Digimon Reviews, Episode 35: Commandramon and Friends

Huh, I apparently mis-remembered things, because in 2005, before the debut of the fifth Digimon series, another set of virtual pets are released after the Pendulum X series. The Accel Genome virtual pets, which are the virtual pets that the Digimon Savers anime very broadly draw form. I say very broadly, because some of the Digimon designs that are taken from Accel Genome ended up being retooled and redesigned to much that most wikis tended to take the first Falcomon line introduced in the Accel Genome virtual pet as a different species compared to the Falcomon that debuted in the Savers anime. Oh well! This particular set of reviews is going to go through the Digimon introduced "Evil Genome" and "Nature Genome" version of the virtual pets.

To those less well-versed (or plain don't care) in the intricacies of the virtual pet toys and familiar with the series via the anime, let's just say these are a bunch of dudes that, by and by, ended up never appearing anywhere outside of virtual pets and trading cards. I've been sounding like a broken record ever since Frontier, and honestly? That's kind of the truth with a lot of these.
_________________________________________________________

Bommon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby I
• Type: Slime
• Attribute: None

So we're going to start off with the "Evil Genome" virtual pet, and the theme for this one is a combination of demons and robots. And the Baby I for this virtual pet is Bommon. Not to be confused with Bombmon, introduced far later, that has an extra syllable in Japanese. Bommon is... kind of underwhelming, really. It's an upside-down bomb with three eyes. I do kind of sort of like the fact that the bomb's fuse is a tail, but it's not particularly revolutionary or creative. The profile gives us a detail about how the fuse basically runs out right before Bommon evolves, so no one knows if this poor baby will explode into a billion pieces if the fuse does reach the main bomb body. It's not the most creative design and a fair bit more complex than most traditional Baby I's, but comparing this to the baby designs ever since the 02 series, I have to give the design team kudos for not just making this a simpler version of the Child-level Digimon they're trying to highlight.

 2/10.
_________________________________________________________

Missimon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby II
• Type: Machine
• Attribute: None

Huh, Missimon here is actually kind of neat, this weird conical-faced missile robot thing with arms and, y'know, flies around like a missile. Again, like Bommon, this is a wee bit too complex for my liking for a Baby II, but whatever. It's pleasant enough of a design and creative enough to not just be a simpler, dumber-looking version of the Child-level Digimon. Missimon's profile notes that it basically continues to fly non-stop until it evolves into a Child-stage level, and is unable to stop itself before then. Missimon's possible evolutions include the two new Child-level evolutionary lines we're going to spotlight today -- Commandramon and Dracumon, but other than those, this flying missile can also evolve into some old classics like Hagurumon (the most 'logical' choice out of the six options), Gizamon, Tentomon and Penmon.

Missimon's only appearance in official fiction is in the Next manga, where the entire evolutionary line ends up making the bulk of Barbamon's army alongside the entire Funbeemon line.

 4/10.
_________________________________________________________

Commandramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Virus

The first of the Child-level evolutions is Commandramon here, who is... umm... okay? So the theme here is military dragon-dinosaurs? Commandramon is an Agumon ripoff who's slathered in pixelated camo paint, and has dressed up in military armour, and runs around toting a goddamn assault rifle? It's not my thing, but it's honestly ridiculous enough that I can't say that I hate this thing. But I certainly don't like it. 

Commandramon's profile notes that he's part of some sort of organization called the "D-Brigade", which is comprised entirely of dragon-cyborg Digimon. Which you'd think would contain the likes of Megadramon or Mugendramon or MetalGreymon, but in practice it's just Commandramon's entire evolutionary line and no one else, like some sort of elitist club. I dunno. I do appreciate the camo job being in pixels, I guess? It's kind of so ridiculous so I can't hate him.

Regiments of Commandramon show up in Digimon Next as the primary minions of Barbamon's army, and surprisingly, Commandramon would also serve the same role in the much newer web-series Digimon Seekers. 

