Pokemon S01E51-52 Review: Onion Frog Society

Pokemon, Season 1, Episode 51: Bulbasaur's Secret Garden; Episode 52: Princess vs. Princess

We're back with Pokemon! A couple of episodes, anyway -- I think my mistake when I first covered the first 50 episodes of Pokemon was I really tried to go too much, too fast. Better to just watch at my own pace and enjoy the sights, yeah? "Bulbasaur's Secret Garden" is a pretty fun, chill episode, even if it does admittedly raise a whole lot of questions. Evolution in the anime has always been a bit of an interesting pickle, because, of course, what form of the Pokemon our main characters will be using throughout their journey through the anime is going to depend wholly on what the marketing department decides to push. In this case, clearly, Bulbasaur is another one that the marketing deparment decided that, hey, merchandise of the far cuter looking Bulbasaur is definitely going to sell a lot more than the far more toad-like Venusaur. (Clearly these people are assholes, Venusaur is a good boy). This does lead to some inconsistency on our characters' behaviour, though -- Ash and company absolutely respect the decision to keep Pikachu, Bulbasaur and that one Eevee and have them not evolve as this "yeah, respect your choice, awesome!" routine, but also, within the span of episodes, are all super excited when Caterpie and Charmander reach their respective final evolutions.

Of course, they had to make a whole episode about it, which is nice -- I always do like episodes that give one of the non-Pikachu party members some spotlight, particularly in these earlier seasons. After a battle with some random trainer and his Rhyhorn, Ash's wounded Bulbasaur seems to begin to convulse, like something's wrong with him. Turns out that there's nothing wrong, other than the bump on his head, which ends up with Bulbasaur getting a little bandage that differentiates him from the other Bulbasaur. It's just that age for Bulbasaur to evolve! And over the course of the episode, we learn that apparently, for Bulbasaurs, this is a phenomenon that is triggered by weather and we get to see the location around the pokemon center have plants and flowers that bloom.

It is admittedly a simple, but pretty interesting, way to give these Pokemon some sort of... I wouldn't say society, but certainly some lore. Apparently these Bulbasaurs will gather in a secret garden where a Venusaur will preside over a mass evolution of many Bulbasaurs into Ivysaurs. A garden that's covered with walls of vines to keep out intruders. And... as interesting as this is, and as cool as the visuals are, we never get a whole ton of explanation. Is this just a phenomenon localized to the Bulbasaurs of this area? Or are there just a bunch of Venusaurs located in different places all over the world, with their own secret gardens? We do get some pretty visuals of the flowers blooming and whatnot, but it does carry the odd little implication that for Bulbasaurs, their evolution seem to depend more on the location and season more than actual experience, something that the episode just sort of glosses over.

What is probably the episode's biggest weakness, though, is definitely that we don't really learn anything about Bulbasaur's decision. Pikachu's refusal to evolve into Raichu stemmed from pride and a fear of changing, but while Bulbasaur and Pikachu had that adorable little pokemon-speech talk, we never really learn just why Bulbasaur is so adamant at not evolving, other than the fact that he was basically abducted by his Bulbasaur brethren and dragged to the mysterious garden against his will.

The episode eventually has Ash show up and take a blow launched by the asshole Venusaur and give a speech about, hey, let his pet onion frog be a non-conformist if he wants to, god damn it. Then Team Rocket shows up with their silly balloon and everything... and because of rule of drama, none of the dozens of Ivysaurs or the giant, ancient Venusaur is able to do a damn thing until Bulbasaur unlocks Solar Beam, unleashing it to blow up Team Rocket's balloon. It is admittedly a pretty damn badass moment, though watching it again and not going "oh what is this cool thing Bulbasaur is doing?" does make me frown a little.

Overall, still kind of a solid episode, but one that I wished they had put more thought into planning and plotting. The visuals and concept are pretty neat, though, and as a huge Bulbasaur fanboy I am happy for anything that gives us more Bulbasaur.

Episode 52 is honestly kind of an underwhelming episode, and that's before you factor in the insane amount of edits that the English dub made to basically hide the fact that it's meant to be a celebration of Hinamatsuri, a cultural holiday in Japan that's basically translated as either Girl's Day or Doll's Day, celebrating young girls. The Hina doll set prominently featured in this episode is something that a lot of girls get in this celebration, which depicts a seated male and female dolls (usually meant to represent the Emperor and Empress).

And... well, it's basically a general "holiday episode", y'know? Except that we've got a Pokemon tournament thrown into this one, as well as Jessie randomly catching a Lickitung, which sort-of-but-not-really became the focus of the episode. It basically got a scene showing Jessie's capture, and later on ends up being the 'final boss' in the tournament. As far as the debut of what's technically a recurring character, it's honestly a pretty bland debut. It's a better one than what Arbok and Weezing got, though, admittedly, where Lickitung at least got to be some sort of an obstacle, but also... eh?

We basically start off the episode with a bunch of exposition on what Hinamatsuri (or Princess Day, as it's known in the dub), then a bunch of "oh, girl stuff, ha ha" with Jessie and Misty pontificating about how great Hinamatsuri is, how girls get discounted or free stuff, how they can shop... before, of course, the Lickitung capture, and the subsequent glaring-daggers contest as Misty and Jessie end up entering a competition to obtain a set of princess dolls.

The actual competition is kind of neat, even if we had to fudge over Misty and Jessie strong-arming their male companions' Pokemon, as well as giving a sob-story about how they totally deserve to win the hina doll/princess figures because Jessie's just straight-up poor while Misty was the unfavourite child. The actual Pokemon battle tournament mostly deals with a montage of still frames, but I am pretty happy to see that the episodes are starting to be more comfortable rapid-fire showing us a bunch of Pokemon. Some neat little features of the tournament include a surprisingly competent Arbok taking out Primeape with poison, as well as Bulbasaur's one-man-show against that Kingler lady.

Of course, the actual conclusion of the episode is a bit... eh? Pikachu basically one-shots Arbok, Weezing and Meowth in a funny rapid-fire gag, and then Lickitung shows up and is able to paralyze all of Misty's party with its tongue. Team Rocket's about to win with their badass new Pokemon, right? until Psyduck pops out, and the two dumbos just stare at each other, ignoring their trainers. Because... of reasons? Eventually, Lickitung licking Psyduck causes Psyduck to unleash a psychic blast that sends Team Rocket blasting off again. Okay, then.

