I'm going to bill this as a 'bonus' episode, because the D-Reapers aren't technically Digimon. But at the same time, it would be utter injustice if we cover a bunch of random TCG nobodies and black repaints and not go through these glorious genuinely awesome-looking designs.
Shit, I consider these D-Reapers more Digimon than crap like the Olympus Twelve or the gold and silver siblings, anyway.
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D-Reaper ADR-02: Searcher
See, the D-Reaper works via its 'agents', which are these glorious little 'appendages' of the central D-Reaper mass, all of them having unique designs and connected to the central body (a huge, red gloopy mass that has taken over a chunk of Japan) via these red wires. ADR-02 -- we're saving 01 for last -- is the most common and the 'weakest' of the various D-Reaper agents, and act more like the worker ants of a colony or something. These Searchers function mostly as the D-Reaper's literal eyes and ears, and I do love how this is communicated by its unsettling design. Huge, hand-like wings with eyes tattooed onto them, as well as a creepy, owl-like head with its own eyes, and a lower 'skirt' that sort of tapers off like something that isn't quite properly rendered yet? It's a pretty damn awesome design, looking like genuinely bizarre evil angels or idols from an alien world. It's just something so different and bizarre from the rest of Digimon's output, and I'm genuinely a big fan.The D-Reapers are legitimately designed to look special, and it's clear that the dozen or so designs that we actually got in the series are the product of a fair amount of creativity to really create something that's utterly alien. And considering that series writer Chiaki Konaka (the man behind Serial Experiments Lain, and a lover of the Cthulhu mythos) is reportedly trying to go for a Neon Genesis Evangelion vibe for the final arc of Tamers... yeah, it kinda shows. Anyway, Searcher is pretty badass.
D-Reaper ADR-03: Pendulum Feet
The first and most common agents that the D-Reaper sends out to fight are the Pendulum Feet, and oh boy, what an awesome motherfucker! They're still connected to the main Reaper body by way of those umbilical wire-things, but man, the Pendulum Feet really have a whole lot of creepiness, yeah? From a body that's covered entirely with a "cloak" to two long, slim 'arms' ending in little sickles, to the titular pendulum feet, this is just a pretty badass looking weird appendage monster! Throw in the very cool mask-like face just adds to the sheer creepiness of Pendulum Feet. Pendulum Feet is even able to 'emote', sort of, by tilting its head like an owl. I really do like that mask, which manages to simultaneously look tribal and futuristic at the same time.If that's not enough, Pendulum Feet is surrounded by a bunch of smaller spherical faces that act as little laser-shooting buddies. Anyway, Pendulum Feet is probably my favourite of all the various ADR agents. It just looks so sleek and alien!
D-Reaper ADR-04: Bubbles
"Bubbles". Okay? Bubbles is basically the 'ground combat' units of the D-Reapers, I think, although considering that they're all connected to a central unit with the wires, Bubbles can fly up if they really choose to. I think they serve more of an artillery function? Bubbles is also one of the earlier D-Reapers to show up, and while I don't quite think they look as unsettling as Pendulum Feet and Searcher, I do like the pretty inhuman-looking face. It's a fun, weird alien body with four tentacle-like arms that sort of inflate and then unleash blasts of laser beams, and I assume that is where the 'bubbles' moniker comes from. I didn't really think much of Bubbles the first time I watched Tamers, finding them significantly less cool compared to the weird alien-gargoyle Searchers and the alien-ghost-reaper Pendulum Feet, but Bubbles does have enough weird creepiness going on for it that I don't really mind.D-Reaper ADR-05: Creep Hands
The first 'boss' enemy of sorts, Creep Hands here is... wow, it's pretty damn creepy, yeah? After the first three lesser D-Reapers end up being basically not much of a threat, Creep Hands shows up and even on its base form it's quite horrifying. It's like the upper half of a human torso, crawling around on its gigantic, gigantic hands. It has got these exposed ribcage-like structure, and a face-neck deal that just juts forwards. Everything just looks so wrong about Creep Hands here despite the fact that it could be simply described as 'torso with giant hands'. From the weird face with beady eyes, to the ribcage-like appendage, to the claws, to the way the hands are bent... Those little spikes on Creep Hands' elbows are actually tentacles, by the way, and Creep Hands can unfurl his arms and use them to grab enemies, like poor SaintGargomon over here. Creep Hands is the first enemy to give the Ultimate-level Digimon that our cast have access to the first real fight, I think, and it's a pretty damn creepy giant disembodied monster that, if drawn in a slightly more realistic art style, would probably be a highlight in any given video game. Definitely a fan!D-Reaper ADR-06: Horn Striker
