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Leafmon
The Baby I stage this time around isn't just a smaller chibi Wormmon, but a unique design! I did say most of the Babies in this era onwards are bland, but not all. Leafmon here clearly isn't! He's adorable, this cute little blob sucking on the cutest pacifier ever, with its tail looping up as a little umbrella-leaf. The Bandai profile is kind of generic, sadly, just noting that it's part-plant and apparently it can calm people down just by being around? Sort of like how people get instantly relaxed when they see a cute puppy or kitty, I guess. Leafmon here is admittedly the only member of this evolutionary line to not actually be a bug and rather a plant, but considering the same franchise had plants that evolve into birds and tadpoles, I'll let it slide.
9/10.Minomon
Leafmon evolves into a very adorable little Baby II form based on the bagworm larva (Megalophanes viciella), putting Pokemon's minimal-effort Burmy into shame. But it's not just based on a fascinating insect, but it's a very, very adorable adaptation of one. LOOK AT THIS THING! Look at how adorable it is, being a little bug-head baby with a funky little mouth that opens sideways, two chubby baby arms holding the edge of the pinecone blanket thing, and also it can float around above the ground for no reason, but when it really wants to cosplay a bagworm, his little hair-antenna can attach to surfaces. Adorable. Look at him! Apparently, it throws around real pinecones, too.In addition to being the Baby II form of Ken's Wormmon in 02, Minomon serves as minor antagonists in a filler episode of Frontier, used as minions of a villainous Snimon. Interestingly, the Minomon are used explicitly because of their adorable looks, masquerading as friendly guards to a facility that hides a darker secret. Minomon's also shown up in Xros Wars as background characters in Jungle Zone. Overall, easily one of my my favourite Baby II's in Digimon.
10/10.Wormmon
And this chubby grubby boy is why poor Kunemon is so under-utillized. And while under any normal circumstance would definitely prefer the more monstrous bug monster... Wormmon is so cute! It is so chubby and you can just imagine him just waddling around, and he likes to perch on his partner's shoulder like a little grub-parrot. Oh, and that adorable pair of anime-eyes is matched with a pretty badass looking sideways-mouth, which I've always thought was a cool feature that reminds us that, yes, as friendly and happy and adorable as Wormmon is, he's still a bug! And both the English and Japanese dub do a great job at making Wormmon's voice adorable... even doing a bit of a Droopy-esque deal with his English voice.
Anyway, Wormmon here, just like the six Digimon that can undergo armour evolution, is stated to be the desccendant of an ancient Digimon species, but is itself harmless. Hey, don't knock Wormmon like that! Wormmon here is one of the few partner Digimon to actually have a character arc himself, and his partner Ichijouji Ken is easily the only properly-developed main character in 02. See, for the first half of 02, the main villain isn't a Digimon. No, it's the self-proclaimed Digimon Kaiser (Emperor in the dub), who is one of the Chosen Children that entered the digital world before the current cast, and managed to develop some technology to enslave what he thinks is a virtual game. Of course, later episodes and Wonderswan games would reveal that Ken turning into the Kaiser wasn't done willingly, and under some sort of Dark Spore mind-corrupting stuff, but at the same time, he is a megalomaniacal tyrant that straight-up enslaves armies of Digimon and sends them to their deaths wily-nily. Even Taichi's Agumon got victimized by this!
We also learn that Ken is like the sort of anime character that's inherently better than everyone else. He's handsome, loved by girls, super-popular, athletic and all those tropes common in these sort of characters... but we also learn that he's struggling with a gigantic amount of survivor's guilt when his older brother (who he's always trying to compete with) got hit by a van and died. Throw in a pair of parents who are used to over-achieving children, and some corruption that fed on darkness that's already there, Ken became a villain and got a badass cape. He made Kimeramon and shit, ready to destroy the digital world... and then realizes that he was never really in control. But it was Wormmon that made him realize what's wrong. See, Wormmon has been very, very, very helpful, acting as the Big Bad's little sidekick, but not in a sycophantic way like PicoDevimon. No, Wormmon clearly wants to help Ken, even though in his hubris Ken only sees Wormmon as a little grub Child-level. Wormmon faithfully helps Ken, loves Ken and would literally die for Ken. Which he did. Noooo!For a good chunk of the second half of the series, though, Ken tries to redeem himself, and it's Ken's acceptance of his guilt that actually caused Wormmon to be reborn. Ken would go as a bit of a lone vigilante hunting down evil Digimon and the minions of the actual villains of the show that had manipulated him, before finally being integrated into the main group. Interestingly for these sort of Sasuke-style rival characters, after the Kaiser bit was beaten out of him... he's no longer arrogant and snotty, and actually is a pleasant, well-mannered boy! And none of it would be possible because of Wormmon, the charmingest little grub boy ever.
