Digimon Reviews, Episode 47: Gumdramon and Friends [Hunters]

After the whole epic battles of Xros Wars's two seasons, we get a spinoff-sequel starring a new protagonist and a barely coherent and poorly-defined concept. Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time is a bizarre mix of various concepts cobbled together to form a pretty confusing set of episodic battles and a poorly defined battle royale to "hunt" as many Digimon that manifests into the world. It follows Xros Wars' lead of at least utilizing a bunch of older, ignored Digimon like Psychemon and Astamon, something that I do appreciate, but the writing is utterly abysmal, and even for a toyline tie-in cartoon aimed for children, Hunters was pretty piss-poor. It's mostly remembered by the fandom for the last two or three episodes, which is basically the only episodes that really tie in to Xros Wars in any meaningful fashion, and also features all of the protagonists in Digimon's history teaming up.

Anyway... let's just rip off this band-aid, shall we? And, yeah, I might sound a bit too negative, but, man, it was pretty torturous to work through Hunters as a show. Everyone in it was unlikable, most of the returning cast were mis-handled, and the plot is pretty must a jumbled cryptic mess. Say what you will about 02 and Frontier, they are at least somewhat solid in what they do, they're just not good. This series is just flat-out bad. But hey, we're not here to bash the series, we're here to talk about the designs.

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Gumdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Small Dragon
• Attribute: Vaccine

Our main character's partner this time around is Gumdramon, who is... basically like a bad ripoff of Veemon, Dorumon and Shoutmon, mixed in a blender, and then they slapped a bunch of random accessories on it. It's pretty hard to reinvent a new mascot every season, Gumdramon here feels like it's trying a bit too hard. It's got random accessories like the ring on his hammer-tail, or the Mickey Mouse vest, or the yellow wings, or the X-shaped marking on his head... One or two of those features together probably would be charming. All of them at once just makes Gumdramon look like a faint shadow of his far more interesting counterparts.

Gumdramon's whole gimmick is that its hammer-tail can stretch, hence the name 'gum', which you would think would lead to some Monkey D. Luffy and Elongated Man style hijinks... but, nope, similar to the lack of creativity that went into making Gumdramon's design, the action scenes that Gumdramon is in basically goes around the same "whack enemies with the hammer". When all you have is a hammer, I guess. I really don't want to make my feelings for the show influence my feelings on the designs of its characters, but man I do not care for Gumdramon at all, this messy, "let's lump a bunch of features together onto a generic Veemon body" design. 

 3/10.

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Arresterdramon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Dragon
• Attribute: Vaccine

Jeez, what a horrifying mess. Like, I tend to try and understand that sometimes things appeal to other people, but Arresterdramon is just one godawful mess of a design. The colour scheme is okay enough, a combination of purple, red, black and yellow is pretty pleasant, but the skinny dragon-man in... leather pants and... cyborg armour? With a metal trident tail? Digimon has had a bunch of dragon-men over the years, and while they aren't my thing, I could at least appreciate designs like Darkdramon or Dorugoramon or ShineGreymon at least looked pretty cool. Arresterdramon is just a mess! Nothing to say here. Just not a big fan.
I guess I can talk about the protagonist here, Akashi Tagiru. He's... he's a tool. He embodies all the annoying parts of Shonen anime protagonists without any of the likable parts. That's about all I can say about him.

See, the gimmick of this show is "Xros Up", which they try to imply is different from DigiXros, but is basically the same thing. Unlike Shoutmon's alternate forms which at least received some wacky names, Every single dang one of Arresterdramon's forms are known as "XrosUpArresterdramon"... and I honestly don't care for any of them, which just attacahes random tentacles or robot parts or weapons to Arresterdramon. None of them have received any official artwork or profiles, and are treated even by Bandai itself as just one-off designs. The initial version of this review had me go through around a dozen of them, but they were quite bad and the pictures have since broken down, so I've removed all of them. 

