him interesting, but those huge wings are admittedly a neat way to give him an instantly memorable silhouette and design while keeping the classic 'Western dragon' feel intact.
8/10.
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