Anyway, I love Wormmon. Is that a surprise?
8/10.Stingmon
You know, you'll probably expect me to rant a bit about how Stingmon is humanoid and I would prefer something more monstrous like Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon. But no! Stingmon's cool! He's humanoid, yes, and I can't really say that I wouldn't prefer Wormmon to evolve into something more bestial, but if they're going for the humanoid route, Stingmon's easily the best-case scenario. As Wormmon's default Adult-stage evolution, Stingmon here is kind of like a Kamen Rider style monster, a humanoid, armoured bug... and I love him. His expressionless bug face, his long green-red antenna, those wings... and best of all, the black armour that he wears! The spiky shoulder-things and his metal claws and his wrist-mounted spike cannon are all pretty damn badass, and Stingmon has a lot of badass scenes in the anime. Stingmon here is the only real stage that Ken's Wormmon is only ever shown to transform into in the anime, because his Perfect stage is a Jogress fusion with ExVeemon, but damn if it isn't a cool warrior bug-man.Also, I played a lot of Digimon Rumble Arena (Tamers: Battle Evolution in Japan) as a kid, and while every other playable character transformed into their most badass Ultimate stage, with characters like WarGreymon and Dukemon and Holydramon and Beelzemon and Imperialdramon... humble old Wormmon evolves into a mere Adult-stage Stingmon and can kick ass as well as any of them.
Other than 02, Stingmon was a major supporting character in Xros Wars, being the hero of Jungle Zone, and is apparently in a relationship with Lilamon. Well, when your parents talked about the birds and the bees, in the Digimon world it's apparently literal! Stingmon is shown to be pretty damn capable as a fighter, although since he's not one of the main characters, tended to serve as the fall guy. He's also one of the Xros Wars character to recur down the line, too. Overall, Stingmon's pretty damn badass.
8/10.Dinobeemon
So when fused between ExVeemon and Stingmon with Stingmon as the 'main' part of the Jogress, they transform into Dinobeemon here. He's a god-dammed mess. Again, it's clear that they're trying to capitalize on the fact that Bandai actually made ExVeemon and Stingmon toys that can combine with each other, and that they clearly focused on it looking good as ExVeemon, Stingmon and Paildramon... and then when they had to make a secondary fusion, we got this monstrosity, with lots of obvious "kibble", parts from the toy's other modes, that just hang uselessly without any real biological function. Look at those Stingmon arms just pointing backwards without any real function! And if you think Dinobeemon actually has four arms, all of its artwork have the Stingmon arms just lay flush on his back. And look at ExVeemon's dragon wings, sprouting out of Dinobeemon's butt. This is such a horrifying mess of a design that I can't even appreciate this dinosaur-bug, and that's a travesty. Characters designed after action figures can sometimes look good -- Paildramon himself and Imperialdramon are neat showcases -- but Dinobeemon here? Ugh. What a horrifyingly bad design.
Dinobeemon never appears anywhere in fiction, and tended to just be Stingmon's default Perfect evolution (with or without Jogress) in video games... but honestly, everyone just turned their Stingmon into an Imperialdramon, because Dinobeemon's default Ultimate evolution, GranKuwagamon below, tended to be associated with the Kuwagamon line anyway. That leaves Dinobeemon here pretty appropriately forgotten.
1/10.GranKuwagamon
Initially introduced as the final, Ultimate stage for Wormmon, thanks to his name being, well, GranKuwagamon, he's since been shunted as Kuwagamon and Okuwamon's final form. GranKuwagamon is... a bit messy, although I can see that they're going for a parallel with HerakleKabuterimon's centaur-esque body configuration. GranKuwagamon here is certainly a design that looks better with a bit of streamlining, because the Bandai art doesn't really do it any favours. It's got the Kuwagamons' distinct stag-beetle horns, and a fun face with two little pincers on it. And I kinda like how GranKuwagamon's "hands" are formed out of the middle set of limbs instead of the front ones. GranKuwagamon is, of course, noted to be the rival to HerakleKabuterimon and their battle will continue for all eternity and stuff.GranKuwagamon shows up with a bunch of other kinda-ignored Ultimates in Digimon Tamers as part of a small Ultimate Digimon army gathered by the Sovereigns to fight against the mighty D-Reaper. In Frontier, a GranKuwagamon was one of the good guys serving under Zanbamon, attempting to resist the Royal Knights, but was brutally killed and absorbed. Multiple GranKuwagamon were part of the Jungle Zone detachment of the Bagra Army in Xros Wars. Overall, though, I don't quite like GranKuwagamon as much as I do a lot of the Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon variants. Black and silver make for a pretty messy colour scheme that doesn't do GranKuwagamon's already-unconventional body plan any favours. It's a neat design, but one that I wished was a bit less cluttered.
