We're covering the villains now, with Bagramon and DarkKnightmon being the two primary antagonists working off different factions; while the trio of Tactimon, Blastmon and Lilithmon (who debuted a long time ago and the only non-original new villain here) act as the primary episodic or two-parter antagonists.
I actually do like the setup and while the ultimate final execution is not the best as the series wrapped up its first season, I did really end up liking the villains of this show. Besides, we've also got a bunch of brand new villainous minions and troops, in addition to the Bagra Army utilizing some nice classic Digimon like Zanbamon, IceDevimon, Lucemon, and even unexpected ones like Neptunemon and Kongoumon.
As with other Xros Wars articles as I clean it up, we're only going to really cover the primary forms that get Reference Book profiles. There are a lot of one-off forms that appear only for a single battle, and there's really not much I can comment other than the single hilarity of IceDevimon: Daipenmon Enhancement Absorbent -- which... just look it up. It's cute. But that does mean that I've removed brief commentaries on these forms: IceDevimon's enhanced forms, GattaiAncientVolcamon, GrandisKuwagamon Honey Mode, SuperDarkKnightmon, HiMugendramon, GigaWaruMonzaemon and MadLeomon's three Xros-up forms. If they get added in to the Reference Book, I'll sneak them back in.
Also gone are MajuuLilithmon and GattaiLilithmon, the latter being Lilithmon when she her three Evilmon minions fused into her bra and panties. Which is... definitely something that happened.
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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.
He's kind of a cool villain with some pretty great voice-acting courtesy of Kusao Takeshi, 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 I felt like the execution could've been better both writing-wise and visually.
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.
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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.
The actual major character is this dude SkullKnightmon (also alternatively known as DarkKnightmon, which is his power-up form). Where Bagramon is this nebulous Big Bad, and the other three generals are recurring enemies, SkullKnightmon is initially introduced as one of the heavy fighters of the Midnight team under Nene. Except he's actually working for the Bagra Army and is blackmailing Nene to basically do his dirty work. Later on he returns to the Bagra Army, and hangs out with Nene's little brother, Yuu (who's fooled into thinking that the whole digital world thing is a game) and Tuwarmon, before eventually betraying Bagramon himself and making his own play for the throne. It's kind of a nice little story arc, but while Skull/DarkKnightmon functions well as this plot-driving character, I've always felt like he's kind of lacking as an actual character himself.
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 kinda cute.
5/10.
My first draft for DeadlyAxemon gave him much lower points. This is a creature that's clearly designed out of spare parts from a transforming toy, and while the SkullKnightmon and fused DarkKnightmon parts look great, DeadlyAxemon here is just a bunch of leftover plastic limbs that someone stuck a face onto.
7/10. +1 for fictional appearances.
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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.
Less memorable are the Chikurimon, which are just... it's charming in a simplistic style of way, in the same sort of way that many Baby I and Baby II Digimon are, but... I dunno. Chikurimon just feels particularly lazy, just a ball with eyes and spikes all over. Like, I kinda don't dislike it, but there's not much creativity here, yeah? I do like that it kinda looks like an enemy in like an old-school Mario game or something, though.
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, which is exactly what it does in Adventure 2020 when a group of underwater Digimon led by an Ebidramon uses Chikurimon as its minions that float up and blow up like a urchin-mine. That feels like an old-school Mario or Sonic or Mega Man enemy. I like that.
4/10.
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The Bagra Army employs a lot of older Digimon that never received the spotlight as the villains-of-the-week (or villains-of-the-two-parter), and other than the actual recurring main villains, most of its villainous cast are old faces for the first season. Except for MadLeomon, who is the starter villain for out heroes! And he's an evil Leomon. Which honestly would've been boring if they hadn't actually thought up of this pretty awesome-looking appearance for him. Sure, the anime model doesn't look quite as grisly and feral as this official Bandai art, but it's pretty similar. Gangly, muscular arms that drag on the ground, an unkempt mane, blood-red eyes, visible ribs holy fuck, stitches on the upper arms, Ogremon spikes jutting out of the shoulders, and those leather bands all over the lower arms... MadLeomon actually feels like an evil mutation of the original Leomon!
7/10.
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So the very first Digimon Story game (Digimon World DS for international players) featured the enigmatic Chronomon as the ultimate super duper big bad time bird god. And across various subsequent Digimon Story games, they would gradually introduce Chronomon's entire evolutionary line. Because I completely missed this, I had reviewed Chronomon's various pre-evos in random pages. Well, they're all here now.
2/10.
Debuting way later is Child-level Hyokomon, whose samurai theme has started showing. Chicchimon's hair is now a topknot, and it has manifested an eggshell to wear as clothes. Nevermind where it gets the eggshell! It's fashionable!
4/10.
Adult level Buraimon is sure a muscular eagle samurai man! He's got the reed hat and the swords you expect from a samurai man. It sure has a bio that establishes that he is a samurai, and does samurai things.
