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Bagramon
Bagramon is the big bad of the first two seasons of Xros Wars, and he's... he's a generic fallen angel dude who's an evil overlord of a massive Bagra Army. He's just this nebulous, cool, evil big bad, and on that front, being a generic evil overlord does kind of work. He does feel pretty boring, though, and cool mostly in a generic way. He's this demon dude in full armour, with one side of his body made up of wacky mutated skeleton flesh. Which I actually like! The ginormous out-of-scale skeleton arm gives Bagramon a unique silhouette that makes him just a bit more distinctive than just being a generic humanoid, and I do like that he has two different legs. Bagramon's backstory (which we never really explored beyond a few throwaway lines in the anime) note that he's formerly the Angel Digimon ruling over death, and ended up falling after rebelling against 'God', and replaced the burned half of his body from a holy ash tree. Okay, then.
He's kind of a cool villain with some pretty great voice-acting courtesy of Kusao Takeshi (a.k.a. Dragon Ball's Trunks among a very extensive list of voice acting credit), but I've never really found Bagramon to be that compelling or that cool of a villain, especially when all of his minions kind of look far more interesting as humanoid warriors. He's still kinda cool, but I've always felt like he's the least developed of Xros Wars' little villains gallery. I think he ends up being reincarnated as an enigmatic old man in Xros Wars: Hunters in an attempt to redeem himself. He's an all right anime big bad goon, but nothing particularly special.
6/10.Tactimon
Tactimon is an interesting character. We've had a lot of samurai and demon-samurai Digimon over the years. Zanbamon, Musyamon, Gaioumon, the entire Ouryumon line, Yaksamon... and those do the monster samurai bit a lot more well than Tactimon. Tactimon's design is pretty cool, but also kind of generic. You could have him on the character select screen for Samurai Warriors or Tekken or whatever and he wouldn't feel out of place, and there's really nothing in here that screams 'Digimon!' if you didn't already know that this is a page talking about Digimon. His backstory is also kind of generic, noting about how he has a peerless, mighty sword called Jatetsufuujin-maru (Snake Sealed By God Within Iron), and is oh-so-powerful that Tactimon has to practice fighting without the sword because it's so destructive. And in the anime, we actually do see Tactimon fight a lot without his sword (it's a plot point that the sword is sealed into the scabbard, and only Bagramon can undo it as a mid-season power-up), and when he does draw the blade, we get some awesome power showcases like summoning the dead or transforming into a giant monster. Oh, and he's also a great tactician of war, which you could probably tell from his name.
Yet I think I end up looking at Tactimon and really liking him, and that's 100% thanks to his role in the anime. I don't proclaim to be a scholar for the anime who knows everything about Xros Wars or anything, but where Bagramon is mostly just an abstract final boss villain behind the scenes, and Skull/DarkKnightmon is mostly just interesting due to his manipulations, I've always found the three main generals of the first season -- Tactimon, Blastmon and Lilithmon -- to be way, way more interesting than the supposed main villains. The latter two mostly because they're comedic, but Tactimon is a serious, hyper-competent general to Bagramon that's actually loyal to the big man. And honestly, those sorts of villains are pretty rare in anime, I feel. Mostly, hyper-competent second in command villains tend to either be treacherous, or have a noble streak that'll lead themselves to be redeemed. Tactimon also ends up subverting another common trope in anime villains -- that the smart villains tend to be weak in actual combat. But Tactimon ends up just being so loyal and powerful, and always felt like such an unstoppable threat until our heroes unlcoks the evolution power-up to finally take down Tactimon. Throw in a pretty great voice, and I've always found Tactimon very interesting as a character even if his design is kind of just generically cool. That's how Digimon are to me, mostly -- I tend to go full 180 if you present me with a well-written character.
8/10.Blastmon
One of the three lieutenants in the first season is Blastmon, who is easily the most monstrous looking out of Bagramon's three original generals. As you can probably expect, Blastmon is very powerful but is a brute. He's themed after minerals and diamonds, and I've always found it hilarious that he's got those two dinky little legs while his upper torso and arms are just so massive. There's some fun little details like the gems embedded in his gauntlets, and his entire body comprised of diamond shards, but the design has always felt a little awkward. He's known as the 'beautiful, sublime creature', apparently, and, uh... I'm not quite sure about that, buddy.