There's also this bizarre running gag with an overly-excited announcer and an idol called Fiorella Cappuccino, which, in the original Japanese, was meant to be a homage to Japanese celebrity Kimura Takuya of SMAP... but all of it sort of ended up falling flat in the dub -- and I didn't bother to look up how this was handled in the original Japanese, but I bet it featured better voice acting, because even by minor-character-in-the-dub standards, Mr. Cappuccino had a particularly bad voice.

I did remember this episode the most because it came up in a discussion in my high school literature class, where a classmate used this episode as an example of protagonist-centered morality, because, shit, Jessie didn't even do any crimes in this episode, and is just being competitive because she didn't even have the chance to own the set of dolls -- and while Misty getting hand-me-downs is kind of shitty, too, Jessie and Team Rocket gets treated particularly poorly, getting blasted off and whatnot just because they are the designated villain. At least James and Meowth decide to cheer Jessie up by dressing up for her, which is very sweet.

Overall, though, if we're being pretty damn honest, it's honestly a pretty forgettable episode.

Pokemon Index:

• Episode 51:
• Pokemon: Pikachu, Togepi, Rhyhorn, Bulbasaur, Chansey, Meowth, Venusaur, Ivysaur
• Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, Nurse Joy, Jessie, James
• Episode 52:
• Pokemon: Meowth, Pikachu, Lickitung, Arbok, Bulbasaur, Vulpix, Kingler, Pinsir, Cubone, Raticate, Primeape, Weezing, Fearow, Graveler, Tangela, Machoke, Parasect, Psyduck
• Humans: Misty, Jessie, James, Brock, Ash

Random Notes:

• The title of episode 51 is actually a pun on Bulbasaur's Japanese name -- Fushigidane is a pun on fushigi (mysterious), which, of course, doesn't translate to English. 
• Episode 51 marks the first time that Pikachu does imitations and impressions to communicate with human characters, briefly imitating Bulbasaur.
• It is pretty damn hilarious that Team Rocket's suction was strong enough to even start to lift up the 100-kg Venusaur, but the three human kids, and Ash's Bulbasaur? Nope, their legs are firmly planted on the ground. 
• Episode 52 is obviously meant to air a lot earlier, with Togepi being completely absent, while Jessie's Lickitung was mentioned in episode 50. 
• Dub Changes:
• Not an English dub change, but several other language dubs like French, Polish and Swedish, the scenes where Pikachu and Bulbasaur are talking are interpreted and translated by the narrator. 
• In the original Japanese version, Brock notes that Bulbasaur is doing fine despite of Ash's sub-par training skills, continuing the trend of Ash's relative luck-driven persona. In the English dub, this is changed to Bulbasaur doing fine because of Ash's training. 
• In the original Japanese version, when met with the massive vine wall, James makes a crack about how Meowth can't learn HM01: Cut, as in the specific move. In the English dub, any references to the actual move is, well, cut.
• Episode 52 had perhaps one of the most edits regarding the text and signs on the mall -- although this particular shot looks positively terrible. Also, of course, there's the whole replacing of Hinamatsuri with a fictional "Princess Festival". There are a lot of cultural subtext that is basically lost in the dub to English, which I'm not really going to list everything about. 
• Episode 52's "Who's That Pokemon" segment was Lickitung in Japanese, which makes a lot of sense, y'know? The pokemon that debuted in the episode? But in the English version, it's bizarrely changed to Butterfree. 
• The original Japanese version makes it clear that girls get a discount while men have to pay the full price, but the dub's implication leans to girls getting items for free instead. 
• Jessie's original line in the Japanese version about the gifts for Giovanni are more for generic appreciation, whereas the dub makes it out to be their apology for not capturing Pikachu.
• The lines about "genuine designer fakes" and "batteries sold separately" were a dub addition, too, and were both very, very hilarious additions.  
• As you could imagine, the announcer randomly going about how the fighters must be "poised like a Jynx, serene like a Jigglypuff, and possess the charm and grace of an Oddish" were actual puns that really only make context with a Japanese proverb and the Japanese names of these Pokemon. 
• Jessie's outburst to the announcer was less about the announcer using "perhaps" and "maybe", but rather because she was addressed with the "-san" honorific instead of "-chan" (the latter denoting either a younger girl, or a cute girl). 
• A dub error! The the fourth Pokemon that Misty wanted to use in the competition changes from Starmie in the planning stage to Staryu during the actual battle. In the Japanese version, it's consistently Staryu in both lines.
• Another dub error, sort of, is that in the original Japanese version, Lickitung consistently has its stomach growling throughout the fight, and end up not listening to Jessie near the end because it got too hungry. The characters make note of this. For whatever reason, in the dub, this was kind of removed, so Lickitung's just a dick for no reason. 

Let's Play Pokemon Uranium: Part 16: Village of the Hidden Weebs

So last time we left off, Ura defeated the seventh gym, obtained the power of MEGA evolution, and also was blueballed at the prospect at getting the Fly HM, forcing him to go through the snowy wasteland of Mt. Lanthanite. We've basically cleared all of the areas north of Venesi City, so time to go down south, where apparently it's the land of the ninjas and bad ninja jokes. Originally I placed all of the Tsukinami stuff in a single update, but decided to split it up due to the sheer length.

I will try not to mock-quote Naruto too much.

Young Justice: Outsiders S03E16 Review: Publicity Stunt

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 16: Illusion of Control

I do realize that I'm actually pretty slow with my reviews for Young Justice's third season, but... y'know. I'll get to the episodes when I actually watch them, yeah?

Definitely a fun episode, and one that is sort of a payoff to storylines that we've sort of covered throughout this half-season -- the metahuman rehab center as well as Beast Boy's increasing amount of scenes with frowny-faces as he tries to figure out how to be a hero with a public face.

And the actual episode itself is... it's basically a simple outing, perhaps the closest that this half-season has came to a proper self-contained villain of the week episode. We get a neat set-up where we welcome a bunch of older characters like Kid Flash and Blue Beetle (after their starring role in the previous season, they were near-missing in this one), as well as finally listen to Traci 13 actually have some voice lines. Also, Static's around, and he needs to get a girlfriend, according to the recurring joke in this episode... because every single teammate and even the villains act lovey-dovey. Poor Virgil!

