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 (DigiEgg in the dub), allowing the Digimon to Armour Digivolve. While initially noted to be a special level that exists outside of the normal Baby I/Baby II/Child/Adult/Perfect/Ultimate cycle, most people agree that the Armour Evolutions fall in line 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, each corresponding to the eight emotions/crests associated with the original Adventure cast, and three that the virtual pets introduced. In 02, though, each digimental is only ever held on by one chosen child, so the whole "any of these six main characters can evolve with any of these armours" never actually came to play in the anime. Anyway, a quick run-down of all the emotions, and their associated partners:
Courage, which was associated with Taichi and Agumon in Adventure. Obtained by Daisuke in 02. Most of the armour evolutions for Courage tended to have some sort of fire theme, although not all of them do. In addition, all of the armour Digimon in general tended to have armour of some sort on their body.
Friendship, which was associated with Yamato and Gabumon in Adventure. Obtained by Daisuke in 02. Doesn't really have a theme, honestly.
Love, associated with Sora and Piyomon in Adventure. Obtained by Miyako in 02. Most of the Love armours tended to be flight-capable monsters.
Knowledge, associated with Koushiro and Tentomon in Adventure. Obtained by Iori in 02. Most of the Knowledge armours are bug-themed in some way.
Purity (Sincerity in the dub, due to different associations as to what 'purity' means in English), associated with Mimi and Palmon in Adventure. Obtained by Miyako in 02. A good amount of the Purity armours are associated in some way to plants.
Sincerity (Reliability in the dub), associated with Jo and Gomamon in Adventure. Obtained by Iori in 02. Most of the Sincerity armours are aquatic monsters.
Hope, associated with Takeru and Patamon in Adventure, and obtained by Takeru again in 02. All the Hope armours are four-legged hooved herbivorous monsters.
Light, associated with Hikari and Tailmon in Adventure, obtained by Hikari again in 02. A good portion of the Light armours have... angelic wings of some sort?
Kindness, newly introduced in 02 and apparently the crest associated with Ken and Wormmon. All the Kindness armours don't seem to have a theme.
Miracles, newly introduced and is a "push this button to win" emergency plot device. Obtained by Daisuke in 02. Most of the Miracles armour have golden armour of some sort.
Fate, which only shows up in a movie. Basically just a plot device.Whew! So 02's cast and the virtual pets released during this time really, really focused on the armour evolutions of the main six partner Digimon -- Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadimon, Patamon, Tailmon and Wormmon. And while each of these can evolve normally with a normal Adult/Perfect/Ultimate stage, as Child-stage each of them can 'earn' the Digimentals in the virtual pets and unlock 10 Armour forms, some of which are obviously based around the associated Child stage, and some that just feel... random.
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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Chicomon (a.k.a. Chibomon)
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 (a.k.a. DemiVeemon)
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.Veemon (a.k.a. V-mon)
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.ExVeemon (a.k.a. XV-mon)
4/10.Paildramon
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.Imperialdramon: Dragon Mode
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.
7/10.Imperialdramon: Fighter 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. Barely 6/10.Imperialdramon: Paladin Mode
DEAR GOD there's another one? Paladin Mode here only shows up a grand total of once, in the Diaboromon Strikes Back movie. After Armagemon ends up whacking Omegamon and Imperialdramon to the curb, the two of them combined... and it's just a white Fighter Mode Imperialdramon holding a big-ass sword. I dunno. It's always felt lazy to me, and not quite that impressive for a combination of two of the franchise's biggest badasses. Outside of the Adventure continuity, Imperialdramon: Paladin Mode is apparently the founder of the Royal Knights, but isn't counted as a member? Oooo-kay? I'm honestly not sure what else to say here. I just found it ridiculous that this thing is made up of an Ultimate-level Digimon that has transformed into an even-more-powerful mode, combined with another Ultimate-level Digimon which himself is a fusion of two already powerful Ultimate-level Digimon. Eh.
