It's interesting how many of these villains post-Kaiser are all kind of designed exclusively for the show and only later incorporated into video games, instead of doing the Adventure method where they picked whichever ones among the existing Digimon they found the coolest and most appropriate as villains. For better or for worse, a huge chunk of Digimon's subsequent design process would involve this sort of "anime first" mentality, which... again, for better or for worse, would stifle out any sort of interesting standalone Digimon that never saw the light of day in the anime.
Also, I did a bit of a little rework of previous "Digimon Reviews" articles, changing the scale from 1 to 10, because unlike Pokemon, I feel that my feelings about the Digimon designs as a whole is far more varied, especially once we reach the post-Tamers designs. I'm slowly going through the Adventure-series "Digimon Reviews" ones, and you can expect the changes to bleed into the 02 ones as well.
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Arukenimon (a.k.a. Archnemon)
For the majority of the second half of 02, Arukenimon (alternately, Archnemon) served as the 'Big Bad', although it's clear that she's at least in cahoots with a human in the real world, the shady Oikawa. Arukenimon's portrayals ended up alternating between pretty menacing as a Big Bad with a large amount of resources in her disposal, as well as being hilariously inept in an almost Jessie-and-James level of slapstick going on with her cohort Mummymon.
Arukenimon was initially introduced as what appeared to be an adult human, and ended up appearing in this strange humanoid form any time she isn't immediately involved in battle, but bursts out into that horrifying spider-beast any time she needed to actually fight the Chosen Children. There's actually a reason for this, with the revelation that apparently Arukenimon and Mummymon were themselves 'born' out of the negative emotions of the human Oikawa, himself a puppet of the ultimate-for-reals-big-bad BelialVamdemon, in an IMO pretty poorly-handled set of intro-dumps at the end of the 02 series. In her human form, Arukenimon tended to use a flute to control other insectoid Digimon to do her bidding like a twisted pied piper, and goes around turning the Kaiser's Dark Towers into artificial, evil Digimon puppets. Sadly, poor Arukenimon ended up getting sidelined in favour of a far less interesting "main villain". The official bio also makes a brief nod to Arukenimon's "human" disguise by noting that Arukenimon often pretends to look non-threatening as a way to lure its prey to its web.
I also appreciate just how insanely psychotic Arukenimon is allowed to look in the anime when she drops her humanoid guise. What an expressive and demented face she has! And her whole design really lends to expressiveness, really. That hunch-backed posture, those gangly, long Keramon-esque arms, the bandages, that batshit crazy grin, the black markings around her eyes... a lot of fun creepiness going on here!
Even from a design standpoint and not counting her 02 anime counterpart, I always found Arukenimon to be kind of fun. She's apparently the queen of all spiders, and is noted to be the master of all Dokugumon like some sort of queen ant. Her design, while clearly inspired in part by numerous spider-centaur creatures like D&D's Drider (and I do really like the huge bulbous abdomen with those clackety legs), also borrows from the Japanese yokai, the Ushi-oni (a spider-bull hybrid monster), especially with those low-key bull horns on her head that honestly still looks quite fashionable and monstrous at the same time. Also, interestingly, while we never see this particular ability in the anime, Arukenimon apparently has a large number of Dokugumon hidden in her abdomen that she can unleash upon the enemy.... that's got to be painful, since Dokugumon tended to be shown as pretty gigantic themselves. The anime exclusively portrayed Arukenimon as just shooting spider thread, controlling insects or breathing acidic mist. Overall, while Arukenimon might not be the most threatening of Digimon's villains, I've always liked her for the sheer monstrous charm she brings. Plus, she's a giant spider monster. That's pretty cool.
