Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Bio-Broly

Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly

So I decided to watch this because we're getting that new Broly movie at the end of this year. Everyone's warned me about this movie and... Wow, yeah, this is pretty bad. The eleventh movie for Dragon Ball Z, and a direct sequel to Broly: Second Coming, this particular mess of a movie somehow manages to be worse. Well, I dunno... they're kind of on different planes of stupidity, really. Second Coming is just half-obnoxious and half-boring. This one is actually really dumb, and while the surprisingly decent amount of focus given to Android 18 and Mr Satan, the main plot ends up feeling dumber and so, so much less interesting. 

The opening of Bio-Broly is at least somewhat fun, with #18 trying to get that money back from Mr. Satan from that tournament at the beginning of the Buu Saga (so this takes place... during the Buu saga? Slightly after?), but is interrupted by Lord Jaguar, his old rival, who has built an army of mutant bio-warriors, which are just humanoids covered in goop, far, far less interesting than any of the many previous evil minion seen in DBZ movies. Because Satan is the champion of the world, Jaguar sends for Satan to fight the Biowarriors, but they get thrashed by 18, Goten and Trunks, who tagged along. 

And that's honestly the interactions of 18 trying to hustle money from Mr. Satan, and Satan's general pontificating, are the only real good parts of this movie. I guess Krillin gets to do a cool thing in swooping in and rescuing 18? And Goten and Trunks are less annoying than they were in Second Coming? 

The rest of the plot is dumb, though. Jaguar and his cronies are very flat characters, and the random jackass faux witch doctor from Second Coming shows up and provided Jaguar with a vial of Broly blood, leading to them cloning Broly. Who proceeds to break out of his test tube, get covered in goop and ends up looking like Swamp Thing waded through a septic tank. It's a very unimpressive villain, and most criminal of all -- it's a pretty horrid assassination of Broly. While I'm not the biggest fan of Broly, at least the character was kept somewhat consistent in Second Coming, as shoehorned as it is. This one? You could call the resulting Bio-Broly "Bob" and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Bio-Broly looks silly, and the main threat comes from the actual purple goop that dissolves a lot of Jaguar's minions (including fortuneteller man), while Bio-Broly once more fails to really do any damage to any of our main characters... and honestly fails to do anything but look dumb. It's the best example of a 'villain decay' in the most literal sense. Bio-Broly has nothing in common with the unstoppable legendary Saiyan juggernaut everyone is familiar with,  and the justification for his return and what they do with him are all pretty fucking dumb.

And then they beat him with sea-water, which is a plot point that comes out of nowhere and makes no real sense. Poor Broly. I'm not his biggest fan, but he deserved better than this. Overall, a horrifyingly messy and stupid film -- and since I've watched all of them -- definitely ranks lowest amongst the DBZ movies. Ugh. This entire movie is just so dumb.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow S04E05 Review: 怪獣王ゴジラ

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 4, Episode 5: Tagumo Attacks!!!

We're back with semi-regular reviews of superhero shows, and here I am, playing catch-up! I'm not quite sure how regularly I'll be able to keep up, although I guess it's just as well that the winter break is coming. (I also have to figure out how to set up Netflix on my new laptop to watch Daredevil).

And it's always great to start off with an episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, for the simple fact that it's such an easy 45 minutes to sit through. It's just an utterly fun romp with minimal tension, and it's just... it's just fun to watch, y'know? Other shows require significantly more attention paid or are heavy with subplots and drama, and while those shows are great for that, sometimes you just kind of just want to sit back, relax and just watch some time-travelling hijinks.

"Tagumo Attacks", just like the previous horror-themed episode, isn't a particularly spectacular episode. In particular, I really do feel that it tries to do way too much, overstuffing some four different subplots into a single episode. And I get it, the CGI model for monster-of-the-week Tagumo isn't going to be cheap, but still, this episode jumps all over the place that I do feel that it ends up biting off a bit more than it should.

The main time-travel supernatural plot involves our heroes going to 1951 Tokyo, to find out that Japanese movie-maker Ishiro Honda (the director of the first Godzilla movie, as briefly alluded in his final scene) has caused the creation of the gigantic land-octopus kaiju called Tagumo when he came into contact with a tome of the Irish goddess Brigid, a book that makes whatever a creative mind thinks of real. And... and it's interesting, I suppose, to have our heroes fight a gigantic octopus monster, but at the same time I really do feel like they didn't do enough with it. We get a haunting speech from Ishiro Honda about giving a form to the horror and despair he felt after Hiroshima (reportedly the same sort of horror that inspired Godzilla's conception), but ultimately we really don't get much more beyond that.

It's Mick that ends up saving the day with a pretty obvious follow-up to the fact that he apparently writes sci-fi novels on a typewriter, and it turns a one-off joke from an earlier season into a fun little plot point where he has to deal with his embarrassment, and ends up writing the story of Garima, the three-boobed purple-skinned elf warrior that will kill Tagumo. And bang the brains out of Mick. It's... it's a simple storyline, but one that I think plays to the character's history well, giving the criminally under-utilized Dominic Purcell something to act around beyond general simmering anger.

The Charlie storyline, I'm afraid, is still not done well. Richardson-Sellers is a fantastic actress, but I still feel like Charlie feels really shoehorned into the story, and beyond a very blatant "you don't pay attention to the rights of the magical creatures!" speech (something that honestly feels silly considering that every demon they've faced this season has been hostile with the exception of Charlie herself) and conflict against Sara -- both of which get resolved without any real impetus when they team up against the octopus.

It's still enjoyable, because it's still a romp to 50's Japan where an octopus monster, film-making sets, a fun usage of Atom's shrinking tech and Mick's fanfic triple-boobed elf are involved, but it seems so... paper-thin, I guess.

And now let's tackle the three sub-plots that goes on! Four, if you consider Gary to be a separate sub-plot and not tied to the Nate/Ava one. Let's start with perhaps one of the more serious ones, which is the Nora/Ray/Constantine storyline. After Constantine wounds himself at the end of the previous episode, Ray goes around hunting for Nora, and after a wacky scene at a renaissance fair where Ray rips a phone in half (!!!), we get an, again, pretty brief scene between Nora and Ray talking about using magic for good and the like. Nora ends up helping Constantine do the life-energy infusion, Constantine turns out to be dying anyway (presumably from cancer, if it's inspired by the comics), and Nora ends up surrendering to the Time Bureau to 'face' her redemption and freedom. It's a simple, well-executed storyline with all three actors involved portraying their roles well, but it's also very bland, like it's the first draft and the bare bones of this subplot.

Meanwhile, Nate and Ava go off to deal with the Heywood's embarrassing family dinner in a subplot that ran for way longer than it should (and it already isn't the subplot that takes up the most time). Thank god it ties into the Gary one. There is some attempt at making Ava feel like a real human girl (tm) again because she never really experienced Thanksgiving, but that goes nowhere. Instead, Nate has to run to the Time Bureau to help Gary deal with a crisis.

And Gary's crisis is the fact that apparently three of the villains that the Time Bureau have captured off-screen and have no way to dispose -- Baba Yaga, a Chupacabra and a Kaupe -- have broken loose on the Bureau HQ. No real reason why they can't ask ARGUS to help out, it's not like these three seem to be anything beyond rampaging beasts, actually. Mona the delivery girl is caught up in it all, and, of course, in typical predictable fashion, ends up being the one to provide the solution by channeling her inner Newt Scamander and giving the three magical beasts the food they want.


Ava and Hank Heywood eventually catch up with Nate, Gary and Mona, and find out that they've dealt with the magical beasts. Nate and Hank bond over hating their obnoxious family and having to be called away for crises, Ava and Hank bond over military budgets, Gary and Mona just bond, and then we get the huge revelation that apparently Hank Heywood is still pretty damn sketchy, and is on the phone with some mysterious dude, noting about how the magical creatures can be controlled and that "Project Hades" is a-go.

That last bit, at least, is an interesting way to go with this season's big bad. I've always felt like last season's Mallus was pretty dang disappointing. Having a main villain that's perhaps a lot closer to home, has a personal relationship with one of our heroes, a fresh face to the CW universe, and someone with a different goal than generic destruction of the world is definitely fairly interesting. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E11-12 Review: REDDO HOTTO CHILI PEPPAH

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episodes 11-12: Red Hot Chili Pepper

Man, I just love how hammy everyone is when they say "Red Hot Chili Pepper" in katakana. Is it a bit racist? Probably is, but it's definitely pretty dang entertaining. Honestly I kind of want to get  an anime of Part VII just so I can hear everyone call out "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".

Anyway, ever since Keicho Nijimura died, and the Bow and Arrow stolen by one of the Stand users he created, the unseen user of Red Hot Chili Pepper has been the driving main villain of this segment of the Part... although he hasn't really done much beyond reminding us that he exists every now and then. It's at this point when he finally decides to attack Josuke in the middle of playing his old-school Playstation, noting that he's biding time until he gains better control of Red Hot Chili Pepper. Chili Pepper's attempt to taunt Josuke ends up backfiring, though, because one Dorarararara barrage later, and it's sent to a retreat.

Josuke then gathers the other members of Team Morioh -- Okuyasu, Koichi and Josuke -- and we get some nice scenes of Okuyasu being utterly furious at the thought of coming up against the asshole who killed his brother. Jotaro also adds in a bit of a wrinkle -- they're going to bring in a Stand user that can help them detect the location of the Bow and Arrow, and that is the user of Hermit Purple... I'm not sure why Jotaro dragged out the revelation that Hermit Purple's user is actually Joseph Joestar, though. The audience certainly already knows, and it's a bit mean-spirited for him to do it to Josuke.

And then Red Hot Chili Pepper attacks, having hitched a ride on the battery within Okuyasu's motorcycle. And in a genuinely awesome usage of The Hand, Okuyasu just gets rid of the space in front of him to basically pull him forwards -- seems like he can control which way things are pulled towards, huh? The confrontation between Okuyasu and Red Hot Chili Pepper is genuinely pretty fun, once Okuyasu breaks the bike and makes use of his ability to move around at high speeds to get around the fact that he's far slower compared to Red Hot Chili Pepper.


But then, with Okuyasu holding Red Hot Chili Pepper at his mercy (they have to take him alive to interrogate him), it starts taunting Okuyasu and makes him doubt his victory, provoking Okuyasu to attack with The Hand to wipe out half of Red Hot Chili Pepper... but exposes electrical lines underground, which supercharges Red Hot Chili Pepper, who then drags Okuyasu into his doom into the power lines.

RIP Okuyasu, and Koichi is distraught... but Josuke just calmly knocks onto Okuyasu's arm with Crazy Diamond, which restores Okuyasu and 'pulls' him back. Yeah, just like The Hand, apparently Crazy Diamond can control which end the restored object reforms at, huh? Also very lucky that Okuyasu didn't die in the minute that Josuke and Jotaro are standing around and looking cool.

