This time around we're going to be finally discussing the main partner of Digimon Tamers' resident "gogglehead", the designated main character of the cast. This time around it's Matsuda Takato (renamed Takato Matsuki in the dub), who is a huge departure in the franchise by making the main goggle-head boy... not a confident action hero like Taichi, Daisuke, or even Takato's successors in any of the subsequent seasons. This actually makes Takato feel pretty unique to me, as if Tamers didn't already have enough things for me to harp on and on about!Interestingly, Takato perhaps comes from one of the most stable families in the Digimon franchise, with a pair of parents that runs a bakery, and Takato himself doesn't have to deal with any actual angst or sad backstory in his life. There's no attempt to rebel against a too-young single mother like Ruki, there's no implied abusive/neglected parentage like Juri, and there's no childhood trauma of nearly causing his Digimon's death (as well as the whole daddy conspiracy) like Jianliang. Takato is pretty normal, and unlike most normal anime protagonists, Takato... actually sure as hell isn't ready for being a superhero and defender on Earth.
The beginning of Takato's journey is similar to 99% of Shounen anime out there. A young, normal boy discovers that he has some sort of amazing power, and decides to be super-confident and save the day. In Takato's case, he's a huge Digimon nerd and he naturally spends most of his day drawing up what he thinks should be his partner Digimon. Don't lie, any one of you readers who grew up in the 90's with Pokemon and Digimon did the same thing. And when this made-up Digimon suddenly comes to life into a real fire-breathing dragon dinosaur Guilmon, Takato is excited! Oh, the adventures they'll have together!
...except this isn't just all fun and games. Sure, Takato initially just has fun, raising his pet magic dinosaur and having him fight the feral monsters that come into this world and cause rampage. He's a superhero! But then things start getting real. The Digimon that manifest actually do have feelings, but how does Takato explain that to the bloodthirsty Ruki? Or the mysterious government agent who's likely to murder Guilmon as any other "Wild Ones"?Throw in the fact that due to being far more newly created and never actually existing in the digital world, Guilmon is far, far more childlike and naive than Terriermon or Renamon are. Tamers really likes throwing Takato into the deep end and basically seeing if he's going to sink or swim, but it doesn't subvert expectations that much, and while Takato has had to endure a fuckton of loss, including seeing many of his friends die, Takato ends up basically being the superhero he kind of dreams to be. Quite literally, since, as I mentioned in the previous segment, Tamers Ultimate evolution involves the tamer fusing with his partner. And I think that's the big point of his characterization -- Takato learning to accept responsibility despite just wanting nothing more than to goof around.
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Jyarimon
Another baby blob that's obviously meant to be 'blob Guilmon'. I really, really find it hard to say anything about these newer babies beyond "eh, it's not ugly". Jyarimon's profile just basically notes how he's the baby of a dragon and hypes up the potential murder dragon that he's going to become. About the only interesting thing about Jyarimon that he has on his own is that instead of acidic bubbles, he shoots out fire bubbles.
3/10. Gigimon
Jyarimon then evolves into Gigimon, who is noted to be a dragon-like variant of Tokomon by the bio. And, you know what? It actually does! It keeps the dragon-wing-ears that Guilmon and Jyarimon has, and has the genesis of the markings and cute little stubby tail that he'll have when he becomes Guilmon.
And... and that's all I got. Jeez, remember when babies were at least somewhat unique?
3/10. Guilmon
And here we go with the poster boy of this series, Guilmon! And while it's obviously meant to capitalize on the baby dinosaur-like look that Agumon has, it is at least canon that Takato probably has Agumon in mind when designing his fanfiction Digimon. Guilmon's a pretty fun little design, honestly. It doesn't really try to do too much -- it's just a slightly more elaborate Agumon with a better-proportioned head, some extra dragon wing-ears, spikes and a bunch of black bands on his body. Also, on Guilmon's body (and indeed most of his evolutions), there's this little tattoo called the Digital Hazard that is basically the Digimon equivalent of a radioactive sign, noting that Guilmon carries huge power within him.
