Digimon Reviews, Episode 28: Villains of the Frontier

So this time around, we're going to discuss the evil warriors of Digimon Frontier, the villains that basically ended up with possession of five pairs of the Ten Warriors's Spirits prior to the Chosen Children's arrival, and end up being the ones that they fight throughout the first half of the series before the Chosen Children end up reaching the evil fallen angel Cherubimon.

One of the evil warriors turns out to actually be a human, and Koji's estranged twin brother Koichi, who isn't actually evil or even acting in  but is merely brainwashed by Cherubimon. It's definitely a lot less interesting than other 'tempted into evil/antiheroism' Digimon characters, honestly, and Koichi ended up joining the good guys... but he's a ghost/spirit all along, with his real body trapped in a near-catatonic state after an accident in a train station. Koichi ends up being killed again in the digital world in the final battle against main villain Lucemon, but thanks to the power of friendship, tears and vaguely-explained plot devices, he was returned back to life after our heroes return to the real world. Okay, then. While predictable and clearly not the best 'good guy becomes bad' story, at least Koichi has, y'know, an actual story, which is more than the rest of Frontier's cast can say.
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Duskmon

So while 'corrupted' under Cherubimon's influence, Koichi has a different set of 'corrupted' evolutions with his spirit of darkness, with his 'human' evolution being the pretty badass devil-man Duskmon. Look at this guy! Eyeballs all over, on his chest, shoulders, knee and even the tips of his toes, giant horse skulls as hands which contain red blades within, and his helmet has three eyes! It's a pretty simple evil devil-man design, but it's definitely pretty cool looking, and the addition of eyeballs where they should not be is always a pretty welcome addition. I'm not sure why Koichi's black hair has exploded into a whole lot of blonde locks, but eh. Just like Wolfmon, Duskmon's attacks are all in German, which really should've alerted our heroes that this mysterious Duskmon fellow has something to do with Koji.

Interestingly, Duskmon's official profile notes how he is born from the coalesced regret of various extinct species of Digimon, giving Duskmon a similar origin story to Apocalymon. Apparently, all of the eyeballs and heads on Duskmon's body can operate on their own, with their respective minds? And that Duskmon can hypnotize people and absorb their powers? I don't think that Koichi ever displays either of those powers while he was Duskmon. Anyway, while not super-creative, a pretty decent demon man.

 6/10.

Velgrmon (a.k.a. Velgemon)

Velgrmon borrows his name from Hraesvelgr, a Nordic evil eagle able to summon storms with his wings. Definitely a worthy comparison to his 'brother' Garmr! Velgrmon is Koichi's Beast form hybrid when he is corrupted, and it's a pretty neat looking evil eagle-raven thing. He's definitely a fun monster that tries to have a fair amount of skeletal traits incorporated into its form, like the skulls on his shoulders, and the ribcage, and the clearly skeletal tail. He's a lot less gritty and grungy compared to older skeletal Digimon (compare Velgrmon with, say, SkullGreymon or SkullScorpiomon), but still a pretty badass design, honestly. Apparently Velgrmon is the true form of Duskmon, but Duskmon is embarrassed to transform into a giant death-bird? Okay, then? Apparently, Velgrmon's talons can blind the opponent, and its wings can warp space and blow enemies to another dimension? Yeah, the profiles really want to amp up Duskmon and Velgrmon's badassery, huh? I really don't remember Evil Koichi ever being that powerful -- certainly a powerful opponent, but not as reality-warping as the profiles imply. Frontier's anime model does a pretty great job at making Velgrmon even more monstrous, by the way, changing the bright, metallic red into a far duller shade, and lengthening Velgrmon's mouth ever so slightly to look just that much more sinister.

Anyway, a pretty neat monster bird. No complaints from me. Actually a bit of a shame that Velgrmon was never really seen anywhere else outside of Frontier tie-in virtual pets and trading card games, with the later-introduced Yatagaramon essentially taking over the resident 'dark bird of prey' spot from this dude. I like him.

 7/10.