9/10.Mummymon
Mummymon here is Arukenimon's partner in 02, but partner kind of implies equal standing. 'High-ranking minion' or 'companion' is probably more appropriate, I think. Mummymon also is initially introduced as a quasi-human form, as this Igor-esque hunchbacked, gangly dude that serves as Arukenimon's chauffeur, driving Arukenimon around in a car and being the dumb muscle that keeps flirting with Arukenimon, and all he earns for his pathetic attempts of flirting is physical abuse. Which is sorta-kinda funny the first couple of times and would've been grating in the later episodes if not for the fantastic, hilarious voice acting work that the voice actors put into these two bumbling dudes. And kudos to the anime for still having this pair of Perfect-level Digimon still feel threatening even though they spend 90% of their screentime bumbling it up. Their deaths at the hand of the totally-Big-Bad BelialVamdemon is pretty unnecessarily brutal and mean-spirited, and is probably a huge, huge part as to why I disliked how 02 eventually ended. Poor Mummymon just looks so shocked at Arukenimon's death and is straight-up suicidal at that point. That's genuinely pretty dark.
In addition to his role in 02, Mummymon also ended up having a brief minor role in the X-Evolution movie where he had a surprisingly badass Gandalf-style "you shall not pass" moment against the movie's villains. I don't remember much about X-Evolution other than it's confusing, but I do remember Mummymon's badass last stand. He also had a couple of brief cameos in Frontier and Tamers. Oh, and while I don't think Arukenimon has a default Ultimate stage (it's her Adult-stage that was established), everyone pretty much agrees that Mummymon evolves into Pharaohmon, something we covered a couple of weeks back, which is suitable, even if it sort of robs a lot of Mummymon's wacky charm. Also, thanks to the way his feet are illustrated, as a kid I've always thought that Mummymon and Andromon were related in some way.Mummymon's a pretty neat design, and surprisingly I've never quite realized just how much is going on in Mummymon's design. I've always noticed the hideously long Devimon-esque arms that made Mummymon's posture so creepy, and the big-ass machinegun (it's named "Obelisk"), as well as the funky little Egyptian crooks on his shoulders.... but I've never quite realized the little metallic frames on Mummymon's legs, as well as how the official artwork makes Mummymon's machinegun look like a crutch. So is Mummymon a double reference? Is he an Egyptian mummy that also happens to be homaging a hospital patient in bandages? That's funny! Also neat that even in his human form, we only ever see one eye. Mummymon's bio notes that he's known as the Necromancer because of his ability to forcibly manipulate the souls of the dead.... but his "Necrophobia" attack, described in the bio as "summoning ghosts to drive its opponent into maddened death"... is almost consistently shown in anime and games as Mummymon just shooting his big-ass gun. Okay? Anyway, Mummymon's a fun undead Digimon design, and helps to round out Digimon's little roster of classic Halloween monsters alongside the likes of Boltmon, Vamdemon and WereGarurumon. Anyway, Arukenimon and Mummymon are actually pretty neat in the anime, whilst still being pretty fun designs themselves. I don't think I've ever realized how much I liked these two until I sat down and started typing.
8/10.BlackWarGreymon
So 02 is easily divided into two parts -- the first half deals with Ken and his time as the Digimon Kaiser, which is both parts formulaic and repetitive, but at the same time with a clear end-goal in sight. The second half of 02 is just chaotic, running around introducing new concepts, introdumping the Four Holy Beasts and International Chosen Children and Dark Spores and the Daemon Corps and several different Big Bads, before culminating in dumb old BelialVamdemon below. But while 02's final episodes is a pretty jumbled mess, there was a stretch in the middle that focused on Arukenimon and Mummymon, as well as the wild card BlackWarGreymon.And design-wise, there's nothing special about BlackWarGreymon. It's a WarGreymon. But black with silver and gold accents. They almost never have any interesting bit in their official profiles beyond "how is this mysterious being a black, possibly-evil version of an established heroic Digimon? Oh my!" My opinions towards these black repaints (and there's going to be a lot) is "neat, but do we really need this?" None of them really get any personality... other than BlackWarGreymon, of course.