Guilmon's also, interestingly, a Virus-type, a fact that is lampshaded a couple of times early on in the anime where Guilmon is so, so friendly and happy and likes to make friends, but is still a Virus-type. I guess it's part of Takato's edginess where he wants to be friend with a badass Virus-type, but also wants his Virus-type buddy to be friendly and have fun with him and goof off? As a Virus-type, Guilmon's evolutions would prove to be pretty damn horrifyingly powerful, though, and nobody designs a fire-breathing dinosaur-dragon child to just play football with (get Terriermon to do that!) since Guilmon is, at his heart, a fighter. It's very interesting how the childlike Guilmon has to struggle with his own internal feral instincts. They never really try to emphasize this too much in the anime because I guess the mascot still has to be kinda relatable to kiddies, but at the same time the few times the anime is allowed to show Guilmon's feral-ness is pretty well-executed.
Other than Tamers, Guilmon would make some short minor cameos with all the other protagonist Digimon in Xros Wars and Hunters. There's really not that much to say about Guilmon himself -- he's admittedly a pretty simple character and a simple design, but it does manage to balance itself between both feral animal and cute mascot pretty well. I'm not quite sure whether I like Agumon or Guilmon better as the tyrannosaur-based mascot character, but I like both of them!
9/10. Growmon (a.k.a. Growlmon)
Growmon, renamed into the far more imposing Growlmon in the dub, is... a bigger Guilmon. The anime made it clear that Growmon actually, well, grows a fair bit from Guilmon, but I've always felt that without taking the anime's scale (and default slouching pose) into account, the evolution from Guilmon to Growmon felt pretty underwhelming. Growmon gets some white hair on his head, swaps out the batwing-horns for normal horns, and gets some arm blades and... and that's it? Comparing the sheer difference between Agumon and Greymon, for example, or Terriermon and Gargomon, I really wished that they had tried to be a little more different with Growmon here. Again, the anime portrayal helps to fix this a fair bit by making him pretty dang big and having Guilmon's first couple of evolutions be pretty scary with feral growls and roars, and the fact that initially, Growmon couldn't evolve back into cute little Guilmon! Yeah, the Tamers world isn't as convenient as the Adventure world.It's actually kind of neat to show that the likes of Guilmon and Growmon are far more melee-based scrappers compared to the fire-breathing Greymons. Sure, Growmon is perfectly capable of shooting fire out of his mouth, but for the most part, he tends to use that arm-blade to slice up his enemy. Overall, Growmon's still pretty cool thanks to the anime and thanks to being a big-ass dinosaur, but also kinda underwhelming.
7/10. MegaloGrowmon (a.k.a. WarGrowlmon)
Thankfully, Growmon evolves into the Perfect-level MegaloGrowmon (WarGrowlmon in the dub), which takes a completely different version of 'cyborgification' than MetalGreymon! I have gone on record in stating that I really, really love the grungy tech aesthetic that the likes of MetalGreymon and Andromon have, but MegaloGrowmon has its own really fun sense of appeal. It's sleek but at the same time bulky and chunky, and as a kid I really thought those black arm-blades are the coolest shit. As an adult, I think those black arm-blades are the COOLEST SHIT. MegaloGrowmon is interesting in that from the stomach down he's still basically the same Guilmon/Growmon body, but the chest is outfitted with some kind of weird futuristic space-suit armour, and his head has been completely streamlined and turned into a smaller, more lethal-looking Gundamized version of Growmon's head. Apparently the silver chunks that close around his lower jaw like a Gundam faceplate is something like a horse-bit to keep MegaloGrowmon focused and not run wild? Interesting.Oh, and those two giant metal rods jutting out of MegaloGrowmon's metal vest? Those are actually his vernier thruster jet engines, allowing him to fly. I'm not quite sure what the silver metal whip is for, but it's a cool little detail that doesn't clutter MegaloGrowmon's design up too much, and in the anime I think it's used as something akin to a combat tentacle. And in addition to using those blades to slice people up, MegaloGrowmon has a goddamn atomic reactor in his chest that he launches through his nipple-cannons. I also find it hilarious how many people compare his chest-plate to looking like a Transformer's car-chest kibble. The Bandai art also has disproportionately large feet for some reason.