4/10.Fladramon (a.k.a. Flamedramon)
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, and as soon as ExVeemon, Paildramon and Imperialdramon are on the table, you barely see any of these Armour Evolutions anymore. Which is a shame, because I kind of liked them a fair bit.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, created to tie-in with a Veemon toy that can transform and you can attach pieces of armour too, is obviously in the former category. And he's kinda neat, of course, even if he's just obviously a streamlined, taller Veemon with chunks of plastic armour stapled onto him. It's kind of underwhelming, I guess, but I also see where they're going for with this, and this is a genuinely far more interesting look than silly ol' ExVeemon up there. I do like the long claws on Fladramon's hands, too, although once more I'm genuinely confused why this dude is a 'dragon' and not, I dunno, a kangaroo or something.
Fladramon's all right. Viewed without the tint of nostalgia I can't really say that much neat things about him, though. Fladramon here is Veemon's evolution with Taichi's Crest of Courage, and all the Courage evolutions tended to be themed around fire.
5/10.Raidramon (a.k.a. Lighdramon)
Veemon's second Armour evolution is Raidramon here, which is apparently supposed to be parsed "Lighdramon", which just feels stupid. Besides, it draws his name from rai, meaning thunder in Japanese. Again, it's another Veemon in armour, but there's a lot less Veemon other than the neck, ear and tail, and 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. Raidramon is Veemon's evolution with Yamato's Digimental of Friendship, and the official bio notes that this gives Raidramon the element of thunder... but none of the Friendship Armours actually have any connection to thunder other than Raidramon. In fact, Friendship, I think, is the only one without a proper unifying theme. Anyway, Raidramon's neat. I don't really have much else to say about him. 5/10.Magnamon
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... all of the forms that never make it into the show tended to be forgotten, and I am genuinely surprised at some that I could swear I've only seen the first time. Magnamon here only shows up exactly once, battling the unstoppable Kimeramon, when the ever-so-mysterious plot device, the Digimental of Miracles (not associated with any of the kids), allows Veemon to transform into Magnamon and one-shot Kimeramon to death. Daisuke's Veemon also turned into Magnamon briefly in the Hurricane Touchdown non-serial movie. And Magnamon is... he's neat, I suppose, in the basic sense that anyone wearing a suit of armour is neat, but he's honestly pretty underwhelming without all the brouhaha surrounding him to be a miracle that will save the day through some genuinely un-earned plot device. Miracles! It's what saves the day! Also... Magnamon's Japanese attack. Yeah.Outside of Adventure's story and in the broader Digimon canon, Magnamon is an Armor-level Digimon that is so special and so powerful that he's not an Adult-level tier Armour like everyone else, but Ultimate-tier. Oh, and Magnamon is so powerful that he's part of the Royal Knights, a group of thirteen uber-powerful warriors whose ranks include Omegamon, UlforceVeedramon and a lot of other Ultimate-class dudes we'll see in the future. Magnamon (not Daisuke's) have appeared as members of the Royal Knights in the one-shot movie X-Evolution, as well as the Savers anime, although I don't think Magnamon actually does anything in Savers. He's... he's all right. Honestly, that's how I feel about most of Veemon's show armours. They're neat enough that I can't complain, but I also don't have anything nice to say about them.
5/10.Sethmon
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 very recently, too, or of the fact that Sethmon was meant to be connected to Veemon instead of being a Holsmon recolour. (Holsmon is the armour evolution of other main character Hawkmon that is prominently featured in the show) Sethmon here is Veemon's Love armour evolution, and unlike the rest of Veemon's 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", whatever that means. 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 of the digimental of love, but where Holsmon is clearly based on some sort of avian beast, Sethmon here is a lot more mammalian, with prominent tusks and his wings arranged similarly to a streamlined elephant. Sethmon isn't quite an elephant, but it's interesting just how different Sethmon and Holsmon is when you look at them side by side. Hell, Sethmon even throws in a bit of Veemon's blue on his underbelly and tusks!Sethmon was finally featured in an anime more than a decade after his debut in the games, during the Apollomon arc in Xros Wars where he served as one of the villains that engaged the good guys. Overall, while probably not the most visually impressive beast, Sethmon's little story of being a creature of love distorted by hatred has sort of made him a bit more memorable for me.
