Zero Two is a neat show for a couple of reasons, introducing a lot of fun concepts including the franchise's first human villain in the crazy Digimon Kaiser, the International Chosen Children, as well as some pretty great villains in Arukenimon, Mummymon and BlackWarGreymon. But it suffers a fair bit from inconsistent pacing, a bunch of backstory that tied into video games that makes not being aware of them hurt your understanding of the backstory, a focus on gimmicky evolutions, as well as a very, very weird ending that juggles around several possible Final Big Bad candidates before settling for one that arguably comes out of nowhere. Throw in some questionable quality in the show's run, as well as a lack of proper development for Daisuke, Miyako and Iori, and the show's not as well-rememebered among the fandom.It's sure got its supporters, though, and some people notes that 02 was all about accepting the friends around you, culminating in the fact that this is the first show to utilize Jogress Evolution consistently. The way that the actual characterization for two members of the group to be "fully in sync" with each other, and how it is earned is a bit questionable, though.
Adventure was all about dealing with your own internal problems, dealing with your own personal demons, and how those relate to your family and friends, which was what made watching it so compelling. Sure, there's the fights with the devils, psycho puppets, metal dragons and Elvis-impersonating apes, but Adventure's clear focus is to tell a story of how these children would work through their own personal demons, especially when thrown into a world where they are the only ones with the responsibility to save the world. 02... sort of lacks in that, without any proper thoroughline for its protagonists beyond saving the day and earning a new evolution or two down the road. I always remembered really liking that 02 used a combination of old and new Digimons, had some really fun concepts and some cool action scenes, but even as a kid I knew the writing was a bit of a step down. I've never been a huge 02 hater, though. It's a fine show that just crash-lands at its conclusion.
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So, before we continue, I think we have to cover the whole concept of Armour Evolutions. So in the three years between Adventure and 02, a mysterious human called the Digimon Kaiser has conceived of a way to take control of Digimon with mind-controlling black rings, convinced that the whole digital world is nothing but a fake reality, and he's free to do whatever the hell he wants in them. That's why our original heroes can't do shit, because their Digimon are unable to evolve.
The new cast, meanwhile, are blessed with a new model of the digivice, which allows them to track down convenient plot devices called Digimentals (DigiEggs in the dub), allowing the Digimon to Armour Digivolve. Initially noted to be a special level that exists outside of the normal Baby I/Baby II/Child/Adult/Perfect/Ultimate cycle, most video games and card games would quietly agree that Armour levels fall around the Adult-level.
In the virtual pets that were released to tie in with 02, each of the protagonist Digimon actually have 10 programmed armour evolutions, 8 of which corresponding to the plot-relevant qualities and crests of the Adventure cast. Every single protagonist form gets 10 new forms that they could switch around.
In theory, anyway. In the actual anime... not so much. Each 'digimental' was assigned to a single kid and partner, and it was clear that the design staff created these in order to sell transforming toys, as you can see shortly. I'll cover each Digimental with each of Veemon's armour evolutions.
With that huge exposition out of the way, let's go through the evolutionary line for the partner of our supposed main character, Motomiya Daisuke (Davis Motomiya in the dub), Veemon!
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The Baby I's and Baby II's from 02's cast onwards are far more clearly designed with the main Child-level Digimon in mind, instead of having unique, distinct designs the way everything prior to this was designed to be -- after all, your Koromons and Tsunomons and Tanemons were meant to evolve into one of several Child-forms. And while it does mean that an evolutionary line designed on-paper to match ends up being particularly good as far as continuity goes, it also means that there's barely anything for me to say about Chicomon here. He's very basic, just a blue blob with a little sock-horn on his head. And honestly, there's nothing in his profile that is unique to Chicomon other than the hints that it's going to evolve into a dragon someday. Neat when taken as part of a set with Chibimon, Veemon and everything beyond, but very bland when it's just him. Honestly, before looking up the list of Digimon introduced in 2000, I genuinely can't tell you what Veemon's Baby I form is called if you held a gun to my head.
3/10.
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Chibimon here, renamed into the far more distinct DemiVeemon in the dub (although I'm genuinely not sure why they changed Chicomon to Chibimon in the dub), was a bit more distinct in that he actually doesn't look like a Baby II form! He has a body and everything, and honestly is just an arm and neck away from being Veemon. I've always thought Chibimon here to be particularly distinct among the babies for actually looking like a Child-level Digimon. Was this a rejected design for Veemon himself that got shuffled into a Baby II form? Whatever the case, though, there's, again, not really much to say about Chibimon. It's a smaller Veemon, and doesn't really have much of identity of its own. It's reasonably cute, though, and relatively distinct design-wise as some sort of baby kangaroo-rabbit thing. I remember him far more distinctly than Chicomon, at least.
4/10.
(I will be using 'Veemon', because typing V-mon is a bit more annoying and I'll have to do that quite a lot).
I'm genuinely not sure why they decided not to use Veedramon for Veemon's natural Adult evolution, and decided to think up of a brand-new one for him. ExVeemon (or the horribly awkward XVmon) has always struck me as feeling like an inferior design to Veedramon and AeroVeedramon, and even Veemon's other armour evolutions that he debuted in before in the anime. ExVeemon is this weird Veemon who's developed a more humanoid stance, more pronounced humanoid musculature, two wings and a more dragon-like head with a knife-horn. He shows up for a fair bit in the anime, but I honestly don't remember ExVeemon doing much before the Jogress fusion evolutions happened. I dunno. I guess whoever designed this dude was really pleased that they figured out how to fit a 'V' into an 'X', and so they based ExVeemon's whole attack on unleashing an X/V-shaped laser from his chest. I dunno. I enjoyed 02 a fair bit and I don't want to attack ExVeemon here, but jeez, I really don't think I can legitimately say a lot of good things about ExVeemon. The fact that there are a lot of actually better alternatives for a Veemon-themed evolution really hurts ExVeemon's standings in my head, too. Sorry, dude.
