(Whoops, the wrong article went up. That's what I get for editing multiple reviews at the same time)
Kiriha is interesting in that, just like Taiki, he is associated with a bunch of Digimon, and while watching the show it does feel that he ends up having two "partners" in Greymon and MailBirdramon. It's interesting that despite having a warlike "I will be the strongest in the world" mentality, both of his Digimon partners that have any sort of personality share the same mind as him, which is why they get along pretty well.
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Greymon II
So Kiriha ends up hanging out with a new, redesigned Greymon. And yeah, the official Bandai name for this beast is Greymon (2010 Anime Ver), but that's annoying and I'll just call him Greymon II. It's a very neat take on a classic design, in a far, far superior way than poor old GeoGreymon or the X-Antibody version was. Plus, in a neat bit of mythology gag, Greymon II's coloured blue with orange highlights, similar to the original virus-attribute version of MetalGreymon! He's also drawn to be somewhat more accurate to how we undesrstand real-life theropodal dinosaurs to move around, as opposed to the original Greymon's more Godzilla-inspired look. Neat! I do like how Gremon II still have three massive horns, but they are arrayed differently from the classic Greymons, with the two 'ear' horns mounted differently and jutting from the side and backwards. Also like the fact that his tail ends in a stump with a bayonet attached to it. Another detail I like is the fact that the black-coloured upper half of his head has its own 'teeth' jutting out, which is a nice little detail. Overall, it's a design that manages to be unmistakably a Greymon, but also different enough to feel like its own thing. Good job, designers! I do note that I dislike the random knee-spikes that he has. But that's a pretty small complaint.
Greymon in the anime is kind of a flat character, basically just being a massive, angry brute that just wants to fight and just roars around like Kiriha's personal attack dog. If said attack dog is a giant mutant tyrannosaurus. In a nice moment, Greymon's first spoken line of dialogue after nearly half of the original season is asking Kiriha if he's all right after shielding an attack meant for his partner. Anyway, it's pretty neat to see that after so many various Greymon variants noting that this is an uncontrollable beast that is hard to control, only for all of their official iterations to be basically big dinosaur puppies, that we have an iteration of Greymon that is still allied with the good guys, but is a fight-hungry monster. A far better Greymon variant than GeoGreymon.
7/10.MailBirdramon
Poor, poor MailBirdramon. When I first saw him, I really liked MailBirdramon a lot! Hell, he manages a great job at looking pretty different from his inspiration -- Birdramon -- that I completely didn't catch that MailBirdramon shares a name with one of the original partner Digimon until after I finished watching the show, which is a neat feat. He's a pretty cool-looking robot-jet eagle, and... and there's not really much for me to elaborate beyond that. I like his wings, I like his segmented neck and his cool, spiky dragon-head... but poor MailBirdramon ends up not really being much but look cool. Perhaps the biggest insult that despite the DigiXros'd versions of MailBirdramon and MetalGreymon being involved in the creation of the bigger Shoutmon X-whatever forms, MailBirdramon is always left out of the count.
Initially introduced as the 'brains' to Greymon's brawn, MailBirdramon seems to be the smart adviser sort of character to Kiriha, but as the show went on, it's clear that the writers didn't really give a shit about MailBirdramon, only including him as literally a power-up item to Greymon. It's like the Starmons or Ballistamon, but without any sort of defining characterization beyond being loyal to Kiriha. A bit of a shame, really. Still, while not quite as interesting as a character, MailBirdramon is still a pretty cool-looking bird, even if that claw-tail that's obviously meant to be a power-up part when he combines with Greymon is kind of obtrusive. Still, ultimately a design that I don't mind, and it's hard to say that I don't like this badass-looking metal bird.
9/10.Cyberdramon II
My original quick draft of Cyberdramon II rated him as "2/5 or 3/5, nice concept, could do better", but then the more I look at this design, the more I realize that... I might actually like this iteration of Cyberdramon better than the original Cyberdramon. And I like the original Cyberdramon a lot! I think part of why I didn't really think highly of Cyberdramon in my first draft is that I'm looking mostly at galleries of the official Bandai artwork, and the one for Cyberdramon isn't the best-looking iteration of the character.
See, Cyberdramon II has taken the concept of Cyberdramon and made it really different while keeping the same silhouette, and I really have to respect them for doing that. The original Cyberdramon is basically a dragon-man in a suit, basically similar to a sleek version of what a Tokusatsu hero would look like. But Cyberdramon II takes the silhouette and tries to do a different sort of concept -- what if instead of being as sleek and as cyborg-dragonman like, this cyborg dragon goes full-on monstrous? And I know there's a lot of fans out there that prefer the original Cyberdramon. Completely understandable, and I can definitely see why. But I do actually think that despite being a massive Digimon Tamers fanboy, I do like Cyberdramon II a whole lot.
