Digimon Reviews, Episode 9: Gomamon and Friends

The second Pendulum virtual pet is the ocean-themed "Deep Savers" game, which features aquatic monsters -- and this time around, we'll be covering all of the ones introduced in the 2.0 and 2.5 versions of the game! In addition to that, we'll be covering good old Gomamon, the final member of our protagonists that we haven't gotten to... as well as the first in four very important characters in Digimon Adventure. This is going to be a bit of a long one, so I'll keep my introduction segment short.
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Pitchmon (a.k.a. Pichimon)

Since we're doing an aquatic-themed evolutionary branching line, our Baby I Digimon here Pitchmon (sometimes Pichimon) is actually quite appropriately based on "oceanic microbes", as the Bandai profile tells us, and has the smallest size among many Digimon, basically telling us in all but outright saying that Pitchmon here is very likely based on plankton! Very appropriate for the lowest possible form of an oceanic creature. Thanks to Gomamon's prominence in the anime, Pitchmon and his subsequent Baby II stage, Pukamon, have sort of been shanghaied by Gomamon in many appearances. Our Gomamon only ever became Pitchmon for like three seconds in a brief flashback in the anime, but Pitchmon himself have shown up here and there as cameos because these babies are easy to draw and easy to become "oh noes those poor babies!" I like Pitchmon a fair bit. It's got cute flippers, a fun little comma-like body and those Kuramon eyes.

 4/10. 

Pukamon (a.k.a. Bukamon)

Continuing the long tradition of the dub changing B's into P's and P's into B's, meet Pukamon/Bukamon! I've always thought that Pukamon was the most complex and well defined compared to the original seven partner Digimon that showed up in their Baby II forms during the first episode. It's pretty neat-looking and elaborate, with a clearly well defined head, body and little plesiosaur flippers, a pretty stark contrast to the bouncing heads of Koromon and his ilk. I do like this guy, even though there's really not much to talk about beyond acknowledging his slightly more complex look. As a kid, I always thought Pukamon's hair-antenna thing was burning flame, which confused me when he turned out to evolve into a sea creature. Interestingly, Pukamon's shown up a fair amount of times without being associated with any Gomamon evolutions in Frontier, Savers and Xros Wars. Anyway, a pleasant and alright design.

 6/10. 

Gomamon

Gomamon here is the partner of Kido Jo (a.k.a. Jyo, Joe, Jou, Jyou and other permutations of that particular sound), and Jo is the oldest of the group... but also the one with some of the biggest self-esteem issues. Jo is a character who's constantly overshadowed by brilliant older brothers, and is old enough to understand the crippling fear of responsibility and impending adulthood (and not being as air-headed to dismiss it like the other 'old kid' of the team, Mimi), and this causes Jo to basically devolve into a gibbering nervous wreck when thrown into the illogical world of Digimon. As a child, Jo was the closest thing that the cast had to the "silly adult!", someone who's way too worried and values order and safety over all else. Now that I'm a lot older... I can't say that I wouldn't act like Jo if thrown into the same position.

Gomamon ends up being the best complement to Jo, for the simple fact that he is the complete reverse of Jo. Gomamon doesn't really thinks things through, being optimistic, easy-going and one of the group's resident jokester. I've always thought that Gomamon and Jo's dynamic never really got any big spotlight, but is one that ended up being displayed as the series go on and both members of the partnership learn from each other -- Gomamon ends up being a bit more restrained and matured, while Jo ends up being a lot more sure of himself and to relax a bit around friends. Jo's associated emotion is Sincerity (Reliability in the dub), and he sort of ends up not trying to please everyone and try to fill what everyone thinks he should be, and just, well, sort of does what he wants as long as he knows it's the best for the team. Jo ends up going from a worrywart into the emotionally stable pillar of the group, which I thought was definitely well done. This relationship was revisited in Tri, a sequel that took place several in-universe years after Adventure, and the early movies spent an impressive amount of legwork in showcasing Jo and Gomamon's relationship, one of the inarguably strongest emotional moments in the Tri movies. To me, anyway.