4/10.
So while "Jogress" evolution where two Digimon fuse into a stronger one has been a thing in the virtual pets and the games even before Adventure debuted, it was an actual plot point in 02. For one plot reason or another, the new cast were unable to evolve into Perfect-mode, and two members of the team had to fuse their Digimon to actually connect to each other emotionally to have their respective Adult-level Digimon fuse. Paildramon here is the fusion of ExVeemon and Ken's partner Stingmon, who we'll cover next week, and is the fusion we see a fair bit of in the show. And... and yeah, Paildramon is a busy motherfucker, isn't he? He's at least pretty cool, though, incorporating Stingmon's badass-looking gauntlets, sholder-guards, leg armours and somehow gaining a pretty neat-looking red robot head. Interestingly, somehow combining a man-dragon and a bug monster results in them manifesting a pair of cannons mounted on the hips that Paildramon uses as his main attack, "Desperado Blaster", which I thought is equal parts corny and badass.
Paildramon here is the symptom of the design having to fit toys that are going to be made, though -- that second pair of blue wings you see jutting out from Paildramon's head are obviously ExVeemon's head halves from the toy. It's commendable that they're trying to standardize designs, and for Paildramon as a fusion Digimon it does kind of feel appropriate to have as much parts incorporated from both of his components, but honestly I'm pretty sure the kids at home won't mind a degree of stylization. I mean, look at Transformers' Megatron and his original toy, and look at how he looked in the cartoon. You don't have to adopt all the extraneous kibble like the crotch-trigger! On Paildramon it isn't that bad, but the alternate fusion of ExVeemon and Stingmon would be particularly hurt by the fact that this is trying to tie-in to a toy.
Paildramon himself is pretty neat, though. I've always preferred how he looked like in the Bandai artwork due to how feral and dangerous that pose always grabbed me, but the anime model ain't half bad either. Paildramon was, understandably, the 02 cast's bigger guns for a while until the enemies started going more and more powerful. I do find him sort of cool, despite the slight bit of clutter on his back.
6/10.
Paildramon was the only member of the 02 cast to actually evolve into Ultimate form (although HolyAngemon and Angewomon would do so in a non-serial movie and Tri), and the resulting transformation is this beastly motherfucker Imperialdramon. Imperialdramon is one that you can already obviously tell was patterned after a toy that could transform, with just how mismatched those legs look, and how the proportions just sort of seemed off. I've always liked "Dragon Mode" Imperialdramon a lot better than the resulting Fighter Mode, though, finding that the insanely long claws and blades to look pretty beastly. Always liked that dragon head, too, even if I'm slightly disappointed that despite being an evolution of Paildramon, Imperialdramon's basically just the Veemon blue dragon body encased in black dragon armour. Really? No bug parts anywhere? Still, even without the bug parts, I do appreciate enough of Imperialdramon, as oddly impractical as his leg configuration looks. Also always loved that any time the Imperialdramon evolution sequence was shown in the anime, Imperialdramon would be shown blowing up a random castle with a big-ass explosion from his back-mounted cannon.
And while the 02 model continued the rather stiff-looking toyetic look, when Imperialdramon showed up in Tri as a mind-controlled facsimile, he was given a far more natural looking pose that looked like it can actually use its legs to move like an actual beast. In the anime, after the excitement of Imperialdramon's initial evolution and the sheer power the kids have on their hand had died down, he was actually relegated to being the group's super-fast transport due to his ability to fly and his immense size, because whenever they had to bust out the big guns, they resorted to Fighter mode. Poor Dragon Mode! He's definitely the cooler one of the two for me.
8/10 for Dragon Mode.
And I'm not knocking Fighter Mode here. He's got a lot of badass scenes in the anime, although unlike WarGreymon, MetalGarurumon or Omegamon it's really hard for me to think up of a fight that Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode really shone in in my mind. Most of the time he just shows up, lifts up that Megatron-esque cannon on his arm and wins the fight. He's also still an Ultimate level, because, hey, if you don't change the name, it's just him standing up and shuffling some parts around, right? Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode here obviously is the reason that Dragon Mode felt so odd, and that's because it needed to transform into this. How much cooler would the designs of a scary feral armoured dragon and a armoured dragon man individually would be if they didn't have to swap into each other? Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode is... okay, I guess. It does kind of help that Veemon's whole theme is that he's this weird wallaby dragon-kid that grows larger and wears armour, making his sudden transformation into a humanoid a lot less jarring. I kinda like Imperialdramon's Fighter Mode, but I'm not sure just how much of it is thanks to nostalgia, because unlike Paildramon or Dragon mode, I'm struggling to justify why I like this. It's an okay form for the protagonist's final form, I suppose. I... I don't really have much else to say. It's a design that's inherently kinda cool, but not one that gets me super-duper excited. It looks too much like a Gundam or a Transformer, and I like both those things... but this is supposed to be a dragon. It's even in its name. I am conflicted.
I'll shuffle this one here as a sub-set of Fighter Mode. Paladin Mode shows up a grand total of once, in the Diaboromon Strikes Back movie, and doesn't even really get a particularly nice official artwork! Imperialdramon Fighter Mode merges with Omegamon in one of the movies, and... it's just Imperialdramon coloured like Omegamon, holding the Grey Sword. Eh.
6/10 for both.