 6/10.
_________________________________________________________

Sealsdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Virus

While Commandramon has a couple of other options for Adult-level evolutions (Thunderbirdmon, Dobermon and Snimon, none of which make particular sense) his default Adult-level evolution is Sealsdramon here, who is a far more coherent design, this raptor-man with huge, chunky arms, and a cool mechanized monocle. And what appears to be two swords attached onto his back. Sealsdramon, despite looking like he should go on an audition to be the main character in like a Halo video game or something, is actually a black ops agent whose specialty is assassination, able to move fast and stab people in the back with his combat daggers and such. 

A lot more coherent of a design than Commandramon, I think, and a pretty cool one. Sealsdramon is also one of the few designs on this page to actually make it into a Digimon anime, showing up as a generic background filler in the Xros Wars anime. Again, like Commandramon, the idea of a cyborg stealthy black ops ninja soldier dinosaur-man thing is just so ridiculous I can't hate this guy, even if he's not my type of design.

 6/10.
_________________________________________________________

Tankdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Machine
• Attribute: Virus

Whoa, okay, what? After two pretty 'safe' dinosaur-robotmen, Sealsdramon's default evolution is this thing? Tankdramon looks just utterly metal, a tank with a fleshy humanoid upper body attached to it. Look at just how much random detail is packed into this thing! Two different sets of gigantic cannons on the sides, spiky fingers, a draconic face with a golden metal helmet, random spikes arranged as fangs on the front side of the tank... Tankdramon probably hangs out in the same pub that Cannonbeemon does, honestly.

As much as I do find this design pretty dang hilarious in all the wrong ways, I do feel like Tankdramon probably works better taken out of the Commandramon/Sealsdramon/Darkdramon family because they all have a pretty consistent cyborg military lizardman aspect. Tankdramon is just so fucking awesomely weird, being this organic dragon-man embedded and fused with a literal tank. His profile notes that Tankdramon is an expert in riot-suppressing. Presumably by blowing the rioters up. And then napalming half the city just to be sure. Apparently Tankdramon's profile notes that it is equipped with mini-nukes, so... yeah, the D-Brigade certainly has different ideas about what riot suppression means.

 8/10.
_________________________________________________________

Darkdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Virus

Tankdramon's default evolution is the Ultimate-level Darkdramon, and... I'm not particularly enthused with this one. I mean, sure, he's obviously some sort of humanoid cyborg-man, with gigantic butterfly wings made up of energy, but the artwork isn't really posed all that well to make me really get any sort of memorable detail beyond some vague blue/yellow Gundam.

I really feel that they end up making this look a whole less draconic or robotic than the line seems to be leading up to. Where did all the military stuff go? I feel we've seen this kind of 'dragon man' in many other Ultimate-level Digimon before Very boring, honestly, even by the standards of this frannchise. And I dunno. I guess Darkdramon might be someone out there's favourite Digimon, but he's honestly just one in a long, long list of other sorts of random cyborg dragon-men. Some have suggested that this is also meant to be a Cyberdramon evolution, which not only leaves the Commandramon line high to dry, but... it's also nowhere as cool as Cyberdramon. 


Points for that giant weapon arm being called the "Gigastick Lance", which has to be the most memorable aspect of this creature. One of the Bio-Hybrids in Digimon Savers actually uses Darkdramon (or 'Bio-Darkdramon') as its final form, but it was quite underwhelming there too, looking, again, as just some dude in a powered suit. 

 2/10.
_________________________________________________________

Chaosmon

• Alternate Names: Khaosmon
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Unique
• Attribute: Vaccine

Darkdramon can evolve further, though, by Jogress-evolving with BanchoLeomon into this thing, Chaosmon. And... and what am I looking at, exactly? Man, the official artwork for this period of time is just pretty poorly posed, huh? I had to look up other pieces of artwork, and one arranged in a more neutral pose shows that Chaosmon is basically the Omegamon ripoff that combines BanchoLeomon and Darkdramon as the arms. The main Chaosmon body is a very generic design, I feel. Really sells how unmemorable and bland Darkdramon's design is, though, because I was staring at Chaosmon's official artwork for a while before realizing that that huge blue-red thing was meant to be Darkdramon's face.

