Digimon Reviews, Episode 21: Lopmon and Friends [Also, Tamers]

So this week's "partner" Digimon was technically introduced alongside next week's Terriermon in a non-serial 02 movie, Hurricane Touchdown, which dub viewers would remember as the near-incomprehensible third act of the compilation movie Digimon: The Movie. Don't worry, it's about as near-incomprehensible in its original Japanese form as well. Anyway, Lopmon's evolutionary line was the corrupted, crazy villain of that movie that gained reality warping powers because it was lost as a child or something.

Since Lopmon and Terriermon's evolution lines are technically introduced in 02, but are main characters in Tamers, I'll make them the bridge between the two series. 

Thankfully, to wipe out all my bad taste of Hurricane Touchdown, the third series of anime, Digimon Tamers, actually would prove to be one of the best (and in my opinion, the best, although Adventure and Savers might make a case for themselves) Digimon storylines. While initially burdened by having a pretty different mythology, a huge involvement of human organizations and a weird focus on using trading cards to "modify" a Digimon in battle, it's clear that Tamers' focus is on the characters, and sheer mental damage that the poor children would have to suffer in an insane world where the real world and Digital World cross each other in a slightly more "reality ensues" moment. I could genuinely go on and on about just how Tamers is awesome and really gets storytelling, but I need something for the next couple of weeks, don't I? Hell, the fact that I might have an excuse to rewatch and talk about Digimon Tamers is easily one of the biggest draws for me to review every episode of Digimon Adventure and 02 right now.

Speaking of which, Adventure focused a lot on the dynamics that the Chosen Children had with their own personal demons, and how that informs their view of the world and their friends. 02 (theoretically) focuses more on how you interact with those around you, even villains that might prove irredeemable initially, although it doesn't quite have a proper thoroughline. Tamers, on the other hand? It discusses the ethics of Digimon as a living being, and just how "entitled" the titular Tamers are to become partnered with these Digimon, and how entitled humans even are for enforcing their own programs and weapons on the Digimon just because they happened to have created the world the Digimon originate from. With one of the main characters wanting nothing but to battle and murder "Wild" Digimon, another one being a pacifist to a fault, and the other loving his Digimon like a pet but also finding the thrill of being a hero that saves the day being pretty dang lucrative... and that's just the three main characters, because Tamers actually allows their secondary cast to shine, not like Frontier.


Speaking of said side-cast, Lopmon was initially introduced as a member of the antagonistic team, the Devas (which we'll cover later on), as the mighty Perfect-level rabbit zodiac Andiramon -- and Andiramon was initially as racist and convinced that humans are evil as the other Devas. However, when the little sister of Lee Jianliang (one of the main characters, and Terriermon's partner), Lee Xiaochun -- or Suzie Wong for dub viewers -- wanders into the Digimon world (Xiaochun has been a recurring background character throughout the first half of the series), she ends up befriending the big bunny, and basically manages to convince the Deva that, hey, maybe not all humans are evil. Andiramon's comrades nearly murder her, and reduce her to the little Lopmon that end up being partnered to Xiaochun. Granted, it's more Andiramon/Lopmon's story than Xiaochun's, but I did like them as such an unlikely pair.

Anyway, on to the Digimon designs!
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Cocomon (a.k.a. Conomon)

Cocomon (renamed Conomon in the dub) is the Baby I for this line. She's all right, if kind of basic -- just a little blob with a tail, a face and horns. Mostly the entire Terriermon and Lopmon lines, from the Child level down, are meant to be pairs to each others, so next week we'll be seeing a similar set to Cocomon, Chocomon and Lopmon, except green. Cocomon is noted to be born as twins with Zerimon from a single Digitama, in a reference to the plotline of the Hurricane Touchdown movie. Cocomon's noted to be a lot more chill and docile than the far more energetic Zerimon. She's all right. I don't have much to say about this form.

 4/10.

Chocomon (a.k.a. Kokomon)

Chocomon, otherwise known as Kokomon in the dub, is the Baby II stage, and it's a little head with a sock body, a cute face, horns and ears. Again, it's cute, but otherwise nothing really special, and the official profile notes, once more, how it's sort of polar opposites with Gummymon. Interestingly, the profile also notes that if Chocomon and Gummymon are separated, poor Chocomon would weaken out of panic and loneliness... so what happens to a Chocomon that wasn't paired with a Gummymon from birth? Cocomon's profile did note how sometimes Cocomons and Zerimons are born without their twin. Do the Chocomon in those relationships are stronger or just die because they aren't paired?