Long story short, Arukenimon's modus operandi is to transform the Digimon Kaiser's old technology, the Dark Towers, into unfeeling, powerful minions. But as she gets increasingly desperate, Arukenimon combines a hundred of these Dark Towers into the mighty Ultimate-level BlackWarGreymon. But then... the thing built solely to become a weapon ends up developing sentience, if not quite morality. BlackWarGreymon has more power to lay the smackdown on the then-most-powerful Digimon on the good guys' arsenal, Paildramon (and later even HolyAngemon), but BlackWarGreymon's stopped by one thing that he has. A strange conscience, which torments him. He was built -- and driven by his instincts -- to destroy and kill and murder -- but he ends up wandering about the nature of free will, morality and just what he was put on this earth to do. Surprisingly deep questions in an otherwise light-hearted show. Including one point where BlackWarGreymon blows up an entire herd of Mammon (Mammothmon for the dub) just to protect a single flower, before questioning himself just why he chose the flower over the Mammon herd... and then crushing the flower himself in frustration. He ended up talking with our Agumon, and ended up developing his weird, warped sense of honour, culminating in him battling against the Chosen Children on his own quest to find his purpose. The writing towards the end of BlackWarGreymon's story was a bit spotty, but I did like how Qinglongmon ended up answering and also not answering BlackWarGreymon's existential crisis -- basically, he has to find things out on his own.
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| Oikawa |
He would show up near the final episodes, initially choosing "protecting the Digital World" as his purpose and very nearly killed human villain (really a puppet for BelialVamdemon) Oikawa, but was talked down by Veemon and the other partner Digimon. BlackWarGreymon would then do a heroic sacrifice to protect Iori's grandfather when that jackass BelialVamdemon showed up... and I'm torn up about this. On one hand, it's a genuinely poorly-written and abrupt "oh no, look at this villain, he's so powerful, he killed one of the strongest guys around" shelving of a character. On the other hand, BlackWarGreymon did have a conclusion to his existential crisis by realizing that the purpose he was searching for was to become a hero, so at least he did die finding what he was looking for.
Overall, that's a whole lot of emotions I feel for what is otherwise just a bland, generic black-coloured repaint, and while nostalgia is a huge part of it, I really do feel that BlackWarGreymon and Ken's stories are the best part of 02, and despite the quality of the rest of the season, those two are relatively well-handled. Also note that the original blue virus version of MetalGreymon finally found a happy home after being shoved aside by the anime's orange version, because now the virus MetalGreymon have a proper and popular Ultimate stage to turn into.
9/10. Points courtesy of the anime.BelialVamdemon (a.k.a. MaloMyotismon)
And after 02's final episodes is caught up between a multi-way battle between random feral Digimon appearing in the world; Arukenimon and Mummymon being wild cards; the Daemon Corps showing up as yet another set of villains and Oikawa and his Dark Spore kids being this weird conspiracy happening in the background... we get the revelation that... it's Vamdemon, back from the dead, that's been behind everything. Which I disliked as a kid, but I didn't realize why until I'm a bit older -- BelialVamdemon (what a mouthful of a name, by the way, and the dub opted for a smoother MaloMyotismon) is introduced in the final couple of episodes without any real foreshadowing, which is the same "piss off!" attitude I had towards Apocalymon back in Adventure. But where Apocalymon is ultimately harmless towards the greater narrative, BelialVamdemon basically ended up indirectly forcing out the Daemon Corps, being totally revealed as the big-bad-behind-the-big-bad of Oikawa, and kills off the otherwise entertaining Arukenimon and Mummymon just because he's sooo evil. And throw in the whole fact that they brought back Vamdemon without any real reason both in-universe and out-universe other than "hey, the fans like Vamdemon from Adventure, right?" Properly done, the return of Vamdemon could be this huge, cool climactic event. Instead, it's just sloppy, BelialVamdemon just ends up flexing his totally-awesome powers, and then gets killed with a plot device.And BelialVamdemon is honestly a bit of a messy design, yeah? Regular Vamdemon plays up the gentlemanly-demon aspects of the vampire mythos, as well as various tropes associated with it like blood-sucking, bat-controlling and mists. VenomVamdemon plays up the 'feral beast' version of the vampire. BelialVamdemon is... a Gundam? With Vamdemon's head glued on top of it? And jet wings attached on his back for some reason? I do find the two giant robot mouths on BelialVamdemon's shoulders (hilariously named "Sodom" and "Gomorrah") to be neat, as are the multi-branching fingers... but that's about it.