Löwemon (a.k.a. Loweemon/Louwemon)

Koichi's true human spirit of darkness is a lion-man, not an eyeball man, which I've always felt to be a lot less interesting. Löwemon (pronounced Rebemon) borrows his name from the German name for 'lion', and since Löwemon/Koichi gets to make the heroic sacrifice, this ends up being the obligatory Leomon death of the series. Anyway, Löwemon is... he's pretty much what an armoured lion-man is, honestly, and if you can't tell, Löwemon and his subsequent evolutions and alternate forms is a sign of the same 'transforming toy' mentality that plagues the Agnimon and Wolfmon lines. Löwemonihimself isn't that bad, as it incorporates KaiserLeomon's tail and AncientSphinxmon's head as floating weapons, but I've always found him to be a pretty generic action hero knight. I am completely indifferent about this character design, if we're being honest. I'm not sure just why the spirit of darkness ends up producing a super-heroic monster, but eh. Anime logic, I suppose. Löwemon is described to be as powerful as the 'fused' Hybrids like Aldamon and Beowolfmon, but I don't remember enough of Frontier's battles to tell you if that's accurate. Löwemon definitely has a fair amount of action scenes, though. Anyway, a pretty okay humanoid knight-dude, I suppose. I like the usage of the kibble from the toy as this floating, translucent energy shield or whatever.

 5/10.

KaiserLeomon (a.k.a. JaegerLowemon)

Another very clunky monster that really feels like a bunch of armour pieces just glued onto a vaguely leonine body. KaiserLeomon (a.k.a. JaegerLöwemon in the dub) is not bad, but it's just so cluttered that it takes me a while to realize what I'm looking at. It suffers from the same transforming toy problems that Garmmon suffers from, although at least future artwork tends to streamline KaiserLeomon's toy kibble. He's not a design I particularly like, though I do appreciate what they're going for. Nothing really much to say about him. He's a pretty neat armour-lion, if we're being honest, just a bit too cluttered for my tastes. That's partially the Bandai artwork's fault, but they really could've stood to trim down a lot of details in this thing.

 3/10.

Raihimon (a.k.a. Reichmon/Laeighmon/Rhihimon)

While the official Japanese romanization is "Raihimon", it's clearly meant to be the Japanese Katakana approximation of Reich, the German word meaning 'empire', and since they've been consistent at using the actual German words (like, y'know, Löwemon) for the Digimon, I'm not going to write "Raihimon". Anyway, Reichmon here is the combined, Ultimate-level Human/Beast hybrid for the spirit of darkness which we never got to see in the anime. Thankfully, in this case, because Reichmon is kinda ugly and basically seems to incorporate random bits of Löwemon and KaiserLeomon. Also kinda think that the dude seems kinda stunted, but maybe that's because of the art style? The official bio notes that "none have seen this hero", which is kinda fitting because the only times this dude has ever appeared in is the Frontier-era virtual pet, as well as trading cards. Do enjoy the description of his oh-so-awesome-god-like attack in his official bio, though, which is "disabling the laws of physics in an area". Otherwise... m'eh, I say.

 1/10.

Grottemon (a.k.a. Grumblemon/Grotmon)

So now we move into the actual bad guys and not brainwashed-good-guys like Koichi. See, the first set of serious villains that the Frontier chosen children battle are the 'evil warriors' who have access to four of the ten pairs of spirits, and are working as Cherubimon's minions. The first of these evil warriors, and the one that lasted the longest, is Grottemon over here, who's this stocky, chunky little goblin-man with a simply huge schnoz. And... I actually found myself liking him a fair bit. Maybe I just kind of always loved the archetypal weakling goblins in fantasy games, and Grottemon definitely is designed to look like one, complete with a red cap (itself likely a reference to Redcap, a type of goblin in folklore) and a big-ass hammer. Grottemon embodies the Spirit of Earth, and while he doesn't quite unleash as much badassery as his comrades, Grottemon does actually manage to thread that line between credible threat and laughable recurring enemy amazingly well. Sure, he's clearly a thug compared to the other far more competent and badass warriors, but he was a relatively effective thug for the time that he was the main antagonist (our cast sort of fought Mercuremon, Arbormon and Ranamon alternatingly and simultaneously), but I actually reasonably enjoyed him a fair bit. Honestly, I can definitely see Grottemon here as a pretty natural evolution of Goburimon and his repaints.

Grottemon's profile notes that his weapons and armour are created out of the earth with his earth-manipulating powers, so it's interesting that while I don't think Grottemon ever did any Avatar earthbending-level of creating earthquakes and fissures, his powers are still kind of connected to the earth? I'm 90% sure he created Golemons out of the earth too at one point in the anime. Oh, I think he makes tunnels through the earth as well? And while the anime's version of Grottemon is a huge generic anime villain braggart, his official profile describes him as having an artisan soul that will follow anyone he acknowledges to the death. A neat ugly goblin man.