5/10.Shadramon
Shadramon is neat, and one of the few non-anime Armours to actually incorporate parts of the actual design of the digimental plot device into his design. While I definitely appreciate the fact that Bandai didn't actually have all six Courage armours have identical looks, I do like that some of them at least look pretty similar. Shadramon here is apparently a Digimon that has an "unfortunate adverse reaction" to the digimental of courage and became evil? So, uh... Wormmon is straight-up allergic to the digimental of courage? That's neat.Anyway, Shadramon's a chunkier, darker-coloured version of Fladramon that's got fiery butterfly wings, two arms that are just straight-up cannons, and a fun little buggy face that has Fladramon's helmet, but swaps out the dragon-snout for Wormmon's vertical bug mouth. This isn't really my style of bug monsters, but you know what? Credit where credit's due, this is pretty neat. Shame it's never actually shown up anywhere in the animes or mangas.
6/10.Searchmon
I guess we'll egt the bug-themed Armours out of the way first, and we'll continue this with Wormmon's Intelligence (Tentomon/Koushiro) Armour, which is this wacky robot beetle or a cricket with a radar dish stapled on his back. It's... it's actually kind of bland, even if it's a robot insect. I'm not quite sure why I never really liked Searchmon. It has all the hallmarks of a Digimon that I'd like. It's a robot, it's an insect... but I genuinely don't really have much of an opinion on this one. It's just kind of dull. Searchmon here does at least look somewhat different than a majority of the other bugs of the franchise, and is noted to be pretty weak, but is able to do information gathering with the radar on his back that also doubles as a radio-wave emitter. Searchmon's only real appearance of note is as a brief blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo on Disc Zone in Xros Wars, which is honestly a godsend for these obscure Digimon to give a lot of these forgotten Digimon at least one appearance thanks to Xros Wars' whole concept basically having its protagonists move from one sub-dimension to another, allowing for a lot of cameos. 4/10.Kongoumon
Wormmon's evolution with the Digimental of Miracles (a.k.a. the Magnamon one) evolves Wormmon into this six-armed sumo-wrestling bug that's also based on Vajra, a ritual tool in Hinduism that Kongoumon holds in all six of his hands. Kongoumon is kind of a design that I think tries to do too much, having another one of the scripture-loincloth deal that Seraphimon also has. It's not my favourite design by a long shot, although I kind of appreciate what they're going for here. Apparently, according to his profile, Kongoumon is an agent of 'god' on Earth that has a different purpose than the angels?Kongoumon had brief cameos in Frontier and Savers, and is elevated to a straight-up arc villain in Xros Wars, where Kongoumon is a corrupted Kabuterimon forcibly transformed by the evil Bagra Army into one of their generals that leads the Bagra forces attempting to conquer the Jungle Zone. Poor Kongoumon, despite having armies consisting of multiple GranKuwagamon and AtlurKabuterimon, end up still getting killed, but his role in these episodes certainly elevated him enough in my mind to make me go "oh yeah, this guy definitely appeared in Xros Wars" and I don't have to double-check a Wiki for his fictional appearances. Anyway, design wise... not my favourite, really.
4/10.Togemogumon
Togemogumon here is Wormmon's Armour evolution with the Digimental of Friendship, which is easily the one attribute that seems to just be randomly be given designs that don't particularly have a running theme. And while all of Veemon's Armours can be summed up with "humanoid-shaped Veemon in plastic armour", Wormmon and the rest of the 02 cast aren't quite that fortunate. Take Togemogumon here, which is easily just a chunky porcupine/hedgehog with a lot of random plastic toy armour parts. Also, apparently Togemogumon's spines are instant-freeze ice? Well, I guess there's your Gabumon connection, even if other profiles emphasize how the Digimental of Friendship gives you lightning/thunder powers. Togemogumon here is easily one of the most forgettable Armours, and honestly I'm genuinely puzzled as to why this hedgehog-themed Armour is given to Wormmon of all things. I get that not all the Armours from this point on actually match the Child-stage and honestly a lot of them feel pretty random, like an assortment of Adult-stage designs they just wanted to use but had to slot in here. If nothing else, Togemogumon really felt like it should've been given to Armadimon instead -- both armadillos and hedgehogs are mammals that are well-known to curl up into balls, right?Eh. This pretty dang forgettable, honestly.