Anyway, Chaosmon is apparently the literal embodiment of a computer bug, noted as the "codename for a Digimon that should not exist", and that it has a very short but powerful lifespan as a result of that. I like that little backstory, making it look like this bizarre thing is just one of many different permutations of what could be a "Chaosmon". Honestly, though, I mostly like it for the sheer ridiculousness that this is a generic anime god-knight dude that tries to look so cool, but he has a goddamn delinquent lion-man head for an arm complete with hat. I don't know. It gets some bonus points because of the ridiculousness of the BanchoLeomon arm. 

 3/10.

_________________________________________________________

UltimateChaosmon

• Alternate Names: UltimateKhaosmon
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Virus

UltimateChaosmon is technically one of the secret Digimon introduced in the "Ultimate Genome" version of the game, but since it shares its name with Chaosmon, I'll include it here. So while Chaosmon is the evolution-that-should-not-be combination of BantyoLeomon and Darkdramon, UltimateChaosmon here is what you get when those two combine even further with other Ultimate-level Digimon Sleipmon (a centaur knight) and Valdurmon (a holy bird), formin this... this wackily bizarre eldritch abomination. Look at this thing! It's just this weird, nondescript... thing that really sells an abomination-that-should-not-be better than the Omegamon ripoff that is Chaosmon. I really do wish that the designers did something more creative than just drawing two huge eyes, a red arch, and then attaching a bunch of random details (angel wing, devil wing, bird claw, lion head, dragon head, blue arm) to it, which feels a eldritch version of Chimairamon. I actually like it.  Also love the little regular-Chaosmon body that sort of hangs down below, probably not really all that useful anymore. 

UltimateChaosmon hasn't really appeared in anything other than the Accel Genome series and a brief cameo in the Xros Wars manga as minions of ZeedMillenniumon, but it's certainly a weird, unexpected way to do the fused form of a delinquent lion-man swordsman, a cyborg dragon-man, a giant holy bird and a six-legged centaur knight-man.

 7/10.
_________________________________________________________

Dracumon

• Alternate Names: Dracmon (alternate spelling)
• Stage: Child
• Type: Undead
• Attribute: Virus

Dracumon here is the other possible new Child-level evolution for Missimon, and he's... he's kind of neat? He was obscure for a bit, but then just kept showing up everywhere, and for good reason, too. I've not paid attention to it when it first showed up, but it is a really creepier version of Impmon as a little devil-child. 

Dracumon's main thing is that those eyes on its head are just drawings on its mask. Its real eyes are on its palms! That's based on the yokai Te-no-me, but it's also popularized by some other modern horror monsters like the dude from Pan's Labyrinth. 

Dracumon is the biggest prankster in the Dark Area (a.k.a. digital hell), with its claim to fame being nearly getting itself killed trying to graffiti the faces of the Four Holy Beasts. Dracumon draws his name from Dracula, but apparently the lack of any evident vampiric visual inspiration is explained by Dracumon "forgetting to suck blood". Silly Dracumon! I was ready to dismiss this imp as being unmemorable, but that profile won me over.

Dracumon shows up in the Xros Wars: Hunters anime as the partner of antagonistic human character Ren Tobari, and Dracumon's assigned evolution in that anime series is Yaksamon, one of Veemon's armour evolutions. The evolution sequence was short, but it has Dracumon shove its palm-eyeballs into its head, then transform into the doll that Yaksamon carries around as a backpack. Huh??? Dracumon would also show up in Digimon: Ghost Game, tormenting people via creepy Instagram copy-pastas and our heroes actually force it to give up its eyeballs to restore the damages that it has done. Okay! 

 7/10.
_________________________________________________________

Sangloupmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Demon Beast
• Attribute: Virus

Dracumon is able to evolve into a couple of different Adult-level Digimon in Evil Genome, including Meramon, Dobermon and Gekomon (???), but his default Adult-level evolution is Sangloupmon, one of those Digimon that never made it into an anime. And frankly, it's kind of surprising -- Sangloupmon is quite literally a vampiric wolf with a pretty cool design, and he's certainly far more pleasant than the likes of Gaogamon, so I'm honestly surprised that Sangloupmon hasn't been used as a villain, at least. It's weird. 

