So this article will cover Palmon and her evolutions in the Adventures canon, as well as half of the other Digimon that debuted in the fourth V-Pet. Later this week we'll cover Biyomon and the other half of the other Digimon that debuted alongside them.
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Yuramon
The
fourth of the original Virtual Pets starts off with Yuramon, who is a cute
little shaggy blob. There’s honestly not that much to say about these Baby I’s.
I just appreciate that they at least look relatively unique compared to their
subsequent stages or other Baby I’s, and I always found it funny that this baby
has the appearance of a bearded old dude.I suppose it's meant to be some kind of cotton or dandelion seed? Its profile does note that Yuramon is meant to be a floating seed, and apparently it drifts through the air searching for a good place without danger before it 'settles into the ground' and prepares for evolution. I actually like Yuramon a fair bit. She's a cute little shaggy fluffy seed baby who just happens to look like an old man's face. I do actually like the fact that a lot of the pre-02 Baby I's actually look uniquely different compared to their Baby II forms. In a lot of the post-02 Digimon, a lot of the Baby I and Baby II forms just feel like afterthoughts. Not Yuramon, though. She's pretty neat.
6/10.Tanemon
The
ball of furry seed evolves into Tanemon, a four-legged little sproutling Digimon with a very
pleasant face and a little beanstalk on her head. I suppose it’s about time we
got some plant-themed Digimon, because plant monsters are kind of a given in
any role-playing game, and so far all we’ve seen are Vegiemon. In the original
Virtual Pet, Tanemon has two possible Child-level evolutions (as did all the
other V-Pets), which are Palmon and Biyomon. Thanks to the Adventures anime, though, Tanemon is almost permanently associated
with Palmon nowadays, which honestly makes a whole lot of sense. Tanemon’s a
seedling, and Palmon’s a flower monster. Tanemon also tends to be used as the go-to
Baby II form for most other plant-based Child Digimon like Floramon and Mushmon. I think, though my personal fondest memory of this little bugger is from Digimon
World, where Tanemon ran a meat farm! Yes, a meat farm. The digital world does not conform to our fleshy expectations, after all! 7/10.Palmon
Anyway, I really, really do appreciate Palmon a lot more after a couple more decades. Plant monsters are a very common archetype in fantasy worlds, but most of the time people are content to just go for the "piranha plant" or "treant" archetype and call it a day. Not that there's anything wrong with those (and we'll see both variations in Digimon pretty soon), or if they had to be humanoid, they'd go for the "swamp thing" version of a human made up of sticks, vines or leaves. But Palmon manages to both look like a humanoid goblin creature while at the same time not resorting to those common tropes, while simultaneously still having recognizable plant anatomy on her feet and arms. Hell, even her eyes are nicely glossed over, showing that Palmon isn't as animal-like as her buddies. She's a plant person! Even though she has that weirdly reptilian tail.
Add that to Palmon's portrayal in Adventures, who makes a really strong case to be possibly my favourite and most rounded-out Digimon partner in terms of personality... see, Palmon's human partner Mimi is kind of a crybaby and sometimes a bit of an unintentional bitch. Mimi runs her mouth and makes her opinion known to everyone, and is the resident complainer. But she arguably changes the most throughout the series, and matures without losing what makes her her. It's a neat message of how conforming to society doesn't mean you have to change yourself, but at the same time you do have to understand how sometimes you hurt others. And throughout all of this, Palmon acts like the more emotionally stable little sister, who has a more level head on her shoulders but clearly understands about the world a lot less than Mimi. Case in Throw in one of the more adorable voices I've ever heard, and it's actually a very smart move for the Adventure team to have the final shot of the series (before they brought it back for the sequel) to be Palmon and Mimi. Anyway, without going deeper into character analysis -- and believe me, I can spend all day talking about Adventure's partner/Digimon relationships -- I'll cut myself off here. Palmon's a great flower monster.