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So with all of Veemon's natural evolutions out of the way, we go back to Child-level Veemon and we'll go through all his armour evolutions. For the first half of the 02 series, these Armour evolutions are Veemon's only possible power-up tokens. It's an interesting gimmick, at least until the Jogress evolutions come around and the Armour evolutions kind of disappear.
The designs for the Armour Evolutions can never really decide if they wanted to be obviously "grown up Veemon encased in plastic armour" or just a totally brand-new design. Fladramon (or Flamedramon for dub viewers) here is the first to show up, representing Veemon donning the Digimental of Courage, the crest associated with Taichi in the original anime.
6/10.
Veemon's second Armour evolution is Lighdramon here. Or, well, I agree with the English localizers using the katakana reading and calling it Raidramon. It also highlights the connection with rai (lightning). Again, it's another Veemon in armour, but there's a lot less Veemon other than the neck, ear and tail. I actually like this a lot more. The bit of Veemon flesh is a bit annoying, but it does really make Veemon look like it's encased and transformed into something different.
7/10.
Magnamon here is the third Armour Evolution that Veemon turns into in the show, which is a shame that no one ever tries swapping their Digimentals with each other to at least show off some of the other forms. Magnamon here only shows up exactly once, battling the otherwise unstoppable mid-season boss Chimariamon. I maybe need to refresh my memory of 02, but the Digimental of Miracles, like its name implies, just shows up like a miracle and grants Veemon a super-duper special awesome golden armour that one-shots Chimairamon.
Outside of Adventure's story and in the broader Digimon canon, Magnamon is also part of the Royal Knights, a 'meta' group that would eventually make appearances in video games and some of the later anime series. The Royal Knights are uber-powerful knightly warriors, whose ranks include Omegamon, UlforceVeedramon, and a bunch of other Ultimate-class guys we'll see in the future. Being one of the ones that debuted in the anime, Magnamon has appeared as part of various other continuities' Royal Knights in Savers, video games and mangas.
5/10.
Okay, from here on out, none of these ever made it into the 02 anime as Veemon's forms, and for a lot of the non-anime Armour forms tended to just show up as unrelated villains-of-the-week or civilian Digimon. Hell, I'm unaware Sethmon existed until doing this review series! Sethmon is a very obvious 'retool' of Holsmon, which is another 'anime main character' Armour evolution we'll cover later.
7/10.
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Yaksamon is vaguely based on a yaksha, and is a humanoid dude in a cool mask. There is some attempt at tying him back to Veemon with those pale-blue dragon feet and skin, although it's a different shade of blue than what we see in the other Veemon evolutions. Yaksamon wouldn't be as memorable if not for that mask, though, or that fancy set of wooden glove/guard/sword getup it's holding. It's a bit less obvious in the official artwork, but Yaksamon has a little plush on its back that's strapped with some vines.
5/10.
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6/10, bonus points for Xros Wars.
It sure is a centaur? Sagittarimon is a bit more involved, with a bunch more detailing on its actual armour. Sagittarimon also has Raidramon's helmet and Fladramon's gauntlets for no real reason? It's an interesting take, perhaps an attempt to have some continuity among the other armours... which is an odd effort that never really goes anywhere. Sagittarimon at least has Veemon's features behind the helmet and peeking out from between the armours, and I wonder if this was at a time in contention to make it into the show?
4/10.
Oh, this one is very cool, and perhaps not coincidentally because it doesn't just look like a stretched Veemon with plastic armour toy pieces strapped onto him. Gargomon is based on a gargoyle, and this is one of those Digimon where I'll alternate between its original Japanese name (Gargomon) and its English dub name (Gargoylemon), mostly because a major character in Digimon Tamers is called Galgomon (and Gargomon in English... isn't localization fun?)
Gargomon's anatomy is already pretty cool with those massive lower arms and claws, as well as the head-wings and the 'eyes welded shut' aesthetic of the Angemons. The subtle influences of Veemon's 'dragon man' aesthetic bleeds through although nowhere as obvious as the others.
8/10.
Depthmon is... a diver? A mermaid-robot diver? Presumably it's Veemon still inside? I consistently forgot this Digimon existed, actually, and its design isn't particularly memorable. It's a robot mermaid with large grasping claws, but there's really otherwise no real 'hook' to this. The profile just notes how good it is at diving, better than Hangyomon. It better, to be named Depthmon.
2/10.
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We've got Kangarumon (or Kangaroomon) here, which is... uh... it's still got that Veemon ears and snout, and I promise you that Veemon is the only one that the design team tried to at least sneak features into the non-show armours. I always thought Veemon looked a bit like a baby kangaroo without ever knowing that Kangarumon here exists... and I wonder if there's some meta joke at work in the background?
3/10 for joke points.
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Chicomon
- Alternate Names: Chibomon (EN Dub)
- Stage: Baby I
- Type: Slime
- Attribute: None
The Baby I's and Baby II's from 02's cast onwards are far more clearly designed with the main Child-level Digimon in mind, instead of having unique, distinct designs the way everything prior to this was designed to be -- after all, your Koromons and Tsunomons and Tanemons were meant to evolve into one of several Child-forms. And while it does mean that an evolutionary line designed on-paper to match ends up being particularly good as far as continuity goes, it also means that there's barely anything for me to say about Chicomon here. He's very basic, just a blue blob with a little sock-horn on his head. And honestly, there's nothing in his profile that is unique to Chicomon other than the hints that it's going to evolve into a dragon someday. Neat when taken as part of a set with Chibimon, Veemon and everything beyond, but very bland when it's just him. Honestly, before looking up the list of Digimon introduced in 2000, I genuinely can't tell you what Veemon's Baby I form is called if you held a gun to my head.