Both the Young Justice Team and El Dorado's Taos staff decide to throw a little party at a carnival/amusement park in order to give the kids a chance to take a break and hang out, we get to see Beast Boy hang out with Queen Perdita and we get a lot of fun, fluff scenes of them just sort of... hanging out, y'know? We get to see even Livewire and Mist play bumper cars, and we get to see Ed Dorado sort of trying to figure out how to properly talk to Wendy, leading to Perdita having a pretty neat little girl-talk with her.... which, again, in turn leads to Garfield basically trying to figure out how the best way to help out really is -- the Justice League is too restricted, and the YJ Team's a covert ops agent.

Of course, it's a superhero episode and we need some action, so Count Vertigo shows up and kidnaps Perdita, using his vertigo powers to send everyone reeling and retching. Again, we get a couple of neat little action scenes as everyone gives chase to Vertigo and his helicopter, and I absolutely love just how the Scarab interacts with Blue Beetle. It may be a force for good now but it's still borderline psychotic, which is hilarious. The visuals are not 100% clear about Traci 13's powers, which just seems to be generic magic. Kinda wished we had a line of dialogue or two clarifying her powers for those that aren't huge DC geeks like me, y'know?

Eventually, thanks to the Scarab and Blue Beetle's disagreements about the height that they're flying in, as well as some bizarre stretchy walls, they figure out that something's going on. It seems like illusions, but Count Vertigo's powers doesn't include illusions... and after some neat display of Beast Boy's bear form, they figure out that everything from Count Vertigo's presence to the vertigo powers are caused by Psimon and Devastation. I absolutely love, by the way, how the two of them are apparently just this lovey-dovey couple now. The good guys win against the brains-and-brawn couple, but they figure out that Psimon and Devastation are just a distraction...

And the rest of the Fearsome Five the Onslaught are at the amusement park, using sleeping gas to knock out the civilian meta-humans and about to re-acquire their merchandise. Again, we get some neat showcase of superpowers from the Young Justice squad as they fight against a bunch of super-powered villains... and, again, I do like that whether it was Vertigo or Psimon, both of them are recurring villains that would honestly make sense to show up at this point in the season as a minor threat. Not much to say here, the action scenes are animated well and I'm a huge fan. Eventually, this leads to Beast Boy noting that he's done hiding and covering up crimes, and we end up with a scene where Beast Boy basically shows up in front of the crowd and gives a long speech about he and the rest of the YJ team were there to help out, with both Blue Beetle and Kid Flash also being shown in the spotlight. It's not much, but it's definitely something that the show's going to build up in subsequent episodes.

As a B-plot... Forager basically keeps trying to get Cyborg to come and eat Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of their 'hive'. Not a whole ton to say here... Cyborg's still full of self-loathing and refuses to go in despite Forager's adorable caterpillar/butterfly metaphor. Meanwhile, dinner at the Harpers ends up becoming sour when Helga accidentally lets slip in front of Paula Crock, Artemis's mother, about how Artemis is doing a great job as a mentor for these kids, and Paula just basically freaks the shit out -- she wants her daughter to have a stable life, especially after all that Artemis has lost with Wally. Paula points at her and Barbara Gordon's crippling injuries, and rants about how Artemis' life would've been so much better if she settled down with a proper job, a degree, maybe with Will, and as Lian's mother... and we get some amazing voice acting from Paula's VA, Kelly Hu. She genuinely sounds like a truly traumatized parent.

Speaking of trauma, Artemis's choice of words in giving a 'bribe' to their adorable woofer Brucely ends up triggering poor Violet, who runs out of the house screaming about how the dog should not be accepting bribes... and, of course, it's dr. Helga that consoles her. Between her earlier research with the hair (which I'm 90% sure is from Violet, but I'm not sure) and being such a supportive character that she ends up getting Violet to open up that her past persona of Gabrielle Daou was the one responsible for letting in the assassins that killed the Markovian royal family, Helga has a lot of shady things going on, particularly when she calls some unknown person about assistance. Again, while the audience understands that "Violet" and "Gabrielle" are two completely different people, it's an interesting secret to keep from Brion (it involves his parent's death!), and I'm curious to see how the show's going to handle it. The show's leaning pretty heavily on making Helga Jace suspicious, so I'm curious if that, too, is also a misdirection.

Overall, a lot lighter-hearted than the previous episode, and mostly feels like a breather one. Not that it's a bad thing, though -- a lot of interesting developments, and while the media perception of superheroes is sort of a trope that I personally am a bit tired of, I'm curious to see how this goes -- especially with the great work they've done with Beast Boy in this season.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Kid Flash II, Neutron, Blue Beetle, Traci Thirteen, Static, El Dorado, Forager, Miss Martian, Superboy, Cyborg, Bio-Ship, Halo, Tigress, Red Arrow, Geo-Force, Beast Boy, Guardian II, Bumblebee
• Villains: Count Vertigo (illusion), Psimon, Devastation, Terror Twins, Icicle Jr, Holocaust
• Civilians/Others: Lian Harper, Paula Crock, Terra, Dr. Helga Jace, Queen Perdita, Livewire, Mist, Windfall, Celia Windward, Eduardo Dorado Sr

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Celia Windward is better known as Jet to comic-book readers, a character introduced in the pages of the Millennium event, where the Green Lanterns' bosses, the Guardians, attempted to create a race of New Guardians. Celia/Jet was one of the characters that the Guardians endowed with powers, specifically electromagnetic energies. Perhaps controversially, Jet is also a character that died due to contracting AIDS when fighting a blood-themed villain, something that is apparently ignored by subsequent comics who featured her as a recurring Green Lantern supporting character. 
• Psimon-as-Vertigo repeats Count Vertigo's catchphrase from previous seasons (and one that the fandom latched on to), "That's Count Vertigo to you, peasant".

One Piece 948-951 Review: Kappas, Prison Breaks and Yonkou Fights

One Piece, Chapter 948: Kawamatsu the Kappa Takes the Stage; Chapter 949: Mummy; Chapter 950: A Soldier's Dream; Chapter 951: Rampage

It's been a while -- I know I did say that I wanted to do the Shonen Jump manga reviews monthly, but, y'know, things got in the way, so have this little bonus edition of four chapters all at once. It basically ties up two mini-arcs of the Wano-kuni saga, which is neat!