Let's just quickly go through Cyberdramon II's role in the anime. He's Greymon II, but without the brief character progression and with even less of a personality. In retrospect it's sort of like Tamers' Cyberdramon, but Cyberdramon II is just this screaming ball of aggression and anger that will murder everything in its path -- all Kiriha has to do is to point and Cyberdramon II will destroy, and you have a feeling that if he didn't come across Kiriha and liked his whole "be the strongest in the world" rhetoric, Cyberdramon II would be an antagonistic force.Cyberdramon II's profile gives a completely different lore, though, noting that Cyberdramon II shows up from another world, and that it speaks and thinks in a completely alien way compared to normal Digimon, and it's basically Alien and Predator combined into one. It loves hunting, and it can blend into its surroundings, while its design philosophy, turning fully monstrous with a definite Giger-inspired face and body armour, is strongly inspired by Alien. And unlike the original Cyberdramon's slashing holes in reality, Cyberdramon II beats people up with a spear or his giant drill tail.... but sometimes it uses its fucking RIBS to skewer the opponent in an attack hilariously called "Glutton Fang".
Honestly, while I had thought that Cyberdramon II looked too busy, I ended up revisiting his action scenes in the anime and despite the anime's far less complex model, they did get a lot of mileage out of him. Those tattered wings, that giant drill-tail, that absolutely badass face... are all those pink dots his eyes? The segmented blue shell-like armour being broken up by the purple orb-things really does sell the alien look pretty well, managing to sell that, yes, this is a Cyberdramon way better than the original could. Just look at all those trading card artworks! Look at this thing! It's pretty neat-looking, and when drawn like this, it's actually the exact perfect level of looking complex without looking too cluttered.And while I tend to shy away from featuring more than one or two pictures per Digimon, Cyberdramon II gets a lot of love from artists for trading cards, and you can see why. It's just utterly badass. And you know what? Apparently there is a dragon-man Digimon out there that I like. You win, Bandai!
10/10.Deckerdramon
Honestly, Blue Flare just keeps spoiling me, huh? Deckerdramon here is another one of my all-time favourites from the show, and I had known that he's one that I'll give 5/5 to. And it's... it's kind of a silly reason, really, but that reason is simply because I just think that a gigantic living crocodile robot that doubles as a mobile military base that can operate on both water and land is pretty damn awesome. He's got tank treads instead incorporated into the flat crocodile feet, and every part of Deckerdramon is bristling with military weaponry! It's a neat way to make him look super-armed, but not clutter him too much. I love robots, and I can't lie, Deckerdramon is a walking military base that honestly still looks like it's a sentient creature. Plus, did we ever actually have a crocodile Digimon in the two decades prior to Deckerdramon? The closest I can think of is probably Leviamon, and he's more giant biblical sea monster than a crocodile.
Deckerdramon's profile notes that it's apparently the ultimate enemy of all flying Digimon, being specialized in anti-aircraft shootings, and this is combined with his short height and ability to navigate terrains to evade those pesky flying Digimon. Pretty badass design, honestly, and I don't think there's any real complaint I have about him. Deckerdramon fits in pretty well with Blue Flare's super-strong and militaristic aesthetic, and the writers actually ended up giving Deckerdramon a twist -- he's actually a very nice dude! He's basically the team's equivalent to Groot. He's going to rain missile death on the enemy if he has to, but despite being a giant robot crocodile of doom, he's the heart of Blue Flare, and had a pretty awesome final episode too. I think I'm giving him a 10/10. I knew there was a couple of designs in Xros Wars I really loved.
10/10.Gaossmon
Anyway, while the Xros Heart team has a pretty wild selection of random supporting characters, Blue Flare basically has the four main fighters of Greymon, Mailbirdramon, Cyberdramon and Deckerdramon... and everything else has about as much importance as background soldiers in an Avengers movie. The bulk of Blue Flare is filled up by these guys, Gaossmon, which... sort of work in the whole dragon/reptile theme that Blue Flare has. They do look like weak buddy versions of Greymon II or Cyberdramon II, and I absolutely love that they're just these huge chompy dragon/dinosaur heads with legs and tail. Reminds me of the weird beasts from Morrowind or Adventure Quest. Gaossmon's a neat looking creature, and it definitely fills its role as the little trooper for Blue Flare! Gaossmon's profile basically describes this part of him, about how it's just a plucky little dinosaur-dragon thing that's both tough, but also quick to flee.
Other minor members of Blue Flare include a bunch of Golemon and Bommon. Plus a guest star Dracomon that shows up for one episode in the second season and joins Blue Flare, but doesn't really do anything.