Also, for some bizarre reason, the entirety of the dub of the Hurricane Touchdown movie refers to all of Chocomon's stages as "Kokomon".

 6/10.

Lopmon

Lopmon here is the child stage of the bunch, and, again, it's a mirror to her brother Terriermon. This pairing is only ever really noted in the Hurricane Touchdown movie, though, because in Tamers and Xros Wars Lopmon and Terriermon just happen to be Child-stages that sort of look alike, and no one ever makes a huge deal out of it. Tamers did give us an adorable moment when Terriermon first met Andiramon when she got reduced to a Lopmon, though.

Anyway, Lopmon is a cute little bunny rabbit monster, with huge wings that allow her to sort of fly-hop around. A pretty safe and cute design. All in all I think I prefer Terriermon's white-and-green colour scheme, but that might be because I'm far more exposed to Terriermon thanks to Tamers. Lopmon's a cute design in her own right, with chocolate and pink somehow working well together. Lopmon is described to be a "lonely crybaby", something that is really only true for the 02 version of Lopmon. Tamers' Lopmon, due to degenerating from an angelic Deva, is very formal even as a Child-stage, addressing everyone with honorifics and is absolutely adorable while doing so. Worth noting that in Tamers, Lopmon only ever warp-evolves into Andiramon, and never has access to Wendimon or Cherubimon.

In Frontier, Lopmon's Ultimate stage Cherubimon is one of the three angels governing the Digimon World, and basically became evil and corrupted. After our heroes kill him, he was reincarnated as a Lopmon who doesn't have any of the memories of being evil, and end up being a minor recurring character. In Xros Wars, an entire village of Lopmons reside in Vampire Land, and are allies of the Vampire Land arc -- they all get killed, although not before pouring their holy power into a white Lopmon or something? I dunno, it was kinda weird. Anyway, Lopmon's a pretty neat, if sort of safe, design. I like her!

 7/10.

Wendimon (a.k.a. Wendigomon/Endigomon)

Wendimon here is Lopmon's Adult stage and... yeah, it's not a pretty sight, is it? Wendimon here is based on the mythical Wendigo, and plays up the monstrous beast-man aspects of the legend. Apparently Lopmon's default Adult-stage is considered a dark evolution on its own, turning the once-docile little shy bunny into a slavering, monstrous beast consumed by nothing but anger. Also, in its sole anime appearance in the Hurricane Touchdown movie, Wendimon displays the ability to warp space-time, an insanely powerful ability for what's essentially just another Adult-stage Digimon. Wendimon is... neat, for portraying a hideously mutated humanoid figure with gangly limbs, misshappenly large arms, random spikes and a weird set of shoulders... but most jarring is that beastly face that just look so out of place between the otherwise rabbit-based Lopmon, Andiramon and Cherubimon. Hell, Wendimon even wears a hat that seems to emulate someone from the Lopmon and Terriermon family! I guess it fits the mind-addled stalker mentality of the Wendimon from Hurricane Touchdown.

Not my favourite design as part of a set, but actually not bad for what it's trying to convey. Interestingly, I don't think we ever actually get a "pure" version of Wendimon, meaning that this slavering dark evolution is something you must subject your Lopmon to. I forgot Turuiemon is evolved a couple of years later, and never really realized that she's meant to be Lopmon's pure evolution! Whoops! We'll cover Turuiemon later on.

 5/10.

Andiramon (a.k.a. Antylamon)

Andiramon here is the Perfect-level evolution of this line, and I'm curious just how far the Tamers mythos and the Devas are in production by the time the 02 movie was made. I'll talk more about the Deva and just what "Andira" means when we get there -- Xiaochun's Lopmon actually evolves into a slightly-different version of Andiramon with different clothing and a more Chinese-themed garb to tie in with the whole Deva thing.