948 and 949 basically deals with Luffy and the Udon prison, which is... still a bit too erratically paced for my liking -- in retrospect I'm still pretty sure the whole Big Mom amnesia and prison rampage stuff was something that I definitely didn't like. It isn't bad, but the pacing's just kinda off. With Queen and Big Mom off on their own little sub-plot, though, we get a neat little focus on Luffy fighting a bunch of random prisoners, as well as fighting against Babanuki (a.k.a. Old Maid in some fan translations) the elephant warden man. It does kind of feel like we've seen this exact same plot multiple times over the course of One Piece's storyline, where Luffy just wins over a group of people and becomes inspiring by sheer grit, determination and a show of force, but the Udon prison bit does have a little twist in that the prisoners actually don't want to be freed, not really. They're not oppressed and chomping at the bit like the citizens of Alabasta, or split in half due to racism like Fishman Island, or blissfully ignorant due to a deception like Dressrosa. They know they're being oppressed, but they're so goddamned afraid of Kaidou and the rest of the corrupt system that they're begging Luffy and company to just keep their head down and not cause a ruckus.

We also get a bit of a fighting as Babanuki and that one scorpion Gifter ends up using the "Mummy" plague bullets to infect everyone that basically turns them into pain-spreading zombies, which adds to the whole "despair" theme of the prison. And... and these random mooks are certainly never a threat as far as the audience is concerned, but it does make for a decent little two-parter mini-quest, y'know?

Also, in 948, we get the full debut of Kawamatsu the Kappa from his prison cell. He's finally freed, given his sword the Soto-musou, and ends up being kind of a badass as he rampages against the guards. His design is kinda goofy, but, again, prety standard as far as One Piece fare goes. I still do think that a lot of these Wano-kuni characters feel even more like NPC's and pieces on a chessboard as opposed to actual characters, although a fair amount of them are starting to grow on me. 948 ends with Raizou, Kiku and Hyogorou showing off their true identities to truly inspire the random soldiers and prisoners in Udon, which is a badass dual-page spread.

949 shows off the Excitement Bullets even more, which really ends up selling the whole "Queen the Plague" epithet really well, with all of the prisoners of Udon turning against the Straw-Hat-Samurai squad... but, of course, Luffy ends up taking the bullet's effects on himself voluntarily and just gives this whole speech about how they're just working as oppressed slaves and lying to themselves that this is 'normal', ranting about how even as an outsider, he'll protect this country. Then Luffy one-shots Babanuki with some hilarious Looney Tunes style "tie up the nose and let the cannonball explode" bit, eventually causing the prisoners to finally rebel and the narration to give a badass bit of "without the enemy knowing, Udon has been conquered".

950 is a bit of a wrap-up of the prison staff. Kid and Killer ends up leaving the prison despite being freed, apparently still burned about their failed alliance, and just buggers off into the wasteland. I'm... I'm still curious where they are going with Kid, honestly. He's got such an interesting storyline, but at the same time we know so little about Kid as a person that at the same time that I'm not sure how I feel about him. I do like that after the adrenaline of the jailbreak is over, the prisoners are still confused and unsure about whether to trust the pirate Luffy, and it's not until Momonosuke shows up that they all collectively shut up, bow down and pledge their allegiances. I do really like this bit -- sure, Hyogorou and the Samurai may be respected figures, and Luffy gave one hell of a speech, but considering just the constantly-showcased insular attitude of Wano-kuni in general, I do really like that the people needed some huge gesture and someone to rally behind... and, of course, that someone is the literal son of their deceased, betrayed Shogun.

We get Ashura Doji showing Kin'emon and Inuarashi the graves of their fallen comrades, and apparently a significant amount of their old allies have literally gone off to their deaths and that's what made Ashura Doji such a cynic now. We learn that the term "Sunacchi" is a war-cry that Ashura's now-deceased comrades used to rally around as a way to rebel against Orochi and Kaidou, basically an abbreviation of "throw away thy name and wits". And with One Piece itself having used the common Shonen action trope of just trusting your instincts to fight and win as the right thing to do, I do like that we get a bit of a subversion where these fools end up basically dying kind of a pointless death. Which, at the same time, is hard to blame them for -- they certainly had no idea that time travel was involved or that the Scabbards are returning. Oh, and in 950, we get Ashura Doji showing off a fleet of half-broken ships that they've been collecting for years, and Franky's going to be key in repairing them.

We also get a setup of Zoro and Komurasaki (Hiyori...?) going off to get Shushui in order for Zoro to be in full tiptop condition for the final battle. The end of 950 and the beginning of 951 ends up with a bit of an interesting development, where Law has been apparently captured and defeated offscreen by Hawkins, in exchange for the freedom of Bepo and the other members of his crew. While Shinobu and Sanji gave a narration about the politics of the capital, Bepo and the other members of the Heart Pirates end up rendezvousing with Nami and giving an updated message... but apparently Law's struck a deal with Hawkins, and has told his crewmates to keep this hidden from the Straw Hats. We get to see the full force of the rest of the Heart Pirates (including Jean Bart!) but we really don't get much about this. It's... interesting? Law's always been presented as kind of a more morally-flexible character, but from what we've seen throughout Punk Hazard and Dressrosa he's really a softie inside, so...

And, of course, 951 ends at Onigashima, where Big Mom is held prisoner and we get a bit of an argument between King, Queen and Jack about Big Mom's imprisonment and what the fuck they're going to do with her... and I really do like that Big Mom's just snacking and still being pretty damn dangerous looking. The portrayal of Big Mom over the past couple of arcs have been... inconsistent, but I really do like that at her default state, without amnesia or hunger pangs, Big Mom isn't just an idiot. She clearly has unique goals, but man, she definitely is pretty dang sinister when she wants to, yeah? We also get confirmation about how the two of them used to serve under the same pirate crew, and the two of them end up clashing with their weapons, causing that break in the sky that we law saw when Shanks and Whitebeard faced off against each other.

And... and as of the time of writing, we're still two chapters short of being caught up, but I'm not going to cover 952 and 953 just yet. It's sort of a clean break-off point here as we wrap up both the prison arc and do a little catch-up on some random sub-plots like Ashura Doji, the political situation of the capital and the Yonkou bosses meeting each other face-to-face... it's definitely kind of a cheat for the next chapter to immediately cut away from Big Mom and Kaidou's fight and sort of off-screen most of it, but eh, I'm not that bothered by it. Ultimately, while I do still think that there are a bit too many moving pieces in the Wano-kuni arc, it's definitely been improving a lot more compared to how I felt when the arc started.