3/10.Bullmon
3/10.Owlmon (a.k.a. Aurumon)
The Digimental of Love gives everyone the power of flight because of its connection to Piyomon and Sora. I could rant about why Wormmon really deserves some sort of giant flying bug armour, because a huge amount of bugs already fly... but after the hedgehog and the matador bull you'll appreciate how a vast majority of these Armour evolutions are really just spare concepts they just stapled onto a huge table with "okay, we need to fill in slots for six Child-stages and nine Armours each". Owlmon is... he's an owl cyborg with night-visor goggles and vague robot parts stapled on to him. He's sort of basically Searchmon, then, just more owl/spy flavoured. I always found him genuinely boring, honestly, and I'm not surprised to find out that no one's ever used Owlmon even as a cameo in the animes.Owlmon, by the way, has the most stupid dub name ever. Apparently its official English name is "Aurumon". We've had some cases where characters like Goblimon and Chrysalimon end up getting their katakana names used instead, turning into Goburimon and Kurisarimon... but really? You don't get that this dude is an "Owlmon"?
2/10.Nohemon
When exposed to the Digimental of Purity (Palmon/Mimi's), Wormmon gets the very interesting transformation into... a scarecrow? And it's a very charming, doofy little scarecrow too, with a scribbled-on face, and definitely meant to be silly as opposed to scary. The official bio describes Nohemon as being a puppet Digimon... and that's because the actual scarecrow isn't a Digimon, and it's actually the bird doll that's the Digimon! The humanoid body just waddles around, puppeteered by the real body, and, yeah, I can definitely see that expressed in the artwork. Nohemon's scarecrow part is far more attention-grabbing with clothes and weaopnry and flashy colours, but its face shows that it's nothing but a simple doll. Whereas the bird might look like an afterthought or an accessory, but its eyes look pretty expressive for little beady things. That's pretty dang cool!
Nohemon made a pretty memorable appearance in Tamers as one of the completely bizarre, out-of-nowhere alien things that happen in Tamers' far more surreal digital world. They'd also make a couple of cameos in Frontier. I'm a big sucker for scarecrow monsters already, but this one has such a charming little backstory and a funky little design that Nohemon here might be one of my unexpected favourites for these non-02-show armours.
8/10.Archelomon
Speaking of cool evolutions, here's Archelomon! Evolving from Wormmon with the Digimental of Sincerity (Gomamon/Jo), Wormmon turns into a prehistoric sea animal that's actually one of Wormmon's few Armours that actually show some Wormmon features, namely those long, tapering antennae that jut out of Archelomon's head. And considering how much Wormmon's light-green antennae actually clash with Archelomon's dark green/yellow/pink/silver colour scheme, I can definitely see why they don't do this more often. Still, even then, Archelomon still looks pretty dang cool, and a rarity in these newer designs in that this thing still looks natural and not plastic, but they still do something interesting and unique with it! Based on the extinct giant turtle Archelon, Archelomon turns the turtle's front fins into goddamn knives, and I do like the added accents of hair given to Archelomon. Most interestingly is the fact that Archelomon's very specific shell is the same one that Zudomon wears on his back like armour, and the implications are pretty dang clear. Poor Archelomon!Archelomon's shown up as a screeching monster in a Tamers movie where it got a pretty neat team-up with fellow prehistoric aquatic-themed armour Tylomon. In Xros Wars, an Archelomon was the leader of the Island Zone, but was portrayed as a near-senile old man who the bad guys capture as a hostage and he ended up spilling the beans on the location of the plot device by because the bad guys got him drunk. Silly Archelomon! Anyway, pretty charming design, actually.
8/10.Coatlmon (a.k.a. Quetzalmon)
Speaking of a pretty charming design, Coatlmon (or Quetzalmon in the dub, a fittingly badass name as well) is Wormmon's evolution with the Digimental of Light, Tailmon/Hikari's deal... and, by god, it does look like a damn majestic holy beast, doesn't it? Based on the Nahuatl word for 'serpent' and popularized as a type of monster thanks to Dungeons & Dragons, Coatlmon also borrows from actual Aztec mythology that often portrays the deity Quetzalcoatl as a winged serpent. Coatlmon here is noted to be a sacred being that is the embodiment of the sun and wind.... and, well, it's pretty badass, isn't it? A giant serpent with wings, green hair, armoured face, runes all over his body... Coatlmon's a pretty majestic monster, really, and without the knowledge that this is Wormmon's Armour Evolution, I'd guessed that this was like the Perfect or Ultimate stage evolution of something like Airdramon or the pre-evolved form of one of the god-like serpent dragons like Holydramon or Goddramon.