 0/10.
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Arresterdramon: Superior Mode

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Dragon
• Attribute: Vaccine

In the final battle, we get Arresterdramon: Superior Mode. He sure is the same thing with cape-wings and surfing on a giant skeletal hand. It's classified since as a Perfect-mode. 

Hunters ended with a massive crossover with the heroes from the past six better TV shows giving power to Arresterdramon. It sure was a disappointment!

 0/10.
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Ekakimon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Data

The one good thing about Hunters is its usage of some fan-made Digimon, which really felt fun. They felt creative, and not just 'how do we design the next marketable dragon knight'. 

Ekakimon, named after "ekaki", Japanese word for artist, is one of the couple of villains-of-the-week that isn't a pre-existing Digimon. And the now Child-level Ekakimon is basically a fun little pencil with robot arms and legs, all coloured differently, and it basically has the ability to make drawings real. But, of course, instead of being one of the most powerful creatures ever, Ekakimon is quite a fun joke character. 

I do like that one of his attacks is apparently called "Mini Mini Ekakimon", where Ekakimon will just draw extra smaller versions of himself to attack the enemy. It's goofy and showed up as a group of pranksters working under a Pumpmon in Ghost Game!

 6/10.
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Yakiimon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Plant
• Attribute: Vaccine

Borrowing his name from the Japanese word for sweet potato, Yakiimon is... well, the idea of a boxing sweet potato is a ridiculous one, but that's kind of all there is to Yakiimon. That's the joke. I do like that the clothes of Yakiimon are the newspaper that is often used to wrap around hot sweet potatoes, and there's the nice detail that the area around Yakiimon's eyes and mouth are the 'peeled skin' of the sweet potato. 

Yakiimon goes through intensive special training to be a CHAMPION. What kind of champion? THE CHAMPION. It's a goober. I don't really care for it, if we're being honest, but I can appreciate it. 

 3/10.

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Bacomon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Child
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Data

Oh, hey, something from Hunters I legitimately like. Bacomon (named after the Japanese word for cardboard box, not after bacon) is a fun little golem made entirely of cardboard boxes, and I really do love how the whole thing looks like someone stacked a bunch of boxes together in rough approximation of a golem, and I absolutely love the wacky little details that go into him. 

That one gift box that serves as an upper leg, the fact that he's holding some tape, the zip-tie locks that serve as "buttons". I absolutely love the fact that his right eye seems like a generic painted-on anime eye, but the broken hole shows a creepier pinpoint eye inside the dark void in his head. Bacomon could've been so boring, but these details end up making Bacomon look so much more interesting!

Bacomon is, of course, a timid little creature that finds security in his cardboard boxes, which is a nice riff on something similar to Gabumon... but at least it looks unique. It will apparently "pack" whoever tries to peek inside the boxes in a box of its own. In the Hunters episode, there are apparently a lot of variations, although most of them are based on gift boxes and stuff. They were bullied by an evil Jokermon! Oh no! Don't bully the Amazon boxes!

 8/10.

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Ganemon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Adult
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Vaccine

Hooo, are we over? Neat, because this next one is at least somewhat charming. Ganemon (kogane meaning money) is a 10-yen coin with a face and a dapper mustache, a top hat, and a set of cartoon string limbs, holding a briefcase and holding a stack of bills. Not the most impressive design, but far, far more charming than some of the others we'll see in the next one. 

It's got a fun personality, too, because Ganemon is a swindler that would get people to steal money for him, and also gang-presses an army of lesser coin Digimon, the Zenimon and KoZenimon, to work for him. Apparently its mustache is a radar for money! And it eats the money to grow in size! It's not my 'type' of Digimon, but they really put so much thought into thinking up of these monsters and how they would behave, really capturing a spirit that the soulless Arresterdramon above lacks. 