Random Notes:

• We get a new cover story, this time around starring Capone Bege's crew as they sail the ocean on top of the stolen tart ship, with Chiffon's stated goal being a reunion with Lola. 
• I'm still not sure if Kawamatsu is some dude who ate a Zoan Devil Fruit since all the Wano-kuni people aren't aware of the existence of the fruits; if he's a Fishman, or if he's just a straight-up Kappa race. In One Piece, any one of those could end up being true. 
• One of the scene in 948 has a random prisoner calling Kiku as the "most beautiful man in Wano" or something along those lines, and she doesn't really deny it, replying with an off-handed "I'm a woman at heart". As far as I can tell, the fandom is completely split on whether she's a woman hiding her true gender, a transgender born male and now presenting as female, or something in between. 
• I missed it during my first reading, but Luffy apparently has a far greater control of the future-sight Observation Haki, as he used the prediction to make a move against Babanuki.
• Chopper doesn't actually get a whole lot to do other than brewing the antidote against the Excitement Bullets off-screen, but he did get to do a combo attack with Luffy in heavy point when he gets so outraged at chemical warfare. 
• I'm still very unsure about Ashura Doji as a character, honestly. Like, he basically jumps back and forth from being a massive dick in his first appearance, having that whole 'wild card' bit when his bandits were framed for burning a forest to randomly being buddy-buddy with Inuarashi, and I just kinda wished that there was a bit more of an organic character growth to him. 
• We also get to see a bunch of samurai punk-cops, the Mimawarigumi, based on the special police force in real-life Japanese history that were active during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Like the Oniwabanshuu, they have shown up in a bunch of other manga that draw from that time period, most notably Gintama. 
• I do like the little scene where Shinobu and Sanji just gives a recap of the political situation after Yasuie's execution, about how Orochi's still keeping the crescent moon tattoo people prisoner, because it'd be too embarrassing for Orochi to admit he's made a mistake. 
• There's a panel about random people making Sky Ships for the Fire Festival... which, knowing One Piece, will probably be important in some way or form. 
• I absolutely love the Japanese painting style wanted posters that sort of act as chapter intermissions in 950. 
• Even more so, I love Usopp and Robin recreating the "EEEEH" expression to make them look different from the wanted posters, while Brook pretends to be a haunting spirit to play off of the Wano-kuni superstitions. 
• Big Mom wants King to join his crew, not because of any real attempt at poaching talent, but rather because she's missing three races... and King's one of them. Huh!
• With the revelation that Big Mom and Kaidou served on the same crew and has a huge, huge disagreement that basically results in them wanting to murder each other... but also Kaidou respecting Big Mom enough to give her a fair fight, a lot of fans have drawn comparisons between the two of them and the Zoro/Sanji rivalry. After all, we still haven't gotten a resolution to that one line that Zoro said during the Zou arc about how he's not going to forgive Sanji for essentially fucking over the crew by making a selfish decision...

Marvel's Runaways S02E09-10 Review: Marine Biologists & Gangsters

Marvel's Runaways, Season 2, Episode 9: Big Shot; Episode 10: Hostile Takeover

A pair of episodes that basically deal with a little side-plot after the heavy Jonah stuff. We're clearly building up to a follow-up on the alien business, but while all of it is going on, we have to deal with Alex Wilder and his attempts to shoehorn in some police/gangster drama into the whole thing. And to be fair, it's not like the Alex/Livvie/AWOL storyline is poorly written or anything, but I dunno. It just kinda feels underwhelming? With Runaways being sort of open-ended at this point as we kick-start the second half of the season, if eels honestly underwhelming. Maybe it would've felt better running as a B-plot secondary to something bigger, as opposed to being the technical main storyline? I dunno. The acting of the cast is pretty fantastic. Corrupt officer Flores and AWOL are both pretty great actors, and Alex's actor Rhenzy Feliz gets to flex a lot of great acting chops, but ultimately the two-parter sort of fell short to me.

Basically, episode 9 and 10 is all about Alex's character. As he tries to be a great chessmaster, turns out that his biggest flaw -- his inability to read people -- is still there. He ends up lying to both Livvie and the Runaways at different parts of his plan, not aware at how much it hurts both his credibility and his relationship with them. He ends up underestimating the "small fish", officer AWOL, seeing him as an easily-manipulated pawn that's totally going to help him bring down Flores and eventually PRIDE, not realizing how vengeful AWOL will end up being, nor did he anticipate AWOL basically going to PRIDE on his own and offering his services.

Eventually, after a lot of various forms of evidence and blackmail are tossed in the air, episode 9's situation ends with AWOL finally securing a stronger ally in PRIDE, locking Flores and killing him in a meat locker, and he's out for blood for the Runaways. All the while, Alex ends up making more and more stupid plans -- like going into the restaurant with basically no plan beyond "hey, I have super-powered friends, they'll figure things out" without informing them of what his goal is, or to cut a deal with AWOL without making sure Livvie is okay with it. And, again, the basic storyline of Alex having to juggle his relationship with Livvie and the Runaways, while also trying to put himself in a cops-and-gangsters storyline and failing miserably because he can't read people is a neat one, but ultimately one that wasn't executed as well.

While all of this is going on, there are other things happening with other characters! After some drone began to spread a bunch of gas onto the wild, Old Lace gets absolutely sick, which means Gert gets absolutely sick as well thanks to their psychic link, a sickness that ends up taking up her storyline for the majority of the two episodes. Chase and Gert gets some neat scenes together, which, while I'm not the biggest fan of, is neat. At least that romantic tension's resolved, yeah?

And as the PRIDE parents are torn between dealing with Flores and AWOL and basically trying to bring the kids home themselves, we get hints that some of them are behaving oddly. The revelation that Jonah was a random Australian doctor that's possessed by an alien means that, hey, it's likely that some of the other parents have been possessed too, which ends up being confirmed over the course of episode 10. Victor Stein has been creating weapons to use against the kids, while also fostering a good relationship with Janet. And also being super-horny around Janet. Tina Minoru, meanwhile, acts super indifferent and drunk about everything. And also gets super-horny around Janet. Stacey Yorkes, meanwhile, throws herself whole-heartedly into her work, and apparently being possessed also fixes her eyesight. A lot of these doesn't really come into play until episode 10, though, other than brief segments of the possessed parents 'losing time' every now and then.