 5/10.

Gigasmon

Like the kids, the bad guys also have a 'beast' spirit, and as is typical for fantasy goblins, Grottemon's bigger form is some sort of lumbering ogre-thing, Gigasmon. I really think this is a pretty huge step down from Grottemon, though I do appreciate retaining his big nose and chunky lower arms. Gigasmon's silhouette just isn't particularly interesting, and the very bland set of colours they chose for him, while kinda appropriate for an earth elemental monster thing, also makes his features look pretty dull as what's basically a humanoid with tattoo-like markings. Interestingly, Gigasmon is noted to be created from the 'coalesced soil of the ground', quenched at a high temperature, having a ceramic screen. It's basically a larger, brutish Gigasmon, and there's a lot of personality that I think Grottemon loses wen evolving into this huge brute. Maybe with more colorization or accessories? I dunno.  I remembered being completely unimpressed with Gigasmon in the show, too, with constant swapping back-and-forth in the battle scenes that absolutely killed the pacing without any real showcase of how either form is more powerful.

 4/10.

Arbormon

The next Warrior we meet is Arbormon, representing the element of wood, and I really, really actually like this guy! He's like a Digimon version of some of the wackier, chunkier Japanese robots like those Zakus and Goufs from the Gundam franchise, with glowing eyes within a black void, and using a lot more rounded angles to contrast against the good guys's spiky, angular bits. Arbormon's most interesting feature is the zig-zag fanged mouth on his chest, which is just such an unexpected feature to what would have otherwise been a pretty boring wood robot doll-thing. Arbormon's profile notes that he is created out of data from the blueprints of a wooden karakuri puppet, which is... interesting! People tended to go straight on with a karakuri puppet's resemblance to humans, so the Zaku-esque proportions of Arbormon is definitely an interesting take. Arbormon is described to be able to control plants, shooting ivy from his back and controlling enemies like a marionette. And unlike most plant monsters, Arbormon is apparently resistant to fire -- other than his joints, for some reason.

In the anime, Arbormon was initially introduced as the archetypal super-serious villain with a deep voice, contrasting Grottemon's direct brutishness, Ranamon's catty bitchiness and Mercuremon's "mmmm yessss" mastermind villain deal. But as Arbormon gets thrust into the spotlight,  we then learn that he's actually really a big fan of deadpan comedy... and then turns it into black comedy as Arbormon is shown to be pretty damn ruthless, killing his own troops or random civilians without any real reason to. Arbormon is kind of like the Joker in that case, contrasting comedy and sociopathic savagery, only Arbormon's far more deadpan about it. I thought that was pretty interesting in a show that's otherwise been extremely basic with its characterizations, honestly.

 8/10.

Petaldramon

In a very pleasant twist, Arbormon's "Beast" mode is actually a monstrous beast made out of wood. There's really not much to connect Arbormon and Petaldramon visually other than maybe the zigzag mouth, but I'm definitely a huge fan of this weird plant dragon. Well, more of a giant lizard than anything, but I really love the huge flower neck-frill around his wooden head, as well as the leaves that make its gecko-like toes, the plants that grow all over his body, and the root-tail. It's really been some time since we last talked about something that's not just a dude in armour or a mechanical animal, huh? Petaldramon genuinely looks like a monster, and I'm definitely a big fan of it. Petaldramon is described in his bio and portrayed in the anime as a gigantic lazy glutton, swallowing everything in its path, and is pretty damn gigantic. Oh, and he can eat trees to make his body grow larger, and unleash sleep-inducing spores as well, which are pretty neat!

 9/10.

Ranamon (a.k.a. Lanamon)

Possessing the spirit of water, Ranamon here is Izumi's "rival". And while it's a tired trope of having the one sole lady in the good guys be rivals against the one sole lady in the bad guys, the way that this rivalry takes place ends up being through dragged-out parodies on pop idol popularity contests, and Ranamon's personality never really strays all that far from being a catty bitch. I don't think she's particularly competent either, being defeated a couple of times by accidentally helicoptering away when she transforms into her more powerful form of Calmaramon. Oh, and she's also completely vain, obsessed with popularity and her appearance and... and that's about it, really. The bio throws in an additional "haha, a woman's emotions is unstable" joke by noting that she was born from a weather forecasting system that causes her bad personality. Her design is predictably popular among the fandom, but I for one never quite really liked it. I do find the little chunky gloves she has to be neat, but she's otherwise just a generic human with random chunks of armour and fin-like ears. Comparing this to far more interesting mermaid-style Digimon like Mermaimon, or far more interesting takes on humanoid monsters in the past (look at Arukenimon, for example) and Ranamon just genuinely doesn't appeal to me at all. Throw in a piss-poor personality, and I have nothing but negative connotations with this lady, even if design-wise I feel Ranamon is a lot better than her opposite counterpart Fairymon. The depiction of female characters in Frontier isn't just a step back from its three predecessors... it's the equivalent of instead of taking a step forwards, you trip and fall into a pitfall and then broke both your ankles and your hip in the process.