2/10.
It sure is a Perfect-level winged plasticky bird dude? I guess he has Chronomon colours. It sure has a generic "it has mastered swordsmanship by training like a samurai" bio!
2/10.
Bagramon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Demon Lord
- Attribute: Virus
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. This was more explicit in the manga, which isn't paced the best but went into a bit more detail of portraying Bagramon as more Thanos-esque 'extremist villain who genuinely believes he's doing good).
He's kind of a cool villain with some pretty great voice-acting courtesy of Kusao Takeshi, 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 I felt like the execution could've been better both writing-wise and visually.
- Alternate Names: DarknessBagramon
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Composite
- Attribute: Virus
In the final battle, Bagramon fuses with his brother DarkKnightmon below. Which I'm just treating the way I treat 'super forms' into DarknessBagramon It sure gets the dark angelic wings that the base Bagramon seems to be lacking, and replaces Bagramon's angelic parts with a bunch of skulls and DarkKnightmon's parts. It's nothing new, I feel, but it's nice that he's got a more traditional 'fallen angel' form.
'Bagra', by the way, is an anagram of Gabriel. With Digimon running out of angelic ranks to make into angel Digimon, it's slowly been dipping into specific angels. I guess we know now what happened to Digi-Gabriel!
6/10.
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6/10._________________________________________________________
Tactimon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Demon Man
- Attribute: Data
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
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Mineral
- Attribute: Vaccine
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._________________________________________________________
SkullKnightmon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Undead
- Attribute: Virus
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 kinda cute.
- Alternate Names: SkullKnightmon: Cavalier Mode, SkullKnightmon: Big Axe Mode
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Enhancement
- Attribute: Virus
You can tell this is a toy they were trying to sell, because SkullKnightmon's accessories gives him a bunch of modes. We've got Cavalier Mode and Big Axe Mode, which is it either riding or wielding DeadlyAxemon below in one of its two forms. Not having official art but glimpsed briefly in different anime are SkullKnightmon's Arrow Mode and Naginata Mode. Okay, we get it, the toy comes with accessories!
SkullKnightmon gets a bit more relevance in the Xros Wars manga as a manipulator for Nene, and a surprising role in Adventure 2020 -- which I don't fully agree with, but I can respect what they are doing there. Besides, SkullKnightmon also gets a couple of extra gimmicks and forms by fusing...
5/10.
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DeadlyAxemon
- Alternate Names: Axemon (EN dub)
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Demon Beast
- Attribute: Virus
My first draft for DeadlyAxemon gave him much lower points. This is a creature that's clearly designed out of spare parts from a transforming toy, and while the SkullKnightmon and fused DarkKnightmon parts look great, DeadlyAxemon here is just a bunch of leftover plastic limbs that someone stuck a face onto.
He's honestly so much of an accessory that I don't think it 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 and it is portrayed as essentially a loyal horse or dog.
According to the backstory, DeadlyAxemon had exchanged cups of brotherhood with SkullKnightmon. 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 can appreciate the effort, but it's really just a clutter.
3/10.
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.
3/10.
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DarkKnightmon
- Alternate Names: AxeKnightmon (EN dub)
- Stage: Perfect
- Type: Dark Knight
- Attribute: Virus
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 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. All of DarkKnightmon's appearances just treat it as a single being that evolves from SkullKnightmon (in Adventure 2020 the DeadlyAxemon parts even just manifest out of nowhere on evolution) and that does kind of make it a bit more boring. It is just a knight. The anime incarnation is... all right, but DarkKnightmon has shown up in a bunch of other stuff and I've grown a bit more appreciative of it. Still not my favourite one here, but it's one that's a pretty simple (if cool) knight monster that's helped out by fictional appearances.
- Alternate Names: MusoKnightmon
- Stage: Perfect
- Type: Enhancement
- Attribute: Virus
Some of the Digi-Xros forms do get official art and profiles. This is MusoKnightmon, combining DarkKnightmon and Tuwarmon... but it really is just the two guys standing in front of each other, with DarkKnightmon using Tuwarmon as a gun emplacement? It sure got art!
- Alternate Names: GreyKnightsmon
- Stage: Ultimate
- Type: Enhancement
- Attribute: Virus
A video game exclusive form that got a profile, GreyKnightsmon is DarkKnightmon fusing with MetalGreymon... and it actually changes MetalGreymon's form into a different looking blue robot dinosaur! It's got two giant cannons on its sides now. I find it funny that DarkKnightmon is a knight that fused with its own mount... and now gets a new mount. Okay?
These DigiXros'd forms aside, the base DarkKnightmon is what we really care about. And it's... it's all right!
7/10. +1 for fictional appearances. _________________________________________________________
Troopmon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Undead
- Attribute: Data
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.
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.