10/10.Togemon
Man, you gotta love whoever decided to assign Togemon as Palmon's Adult-stage evolution. Palmon didn't actually have Togemon as an option when she was introduced, with Togemon being introduced a full year later in the second line of virtual pets, the "Pendulum" series of V-Pets, which came out right before the anime was released in Japan. Instead, Palmon was originally meant to evolve into either Leomon (a big lion-man beefcake), Kuwagamon (a giant beetle kaiju), Coelamon (a cyborg man-fish) or Mojyamon (a yeti). Thankfully, the Pendulum series would introduce Togemon and a slew of other, more appropriate plant-themed Adult-stage Digimon for Palmon to turn into! But of course, thanks to the anime, Togemon became the default evolution.And what a charming Adult-stage Togemon is! It's a goddamn cactus tree with big-ass boxing gloves. I went from disliking it when it first popped up because it didn't look a thing like Palmon beyond being a plant-humanoid to really, really liking it when I saw Togemon in action. I mean, look at this thing! From its vacant holes that make up its face (which can actually move like real orifices) to the charming punching gloves, Togemon is one of those designs that really should be too silly, but ends up being pretty dang cool. Also, Togemon's massive. She's big enough that Mimi can sit on her glove.
Togemon's so charming that other Digimon animes unrelated to Adventure used her too, with one in Digimon Frontier being a teacher of several babies, and one in Digimon Savers coming into the human world to join in a boxing competition and fighting one of the protagonists, who is also a punching-themed Digimon. I think my favourite aspect of Togemon isn't just that she fights by punching, but also by spinning around and shooting spikes... which is an attack called "Chiku Chiku Bang Bang". And since this is an anime and everyone shouts out their attack, in-between bland and samey attack names like the Mega Busters and Mega Flames and Meteor Wings, you get this glorious little boxing cactus the size of a small house spinning around shouting "Chiku Chiku Bang Bang." Oh, Togemon.
8/10.Lilimon (a.k.a. Lillymon)
Lilimon's still a Perfect-level Digimon, though, so I do like the fact that this little girl (and Lilimon is just Palmon shape-shifted, so she does have the mentality of a little girl) can kick ass with monsters like MetalGreymon. Lilimon's "Flow-Cannon" also involves her bringing her arms together, and those wrist-petals somehow transform into a big and extremely mechanical LASER CANNON. I thought that was fun. Lilimon overall doesn't rank pretty highly on my personal tastes as far as monsters go, but she's definitely a very neat design.
6/10.Rosemon
Mimi's Palmon wouldn't achieve Ultimate form until Digimon Adventure Tri, released very recently in 2017, but it's commonly accepted that Lilimon evolves into Rosemon -- a Digimon that kept surprising me by how early she was introduced -- 1999. She debuted at around the same time as the likes of WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon with the Pendulum games, whereas her design and look honestly felt a lot more like the anime-human Digimon of later series. And in fact, Rosemon's most prominent anime role is in 2006's Digimon Savers (Data Squad for dub-ers), the fifth Digimon anime series, where Rosemon was used as the Ultimate form of their resident main plant-based character Lalamon. Rosemon, at the very least, isn't quite as messy as a lot of humanoid Digimon. She has a very coherent colour scheme, with enough details (the rose crown-face, the green shoulder things, the cape, the thorns wrapped around her arms) to make her look not simple, but not cluttered like most other humanoid Digimon. And I do appreciate Rosemon taking a page out of Angemon's book and using her head-rose to cover her eyes.And, honestly? Rosemon's pretty cool in both Savers and Tri. Her thorn-whips are neatly plant-based. Unfortunately, that's not the reason why Rosemon is remembered, and while I don't want to be that guy, but Rosemon's BDSM vibe isn't particularly subtle. Her profile notes that her "Thorn Whip" can turn anyone it shocks with it (it carries electricity) into Rosemon's slave (yes, that's the specific term), and her ultimate attack is called "Forbidden Temptation". Rosemon is perhaps the most unfortunate recipient of the fact that the anime staff for Savers isn't subtle about animating Rosemon's, ahem, assets. And let's not get to start to actual official trading cards of Rosemon. There's fanservice to appeal to the demographic. And there's actually hiring a Hentai artist to draw a Digimon.