BelialVamdemon is apparently Vamdemon's real Ultimate form, by the way, an alternate evolution instead of VenomVamdemon that allows Vamdemon to retain his intelligence. Also, while the Bandai artwork doesn't emphasize BelialVamdemon's head and prefers to emphasize the Gundamesque body, it's nothing short of bizarrely silly when the 02 anime keeps zooming in to that masked head that just looks so out of place compared to BelialVamdemon's plastic-like body. I dunno. I like Vamdemon, I like VenomVamdemon, but BelialVamdemon just doesn't do it for me design-wise or lore-wise. I actually found it hilarious when Xros Wars: Hunters had a literal army of BelialVamdemon in the final episode for the heroes-from-other-animes cameos to beat up.
4/10.Pegasmon (a.k.a. Pegasusmon)
Just like Hikari, Takeru ended up joining the main cast of 02, and also like Hikari, Takeru ended up in possession of the Digimental with the crest that he was originally associated with, Hope. So Patamon gets to evolve into this creature, Pegasmon (Pegasusmon in the dub), which is this holy pegasus that is a neat nod to Patamon's 'default' evolution of Angemon, as well as one of his possible evolutions in the original V-Pet, Unimon. Except unlike the raggedly Unimon, Pegasmon is far more majestic, with a bunch of holy metal plates attached to his body and full, non-tattered golden wings, and a fun little mouthless mask. Pegasmon's fleshy parts, while being decidedly equine and not at all like a bat/guinea pig hybrid, still are clearly inspired by Patamon. And it's neat that Patamon's bat wings end up as Pegasmon's ears.Pegasmon has kind of been... there. He's a very pleasant design and an appropriate evolution for Patamon, but I've never quite been as enamoured with him as his partner-in-crime Nefertimon. He's neat, but I don't really have that much of a personal attachment with him. In addition to 02, Pegasmon has a brief appearance as part of Xros Wars' Heaven Zone. He's neat. I just don't love him is all.
6/10.Pipismon
Pipismon is maybe my favourite of the Patamon evolutions, and the only Patamon evolution to really acknowledge Patamon's bat-ear-wings. Borrowing his name from the scientific name of the Japanese house bat, Pipistrellus abramus, Pipismon is anything but a regular bat! It takes the sickle-shaped finger that bats have on their wing to grasp things, turns it into an actual metal sickle, and proceeds to replace every limb on Pipismon's body with a sickle. Oh, and it's given this huge-ass mouth that shoots sonic blasts, which makes a pretty cool visual even before the tie-in with Patamon became apparent in my head. Pipismon's a pretty cool, if simple, bat monster. The profiles note that Pipismon is born out of an ultrasonic sensor's computer. And apparently Pipismon's ear and mouth function similarly to a speaker, allowing it to record sounds and reproduce it perfectly.And if Pipismon's official Bandai art doesn't appeal to you, the anime model actually gives him a more stylized, more humanoid body. Man, Pipismon looks so much more threatening and adorable simultaneously with that gaping maw closed, huh? Pipismon has had a bunch of appearances in the animes, too, first appearing as a minor enemy in a Tamers movie. In Frontier, the Chosen Children of that series enter the Darkness Continent and was sure that everything in a place called the "Darkness Continent" will murder them, especially these sickle-bats flying around them... only for them to find out that, hey, the Pipismon are actually nice folk who don't want any trouble, and the Frontier kids are just kind of racist. After they make friends with the Pipismon, though, they get straight-up murdered by recurring villain Arbormon. Pipismon would make brief cameos in Savers and Xros Wars as well. Overall, a pretty cool blade-bat.