I do like Blastmon, though, and again, that's mostly because of the anime. His design honestly feels a bit awkward, but I feel like it strikes a neat balance between badass and bumbling that communicates how he's a character both suited to menace our heroes, but also not above doing some wacky comedy moments. Not my favourite visual design, but I do have fond enough memories of him from the anime to not dislike him.
7/10.GattaiLilithmon & MajuuLilithmon
We've covered Lilithmon a long while back, and she was introduced in a card game or a video game or something as one of the Seven Great Demon Lords, but Xros Wars promotes Lilithmon into one of the main characters. While she's originally a bit more of a serious villain, as the series went on she and Blastmon basically became Jessie and James from Pokemon, with Lilithmon being the sassy, slightly stereotypically self-centered lady villain, while Blastmon is the dumbass brute. I do appreciate, though, that unlike previous female villains like Ranamon, Lilithmon was still treated as an actual, credible threat. She's also the source of a whole ton of fanservicey shots, although at least as the demon lord of lust, they have a somewhat more credible excuse to do so compared to, say, Angewomon or Rosemon from previous seasons. She gets two 'DigiXros' combination forms during the show, which allows me to talk about her as part of a set of Xros Wars villains. GattaiLilithmon is an equally hilarious and also unfortunate form, where she gets fused with Blastmon and her three Evilmon minions. And it's not particularly clear in this picture, but click here. Or just google the GattaiLilithmon scene. Long story short, in addition to getting Blastmon as a flail, the three Evilmon basically become her boobs and crotch, and unlike most fusions, the Evilmons are still sentient and completely aware that they've became extensions of her lingerie. I really have nothing much to say here but 'god damn it, Japan'.
As you can tell, both Blastmon and Lilithmon were kind of reduced to a joke, but this ends up actually being a plot point, as the two of them ended up basically going to the Digital World's version of hell, the Twilight Zone (no, not the TV series). In a surprisingly touching moment, her three Evilmon minions end up sacrificing themselves to prevent Lilithmon herself from dying, which causes her to get one last chance to take out the protgaonist. Fusing with Blastmon in a far more serious way, she ends up becoming... well, kind of a Final Fantasy boss, I guess, with her upper body being attached to this massive blob of flesh and diamond crystals made out of Blastmon's body. It's a pretty fun final form given to this villain, even if it's sort of a ripoff of Apocalymon.
I'm not the biggest fan of how Lilithmon was handled as a fanservice delivery service, but at least we got a half-decent character out of her as someone who thinks she's a big-shot, and ends up realizing that she isn't... and then basically tries to gain more power. It's not a particularly well-told story since Xros Wars is sort of a crowded series, but Lilithmon at least gets a lot more focus than I expected she would.
7/10. (points given mostly for personality)SkullKnightmon
I don't really have a whole ton to say about SkullKnightmon, other than he's... he's kind of an adorable little evil knight, with stubby little feet and a huge skull on his chest and no neck. Also kind of like the fact that his two arms are just lances. SkullKnightmon is one of those characters whose design is obviously designed transforming-toy-first and anime model second, but he's still a lot better than a lot of the Frontier era dudes. I do enjoy the fact that this stubby little knight that looks more at home as a Legend of Zelda enemy than a Digimon is actually Bagramon's little brother. Overall, though, I don't have a lot of strong feelings either way for SkullKnightmon. He's a solid 3, which is... sort of a trend among the main villains of Xros Wars, huh? I'm sorry. I just really don't have a lot of feelings about them.
5/10.DeadlyAxemon (a.k.a. Axemon)
My first draft for DeadlyAxemon (Axemon in the dub, because god forbid kids learn what 'deadly' means) had him at 0/5 or 1/5, because he's clearly designed to be an accessory to buff up SkullKnightmon into DarkKnightmon. He's honestly so much of an accessory that I don't think he even had a single line of dialogue in the anime, basically running around as SkullKnightmon's pet/chariot/legs. It's also kind of an awkward looking design (the anime's model is much worse and far more obviously assorted parts for a toy)... but I do kind of find some charm in the bizarre, kibbly body. He's like this bizarre mechanical knight-spider thing who, apparently, according to the backstory, exchanged cups of brotherhood with SkullKnightmon. Somehow. Despite not having hands and a weird dragon face. Apparently DeadlyAxemon is very, very fast, able to zoom around on the battlefield and dissolve anything it touches. There's not much I can say about this thing -- I kinda appreciate that they actually manage to form kind of a coherent design out of spare parts for DarkKnightmon, but it's still kind of an iffy look.