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. Troopmon has since shown up quite a bit in other media, including being troops in Adventure 2020 for their villains. It's pretty cool as an evil minion, and even the lore works well at explaining why there's so many of them!
7/10.
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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. Troopmon has since shown up quite a bit in other media, including being troops in Adventure 2020 for their villains. It's pretty cool as an evil minion, and even the lore works well at explaining why there's so many of them!
7/10._________________________________________________________
Chikurimon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Child
- Type: Mine
- Attribute: Virus
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, which is exactly what it does in Adventure 2020 when a group of underwater Digimon led by an Ebidramon uses Chikurimon as its minions that float up and blow up like a urchin-mine. That feels like an old-school Mario or Sonic or Mega Man enemy. I like that.
4/10._________________________________________________________
MadLeomon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Undead
- Attribute: Virus
The bio notes how MadLeomon was a Leomon who had heaped so much modification upon its body that it has DIED and mutated into its current appearance. It's even classified as an Undead Digimon! And I do love that the modifications in this case seemed to be Frankenstein-style stitches of other organs to his body as opposed to the traditional cybernetics-go-bad mutations that Digimon tend to do.
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.
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.
- Alternate Names: MadLeomon: Armed Mode
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Undead
- Attribute: Virus
He's also one of the few villains to actually go through the DigiXros method to power himself up. The only one to get a specific art for the Reference Book is 'Armed Mode', where MadLeomon merges with a random grab-bag of Digimon -- Mammon, Troopmon and Chikurimon. None of them have anything to do with the robotic parts that MadLeomon gains, least of all his massive chainsaw arm... which really is one of the failings of the 'DigiXros' mechanics because of how inconsistent it is beyond, again, the designs that they had toys of.
Which is a good thing! The cyborg parts are a good look on MadLeomon! And while the chainsaw is the scene-stealer, I like its big chunky metal arm as well. The profile describes this as one of the grislier old-school cyborg modifications. The zombified MadLeomon is constantly wracked in pain from all of the cyborg parts, and it's constantly trying to instinctively tear off the chainsaw on its arm in an attack hilariously and darkly called 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' -- and the lion, of course, will only sleep after its hunger has been satiated.
Again, none of these bio stuff is actually shown in the anime, where Armed Mode is just one of MadLeomon's multiple forms, with other forms having it merge with Orochimon, and later a Hanumon. Again, until these forms get an official profile, we'll acknowledge it and not really discuss it.
I do really like MadLeomon's bio even if it's understandably downplayed in the anime. It gets a higher grade than I thought it would!
7/10._________________________________________________________
Also here are a group that were released in a Xros Wars tie-in game, just to tick off some Digimon while we're in a shorter article.
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Chicchimon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Baby II
- Type: Chick
- Attribute: None
Chicchimon is sure a cute chicken blob with long hair! Chronomon has bird theming around it, but I do find it funny that the baby form is so blatantly just a cute little chicken blob.
He's a cutie! Chicchimon debuted all the way in Dawn/Dusk, but because these other guys debuted later they filled up the stages up to Chronomon with other bird digimon.
2/10._________________________________________________________
Hyokomon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Child
- Type: Chick
- Attribute: Vaccine
Debuting way later is Child-level Hyokomon, whose samurai theme has started showing. Chicchimon's hair is now a topknot, and it has manifested an eggshell to wear as clothes. Nevermind where it gets the eggshell! It's fashionable!
This one is kind of cute, actually. Goofy and cute.
4/10._________________________________________________________
Buraimon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Adult
- Type: Bird Man
- Attribute: Vaccine
Adult level Buraimon is sure a muscular eagle samurai man! He's got the reed hat and the swords you expect from a samurai man. It sure has a bio that establishes that he is a samurai, and does samurai things.
It sure exists to bridge the cute chickens and the chicken time god!
2/10._________________________________________________________
Butenmon
- Alternate Names: N/A
- Stage: Perfect
- Type: God Man
- Attribute: Vaccine
It sure is a Perfect-level winged plasticky bird dude? I guess he has Chronomon colours. It sure has a generic "it has mastered swordsmanship by training like a samurai" bio!
That's the problem with a lot of "fill the lines" stages. Without a proper anime, manga or video game story to fill, a lot of these stages tend to just feel like obligatory steps just so they can say that they gave Chronomon a full line. Honestly I'd rather they actually just used some more obscure Adults and Perfects that are abandoned and assign them to Chronomon... these are quite bland and unmemorable, and honestly don't even do a good job at looking like a "lesser" Chronomon beyond being a bird man with Japanese clothes.
2/10.
This might be silly, but where is the MadLeomon: Armed Mode entry?
ReplyDeleteRight, that one got a Reference Book art. I'll toss him back in, then! The original version of the review had all the MadLeomon forms with anime screenshots, and there are so many random XrosUp forms that some are bound to miss the cracks.
DeleteArmed Mode has been added back, and revised a bit!
Delete