Anyway, back to topic! Removed from the fanservice that has made Rosemon infamous, she's actually one of the better-designed humanoid Digimon, actually, thanks to being uncluttered and cohesive, more along the lines of Angemon and Devimon and Leomon's design mentality and not the extremely toyetic and kibble-tastic like a lot of the humanoid designs from Frontier onwards. She also at least manages to show off her powers and be badass. The same criticisms I have about the likes of Omegamon and Lilimon still stand here, though. Rosemon i's not a design I legitimately like, but I don't actually hate Rosemon the way I do a lot of the humanoid designs we meet later on. And as far as all the humanoid Digimon go, Rosemon's definitely far from being the worst.
6/10.Monochromon
Back to less humanoid monsters, now! Monochromon’s
pretty neat! I’ve always liked his design. Monochromon is this neat combination
of some dinosaurian features, mostly combining features of Ankylosaurid and
Ceratopsian families (though it seemed to take more from the latter, resembling a toothy version of the Monoclonius), while giving it a big-ass horn on its nose. It’s a simple
combination but results in a neat and cool-looking beast that's sort of analogous to a rhinoceros, but is definitely reptilian. I’m not sure what the
logic was in making Monochromon one of Biyomon or Palmon’s possible evolutions,
though. the original V-Pets are kinda weird like this sometimes. Oh, and Monochromon plays into the old dinosaur trope of being associated with volcanoes, so in addition to goring you rhino/triceratops style, Monochromon can vomit lava at you.
Monochromon
tends to be portrayed as nothing but angry beasts in most of their appearances
in the anime, sort of a convenient huge wild animal that looks threatening
enough to trample and gore the kids and any Child-level Digimon, but not one
that looks like it would be a threat to one of the more powerful Adult-level
Digimon. I did remember Etemon conscripting a couple of Monochromon to pull
around his trailer (yes, he has a trailer) in the Adventures anime. Monochromon is also one of the more common sights
in the dinosaur-themed area in Digimon
World, too, as I remember. Monochromon’s a pretty solid design, but sadly
there’s not that much to talk about beyond that. Sometimes, though, that's all you need.
7/10.
7/10.Leomon
Now,
Leomon, on the other hand, we have a lot to
talk about. Leomon here is a pretty badass (if obvious) concept. A muscular beast-man
with biceps and fists larger than a child’s entire torso, with the head of a
pretty badass-looking lion, some badass looking leather pants and some of those
fancy leather straps all over his left arm for extra measure. Oh, and he
carries around a goddamn sword and is able to shoot Hadokens (Ju’oukens, sorry)
out of his fist, and is basically the Digimon world’s equivalent of a Witcher
as he goes around hunting bestial and uncontrollable Digimon to bring them
down. Both of the main Digimon works of fiction, the Adventures anime and the V-Tamer
manga realized just how easily marketable the badass Leomon is, and he ended
up being a pretty major supporting character in both of them. I can see why –
lions are inherently noble and badass creatures thanks to their whole king of
beasts deal and their mane, so if being part of the geek community is anything
to go by, cat-people are really popular.
Let’s
talk about the Adventures version of
Leomon, who’s a pretty fun archetype. Leomon was initially portrayed as the
noble counterpart to Ogremon and a noble ally to the Chosen Children, before
being taken control by Devimon and used as an evil puppet. Fighting a bunch of
bad guys is one thing, but being forced to fight a noble man who’s doing battle
against his will? It’s a simple but pretty effective trope, and the animation staff had some real fun making him look scary and feral. Lions are, after all, still wild animals and not always noble like your Mufasas and Simbas. Leomon was
eventually freed, and would return in the final arc, being one of the few
non-partner Digimon to unlock the way to evolve – and even got an Ultimate form
as SaberLeomon! Leomon ended up giving up his life (yeah, it’s a running trend among
ally Digimon in Adventures) to save
not just the Chosen Children, but also his old rival Ogremon, leading to a
pretty damn cool manly-tears moment.