Anyway, as a giant Perfect-level bunny monster, Andiramon manages to look both threatening and still look hilarious and approachable at the same time. It must be those gangly arms, and that unnaturally thin midsection, that makes Andiramon look threatening, but those poofy pants and the stubby little fingers really lend an aura of whimsy that makes Andiramon fit right at home among a group of villainous Digimon... but you can totally see just why little Xiaochun would end up liking Andiramon and thinking that she's just a big bunny buddy. This original form of Andiramon is a Virus-type and meant to tie in to the evil Cherubimon in Hurricane Touchdown (which appeared for all of three seconds), and has tended to be eschewed in most video games for the Deva version of Andiramon. I do like the little lore given in Andiramon's bio, noting that Andiramon's swaying-esque motion is similar to how Andiramon actually is able to manipulate its density, being soft to dodge or absorb blows, but can become hard as iron to punch people in the face. Andiramon's a neat design, although I think I tended to like the Deva version more -- probably because I kind of like Tamers a whole ton. This one is all right as well, though. See, maybe this is why I was so m'eh about Bitmon before -- a lot of superior rabbit Digimon actually do exist later on.

Absolutely love the sheer ridiculousness that this messenger of god has the most awkward looking pants.

 7/10.

Cherubimon (a.k.a. Kerpymon)

Good/Virtue Cherubimon

This is actually a pretty fun final evolution. Xiaochun's Lopmon never actually manages to achieve this form, but Cherubimon (a.k.a. Kerpymon) is a pretty huge figure in various Digimon games. See, Cherubimon is meant to be an Ultimate-level angelic Digimon in the same vein as Seraphimon and Ophanimon -- and in fact forms a set with the two of the in Frontier as the three arch-angels that rule over the digital world. And what an interesting bunny jester angel Cherubimon is! With a fun Easter Bunny-esque mentality in the design, with huge, tapering arms, a huge jester's neck brace, and a happy face that translates well from Lopmon and Andiramon, Cherubimon is such a fun and different way to make an angelic Digimon that still looks holy while not just "human with wings and a bunch of armour".

That's not all either, because Cherubimon exists in two forms -- Virtue and Vice... and Cherubimon is liable to go all Lucifer and get corrupted and become a monstrous, purple-and-green version with cool, decaying wings and a crazy, screeching face. This was the version that the corrupted Chocomon in the 02 movie evolves into, and credit where credit's due, this evil Cherubimon does have a pretty badass entrance in that movie, where it unleashes a whole slew of truly reality-warping powers, and is even able to face off toe-to-toe against Takeru's Seraphimon and Hikari's Holydramon.... before getting blasted to oblivion by the power of deus ex machina.

Vice/Evil Cherubimon

In Digimon Frontier, the good Cherubimon was initially part of the Three Archangels before he gathered a group of Digimon to war against the two good archangels Seraphimon and Ophanimon. It's implied heavily that part of the disagreements that tore Cherubimon apart from the other archangels is an argument regarding the rights of human-type and beast-type Digimon, although Frontier never actually touched on this interesting part of the backstory. For all my grief that I will give Frontier, it's actually pretty good at worldbuilding -- they just don't really do a lot with its history. And instead of injecting a little racism or classism subtext into the lore... nope! Cherubimon just got his silly ass corrupted by the even-more-evil Lucemon. Cherubimon is noted as the real mastermind behind the other Evil Warriors that menaced our heroes for the first half of the series, before finally getting his ass off his throne and fighting them himself later on. Shame that they don't really do much with Frontier's evil Cherubimon beyond making him a bit of a one-dimensional villain with a pretty interesting backstory.

Anyway, a pretty fun little fat rabbit angel! I do like Cherubimon a fair bit, and easily my favourite out of the Three Archangels. It's also interesting just how Cherubimon is such a major player in Frontier, and how her evolutionary line ended up being major players in Tamers, despite Lopmon and Cherubimon sort of being introduced as a one-off movie villain of sorts. Always surprising considering most of the time 'partner' Digimon not named Agumon tended to be a one and done deal in their own series.

 8/10.