3/10._________________________________________________________
Chibimon
- Alternate Names: DemiVeemon (EN Dub)
- Stage: Baby II
- Type: Baby Dragon
- Attribute: None
Chibimon here, renamed into the far more distinct DemiVeemon in the dub (although I'm genuinely not sure why they changed Chicomon to Chibimon in the dub), was a bit more distinct in that he actually doesn't look like a Baby II form! He has a body and everything, and honestly is just an arm and neck away from being Veemon. I've always thought Chibimon here to be particularly distinct among the babies for actually looking like a Child-level Digimon. Was this a rejected design for Veemon himself that got shuffled into a Baby II form? Whatever the case, though, there's, again, not really much to say about Chibimon. It's a smaller Veemon, and doesn't really have much of identity of its own. It's reasonably cute, though, and relatively distinct design-wise as some sort of baby kangaroo-rabbit thing. I remember him far more distinctly than Chicomon, at least.
4/10.
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V-mon
- Alternate Names: Veemon (EN Dub)
- Stage: Child
- Type: Small Dragon
- Attribute: Free
(I will be using 'Veemon', because typing V-mon is a bit more annoying and I'll have to do that quite a lot).
And we get to Veemon, the main character and de facto replacement for Agumon in 02, although Agumon himself would still make occasional appearances. Veemon is technically supposed to be a dragon Digimon and was clearly designed to homage Veedramon from the V-Tamers manga. Hell, in most games, Veemon tended to be able to evolve into Veedramon as well. But Veemon himself never really looked that much like a dragon other than his clearly reptilian feet, and looks more like a kangaroo or some sort of non-descript creature. Which I guess is what they're going for? I'm not sure if they sort of worked backwards from previous mascot Agumon to try and have similar proportions, but to be distinctly not-a-dinosaur, and they kind of ended up with this. Note the far more anime-esque face -- 02 is around the time where, for better or for worse, the creation of anime models, official artwork, games and merchandise started to be streamlined. I don't mind Veemon's face at all, although there's a lot of people that don't like him as much as the more natural look of the pre-02 cast.
Veemon is, as mentioned above, partnered to Daisuke, the replacement as the resident "gogglehead", the reckless dude that still has enough sense to properly be a leader, but unlike Taichi (and really, all the other subsequent goggleheads), Daisuke ended up having to perform as a leader when he's just a kid who got shoved into all this world-saving stuff when he's got several far more experienced senpais that have braved the digital world without help before, and both Takeru and Hikari are in the same team as him. The reason he ended up being leader is because... potato? And the show inexplicably made him equal part an inexperienced buffoon and also keeps getting him rewarded whenever he does something stupid because he's the hero. It's not that bad as the season goes on, but Daisuke never quite got any strong character development in the way that most of the Adventure, Tamers, Savers or Xros Wars cast did, and that's going to be a recurring problem for a good majority of the 02 cast. The 02 cast were in full "save the world, get home" mentality, being more action heroes than flawed people. Daisuke at least got the whole "redeem Ken" deal going on for him for the second half of 02, which was kind of neat. Oh, and unlike most of the Adventure-era cast, Veemon attacks by headbutting people instead of shooting energy blasts, which I thought was kinda unique.
Veemon himself ended up suffering a bit more, being sort of immature and sort of caught up in Daisuke's more silly pranks. Part of this might be because it's been a while since I've rewatched 02 at all, but I've never really felt that Veemon had any unique or distinguishing personality other than his ability to transform into a lot of different action figures in the show. He's kind of a neat, safe design, I suppose, and not at all unpleasing, but he's also clearly meant to just pave the way to many, many more evolutions down the road, and that sort of makes Veemon sort of just kinda there for me.
6/10.
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Veemon is, as mentioned above, partnered to Daisuke, the replacement as the resident "gogglehead", the reckless dude that still has enough sense to properly be a leader, but unlike Taichi (and really, all the other subsequent goggleheads), Daisuke ended up having to perform as a leader when he's just a kid who got shoved into all this world-saving stuff when he's got several far more experienced senpais that have braved the digital world without help before, and both Takeru and Hikari are in the same team as him. The reason he ended up being leader is because... potato? And the show inexplicably made him equal part an inexperienced buffoon and also keeps getting him rewarded whenever he does something stupid because he's the hero. It's not that bad as the season goes on, but Daisuke never quite got any strong character development in the way that most of the Adventure, Tamers, Savers or Xros Wars cast did, and that's going to be a recurring problem for a good majority of the 02 cast. The 02 cast were in full "save the world, get home" mentality, being more action heroes than flawed people. Daisuke at least got the whole "redeem Ken" deal going on for him for the second half of 02, which was kind of neat. Oh, and unlike most of the Adventure-era cast, Veemon attacks by headbutting people instead of shooting energy blasts, which I thought was kinda unique.Veemon himself ended up suffering a bit more, being sort of immature and sort of caught up in Daisuke's more silly pranks. Part of this might be because it's been a while since I've rewatched 02 at all, but I've never really felt that Veemon had any unique or distinguishing personality other than his ability to transform into a lot of different action figures in the show. He's kind of a neat, safe design, I suppose, and not at all unpleasing, but he's also clearly meant to just pave the way to many, many more evolutions down the road, and that sort of makes Veemon sort of just kinda there for me.