7/10.Yaksamon (a.k.a. Yasyamon)
Yaksamon (or Yasyamon, two valid interpretations of his name) is Veemon's armour evolution with the digimental of purity, or Mimi/Palmon's digimental. All the Purity armour evolutions are plant-based, and Yaksamon barely qualifies by having a bandolier made out of thorny vines and wooden arm-shield things. It's a far more humanoid Veemon wearing a near-featureless demon mask, some clothes and a neat little set of wooden gauntlets, arm-shields and swords. While a dude in armour isn't the most creative of an evolution, this is still kind of cool, I suppose, even if it's not my thing. I guess what really won me over is that mask, really, that saved me from dismissing him as a generic humanoid warrior (we've had a lot of those before and will have a lot more, and they need to be particularly cool for me to give marks). Yaksamon's a pretty generic cool warrior, good with swords, has a mind for justice, and also can do magic.Yaksamon here is actually one of the more prolific among these forgotten non-02-anime armours, appearing as minor characters in the Frontier movie, an ally Digimon that got brutally murdered by modified humans in Savers, members of the Sword Zone allies in Xros Wars and finally graduated as the partner Digimon of quasi-antagonist Robari Ren in Hunters, where he's the evolved form of Dracmon and a bit of a creepy fucker. He's all right, I guess.
5/10.Honeybeemon
4/10.Sagittarimon
6/10.Gargomon (a.k.a. Gargoylemon)
Gargoylemon's profile notes that it was even once a demon beast-type Digimon, but with the restraints it has forced itself to become holy, and has even served as familiars for Angel Digimon, meaning that this creepy-cool gargoyle angel serves kind of the same capacity as Devidramon and PicoDevimon does for the devils. Bizarrely and also hilariously, Gargoylemon's haunting design was first used in Xros Wars's Heaven Zone, an area that is populated by angelic-themed Digimon... and Gargoylemon was a supporting antagonist who is characterized as an Inspector J'avert style of character. Look here. Yes, they took one of the neatest armour evolutions, dressed him in a form-fitting trenchcoat, glued a police siren to his head and had him wear shades. And yet I can't say that I dislike copper Gargoylemon at all. Overall, I've found myself unexpectedly liking this guy.
8/10.Depthmon
Depthmon is Veemon's evolution with the Digimental of Sincerty, associated with Jo/Gomamon and having a running theme of aquatic monsters. Depthmon is... a mermaid robot thing with some weird futuristic scuba gear? It's kind of weird and it's probably the one in this list I forget about the most. Its webbed claws are cool, I suppose? His profile notes that Depthmon's whole deal is that it can withstand deep-sea pressure better than the likes of Hangyomon, and gives even Whamon a run for his money. He's apparently appeared as a minor enemy in a Tamers movie, and part of the Gold-Pirate Army in Xros Wars alongside a bunch of other aquatic-themed Digimon. Depthmon is... honestly quite forgettable. Not a big fan of this one. 2/10.Kangaroomon (a.k.a. Kangalmon/Kangarumon)
And finally, we end with Kangaroomon here, and apparently someone other than me realized how all of these Veemons do actually resemble a kangaroo or a wallaby, because Veemon's evolution with the digimental of kindness is a goddamn boxing kangaroo. With Veemon's head stapled on top. And for whatever reason, has a zipper on his belly with a creepy doll stuffed in, which also has boxing gloves. Kangaroomon has somehow never appeared in any of the anime when pretty boring designs like Depthmon did, which is a shame. I don't think I'm the biggest fan of the unnecessary detailing like the weird helmet they had him wear, or the poncho-like... neck.... thing, but I am so charmed to find out that this thing exists, having called Veemon a kangaroo for years without realizing that he can actually evolve into something called Kangaroomon from the get-go. Maybe that's the secret. Maybe kangaroos are considered dragons in the Digimon universe. Otherwise... honestly pretty forgettable. 3/10.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 it 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 available for the Adventure cast to work with, and looking at the Digimon available for 02... wow, they really didn't use a lot of these, yeah?
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