I've always found MegaloGrowmon to be pretty damn cool, honestly. A pretty good cyborg dinosaur, and one that doesn't really lose a lot of his dinosaur-y-ness upon evolution.
9/10. Megidramon
All this talk about restraining Guilmon, Growmon and MegaloGrowmon's power comes to a head when MegaloGrowmon evolves into the Ultimate-level dragon, Megidramon! With the digital hazard tattoo emblazoned proudly on his chest, Megidramon is definitely intent on making sure that he is a hazard. Megidramon, named after the hill of Megiddo where Armageddon takes place, is described as the ultimate destroyer dragon, the evil, destructive member of the Four Great Dragons that stands against the likes of Holydramon and Goddramon. It's interesting that Megidramon is described as the 'alternate view' of ChaosDukemon, a different dark evolution for MegaloGrowmon, and whether you see him as a coiling serpent-monster or as a black knight depends on the viewer.Megidramon's design is pretty cool, basically taking everything I love about Megadramon and Airdramon, and putting a slightly more stylized, streamlined version with more humanoid proportions. And I really do love this dude! I kinda wished that he looked more bestial and feral, but the look of a humanoid figure stapled onto the draconic, serpentine tail is pretty dang cool. Also love the fact that his head is basically the same head with Guilmon's with a bunch of spikes and a far more feral mouth. I do feel that Megidramon is a little bit too cluttered, with random bits of golden armour that, other than the arm-blades he inherits from MegaloGrowmon, we probably could've done without. Love those ribcages, too. He does work kinda well as a final, ultimate evil dragon Digimon!
Megidramon in the anime appears when Takato is so consumed with grief and rage when one of their allies, Juri's partner Leomon, gets murdered, causing Guilmon to dark digivolve into the insanely powerful Megidramon that curbstomps not only Beelzebumon but also everyone else. It's a trope that's been done before with Taichi and SkullGreymon, but here Takato has to agonize over having to weep over his feral partner nearly getting killed and nearly killing all his friends because of his own mishap.
Overall, a pretty damn suitable final form for a cute little dinosaur-dragon baby who's a Virus type but tries to deny his true, destructive heritage!
9/10. Dukemon (a.k.a. Gallantmon)
This is still an optimistic anime, though, so the cool and badass Megidramon isn't Guilmon's "real" final form. No, Guimon's real Ultimate form is actually achieved when he and Takato has reached a full level of understanding, and... and then they fuse together into the mighty Dukemon! (Renamed Gallantmon in the dub). And... really, I'm of two minds about Dukemon. He's pretty damn badass in the anime, and he certainly stole my heart there, but there's barely anything from Guilmon's evolutionary line that makes it into Dukemon's design other than the vaguely Guilmon-ear-shaped mask that Dukemon has, as well as MegaloGrowmon's head-antenna thing. And this is what I truly dislike about Dukemon -- he has so little to do with his previous forms that I just don't really think he's that suitable as a final evolution from a visual standpoint. Even SaintGargomon and Sakuyamon shares a lot more traits with their previous forms, while becoming more humanoid. Hell, even dudes like Imperialdramon and WarGreymon from the previous shows at least have more parts than their mask horns that indicate that they evolved from dinosaurs or dragons.
That said, though, as much as Dukemon is just a dude in anime armour with an admittedly cool-looking set of lance and shield (Gram and Aegis, respectively). And while I don't mind dudes-in-armour if they're drawn well, Dukemon feels like he should evolve from Knightmon or something instead of MegaloGrowmon. OThe anime really manages to sell Dukemon's awesomeness that looking at him I kind of shrug and not mind quite as much. He is kinda generic, though. Dukemon is still a Virus type, which I appreciate, and his bio notes how he has to keep his mental balance in check lest he transform into Megidramon. Also absolutely loved the weird Takato/Guilmon mixture voice that they give him, and making this badass knight having that voice is pretty hilarious.