6/10._________________________________________________________
XV-mon
- Alternate Names: ExVeemon (EN Dub)
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Mythical Dragon
- Attribute: Free
I'm genuinely not sure why they decided not to use Veedramon for Veemon's natural Adult evolution, and decided to think up of a brand-new one for him. ExVeemon (or the horribly awkward XVmon) has always struck me as feeling like an inferior design to Veedramon and AeroVeedramon, and even Veemon's other armour evolutions that he debuted in before in the anime. ExVeemon is this weird Veemon who's developed a more humanoid stance, more pronounced humanoid musculature, two wings and a more dragon-like head with a knife-horn. He shows up for a fair bit in the anime, but I honestly don't remember ExVeemon doing much before the Jogress fusion evolutions happened. I dunno. I guess whoever designed this dude was really pleased that they figured out how to fit a 'V' into an 'X', and so they based ExVeemon's whole attack on unleashing an X/V-shaped laser from his chest. I dunno. I enjoyed 02 a fair bit and I don't want to attack ExVeemon here, but jeez, I really don't think I can legitimately say a lot of good things about ExVeemon. The fact that there are a lot of actually better alternatives for a Veemon-themed evolution really hurts ExVeemon's standings in my head, too. Sorry, dude.
4/10.
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Paildramon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Perfect
- Type: Dragon Man
- Attribute: Free
So while "Jogress" evolution where two Digimon fuse into a stronger one has been a thing in the virtual pets and the games even before Adventure debuted, it was an actual plot point in 02. For one plot reason or another, the new cast were unable to evolve into Perfect-mode, and two members of the team had to fuse their Digimon to actually connect to each other emotionally to have their respective Adult-level Digimon fuse. Paildramon here is the fusion of ExVeemon and Ken's partner Stingmon, who we'll cover next week, and is the fusion we see a fair bit of in the show. And... and yeah, Paildramon is a busy motherfucker, isn't he? He's at least pretty cool, though, incorporating Stingmon's badass-looking gauntlets, sholder-guards, leg armours and somehow gaining a pretty neat-looking red robot head. Interestingly, somehow combining a man-dragon and a bug monster results in them manifesting a pair of cannons mounted on the hips that Paildramon uses as his main attack, "Desperado Blaster", which I thought is equal parts corny and badass.
Paildramon here is the symptom of the design having to fit toys that are going to be made, though -- that second pair of blue wings you see jutting out from Paildramon's head are obviously ExVeemon's head halves from the toy. It's commendable that they're trying to standardize designs, and for Paildramon as a fusion Digimon it does kind of feel appropriate to have as much parts incorporated from both of his components, but honestly I'm pretty sure the kids at home won't mind a degree of stylization. I mean, look at Transformers' Megatron and his original toy, and look at how he looked in the cartoon. You don't have to adopt all the extraneous kibble like the crotch-trigger! On Paildramon it isn't that bad, but the alternate fusion of ExVeemon and Stingmon would be particularly hurt by the fact that this is trying to tie-in to a toy.
Paildramon himself is pretty neat, though. I've always preferred how he looked like in the Bandai artwork due to how feral and dangerous that pose always grabbed me, but the anime model ain't half bad either. Paildramon was, understandably, the 02 cast's bigger guns for a while until the enemies started going more and more powerful. I do find him sort of cool, despite the slight bit of clutter on his back.
6/10.
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Imperialdramon
- Alternate Names: Imperialdramon: Dragon Mode
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Ancient Dragon
- Attribute: Free
Paildramon was the only member of the 02 cast to actually evolve into Ultimate form (although HolyAngemon and Angewomon would do so in a non-serial movie and Tri), and the resulting transformation is this beastly motherfucker Imperialdramon. Imperialdramon is one that you can already obviously tell was patterned after a toy that could transform, with just how mismatched those legs look, and how the proportions just sort of seemed off. I've always liked "Dragon Mode" Imperialdramon a lot better than the resulting Fighter Mode, though, finding that the insanely long claws and blades to look pretty beastly. Always liked that dragon head, too, even if I'm slightly disappointed that despite being an evolution of Paildramon, Imperialdramon's basically just the Veemon blue dragon body encased in black dragon armour. Really? No bug parts anywhere? Still, even without the bug parts, I do appreciate enough of Imperialdramon, as oddly impractical as his leg configuration looks. Also always loved that any time the Imperialdramon evolution sequence was shown in the anime, Imperialdramon would be shown blowing up a random castle with a big-ass explosion from his back-mounted cannon.
And while the 02 model continued the rather stiff-looking toyetic look, when Imperialdramon showed up in Tri as a mind-controlled facsimile, he was given a far more natural looking pose that looked like it can actually use its legs to move like an actual beast. In the anime, after the excitement of Imperialdramon's initial evolution and the sheer power the kids have on their hand had died down, he was actually relegated to being the group's super-fast transport due to his ability to fly and his immense size, because whenever they had to bust out the big guns, they resorted to Fighter mode. Poor Dragon Mode! He's definitely the cooler one of the two for me.
8/10 for Dragon Mode.- Alternate Names: Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Ancient Dragon Man
- Attribute: Free
And I'm not knocking Fighter Mode here. He's got a lot of badass scenes in the anime, although unlike WarGreymon, MetalGarurumon or Omegamon it's really hard for me to think up of a fight that Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode really shone in in my mind. Most of the time he just shows up, lifts up that Megatron-esque cannon on his arm and wins the fight. He's also still an Ultimate level, because, hey, if you don't change the name, it's just him standing up and shuffling some parts around, right? Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode here obviously is the reason that Dragon Mode felt so odd, and that's because it needed to transform into this. How much cooler would the designs of a scary feral armoured dragon and a armoured dragon man individually would be if they didn't have to swap into each other? Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode is... okay, I guess. It does kind of help that Veemon's whole theme is that he's this weird wallaby dragon-kid that grows larger and wears armour, making his sudden transformation into a humanoid a lot less jarring. I kinda like Imperialdramon's Fighter Mode, but I'm not sure just how much of it is thanks to nostalgia, because unlike Paildramon or Dragon mode, I'm struggling to justify why I like this. It's an okay form for the protagonist's final form, I suppose. I... I don't really have much else to say. It's a design that's inherently kinda cool, but not one that gets me super-duper excited. It looks too much like a Gundam or a Transformer, and I like both those things... but this is supposed to be a dragon. It's even in its name. I am conflicted.