Turuiemon

Originally left out of this page because I didn't catch the significance, Turueimon here is Lopmon's "natural" Adult-stage when it doesn't go berserk and become Wendimon. I'm not quite sure why it's purple because it makes it stand out pretty badly compared to Lopmon, Andiramon and Wendimon, but it's... it's okay, I guess? It's a pleasant enough design, this lean rabbit-person that's clearly related to the Lopmon/Terriermon family, dressed up as a Chinese martial artist as a contrast to the bulkier Gargomon's jeans-and-guns look. It's not a particularly as interesting as Wendimon, I feel, but also a lot more pleasant to look at. He's got these cool reverse-blades on his hands to show off that it's more of a martial artist, I guess? Turuiemon never appeared in Tamers or the 02 movie, and only had a brief appearance in Xros Wars much, much later. Her bio notes that she's discovered in the mountains of China, and pursued "viruses that come in evil emails". Okay, then? She's a Chinese king-fu rabbit spambot. It's something, at least. 

4/10.

Chaosdramon (a.k.a. Chaosdromon)

I'll take this time to address a bunch of Digimon that were released around the 2000-2001 period that I didn't quite have time to put into the previous articles, because they were kind of chock-full with Armour evolutions. Chaosdramon here is the Ultimate-level evolution of a different Ultiamte-level Digimon, Mugendramon... and it's basically Mugendramon, but red. And with a far-less-cool set of visible eyeballs. Chaosdramon changes things a bit and streamlines the design a bit, although everything from Mugendramon's still there if you know what to look for -- even the MetalMamemon-based shoulder cannons are just flipped over. Chaosdramon is, I think, the final boss (or one of the final bosses, anyway) of Digimon World 2, introduced as "Chaos Lord", but I've always found him to be particularly inferior-looking to Mugendramon. The little touch with the 3D model animation grid on his body is kinda neat, but I dunno. Mugendramon has always felt far more impressive to me, as much as Chaosdramon's bio insists that he's the "perfected" version of Mugendramon just because he is made up with Red Digizoid (which is totally better than Chrome Digizoid).

Chaosdramon ended up being a secondary villain in the manga Digimon Next, and ended up being featured in a couple of virtual pets and video games. I suppose it's not all that bad, but they kind of ruined Mugendramon's cool eyeless skull-head. I dunno. I just don't really think much of this one. I guess there could be worse things that a hypothetical Mugendramon evolution could be designed as? This one's pretty underwhelming, although not bad taken as its own thing.

 6/10.

PrinceMamemon

So all the Mamemons we've met and covered in the past were all Perfect-levels, and around the time of Digimon World 2, they decided to add an Ultimate-level evolution for all the Mamemons to evolve into. I dunno. This one sort of doesn't appeal to me in the same way that Mamemon, MetalMamemon and even BigMamemon do. It's just gold and with a bunch of random royalty accessories tacked on... but loses the charming muscles and bomb fists that made the Mamemons actually work as Perfect-levels that could kick your ass. Apparently PrinceMamemon hangs out with KingEtemon and they pretend to be a royal family of sorts? And that instead of shooting exploding fists, it now headbutts people with his face? Eh. Not my thing.

 3/10.

Solarmon

This Child-level variation of Hagurumon is just Hagurumon, but orange and gold, but what a pleasant set of alternate colours! Granted, I am a huge, huge Hagurumon fan, but I've always loved how Solarmon looks, how it makes use of the gears' shape to look like a sun. It debuted in Digimon World: Digital Card Battle, which probably meant I should've covered him with Superstarmon earlier. Whoops! Anyway, Solarmon's pretty neat, and is definitely sun-based, with various artwork showing Solarmon straight-up setting his gears on fire with a pretty manic shit-eating grin on his face. A pretty pleasant-looking recolour that ended up being surprisingly popular, having a lot of appearances in more recent games, although it's never shown up in the anime. I wish it did!

 5/10.

BomberNanimon (a.k.a. Citramon)

Also debuting in the Digital Card Battle game, BomberNanimon is a Nanimon. But he's a bomb. I strongly dislike Nanimon, but BomberNanimon at least has a theme that distracts me from the fact that this is a deformed caricature of someone's face with armpit hair. BomberNanimon's most famous anime role is in Digimon Savers, where a gigantic BomberNanimon menaced fake-Disneyland. And I would've brushed it aside as still a dumb design if not for the English dub gloriously censoring BomberNanimon, and reinventing a new Digimon from the scratch-up... behold, Citramon, the orange-themed Nanimon! I'm not sure whether a giant Nanimon that's also an orange that you could theoretically eat is worse or better than a bomb Nanimon. That hilarious censorship bit aside, though, a Nanimon by any other name is still crap. So.