That's a bit unfortunate for poor Okuyasu, honestly, because while he did give a pretty good showing, he didn't quite manage to get his revenge against Chili Pepper.

The second episode deals with the fight on the harbour as Joseph's boat is approaching, and the team is split up -- Jotaro and Okuyasu goes off to the ferry to protect Joseph, while Koichi and Josuke are going to have to watch out for Red Hot Chili Pepper on the harbour -- they've established that Chili Pepper needs electrical appliances to actually move around, which means that he's likely to specifically use a remote-control plane to get to the boat. Not a speedboat, not anything else. Specifically a RC plane. Okay then.

We get brief bits of Josuke being conflicted about how he feels about old Joseph, his biological dad that's been missing all his life, but basically brushes it off as he's going to sort through it later, and he's not going to let an old man die.

And then Red Hot Chili Pepper's user shows up, and I genuinely forgot just how long Red Hot Chili Pepper lasted without showing the face of its user -- and Otoishi Akira is a metal guitarist followed around by his own glorious guitar solo soundtrack as he goes around saying OH YEAH and BABY and things like that because he's a goddamn rockstar, baby. We get a fun bit where he notes how he's going to beat them with only his pinkie finger... and then Josuke just calmly breaks said finger... but he ends up forcing that finger to bend back into shape and play a riff on his guitar which apparently strums out "I'm going to kill your mothers". And that's his entire goal -- just to spread his music and take over the world, somehow. Okay, Otoishi, you're... you're crazy.

The actual battle between Josuke and Otoishi isn't the most exciting, honestly, and feels a bit video game-y as Red Hot Chili Pepper just zips into drainage holes in the stage around Josuke, and just zips in and out and punches Josuke, while Koichi just... stands there and acts as a commentator. Dude, you have Echoes Act II! Do something with it! We get a fun bit as Josuke smashes the ground apart, and then uses Crazy Diamond to restore the concrete into asphalt to trap Chili Pepper as it attempts to come out of the hole... and then Otoishi gets serious and creates a gigantic electrical field and we get some genuinely fun Stand-on-Stand battles as Crazy Diamond and Red Hot Chili Pepper just zips around and punches each other with that electrical-distorted zmpppttttttt sound effect used for The World and The Hand.

Josuke ultimately traps Red Hot Chili Pepper inside a tire that he repairs, and when Chili Pepper punches out, the resulting outrush of air shoots Chili Pepper into the ocean, and it melts and breaks apart, leaving Otoishi seemingly catatonic.

Apparently Josuke and Koichi are utterly bad at making sure Otoishi's actually knocked out, though, because he isn't, and just disappears offscreen when Josuke and Koichi have their backs turned, and somehow gets abroad the Speedwagon ship? Eh. We get to see Joseph and he's kind of a shell of his former, boisterous self, being a quiet, borderline-senile old man who has a fun little conversation with Okuyasu. This ends up with Okuyasu having to choose between which of the two Speedwagon minions is the enemy when a half-broken Red Hot Chili Pepper shows up to kill Joseph... and just punches Otoishi in the face because, hey, when in doubt, punch both options! That's funny.

Also funny is Joseph mishearing Red Hot Chili Pepper as "Toppo Poppo Hato Poppoh?"

The meeting between Joseph and Josuke is pretty heartwarming as Josuke lends a hand to grab Joseph as he trips, and instead of repairing the walking stick, ends up allowing Joseph to hold his hand. Josuke might not quite like the situation that Joseph left his mother in, but he's not so much of an asshole to not give Joseph a chance. It's also nice to know that the next episode would actually have a bit more to develop these two's relationship.

And with Otoishi finally taken out, Jotaro notes that the next step is to find the Bow and hope no one else shows up to give them problem... and, of course, we cut away to the mysterious man holding a decapitated woman's hand. Yep, not ominous at all!

Overall, I kind of think that the back end of the Red Hot Chili Pepper fight ended up dragging on too long without too much of a variation on how Crazy Diamond beats things, but it's still a fun little two-parter that's honestly pretty dang kind to give Okuyasu a fair amount of screentime, even if not all of it is flattering. Otoishi himself is kind of a generic villain, but at least he's insanely hammy and pretty fun of a villain even if he doesn't really quite have much of a proper personality. 

One Piece 925 Review: Intermezzo

One Piece, Chapter 925: The Blank

Well, this chapter of One Piece is apparently the interlude of sorts to the first two acts of the Wano arc. Apparently Kabuki plays are divided into five acts, which... okay, sounds about right, I guess, if each act is going to be more or less the same amount of chapters as the first act. 925 here acts as a fun little interlude, though, before we cut away to the weird fox-masked lady dancer that marks the beginning and the end of each acts. Not sure if the dancer herself is going to be an important character (Lady Toki?) or if she's just fluff. 

A majority of this chapter surprisingly deals with a character I haven't really thought about for quite some time, though, which is former Shichibukai Gekko Moriah, who apparently mounts an attack on one of Blackbeard's bases. The first scene basically has Perona and Mihawk have a bit of an argument, with Perona eventually leaving Mihawk to go back to rejoin Moriah's crew... and Mihawk off-handedly notes that it might be best for Perona to leave at around that point, because "something interesting came up at the Reverie". Is it the abolishment of the Shichibukai, if it's something that's not going to be good for Mihawk and Perona? Interesting. I'm genuinely disappointed that apparently a chunk of the Reverie appears to have taken place off-screen, although, well, I'm sort of holding out hope that it's going to be explored eventually. 

Meanwhile, we cut over to Moriah himself, who is rampaging on the island called Beehive, one of Blackbeard's bases, and he's unleashing a zombie army in search for Absalom -- who's apparently missing while doing a recon mission into Beehive. 

And it's... it's interesting to see Moriah's reactions throughout this episode. He is genuinely delighted to apparently see Absalom stuck with a bunch of ladies and simply having forgotten to make contact, and seems genuinely remorseful for "doing a terrible thing to these people" under the assumption that Absalom would be under attack since Blackbeard's pirates are Ability Hunters. Of course, as it turns out... the Blackbeard Pirates have already apparently killed Absalom off-screen (!) and given his ability to Shiryu, who shows off said invisibility. We also get to see the ability of one of BLackbeard's other crew members, Catarina Devon, who apparently have the Dog Dog Fruit Model: Nine-Tailed Fox, allowing her to seemingly shapeshift. Or cast really convincing illusions, if we're not going to double up on similar powers with Mr. 2.

And then Blackbeard makes his first proper appearance post-timeskip, and he's grown significantly bigger and more stereotypically pirate-ier. He notes that the Revolutionaries have apparently clashed with Fujitora and Ryokugyu in the Reverie, and notes about the developments of Wano... and offers Moriah a chance to join him and enact revenge on Kaidou, who we know is one of Moriah's goals. I'm not sure if he's going to be happy joining up with someone who has (apparently) killed one of his new crew members, though... still, it's an interesting prospect. I do kinda wish Moriah would join, for the simple reason of having him die off-screen would be a bit of an odd choice. Unlike Absalom (who's memorable, but I'm not particularly sad that he died offscreen), Moriah's an actually somewhat interesting character with unique motivations, and having him join up with the Blackbeard Pirates would definitely be pretty interesting.

Regardless about all that, we return to Wano, and we get a brief montage of events that I'm actually quite happy was covered pretty quickly. I have no real emotional attachment to the character of Ashura Doji/Shutenmaru, and apparently we just get a quick montage of him fighting Inuarashi, and then condemning the Kozuki Clan for "abandoning the country for 20 years". He notes that he respects Oden Kozuki, and not the entire clan, so it's interesting, kinda? I still don't particularly find himself invested in these new characters, but at least we're building up their personalities while simultaneously not spending too much time with them. 

We then cut away to see Jack being sort of bullied in Onigashima by his two "big brothers", King the Wildfire and Queen the Plague, the other two members of the calamities. And... and apparently Kaidou's minions have a card theme going on? Hmm. It is interesting that King really seems to be wearing a uniform similar to those of the Impel Downs staff and is called a "torture-lover", while Queen apparently is tasked with "breaking the spirits" of a certain set of brats. And he (she?) apparently has Kid's metal arm in his hands? I dunno. 

Anyway, it's a pretty fun chapter -- always fun in One Piece when we get to break away and see the huge things in other parts of the world. I do kind of really want to see what's going on at the Reverie, or with Blackbeard and Moriah, and genuinely find a lot of these far, far more interesting than what's going on at Wano, but as a whole? As a whole the arc is still pretty dang fun. Overall, a chapter that's more of a hype-maker than anything, but eh, it's still neat. 

Overlord S03E03 Review: Enri's Big Adventure

Overlord, Season 3, Episode 3: Enri's Upheaval & Hectic Days

We continue with the Enri/Nfirea/Goblins arc, and it's a fun, light-hearted one which kind of actually makes me fear some sort of darker, downer ending.

Still, for the most part, up until the very end, this episode actually plays off pretty simply. We've got the information dump from Agu, who tells them of the Monument of Ruin, a place surrounded by undead that appeared in the great forest of Tob that caused the Giant and the Serpent to get riled up. Clearly, this is a reference to the fake Tomb of Nazarick that Aura is constructing, isn't it? We also get to see Lupusregina, one of the battle maids, as sort of a cheerful, energetic watchman over this village, popping up in between conversations to ask what's going on. I'm not the biggest fan of Lupusregina's dialogue (although that may be because of translation issues) but her voice actor's exaggerated mannerisms really sell the character's energy for sure. Enri and company make it clear that they don't want to trouble Lord Ainz Ooal Gown, so calling him for help is going to be their last resort... although Nfirea does give the purple potion he brewed last episode to Lupusregina.

We also have a bit role by Britta, which is a recurring character from season 1 I didn't expect to see return -- she's the lady that Momon gives a potion to in E-Rantel, as well as part of the adventuring team that Shalltear wiped out. Apparently she's retired from adventuring (a wise decision, really) and has ended up as one of the residents of the new and improved Carne Village.

We get a hilarious bit as everyone starts to sort of depend more and more on Enri -- the remnants of Agu's tribe, as well as a group of ogres, end up kowtowing to Enri, who is kinda forced to pretend to be this imposing leader of the goblins. "So scary, small boss!", to quote the ogre. And in one of the funniest moments in this series for me, we get Enri bemoaning why someone clearly unprepared with the burdens of leadership finds herself having to pretend to be an all-imposing ruler respected by everyone, cutting to Ainz on his desk going "mm?"

Enri then goes to E-Rantel to sell the herbs and post a request for help on the Adventurer's Guild, but she gets stopped in customs because she carries a super-powerful magical item -- the second goblin-summoning horn, which is apparently worth thousands of gold according to the random customs mage, whereas Ainz had treated it like a disposable fun trinket.