Then we get to episode 10, "Hostile Takeover", where we get the confrontation between AWOL and the PRIDE Strike Team as they kidnap Livvie, use Tamar and the baby as hostage, and end up besieging the Runaways base. With Livvie hostage, Alex's loyalties and intelligence under question, and both Gert and Old Lace dying from vague illness, it leads to a pretty fun action sequence. And it's a shame so much of the episode hinges on Alex and AWOL's little rivalry, because... well, it doesn't work quite as well. Basically, all it boils down to is that Alex overestimated his intelligence and savvyness, while also underestimating the lengths that AWOL is willing to do to win, and this means that beyond holding Livvie hostage and taunting Alex with the same old "you think you're a big boy?" line repeated a couple of times, it's not super interesting.

Ultimately, this leads to Alex managing to trick AWOL into charging to get him and getting his ass trapped by Nico's Fortress spell, leading to "each side has a hostage" stalemate, while Nico uses the spell to keep out the soldiers. Runaways isn't such a dark show that I ever believed Livvie was in danger, but it did stretch my suspension of disbelief that these evil corrupt cops would just blindly hammer on at the door instead of basically going "we don't care about AWOL, but we will kill Livvie", y'know?

Ultimately, though, the hostage siege conflict basically runs as much as it needs to run, which is the entirety of the episode, with Nico's magic being the limiting factor that allows the action to progress. She faints and AWOL's team gets the advantage, then she wakes up and her eyes gets scary black demonic cracks, and she wipes out the entire strike team and sends them elsewhere. Which I would say is a bit of a cop-out, but on the other hand, I really didn't care all that much about the AWOL stuff, and it did what it needed to do -- a catalyst for Alex's character development, and Alex was well and thoroughly humbled by basically trying to do too much without trusting his friends. And as much as I do enjoy Nico, the fact that this conflict basically ends up being single-handedly resolved by her (Alex and Chase's negotiations are kinda pointless, while Karolina helped out for the single scene she uses her flight to trick AWOL).

While all of this is going on, Chase and Gert go on their little side-quest, taking the advantage of Nico going from "illusion" to "fortress" and driving off to get to the Yorkes and figure out what the fuck's wrong with Old Lace and Gert. And I absolutely love the interaction between Dale and the clearly possessed Stacey. Dale's increasing anxiety and panic at his wife's cold-hearted attitude and revelation that Stacey unleashed an agent poisonous to the Deinonychus, and Dale eventually trusting Chase that they have to give the antidote to Old Lace and not Gert, is pretty well-done... even if Chase and Gert are still locked up in the Yorkes' basement at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Victor Stein and Tina Minoru have basically contacted each other, and in-between freaking the shit out of poor Janet, have basically made contact with each other and basically confirmed that they're both part of Jonah's alien race (the Majesdanians, if we're going by Karolina's race in the comics), and are spreading pamphlets to let the other body-possessing members of their race know where they are. Absolutely love the scenes of Janet getting more and more perturbed at the weapons Victor is designing, then getting distracted by Victor being a caring husband and offering sex, and then being baffled by Victor being angry at the smashed-up lab, and then having Tina flirt with her. Poor Janet.

Overall, while I do enjoy the Chase/Gert storyline, and I appreciate the character growth for Alex and the build-up of the possessed PRIDE members, I do feel like the Alex/AWOL/Livvie storyline wasn't done well at all and felt pretty filler-y. Oh well -- Flores is definitely dead, AWOL is banished to some shadow realm, and Livvie's ended her relationship with Alex. Whatever the final 3 episodes of Runaways' second season brings, it seems like we're in for something that's a lot more exciting. 

Random Notes:

• Alex tells Livvie about how he's going to make her phone look like it's in Wakanda, which is, unless I'm missing something, the very first reference to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Runaways. 
• There is a plotline in episode 9 and 10 about Frank Dean getting even more and more flustered with Leslie essentially wanting to junk the entire fake cult religion, and the episode ends with Leslie basically forced into a reconditioning chair. It's pretty creepy, to be sure, but at the same time kind of detached from everything that's happening that I'm not sure what to make of it. 
• Somehow I completely missed that Flores didn't know about the Runaways' powers, so Molly's very, very quick escape from Flores by way of super-strength was pretty dang hilarious after the huge deal that the last episode and the opening scene of episode 9 made about it. 
• Alex constantly being flustered when the big fish/little fish line gets interrupted by practically everyone and his angry running gag of "marine biologists" is admittedly very fun. 
• While it does settle down at the end of episode 9, I was legitimately kind of confused what AWOL's real game is, especially when he showed up magically inside Tamar's house.
• The possessed parents really end up making use of their host bodies' quirkiness to really have some hilarious scenes, yeah? Tina being a bit cuckoo and talking about dopamine high from cake is bizarre, but considering how she tends to act, I don't really blame Robert for shrugging it off. The possessed Stacey telling Dale to bugger off from her secret project while talking about how Dale doesn't "respect the autonomy of my process" is so in-character as something the Yorkes would find to be a valid reason. 
• The visuals of the Fortress spell with a bunch of metal plates slicing off AWOL's safety line, is pretty damn badass.
• Alex gets a pretty awesome scene when he loses his temper and holds the Fistigons up against AWOL's chest and feels like he's about to really hurt him. That's pretty scary and also awesome at the same time. 
• Nico notes how the Staff of One seems to be talking to her and potentially corrupting her, which is... interesting, if very RPG-y. 

Digimon Reviews, Episode 39: Falcomon and Friends

Parts of this article were originally published in Digimon Reviews, Part 37, and Digimon Reviews, Part 34. Trying too hard to merge everything together in a single article for the latter really led to that particular part of the review to be triple the length of all the other Digimon reviews, and I also felt odd compressing all the Savers partner Digimon into single articles. 

So I took the chance to split off the original Falcomon line (originally debuting in 2005's Pendulum X, and would have debuted alongside Funbeemon, Commandramon and the others) and the 2006 anime incarnation of Falcomon, which was heavily retooled for the anime, and merge them together here. We're going to talk about the 'original' Falcomon before the 'anime version' of Falcomon here.

Mercurymon, due to its role in Savers, have also moved from 34 to here. And just to round things up, I've moved VictoryGreymon and ZeedGarurumon here from the also full episode 39. 