 6/10. 
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Zenimon

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

And I actually like these two as well! Apparently they're all sitting around in Ganemon's trunk, and are basically the same design as Ganemon, but based on different yen coins, and with a less-humanoid set of peepers compared to Ganemon. Where Ganemon has a money-radar mustache, Zenimon can actually emit waves that attract money. Do like its stubby gun-port fingers, and the bizarre, roller-like eyes it has. 

 5/10. 

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KoZenimon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby II
• Type: Mutation
• Attribute: Vaccine

KoZenimon is cute, with those beady eyes and those little stump-hands! Adorable. 

The Digimon Reference Book has since canonized KoZenimon, Zenimon and Ganemon as Baby II, Child and Adult levels respectively. Appropriate! I like that. Xros Wars did a lot of good things, but doing away with levels was definitely a mistake -- particularly when they started introducing Digimon that clearly relate to each other. 

 5/10. 
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Jokermon

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

Ehhh it's just a dude in a clown suit, basically what you get when you combine Batman villains Joker and Harley Quinn, drawn it in anime style, and give him a scythe. It's not a bad design, but I can't not see that this is just a dude. The idea is that Jokermon is a 'trump card' that appears randomly in battlefields, and those that it supports often wins... but it's also unpredictable.

The profile notes that Jokermon is tied to Piemon, and with the Reference Book canonizing that it's a Perfect-level, I suppose it's basically Piemon's confirmed pre-evolution... but I just am not feeling it. The art and costuming is pretty, I just don't like it as a Digimon. 

 2/10. 

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Pillomon

• Alternate Names: Pillowmon (EN dub)
• Stage: Child
• Type: Mammal
• Attribute: Vaccine

Oh, I get it, because you count sheep to sleep! Pillomon would normally be boring, but a pillow sheep that's floating is quite cute and it's a nice breath of creativity before we dive into reams and reams of humanoid cosplayers post-Hunters. 

While it's an adorable sheep-pillow with a fun little night-cap, apparently Pillomon will steal and eat your dreams, because, well, it's a Digimon. That's cute! That's like a little baku! I do like the little detail that Pillowmon attacks by snorting bubble, and the effect of the bubbles -- lulling enemies into a deep sleep, or tormenting them with nightmares -- depends on how soundly the Pillomon itself is sleeping. I've grown to quite like this one.

It's a bit of a shame that the Hunters episode were all either bad or boring, but thankfully Pillomon got a second chance at a spotlight, showing up in Ghost Game as a rather appropriate one for the urban-legends setting. 

 6/10. 

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Sagomon

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

A long while back, we had Gokuwmon, based on Sun Wukong/Son Goku, the Monkey King, protagonist of iconic Japanese novel Journey to the West. So after Gokuwmon and Shawujinmon, Hunters decided to complete the trifecta by adapting the main characters of that novel into Digimon. Except... we already have a Shawujinmon, but they ended up taking Sha Wujin's Japanese name, Sa Gojo, to make Sagomon here. Who is exactly the same with Shawujinmon, but in blue. 

And this is such a less interesting colour palette compared to Shawujinmon! At least Sagomon has some unique lore, which is the fact that it has nine skulls as a belt, and if one of the skulls is stolen, he will transform into a demon. Overall, though, kind of an uninspiring repaint. Sagomon is one of the few Digimon "hunted" by Tagiru, but unlike the cast of Xros Wars, Tagiru basically never actually uses the Digimon he "hunts", in full opposition of the core themes of the previous show.

 5/10.
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Gokuwmon

• Alternate Names: Gokuumon
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Beast Man
• Attribute: Virus

Not to be confused with Gokumon, Gokuwmon is based on Son Goku/Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. And he's... he's basically honestly an anime version of the Monkey King, with no real twists. It's kind of a cool monkey with the cool staff that Wukong has, but at the same time there really isn't much creativity that went into designing this thing, huh? We've had Digimon based on legends or literature before, but all of them at least tried to make things look unique. Gokuwmon is just literally Sun Wukong with some anime accessories. Like everything in the Hunters era except Bacomon... nearly zero effort went into this thing, they just took Sun Wukong and just slapped some cargo pants on him. Really wished there was a twist here.