Also, in the anime, in addition to being based on a knight, Dukemon gets a little steed, this not-quite-a-Digimon called "D-Arms Grani", which... exists. I love the Tamers show to bits, but I forget Grani exists most of the time. It's.. okay?Dukemon is also a Royal Knight, following the tradition set up by Omegamon, Magnamon, Imperialdramon and UlforceVeedramon that the main character's final evolution ends up being, hey, a Royal Knight and one of these super-badass people that guard the god of all of the digital world. Dukemon is also, I think, the last protagonist Digimon to be inducted into the Royal Knights. Tamers' Dukemon isn't actually part of any organization, mind you, but different Dukemons would appear in the Xros Wars manga, the X-Evolution movie, and especially in Savers as the most enthusiastic and passionate of the Royal Knights, quick to exercise the will of Yggdrassil but also quick to question it. Anyway, not a bad-looking lancer knight, all things considered. Could've been better, but the anime helps to fix that for me.
7/10. Dukemon: Crimson Mode (a.k.a. Gallantmon: Crimson Mode)
In the final episode of Tamers, Dukemon needed an extra boost of power, and thus the little steed Grani sacrifices himself to give Dukemon the ability to modo chenjii into Dukemon: Crimson Mode. Which is just Dukemon, but the cape is now a coulpe dozen transparent wings, and his armour is redder and spikier. Oh, and he carries a lance and a sword now, named Gungnir and Blutgang after weapons from Nordic myths respectively.I do like the little subversion that this super-ultra-badass-final-form ends up... being a bit of a hilarious fail as Dukemon: Crimson Mode runs out of energy right before he/they can reach Juri from deep within the D-Reaper (long story short, that's the way they win the final battle), and it's good old Guilmon and Takato that has to save the day. Which is fine and dandy -- Dukemon appears enough times in Tamers that I have an emotional attachment to him, but Crimson Mode here is just kind of an honestly redundant power-up that sort of comes out of nowhere. Not a big fan of this one, and in my opinion it's way too cluttered compared to the original Dukemon. It's way, way more popular in the fandom, of course, and I respect that, but Dukemon: Crimson Mode just isn't my sort of aesthetic is all. He's not ugly, at least.
4/10. Ketomon & Hopmon
While the first half of Digimon Tamers focuses mainly on the three pairs of Takato/Guilmon, Ruki/Renamon and Lee/Terriermon, eventually members of the supporting cast would end up being promoted into Tamers as well. Juri is partnered with Leomon (which we've mentioned a couple of times), Xiaochung is partnered with Lopmon, Hirokazu is partnered with a Guardromon and Kenta is partnered with a MarineAngemon.
But there is another character -- one Ryo Akiyama, who is a canon immigrant from a huge mess of backstory that spans a couple of video games never released outside of Japan, as well as being part of 02's Ken's backstory. Ryo is also coincidentally and somehow a super-well-known-tamer in the Tamers universe, but also has the backstory of the Adventure/02/Wonderswan games and... and it's best not to think too hard about it, really. Just accept that he's a cool supercompetent dude that comes out of nowhere and move on. His backstory is really complex and way cooler than the pretty convoluted mess that it actually is. (And we have also covered it in Millenniumon's entry).
Ryo is introduced in the second half of Digimon Tamers as having journeyed in the digital world and ends up helping our characters, partnered with the oh-so-badass Cyberdramon. The Tamers staff ended up creating two forms for Cyberdramon's younger stages, the Baby I Ketomon and the Baby II Hopmon. as you can probably tell, none of these have much effort put into them, none of these even got official Bandai artwork or profiles. Hopmon's kinda neat, though, looking like a weird malformed fish as opposed to the simple "take the head of the Child stage and add stubby legs" mentality that Guilmon, Renamon and Impmon are stuck with. Eh, whatever.