9/10.Baromon (a.k.a. Baronmon)
Huh! Patamon evolving with the Digimental of Courage apparently evolves him into a Barong, a lion-like king of spirits native to the myths of Bali, and despite his fearsome appearance, the Barong is actually a force of good. As someone who spent a not-insignificant part of his life living in Bali, I can definitely appreciate Baromon (renamed Baronmon by the dub, who I assume just didn't get the cultural reference, or is afraid the kids wouldn't) a lot. Shame that the design actually feels a lot more low-key than what I thought a Barong-based monster would be. It's just a dude with a Barong mask. Shame. It's noted that Baromon guards database/ruins in jungles, and that Baromon is a survivor of an older generation of Digimon, and has abilities of a "lost technology not found in current Digimon", particularly his third eye, able to forecast the future, and can manipulate the spirits of the cosmos to summon meteors that can "annihilate 10 terabytes of data around the target". Shame that none of Baromon's abilities really line up with the mythological Barong, though at least the thematic influence of a different sort of 'angel' for Patamon to evolve into is sort of shown here.Baromon is perhaps one of the most prolific non-02-show Armours, being one of the Big Bads of the Tamers movie "The Adventurers' Battle". Baromon led a small army of other unused Armour evolutions in battle against the Tamers, before being defeated and eventually replaced by the real big bad, Mephismon. In Frontier, Baromon was a historian that preserved the history of the digital world's past, and while initially assumed to be a villain by our heroes, it turns out that Baromon was just trying to get their attention, warning them that the ancient evil Lucemon and his minions, a pair of Royal Knights, are trying to destroy the world. After giving this information, the Knights show up and straight-up murder Baromon as he held the line to allow the heroes to escape.
Another heroic Baromon appeared in Savers, being the leader of the Holy City atop the mighty giant ElDoradimon. After a brief misunderstanding where he nearly fed the heroes to a Cerberumon, he and his city ended up being a staunch ally to Masaru's team, and was the leader of its defenses against the man-made Digimon led by the evil human Kurata. This didn't end well, however, and both Baromon and ElDoradimon (and what's implied to be its entire population) were straight-up murdered by Kurata and his machines.
6/10.Ponchomon
Ponchomon has a couple of minor appearances throughout the years, first appearing in a Tamers movie as one of Baromon's henchmen alongside fellow Armours Pipismon and Sepikmon, and as background characters through multiple episodes of Frontier -- particularly characterized as street performers -- and several Ponchomon works in the Disneyland pastiche seen in Xros Wars: Hunters. Is this thing racist? Perhaps somewhat, but it's such a fun design. I was about to give him a 1/5 with a review along the lines of "lol racist Togemon variant" but somehow I missed the whole point of Ponchomon being a ghost. And that, I think, elevates him enough to become a 3/5.
Does it make sense that Patamon evolves into Togemon's ghost? No, not really. But very few of the Armour evolutions really do.
6/10.Stegomon
Stegomon is Patamon's evolution with the Digimental of Friendship... and he's... kinda boring, I've always felt. It's just a mean-looking Stegosaurus with metal blades instead of, well, flesh-blades. Multiple rows of them, in fact. I feel that Stegomon didn't really do enough to distinguish itself that much from its real-life counterpart, and doesn't quite look as unique as other dinosaur Digimon like Monochromon or Triceramon. It's neat, but it's one that I felt to be kind of underwhelming. It can apparently shoot out its blades into the sky like rain, but it'll leave the rest of him unprotected, apparently. Also, add Stegomon into the pile of "Friendship Armours don't actually have a theme", because so far we've got a lightning wolf, a monkey shaman, an ice skater, a blade-shooting stegosaurus, an icy porcupine and a rabbit luchador.Stegomon also sort of ends up becoming one of the more prolific of the Armours thanks to Savers, where Stegomon, or rather, a variant of Stegomon, ended up being the transformed form of a Digimon-Human hybrid, namely the Russian mercenary Ivan. Thanks to Savers and Ivan having access to two bio-hybrid evolutions, Stegomon also ended up having Spinomon as his 'default' Perfect-mode evolution. Stegomon's all right, but I honestly don't find him all that interesting as an actual Digimon.
5/10.Mothmon
7/10.Mantaraymon
6/10.