The
third series, Tamers, would also make
use of a Leomon, portraying him as a noble beast-warrior who ends up befriending
one of the side-cast, Juri – a friend of the main cast who wants nothing more
but to be accepted as one of them. Tamers
handles its cast a bit differently from the rest of the Digimon series,
where for a good chunk of the series only three of the kids are partnered with
Digimon, while the rest of the cast are kind of hangers-on until dudes like
Leomon showed up and partnered themselves with them. This Leomon also met his
end in another tragic moment, this time being murdered by the anti-villain
Beelzemon… but unlike Adventures’
Leomon, whose death was treated as a noble-but-regretable heroic sacrifice, Tamers’ Leomon’s death absolutely
shattered his poor partner. In Tamers,
things worked quite differently and the tone is decidedly darker, and Juri
ended up being so susceptible to temptation from more malevolent sources thanks
to the sheer shattered psyche of losing a friend and partner after working and
wishing to hard to get one. I won’t spoil too much about Tamers before we get there in these reviews, but suffice to say
that from a pacing and storytelling standpoint, Tamers definitely ranks pretty highly for me.
Adventure and Tamers sort of set up a morbid trend of Leomon being killed off in
each subsequent Digimon series, though, with Leomon being killed in basically
every other series – Frontier, Tri, Savers,
Xros Wars and the X-Evolution one-shot
movie all killed a Leomon or a member
of the Leomon family at some point in their run. Leomon also spawned a whole
lot of other extended family, which we’ll cover in due time. Overall,
a pretty badass burly lion-man whose day job is basically being a hero. Can’t argue with Leomon.
9/10.Coelamon
Yeah,
there are some bizarre Adult-level options for these initial V-Pets, huh?
Coelamon here doesn’t look like something that would ever naturally come out of
a bird or a plant monster. Later virtual pets would attach Coelamon as a
possible evolution of many differing aquatic-themed Child-level Digimon, although
poor Coelamon is one of those Adult-levels that’s sort of forgotten. I do
remember a fair bit about Coelamon due to him being one of the earliest
recruitable NPCs in Digimon World to
help fill out your town, though.
Anyway,
I do like Coelamon’s design here, which really ramps up the sheer grossness of
a monstrous fish-man creature. Unlike Pokemon’s Relicanth, Coelamon’s
resemblance to the coelacanth is
merely its name and being based on a fish. Look at this thing! Most strikingly,
once you look into Coelamon’s design a bit you realize that Coelamon isn’t just
simply a fish with limbs. It seems that the pink flesh is Coelamon’s real body,
and that all the silver parts form some sort of weird armour and/or exoskeleton
around Coelamon, depending on whether it’s part of Coelamon’s natural biology
or if Coelamon shops for the same mechanical augmentations in the same place
with the likes of Andromon and MetalGreymon. Absolutely love the dual row of
teeth and the gross, decaying sinews around his fish-eye and within that
external metal ribcage.
A pretty neat – if a
bit gross – fish monster. Sadly it’s basically all but ignored in the anime, though, only appearing as a brief cameo in 02 and as a very minor enemy in an episode of Xros Wars. Coelamon's official profile is one that gives it a bunch of neat backstory, where apparently it's discovered in the Net Ocean after a hacking incident, and that Coelamon was in fact a primeval being that plays up on "Missing Link" tropes, apparently being the evolutionary stage between life on sea and life coming on land. Overall, a bit to ugly even for my tastes, but I can appreciate what Coelamon is aiming for.