In a contrived coincidence, Momon/Ainz of all people show up and very nearly breaks his cover when he recognizes Enri (Momon isn't supposed to know Enri; Ainz is), and manages to pull strings to let her get into the city without the customs officers bothering her. That's nice! Also nice is the moment in the Adventurer's Guild, where the receptionist basically ignores Enri's poor-villager status, and after Enri takes a brief nap... the receptionist returns, beleaguered and panicked, asking for just the specifics of Enri's request. Poor receptionist lady!

We also get a fun bit when Narberal gets to interact with Enri, and while she initially acts dismissively against yet another "maggot", when Enri compares Narberal as being pretty "like Lupusregina", you can see Narberal suddenly warming up to her while keeping the same stern expression on her face.

Also a heartwarming moment? Enri showing up with new weapons for the goblins, who certainly don't expect this from her.

So it's no real surprise that when Enri returns home to Carne village, the older village chief basically asks her to take over the position of village chief officially, because of all the great things she's done recently, something that the entire village's population apparently supports. Her attempt to ask Big Sister Lupusregina for help ends with her shrugging it off with "eh, make your own decision, I only know 41 people who can't make mistakes." This leaves Enri to go off with Nfirea and the goblins to confirm that, yeah, she's going to take over.

A very fun, heartwarming and light-hearted story... up until the post-credits scene, where we see Lupusregina hovering over the village. Throughout the episode, Lupusregina is constantly portrayed as this supportive big sister style of a character that makes you think that, oh, maybe there are other people who can befriend humans. After all, Cocytus gained respect for the lizardmen, and Sebas made a lot of human friends...

But then Yuri shows up to talk to Lupusregina, and she says, without breaking her cheerful smile, how she is trembling with excitement at the thought of just what expressions the villagers will make if everything burns down and gets destroyed at this great turning point when a leader is born... apparently Lupusregina is an extreme sadist, and shares the rest of Nazarick's NPC's disdain for humanity. I'm curious to see just how badly this will end for poor Enri and her goblin buddies. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E10 Review: Spaghetti Aglio Olio

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 10: Let's Go Eat Some Italian Food 

One of the things that Diamond is Unbreakable does pretty early on is showing that not all Stand users are enemies, a stark departure from the first three parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where basically every antagonist is clearly an enemy. This time around, though, it's just Josuke and Okuyasu encountering a pretty bizarre Stand in Morioh Town, and Josuke in particular gets super-duper tense as he starts suspecting the proprietor of the Italian restaurant, Tonio, of being a hostile Stand user. Granted, it's not unfounded paranoia considering practically every other Stand user they've met have been hostile, but still.

The audience, by the way, also gets fooled into a sense of "oh no, an enemy" with the cold open of Tonio being shot from an ominous angle as he brutally cuts things -- and shooting Tonio from ominous angles as he holds a bloody knife is going to be a way for this chunk of the story both in the anime and manga to trick the audience into perceiving Tonio as being a deranged murderer despite it just being an effect of lighting and lack of context.

Anyway, after a bit of a fun Stardust-Crusaders-style 'random trivia' intro dump about Italian cuisine, Josuke and Okuyasu end up grabbing some lunch at Trattoria Trussadi, a restaurant ran by an Italian man, and it has no menu -- Tonio's going to cook up food depending on the customer. He quickly runs through all the health problems Okuyasu has, and promises him that he's going to make food to get through those.

And the resulting sequence is basically something straight out of a super-duper-hammy cooking manga that'll give Toriko and Shokugeki no Souma a run for its money, except all of the 'healthy' parts of Tonio's treatment is utter malarkey. Something we'll handwave with Stand powers. First up, Okuyasu drinks water that's so clear and pure that he starts crying... then he cries so hard his eyeballs shrink (oh no, enemy Stand!) but then apparently that's just the water flushing out his eyeballs to relieve his insomnia. The episode goes back and forth about that -- Okuyasu seems to be in pain as something attacks him, but that then food just cures one of his problems.

The next dish is a mozzarella tomato salad, with some culture differences as Okuyasu questions just how different Italian cuisine is from Japanese cuisine... and apparently this dish stimulates the thyroid gland so much that it causes Okuyasu to scratch his shoulder so hard that the flesh seems to be ripped off. This is apparently just dead skin cells, and through some completely non-medical mumbo jumbo, Okuyasu's dead cells have been expelled out as dead skin, curing his stiff shoulders.

And then as Okuyasu eats the "harlot's spaghetti", he refuses on grounds that he doesn't like spicy food (a man after my own heart) but then he gets so engrossed that he eats the entire plate in-between Josuke's monologue about his suspicions, and that causes his hole-y teeth to fall off and get replaced with new ones. Crazy Diamond then reverts the pasta back into its ingredients... and apparently Tonio cuts up his Stand, and uses them as part of the sauce? Tonio's Stand are these cute little floating tomato-leek gremlins, who fly back to Tonio's kitchen.

And in another "JJBA Hates Dogs" moment, Tonio appears to be feeding a piece of the main course, a steak, to a dog... whose intestines then blow up. And then Okuyasu comes into the kitchen and his stomach blows up too. Josuke and Tonio face off against each other, with Tonio clearly being furious about Josuke barging in. Hell, we even have the 'colours change' portion of the anime, something that we've not seen too much since the back end of Stardust Crusaders...  and it's apparently just Tonio being angry that Josuke entered the kitchen without washing his hands.

Turns out that, of course, Tonio isn't hostile, and he's just an Italian chef who happens to have a Stand. It's clearly non-combatant, though, so like The Lock, Tonio's not going to join the main cast of fighters against Red Hot Chili Pepper or anything... and after the past couple of more standalone episodes, next episode is going to be plot heavy as Jotaro is informed by a Speedwagon agent that Joseph Joestar is coming to Morioh Town.

Overall, Tonio Trussadi and Pearl Jam are genuinely one of my favourite once-off Stand uses due to how utterly absurd the way his Stand works, and the sheer ridiculousness  of how it manages to cure Okuyasu's medical problems. Also, the anime makes those food really look good -- I kinda want to go for some Italian food right now.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Tonio Trussadi borrows his name from the fashion company Trussadi -- JJBA's writer, Hirohiko Araki, is also an avid follower of fashion, and while fashion-related references don't show up that often, sometimes they do. 
• Tonio's Stand, Pearl Jam, isn't named in the episode proper outside of the commercial 'stat blocks', and it borrows its name from the 90's American grunge rock band of the same name. Some of their more memorable songs include Jeremy, Black, Yellow Bedletter and I Am Mine.

Overlord S03E02 Review: The "Let's Go With It" Rule of GM-ing

Overlord, Season 3, Episode 2: Carne Village, Once More

This episode is divided into two distinct parts -- one half takes place in the Tomb of Nazarick in a sort of mission statement. After the little japery episode to open the season, this episode ends up taking a bit of a more on-track, although it's clear that the tone of these next couple of episodes are going to be more light-hearted.

We start off with Ainz telling Demiurge to "yes, tell the class of all the plans that I have done" -- while Ainz himself clearly doesn't know all that much about Demiurge's super-intricate plan that happened during the Re-Estize stuff until that little mid-battle conversation. It's interesting that Ainz kinda sort of has to deal with the pressure of actually being a leader while not actually being good at managing anything but video games. (Albeit that particular skill is pretty useful in a straight-up brawl as season one's Shalltear fight shows) Also a big fan of the "ah, that." "yes, that" exchanges between Demiurge and Ainz, with Ainz trying to urge Demiurge to spill the master plan he's concocting, while Demiurge thinks they're both in the know.

It's actually interesting that Ainz isn't actually a buffoon -- he's competent enough to understand things when explained to him, clearly, and his paranoia and knack for making connections and obtain information have managed to be advantageous to Nazarick. And he's clearly a superb gamer, judging by how he managed to utterly crush the min-maxed Shalltear. But as a ruler? Poor Ainz just can't actually do it.

Hilariously, Demiurge's speech to the assembled officers of Nazarick includes the line "I pray there no one stupid enough to not know of our lord's true ambitions"... leading to a hilarious "ehhh?" by Ainz. And, of course, said ambitions, as interpreted by Demiurge, is world domination, seemingly interpreted from the moment way back in the first episode when Demiurge and Ainz took to the skies and gazed upon the New World with Ainz off-handedly noting that it would be nice to rule over a world like this.

Ainz's emotion-suppression quickly calms the panic within him down, and that ends up causing him to rationally think that, eh, that isn't such a bad idea after all, showing that, yeah, while Ainz might still be a video game player at heart, he's still got a few screws knocked loose with being put into an undead body.

Demiurge and Albedo notes that sooner or later, they're going to have to announce Nazarick's existence to the world, and working from the shadows so far isn't really doing them any favours -- if nothing else, there won't be any added advantages in dealing with the potential Yggdrassil players that attacked Shalltear, which was Ainz's justifications for keeping most of his activities on the down low.

And Demiurge makes it out that Ainz is this master chess-master by noting how one of his first actions in the New World is to establish good relations with Carne Village, no doubt one facet of his master plan to conquer the world... which is a nice segue to the second part of the village, which involves Carne Village.

And I do like this part of the episode a lot better. It clearly switches to the POV of Enri, Nfirea and the goblin minions (who's gotten unique, expressive models between season 1 and 3), but since this is a location that has been established before, and characters that we do care about previously, it's a lot less jarring compared to the point in the second season when we cut to the Lizardmen. While I did end up really caring for the lizardmen as characters and as a part of the world after the arc was done and over with, I kinda wished that we were introduced to Zaryusu and company in some way or form before the arc took place.

Anyway, Carne Village's fun, and this episode is mostly just table-setting. The goblins and humans have all sort of acclimatized to peaceful coexistence, although they are all ultimately bound to Enri as their 'master' (or, well, their ane-san). We get fun scenes like them arguing over breakfast, and one of them, Kaijali, telling Nfirea to stop being such a dork in front of Enri and that he'll flex his muscles whenever there's a chance for Nfirea to score points with Enri. That's funny. Equally funny is Nfirea trying to implement these flirting mechanics and flashing -glint- smiles and completely failing to impress Enri.

The final sequence of this episode is Enri, Nfirea and a trio of goblins going deep into the forest to pick rare herbs, only to see a sickly goblin child being chased by a Barghest -- a staple D&D monster (ironically, Barghests are goblins that can shapeshift into wolves in D&D), here reimagined as a giant demon wolf with a floating chain around it.

We get some genuinely badass moment from Nfirea, who is apparently now able to cast acid spells, and some badass battle sequences from the trio of goblins as they slay the Barghest. The goblins actually manage to slay the Barghest without any casualties, although part of it is thanks to Nfirea being a support-type caster that buffs them, throws alchemical glue and stuff. The little goblin kid is apparently Agu, son of a chief from the Gigu tribe... and his tribe has been attacked by the "Giant of the East" and the "Serpent of the West"... and apparently Ainz taming Hamsuke, the monster of the South, ended up throwing the balance of power in the jungle out of whack, so I'm interested -- is this going to be the culmination of Carne Village's attempt to train and be more independent? Overall, though, it's a fun little return to a couple of characters that I've unexpectedly grown attached to, and I'm always a sucker for fantasy-based settings that make traditional monsters like goblins likable, so this is definitely an arc I do like. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E08-09 Review: Yandere Simulator

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 8-9: Yamagishi Yukako Falls In Love

Another two-parter episode, and perhaps one of the more... wacky and fun episodes? We get the premonition from the hospitalized Hazamada that "Stand Users will be attracted to each other", sort of a mantra that Josuke and company will be repeating throughout the season. 