Gomamon's a very pleasant-looking seal or sea lion creature, although with far, far more prominent claws and a lot of neat details like that tuft of red hair and the very pleasant white-and-purple colour scheme. Interestingly enough, Gomamon ends up being the Aquaman of the team, with his attack being to communicate and summon a gigantic swarm of fish (not Digimon, just straight-up fish) that are always ready to whack themselves bodily against whatever threat is. This ends up keeping Gomamon actually out of the fight for a huge majority of the fights, at least until he quickly unveils his Adult form. In addition to being a main character in Adventure/02/Tri, Gomamon has appeared in a surprisingly large amount of other anime series, having shown up in Frontier, Savers and Xros Wars. I don't really have a lot to say about Gomamon here, he's an extremely pleasant-looking little seal bro.

 7/10. 

Ikkakumon

Gomamon's Adult-stage evolution might be a bit obvious, with the baby seal evolving into a mighty, monstrous walrus monster, but there's definitely a lot to appreciate about Ikkakumon that I didn't quite catch as a kid. First up is the huge chunk of white fur around Ikkakumon's body, which is so different from normal walruses. And then, of course, are the huge clawed feet which makes Ikkakumon so much more of its own thing. And best of all? His giant unicorn/narwhal horn. Which Ikkakumon launches in his "Harpoon Vulcan" attack. Not content at just launching a rocket-propelled horn and maybe having something to compensate considering his Child stage's impotent attack, Ikkakumon's horn missiles actually split apart to reveal a green mechanical missile within, which is always something that made Ikkakumon's attack a fair bit more unique compared to the other Adults that just shoot rainbow-coloured flames.

Ikkakumon is apparently based on data from a computer in an Arctic exploration base, and that its horns are made out of the rare metal Mithril -- and, if you can't already guess, from Ikkakumon onwards we're going to have a hefty dosage of Viking and Norse-inspired stuff going on. Overall, while I don't have as much to say about Ikkakumon as I do the other Adult-stages, he's always been pretty cool on his own right.

 8/10. 

Zudomon

While Ikkakumon is just kind of there, I've always been pretty impressed with the Perfect-level Zudomon! Zudomon ends up being some sort of crazy walrus-man, but looks so goddamn beastly and just has a fair amount of things going on... but they all manage to end up looking cohesive! Let's go through everything going on with Zudomon, yeah? He's retained Ikkakumon's "central horn and walrus teeth" deal, he's strapped on a big-ass turtle shell on his back with some leather straps (later games would reveal the owner of this shell as an Archelomon), his left arm has a gloved claw strapped on, and his right arm is holding  a big-ass metal hammer called the Thor Hammer.

And honestly? Zudomon really ends up looking like a wild warrior as well as embodying the "ancient prehistoric creature" deal that Ikkakumon was going for, and ended up becoming a pretty unique design that looks like it could really kick some ass! Zudomon's a badass looking creature that the profile notes works to get his armour, with the orange fur and the green shell being trophies from slain enemies. Oh, and it apparently carved his own central horn into a saw, just to get an extra weapon! And naturally, to play in with the Viking theme, Zudomon's Thor Hammer can shoot out lightning blasts and is made up of super-powerful Chrono-digizoit. I've always found Zudomon to be pretty dang impressive, honestly, and is easily my favourite stage in Gomamon's evolutionary line. He just looks so goddamn badass, and Zudomon ends up with some really badass action scenes, including a particularly memorable one where he straight-up brings down MetalEtemon, a former Big Bad and a full level higher than him. 

Rather unexpectedly, I also remember Zudomon showing up as a villain-of-the-week in Savers, which I don't really blame the Savers stuff for doing -- Zudomon's one of those designs that could very easily become a scary villain if you want to!

 9/10. 

Vikemon

While the original Pendulum game gave Zudomon a 'default' Ultimate evolution in Plesiomon (which we'll cover below), Tri ended up opting for a different Ultimate for Zudomon. Meet Vikemon, introduced two whole years later than the rest of the Gomamon line in 2000, and originally meant as the default final stage of one of the protagonists of 02, Armadimon. Armadimon never achieved Ultimate evolution in the anime (and it's not one that thematically fit Armadimon anyway), so I guess they just shuffled Vikemon as Zudomon's evolution for the Tri movies and various other video games before it.