 0/10.

Sorcerymon (a.k.a. Sorcerimon/Sorcermon/Socerimon)

Sorcerymon (the dub just plain don't now how to spell his name) is basically an ice-themed white repaint of Wizardmon. I do like that he swapped out his staff for one that's tipped with a snowflake! That's a neat little touch. All in all I kind of prefer regular Wizardmon, but the white and teal does make for a fun little alternate colour palette. Sorcerymon is noted to be particularly skilled in ice and light magic, meaning that it can summon blizzards and heal allies. So he's the White Mage to Wizardmon's Black Mage, if it wasn't already obvious from their design. While introduced as an easy palette swap in Digital Card Arena, Sorcerymon here ends up being a supporting character in Frontier, showing up as the majordomo of one of the three great angels, Seraphimon, and is basically a huge lore-dump character and, while nowhere as badass as his Adventure cousin, also performed a final "hold the line" moment as he faced down the four evil legendary warriors and presumably gets killed offscreen. Overall, a neat repaint!

 6/10.

Pandamon

Pandamon and a bunch of these next ones are listed as "Digimon that debuted in 2000", because they're technically submitted and recognized as official Digimon thanks to some fan design contest or something along those lines, which I guess I'll just cover here since I'm roughly going by year. It's not like Pandamon would take that much longer to appear anyway, appearing in the D-Ark virtual pet that tied in to Tamers.

Anyway, Pandamon here is a Perfect-level Digimon that's clearly meant to be a counterpart to Monzaemon. But a panda. Also, instead of Monzaemon's weird dead eyes, Pandamon instead has a generic hero scarf billowing in the wind, and despite having slightly-more-expressive-eyes than Monzaemon, Pandamon is described as having a blunt personality and having absolutely no charm at all, acting as the lone wolf that secretly envies Monzaemon's popularity. Pandamon, as far as I can tell, doesn't actually have the "likely to have evolved from a Numemon" backstory that Monzaemon has either, and has a wide array of Adult-level Digimon it can evolve from. Pandamon's had a couple of anime appearances (with a chibified appearance that makes me remember Pandamon as an Adult or Child most of the time), first in Frontier as an ally Digimon in Toy Country, helping the Chosen Children fight their corrupted Monzaemon ruler, as well as in Savers and Xros Wars as crowd-filler characters. Overall, kinda neat! Pandamon's also shown up in way, way more video games than I thought he would. I'm glad this exists, even if Pandamon won't rank super-high among my favourites list.

 6/10.

Witchmon

Witchmon here doesn't have to wait that long to become official either, as she was part of the "Pendulum Progress" virtual pet series released around 2002, which is around the time of Frontier. I'm just trying to trim off as many Digimon according to their release year in Wikimon.net because it's so easy for one or two of these to fall through the cracks. Witchmon's technically a female version of Wizardmon, being an Adult-level Digimon, but there's so much going on in Witchmon's design! There's the gigantic right claw-arm, there's the fun zippers going down her skirt and gloves, there's the huge cat-themed hat and a little shadowy cat familiar flying alongside her. Oh, and of course, she's got a broom! Also love the little eyeball cape-pin that she's got. Witchmon doesn't quite go as monstrous as Wizardmon does, with exposed jagged teeth and cat eyes (here and here shows a better look at Witchmon's face). Overall, a fun little cat-themed witch, even if she's not quite my sort of monster. I do like that Witchmon sort of ends up being a possible candidate as a pre-evolution for the likes of Angewomon and LadyDevimon. Pretty appropriate! I think I don't mind the fact that she's humanoid for the fact that she also actually looks like a proper monster that isn't just "let's take a witch and draw her in anime style". 

Witchmon's bio is basically another huge talk about the same Witchelny Bandai line that Wizardmon references, and is noted to have control over wind and water to kind of contrast Wizardmon's lightning-themed attacks. Witchmon, surprisingly, have been near-ignored in video games (other than trading card ones) after her debut in the Pendulum Progress virtual pet, probably because she doesn't have a high-profile Digimon art or model that they can just reskin. Witchmon would have a minor cameo in Xros Wars: Hunters as the partner of some minor Hunter.

 6/10.