And the Stand User in question for this pair of episodes is Yamagishi Yukako, a lady from the school they go in, who's madly, deeply in love with Koichi. Why? Why not? JJBA has never really went out of its way to have any sort of meaningful attempt at telling romance, at least not until Part VIII. Yukako starts off as kind of as sweet, demure girl, before going straight-up crazy when Koichi takes too long to reply to her sudden love confession and going "DO YOU HATE ME OR DO YOU LIKE ME, WHICH IS IT?" before storming off, with Koichi confused by the encounter, as well as a fuck-ton of hair clumping up his cola.

And then in the next day, Yukako apologizes, and asks to be friends... but ends up acting like a super over-possessive girlfriend, giving Koichi a floofy sweater that's tailored to his size, making a super-fancy homemade meal, and Koichi actually acts pretty reasonably in that he doesn't want to be rude, but he's clearly disturbed by all of this sudden clinginess by a girl he barely knows. 

And when the class representative interrupts Yukako's attempt to feed Koichi some shrimp, Yukako shows off the powers of her stand by... embedding chunks of her hair into the poor girl's scalp, and then have the hair pull her bodily into the school's incinerator while also wrapping around the poor girl's eyes and tongue. Fortunately, Josuke and Okuyasu have been stalking the stalker, and rescues the poor girl with The Hand. After a meeting with Koichi, Josuke and Okuyasu tries to spread around rumours about what a shit person Koichi is to repel Yukako, but she is clearly unaffected...

And we get some pretty well-shot borderline horror scenes as Yukako shows up at Koichi's window in the middle of the night, and breaks in, noting that she will have to properly "discipline" Koichi, and when Koichi wakes up, he ends up being trapped in a secluded villa -- and while I know Yukako eventually becomes an ally, it is pretty horrifying to be at the mercies of a clearly deranged person who claims to 'love' Koichi. 

But all that horror sort of dissipates that the utter hilarity of Yukako's attempt to teach Koichi English to improve his grades, with a multiple-choice question with food hidden behind the right answer, and horrifying shit like soap, erasers, or asparagus wrapped in pages of English dictionary behind wrong answers. And Yukako's attempts of getting Koichi to learn?  "Prince often sings a song called Funky Music. What does Funky Music mean in Japanese?" before showing off three homophones.

And then as we start off the second part, we get to see Koichi struggling to get into the bathroom, with the bathroom door locked with the combination of "what year is Columbus born?" It's such a hilarious chunk of utterly ridiculous trivia! Yukako's next attempt to discipline Koichi is going to use an electrical chair, but as she goes off and locks up the mansion to buy some supplies, Koichi realizes that Yukako doesn't know about Stands, or that he has one -- and he sends out Echoes to try and scout out for a payphone. For whatever reason, though, Echoes leaving behind "beep boop beep" sound effects on Yukako's hand manages to... dial the phone? What? I'm genuinely not sure how this works, and honestly feels like a pretty contrived sequence. Josuke and Okuyasu are alerted that they're in a payphone near ocean waves, though, because in any fiction-land, ocean waves are always strong enough to be heard over payphones.

And then it's a matter of Koichi surviving until backup arrives, but nothing Echoes manages to do to Yukaku matters. His attempt at shooting "I hate you" non-stop into Yukako gets utterly broken by Yukako's own powerful yandere delusions, and Yukako notes that the simple fact that Koichi has a Stand is proof of their shared destiny. Halfway through the fight, Echoes suddenly turns into a rocky cocoon, and evolves into Echoes: Act II, a funky little stout bug-robot with a giant tail. Act II actually allows Koichi to create the manifestation of the sound effect, so the equivalent to "Boom!" creates a sonic boom, and whatever onomatopoeia corresponds to "sizzle" causes actual heat. 

The battle is basically Yukako attempting to breach the house, and then her Stand goes utterly insane and starts to wrap around the entire house like giant tentacles. Koichi also cuts off his hair to get rid of Yukako's hair... although that ends up giving him a mini-Polnareff haircut. Ha! He's going to look like a small Polnareff for a significant portion of this series, by the way. Koichi manages to 'defeat' Yukako temporarily by goading her into personally wrapping her hair around him, activating the DOGON sound effect that blasts her away to a cliffside. 

The shock apparently bleaches Yukako's hair white, because, uh... what? Stand magic!

And as Yukako tries to kill Koichi so that she can preserve him in her heart, Koichi ends up rescuing Yukako when she falls from the cliff, with a "BOING" sound effect to bouncer her back onto the cliff. Yukako is thusly 'defeated', although she is still in love with Koichi, while the cape became another one of the sights in Morioh Town. 

Overall, it's a fun little episode for Koichi, and again, I really do like it that Koichi is being forced in situations where he is forced to improvise and grow. The fact that Echoes is such a weird Stand with so much creative use of its power also makes most of Koichi's battles to be pretty entertaining to watch. Yukako  herself is a pretty effective antagonist as this insanely obsessive psychopath with a completely warped mentality. There's definitely a fair amount of horror/slasher movie mentality thrown into this, as well as the typical Japanese trope of a yandere character. It's perhaps not the best story in Diamond is Unbreakable, but a fun one nonetheless. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• While not named in either of these episodes due to Yukako not being familiar with Stands, her Stand is called Love Deluxe, sharing its name with a studio album by the English band Sade. Notable songs from that album include Feel No Pain, Kiss of Life and No Ordinary Love. 

Overlord S03E01 Review: Mount Requirements

Overlord, Season 3, Episode 1: A Ruler's Melancholy

We're starting off season three of Overlord! I've really enjoyed the first two seasons of Overlord earlier this year, but waited for the third season to be fully available before watching it. And this third season starts off with... with an episode that's honestly a bit jarring considering how season two ended with a non-stop sequence of a huge battle in the Kingdom's capital with multiple moving parts. This episode seems to be more of a chill one you'd expect to find in the middle of a season, feeling more like a montage of what's going on in the Great Tomb of Nazarick daily when we're not dealing with epic conspiracies and multi-layered double-agent infiltrations.

The episode starts off with a bit of a brief debriefing of the whole Kingdom arc, with rewards to the troops. We get some obvious Sebas/Tuare "get together, guys" jokes from Ainz, whereas Solution's chosen reward is a bunch of humans. The less evil, the better, because she wants to eat them while they are screaming. Yep, Solution, you're one creepy lady! Again, it's in keeping with what we do know of her -- she doesn't really care all that much for humans, and the only reason Tuare lasted that long under the same roof as this psycho slime maid is out of respect and/or fear of Sebas. Kinda wish that the Solution/Sebas working relationship was elaborated a little more, though, after that whole tattletale bit. But I guess Sebas is that much of a gentleman. Meanwhile, Entoma is still speaking in her true voice, and her 'reward' is basically the promise that if Evileye ever becomes an enemy of Nazarick and outlives her usefulness, Entoma wants to be the one allowed to kill her.

And then Ainz takes a bath with a (non-maid) Slime. Do skeletons even need to take a bath? I guess it's something out of habit. Also very interesting to see that the glowing red orb isn't actually part of Ainz's intricate overlord armour but part of his body.

We then cut away to Eclair Eclair Eclair the penguin butler going "I WILL RULE" and the mono-expression robot maid CZ/Shizu kind of just wandering around, and basically treats Eclair like a plushie. There's a bit of a scene that's sort of fluff featuring the even-lower-ranked maids assigned to non-combat maid duties, and some comedy bits with Lupusregina and CZ... fun stuff! We also follow one of these lesser maids, Cixous, as she and Lupusregina sort of discuss the duties of maids. Oh, and Ainz now has an army of CGI robot ants called the "Eight-Edge Assassins" patrolling his room? I confess that other than CZ being an adorable emotionally-stunted robot and Eclair being a penguin, none of these characters really jump out at me.

We then cut to a bunch of more interesting characters, with the three main ladies -- Albedo, Shalltear and Aura -- sort of having a picnic, because Ainz has been telling all of these people to take a break and stop being NPC's 24/7. So somewhere in-between him losing his humanity and shrugging off lizardman genocide, Ainz still feels paternal towards the NPC's, then? Interesting. The NPCs, due to their unique nature  is actually baffled if this 'break' is supposed to be natural or not.

Albedo is a character that is pretty fascinating, by the way. As one of the first characters introduced and one that got the biggest spotlight alongside Ainz in the first bunch of episodes, she quickly got shunted aside as a 'safe' character that can repeat a couple of jokes and is in a comfortable position, but never got the same amount of spotlight as other Nazarick denizens like Shalltear, Sebas or Narberal got, so it's definitely nice to see Albedo actually doing something.

For their part, their little picnic involves Albedo summoning a Bicorn, which is like a demon horse creature... and then when she attempts to mount it, it collapses. Unlike what Aura and Shalltear initially thought, though, it's not because Albedo is fat... it's because she's a virgin, and Bicorns are like reverse-Unicorns. Okay, then? "But you're a succubus!" Aura says, and, yes, that's exactly my question. Also love that little Peroroncino-encyclopedia that Ainz apparently gave Shalltear.

Also, Shalltear apparently has done it with women, which... actually makes sense considering her vampire brides. Yeah, it's definitely a fun little comedic episode, and it's a fun, light-hearted one. Honestly, as much as I really love the heavier storytelling in Overlord, it's very easy to turn this show to take a more comedic turn, and I'm actually a big fan of that.


We then cut to Hamsuke... training... with one of the summoned death knights! And he's being trained by the lizardmen. Apparently Ainz is big enough of a softie to resurrect at least the monk chieftain (Zenberu, I think?) because we get to see him cheering Hamsuke on alongside Zaryusu.

And because an episode that's too happy can't be a thing, we get Mare meeting with this little stout, hooded little plague-doctor dude Pulcinella, whose plague doctor head can instantaneously disappear when he waves around his hands. Pulcinella is a minion of Demiurge, apparently, and he waxes lyrical about how Demiurge is so great for making experiments about breeding humans and non-humans, framing it as a "chance for happiness" for all the Romeo/Juliet pairs among the humans and non-humans. I'm genuinely not sure what is more disturbing -- the none-too-subtle revelation that Demiurge has been conducting pretty rapey "experiments" in his chimera farms, the fact that his minion seems to think that it's for the greater good (and not in the Spock sense either) or that Mare is so blase about the whole thing.