Tri version

And... and it definitely fits the Gomamon line better, don't get me wrong, what with Vikemon also being a humanoid furry beast-man based on a viking, and he's even got itty-bitty tusks, and looks like a humanoid version of Ikkakumon! But I've always found Vikemon pretty underwhelming, and honestly, a bit less impressive than Zudomon. Getting rid of those prominent horns and walrus teeth was a pretty huge loss, but just see how wild Zudomon looks, whereas Vikemon looks a lot less impressive. Sure, he's got a bear pelt cape, shields on his shoulders and a little Viking hat, but Vikemon looks more like a dude that stumbles upon some Viking clothing than anything.

The Tri movies redesigned Vikemon slightly and made him a lot more leaner looking, though, and that version of Vikemon is actually pretty damn badass. Exaggerating the tusks, Viking horns, and making Vikemon's limbs lankier ends up going a long way from making Vikemon from a very underwhelming design that would've easily gotten a 1/5 on my rating scale. And this cooler-looking Vikemon suddenly looks like a far worthier evolution to Zudomon! Amazing just how a couple of minor postural changes can suddenly make a design so much more impressive, huh? Vikemon's ways of battling is kinda weird, using that huge system of shields-connected-to-chains-connected-to-morning-stars called Mjolnir, and he can either wield them as hand-held weapons, or launch them like goddamn cannons upon which they will flash-freeze the air around the enemy and then shatter the ice immediately, which is a neat ice move. Vikemon was a design that I absolutely disliked before the Tri movies. Now I kinda like it, actually!

 7/10. 

MegaSeadramon

While the original Virtual Pet didn't give Seadramon any sort of 'proper' evolution, the Pendulum series ended up reusing Seadramon as one of the possible Adult stages, and ends up actually constructing a couple of dedicated evolutions to Seadramon! Yay! Seadramon's Perfect-stage evolution ends up being MegaSeadramon, which is... basically Seadramon, but on steroids. The blue body became red, the fins multipled a whole lot, he's got a bunch of green hair, and the golden beak-head has became metallic with a goddamn blade jutting out of his forehead. I've always liked the fleshy upper lip jutting out slightly from MegaSeadramon's golden beak, too. I've always been pretty m'eh about MegaSeadramon, actually. He doesn't actually quite feel as sleek as Seadramon does, and doesn't look quite impressive as his Ultimate form MetalSeadramon -- feeling like one of those middle-stage evolutions in Pokemon that tries to be a bridge, but ends up kind of just not doing either way right. I think one of the things that really hurts MegaSeadramon's design in my eyes is the insanely large amount of flippers, and the fact that red, white and green don't look especially well together.

Interestingly, MegaSeadramon has graduated from shooting icy blasts, but instead has grown a generator somewhere in his head (!!!) which allows him to shoot lightning bolts from his head-blade. MegaSeadramon was, interestingly enough, the big threat that prompted Ikkakumon to first evolve into Zudomon in the Adventure anime, where MegaSeadramon was unleashed by Vamdemon to wreak havoc upon Odaiba and basically blockading the water routes up until Zudomon hammer'd him in the face. A different MegaSeadramon would also become a temporary enemy in 02, before being freed from mind control and becoming a brief ally.

 5/10. 

MetalSeadramon

Yeah, MetalSeadramon! The Ultimate evolution of the Seadramon species is, transformed into a full-on cyborg sea serpent, and I always loved his design! I loved how MetalSeadramon's upper jaw has transformed into a straight-up laser cannon, but he still retains a remnant of MegaSeadramon's dagger on his forehead. I loved his weird wiry hair, and the fact that MetalSeadramon pares down a lot of MegaSeadramon's fins and ends up with two prominent... flippers? "Hands", even? Also liked the two-part tail, which I thought was a nice touch. MetalSeadramon ends up looking complex without feeling too cluttered (especially in his anime character model), and looks pretty damn impressive. MetalSeadramon's entire body is covered in the same Chrono-digizoit alloy that Zudomon uses to make his hammer, making its defense pretty insane, and it's basically the king of the ocean... but is able to fly, making it not completely helpless when fighting in the air or the land.