 3/10.
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Cho-Hakkaimon

• Alternate Names: ChoHakkaimon
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Puppet
• Attribute: Data

Sun Wukong's second brother-in-arms is the pig demon, Zhu Bajie, who is often portrayed as being a lustful, greedy and gluttonous pig-man who is, like the rest of the cast, trying to find redemption after being befriended by Wukong and his master. And Digimon's adaptation of Zhu Bajie (or Cho Hakkai, as he's known in Japanese)?

Yeah... A girl in a swimsuit dressed in a bizarre patchwork mech suit, holding a gigantic rocket-powered rake in an adaptation of Zhu Bajie's rake weapon. ChoHakkaimon actually received a fair amount of screentime in Hunters, being the evolved partner of human antagonist Airu... evolving from Opossumon of all things. 

I'm... what? It's not as blatantly disrespectful as the Sistermons that we'll see in the next one, and it certainly isn't lazy like Gokuwmon in adapting a famous figure, but what? Honestly, conceptually I actually like the idea of ChoHakkaimon being 'cursed' inside a pig puppet, since it counts as a 'puppet' Digimon in the same vein of Monzaemon. That's even referenced in the bio, and I don't even necessarily mind the quasi-mecha armour. 

It's the fact that they picked a swimsuit girl and the armour is designed for fanservice that made me really shake my head and roll my eyes. It gets one point for the sheer WTF-ness of the concept, but only that.

 1/10. 

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Quartzmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Species Unknown
• Attribute: Unknown

And here's the final big bad of Hunters, Quartzmon. It is a mighty giant globe with spindly spider legs, and a vague ring of red energy, from which Quartzmon's central body pokes out. It's like the concepts of Apocalymon meets the D-Reaper, but with all the cool goth-punk themes from Apocalymon removed, and the techno-Cthulhu themes from D-Reaper removed. At the same time, there is a significant feeling of "been there, done that"... The highlight of the design is definitely that central body with the bizarre mask and random horns sticking out of its head, as well as the four twisted arms, looks somewhat neat, definitely feeling like a tamer (heh) version of the D-Reaper agents .

Quartzmon's whole deal is a generic destroy-the-world plan, and he basically feels like an anime summer movie villain -- a somewhat neat design, built up to be so badass it needs a super form to take down, but ultimately forgettable due to any lack of character or motivation. He's all right, I suppose, but we've had so many "world-ending walking Armageddon" Digimon from Apocalymon to Arkadimon to the various Millenniummons to Ogudomon to Lucemon to the other Demon Lords to Yggdrassil to the D-Reaper, that this globe with legs just ends up feeling derivative and underwhelming. Sorry, Quartzy. 

 5/10. 

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Footmon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Vaccine

Also have Footmon, I guess. Alongside Soundbirdmon (who we've moved elsewhere), Footmon's one of the contest winners to not make it into the anime. And... it's just a colourful robot kicking a football, though. It's really not my thing. I mgiht like it a bit more if it's less humanoid, but as it is, it's just a dude with rocket thighs. Not a fan, sorry.  

 1/10.

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Targetmon

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

Targetmon here is an Adult-level puppet Digimon originally released as a TCG-exclusive Digimon (and there's a metric-ton of those in the upcoming reviews), but has basically been adopted and shown up in some digivices. He's... he's a nasty-looking pink monkey with Cyclops' glasses, an ammo bandoleer, and like a dumb monkey he's holding two shoes in his hands, and they're connected with electricity or some shit? It's apparently an Etemon pre-evolution, but Etemon at least has style. Shoes in hand? Unkempt toes? This thing is just unpleasant. Take it away, please.

 0/10. 

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