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Sparrowmon
The initial leader of Twilight was Amano Nene, the 'brains' to Kiriha's brawn and Taiki's... enthusiasm. She basically doubles as a tutorial character to the Xros Wars world, as well as the titular mysterious character. I did remember that she started off very interesting before being basically reduced to "I need to save my little brother from corruption", which is a bit unfortunate. Her most consistent partner digimon was Sparrowmon over here and Sparrowmon is... well, it's a pretty lumpy and messy design, if we're being completely honest. While other characters like MailBirdramon and Dorulumon manage to hide their toyeticness by actually having a coherent design, Sparrowmon combines the concept of a jet and a bird in a most bizarre way. It does loop around and lead to Sparrowmon being utterly goofy and charming, and her pretty strong characterization as a bubbly, supportive partner was pretty memorable, but I'm not someone who is a big fan of her design. A combination of her body just being a lumpy jet (that's obviously only there to form Shoutmon X-whatever's wings) and her weird, stumpy arms holding guns... eh. I don't dislike hSparrowmon here, but she just feels so much like something designed as a transforming toy accessory first and an actual monster second.
Apparently those guns are called "Zanahoria", the Spanish word for carrot, to match Beelzebumon's Berenjena/eggplant guns. It's... it's neat, I guess. I really don't have much to say about Sparrowmon. I remembered really liking her as a character, but it's a pretty m'eh design.
6/10.Monitamon
6/10.Monimon
Just like how Starmon has its small army of Pickmons, the Monitamons have their own cute little buddies, the Monimons. Monimon is just an adorable :| faced television with a little ribbon and stumpy little legs, and they basically act as the receivers for the Monitamons' reports, sort of like this 'terminal' for them to report through. It's a fun bit of symbiosis that I feel to be a neat bit of worldbuilding, and I find the Monimons to be particularly cute! They also communicate almost entirely by emoticons on their face, which is a particularly charming trait.
7/10.HiVisionMonitamon
Apparently the upgraded version of Monitamon plays on the whole television aspect, and swaps out the old-school cathode ray television for a hi-def plasma television, which I found to be pretty damn hilarious the first time I saw one of these. Its name is particularly funny as well, and it comes with a cute little golden satellite dish. Thanks to the weird rules that Xros Wars operates on, though, HiVisionMonitamon isn't actually an evolution for Monitamon, but just a 'newer model'. How does that work, really? Anyway, it's a pretty cool-looking variant to Monitamon, and I honestly don't mind the Monitamon family as a group. They're far from my favourites, but they're kinda neat.
5/10.Mervamon
Mervamon is apparently the matured form of Olympos XII member Minervamon, who we covered a while back. Based on Minerva/Athena, the Greco-Roman goddess of wisdom and war... they decided to turn her into a walking fanservice delivery machine. She's also a tribal Amazon-like warrior for some reason. And I've been pretty vocal in noting that the Olympos XII are the most stupidly-conceived set of Digimon ever (wait until we get to the post-Xros-Wars era where the worst offenders pop up), although at least they decided to fetishize the grown-up version of Minervamon instead of Minervamon herself.
And... and Xros Wars uses Mervamon somewhat liberally as fanservice, with her and Lilithmon taking the main roles of introducing young boys to the world of boobies. For their credit, though, at least Mervamon is actually portrayed to be a badass motherfucker with that big sword and that giant snake mounted on her other arm, and she actually goes through a decent character arc with Beelzebumon. Still, while the character is relatively all right in the show, design-wise I really can't call her anything but a poorly-conceived fanservice bait, what with her profile noting that she "seeks sensuality even in battle" and every second shot of her in the anime is her bosom. At least she gets enough action scenes and that snake is cool.
4/10.Ignitemon (a.k.a. Iguneetmon)
Ignitemon here is Mervamon's little brother or something, and he's... he's got a fun set of giant shurikens, which is pretty cool, I guess, and that's a pretty cool helmet. Apparently he's a reptile man, too, something that isn't immediately obvious. Ignitemon's whole deal is that the name is a pun on "NEET" (Not in Education, Employment or Training), a term that saw widespread use in Japan that's probably somewhat translates best to... geek or nerd, I guess? He's a lazy fellow that avoids battle and spends his time watching television, and the star of a single episode, and while I don't think he actually joins Twilight or Xros Heart, I feel like lumping him in here. Don't like him.
1/10.Damemon
So the other central character to Twilight is Amano Yuu, little brother of Nene and sort of a fun combination of various characters -- Adventure's Takeru as the little brother, 02's Ken as someone duped into believing that the entire world is a game, and Frontier's Koiji as a sibling manipulated to work as a minion of the bad guys. Yuu was a grief-stricken kid that was drawn in by the seductive power to be basically a god-like figure in what is sold to him as a 'game'. It's a ripoff of Ken's story from 02, but told in a way that focuses more on the fact that Yuu was manipulated from the get-go, and that he was never in control. Yuu got better, though, and ended up being one of the heroes by the time season two came along.
Interestingly, though, Yuu is partnered with an updated version of Sukamon, which is... Damemon! Instead of being made entirely out of turd, Damemon is a turd robot, made by waste data. And I really love the update on Damemon! Damemon is another one that looks obvious that it's designed after a transforming toy, what with Tuwarmon's horn kibble popping up from the top of his poop-head, but I still actually like the concept of Damemon here. It's apparently being piloted by a new variant of Tyumon, Tyutyumon (who we'll cover later), and Daemmon is a poop robot that's far more capable of fighting, with arms holding tonfa-like guns. Of course, Damemon's whole deal is that it's obfuscating stupidity, pretending to be a simpleton that just goes around being a cute, clumsy poop boy that says "damedame" (no good, no good) a lot. Then we get the revelation that Damemon is basically assigned as Yuu's watchdog, to keep him on the leash of the bad guys. And then turns out that the only evil one is Tyutyumon, while Damemon is indeed a good boy. And he gets killed in a surprisingly touching manner that got me emotional for a pile of turd. Digimon does that a lot.