4/10.DarkKnightmon (a.k.a. AxeKnightmon)
DarkKnightmon (AxeKnightmon in the dub) is the default form of SkullKnightmon and DeadlyAxemon combined together. And it's... it's kind of a generic design, sort of like how I would describe Tactimon, except this one's a skull knight instead of a samurai. DarkKnightmon is a reasonably cool looking dark skull knight dude, even if I still find him generic. He looks especially goofy in the anime, though, where the character model tries a bit too hard to look like the toy and gave him huge Santa elf pointy boots. Which honestly looks a lot more charming and unique. He also has DeadlyAxemon's weird axe-scythe-shield thing on one hand, and the combined twin-pronged lance from SkullKnightmon's arms on another. It's... it's a neat design, and I won't really fault the designers for making a pretty cool knight villain, but at the same time I really don't have a whole ton to say here. Mostly, I think, is that I'm just kind of disappointed that they didn't really do a whole ton of exploring the fact that DarkKnightmon is supposed to be two people merged into one -- SkullKnightmon just overrides the whole thing throughout its many, many appearances. I dunno. Maybe it's just because I'm kind of indifferent to the character in the anime? S'neat, but far from my favourite design or character from Xros Wars. I'm just so neutral on this one.
6/10.Troopmon
While the Bagra Army does employ a lot (and I do mean a lot) of older Digimon, be it those who's seen some screentime in older shows or just ones that never got to shine in an anime, it also had a bunch of brand new designs for the minions. Particularly the Troopmon over here, who, as his name implies, is the generic troop that make up the bulk of the Bagra Army. And... and they look kinda neat, looking simultaneously kinda creepy and threatening, but also, you can totally see characters like Shoutmon and Dorulumon just whacking swathes of them down Dynasty Warriors style. Troopmon never had any sort of significant screentime in the anime beyond just being a constant presence as disposable grunts of the bad guys, but the official Bandai bio does give us some pretty neat backstory, noting that Troopmon is an artificial Digimon that's created by stuffing energy stolen from other Digimon into a rubber body. And it wears a creepy-ass gas mask with tubes running all over too, for some reason. The bio notes that it's incapable of independent thought, and doesn't need to sleep, nor does it fear death. Hell, apparently even if a Troopmon is injured, it'll just move its energy through exhalation (which is I guess the function of those gas masks?) and transfer it into a new rubber body. It's basically a zombie in all but name, and suddenly the slouched, vacant look ends up becoming slightly creepier. Also a huge fan of how those arms look, with little holes on the tips of the fingers. Apparently some sources list Troopmon as Adult-level? Despite Xros Wars era Digimon not having levels? Eh, I guess you could kinda guess what levels they all are equivalent to in the 'old' system.
Like, shit, I know Tactimon and DarkKnightmon are more traditionally cool looking Digimon, but Troopmon feels unique -- in the combination of its bizarrely creepy zombie-soldier backstory and its shambling, gas-masked design. I've never really paid much attention to Troopmon before doing this review, to be honest, but I do find out that... I kinda like him a fair bit.
7/10.Chikurimon
Chikurimon's lore is that it apparently lurks under the shade, doesn't move around, and attacks anything that comes near. And apparently it proliferates abnormally when the temperature is slightly high, and by proliferate do you mean... just like they divide into more Chikurimons? It apparently also lives in water (in the lore, anyway) so is this supposed to be some sort of robotic sea urchin? Also, naturally, its whole deal is that it blows up in a suicidal attack. Kinda neat, but overall kinda boring.
4/10.Bombmon
Bombmon (not to be confused with the earlier Bommon), meanwhile, is a lot more charming! It's kind of the same thing as Chikurimon, except instead of themed after a spiky mine, it's a bomb! But I do like the tuft of hair doubling as a fiery fuse, and I like how it has a cute little whale face for some reason. Interestingly, while the bio for Chikurimon makes it clear that Chikurimon blows up and sacrifices himself, Bombmon just... sort of acts like a firework, either launching shockwaves when it 'explodes' or scatters particles of colours like a party fireworks, that the bio even notes that Bombmon often gets invited to parties to help spice things up. Okay, then!