- Alternate Names: Imperialdramon: Paladin Mode
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Ancient Holy Knight
- Attribute: Free
I'll shuffle this one here as a sub-set of Fighter Mode. Paladin Mode shows up a grand total of once, in the Diaboromon Strikes Back movie, and doesn't even really get a particularly nice official artwork! Imperialdramon Fighter Mode merges with Omegamon in one of the movies, and... it's just Imperialdramon coloured like Omegamon, holding the Grey Sword. Eh.
6/10 for both. _________________________________________________________
Fladramon
- Alternate Names: Flamedramon (EN dub)
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Dragon Man
- Attribute: Free
So with all of Veemon's natural evolutions out of the way, we go back to Child-level Veemon and we'll go through all his armour evolutions. For the first half of the 02 series, these Armour evolutions are Veemon's only possible power-up tokens. It's an interesting gimmick, at least until the Jogress evolutions come around and the Armour evolutions kind of disappear.
The designs for the Armour Evolutions can never really decide if they wanted to be obviously "grown up Veemon encased in plastic armour" or just a totally brand-new design. Fladramon (or Flamedramon for dub viewers) here is the first to show up, representing Veemon donning the Digimental of Courage, the crest associated with Taichi in the original anime.
It is... very obvious that the Digimental of Courage and Fladramon were designed with transforming toys in mind. Specifically, two -- a Courage Digimental toy that split apart and attach to a Veemon toy; and a separate Courage Digimental toy that cracks open and unfolds into Fladramon. That's why Fladramon has such rounded arms and legs. The end result is a streamlined, more humanoid Veemon with chunks of... well, literally plastic armour stapled onto him.
There is something cool about him, with the fancy blade-fingers and head-blade, and the tacky flame detailing is new enough before Agnimon and his evolutions ran it to the ground. The 'armour' stuff is a very merchandise-driven push, but the anime did make the best out of it and I honestly still prefer Fladramon compared to ExVeemon. Fladramon's all right. Part of it might be nostalgia talking, but I don't mind him.
6/10.
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Lighdramon
- Alternate Names: Raidramon (EN dub)
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Dragon Man
- Attribute: Free
Veemon's second Armour evolution is Lighdramon here. Or, well, I agree with the English localizers using the katakana reading and calling it Raidramon. It also highlights the connection with rai (lightning). Again, it's another Veemon in armour, but there's a lot less Veemon other than the neck, ear and tail. I actually like this a lot more. The bit of Veemon flesh is a bit annoying, but it does really make Veemon look like it's encased and transformed into something different.
I've always found Raidramon here to be pretty cool, sort of like an lightning/thunder-themed MetalGarurumon. Raidramon here is easily my favourite of Veemon's three Armour forms in the anime, although I still do think that they added a fair bit too many spikes and random details onto the design.
Because Veemon is the main kid's partner, he also gets secondary main character Yamato and Gabumon's associated Digimental of Friendship, which is why Raidramon is so lupine. The idea is that as the main character, Daisuke is inheriting the will of the original duo from the Adventure cartoon. Highly suspect since it's Daisuke, but we'll shrug it off. Again, they really only put this thought into the armours that make it into the anime, and the other non-Raidramon armours don't actually have a proper unifying theme.
Anyway, I reasonably like Raidramon. All the jagged, spiky plastic edges and random black lightning bolts actually fit better with the theme of a lightning wolf.
7/10.
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Magnamon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Armor - variable sources treat it as Adult, Perfect or Ultimate-equivalent
- Type: Holy Knight
- Attribute / Sub-Group: Free / Royal Knights
Magnamon here is the third Armour Evolution that Veemon turns into in the show, which is a shame that no one ever tries swapping their Digimentals with each other to at least show off some of the other forms. Magnamon here only shows up exactly once, battling the otherwise unstoppable mid-season boss Chimariamon. I maybe need to refresh my memory of 02, but the Digimental of Miracles, like its name implies, just shows up like a miracle and grants Veemon a super-duper special awesome golden armour that one-shots Chimairamon.
Magnamon himself is... neat. He's new enough among the humanoid Digimon that wears armour that there's still some novelty to it, and the golden Saint Seiya armour is pretty all right. I did grow up with a Magnamon toy hanging out in my room, but even as a child I did remember that it was kind of random that Magnamon appeared once, and never really appeared again despite its super-duper-special-awesome introduction. Unlike other Armour evolutions, different sources would classify Magnamon in completely different tiers from Adult to Perfect to Ultimate. They can't decide!
Miracles is also a crest that was not associated with any of the original eight kids from Adventure, so it adds to the 'where did this come from' bit. As you can see from the Digimental toy... it reallly was designed to break open into a Magnamon action figure, huh? You can even see Magnamon's blocky toes poking out from the bottom!
Outside of Adventure's story and in the broader Digimon canon, Magnamon is also part of the Royal Knights, a 'meta' group that would eventually make appearances in video games and some of the later anime series. The Royal Knights are uber-powerful knightly warriors, whose ranks include Omegamon, UlforceVeedramon, and a bunch of other Ultimate-class guys we'll see in the future. Being one of the ones that debuted in the anime, Magnamon has appeared as part of various other continuities' Royal Knights in Savers, video games and mangas.