Coatlmon never really shows up in the anime, but one of the human-Digimon hybrids in Digimon Savers is able to transform into a Coatlmon variant called BioCoatlmon... we'll cover the Savers Bio-Digimon a bit later, but suffice to say that Nanami's BioCoatlmon transformation is easily one of the bigger exposures for these forgotten Armour forms. Anyway, Coatlmon's a very pleasant design. I like it.
7/10.Pucchiemon (a.k.a. Bucchiemon)
Pucchiemon here is Wormmon's evolution with his own crest, the Digimental of Kindness and... it turns him... into a fairy-thing? I'm... I'm genuinely not sure. Anyway, Pucchiemon here is a design that I'm genuinely just utterly indifferent towards, and this sort of 'cute imp' is done so, so much better by other fairy-style Digimon like Impmon, Cutemon Lilimon, Cupimon and others. Pucchiemon here is apparently introduced in two variants, one being red and one being lime-green? For something that is so relatively obscure as Pucchiemon, though, I'm surprised they even bothered giving him a variant. The default 'red' one shows up as brief cameos in Frontier, as well as in Xros Wars as part of Heaven Zone's residents. I dunno. I've always been genuinely indifferent about this one. He's kinda likable, I guess, in the same way that he's forgettable. 2/10.Deathmon (a.k.a. Ghoulmon)
The Ultimate-level Deathmon (Ghoulmon in the dub) is one of the bosses in the D3 virtual pets, and quickly ended up being featured in many other video games. I think his most prominent appearance is in the V-Tamers manga, where he was formed from the Jogress evolution of a Megadramon and Jyureimon (of all things) and nearly killed the protagonist and his Veedramon. Deathmon here is, like most demon Digimon, a high-ranking Angel Digimon that was corrupted and transformed into a Demon Lord... but is noted by the profile that it's not wicked or evil the way your Devimons, Vamdemons and Piemons are, but rather does its best to straight-up maintain a position of neutrality. Hell, some sources even state that Deathmon is a Data type despite being a demon lord! Deathmon comes in gray and black flavours, and apparently when the time comes for a certain Ragnarok-style "final battle", it will transform into that jet-black state.Deathmon's a pretty unique design, and I really do like how unconventionally weird he is for a demon. Just this huge formless body with mean-looking claws, demon wings stapled on his back, and a giant eyeball with a little black chitin helmet. Sort of looks like a fun D&D monster, really, and I love the additional eyeballs on its claws, as well as the chunk of pink flesh around his eyes and within his fingernails. Anyway, Deathmon's pretty neat -- not my favourite design, but definitely a neat contrast to all the humanoid demons out there. Deathmon here is one of those Digimon I keep forgetting is an Ultimate, by the way, because I kept thinking that he's a Perfect-level. I know he's powerful, but his design is so neatly low-key that I don't remember that. It's still cool, though.
7/10.Crossmon (a.k.a. Eaglemon)
Our last entry today is another enemy Digimon in the Veemon/Wormmon D3 virtual pet, the Ultimate-level Crossmon. Crossmon here is the default evolution for Parrotmon... and it's basically the same four-limbed bird, but this time covered in golden armour and with more awkward-looking pose. It's... it's not a design I'm honestly in love with, honestly, because it's always looked pretty awkward to me. That might be a product of the official Bandai art's pose, but even drawn with a newer artstyle Crossmon just feels generic. Generic is still a set up compared to 'awkwardly designed', mind you, but not much better. Honestly, I pity this thing more than I hate him, but otherwise it's easily one of the most forgettable Digimon out there. 3/10.That's a fair bit longer than I thought, and pleasantly so! I was actually afraid I wouldn't have much to say about some of the other armours other than the ones I knew I liked, because damn if a lot of these Armours are pretty boring. It's definitely a pretty interesting run, and I feel that the next couple of Armour-centric reviews are going to be pretty interesting considering how little I think of these Armour evolutions, and finding some hidden gems like Coatlmon or realizing that I really, really like Nohemon and Kongoumon, is definitely a bit of a surprise. A fun batch for sure.
The art doesn't do Crossmon justice
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. I saw Crossmon in anime screenshots and it's still not my thing, but the official artwork looks so awkward.
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