2/10. Monodramon
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| Cyberdramon |
While Ryo's partner tended to run around as the badass, super-awesome but feral Perfect-level Cyberdramon (who we covered waaaay back in the first couple of years, but I'm including a picture of him here), he does have a Child-stage, the happy little Monodramon! And Monodramon is... I dunno. Okay? I do like his weird drill claws, and the fact that his arms have wings attached to them, but I've always found Monodramon to be kind of underwhelming. It's a pleasant-looking Child-level dragon, I guess, but I felt that there's not quite enough with Monodramon that really distinguishes him enough other than those arm wings. I guess it's the shape of his head that makes me not like him quite as much? I dunno.
Monodramon's described in his profile as being kind of a brawl-seeking fight freak, although the exact opposite ends up happening in Tamers to contrast Monodramon and the Cyberdramon form that we see him most as. While Cyberdramon feels barely even sentient and constantly seeks fights and wants to murderkill everything, Monodramon is a happy little dragon baby. In a reference to Cyberdramon's data-deleting claws, Monodramon's attacks apparently causes little bugs and cracks in the data of whoever he bites, which I thought is kinda neat.
Anyway, as much as I like Ryo and Cyberdramon, Monodramon's kind of always been a bit of a miss for me.
3/10. Strikedramon
This form never actually appeared in the Tamers anime, but shows up in the associated video games to serve as the Adult-stage to bridge Monodramon and Cyberdramon. And Strikedramon here is... he's a dragon-man in ugly, mismatched green jeans? I dunno. I don't like him at all. It's like someone was told to draw the middle stage between chubby purple dragon Monodramon, and humanoid, eyeless dragon-man Cyberdramon... and they ended up making this dude, then started adding random accessories like gloves and metal bolts and a huge chest tattoo and ugly long red hair and a chest tattoo. Its bio notes that it's not quite as crazy as Cyberdramon yet, but anytime it gets near a Virus-type, Strikedramon gets super-feral and oh-so-violent. Shame that the anime actually doesn't have Ryo's Cyberdramon try to attack Takato's Guilmon. What a missed opportunity! Also, apparently Strikedramon's stupid red hair can burst into blue flames. Unsurprisingly, Strikedramon's never really appeared in anything outside of video games. Eh. I've really, really tried to like or tolerate Strikedramon, but I honestly can't. It's such a messy, cluttered design, like an uglier ExVeemon. And I wouldn't even say that I like ExVeemon that much! Strikey here has so much going on and so many poor fashion design choices that I just can't bring myself to like this thing. I'll give him a point because the same eyeless-mask dragon face he shares with Cyberdramon is kinda cool, I guess. 2/10. Justimon
Now this dude actually did appear in the anime! Ryo is such a badass that he ends up unlocking the Ultimate form, and the only member of the secondary cast to get to this form. It's a bit of a shame that Ryo himself never really ends up evolving as a character beyond gaining some respect for Ruki, and tends to function more as an additional body to write action scenes for. Bit of a shame, that. As for Justimon... eh? It's this weird Tokusatsu dude that kinda-sorta looks cool as far as explicitly humanoid Digimon goes, but maybe the reason I don't mind Dukemon so much is that Justimon exists and he's kind of just a dude with a metal arm and a badass scarf? I dunno -- that's as far as the Kamen Rider homage goes anyway, the scarf and the bodysuit. I would've liked him more if he actually does things like ridiculous poses or have bug eyes or had... anything that made him not just "generic action figure man in armour". I like Tamers and visually he's a pretty cool Kamen Rider-style action figure. Being a neat action figure doesn't really make him particularly neat as a Digimon, though, and especially not one that's supposed to evolve out of something as monstrous as Cyberdramon.Interestingly, maybe because Bandai themselves realize that a simple Power Ranger isn't enough to sell action figures, Justimon can swap between a couple of modes, namely Critical Arm where his arm transforms into a big-ass laser buzzsaw, or Accel Arm where his arm becomes extra large. "Eh", I say.