Karatenmon

Karatenmon here is a Perfect-level Digimon that would also make his debut in the D-Ark virtual pet, albeit as an unobtainable enemy Digimon. Karatenmon is based on the karasu-tengu (literally Crow Tengu), which apparently tended to be portrayed as lesser tengu. Karatenmon is kinda cool for what it is, this lanky bird-man with crow wings and little swords. I could've sworn that Karatenmon was part of the evolution line of the raven-themed Falcomon, a major character in Savers, but apparently it was introduced as a standalone. Huh. Obviously, thanks to later games, Karatenmon ends up fitting in as an alternate Perfect in Falcomon's evolutionary line. I do like that despite looking like he has a crow's mouth, Karatenmon is still a tengu, and apparently that beak is his nose. Neat! If he debuted a couple of months earlier, by the way, I'd think that he would've made a pretty good Armour evolution for Hawkmon, being a bird-man wearing armour.

Karatenmon appeared as a villain-of-the-week in Frontier, as one of Sephirothmon's minions and tried to play some mind games with one of the heroes, Kouji, by seeing into his deepest, darkest secrets and bringing up his parents' divorce. What a dick! Karatenmon would also show up in Xros Wars several times as generic crowd-fillers. Karatenmon is another one that I think is pretty neatly drawn, does enough things different from the obvious way to do a crow-man, and I don't find anything about him to be especially offensive or boring, so he gets a neutral 5/10. I could've sworn that this thing is more important than he actually is.

 5/10.

Scorpiomon (a.k.a. SkullScorpionmon/SkullScorpiomon)

Another one who makes their debut in the D-Ark games, the Perfect-level Scorpiomon here is pretty neat! Also, he got renamed into SkullScorpiomon in the dub because the dub renamed Anomalocarimon into Scorpiomon. Silly dub! Scorpiomon is a rare treat in that it's a bug Digimon released a while after 02 that still has the monster-bug-dinosaur design mentality that Kabuterimon and his ilk are designed with. And "SkullScorpiomon" is actually a very apt alternate name, because 90% of Scorpiomon's body is bones! Those ribcages that end in arthropod blade-like legs are a pretty great feature, and the prominent scorpion tail features clear segmented vertebrae. And look at how bony his anime control model is! Scorpiomon's got the normal set of scorpion claws and the bladed stinger, but that cool tapered skull-head and the four-jawed mouth, added with that mean-looking lizard legs... yeah, I didn't really think much of Scorpiomon before writing this, but the more I look at it, the cooler it becomes. My initial draft for this segment had me rating Scorpiomon 3/5 with "maybe 4" written afterwards, actually.

Scorpiomon made several brief appearances in other virtual pets, and while a bunch of random stuff can turn into him (most hilariously Gekomon), the most appropriate buggy Adult-level pre-evolution is Snimon. Yay! Scorpiomon's bio describes him as an ambush predator, and is famed as being the "Assassin of the Desert", stabbing people with poison that moves faster than data can be transmitted. Scorpiomon would make his long-awaited anime debut in Xros Wars, appropriately besieging our heroes in the Sand Zone, being one of Blastmon and Lilithmon's generals. Also, these things are massive, big enough for the human-sized Troopmon to ride behind his skull comfortably. Scorpiomon's pretty rad. I like him.

 10/10.

Mermaimon (a.k.a. Mermaidmon)

Holy shit this one took a while to appear, being "introduced in 2000" in the fan art contest, but wouldn't make her splash until 2010 in a Nintendo DS Digimon Story game. If I had left out Mermaimon from this list, I would 100% forget to include her when I look up "Digimon Introduced in 2010". And... yeah, this lady here is just a mermaid pirate, without any real interesting variations of the theme. Sure, holding a big-ass anchor as a scythe-like weapon is neat, and I do like that her braid ends up with a cute little anchor, but this lady sort of came out in the time where designs are ridiculously just cosplaying humans. Mermaimon isn't the worst of these (which is why she still gets the one point), but I do not care for these sort of design mentality. At least Mermaimon was a fun little member of Olegmon's evil pirate crew in Xros Wars, which was... neat. Her bio doesn't really offer any sort of interesting lore beyond "she's a pirate, and she's also a mermaid, and did we mention she's a pirate?" She's not poorly drawn, but she's just Anime Mermaid. 

 2/10.