Sangloupmon is a vampire wolf (Sang Loup is French for blood wolf), who is bloodsucking but also apparently noble? His profile notes that Sangloupmon is able to break himself into data and travel anywhere in the digital world, or into the opponent's shadow, a fun little adaptation of a vampire's classic "transform into mist" ability. That's very cool -- a lot of classic vampire tropes, but since it's done with the often-abandoned 'vampires and wolves' connection, it feels special. 

I really, really like just how over-the-top the design is. The bat-wings covering Sangloupmon's ears (and a second pair on its shoulders) is one thing, but look at those legs. The front legs has blades for claws, and a whole mass of scythes and blades pointing up. And its rear legs has buzzsaws around it like sock warmers. Crazy, Sangloupmon! Love it. I had dismissed this as 'just a cool wolf', but it's gotten an increased score in my books now. 

 8/10.
_________________________________________________________

Matadrmon (a.k.a. Matadormon/Matadoramon)

• Alternate Names: Matadormon/Matadoramon (EN dub), Matadrumon (alt spelling)
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Undead
• Attribute: Virus

Sangloupmon's default Perfect-level evolution is Matadrmon, because the katakana used for this guy's name is mataduru instead of matadoru, which would be the appropriate one for a Japanese translation of matador. I'm going to assume it's a typo that stuck, so I'm going to call this dude Matadormon.

And... and it's an interesting Perfect-level evolution, being based on an oriental martial artist with long, flowing robes and gigantic blades for fingers and for his feet. And his face, too, which the official artwork doesn't display clearly, but his entire face is just a goddamn bladed triangle with purple sharp-angled sunglasses or something serving as eyes. It's an utterly bizarre face. And Matadormon is... sort of like a matador, but also a martial artist, and also sucks blood? It's kind of a weird combination of themes, honestly. 

This martial artist, who also befuddles its enemies with its matador-inspired dancing, and is also a vampire, and also by the way it has swords and spikes up the wazoo? Matadormon actually gets a relatively decent role in Xros Wars as a recurring villain that terrorizes Sweet Zone, and while he's technically an arc villain, I didn't really remember him. Matadormon would also show up alongside fellow vampire Vamdemon in Ghost Game, and I'm just always befuddled by this strange, triangle-headed vampire!

 3/10.
_________________________________________________________

GrandDracumon

• Alternate Names: GranDracmon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Demon Beast
• Attribute: Virus

Matadormon's Ultimate evolution is... well, it's an interesting choice for an evolutionary line that's about vampires but not wanting to revert to the basic 'Dracula' tropes that the Vamdemons have a stranglehold on. So GrandDracumon is... a centaur-like demon man with bat wings, and two giant eyeless shark-heads attached to the front legs of his centaur body? Umm... okay? It doesn't make any less sense than the sword matador kung fu man, but it sure is imposing and fits the sometimes-association of vampires and demons. It's nicely compared to fellow centaur demon-man Gulfmon, but the wings, the vampire outfit and the two giant eyeless shark-heads does make GrandDracumon look a bit more impressive. 

GrandDracumon is noted to be a master of charming people, and his voice will cause most angel Digimon to immediately 'fall down' and be corrupted. He's also so high-ranking amongst the demon lords of the digital world that the Seven Demon Lords respect him, because GrandDracumon's undying body is particularly undying even among the undeads, and it knows the secrets of how the Dark Area (i.e. hell) is formed, and knows something about 'Death-X'. But he's not telling! That's quite an impressive feat for what is otherwise 'just' another Ultimate demon Digimon! 

 6/10.

_________________________________________________________

Swimmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Tropical Fish
• Attribute: Vaccine

Swimmon is the other Child-level evolution that's brand-new to Nature Genome, but unlike Dracumon, Swimmon doesn't have a clearly-defined Adult, Perfect and Ultimate level 'default' evolution. Poor Swimmon! He ends up being assigned to old armor-level Seahomon as the most logical Adult evolution, and his other evolutions are Nohemon and Igamon, neither of which are super-aquatic. Swimmon is kind of boring, though, just a gaudy and colourful tropical fish with a disturbingly toothy mouth. I like tropical fish, but they really could've done... something, I dunno. Other than that disturbing mouth, Swimmon is kind of "just a fish" in both design and lore. It's not unpleasant to look at and we don't really have a proper fish-themed Child-level Digimon, but damn if it isn't boring. Like, I kind of sort-of appreciate having just-a-fish, but at the same time it's... kind of just a fish.