 2/10.

Calmaramon (a.k.a. Karumaramon)

Calmaramon, in contrast, is such a more interesting improvement as a monstrous creature compared to Lanamon. What an interesting way to craft a mer-octopus Ranamon's humanoid body ends up still looking pretty human (albeit with a squid-themed hat and huge, long tapering claws), but the way that she juts out of the larger squid body's mouth is extremely interesting, and the huge eyeballs that are arranged in a ring around the squid body is also very interesting. Calmaramon is a way to show that just because a monster has a very humanoid body doesn't mean that you can't go all-in with giving it more monstrous traits. Apparently, Calmaramon can even retract her humanoid figure into the squid for protection, and just act as a squid, kind of like a hermit crab. Also, as mentioned before, she can use her tentacles like a helicopter to fly around. I actually like Calmaramon a fair bit, and this is such a beastlier-looking monster compered to the likes of Vritramon or Shutumon -- while keeping the humanoid part of her body around.

Shame that the Frontier anime completely failed to capitalize on Calmaramon, and used it as a "haha, the vain girl has a monstrous beast form, HAHA YOU LOOK UGLY", and Calmaramon spends basically her entire scene getting pissed that the kids that she should be killing are insulting her appearance.

 9/10.

Mercuremon (a.k.a. Mercurymon/Mercurmon)

Technically the de facto leader of the evil warriors until Duskmon shows up and Cherubimon decides to get off of his ass, Mercuremon is another one that reminds me of another Gundam villain mech (the Hambrabi, look it up). Mercuremon represents the element of metal, although his powers and design all play around the actual reflective property of metal instead of being a Magneto-esque battler, which is actually an interesting take. I really do like that pair of mirrors on his arms that he uses as shields, as well as that stylish, eyeless mirror face with red lips painted on. Mercuremon used to be called Mercurymon, but due to a subsequent Digimon introduced also called Mercurymon, and based the Roman god Mercury, the official romanization of this dude is apparently now Mercuremon. In the Japanese, obviously, there's less of a problem, with Mercuremon being called Merukyuremon, and the Roman God-based Mercurymon being called Merukurimon.

Anyway, Mercuremon is a pretty decent and different-looking mirror-metal-robot golem monster thing. I also liked his portrayal in the anime. Sure, he's a pretty generic aristocratic "mhmhmhmhm fufufufu yesss all according to my plan"  villain, but that's definitely entertaining. Mercuremon is also shown to be easily the most competent villain until Duskmon shows up, basically being able to teleport through mirrors, and actually one-shot the big angel dude Seraphimon by reflecting his attack and straight-up murder Seraphimon! That honestly was a pretty well-done moment, and Mercuremon really hammers home the "no more jokes, time for seriousness!" change of tone... until, of course, Frontier flubs it by returning straight to comedic, pacing-breaking bad filler episodes. Oh well, Mercuremon's design is still pretty neat-o.

 7/10.

Sephirothmon (a.k.a. Sakkakumon)

In a pretty interesting twist, Mercuremon's Beast form is a straight-up Sephiroth, the ten attributes in the religion of Kabbalah through which the Infinite will reveal Itself, and both the physical realm and the chain of metaphysical realms. Most people, of course, don't quite know the actual religious importance of the Sephiroth, and just associate the name with the villain of the ever-popular Final Fantasy VII. Sephirothmon is certainly an interesting take on the thing, with the general shape of the Sephiroth tree being shown, but with eyeballs all over and a huge, sexy red pair of lips on the top sphere. In the anime, Sephirothmon is straight-up gigantic, the size of a small building, and sucks up all our heroes. Apparently each sphere in Sephirothmon contains his minions, which our heroes have to fight in some Arkham Asylum "greatest fears" deal. And for the most part, it actually gives some of our secondary characters like Junpei and Tomoki the only real huge moments of characterization. For Izumi... it's another popularity contest with Ranamon.