MetalSeadramon was one of four final villains for Digimon Adventure (silly Apocalymon is more of a bonus boss than a proper character), the Dark Masters. Despite their cheesy group name, the Dark Masters ended up conquering the entirety of the Digital World when the Chosen Children were dealing with Vamdemon's invasion of the real world, and they have warped the digital world so much that the entire terrain has changed. In particular, MetalSeadramon ends up ruling entire territories made up of water, and is the first of the Dark Masters the Chosen Children end up facing. While not a complex villain by any means, MetalSeadramon's sheer ruthlessness and pragmatism ended up causing him to rack up a body count of the Chosen Children's allies and he nearly damn well managed to kill them at some points of his arc. It's just a shame that despite his cyborgification, MetalSeadramon is still a -dramon so WarGreymon ended up using plot-convenient bullshit his 'dramon killer' gauntlets to drill a hole through MetalSeadramon.

A neat bit of trivia is that each of these Pendulum games had three default Ultimate Digimon -- one for each attribute. The Dark Masters are made up of all of the Virus Ultimates of the Pendulum games. And while he's not an official member of the Dark Guardians, the "Nature Spirits" Virus Ultimate, MetalEtemon, even shows up during the Dark Masters arc as a wild card! But MetalSeadramon, interestingly enough, is not a Virus type Ultimate. He's a Data-type, and the entire Seadramon line is consistently Data-types. The Virus-type Ultimate for the Deep Savers virtual pet is Pukumon, of all things, but the anime staff certainly made the right decision in picking their villains, because a big-ass cyborg sea serpent that shoots out laser beams from his nose is certainly far more impressive than "blowfish Mamemon".  Anyway, MetalSeadramon's pretty damn cool. No complaints with this one.

 10/10.

Ganimon (a.k.a. Crabmon)

We'll now go from a bunch of super-powerful and plot-relevant characters to one of the other possible Child-stage Digimon you can get from this virtual pet, Ganimon! Known as Crabmon in the dub (gani/kani = crab), this dude is... is kind of a dude I always forget about. It's a pretty pleasant looking crab, I suppose, with a neat combination of gray and red splotches. He's understandably a bit boring, not really doing anything interesting with the crab design beyond adding some anime eyes and giving him a monster mouth. His appearances in the anime also tended to be cameos, and he's often treated as an afterthought in video games. But there's one thing that makes Ganimon memorable, and it's his brief scene in 02, where it's revealed that one of the international Chosen Children outside of Japan is a surfer bro... and his partner is a Ganimon (that evolves into Coelamon, surprisingly, and not one of the more appropriate crustacean Adult-stages) that rides around on his surfboard. And a surfing crab monster's cute enough to make Ganimon go from forgettable to memorable.

 4/10. 

Shakomon (a.k.a. Syakomon)

The third possible Child-stage for this virtual pet is Shakomon (sometimes Syakomon), who is a pretty interesting take on a little bivalve Digimon! When the shell is closed, Shakomon looks like an angry masked dude with a slight pirate motif -- the black markings look like a bandit's mask, the teeth look mean and he's got a little jolly roger! But when the shell is opened, we see that the main soft body is a cute Mochimon-esque blob. Also love the detail of the fleshy mollusk flesh just crisscrossing within Shakomon's shell. Shakomon's another neglected Digimon that barely appears in the anime, showing up as a minor character in 02 as another partner of the international Chosen Children, although its method of attacking is pretty hilarious -- Shakomon spits out huge black pearls that are easily the size of its inner body! I've always found Shakomon to be pretty neat, honestly, and I do appreciate it that the "Deep Savers" pet do give us a lot of various possible sea-life Digimon to choose from. You can be a mollusk, you can be a crustacean, you can be a sea mammal... and all of them can just evolve into any one of many other sea creatures. Anyway, Shakomon's neat -- I don't have much to say, which is just fine since w'eve got a whole lot of others to go through.

 6/10. 