 4/10.

_________________________________________________________

Spinomon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Dinosaur
• Attribute: Virus

So while Nature Genome doesn't have any new Adult or Perfect level evolutions other than the Falcomon line, nearly all of its Ultimate-level options (other than Rosemon and UlforceVeedramon) are brand-new. So let's start off with Spinomon here, who can evolve from either Triceramon, Yatagaramon or Jyagamon. It's... interesting? We've got a bunch of "dinosaurs but with blades" a while back, and Spinomon is basically a generic theropodal dinosaur with a generic dragon head and a fuck-ton of bone spikes and blades on his back that it can shoot out like bullets, while borrowing the name from the Spinosaurus. It's... it's not a bad design, but it honestly falls into the same Valdurmon problem as not looking impressive enough for an Ultimate-level. 

Still, after the glut of dragonmen and knightmen, it's neat to see Digimon that's just a dinosaur with a fuck-ton of swords jutting out of his back. Could probably gone with a bit more of a redesign to incorporate the gimmick better, but it's a neat monster. A Spinomon is one of the forms taken by one of the Bio-Hybrids in the Savers anime, who serves as the 'muscle' of the group. 

 5/10.
_________________________________________________________

Neptunemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: God Man
• Attribute / Subgroup: Vaccine / Olympos XII

So since they've run out of the Seven Sins to make huge HYPE Ultimate-level Digimon, around this time they decided to make a brand-new set of Ultimate-level Digimon, this time based on the Greco-Roman gods, the Olympos XII. And while at least the various Digimon fiction tended to play up whatever Demon Lord of the year they get to star, the Olympos XII nearly never got any respect. Neptunemon, based on the Neptune, god of the seas, is... he's a very generic mermaid-man with a lot of accessories and a huge mace. It's honestly pretty underwhelming and doesn't particularly scream "god of the sea", and hilariously in his debut appearance he evolves from Gerbemon of all things.

Clearly the anime team doesn't really have much respect for Neptunemon either, setting him up as one of the earlier disposable commanders in Xros Wars, leading a bunch of aquatic-themed evil Digimon. Overall, though... he's an okay mermaid knight monster, I guess, but he looks so generic that I don't buy that this is the SUPER DUPER AWESOME GOD OF THE OCEAN. I'll give Neptunemon this -- he doesn't look as stupid as the rest of the Olympos XII, those silly try-hard morons.

 4/10.

_________________________________________________________

Minervamon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: God Man
• Attribute / Subgroup: Virus / Olympos XII

Introduced in a video game around this time is another member of the Olympos XII subgroup we mentioned last week. Minervamon here is based on the goddess of wisdom, Minerva, and she's... a little girl dressed in a belly-showing armour (not very wise, there) with an oversized sword? Minervamon is just pretty baffling, honestly. She's clearly meant to appeal to the loli crowd (a pretty problematic thing that I'm not going to touch upon here) especially with some questionable artwork that more recent trading cards have given her. Hell, Xros Wars would even introduce an 'aged-up' legal version of her mostly for fanservice. I dunno, though. Minervamon is just such a weird, weird random take on the goddess Minerva, and throw in the very unflattering bio that's just a sexist jab at "ha ha, women can get violent because of their unstable emotions", which just adds to my dislike of this whole thing. I dunno. She's got a snake motif going on, which I guess is sometimes rarely associated to Minerva. And I kind of do like that, but the rest of her is just such a weird anime loli girl going on that I'm definitely not a fan. And while it's always been pretty weird that the monster you make into your subservient partner is a human-like figure, it's even weirder if it's a bikini-clad little girl. Even without that, Minervamon is such a bland and boring "human in cosplay" design.

 1/10.

_________________________________________________________