Sephirothmon can also re-configure his body,  collapsing the bridges that hold the spheres together to turn him into a giant serpentine set of balls, which I thought was insanely hilarious. Sephirothmon is noted in the bio to have each of his spheres associated with an attribute of the other Warriors Ten, allowing it to utilize and absorb those attacks as necessary. Quite hilariously, outside of Frontier, Sephirothmon made a cameo in Xros Wars: Hunter as a ferris wheel in an amusement. No, really.

Not my style of Digimon, if we're being honest, and honestly a bit minimal-effort, but at least it's different.

 4/10.

BlackSeraphimon (a.k.a. ShadowSeraphimon)

As the final opponent within Sephirothmon, our heroes have to face off against Mercuremon's... 'true' body? Which then evolves into BlackSeraphimon, in reference to how Mercuremon's killed the real Seraphimon and absorbed his data. Unlike most black repaints, though, BlackSeraphimon actually isn't all black and adopts a far more stylish set of green colours with dark purple wings, accenting both Mecuremon's true nature and the 'evil shadow' deal without just slapping black and shrugging it off. A pretty stylish black repaint, honestly, and the transformation of angelic wings into actual bat-wings is pretty neat. It's actually a fun bit of drama as our heroes have to figure out how to beat Mercuremon while still saving Seraphimon's data that Mercuremon is using to fight the heroes, until, of course, punching really hard works. Eh.

 3/10.

Burgamon (a.k.a. Burgermon/EbiBurgermon/HamBurgermon)

I'm saving the actual final final villains for next week, so let's cover a bunch of side characters. First up is Burgamon here, a Child-level Digimon that's just this cute little gremlin with a burger hat. There's a whole village of these burger things, and they make food! Which makes them target for the evil, hungry monster Petaldramon. I don't particularly like burgamon, but they are like ten thousand times cuter than Bokomon and Neamon. Why not use this as a mascot?

There are a couple different ones, because the Frontier anime staff likes them, I think. EbiBurgamon  is apparently a Buragamon that has taken in data of a shrimp... are shrimp burgers a thing? Eh. There's also Burgamon Adult, a pair of 'parents' that have clothes and onion heads. The English dub renames them HamBurgermon, because having the two repaints have different names, but the actual  evolved stage have the same name, is a bit weird. Anyway, these guys are a thing.

 3/10.

TorikaraBallmon

TorikaraBallmon (literally spicy chicken nugget mon) here is apparently the Baby stage of Burgamon, and the children of the Burgamon that end up being kidnapped by Petaldramon to make food for him. Eh. I have no strong emotions either way for this one. Doesn't even look like a tasty chicken nugget. Like, at least Vanillite looks like an ice cream, y'know? Torikarara here just is a pretty bland visual gag that fails in the visual department.

 1/10.

Darcmon

One of the supposed themes in Digimon Frontier is the ancient war between the human-shaped Digimon and the beast-shaped Digimon, and apparently some inherent racism between them that caused Cherubimon to revolt against the two other archangels. Interesting, right? Not really, because beyond brief mentions in backstories, this very, very interesting aspect is never actually mentioned or explored, and our heroes just shrug everything off and beat up the bad guys, who are happy to just be mustache-twirling idiots. The closest the Frontier cast ever comes to this is in the non-serial movie "Island of Giant Digimon", where they actually come across human-shaped and beast-shaped Digimon fighting, but it's just portrayed as a bunch of guys beating each other up without much attempt at trying to explore any sort of interesting themes.

Anyway, one of the biggest leaders of the human-shaped Digimon in that movie is Darcmon, who's an Adult-level angel Digimon based on Joan of Arc, if Joan of Arc dressed like a fantasy barbarian, had angel wings, and wore a mask. There's really nothing really tying Darcmon with her real-life counterpart, honestly, beyond being a generic warrior woman. Darcmon is described in her bio as an angel, and the 'advance force' of an angel Digimon that serves as headliner of the vanguard. Turns out, though, in an interesting subversion, the beautiful humanoid angel is actually a villain, and Darcmon is merely the Adult-stage level that the movie's main villain, Murmmukusmon, transforms back and forth from to antagonize both tribes. Anyway, I'm completely indifferent about Darcmon's design, and this probably would've gotten a 0/10 if I was in a worse mood, I think.

 3/10.