Meanwhile, as we cut to Ainz... he's in a room, practicing poses and writing it down in a little book. Which he hides in a super-secure box with a magical lock that he hides in another dimension.

And then when he sits down, in a meeting, you can totally see the pleasure on Ainz's non-emotive face when Mare compliments how he whooshes his cape like a proper king. Ainz goes into this sentimental speech about how he appreciates everyone from Albedo to Mare to the minor maid Cixous ("Ainz-sama knows my name!").... and this apparently arouses Albedo so much she just rush-tackles Ainz to the ground and tries to basically rape Ainz (but he's just a skeleton, though). Who's too shocked at everything going on. The Eight Edge Assassins try to pull Albedo off, and we just get this slew of amazing facial expressions from her -- the anime staff clearly likes her, huh?  I don't think they actually consummated this bit, though.

We then cut away immediately to Ainz and the other male guardians on a hot springs bath, and apparently this was the "information circular" that was a brief running plot throughout the sporadic events that happened in this episode. We get a hilarious line from Cocytus when the others observe that he's not different because he's always naked anyway "Please do not word it in such a way that I sound like a a pervert." The episode then ends in a lighthearted note as apparently a guardian lion golem installed on the ladies' side of the bath ends up attacking them for being improper and attempting to peek.

Overall, it's a much-needed lighthearted episode, I think. Lots of genuinely fun moments, and some heartwarming bits on the side of Ainz and the other Guardians. Also love the little hints and bits of plot points being addressed -- like the lizardmen, or a far more explicit nod to the horrors Demiurge and his forces are doing off-screen. Next episode will move to a less standalone story arc, though to my understanding the first arc of this season is more of a minor side-story. Or to use a gaming term, a side-quest. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E07 Review: Attack of the Clones

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 7: Hazamada Toshikazu [Surface]

It seems that a huge majority of the Diamond is Unbreakable mini-arcs  are just going to be condensed into single standalone episodes, which is definitely a huge factor in how easy it is to go through Diamond is Unbreakable. This episode starts off with Kobayashi, the Lock dude, apparently now working as an informant about other Stand users created by Nijimura Keicho. "Defeat means friendship" is in full force in Diamond is Unbreakable, which isn't a trope I'm keen with especially with how utterly unlikable Kobayashi is. At least he's going to be good for some cheap laughs at his expense.

Kobayashi tells Josuke and Koichi about our villain of the week, some dude called Hazamada Toshikazu, a douchebag with messy hair who somehow caused a friend who argued about him over anime to gouge out his own eye. (A scene that serves as this episode's cold open) What the hell, man?

Josuke and Koichi's investigation quickly reveals that in Hazamada's locker is a huge sketch anatomy doll, and that's the Stand, Surface -- which transforms into Josuke. Hazamada shows up and reveals that his Stand is like "Per-man copy robot", referencing the old comic of the same name... and Josuke goes "the fuck's that?", causing Hazamada to flip because how dare this man not know a classic manga. The episode doesn't actually do a super-good-job of explaining Surface's abilities, at least for the first half of the episode -- and I don't think our heroes ever have a scene of realizing that Surface requires face-to-face contact to force Josuke to mimic its movements.

Anyway, the initial confrontation has Surface completely overwhelm Josuke, forcing him to backslap Koichi so hard he bleeds all over the place, then stays out of Crazy Diamond's range and forces Josuke to stab himself in the eye, but it merely knocks him out? And Hazamada just... leaves Josuke there? Okay then. Kinda weird that Hazamada has no compunctions of forcing Random McNobody to gouge his eyes out, but doesn't actually confirm Josuke being maimed.

Hazamada wants to go and take out Jotaro for... for reasons, and he just goes off with Surface-Josuke behind him. Oh, and Surface-Josuke can speak with Hazamada no problem, and the two hold several conversations as they go around -- Surface is probably the first Stand to actually show some sort of sentience independent of its user (Anubis is sentient, but he doesn't really have a user), and one of the very rare ones to do so. Surface-Josuke gets to call Jotaro and draw him out of his hotel, beats up Kobayashi and leaves him for dead (he gets better), and we get a fun bit where Hazamada is straight-up jealous at how Josuke (or a Stand with Josuke's face) is so popular with girls.

Ultimately, the rest of the episode is a bit of a fun chase throughout town, with the thing that ends up being Hazamada's downfall being his excessive brutality -- stopping to brutalize the bikers with Surface and a cutter knife ends up allowing Josuke and Koichi to catch up to him and break Josuke throws a shard of glass and reforms it, cutting off Surface's hand. For whatever reason, Surface is one of those few Stands that doesn't actually hurt its owner when it gets hurt -- is it because it has a physical form of its own? Yeah, Part 4 does play fast and loose with Stand rules, although I guess we have a precedent with Thoth and Wheel of Fortune, where the Stand is a physical object that doesn't hurt its owner when it's attacked.

Koichi uses his Stand to make a fake train sound to cause Hazamada to take a longer route, and later on when Hazamada finally catches up to Josuke and has him try to kill Jotaro, the punks that Hazamada brutalizes shows up, healed by Josuke, and drag him away to beat him up. Oh, and throughout the episode we have scenes of Yukako watching our heroes, as well as Red Hot Chili Pepper at the end.

Ultimately,  while the concept of Surface is certainly an interesting one, I don't think this particular storyline is all that exciting, and probably one of the weaker ones in these earlier Part 4 episodes. I'm not sure if that's because Hazamada is utterly unlikable and petty, or if his motivations is just so unexplored, or the pretty bland confrontations, but this episode feels particularly weak.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Surface borrows its name from the 90's American band Surface.

So...

My laptop broke down. Which kind of means no new posts from me for the next... oh, I dunno, one week or so? I do have a bunch of emergency posts stored up -- mostly JoJo stuff and I do think the next couple of "reviewing Digimon" segments are all but complete. And Overlord season 3 reviews basically just need a bit of a proofreading, so I can manage to get some content out while laptopless.

But basically all of the TV and manga stuff will be significantly delayed. It's pretty annoying to type on a phone for anything lengthier than this post, after all.

Sorry about this.

Digimon Reviews: Episode 1: Agumon and Friends

So, I've gone and done what I didn't think I could do -- review every single Pokemon and give my opinions on them. I've been thinking of doing the same about Digimon, except for one problem. The format. And for those who's not familiar, Pokemon's rival, the other 'mon' franchise, Digimon... isn't quite as well-organized as Pokemon. Pokemon keeps all its creatures with strict numbering systems and is almost allergic to changing them in any sort. Its anime and manga and spinoff game adaptations all follow more or less the same rules that govern the mainline games.

Digimon's canon is... far more erratic. Originally introduced as a Tamagotchi-style virtual pet, it quickly branched out to have a manga, a bunch of other RPG-style video games, and a very, very good anime. And that's where Digimon always wins out over Pokemon -- the anime actually feels like a huge epic story instead of the hyuck-hyuck-villain-of-the-week stories the Pokemon anime repeats ad nauseam. The fact that the main characters in the Digimon anime actually go through character development, and that there's actual death and epic stakes, was actually pretty damn great.

But what it sort of loses is the fact that Digimon can be pretty inconsistent from game to game, and from each iteration of the franchise to the next. While there are some obvious Digimon that are designed visually to evolve to and from each other, from each piece of media -- from the anime (which gets rebooted with a fresh cast after every couple of years) to different games (none of the games work the same, with the evolution scheme and methods differing wildly from game to game), the evolution (or digi-volution) lines can change at the whim of the team behind that game. Not to mention some Digimon that are specifically intended to be guest stars in a single game/manga/anime. Many Digimon might be dropped from games entirely, depending on the writing team, and depending on how prolific said Digimon is in the media.

So as much as I really want to talk about Digimon, I've been putting it off a lot because... how am I going to talk about them? By the time they're introduced in the anime? By stage? Alphabetical? By digivolution line?

Well, thanks to Wikimon, I guess I sort of have the answer. One of the things it has in its category is "Digimon introduced in X Year", so I'll just take that and review most of the 'canon' Digimon (basically if they have an official Bandai art) depending on their release date. We'll see how long I last, because unlike Pokemon, there's not a real set end date... and I actually do think many of the later-released Digimon are pretty samey. So, without further ado, we'll start off with the year 1997, where the Digimon virtual pets come into circulation. This won't be all of the 1997 Digimon because there's a fair bit of them, but there's enough of the iconic ones to fill a full article.
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Digimon Stages and Some Housekeeping

Before we go any further, let's acknowledge the fact that one of the biggest parts of Digimon is their Evolution Stages. Each Digimon hatches from an egg, and continues to grow into a stronger, more powerful form from a little blob into monsters. Depending on the specific part of the canon, Digimon evolution can either be for the long haul (tends to be the case in video games), or are treated as sort of a temporary power up and the Digimon will revert into their child/rookie stage after a fight. And while these levels are a rough guideline as to how powerful a Digimon is, the power scaling is vastly different due to Digimon making full use of "emotion is power" anime tropes and there being a lot of protagonist and main villain Digimon that stand so much higher than those of similar level.

The more commonly accepted terminology is different in English and Japanese, with the progression being as such:

• Baby I (Fresh in English)
• Baby II (In-Training in English)
• Child (Rookie in English)
• Adult (Champion in English)
• Perfect (Ultimate in English)
• Ultimate (Mega in English)

Yes, the "Ultimate" stage means two different things in the two different languages, because the translation team translated "Perfect" into "Ultimate"... only for the Japanese game-makers to refer to the next stage as "Ultimate" Yep! Translation is fun. In addition to these commonly accepted six forms, there are Armor Digivolutoins, Jogress/Fusion Digivolutions, Super-Ultimate, Ultimates that evolve only from other Ultimates... yeah, Digimon's pretty confusing! We'll burn that bridge when we reach there, but I just kind of want to put this out there because I'm going to use the Japanese forms. I'll sway one side and the other for actual Digimon names, but for the stages I'll use the Japanese one for the simple fact that it's a lot easier to remember which means which, and the very first Digimon material I was exposed to was a dub that isn't the more common English dub. So.

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So while the obvious thing to do might be to just break down the Digimon attached to all the main characters of the anime, I think I'll go in a different direction and instead just review them based on the original Digimon virtual pet device that they debuted in. While all of the Digimon series post-Adventure would have the main partner Digimon designs be finalized alongside any games, virtual pets and other products, the original first two years of Digimon were just the virtual pets that were eventually spun off into a manga, an OVA, an anime, and a couple different video games. So let's see just what the original Digital Monsters were, from the very first Virtual Pet...

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Botamon

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

So I think I'll have to sort of emphasize just how the Digimon franchise begun, since I don't have a whole ton to talk about Botamon. It's originally just a set of virtual pets, sort of the 'boy' version of the then-popular Tamagotchi pets. You just raise them, have them evolve digivolve to more powerful forms depending on how good you are at raising them, and then sometimes you fight with them against your buddies. They come with little instruction booklets illustrating the 'true' form of the pixelated virtual pets, as well as providing the backstory associated with them. A couple of years and a couple of video games later, Digimon would branch off into an anime that shot the franchise from being relatively obscure to being one of the Big Thing for kids in the 90's. It really helps that the original anime is pretty great, too, honestly, and is probably something I'll review at one point in this site's future.