Kind of an anomaly among the D-Reaper agents for being so... straightforward? Ordinary? Hornstriker here is basically sort of a big, burly dude with a horn instead of eyes, and he's apparently meant to be a 'military commander'. Honestly he's kind of boring. Not the worst-looking humanoid ogre thing I've ever seen, but he's honestly kind of boring, I guess the only real notable thing about him is how different he is compared to the other agents? Horn Striker is, again, one of the 'bosses'. I think he fought Justimon and Andiramon during his first appearance?D-Reaper ADR-07: Palates Head [a.k.a. Paratice Head]
Originally translated as "Paratice Head" and thought to be a corruption of either paradise or parasite, apparently ADR-07 here has the name of Palates Head. Palates, in medicine, is the roof of your mouth, or, according to Webster, a posh way to say "a person's appreciation of taste and flavour, especially when sophisticated and discriminating". What it says about Palates Head, especially when all of these ADR agents tend to be equated to the D-Reaper's sensory organs... yeah. Of course, more than any other D-Reaper agent, the Palates Head seems to be made almost entirely out of the fleshy, pink cable-wire strands that the D-Reaper itself is made of, which adds to an extra degree of surrealness.Anyway, Palates Head, as you might probably think, is massive. He's a kaiju-sized humanoid figure whose legs just sort of give way into mostly un-rendered nothingness, has two gangly arms, and his head, body and arms is filled and covered with those creepy, creepy zigzag mouths. I am a huge, huge fan of how sinister that bizarre clump of mouths that cover the head is. To add to the creepiness of a giant, skyscraper-sized titan, all those mouths? They can extend on their own little tendrils to chomp down on their enemies.
And the best best part? Palates Head's many, many mouths actually speak and echo the voices of one of the Tamers' friends, Juri, who has been captured and sort of 'assimilated' by the D-Reaper (more on that later on), which just throws in such a horrifying extra layer of wrongness to this thing. Palates then sends out those little mouthless tendrils, pops out camcorders to 'scan' its surroundings. Palates has my vote for being the weirdest, creepiest ADR on this list.
D-Reaper ADR-08: Optimizer
It might not be immediately apparent from these character models, but Optimizer is another agent that's as huge as Palates Head. And, again, I do like how Optimizer looks like an 'evolution' of Creep Hands of sorts, being a creepy head-and-torso combo that tapers off into segmented parts, with long, gangly arms and a non-face. Optimizer's whole deal is that he's a gigantic, creepy monster that sort of serves as a carrier for lesser ADR's, while itself is basically kind of slow and unmoving. I do appreciate the weird way that his torso tapers off into a spiral flat ribbon, the Searcher-esque wings and the long, long arms. I think I like it a bit less than the Creep Hands or Searcher, but the Optimizer is still pretty dang creepy! I'm pretty sure the Optimizer required an entire episode and half the cast to finally bring down. D-Reaper ADR-01: Juri
Anyway, before we discuss the final form of the D-Reaper, let's talk about ADR-01, Juri. Again, a bit of a spoiler warning for anyone who's interested in Digimon Tamers after all my reviews, but I've sort of said the broad strokes of this particular character's history in the series already, so... eh. Anyway, when Juri is captured by the D-Reaper and replaced with one of its agents, for a couple of episodes "Juri" behaves strangely and oddly, something that all of her friends assumes is because she recently lost her partner Leomon. Of course, it turns out that Juri has been replaced by a shape-shifting agent of the D-Reaper, ADR-01.The kicker, though? Juri isn't just abducted and replaced. She is placed at the core of the D-Reaper itself, and while the D-Reaper is willing to (offscreen) kill and destroy everything else, it instead tries to really, really 'get' into Juri's mind and torture her, using Juri as the conduit to enter the human world. It's pretty horrible to do to a little girl who has just lost her partner, and it's heavily implied by the series that Juri doesn't come from the healthiest of childhoods -- her father is a drunk (the neglectful kind, not the abusive kind) and she has often been seen talking to her little sock puppet, initially brushed off as a 'cutesy' kid thing to do, but later revealed to be kind of a symptom for some real mental problems Juri has.