4/10.MadLeomon
The official Bio notes that MadLeomon doesn't even have a mind left and is essentially a shambling, one-track-mind zombie, but the MadLeomon in the anime is a lot more chatty. He's also one of the few villains to actually go through the DigiXros/DigiFuse method to power himself up, but we'll cover all of the 'fusion' forms later below the break.
6/10.DigiXros Forms:
DarknessBagramon
One of the final villains of the first season was DarknessBagramon, and I honestly don't fully remember the exact sequence of events that happened, but the two brothers DarkKnightmon and Bagramon end up getting fused/Xrosed with each other or something? The form on the left, with wings, is when Bagramon is dominant, which I think is the ultimate final boss of the second season, and the one on the right with the weapon is when DarkKnightmon's personality is dominant. It's kinda interesting, I guess, but I've honestly found it to be sort of boring. Throw in the same complaint that while I think Bagramon and Skull/DarkKnightmon are kind of okay villains, they're not particularly exciting ones. And certainly not memorable, because I'm really racking my brains to remember just what they did before our heroes achieve their new forms and beat them down.
Anyway, these are... they're all right forms, I guess, for fused forms of those specific two designs. Kind of predictable for a final boss, though, honestly, and I actually kinda wished that they went for something more spectacular, especially for the Bagramon-dominant form.
4/10.SkullKnightmon's Many Forms:
Apparently someone on the production team really liked SkullKnightmon, DeadlyAxemon and DarkKnightmon, and I get that this is a toy that they wanted to sell, but... jeez, for all of them to get official, fancy Bandai artwork and be recognized as being somehow different enough to qualify as forms is a bit bizarre. First up here is SkullKnightmon: Big Axe Mode, which is just SkullKnightmon holding the transformed axe-mode DeadlyAxemon. Whoop-dee-doo. Next up is SkullKnightmon: Cavalier Mode, which is... SkullKnightmon riding on DeadlyAxemon like a mount. As you do. Not pictured here: Naginata Mode and Arrow Mode, which is just extra forms made up for the toys with different anatomy parts of DeadlyAxemon used as a weapon.
MusoKnightmon over here is apparently the DigiXros of DarkKnightmon and Tuwarmon, but it's just DarkKnightmon using Tuwarmon as a weapons emplacement. And I use the term 'weapons emplacement' in a very loose sense, because it's clearly just Tuwarmon striking a pose while his weapons are extended. It's not even a transformed form the way Dorulumon transforms, so I'm not even sure why this qualifies as a form.
SuperDarkKnightmon over here is an actual, proper DigiXros! It's a combination of DarkKnightmon, SkullGreymon and SkulLSatamon, and I love that the SkullGremon skull becomes this fun little ornament tha twraps around the lance, and we get some cool devil wings and random spiky extensions on the giant axe. Unlike the others, this actually feels like an actual fused forms instead of just "two Digimon pose together, and we'll call it a brand-new form".
GreyKnightsmon here is, meanwhile, a fusion of DarkKnightmon, Greymon and MailBirdramon exclusive to a video game, and I do find it interesting that while DarkKnightmon seems to mostly remain unchanged other than his weapon, Greymon is transformed to look completely different, with a completely different looking head, no arms, and those two turbined attached to his sides. I think DarkKnightmon is also fused from the hip down to Greymon, nuckelavee-style? I'm not sure. It's kinda cool, though, and, like SuperDarkKnightmon, a lot more effort was clearly put into this one compared to the other "let's play with our toys and arbitrarily decide that these count as DigiXros-es" forms.
Shoutmon X3SD here is another Shoutmon form from a video game, where Shoutmon X3 (Shoutmon, Ballistamon and Dorulumon) fuses with DarkKnightmon. I'm not sure where that fancy fox-tail mane came from... Dorulumon, I guess? It's a far more creative form than it initially seems, though, with a body that resembles DarkKnightmon but is actually kind of different. Not my favourite thing, but they at least tried.