He's... he's all right. It's showy, it's flashy, it's meant to sell toys. I don't hate the design because I did grow up with Magnamon and his buddies, but I also am not the biggest fan of Magnamon being a bit of a deus ex machina.
5/10.
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Sethmon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Demon Beast
- Attribute: Free
Okay, from here on out, none of these ever made it into the 02 anime as Veemon's forms, and for a lot of the non-anime Armour forms tended to just show up as unrelated villains-of-the-week or civilian Digimon. Hell, I'm unaware Sethmon existed until doing this review series! Sethmon is a very obvious 'retool' of Holsmon, which is another 'anime main character' Armour evolution we'll cover later.
It's pretty neat, though, with Sethmon being a neat counterpart to Holsmon in that both of them are four-legged beasts whose head is covered with the silver chunk from the toy digimental of love. Where Holsmon is clearly based on some sort of avian beast, Sethmon here is a lot more mammalian, with feet that aren't drawn like talons, and the wings bent backwards which gives Sethmon a vibe of an elephant with those tusks. I get that the tusks and underbelly are blue to make it a Veemon form, but it does clash rather poorly with the rest of the colours chosen.
Sethmon here is Veemon's Love Armour evolution, associated with Sora and Piyomon from the original anime. Unlike the rest of Veemon's non-anime evolutions, for whatever reason, Sethmon's official profile actually characterized him pretty interestingly. Apparently the power of the digimental of love was a bit too much for Veemon to handle, and he evolved into the power of hatred, and together with Holsmon, the two represent the "duality of love and hatred". Cool! That's a bit more memorable!
None of these non-show armours ever made it to the 02 cartoon, which is a shame. Not being designed with Bandai transforming toys in mind actually made a majority of them feel more intresting! Subsequent series would slowly trickle in the non-show Armours, and Sethmon would appear as an arc villain in Xros Wars, where they actually did an all right job at portraying him as a hatred-driven spiteful antagonist.
7/10.Yaksamon
- Alternate Names: Yasyamon
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Demon Man
- Attribute: Free
Yaksamon is vaguely based on a yaksha, and is a humanoid dude in a cool mask. There is some attempt at tying him back to Veemon with those pale-blue dragon feet and skin, although it's a different shade of blue than what we see in the other Veemon evolutions. Yaksamon wouldn't be as memorable if not for that mask, though, or that fancy set of wooden glove/guard/sword getup it's holding. It's a bit less obvious in the official artwork, but Yaksamon has a little plush on its back that's strapped with some vines.
Yaksamon evolves with the Digimental of Purity (Sincerity in the dub) associated with Mimi and Palmon... other Purity Armours kind of have a loose 'plant' theming, but as we'll see as we slowly go through the sets of armour evolutions, not all of them really follow the themes well. Also, unlike the others on top, Yaksamon's 'armour' pieces does not resemble anything from the Purity Digimental.
Yaksamon is actually quite prolific post-02, probably appearing the most out of the non-show Veemons. Yaksamon appeared as minor characters in Frontier, a recurring ally with a rather memorable fate in Savers, minor allies in Xros Wars, and even graduating into being a partner Digimon for a minor antagonist Ren in Xros Wars: Hunters, where they assigned a much-later introduced Dracmon as its Child stage! That's a lot of appearances and I'm happy for Yaksamon that it's been elevated so.
5/10._________________________________________________________
Honeybeemon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Insect
- Attribute: Free
A bug, but this one is... very rounded. If you squint, I guess it is kind of Veemon in an armour? Although the "Veemon" face doesn't really bear much resemblance to the base design other than the skin colour and the snaggle fang. Honeybeemon is trying to keep with the armour theme, at least, with its head designed like a helmet that can snap shut, and the Knowledge symbol kind of acting like an equivalent of 'eyeholes'.
Honeybeemon is Veemon's evolution with the digimental of Knowledge, associated with Koshiro and Tentomon. All the Knowledge Armours tend to be bugs... and they've started deviating from the Alien mouths of the original Kabuterimon/Kuwagamon/Snimon aesthetic. Indeed, Honeybeemon's arms and legs have more in common with Agumon than an actual insect.
It's... it's okay. I'm not a big fan of the aesthetics, but Honeybeemon is quite cute, and I like the little detail that it's a little doofus that's easily tempted by sweets. We have other better, cooler bee Digimon both in the past and future, so Honeybeemon's all right. A trio of Honeybeemon act as goofy 'fan club' members in Frontier. But in Xros Wars, I remembered that they showed up in 'Honey Land' and were portrayed as surprisingly creepy minions of the villain Zamielmon, using their cuteness to get our heroes to lower their guards before they suck out the life force. Woah, calm down, Honeybeemon!
6/10, bonus points for Xros Wars.
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Sagittarimon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Mythical Beast
- Attribute: Free
It sure is a centaur? Sagittarimon is a bit more involved, with a bunch more detailing on its actual armour. Sagittarimon also has Raidramon's helmet and Fladramon's gauntlets for no real reason? It's an interesting take, perhaps an attempt to have some continuity among the other armours... which is an odd effort that never really goes anywhere. Sagittarimon at least has Veemon's features behind the helmet and peeking out from between the armours, and I wonder if this was at a time in contention to make it into the show?
Sagittarimon notes that while it is still an armour evolution, its fellow centaur Digimon Centarumon can just naturally evolve into this. Most shows post-02 just treat the Armour Digimon as just dudes that exist naturally anyway.
Sagittarimon is Veemon's evolution with the digimental of Hope, which is Takeru and Patamon's crest. Again, note how little the 'armour' from the Hope Digimental has anything to do with Sagittarimon's design! Sagittarimon itself has shown up a couple of times as villains-of-the-week in Frontier and Xros Wars, both times as a 'general' of lesser villains!