Anyway, Botamon over here is the very first "Baby I" Digimon, and is a form attributed most closely to Agumon, the main character Taichi's partner in the anime. "Baby I" is the form when a Digimon has just hatched out of an egg, and tend to be formless. Botamon does a remarkable job at being so freaking adorable, with its yellow glowing eyes and its black blob of a body. I've never really quite understood just why its body is so... sketchy? Fluffy? Botamon's profiles note that it is a 'slime' Digimon covered with a thick black fuzz. Eh, its anime appearances tended to downplay the weird fuzz Botamon has in his official art. Botamon's adorable, but he never really does much in any of the anime series, but the Baby I forms tend to just show up as the sort of civilians that our heroes tend to rescue in villages and the like in the digital world. Like most baby digimon, all Botamon can do to fight is to spit out bubbles. Which are acidic, apparently. Okay?

I like Botamon and it's cute, but there's really not much to really say here.

 6/10.

For my Digimon reviews, we'll be using Agumon and Sukamon sprites to show my rating. Keep in mind that this isn't an actual indictment towards Sukamon, who I don't hate, but I can't waste the literal poop sprite that Digimon so handily has, right? After a bit of thinking around, I've changed the scale (previously from 0-5, just like Pokemon reviews) from 0 to 10. 0 will be a very rare, at least for the first half-dozen anime series, only reserved for designs that actually offend me. 1 are ones I genuinely dislike, 2-3 is for something I'm indifferent towards. 4 is for a neat design that doesn't live up to the potential. 5 is the average design, 6-7 are things that I don't especially love but are neat enough for me to like nonetheless (a lot of times, anime portrayals will bump designs from the 3-5 range to the 6-7 range, and sometimes to 8), 8-9 are ones I personally really like, and 10 is reserved for a couple of special super-awesome things.

Again, these ratings are subjective, and while I'll try my best to explain why I feel that way towards them, but it's all right if you like something I hate, and if you hate something I like.
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Koromon

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

Koromon is the "Baby II" form (it tends to be around this form that the Digimon tends to develop intelligence, but the rules vary between the many, many Digimon series), which is something that's achieved relatively quickly to have the kiddies excited at having their Digimon evolve quickly, but despite looking like a flying Pac-Man monster, all Koromon can do is still just shoot bubbles. Koromon gets a fair amount of screentime in the Digimon Adventure anime, because any time Agumon digivolves beyond Adult form he will have spent so much energy that he reverts back to Koromon. Koromon has also appeared in a lot of other material as one of the 'civilian' baby Digimon that the main characters have to rescue.

I like Koromon. It's a simple design, a little pink blob of flesh with antennas, an angry face and a huge, toothy mouth. It genuinely looks like a creature that can actually fuck you up -- most anime appearances has Koromon be big enough to sit on a human's lap, and a mouth that big with teeth can do some serious damage, 'baby' or no baby. Koromon's pretty neat, striding the balance between cute and rough-n'-tumble ugly, and honestly it's actually a pretty great decision to associate Koromon with the main character.

Also, surprisingly, for a series that changed practically every other term during localization, including the name of the human characters, the name of the stages and the names of all the attacks, the Digimon names themselves aren't localized, unlike Pokemon. It does add to a sense of charm, as much as sometimes I wish some of the Digimon are easier to remember when their names are literally an onomatopoeia in Japanese. Case in point, Koromon takes his name from korokoro, the sound of rolling, and his evolution Agumon takes his name from aguagu, the sound of biting. Botamon, in contrast, is based on botamochi, a kind of cake. Mmm, cake. Anyway, Koromon's neat.

 7/10.
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Agumon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Reptile
• Attribute: Vaccine

The original Digimon Virtual Pet had two "Child" (Rookie for English-speakers) forms that Koromon can evolve into. One would become the poster child of the franchise as a whole, while the other sort of gets relegated to bit roles. Anyway, this is Agumon, a little yellow baby dinosaur! Boys love dinosaurs, and do you know what boys love more than dinosaurs? Firebreathing dinosaurs. It's easy why Agumon ends up being a shoo-in for the franchise's mascot, and just like Koromon, Agumon exudes 'cute' and 'ugly-cool' that the 90's aesthetic tended to gravitate towards.

While the anime's depiction of Agumon would tone down the very visible veins and make his expression a fair bit cuter, Agumon does end up being pretty iconic! There's something about designs like Agumon and Pikachu that are honestly pretty basic, but still exudes enough charm to be enduring mascots and faces of a franchise. There's some neat bits about Agumon's visual design that I do like, mainly the huge arms and the neat eyes. I've always found it a bit weird why Agumon had some very human-like musculature on his torso and abdomen, but at the same time these are creatures made out of digital data, and thus they don't really have to confirm to proper biology like most fantasy monsters do. Oh, and Agumon can fight, now, shooting out 'baby flames' (pepper breath in the dub, a far cooler name IMO). It's this 'Child' stage that the Digimon tend to default into when they're not fighting, which is why Agumon gets the most screentime out of his myriad forms.

Also, Agumon is the first of the Digimon we're covering today to have an attribute -- both Botamon and Koromon are "Free" of any attributes because babies don't understand morality (although later sources would retcon all babies into "Data"). The sourcebooks separate all Digimon into one of three attributes -- the evil and chaotic Virus, the neutral Data and the good, um, Vaccine. Because, hey, 90's kids aren't quite as tech-savvy and obviously the rival to viruses are vaccines, just like in medicine! In actual practice in Digimon fiction, the Vaccine/Virus/Data bit doesn't actually come to much play. Unless there's something interesting, I won't make a habit of referring to the 'alignments' of the Digimon.

In the anime, Agumon is the partner Digimon of Yagami Taichi (Tai in the dub), the main, archetypal heroic, hot-headed leader of the group. Unlike most anime at that time, though, Digimon Adventure actually pits its characters and forces them to go through a not-insignificant amount of character development (that sequel series sometimes sadly piss all over to varying degrees). Agumon tends to remain pretty static throughout his run through Adventure, basically filling in the role of the simple, happy-go-lucky, always-hungry buddy, but it's this simpleness that ends up being a stark contrast to how intense his partner can be at times. Taichi's kind of neatly-developed for a protagonist character type, but also suffers from the fact that the show sometimes doesn't allow him to grow quite as much. I'll try to cover the human characters as briefly but as comprehensively when I get to their partners. Anyway, Agumon's cool. Dinosaurs are cool, fire-breathing dinosaurs are cool, digital fire-breathing dinosaurs even moreso.

 8/10.
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Greymon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Dinosaur
• Attribute: Vaccine

Aw shit yeah, Greymon! This is where the cool designs are all located, the "Adult" (or Champion for localized speakers) stage. Greymon is a big-ass dinosaur with a neat orange skin and blue stripes, but clearly the most striking feature about this thing is that it's got this weird black exoskeleton-armour on its head. The official profiles identify the material on Greymon's head to be... as dense as a beetle's shell? I know beetles are badass and all, but that's not really a comparison you want to be making to describe a badass fire-breathing dinosaur. Greymon is straight-up a big ass giant dinosaur that shoots gigantic fireballs, and is as iconic to the series as Agumon himself is. Oh, and it's also intelligent -- which is the norm for most Digimon, most of which are intelligent, sentient creatures.  Once again, the anime model would make Greymon a lot more proportioned, with less pronounced limbs.

I surprisingly don't actually have a lot to say about Greymon. I loved him a lot when I was a kid, because, hey, big-ass fire-breathing dinosaur with an organic helmet! But there's honestly not much to say here beyond "yep, that's pretty damn badass". Greymon's a great design, if slightly simple. Thanks to the original anime, Greymon's basically became the default evolution for Agumon, even though in the original virtual pet (and various other games) there's a crap-ton of other stuff that Agumon can evolve into. You can't blame the anime designers for choosing Greymon as the default evolution for Agumon, though -- it's the most organic, and Greymon even shares Agumon's orange body colours, fire powers and theropodal body design. The only thing that sort of bothers me about Greymon -- and a lot of Digimon's dinosaurs in general -- is the fact that they bizarrely are always drawn with prominent pectoral muscles and pot-bellies, which I feel has always felt very off on a dinosaur monster, whether it be modern-anatomically accurate dinosaurs or old-school Godzilla-style dinosaurs.

 8/10.
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MetalGreymon

• Alternate Names: MetalGreymon Virus
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Virus

The thing that truly made Greymon cool for me isn't Greymon himself, but rather his Perfect ("Ultimate" in localizations) form, MetalGreymon! Yes, it's not enough to make the main character a fire-breathing dinosaur, but now it's a fire-breathing CYBORG ZOMBIE dinosaur! Unfortunately, that 'zombie' deal only applies to the original MetalGreymon from the original Virtual Pet and other games like Digimon World, which is a blue Virus-attributed monster. It's not until Greymon had to evolve in the Adventures anime that the creative team decided to drop the whole 'decomposing failed cyborg experiment' deal and just allowed MetalGreymon to just be, well, Greymon with a bunch of metallic robot parts strapped on. This Vaccine MetalGreymon basically replaced the original blue one as the default MetalGreymon, although Virus!MetalGreymon did make a brief cameo in Adventure's sequel, Adventure 02, when Agumon got mind-controlled and forced to evolve unwillingly, being transformed into a feral, virus blue version of MetalGreymon.

The original profiles had the virus version of MetalGreymon as being forced to mechanize its body to survive through the many harsh battles, but the ones who are unable to hold out ended up having their flesh discoloured blue (which is kiddified speak for "decomposed", I suppose). The vaccine version is apparently the 'perfect' MetalGreymon, which is a true amalgamation of flesh and machine. Pretty neat!

This is one of the original three available "Perfect" forms, and, as you probably could imagine, "Perfect" was the original final form in these Virtual Pets, although in a couple of years we'd get a sixth form, "Ultimate" (or Mega, for the fans of the dub). It's interesting just how many available Adult-stage Digimon in the original V-Pets, but only three available Perfect forms. Despite its name, though, it's not just Greymon that can evolve into MetalGreymon -- in the original V-Pet, Devimon and Airdramon would have MetalGreymon as their final form, and depending on the individual game, other non-Greymon Adults can also evolve into MetalGreymon. Such is Digimon and its deliberately fluid evolution lines -- although thanks to the Adventure anime, the Botamon into Koromon into Agumon into Greymon into MetalGreymon evolution line is sort of set in stone. There is, of course, the final Ultimate form, but we'll save that for later on.