Rukamon (a.k.a. Dolphmon)

Rukamon (borrowing its name from iruka, meaning dolphin) is yet another often-neglected Adult-stage Digimon, Rukamon is one of those guys that appeared in a lot of anime, but only as background characters or as silhouettes. Still, got to appreciate Digimon for actually acknowledging that dolphins are pretty savage predators outside of Sea World theme parks, with dolphins being intelligent enough to actually do underwater gangland battles against other competing species. And Rukamon's a pretty war-worn dolphin, by the looks of it, with a mouthful of mean fangs, scars on his snout and ragged fins and tail. The Bandai profile plays into a bunch of other common tropes with dolphins, too, noting how intelligent Rukamon is compared to other beastly Digimon, as well as its ability to use ultrasonic. While real-life dolphins use ultrasonic waves to communicate and to hunt, Rukamon just straight-up weaponizes it as a sonic weapon.

Being kind of an Adult-stage cetacean Digimon, though, Rukamon has basically became the default Adult-stage form of good old Whamon, who ended up being retconned into a Perfect stage (but also sometimes an Adult stage, because Digimon canon is wonky) with these Pendulum games. Anyway, I don't feel especially strongly about Rukamon. He's neat.

 5/10. 

Octomon (a.k.a. Octmon)

Octomon here (sometimes Octamon or Octmon, but we'll go with the sensible route) is one of the possible evolutions for Gomamon and Shakomon in the Deep Savers toy, but he was actually treated as the 'failure' option among the Adults... and you can see that this dude doesn't quite look quite as formidable as the likes of Seadramon, Coelamon and Ikkakumon. But the Pendulum games are gravitating from actually punishing you with poop evolutions, so Octomon is just slightly-weaker than your average Adult. And I do like how this actually plays into Octomon's design! He's a weak little octopus, so he ends up hiding his head inside a little scavenged clay pot (with a crown, to boot!) and scavenges random weaponry like that sword, a hairdryer laser gun, a hook... and interestingly, two of his tentacles have salvaged data discarded by a Devidramon, giving it grasping claws.

I've never quite appreciated the weird pirate motif that Octomon has going on, honestly, and I actually think it's quite neat, making use of all the accessories to show Octomon's salvaging quirk. Octomon has never been particularly memorable in the anime, although the aforementioned international children's partner Shakomon did evolve into Octomon. Overall, a pretty neat design! As a neat bit of trivia, apparently Octomon's little barnacles are actual Digimon called Fujitsumon, and act as extra lookouts for Octomon. This is a design that I didn't think I'd like so much, honestly, but apparently I do find this little takoyaki ball quite charming.

 6/10. 

Gesomon

Gesomon here is the cooler cephalopod option for your aquatic Digimon partner to evolve into, and part of why he was a lot more impressive than Octomon is because, if the anime is anything to go by, Gesomon is pretty damn massive, big enough to have a riverside kaiju battle with Ikkakumon in Tokyo. Gesomon is based on a squid, and, interestingly enough, adopts the bug Digimon's facial features -- instead of eyes it's got a bunch of eye-like tattoo markings, and it's got a weird Alien-esque fleshy fang as a mouth.  The rest of Gesomon's design is relatively simple, just adding a bunch of metal tubes, spikes and putting Gomamon claws on the tip of the squid's longer tentacles, but I've always thought that Gesomon's design to be pretty dang cool.

Interestingly, despite being portrayed as a villain in most of his anime appearances in Adventures  and 02, the Bandai profile notes that Gesomon is highly intelligent and will not harm Digimon needlessly unless they disrupt his territory. Overall, Gesomon doesn't quite do a lot beyond being a monster squid, but that's a pretty damn cool-looking monster squid.

 8/10. 

Ebidramon

Ebidramon here first appeared in a WonderSwan game, and then was added as part of the "2.5" upgraded version of the Deep Savers virtual pet, taking up Coelamon's spot. And Ebidramon has since appeared as a villain-of-the-week in 02, Tamers and Xros Wars, not bad for an oversized shrimp! I've always loved how Ebidramon isn't just a mere lobster, though. It's a -dramon, meaning this huge giant lobster monster still counts as a dragon... and as you can see, apparently at least its lower jaw looks pretty reptilian, and the whole shrimp deal is more of a misdirection than anything. One of the more interesting bit of details with Ebidramon,  I think, is his mismatched claws, with one claw looking more angular and sickle-like, while the other is more Kuwagamon-like and even has a second mouth built into it! I've never been super-impressed with Ebidramon as a design, I admit, finding it pretty simplistic even after getting the whole 'dragon' joke, but it's a design that I don't mind. More sea creatures are great!

