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.
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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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.
___________________________________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...
Botamon
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 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.
Koromon
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.Agumon
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.Greymon
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.MetalGreymon
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| "Virus" 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.
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| "Vaccine" MetalGreymon |
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
10/10.SkullGreymon
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.WarGreymon
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 animeBetamon
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.Seadramon
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.Tyrannomon
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.Devimon
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.
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| Toei animation model |
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.Meramon
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.Airdramon
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.Numemon
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.Monzaemon
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.Mamemon
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 for a majority of Digimon Adventure and 02, only appearing as a brief guest spot in a montage episode of many 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.
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