Rhinomon
Rhinomon is Patamon's Miracle Armour evolution, and is a pretty pleasant-looking golden-armoured rhino. It's pretty neat, and I do like Rhinomon's eyeless mask and that vaguely lance-shaped horn, as well as the rubies encrusting its upper, beaklike jaw. Rhinomon's profile sadly is one of those that keeps hyping up "Chrome Digizoid"... considering how many times that metal has been mentioned in other profiles, you'd think that they wouldn't waste multiple sentences exhorting how Chrome Digizoid is totally indestructible unless if the plot wills it. Also, apparently Rhinomon has the will of god or something, because whenever Rhinomon charges and destroys an enemy, they are so utterly reduced to '0' and '1' binary data that they cannot be reassembled anymore. In practice... Rhinomon's just a pretty cool Adult-stage. Rhinomon doesn't get to appear in the anime until the relatively recent Xros Wars, where multiples of these are used as generic ground troops for the Bagra Army. Kinda surprising, considering how otherwise knightly and heroic Rhinomon looks, but I suppose it sort of fits the Bagra Army's facelessness. Anyway, Rhinomon's neat. No complaints here. 7/10.Manbomon
Ummm. Ummm??? Manbomon here obviously based on the Mola mola, otherwise known as the ocean sunfish, which in itself is a pretty dang bizarre choice for an Armour evolution at all, let alone one associated with Patamon. And that's without getting to the fact that Manbomon has a pretty cool propeller on his butt, as well as two random muscular arms that ended in boxing gloves. What is this, Pukumon's little brother? I don't think Manbomon ever evolves into something that evolves into Pukumon, though, since the non-show Armours tend to be sort of ignored by the video games. Manbomon's just... he just doesn't do it for me. I do appreciate a boxing sunfish, but Manbomon is just a collection of concepts that just doesn't really work for me. Interestingly, Manbomon is the Armour evolution for Patamon with the Digimental of Light, which had previously given us angelic-themed Digimon like Nefertimon, Gargoylemon, Coatlmon, Harpymon and Seahomon, making Manbomon the completely bizarre one. It's apparently deceptively slow and can deliver quick punches with his propeller, and that it can heal people by spitting out antibodies that look like smaller versions of himself. An okay design, I suppose, but definitely not my thing. Maybe I would've liked Manbomon if it is just a random standalone Digimon instead of part of a set? I dunno, I feel that it's not quite as weird as Pukumon and is just flat-out silly more than anything. 3/10.Prairiemon (a.k.a. Prariemon/FERRARIMON)
Prairiemon is Patamon's Armour Evolution with the Digimental of Kindness, and it's just a prairie dog with big-ass blood-stained metal claws. It's... it exists, I guess? I dunno. Always found this one to be particularly uninteresting, although it's well-drawn, I suppose, with that thousand-yard stare being quite charming. Its entire bio basically just tells us how Prairiemon lives in colonies underground like real prairie dogs, and it attacks by "accelerating its metallic ears to slash its opponents". Prairiemon's shown up in bit roles in Frontier and Xros Wars, and... and that's about it. He's non-offensive, kind of pleasant looking, but not the best design here. The most interesting part of Prairiemon, in my opinion, is that in at least one video game, the dub team mistranslates his name as Ferrarimon. 3/10.Pipimon (a.k.a. Datirimon)
Pipimon here, otherwise known as Datirimon, is a Baby I Digimon that's only technically exclusive to 02, being the partner of human villain Oikawa Yukio and the source of a lot of his angst. Pipimon himself shows up briefly as Oikawa was dying. Pipimon himself never really appeared in any video game, but did show up as a cameo in Frontier and Savers, as well as getting a short official Bandai profile -- something a lot of other quasi-canonical Digimon like poor Blikmon a while back never managed to get. Pipimon is... a fruit with legs and a cute face. There's really not much to say about here, but since we're including all of the major characters in the 02 anime, I suppose it would be appropriate to squish Pipimon here. He's kind of underwhelming. Not much to say about him. 2/10.And with that, we're sort of done with 02! For the next two weeks we'll cover two evolutionary lines that technically debuted in a non-serial 02 movie, but ended up being main characters of the following series, Digimon Tamers, and it's going to be... interesting to see how I'll cover those. In addition to Lopmon and Terriermon's lines, I'll also cover a bunch of miscellaneous Digimon introduced in the 2000-2001 period, I suppose.
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