 6/10. 

Anomalocarimon (a.k.a. Scorpiomon)

Anomalocarimon here is one of the available Perfect-stage evolutions in the Deep Savers pet, and, of course, it is based on the Anomalocaris, one of the most downright bizarre ancient predators whose fossils really caused people to be confused when they found the Anomalocaris' body parts separately and thought that they were parts of multiple different creatures before realizing that, no, they're all just part of this huge demon-shrimp predator of the Cambrian era. The Anomalocaris is a favourite obscure-ancient-animal of mine, and it's always welcome to see it made into monsters. Pokemon's got one too in Anorith! Unfortunately, apparently the dubbing team doesn't think that English-speaking children are smart enough to know what an Anomalocaris is, or what "anomaly"  means, so they renamed this dude "Scorpiomon" despite the fact that it's always seen in oceanic-themed episodes and scorpions don't live in the ocean. Silly dub! Even sillier, when Japan actually created a scorpion-based Digimon, the dub's bungling caused them to call the real Scorpiomon "SkullScorpiomon". Silly dub!

Anyway, Anomalocarimon is a pretty cool monster, and being based on a real-life cool monster, doesn't really change much. Sure, they basically turned all of the Anomalocaris's fins into mean-looking blades, added some markings and gave him an extra scorpion tail, but it doesn't really detract from the sheer bizarreness and coolness of the base creature. The Bandai profile even notes that Anomalocarimon is based on an ancient apex predator from a museum computer! Anomalocarimon has shown up as villains-of-the-week in Adventure, 02 and a Tamers movie, and tended to be associated with Ebidramon in the latter two despite Ebidramon actually not possibly evolving into Anomalocarimon in any of the many video games they've co-starred in. Adventure has Anomalocarimon basically be MetalSeadramon's hitman, who takes payment in clams, and very nearly killed the entire cast if he wasn't so easily distracted. Anyway, Anomalocarimon's cool. I've always liked him.

 9/10. 

MarineDevimon

You know who else is cool? This Perfect-level aquatic version of Devimon, MarineDevimon! A scuba-diving tentacled Devimon certainly wouldn't be my first guess a possible evolution of the many aquatic monsters, least of all Gesomon and Octomon up there. But hey, here we go! MarineDevimon here does a bang-up job at not just being a Devimon variant, actually. Just look at his face, with its far more angular and fish-like look. Look at that tattered, sea-worn cape and that random scuba gear around his chest. And most interestingly, look at those Gesomon-style tentacles. MarineDevimon has four of them! Two replacing the humanoid arms, and two just being shoulder-mounted tentacles And his normal limbs are as gangly as Devimon, too, and the subsequent visual effect ends up making the hunched, near-feral-looking MarineDevimon really look like a devil living in the depths of the ocean.

Easily the best detail on MarineDevimon is that he has tattoos of skeleton fishes on his shoulder and his arm, which is just such a hilarious subversion of regular Devimon's bat tattoos.

This TCG art showing MarineDevimon crawling like some sort of monstrous sea creature is easily one of my favourite images featuring this guy. I really do like MarineDevimon a lot, managing to still unmistakably have that Devimon aesthetic while adding so much that it ends up being a unique design of its own. Interestingly, MarineDevimon's two shoulder tentacles apparently have minds of their own, and sometimes act without MarineDevimon's permission? MarineDevimon's biggest appearance in the anime is as a brief recurring enemy in 02, being one of Daemon's lieutenants. And MarineDevimon is a gigantic, gangly behemoth, being big enough to straight-up terrorize liner ships like he's King Kong or some shit. Pretty great design all around!

 9/10. 