2/10.MadLeomon's Forms
MadLeomon was one of the first villains our heroes face, and thus received a bunch of additional forms! MadLeomon: Armed Mode is probably my favourite, where MadLeomon fuses himself with a bunch of Mammothmon, Chikurimon and Troopmon... and somehow ends up actually turning into a cyborg! He's got a MetalMamemon-esque chunk giant robot arm for his left hand that looks way too big for him (especially in the anime) and his right hand is replaced with a chainsaw. He also covers those exposed ribs with metallic armour. I did say that while I appreciate that MadLeomon didn't go for the usual 'evil cyborg' trope, I also can't fault a pretty awesome, creepy evil cyborg form!
The second form MadLeomon takes is MadLeomon: Orochi Mode, which is, as you guessed it, MadLeomon fused with an Orochimon. I absolutely love this fusion, from MadLeomon's head getting the yellow mane from Orochimon, and the different heads all taking different roles. Some become the hands, some become the legs, some become shoulder-mounted snake-head-cannons, and the last one apparently splits in half to form shoulder armour. Hell, those knees even kinda resemble snake heads! I honestly really like this design, and considering how utterly lazy a lot of the other DigiXros-es are, it's a bit of a shame that they basically kind of dropped these more creative forms and just go for the 'let's just plop someone's head on someone's body'.
Ehhh, not really feeling it for MadLeomon: Final Mode. I mean, I get it, he reverts back into a far more primal form after the more wacky cyborg and snake-lion forms, but this is basically just the original MadLeomon, but with more bone-spur-spikes and a red mane. This is apparently MadLeomon fused with Hanumon, and while it's still a pretty neat design in its own right, I honestly feel like this shouldn't be the Final Mode for MadLeomon, with both the chainsaw cyborg and the monster snake-mutant looking far cooler than this berserking cave-lionman.
7/10.HiMugendramon (a.k.a. HiMachinedramon)
Not to be confused with Chaosdramon, who is a different red-coloured evolution of Mugendramon! One of the villains-of-the-two-parter in the Sand Zone was a Mugendramon under the command of Lilithmon, who was fused with a bunch of Scorpiomons to form this red-coloured and far larger version of himself. It's neat, and I think I kinda like this more than Chaosdramon because it feels a lot more mechanical as compared to Chaosdramon's kinda crazy-cyborg looking eyes. I really like my cyborg dinosaurs to have hollow, empty soulless eyes. It's also neat that he gets a proper name, but apparently Bandai doesn't like him enough to give him an official profile or artwork, because cataloging Shoutmon's two dozen forms is clearly far more important.
5/10.GigaWaruMonzaemon
2/10.GattaiAncientVolcamon (a.k.a. FusedAncientVolcamon)
One of the Ten Legendary Warriors from Frontier, AncientVolcamon, apparently is a member of the Bagra Army in this series, because Xros Wars actually just picks and chooses whichever Digimon is cool. AncientVolcamon is the general-of-the-week for the Magma Zone arc, and he ends up combining with a bunch of his Meramon minions into GattaiAncientVolcamon. And it's... it's just AncientVolcamon with his arms and legs made of Meramon flame, and the volcano pointing forwards instead of backwards. It's kind of honestly silly-looking, and while I get that the animation team at least made a unique look for this dude, it also honsetly feels kind of haphazard.
3/10.GrandisKuwagamon Honey Mode
This one is a bit cheating since it's from the next season, but I'm going to make the pages a bit more organized. So one of the minions working for Bagra Army is a GrandisKuwagamon... who ends up getting fused with a bunch of Honeybeemon that ends up just giving him honeybee-themed chest and shoulder armour. Pretty cute, but not super creative. It's a fun enough little alternate colouration, and I honestly do think that Honey Mode is a lot more distinctive as a design compared to regular GrandisKuwagamon. Fun how a little addition can really end up making this kamen rider armour bug man look so much more aesthetically appealing, huh?
Change: Wasp. Cast Off!
6/10.IceDevimon: Enhancement Absorbent
4/10.IceDevimon: Daipenmon Enhancement Absorbent
Anyway, that's it for the Bagra Army... at least for Digimon: Xros Wars, the first season. We get a second season of Xros Wars, and with it come seven brand-new evil generals that Bagramon apparently had in reserve! Look forward for that.
8/10.
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