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Puwamon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby I
• Type: Slime
• Attribute: None

Kicking off the 'Nature Genome' Virtual pet, we've got a baby that will evolve into the usual combination of plants and birds that Digimon's virtual pets really like to associate. And thus we start off with Puwamon, which has a cute little owl head! It's almost hard to see the 'beak' that just blends into the black chevron-eyebrows thing. I do like that the body's fur makes it look like both a fuzzy round bird, but also a fuzzy seed or fruit. 

I like that! That makes it a much more unique entity that still believably evolves into the Falcomon line, but also fits with the other plants that Puwamon and Pinamon evolves to. It's a cute little owl-orb guy. 

Puwamon makes an appearance in the Savers anime not as Falcomon's baby form (none of the new partners, to my memory, ever devolve into their Baby levels) but instead hatching from an egg and evolving into a Piyomon briefly partnered with Masaru's sister, Chika. A couple of Puwamon also serve as recurring minor characters in Adventure 2020. 

 6/10.

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Pinamon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Baby II
• Type: Chick
• Attribute: None

Pinamon's still a little blob-bird, but with enough differences from Puwamon! I appreciate that. I like the two little feather-tails on little tendrils, and the fuzz forming not-quite wings. Look at its cute little feet and adorably large eyes, while it's trying so hard to look serious with those angry anime eyebrows! I can just imagine this little baby bird just running around angrily pecking everything in its wake. 

Pinamon is described in its profile as having a resting bitch face stoic face, and one can only really tell the mood of a Pinamon by observing how it runs. Interestingly, Pinamon is able to generate static electricity, which I suppose ties into the eventual lightning powers that some of Falcomon's evolutions have? 

Pinamon's original debut interestingly has a rather diverse selection of evolutions. There is Falcomon, of course, but Pinamon was originally associated with Mushmon, Goblimon, Swimmon, Gotsumon and Terriermon... it really does feel like they just lobbed everything and the kitchen sink at this guy! 

 7/10.

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Falcomon

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

"Wait, this isn't Falcomon!" Well, you're half-correct. See, when the original Falcomon debuted in 2005's Accel Genome virtual pets, this was the official artwork and design. Sort of like an off-brand Hawkmon with vaguely owl-shaped eyes and a pretty bland green-and-gray colour scheme. And yes, I know the name is "Falcomon", but this dude's clearly based on an owl, isn't he?

Fast-forward a year to 2006, where they decided to use Falcomon as one of the main partner Digimon of Digimon Savers (Data Squad for dub viewers), and they decided to completely overhaul Falcomon, giving him a more proportioned and marketable body shape, a black-and-purple colour scheme and a clear ninja theme. And while I tend to like the more beastly and natural-looking Digimon a bit better, I kind of have to admit that original Falcomon here is kind of lackluster and pretty dang boring. Honestly feels like a minimal effort Hawkmon ripoff, which doesn't do OG Falcomon any favours. It already has so much going against it even before the anime team redesigned it into one that has a gimmick. 

Original flavour Falcomon, at least, would find some attention in the relatively new Digimon Survive as one of the partner Digimon of the cast there, finally bringing Falcomon into some semblance of a spotlight. Good for you, Falcomon!

 3/10.
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Diatrymon

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

So while I think Falcomon's transformation from the original virtual pet version to the anime version is ultimately for the better, I am glad that they didn't decide to revamp Diatrymon, instead making up an entirely new Adult-level evolution for Falcomon II, the ninja-ostrich Peckmon who we'll cover in due time. Instead, original Falcomon's default Adult-stage evolution is the very monstrous ancient monster-bird Diatrymon, taking his name from Diatryma, the genus name for a prehistoric, predatory monster-bird that are commonly portrayed in media as this giant apex predator "horror birds". Though nowadays Diatryma (or Gastronis, because taxonomy is complicated) is theorized to actually behave like, well, modern-day ostriches and probably aren't as horrifying as predators as popular media make them out to be. Diatrymon isn't worried about any of the real-world science debates, though, and is happy to embody the armoured giant flightless monster-bird tropes.

Still, Diatrymon is honestly pretty damn badass, being this monster bird with a jagged mouth and mean-looking claws and armour plates. I kind of wonder why they decided to give him the clashing colours of orange and green is a good idea, though. Anyway, while Diatrymon hasn't appeared anywhere outside of video games, I definitely do appreciate that this monster bird's existence, even if I really do think it would look better with other colours.

 6/10.

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Yatagaramon

• Alternate Names: Crowmon (EN dub)
• Stage: Perfect
• Type: Bewitching Bird
• Attribute: Vaccine

The Perfect-level evolution for Diatrymon is Yatagaramon, based on the Yatagarasu, a mythological three-legged crow from Japanese mythology that represents the intervention of heaven in mortal affairs. Like Falcomon, Yatagaramon would be redesigned (although not quite as much as Falcomon) in the Savers anime. The original Yatagaramon is a pretty simple design, though. It knows its mythological basis of a three-legged crow, made it into a Birdramon-style giant bird, and then adds a bunch of Deva-style oriental armour to it. All in all I kind of prefer the newer Yatagaramon, although the original version here isn't honestly all that bad. Yatagaramon's profile notes about how it's sort of like a guide to the spirits of the dead, although more of a good guide than a sinister one. Yatagaramon's original profile isn't super interesting, just noting that it's this dark-but-good angelic crow that has really, really powerful data-disassembling powers. We'll talk about the other Yatagaramon when we reach Savers, so I'll keep this short. Pretty cool giant crow.

 6/10.
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Valdurmon

• Alternate Names: Varodurumon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Holy Bird
• Attribute: Vaccine

Valdurmon is... well, it's not an unplasant design, this giant, six-winged holy bird that shines with a rainbow-like aura, but it honestly feels and looks like a more boring version of Hououmon or Zhuqiaomon, y'know? Like, a six-winged god bird isn't uncool, but it's not that impressive after a while. Valdurmon isn't based on any specific mythology despite the Nordic sounding name, his profile is an utterly generic "hey this Ultimate Digimon is powerful" spiel, and his design doesn't make him any more interesting than, say, Ornismon or whoever. Like, sure, it's glowing with that fiery rainbow power, but take that away and you get a pretty boring six-winged bird. Yatagaramon, even with the glowing stuff gone, still has his pretty badass golden armour pieces. Like, I kind of feel like I'm being a bit unfair to Valdurmon here, but at the same time as much as I sigh in disdain at Savers!Falcomon's Ultimate form being another humanoid, Ravmon at least looks a lot less boring than Valdurmon.