Fake-Juri eventually reveals herself to be, well, a monstrous D-Reaper construct, complete with finger-like wings, and while her overall design isn't particularly exciting or grotesque, the execution of how she ends up attacking Takato in a park is handled pretty well, especially with the occasional showcases of a more horrifying digitalized face than what the character model usually shows. After attacking Takato, ADR-01 basically spends most of her screentime tormenting the real Juri.And that's not the only evil Juri doppelganger that the D-Reaper shows off, because at one point in the final arc we get to see Juri's D-Reaper induced nightmares, and we get to see the horrifying doppelganger that the D-reaper takes to torment Juri. The simple elimination of the little girl's eyes, the switch from a normal mouth to a creepy fanged mouth, and the suddenly realistic puppet dog-doll... yeah, that's pretty damn fucked up. And while I'm not sure how it was in the English dub, the Japanese dub straight-up blatantly showcases that Juri tries to kill herself by strangulation while in captivity to prevent the D-Reaper from utilizing her as an asset to destroy the world. Sure, it doesn't work because the D-Reaper basically controls everything that goes on there, but, shit, man, that's dark. Of course, because it's pretty damn badass symbolism to do it, when Juri finally breaks free from the D-Reaper's thrall it's punctuated with a punch to ADR-01's chest.
D-Reaper ADR-09: Gatekeeper
ADR-09, the Gatekeeper, is kind of the penultimate boss before the D-Reaper itself is fought. Located while surrounding the giant core of the D-Reaper where both Juri and the 'mother kernel' are located, Gatekeeper isn't the sphere there -- it's the series of spheres and panels surrounding it. It's kind of a pretty basic design, honestly, more of a decoration and an obstacle than a true monster itself, but a technological-based being probably would go for the most pragmatic design to keep its most important assets secure.
"Shinigami" Reaper
And here we go with the true form of the Reaper, referred to as the Shinigami Reaper in concept art and model sheets, but mostly just "Reaper" by the cast. And... and it's just this humongous amalgamation blob made up of all of the D-Reaper's cables, and presumably what all the pink blob ''main body" parts of the D-Reaper would've been otherwise depicted as if animation budgets aren't a thing. I do love that they actually paid a little homage to the whole Reaper moniker by having Pendulum Feet's sickle-arm-things just out of the mass of cables. It's a pretty damn awesome-looking eldritch abomination, just this huge, huge mass of wires that combines into a chompy maw. It's such a different sort of eldritch abomination compared to the normal fare or "eyes, mouths and tentacles", but considering this is a technological-based digital-Cthulhu thing, it kind of fits! The Reaper is, I think, the amalgamation of all of the Reaper's agents on the Digital World, and was held back and defeated by the Four Holy Beasts and an army of Ultimate-level Digimon.Mother Reaper
The final form of the D-Reaper is this thing, the Mother Reaper, is the final form of the D-Reaper. It's the combination of the main consciousness of the D-Reaper as well as ADR-01, ADR-09 (which forms the face), Juri's tormented psyche, as well as all of the consciousness of all the Digimon and humans it has killed off-screen. And, as you can see from that character sheet, it just gloops up and eats all of your puny skyscrapers. Mother Reaper actually having a creepy, weird mask-like face really ends up making this giant cable-blob-beast a whole lot creepier than it would've been without it, and bonus points for actually having the Gatekeeper actually morph into said face. That whole face-and-crown deal really gives Mother Reaper the impression of a vaguely humanoid figure, which is an extra unsettling look when Mother Reaper is the size of a small mountain with half of Shinjuku embedded into her flesh.
Of course, the good guys do manage to defeat the Mother Reaper with a combination of getting Juri out of her tormented hallucinations, a team-up with a group of mentors and former antagonists, and copious amounts of power-up (Dukemon: Crimson mode debuted to destroy Mother), but the buildup and the general writing of Tamers is great enough that I actually don't mind. Hell, we even get to see Mother Reaper unleash this horrifying, gigantic nightmare Juri-face one last time.And honestly, this sheer bizarre final villain that's simultaneously unique and is both a kaiju and a psychological horror is probably why one of the most iconic and memorable villains in Digimon is this giant, towering thing. Tamers has a whole ton going for it than just the D-Reaper, of course, but the general style and surprisingly mature writing, and this pretty quaint final villain, is definitely a huge reason why it ended up being as memorable as it is.
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