I'm giving him two points because of how fun he is in the anime because the Tamers anime sort of flip-flop between playing him straight as a badass action hero, or to parody the concept. Easily hands-down my least favourite major design in the Tamers anime, though, and I kinda wished that Ryo's Cyberdramon stayed a badass, feral robot-dragon-man. Oh well, at least we get to hear him shout "JASUTISHUUU KIKKUUUU" every time he attacks. I don't hate this design, and maybe if Justimon was a standalone Digimon I'd go "eh, he's neat" and move on, but the fact that this is attached as the final evolution for Cyberdramon is pretty irksome. I just find it really hard to justify why this is a good Digimon design, and such an utter disappointment compared to Cyberdramon. I dunno. I just don't really like humanoid Digimon, I guess.
3/10, only because of the anime.Culumon (a.k.a. Calumon)
Culumon here is another major supporting character from Tamers, one of the two seemingly partner-less Digimon to wander around the real world and befriend our characters. Where Impmon is the human-hating jackass, Culumon is this cute little mascot that flies around with his ear-wings and is buddies with everyone. And for such a simple design, the anime actually puts in a fair amount of effort in actually making Culumon be adorable. And those ear-wings can shrink whenever Culumon isn't super excited, kind of like a dog's tail! I like that. Culumon is also this super-important plot device that carries within him a mysterious light that enables the evolution of Digimon, making him desirable to be captured by the villains of the series. Culumon is later revealed to be the personification of the part of the Digimon world that causes evolution, and transformed and given life by the Four Holy Beasts and sent away to avoid the huge flux of energy from awakening their true enemy, the D-Reaper. But Culumon ends up just wanting to live with his human friends, which... yeah, these plot-device-characters is a bit of an unfortunate trope that doesn't tend to be done well, but Culumon still manages to be a cute mascot while still having a short character arc of his own. Also, when he realizes what he can do, Culumon unleashes his powers of evolution to straight-up create an army of Ultimate-level Digimon to help out our heroes! That was cool. Culumon's biggest emotional moment is perhaps to return the favour to Juri when he tells her about the whole "everyone has a right to live and be happy", and coming from what's essentially an artificial being among artificial beings, that's a nice feeling.Interestingly, the franchise really flip-flops on what level Culumon really is, with various sources fli-flopping between Culumon being a Child, a Baby-II or outside normal evolutionary levels. Anyway, he's cute. He does get a wee bit too wrapped up in exposition for his own good, but honestly, can't you not like Culumon? A pretty fine little cutey-mascot Digimon.
6/10. Other versions of the Guilmon Line
Yeah, Tamers is when they went super-crazy with the repaints. Here we have, in order, BlackGuilmon, BlackGrowmon, BlackMegaloGrowmon, ChaosDukemon, Growmon (Orange) and MegaloGrowmon (Orange). Substitute "WarGrowlmon" and "Gallantmon" yousrelf. Not quite sure why we need even-more-evil versions of the Growmon line when they're already Virus-types... but I dunno, I guess they needed merchandise, I guess. To have a cheap-yet-desirable repaint to sell as extra toys and cards and whatnot.
BlackGuilmon is kinda... there, just Guilmon with his colours swapped. I do like the effect on BlackGrowmon that makes the golden digi-code glyphs light up, and thus BlackGrowmon is easily the coolest repaint amongst these. BlackMegaloGrowmon's secondary colours end up being a sickly green for some reason? Ew. ChaosDukemon is just Dukemon, but black and purple. Worth noting that ChaosDukemon is a major NPC in the Digimon World: Dawn/Dusk video games. The only real interesting thing is the bit of backstory where Megidramon and ChaosDukemon can appear as each other depending on the observer.
The orange versions are apparently 'data' versions of the Growmon line. And that's it. While I appreciate them doing more colour variations other than "paint it black", they kind of look like literal piss. Really? Our of all the shades of orange, yellow or gold they could've done, they pick this? Looks more like someone shines a really bright light at Growmon more than anything, honestly.
Honestly, pretty minimal effort.
1/10.
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