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Vaccine

I really do like MetalGreymon's design. Part of it is nostalgia, I'm sure, because I remembered sort of losing my mind when MetalGreymon was revealed in the anime in a pretty badass sequence, and I remembered finally getting one in Digimon World. One of little-me's first Digimon merchandise was a toy that transformed between Greymon and MetalGreymon, and as a kid I think it's always permanently in MetalGreymon mode.

Anyway, I've always loved the design. I loved how only one of the arm gets transformed into a very mean-looking trident-like claw that's disproportionately large, I loved swapping out the chitinous head-helmet for a metallic mask, I loved the tattered purple wings, and I loved the weird chest-mounted missile pods that shoot missiles that are apparently... organic black blobs? With a propulsion jet and a grinning fanged mouth? Yeaaah. Those are called "Giga Destroyers", and are MetalGreymon's main attack in lieu of fire breathing. His secondary attack in the anime is launching that mean-looking claw like a goddamn grappling hook. There perhaps is a bit too much detailing on MetalGreymon, mind you -- I've never really liked the random splotch of red hair that sprouted out behind MetalGreymon's head, which I felt didn't even fit the whole theme of a cyborg transformation. Overall, though, probably my favourite of these first-year Digimon, although I will be the first to admit that nostalgia goggles are very strong in my opinion for this dude.

MetalGreymon, of course, would evolve further into WarGreymon, which we'll cover some time down the line, and an alternate evolution to Greymon is SkullGreymon, which we'll cover in the next section was originally covered in Episode 2 since I was grouping things by V-Pet debuts, but ended up grouping them by "main anime character" instead.

 10/10.
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SkullGreymon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Undead
• Attribute: Virus

The original Perfect evolution for the Gabumon V-Pet was SkullGreymon, though, which, as you could imagine, was a Perfect evolution that's far more associated with Greymon than any of the Adult-level Digimon that could evolve into it in the toy SkullGreymon debuted in. And holy FUCK what a badass motherfucker SkullGreymon is. It's just the straight-up skeleton of a dinosaur, with its permanently-open gaping maw, a second pair of ribcage that form some sort of wing-esque protrusions from his back, an exposed heart still in his ribcage, and it has a missile that it shoots out from its spinal cord. Oh, and the missile is orange and has a shark's face on it just because. SkullGreymon is positively nightmarish, and the profile books note that SkullGreymon was once an Adult Digimon that put too much importance on fighting, and even as its body rotted away its combat instinct drove its skeleton to continue fighting. Oh, and it has sprouted a goddamn nuclear missile on its back, and the attack where he shoots this missile is called "Ground Zero".

In the anime, SkullGreymon is the 'dark' Digivolution of Greymon, and is treated absolutely nightmarishly by the anime. See, the way the Adventure cast unlock the Adult evolution is pretty simple -- the Child-level Digimon end up finding the power to digivolve to protect their partners. But the Perfect stage? The Chosen Children have to find out one of several positive emotional qualities associated with them. Taichi's supposed quality was Courage, and, desperate to prove himself and fight the next Big Bad of the series, actually threw himself in front of enemies to force his partner Greymon to evolve into a Perfect stage, endangering even his friends in the process, and this corruption of anything resembling proper Courage instead turned Greymon into this nightmarish creature.

I remembered finding SkullGreymon insanely cool and scary as a kid, especially how it basically devolved into a nightmarish monster that couldn't tell friend apart from foe. It's also positively titanic -- Greymon and MetalGreymon are as large as dinosaurs, but SkullGreymon is straight-up kaiju sized. Overall, SkullGreymon is perhaps a design that I truly loved, perhaps as much as MetalGreymon. I dunno. I'm just a sucker for nightmarish zombie dinosaurs, it seems. SkullGreymon's cool!

 10/10.
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WarGreymon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Dragon Man
• Attribute: Vaccine

Now with my fanboying about the Adventure anime you'd think I would have as much love to say about these two as the rest of the Adventure cast. And don't get me wrong, WarGreymon is pretty goddamn cool, with waaaay too many of the most badass scenes in Digimon Adventure attributed to the duo of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. WarGreymon here was, like MetalGarurumon, an Ultimate-level introduced all the way in 1999, and is toted as the ultimate form of the Greymon-species Digimon. Unfortunately, though, it does sort of betray a lot of the design aesthetics that Agumon and the three other Greymons have, becuase other than the reptilian legs and a vaguely Greymon-esque head, WarGreymon's more of a dragon-man than a dinosaur. And while WarGreymon's pretty cool, there's also a part of me that wished that there was more connection with MetalGreymon. WarGreymon looks more like a weird buff knight than anything, and while there's nothing quite wrong with that -- he looks a lot more bestial and monster-like than a lot of the humanoid Digimon we'll see in the future -- it also feels a bit of a mis-match for me, honestly.

Still, WarGreymon is still individually a very cool looking design. From the flat blade-like wings, the helmmet, the knight-like armour and the fact that he has humanoid fists attached to some Wolverine-esque gauntlets... WarGreymon's a pretty damn cool design removed from the whole "I want this to be a dinosaur" thing. I've always found WarGreymon's hair to be oddly charming. I guess that's one part it shares with MetalGreymon? I know I'll be complaining a lot about the generic-anime-humanoid Digimon in the future. WarGreymon, I must stress, isn't that bad! He does do the dragon-knight man deal pretty well.

WarGreymon's main attack is the Gaia Force, where he straight-up just summons a gigantic ball of energy several times bigger than itself, but perhaps the most impressive weapons is the fact that his arm-blades are apparently called "Dramon Killers",  and are especially effective against Dramon digimon. Considering two of the four final bosses in Adventure are MetalSeadramon and Mugendramon, that was certainly convenient for WarGreymon! I can't honestly say I hate WarGreymon at all. He's been such a huge part of my childhood, and while objectively I'd probably rate WarGreymon like 3/5 for his design alone, the huge role he played in the Adventure cartoon and the nostalgia factor has sort of led me to give him a somewhat higher rating.

 7/10, and a good chunk of that score is from the anime
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Betamon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Amphibian
• Attribute: Virus

Poor, poor Betamon. Betamon was the 'alternate' Child stage for Koromon in the original Virtual Pet, but virtually no one associate Botamon and Koromon as evolving into Betamon. And while Betamon has been a constant presence in many video games and as minor one-episode-shot moments in the various anime series, I don't think Betamon has ever really done anything significant. Which is a shame, because I've always found Betamon's design pretty charming, and a lot more unique compared to Agumon's "child dinosaur". Look at Betamon! He's this weird mixture of amphibian and reptilian features, with a very pleasing green-and-orange palette, those charming little one-toed feet and a big-ass orange fin-mohawk. Admittedly a huge chunk of my love for Betamon is that I had spent a lot of Digimon video games ending up with a Betamon as a partner. I do like Betamon, and honestly it's one of those designs that I feel to be weird enough since it doesn't really resemble any real-life animal, hammering home the whole "Monster" epithet, but also looks like it could be something that real-life evolution could produce.

In the anime, Betamon's biggest appearance was as a guest star in the Adventure 02 series, where it's revealed that there are apparently Chosen Children (Digi-Destined for the dub) in other parts of the world, and Michael of America is partnered with a Betamon. I do like Betamon a whole lot, honestly. For whatever reason, they've decided that this weird frog-reptile creature's main attacking ability is to generate electrical blasts. You know what? After having to write a bit about Betamon, I realized that I do like him a lot. Part of it might be the simple underdog factor, but his design's genuinely fun and in another world I definitely could've seen Betamon replacing any of the original seven partner Digimon in the anime. Interestingly, Betamon is classified as a 'Virus', but look at that face! Does that look like the face of an evil virus to you?

 9/10.
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Seadramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Aquatic
• Attribute: Data

Betamon's default evolution, in no small part due to the Adventure 02 anime, is into a Seadramon. While originally debuting as one of many 'Adult' forms in the original V-Pet, subsequent games and anime would add more and more versions of Seadramon, as well as -dramon in general. Betamon's default evolutions have basically been either Seadramon or Airdramon, which we'll cover below.

I do like Seadramon a fair bit! He's one of the earliest enemies that was featured in the villain-of-the-week segment of Digimon Adventure, being the third villain that they faced, and one of the few Digimon to actually behave in a near-animalistic fashion. It's also pretty damn huge in the anime. Seadramon's a pretty huge sea serpent, and while it's a pretty simple monster trope, I do appreciate the wildly striking blue-and-yellow colour palette they used for Seadramon, with the very bony yellow head beak-like carapace contrasting with the blue-and-red undulating body. Also liked the little leaf-tail, even if that doesn't really have much of a use beyond causing misunderstandings with dimension-displaced children. I also really do like the little almost redundant flipper-like protrusions on Seadramon's body, which is a neat bit of detail... are those the remnants of Betamon's little claw-legs? Anyway, I do like Seadramon, especially the cleaner-looking anime model. I've also used a fair amount of Seadramons in different video games over the years. I do like this guy. I feel kinda odd giving near-perfect scoress here and there, but it is true that Digimon did throw around some of their best designs early on.

 9/10.
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Tyrannomon

• Alternate Names: Tyranomon
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Dinosaur
• Attribute: Data

Tyrannomon (sometimes spelled Tyranomon with single 'n', although being based on the Tyrannosaurus rex I refuse to use that spelling) is one of the alternate evolutions that Agumon can evolve into in the original V-Pet, and have actually been consistently portrayed as alternate evolutions of Agumon in most video games. I do like Tyrannomon, although not quite as much as Greymon -- the insanely feral look on Greymon and the far cooler horned helmet that Greymon has is far more interesting than the honestly pretty generic dinosaur look that Tyrannomon has. I mean, he does have those spines running down his back, which is definitely note a Tyrannosaurus rex thing to have, but I do appreciate that Tyrannomon's far larger head and claws makes him actually look a bit more like Agumon's general body plan compared to Greymon. It also breathes fire, like Greymon. Unlike Greymon, apparently Tyrannomon is a lot easier to tame for digimon tamers, although it has almost exclusively been portrayed as enemy Digimon. It's a bit of an ass for whoever that wrote Tyrannomon's official profile to emphasize on how 'basic' it is as a Digimon, though. Tyrannomon doesn't deserve your sass!

Anyway, I do like Tyrannomon, although I can't honestly say that it's any more interesting than Greymon or the many other Greymon and Tyrannomon variants we'll be covering down the line. Appropriately, in the Adventures anime, a Tyrannomon shows up to challenge specifically Greymon. He's a very solid design, and other than the weird internal style of theropodal dinosaurs having pecs and fat bellies, it's one that I have no complaints about... but also kind of boring.

 7/10.