Overall, while I didn't thought I would say this, Damemon's actually a pretty dang interestingly wacky monster. Not a bad one!
7/10. +3 points for anime appearance.Tuwarmon (a.k.a. Tsuwamon)
While this is basically Damemon transformed, and you can see that the turd pieces splay out and reveal a pretty badass looking ninja. Yes, it does have that unfortunately-shaped helmet, but that pointy piece helps his disguise as a piece of turd. Turns out that, at least initially, Damemon was just the disguise used by this mysterious ninja-man partnered with the evil Tyutyumon, and he's a sneaky, badass ninja man that goes around doing the evil orders of Bagra Army. It's got a pretty fun, awesome set of ninja abilities in the anime, including a whole sort of cool ninja scythes and chains, that it's genuinely easy to forget that this dude spends half his life running around pretending to be a dumb poop robot. Best of all is Tuwarmon's attack, which is called "Smoking Boogie", where Tuwarmon uses those cannon poop-halves to unleash rainbow-coloured smoke bombs.
The show treats Damemon and Tuwarmon as more like a form change, but Bandai treats them as two different Digimon. More confusingly, initially it's noted that Damemon was Tuwarmon wearing a disguise, and that Tuwarmon is the true form... but after Damemon's sacrifice and reincarnation, Tuwarmon ended up being the super-evolution form for Damemon. It's weird.
8/10.Tyutyumon (a.k.a. Chuuchuumon)
This asshole, Tyutyumon, is the Xros Wars version of Sukamon's little rat buddy Tyumon (a.k.a. Chuumon), and where Sukamon and Tyumon are just two dumb frat bros, Tyutyumon is a sneaky, conniving bastard. I love that it's communicated pretty well in the design, too, with Tyutyumon being seemingly made up of stitches covering whatever this rat's real body looks like. While initially pretending to be a literal accessory to Damemon (which is actually a fun, nice touch), Tyutyumon turns out to be a pretty devious shitbag that ends up being loyal to the bad guys even after Damemon/Tuwarmon defected, leading to the latter's death. Tyutyumon ends up meeting a pretty grisly fate, though -- if memory serves correct, he was eaten by the cat Digimon Bastemon. Anyway, I don't particularly have a whole ton to say about this dude, but I despite all the poo jokes, I did feel like Yuu and Damemon's story was told pretty well, and Tyutyumon's a neat enough villain that helps subvert a trope in what I assumed was a simple Sukamon homage.
7/10.Click under the break for a bunch of other evolutions and Digi-Xrosses.
Raptor Sparrowmon
In the manga, Sparrowmon isn't reduced to a power-up piece for Shoutmon X-whatever, and actually manages to transform into a pretty badass form that looks far, far more like a sparrow-jet instead of a bad toy accessory. RaptorSparrowmon still has Sparrowmon's charming, goofy Latias-esque face, while her body's a badass robot bird, and I'm a big fan of that decision by the artist! It's not very evident on this official artwork, and is more clear here. I really don't have a whole ton to say about RaptorSparrowmon, beyond the fact that it's actually a pretty fun and cool-looking robot bird.
Technically, Twilight also has DarkKnightmon and all his associated forms, but we'll cover all of the villains in a single page.
6/10.Twilight: DigiXros Forms
Jet Mervamon
Sparrowmon herself has only ever been involved in DigiXros forms featuring the Shoutmon X-whatever gang... except for this one! JetMervamon is essentially Mervamon with a jetpack, though, but at least this lets Twilight have a bit of their own identity, and when Mervamon joined the team, at least Twilight manages to get a few action scenes in even if it's fanservice-laden action scenes. I do find it utterly hilarious that her attack is called "Sexy Dynamites", though. I can't even be angry, it's just so stupidly ridiculous.
Mervamon: Wide HiVision Sword is a combination of Mervamon, HiVisionMonitamon... and Wisemon? I'm not sure what Wisemon brings into the table beyond those floating orbs, but I do like that the hilt of Mervamon's sword not only has a huge television, but also big radar antennae.
A form taken by Tuwarmon when he DigiXros-es with DeadlyAxemon is called DeadlyTuwarmon, and it's essentially just Tuwarmon with some fancy new black boots. Not the most creative design, honestly.
...and we have DeadlyTuwarmon: Hell Mode, where DeadlyTuwarmon DigiXroses with a bunch of random Bagra Army mooks, and gains some spikes and also becomes a giant. Basically he becomes a Final Fantasy boss for the good guys to defeat so that he can be redeemed. Pretty boring, IMO.
We'll lump these here because I don't particularly care for Hunters, but this is XrosUpTuwarmon: Superstarmon, the very awkwardly-named combination of Tuwarmon with a Superstarmon. It's... I dunno. I find the weird star-shaped chest piece to be fun, and he gets some generic Kamen Rider esque scarf and some red-and-white colouration. It's actually neat considering how shitty every other XrosUp form from Hunters are.
This is seen in the last episode of Hunters when they fused together Mervamon and his shy boyfriend-sorta Beelzebumon, leading to... okay, that's a pretty badass fusion of Mervamon decked out in Beelzebumon's helmet, leg armour, fallen angel wings, and Mervamon's snake has combined with Beelzebumon's cannon. The name of the attack? "SEXY: THE CANNON", of course. Oh, Japan. I actually like this. It's ridiculous as shit.
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