Dagomon (a.k.a. "Dragomon")

Chtulhu fhtagn! Although I didn't know what a "Cthulhu" was when I first saw Dagomon, this dude is unmistakably based on Lovecraft's octopus-headed Elder God. And interestingly enough, whoever made Dagomon actually remembered that Cthulhu wasn't just any Elder One, but a priest of the Elder Ones. So Dagomon ends up being patterened after a monk of sorts, having the title "Sinful Priest of the Ocean Floor" and having a necklace of prayer beads. Dagomon is also not named after Cthulhu, but after Dagon, a fish-god in the Lovecraftian mythos. Understandably, because Dagon shares its name with a Pagan god, Dagomon was renamed... Dragomon in the English dub? Really? Drago?

Dagomon's apparently born not out of some ancient being, though, but out of a virus that fucks with navigational systems in ships. While originally I wasn't super keen on Dagomon as a design, thinking it's pretty underwhelming, I actually didn't realize until recently that Dagomon isn't a humanoid with dragon wings and an octopus face. It's still just a big, deformed octopus, but it's got chains, belts and bands holding his many tentacles together to give the impression of a humanoid figure. That's actually pretty neat! Also, hidden somewhere among all those tentacles is the trident that Dagomon uses to fight. This little detail that Dagomon's actually an octopus monster that's pretending to be a humanoid by tying his tentacles up together really sort of elevates him in my mind from just being a cheap Cthulhu knockoff. 

Dagomon's only real appearance of note is in a bizarre episode of 02, where we went from episodic villain-of-the-week adventures where Hikari gets kidnapped by a bunch of fish-like Hangyomon (or, more eerily, beings that took the form of Hangyomon but aren't Digimon) into a strange, misty realm that wasn't quite the digital world or the real world, where the "Hangyomon" wants to make Hikari their 'queen' to basically re-enact a PG-13 version of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. While Hikari manages to escape the perverted fish-people, we see the ominous shadow of Dagomon in the mists. Surely a potential future villain, maybe a Big Bad? Nope, this is just a one-off crazy homage episode, and Dagomon only shows up briefly as a villain-of-the-week in the dire Hunters anime. Overall, though, while Dagomon's Cthulhu deal is pretty cool, he's always been sort of underwhelming to me as a design.

 8/10. 

Hangyomon (a.k.a. Divermon/Scubamon/Divemon)

Hangyomon here replaces Anomalocarimon as a possible Perfect evolution in the "2.5" version of the virtual pet, and borrows his name from hangyojin, meaning half-fish man in Japanese. This has led Hangyomon to have three dub names. Hangyomon's a pretty cool, if somewhat silly, Perfect-level Digimon, and his design has always caused me to think that this is more of a dude in a fish-suit than an actual fishman. Which I think is meant to be part of his charm, becasue of the silly little yellow flippers and the scuba tank built into Hangyomon's anatomy. I've always liked how silly Hangyomon looks and how deceptively powerful they are -- a small squadron of Hangyomon served as MetalSeadramon's strike team as they tried to play Ahab with Whamon, who's ferrying away our heroes. Very appropriate that they had harpoons (called "Torrent", apparently), too! Also, compared to the gigantic Dagomon and MarineDevimon, Hangyomon stands barely taller than Child-stage Digimon.

As mentioned above, in 02, some creatures "took the form" of Hangyomon in the Lovecraftian episode, and are probably a nod to Lovecraft's own race of fish-people, the Deep Ones. A different Hangyomon would be the partner of one of the international Chosen Children, and in Tamers, a Hangyomon guarded a group of Otamamon... which, come to think of, Hangyomon actually makes for a pretty appropriate alternate Perfect-stage for Gekomon, don't you think? Hangyomon would also be a villain-of-the-week in Xros Wars. Anyway, while being rather indifferent about these dudes as a kid, I've ended up finding a bit of a fun charm with these grinning sea goblins. Also sometimes they look really damn badass,

 6/10. 

MarineAngemon (a.k.a. MarinAngemon)

We're into Ultimates now, and yes, this absolutely adorable little pink baby is an Ultimate! I do like that we come full circle from Pichimon and end up with a Digimon based on a tiny little sea angel (Gymnosomata), the same breed of uniquely-shaped sea slugs that inspired Pokemon's Manaphy. MarineAngemon always looked pretty cute, and in its original Pendulum V-Pet appearance, I found it hilarious that it was the fearsome looking Zudomon and Whamon that ends up shrinking into this little sea pixie. The Bandai profile notes that it's distinct from the rest of the humanoid Angemon-species, which is just racist -- let this sea slug angel be an angel too, it outranks half of their membership by the sheer virtue of being an Ultimate-level! Anyway, I like this design a fair bit! It's cute.