4/10.
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Gargomon
- Alternate Names: Gargoylemon (EN dub)
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Holy Beast
- Attribute: Free
Oh, this one is very cool, and perhaps not coincidentally because it doesn't just look like a stretched Veemon with plastic armour toy pieces strapped onto him. Gargomon is based on a gargoyle, and this is one of those Digimon where I'll alternate between its original Japanese name (Gargomon) and its English dub name (Gargoylemon), mostly because a major character in Digimon Tamers is called Galgomon (and Gargomon in English... isn't localization fun?)
Anyway, Gargoyle-Gargo-dude is a pretty cool and different approach on a gargoyle! To put this guy into context, Gargoyle here is an evolution with the Digimental of Light, associated with Hikari and Tailmon. The themes of these Armour evolutions are hard and loose, but the Light Armours tend to revolve around 'holy' Digimon... and what a creepy-but-holy dude this is! Gargomon has metal bands and metal belts strapped all over its body, its long clawed arms, its thighs, and even rivets bolted into its beastly face.
Gargomon's anatomy is already pretty cool with those massive lower arms and claws, as well as the head-wings and the 'eyes welded shut' aesthetic of the Angemons. The subtle influences of Veemon's 'dragon man' aesthetic bleeds through although nowhere as obvious as the others.
And the killer part? Gargomon has a backstory as previously being a 'devil-type', but its powers were restrained by all of those belts and bands, and it is employed as "familiars for Angel Digimon". When it's freed from those restraints, it will be unleash its true power... and two decades since the debut of Gargomon, we actually get a dedicated Perfect-level evolution of what this unleashed power looks like, Manticoremon!
I really like this design even without the backstory, and it just adds to how cool this thing is all around as essentially a reverse fallen angel! Sadly, Gargomon's anime debut in Xros Wars has it as a joke character in 'Heaven Zone' as a silly cop wearing a trench-coat. Boo!
8/10.
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Depthmon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Aquatic Beast Man
- Attribute: Free
Depthmon is... a diver? A mermaid-robot diver? Presumably it's Veemon still inside? I consistently forgot this Digimon existed, actually, and its design isn't particularly memorable. It's a robot mermaid with large grasping claws, but there's really otherwise no real 'hook' to this. The profile just notes how good it is at diving, better than Hangyomon. It better, to be named Depthmon.
Depthmon is Veemon's evolution with the Digimental of Sincerity (Reliability in the dub), associated with Joe/Gomamon, and all the Sincerity armours tend to be some kind of aquatic-themed design. I mean... okay? They sure are armoured mermaids? I really don't have much to say here. It sure exists. A bunch show up as part of a pirate crew in Xros Wars. Yeah, I... I really can't say much about this one, sorry!
2/10._________________________________________________________
Kangarumon
- Alternate Names: Kangaroomon (EN dub)
- Stage: Armor - usually treated as Adult-equivalent
- Type: Mammal
- Attribute: Free
We've got Kangarumon (or Kangaroomon) here, which is... uh... it's still got that Veemon ears and snout, and I promise you that Veemon is the only one that the design team tried to at least sneak features into the non-show armours. I always thought Veemon looked a bit like a baby kangaroo without ever knowing that Kangarumon here exists... and I wonder if there's some meta joke at work in the background?
I mean... it sure is a kangaroo suit with boxing gloves. Kangarumon is also wearing a tacky helmet, which I don't like. What I do like is the stomach pocket actually being a zipper, and there's a weird little puppet with a stitched-mouth and button eyes, and baby puppet guy also has boxing gloves! That little friend alone gives Kangarumon a couple extra points. I like that doll! The bio mentions nothing about that doll and is just a boring description of martial arts moves.
Kangarumon evolves with the Digimental of Kindness, which is one of the brand-new digimentals introduced in 02 and associated with a brand-new Chosen Child Ken, who we'll cover a bit later. The actual Digimental of Kindness or its associated Armours never actually show up in the show, which really makes introducing literally ninety new Digimon in the V-pets and force a gimmick on each of them... only to use maybe eight of them? Yeah.
Anyway, I don't actually like Kangarumon's design all that much, but the puppet and my own amusement at the 'wallaby Veemon' joke I've been making for years without knowing this thing exists amuses me enough. Maybe that's the secret. Maybe kangaroos are mythical dragons all along...
3/10 for joke points.
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Overall, you can see that this is where Digimon's art style has taken a bit of a shift to be less monstrous, and I do think that while there are still a lot of great designs to come -- I'm not a "genwunner", as the Pokemon crowd would call it -- I do think that the Digimon franchise does lose a fair amount of what made it unique by having genuinely generic "humanoid in spiky armour designs". The 02 designs aren't so bad, with the toyetic designs mostly being restricted to Imperialdramon and several others, but as we go on, I'm not sure if I can find as much nice things to say as I do the crowd here.
That said, though, looking at the Digimon introduced in 02 and remembering the anime... the anime really did use mostly those from the pre-02 batch of Digimon that the first anime didn't use and ignored most of these other armours, huh? Later shows like Tamers, Frontier and Xros Wars would at least slowly check off these abandoned Armours, but it really does show how weird the Armour evolutions were handled.
That said, though, looking at the Digimon introduced in 02 and remembering the anime... the anime really did use mostly those from the pre-02 batch of Digimon that the first anime didn't use and ignored most of these other armours, huh? Later shows like Tamers, Frontier and Xros Wars would at least slowly check off these abandoned Armours, but it really does show how weird the Armour evolutions were handled.
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