7/10.
7/10.Mojyamon
Mojyamon
here is yet another in a series of Adult-level forms that don’t quite make
sense for either Biyomon or Palmon to turn into. Obviously, Mojyamon’s based on
the abominable snowman, but instead of being a burly humanoid ape-like creature
like yetis tend to be portrayed, Mojyamon ends up being a bearded, stout
furball with ape arms. A neat concept for a yeti, I suppose, but I’ve never
found Mojyamon particularly interesting, especially compared to his fellow
snow-themed buddy Yukidarumon, with whom Mojyamon shares an episode in the
original Digimon Adventure anime.
I
dunno. Mojyamon’s just one of those designs that I find extremely forgettable, I
guess. There’s nothing inherently wrong with him, but I honestly don’t have
much to say about him, one of the rare cases where it's a pre-1999 Digimon that I genuinely just flat-out don't really care about. Even its official profile just talks about it being, well, basically a yeti. Which isn't straying too far from the inspiration, but also means that Mojyamon doesn't have much uniqueness that makes it different from its inspiration.
5/10.Piccolomon (a.k.a. Pixiemon/Piximon/Picklemon)
Piccolomon here is a pretty
neat little dude! And also a dude of many names. While his name is based on the Italian word piccolo, meaning small (and not an anime alien-slug-demon-lord), the English dub team gave Piccolomon the far more adorable name of Pixiemon (sometimes Piximon). And sometimes Piccolomon's Japanese name is charmingly mistranslated as Picklemon (which would be pikkuru instead of pikkoro, as Wikimon assures me). All of these names work for this dude.
Instead of being yet another metallic sphere like Giromon or the many Mamemon, this virtual pet’s requisite tiny-yet-powerful Perfect-level Digimon is instead this adorable little pink furball pixie! I do like Piccolomon a lot, and I’m genuinely not sure why. Part of it is because he’s the most adorable, squeaky-voiced Obi-Wan Kenobi style character in the anime, being pretty charismatic in his few short appearances when he tutored the Chosen Children about the importance of being true to themselves and not being an asshole (particularly Taichi after the whole SkullGreymon mess), and partly because he ends up performing a pretty badass heroic sacrifice (as Obi-Wan style characters are wont to) in the climax of the entire series.
Instead of being yet another metallic sphere like Giromon or the many Mamemon, this virtual pet’s requisite tiny-yet-powerful Perfect-level Digimon is instead this adorable little pink furball pixie! I do like Piccolomon a lot, and I’m genuinely not sure why. Part of it is because he’s the most adorable, squeaky-voiced Obi-Wan Kenobi style character in the anime, being pretty charismatic in his few short appearances when he tutored the Chosen Children about the importance of being true to themselves and not being an asshole (particularly Taichi after the whole SkullGreymon mess), and partly because he ends up performing a pretty badass heroic sacrifice (as Obi-Wan style characters are wont to) in the climax of the entire series.
 |
| "Bit Bomb" |
I guess
what made Piccolomon look so visually badass and different from all the other simpler-looking
Digimon are the wings? They look quasi-angelic, but the stitches on them show
that Piccolomon is no stranger to battle. Add the adorable little spear, which
has some nasty-looking side-spikes to its spearhead, and Piccolomon looks equal
parts threatening and adorable. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Piccolomon isn’t
a design that I honestly expected to like a whole lot, but it turns out that a
combination of his rather unconventional take on a fairy and his neat role in
the anime, and I find out that I liked him more than I expected I would before typing
these paragraphs. And it's not just the anime appearances, either, but the whole fact that this thing warps reality by speaking in JavaScript and conjures up flying bombs.
7/10.Only 11 Digimon today, but I feel like I've actually talked a fair bit! As I mentioned before, the rest of the Digimon introduced in "Digital Monsters Ver. 4", as well as Biyomon's entire evolutionary line, will be covered in a separate episode later this week.
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