While MarineAngemon never appeared in Adventure or 02, he did appear in Digimon Tamers among a small horde of Ultimate-level Digimon that gathered to fight the incoming threat of the D-Reaper, and one of them, a tiny, seemingly-harmless MarineAngemon, decided to make friends with one of the secondary cast, Kitegawa Kenta. Oh, and it shoots out little love bubbles that can either protect its allies or just straight-up make enemies lose their fighting spirit. Overall, a pretty neat design and a pretty badass (if small) role in Tamers.

 7/10. 

Plesiomon

Plesiomon is the other big candidate for Gomamon's final evolution before Bandai settled on Vikemon, being the coolest among the three available Ultimate-levels in the original Deep Savers pet. Ironically, though, Zudomon can't actually turn into Plesiomon in the original virtual pet, although Plesiomon himself have shown up as a Zudomon evolution in many, many games. Plesiomon is a neat design for sure -- sure, it doesn't deviate too much from its design, the aquatic plesiosaur. Plesiomon adds a bunch of extra ribbon-like accessories and those orange hair that Pukamon has, as well as a bunch of hair behind his head. It's a pretty cool looking beast, and I can definitely see why people wanted Gomamon to turn into this dude -- they even share the same colour scheme, and Pukamon looks like a baby dinosaur anyway! Alas, it's not to be, and I guess the progression from Ikakkumon to Zudomon to Vikemon was deemed smoother by the anime staff.

I do like Plesiomon a lot, though. Sure, he's never really seen doing anything in fiction -- just a part of the huge Ultimate army in Tamers and a very underwhelming ally Digimon in Hunters, but from a design standpoint Plesiomon is a pretty cool Ultimate-level Digimon and I kinda wish they tried to do something more with his design or his backstory. Plesiomon's neat, I guess.

 6/10. 

Pukumon

I remembered that as a child, my friends pronounced Pukumon's name "Puk-u-mon" because of the obvious profanity. And that's about the only real thing I remember about Pukumon, honestly. Hell, for the longest time, I thought he was a Perfect in the same vein as Mamemon and Giromon, being a tiny sphere with muscular limbs. But no, Pukumon here is an Ultimate-level Digimon, and is the only Virus-attribute Ultimate. Meaning he's eeeevil! Can you imagine the Dark Masters arc where Pukumon replaces MetalSeadramon? That wouldn't be quite as impressive, really.

Pukumon, according to his Bandai profile, is apparently a "British Punk Digimon", and is very loosely based on a blowfish. Except instead of blowing up into a giant spiky balloon, Pukumon just has a big spiky helmet, and two big-ass muscular arms tattooed with anchors ending in spiked knuckle-dusters. But let's go back to that. "British Punk"? The hell does that even mean? Pukumon's only fictional appearance outside of video games is as a cameo among Tamers' Ultimate-level army, so we'll never know if Pukumon cusses and uses British slang like "ya blimey daft bugger!" I just find it so bizarre -- most of Digimon's cultural references have been obvious. But a British Punk spiky ball-fish is apparently one of the Ultimate, most powerful final forms a Digimon can become. Hilariously, among the things that can turn into a British Punk fish include Cthulhu, a sea-dwelling Satan, an obese trumpet shogun frog, an evil teddy bear and a cactus ghost in a sombrero. Digimon evolutionary lines, they be weird!

BRITISH PUNK FISH! Jolly good, I say! (My initial draft has him pegged at "2 points, what the shit is this", but yeah, I did end up sort of really liking him). 

 6/10. 

Holy shit that's a lot! We'll see if I'll be able to do another one of this that covers all of the characters in a single Pendulum virtual pet... especially since next one's going to be Nightmare Soldiers, and there's a lot of important Adventure-era characters there. At the very least, though, we've gotten through all eight of the Adventure protagonists out of the way, so I'm a bit free to just review the rest in a whatever order until we reach 02.