6/10.MetalGreymon II
So in an interesting twist, a version of MetalGreymon also exists in the Xros Wars world. But since regular evolution isn't a thing, MetalGreymon II here is the Digi-Fused/Digi-Xrossed version of Greymon II and MailBirdramon. And it's basically just Greymon wearing MailBirdramon like a transforming toy (because, y'know, it is a transforming toy), and I do like how the two actually ended up working in a set. It's neat that they integrated features of a half-robotic MetalGreymon II and managed to create the very coherent design of MailBirdramon out of it. And while you can totally tell where MailBirdramon's parts go in MetalGreymon here -- like the whip-tail being MailBirdramon's head, or MailBirdramon's claw-tail being MetalGreymon's cyborg arm -- it doesn't feel unnatural or wonky like every single one of the Digimon Frontier designs.
All in all, yes, it's admittedly a wee bit too busy for my liking, and I unlike the other "new" updated versions of old characters in Xros Wars, I still prefer the original MetalGreymon... but there's definitely a place in my heart for MetalGreymon II, and he's a pretty neat design that does everything the original MetalGreymon did, but in a different aesthetic.
Apparently, just like Dorulumon, Cyberdramon II is able to transform into a gun emplacement. It... it exists, I guess, but it looks extremely awkward. I kinda get where they're going with this, but I've never really been a fan -- even in other transforming toy toylines -- of weird halfway modes that just look like a half-transformed toy with a random gunbarrel glued on. It exists, I guess.
7/10.DeckerGreymon
DeckerGreymon here is the DigiXros'd version of MetalGreymon combined with Deckerdramon, and it basically swaps out MetalGreymon's feet and gives him tank treads for big, chunky roller blades. Oh, and replaces MetalGreymon's non-robotic arm with a big-ass giant tank cannon. I'm not sure where the rest of Deckerdramon's mass goes when they fuse together like this, but I'll try not to think too hard about the logistics of Digimon fusion. I don't actually mind this one. Unlike the Cyber Launcher above, it actually looks like a practical power-up super mode, even if I'm pretty sure having a separate giant crocodile aircraft carrier is probably going to be far more practical than giving MetalGreymon another gun. Hilariously, the official profile notes that DeckerGreymon is apparently exactly as powerful as 324 Digimon. And... I dunno, Xros Wars might be taking place in a world where evolution levels aren't a thing, but 324 Koromons and 324 Lucemons are completely different things.
5/10.ZekeGreymon
So at the end of the first season of Digimon Xros Wars, Shoutmon actually unlocks the power of super evolution, and evolves into OmegaShoutmon. Around halfway through the second season, Xros Wars: Evil Death Generals and the Seven Kingdoms (heretofore referred to as "season two of Xros Wars"), MetalGreymon also gains the ability to evolve. Notice that it's not Greymon, it's MetalGreymon. Yep, MailBirdramon did end up just becoming a glorified accessory to Greymon both as a character and as a literal accessory.
And ZekeGreymon here is... it's... it's a thing. It's a golden, cleaner, sleeker version of the MetalGreymon design, with flatter wings and a lot less clutter, and replacing the organic arm with a gun. It's neat. It's also a very anime form. It turns gold? It has "Z" pronounced in a fancy way somewhere in its name? It has a streamlined design? I do like ZekeGreymon a bit. I just feel that it doesn't quite feel as memorable as the others we've seen on this page. It's a neat super mode, don't get me wrong. It gets to do a bunch of badass things. I just don't like it a whole ton. It's tacky and sort of expected.
4/10.Random Digi-Xros'd Forms:
Yeah, sadly Blue Flare doesn't have a whole lot of these on account of their far more limited cast, as well as the team just going straight into MetalGreymon and his powered-up forms. The Digimon Wikis only recognize two other Xros'd forms in the anime. First up we've got MailBirdramon + Golemon here, which basically just replaces MailBirdramon's nasty robot claw tail with... a rock hammer tail? How is that more effective? I do find the weird eyeless Golemon head hilarious, though, like a wooden horse head or something.
Cyberdramon + Dracomon here shows up in one of the final battles, and it's... it exists. I like both Cyberdramon and Dracomon individually, and I get what they're going for here. I do like that Dracomon's proportions sort of matures when he combines with Cyberdramon, and I do find it somewhat similar to armor evolutions of old. Not my cup of tea, but kinda neat that this exists.
Anyway, it's a far shorter episode of Digimon Reviews, mostly because I wanted to keep the three main Xros Wars teams separate. I did end up talking a bit more about Cyberdramon than I thought I would, though, and this segment did end up being a wee bit longer than I originally envisioned it to be.
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