Hippogriffomon

A hippogryph (or hippogriff) in Greek mythology is a part-eagle, part-horse beast. Completely different from the part-eagle, part-lion gryphon! There's definitely some leonine aspects that go into Hippogriffomon's design, though, with front legs that are neither avian nor equine. This isn't a bad design, honestly, a perfectly serviceable hippogriff monster with a nice horse tail, but I dunno -- I felt that the earlier Griffomon did a lot more with at least trying to give a unique Digimon spin on the griffon concept. Hippogriffomon is just kinda there. She's a Perfect-level, and while introduced in the movie as the bestial guise (and a Perfect-level) that Murmukusmon takes to influence the beast tribe, in the video games she's basically turned into one of the default Perfect-levels for Griffomon,  something mentioned in the official bio as well.

Hippogriffomon's made a couple of appearances in other anime series, being part of Gravimon's army in Xros Wars, and one of the previous Chosen Children's partner Digimon in Digimon Adventure Tri, where the Hippogriffomon ascended to become that world's Zhuqiaomon. Anyway... kinda boring design, honestly. It's cool because hippogriffs are cool, but not that much as a digimon.

 5/10.

Murmukusmon (a.k.a. Murmuxmon)

Murmukusmon (borrowing his name from Murmux, a minor devil) is another Ultimate-level devil-man Digimon, and he's... well, we've seen a lot of better-looking ones, haven't we? I do like the bestial lower body and the somewhat intricate head he's got going on, but Murmukusmon is just a design that has felt really forgettable to me, and his role as a villain in a pretty bleh Frontier movie and as a bleh villain in the Digimon Next manga really didn't do him any favours. Still, Murmukusmon is noted to be a corrupted fallen angel Digimon, and apparently is served by a legion of Griffomon? The anime uses a far gaunter model for him, but I genuinely can't really bring myself to care for him when he's just another evil demon-man that doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the concept. And in a setting where we get a new demon-man Digimon every couple of entries, Murmukusmon ends up just being the most generic and least impressive looking one out of them.

 3/10.

Ornismon

Throughout Digimon Frontier we kept getting told of the heroic deeds of the Ten Warriors, whose powers are channeled by the Chosen Children as well as the evil bad guys... and Ornismon here is an Ultimate-level Digimon that were defeated and sealed by the Ten Warriors in the past. It was Murmukusmon's plan to revive this big, angry snarling dinosaur-bird (it's so big that Murmukusmon can sit on its head). And it's... it's just a big screeching bird, honestly, and one that can make huge winds, so I genuinely felt like it was kind of equal parts a letdown while also enjoying Ornismon for basically being a kaiju that even a demon-magician-man wanted to take control of. Kind of boring as far as Digimon go, with many other interesting-looking monster bird Digimon like Birdramon, Velgrmon, Yatagaramon et cetera, but Ornismon is a pretty pleasant giant bird. Pretty colourful, if nothing else, and I like the fact that this thing exists even if it's not super-duper relevant. Bit of a shame that Bandai tended to exclude a lot of the Frontier-debuting Digimon from their video games, because the likes of Ornismon and Murmukusmon certainly would've easily been a neat fit into even the aesthetic style of the older Digimon.

 6/10.

FlaWizarmon (a.k.a. FlameWizardmon)

FlaWizarmon, or his far-less headache-inducing English dub name, FlameWizardmon, is introduced in the D-Scanner tie-in virtual pets with Frontier, but where most of the D-Scanner exclusive characters have been forgotten by Bandai, FlaWizarmon here manages to show up in a couple of scenes in the Frontier movie. He's an Adult-level Digimon that's clearly a fire-themed version of Wizarmon, but it's not just a recolour. FlaWizarmon straight-up has a completely original getup with a hat that's on fire, goggles, chunky pants and boots... but still retains Wizarmon's scarecrow-demon face. I absolutely love the fact that FlaWizarmon carries around matchsticks instead of wands, which is just such a fun little detail. FlaWizarmon, in addition to showing up as a background character in Frontier, ended up popping up in Xros Wars: Hunters as a minor recurring ally. Interestingly, FlaWizarmon has been portrayed in some material as an Armour evolution of Tentomon, Wormmon or Wizarmon himself with the Digimental of Courage, a.k.a. the fire one. Considering how FlaWizarmon's profile notes how much more confident and outgoing he is compared to the shy and reclusive Wizarmon, it's definitely an appropriate one even without the fire themes!

 8/10.