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Devimon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Fallen Angel
• Attribute: Virus

Devimon, on the other hand, is anything but boring. While nowadays Devimon almost exclusively evolves from PicoDevimon (DemiDevimon to dub-viewers), back in the original V-Pet it's one of the possible evolutions of both Agumon and Betamon. And, well, it's a goddamn devil! Honestly, with the sheer amount of religious panic surrounding franchises like Pokemon, Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, I'm genuinely surprised that Devimon went through the localization process completely unmolested. He even gets to keep his name Devimon instead of it being bastardized into Evilmon or some shit! Also, I guess it's worth noting here that the world of Digimon isn't exactly just traditional animals and sci-fi/fantasy tropes like Pokemon is, and we've got a lot of more humanoid monsters based on horror movies and sometimes even specific pop culture elements. My tastes tend to lean more towards creatures and monsters that look, well, not just like a funnily-dressed human... but I'll try to be as objective as possible.

Devimon is, of course, eternally famous for being the original Big Bad of Digimon Adventure, being the final boss that manipulates and drives all the inhabitants of File Island all evil. It's easy to say that Devimon ends up being one of the most iconic bad guys in Digimon history. And whether it's Tom Wyner or Shiozawa Kaneto voicing the slimy bastard, Devimon is forever remembered as one of the cooler bad guys ever, despite merely being a tougher-than-average Adult-stage.

And Devimon's a design that immediately screams 'bad guy!' more than... well, so many other future demon Digimon that we'll get down the line. Its profile notes that it's a former Angemon-species Digimon that fell into digital hell the Dark Area, and he basically became Digimon Satan. Devimon basically does all your dark magic shit -- he's capable of hypnosis, mind control, and his freakishly gaunt claws attached to even more disproportionately long claws are his main ways of attack. And honestly? Several hundreds of designs and seven anime series later, Devimon is still fondly remembered as one of Digimon's coolest looking bad guy. From the tattered wings to the unnaturally straight posture, to his long arms that reach all the way to the feet, and the gigantic heaping of GOTH that Devimon has... He's got a big-ass bat symbol on his chest, devil horns, tattered wings, bandages wrapping up his entire lower left arm (and one of the fingers is red because why not), leather belts wrapping up the other arm, and also belts, zippers, skulls and BDSM bolts literally everywhere across his body... And despite the fact that such a huge concentration of leather belts and random metal bands should theoretically look pretty damn silly, Devimon makes it work.

While that official Bandai artwork does look a lot more zombie-like, look at the cleaner Toei animation model (which I'll show off here, although I'll try to not make a habit of doing so) that everyone fell in love with. Devimon's like, bad guy design 101, but god damn if he doesn't take all the tropes to make a generic bad guy and make it work. I genuinely highly doubt anyone would take Devimon as seriously as they did had he not looked like a straight-up devil. Great design.

 10/10.
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Meramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Flame
• Attribute: Data

The other humanoid Adult champion available for the original V-Pet is Meramon, which, like Devimon has absolutely nothing to do with either Betamon or Agumon. (After a while, the Child-level Candlemon is introduced as Meramon's default Child-level counterpart) A angry naked man made entirely out of fire is not the first thing that comes to mind when you say "you can have a virtual pet", but at least Meramon tries to make it somewhat interesting. The glowing blue eyes genuinely look menacing, and I do love that his mouth is stitched shut for no real reason at all (though the anime shows that Meramons can speak just fine with that mouth).

Apparently Meramon is created from the defensive "Firewall" that protects the digital world from otherworldly threats? Meramon himself flip-flops between being a Data and Vaccine Digimon, although not that such distinctions really matter. Meramon is one of those early antagonists in the original Digimon Adventure, and is one of the first villain-of-the-week to be shown to be mind-controlled by Devimon up there. And while he's definitely not to my taste as what I imagine a Digimon partner to be, Meramon definitely fits a role as a cool-looking one-off enemy, because so far Meramon has shown up as minor antagonists in Adventure, 02, Tamers, Savers and Xros Wars. Not my thing, but I'm glad he exists.

 5/10.
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Airdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Mythical Beast
• Attribute: Vaccine

Airdramon is the other Adult form exclusive to Betamon in the original V-Pets, but I'm genuinely no sure just why I kind of think it stands alone alongside all the other airborne -dramons. Anyway, I do like Airdramon a fair bit more than Seadramon, I think. The combination of mainly blue and red colours, coupled with the vibrant yellows on Airdramon's feathers and the bleach-bone white skull head makes for a very cool combination. Airdramon's pretty damn cool, a simple flying Couatl-style beast, and the combination of fun feathers, toothy dragon skull-head and tattered wings make a really neat combination -- even if that face is definitely far more goofy-looking than the majestic air-beast that its profile claims it is. Airdramon's profile hypes this dude up to be 'highly valued', 'unable to be tamed by a normal tamer' and having 'an existence close to that of a god' thanks to its ability to create storms and manipulate the wind. As a kid watching Adventure, I somehow came across a V-Pets guidebook that had the profiles of a lot of these early Digimon, and some 90% of those Digimon showed up in the anime. Airdramon was one of the few to have only a brief cameo, and for this profile's reason I always thought Airdramon was extra-badass.

And then when Airdramon actually do make a major appearance in the 02 anime, it's as literal cannon fodder as quite literally dozens of these guys act as the air force of the first villain in that series, the human Digimon Kaiser. Oh well. At least the Airdramon get a fair amount of airtime. Eh? EH?Anyway, while Airdramon's never quite that badass in any of his appearances, being treated as basically cannon fodder in anything he actually shows up in. But he can damn well look good while being a fake myth.

 8/10.
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Numemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Mollusk
• Attribute: Virus

Eyyy it's Numemon! Now back in the original V-Pets, if you truly and absolutely fucked up, instead of evolving your Child-level Digimon into badass dinosaurs, dragons, demons and naked fire-people, you instead get... Numemon. A sorry-ass ugly and grotesque Digimon that's supposed to be based on a slug, but is so chunky and portly, with such an exaggeratedly huge mouth, teeth and tongue, with those extremely bloodshot, mismatched eyes on veiny eye-stalks. Man, those eyes really look like they're in pain! Behold, Numemon, who will end up becoming one of the staples in nearly every Digimon game as the undesirable Adult-level Digimon that's an ugly, grinning slug that's even weaker than some Child-level digimon. And it attacks by spouting pseudopods and throwing its own fucking POOP at its enemies, something that the English dub tries to censor so hilariously by handwaving them as 'sludge'. As much as I frown on the idea of a shit-slinging monster... Numemon has somehow, against all odds, wormed its way into my heart after all these years. Originally I just kind of took pity on them for being such literal shits. And then their portrayals as "shit, but with their own code of honour" in Adventure really sold me.

The fact that Numemon's the franchise's resident butt-monkey, the butt of many, many jokes as their attempts at affection are rebuffed, they live in the sewers and exist to be the bearer of butt jokes makes it no less effective when a group of them decided to hold the line against one of the main end-game villains, the Ultimate-level Mugendramon... and manages to hold the line for all of two seconds before being vaporized, a scene that's played deathly straight. Good job, Digimon Adventure, you got me caring for a bunch of dumb shit-slinging slugs.

Overall, I've grown to find Numemon far more charming than stupid, honestly, and have grown to appreciate just what Numemon represents in the Digimon franchise. In addition to being an honestly not-bad slug monster, the fact that Numemon -- the ultimate underdog that's weaker than even a monster a level below it -- exists ends up being a stark contrast to basically every other Digimon. And while Numemon is literal crap, it's not the end of the road for this grinning (grimacing?) poop slug, because everyone loves an underdog story...

 8/10.
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Monzaemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Puppet
• Attribute: Vaccine

And howdy boy, what an unexpected underdog story this is! The original V-Pet has three "Perfect" evolutions programmed in -- MetalGreymon, Mamemon, and this Easter Egg Digimon Monzaemon, who is only accessible by evolving a Numemon. It takes a LOT of effort, though, in most of the games, since, y'know, a poop-slug isn't much of a battler. It's an Easter Egg that I don't think have ever made it into any of the animes, despite both Numemon and Monzaemon appearing in practically every other anime. But it's an Easter Egg from the games, most memorably for me in Digimon World, where the way to get Numemon to evolve into Monzaemon is pretty difficult. First you have to get a Numemon, and then take it to an empty teddy-bear suit in an area of File Island called Toy Town, and then the Numemon will slither in and digivolve/take control of Monzaemon... and despite being a big fluffy yellow teddy bear, Monzaemon tends to be portrayed to be able to kick ass with most of the other Perfects out there.

Hilariously, Monzaemon's profile tends to note about how it's completely shrouded in mystery, and how it's just a plush toy with someone seemingly controlling the suit from the inside. And Monzaemon's attack is unleashing giant heart-shaped bubbles called "Lovely Attack" that basically turn Monzaemon's enemies so happy they can't battle. In most media, Monzaemon also tends to be portrayed as the leader of a toy-themed area. Monzaemon is also one of the earlier foes that the Adventure cast faced, too, an originally benevolent character who gets corrupted by Devimon and his black gears.

Monzaemon, borrowing his name from famous Japanese puppet-theater scribe Chikamatsu Monzaemon, is a pretty simple design. It's just a teddy bear mascot suit (mascot suits are apparently a thing in Japan), with a zipper on his back where the Numemon crawled in. This weird connotation between the poop-slug and the overlord of Toy Town is sadly never really acknowledged outside of the games, so while there's a neat Magikarp/Gyarados style story going on between Numemon and Monzaemon, ultimately the big yellow teddy bear isn't quite as interesting as a lot of the characters on this list.

 6/10.

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Mamemon

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

Our last entry for this first session of Digimon reviews is Mamemon, the final one of the three Perfect-stage Digimon that you could obtain from the original V-Pet. And being one of the original Digimon, Mamemon shows up in a lot of shit. Trading cards, sticker books, profile books (which, like Airdramon, is how I originally found out about him), and video games (I proceeded to find out about Mamemon in Digimon World). But Mamemon is a design that's ignored by the anime the entirety of Adventure, only appearing as a brief guest spot in a montage episode in 02 of other Digimon all over the world. Mamemon's other appearance of note is as a random civilian dude in Frontier, an especially unmemorable one.

Mamemon ("mame" meaning bean) is an interesting concept, where apparently a fair amount of Digimon can somehow become a Perfect stage by condensing their powers so much that they become a super-tiny little ball of power, kinda like a black hole or some shit, and I've always found the trope of a cute-but-secretly-deadly monster to be interesting. In Mamemon's case, the extremely simplified face on the otherwise featureless spherical body clashes pretty badly with the grotesquely muscled arms, claw-pointed legs and the boxes tipped with metal balls. Oh, and it attacks not by punching people, no. Those gloves are detachable, and they contain bombs! The fact that a lot of things can turn into Mamemon is interesting, too, although it would eventually get the default Adult-level Thunderballmon. If nothing else, Mamemon does look like it can really pack a wallop. I can't really say it's my thing, though. Mamemon's a neat design and one of the few that I'll immediately think up of when I think of "old Digimon", but it's definitely not an aesthetic I particularly enjoy nor hate. It's... there, I guess.  The most interesting thing about Mamemon is that we're getting a bunch of extra Mamemon variants down the line, but the regular Mamemon is sort of boring.

 4/10.