Anyway, Valdurmon here is one of the component pieces of UltimateChaosmon up there, and I guess he contributes a bird claw and a wing? Valdurmon made its first major appearance in Adventure 2020 as the unexpected spokesperson for an ancient group of angel Digimon, and I like that a bird-dragon was chosen as the representative. 

 6/10.

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Falcomon II

• Alternate Names: Falcomon (2006 Anime Version)
• Stage: Child
• Type: Bird
• Attribute: Vaccine

We covered the original Falcomon a while back above, and when the production staff for Savers decided to use Falcomon as one of the main characters, they ended up revamping him significantly, And it's... it's for the better. I tend to balk at randomly slapping human accessories on monsters wily-nily (like Gaomon or Bearmon), but comparing Falcomon II with the original Falcomon, this ninja bird is so, so much memorable than off-colours feral Falcomon. Falcomon II isn't like a novel concept, but it's at least done relatively well. He's a fun little ninja owl wearing a ninja shirt, and the black, grey and red colour scheme works relatively well. Falcomon's bio notes that this is a subspecies of the original Falcomon, whose wings have developed enough to allow it free flight, and is kind of obsessed with being a ninja -- whether it be flying like a kite or throwing shuriken feathers. 

The Falcomon character in the anime is... I'm legitimately not sure if he has much of a personality beyond being Ikuto's more mature babysitter, but I did remember liking the pairing. Ikuto and Falcomon go through a pretty basic and predictable story arc for a wild boy that is exposed to the fact that the world isn't black-and-white, and that he is a child of both worlds, but it's handled relatively well. The design of Falcomon's neat. I don't mind him. 

 7/10.

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Peckmon

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

The champion level for New Falcomon swaps around from Diatrymon into Peckmon, changing from a Gastronis into a more child-friendly ostrich or emu of sorts, and dressed in... ninja gear. Of course. While the ninja gear is a inoffensive on Falcomon and blends in with the design well, I do think that Peckmon does overboard. We've got the shirt, leg guards, a huge scarf, head-bands... I dunno. Throw in the fact that Peckmon's actual wings and tail are bright orange and yellow, and the end result becomes kind of a messy design. It's not one that I'm particularly in love with, honestly. Not much to say here.

 4/10.

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Yatagaramon II

• Alternate Names: Crowmon (EN dub), Yatagaramon (2006 Anime Ver)
• Stage: Child
• Type: Bewitching Bird
• Attribute: Vaccine

The Perfect-level evolution for Falcomon... borrows from the original Falcomon once more, giving us Yatagaramon II here, and it's basically the same thing with the original Yatagaramon, only with the colours and metal accessories swapped out a bit. Maybe there's more changes, but... eh. The lore and general 'cool, mystical dark giant bird' feel is still intact. Yatagaramon's pretty damn cool, and even it's the expected sort of "super-edgy black-and-purple bird monster that looks evil but is actually misunderstood" trope, Yatagaramon manages to still look pretty damn cool, and has some really badass scenes in the anime on the brief couple of scenes that he's allowed to shine. I dunno -- I just really like the look of this thing.

 7/10.

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Ravmon

• Alternate Names: Ravemon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Vaccine

It's honestly expected at this point for any given evolutionary line to just turn into humanoid in the Ultimate level. And that's kind of something that I definitely don't like about Digimon -- but have grown to accept as a quirk of the series. In Falcomon's case, the final form is Ravmon (Ravemon in English), who is a humanoid bird-man ninja with a giant sword, talon claws and wings as under-arm blades. It's... it's pretty decent, actually, as far as these cool humanoid Ultimates go. If I ever go through the effort of rating all the humanoid Digimon, Ravmon is one that's just straight-up cool in a classic sense. Oh, and this official artwork isn't particularly good at showcasing it, but Ravmon's wings are actually slightly different -- one is black, and one is silver.

• Alternate Names: Ravmon Burst Mode, Ravemon Burst Mode
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Vaccine

Ravmon's backstory has kind of a typical "fallen angel" backstory for it, noting that Ravmon once served a God Man Digimon that was once a silver-coloured servitor, but was dyed black when said God Man was angry at him. Thus it became this super-edgy dark-but-not-evil sort of character that goes around as a ninja assassin, using its black-coloured wing to hide himself and the white-coloured wing to stab the enemy. Yeah, it's definitely the sort of backstory that's tailor-made to be marketable. Not my thing, but it is still a pretty cool ninja birdman assassin.

Like the rest of the Ultimates for the main characters, Ravmon has a Ravmon: Burst Mode ultimate, which just swaps around blacks, whites and purples. I genuinely don't have much to say about this form.

 5/10.
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Mercurymon

• Alternate Names: Merukimon (EN dub)
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: God Man
• Attribute / Subgroup: Virus / Olympos XII

Mercurymon here is the only member of the Olympos XII to really get any sort of characterization, being a huge character in the Digimon Savers anime. See, Mercurymon in the anime is treated as this sort of tribal leader among the Digimon of the digital world, and is kind of a huge racist towards mankind (not without good reason, too, considering how the human Kurata's been killing Digimon left and right), but at the same time he ended up adopting an orphaned human boy, one of the main characters in Savers. It's interesting to see this little bit of depth to this character that flip-flops between being an antagonist and a protagonist before being made into a martyr after being convinced of the errors of his ways... but was brutally slain by the artificial Digimon led by Kurata, and explicitly had his reincarnated Digi-Egg destroyed so he can never reincarnate. Savers was kind of brutal like that. Anyway, I do have enough respect of Mercurymon as a character to not dismiss him for his design outright.

That said... wow, what a horrible design, huh? The Olympos XII is meant to homage the Greco-Roman gods, and while I realize that they can't just have everyone be posing godly musclemen, Mercury is the god of messengers, as well as thieves, commerce and trickery. So for whatever reason, they decided to portray him as this bizarre Conan the Barbarian knockoff that covers his body with beast pelts and a skinned Garurumon face, and fights with weird bone-daggers, and the profile notes that this guy is a wandering shaman. 

...it's a really weird design to take. There was some theories that the original Mercurymon and Minervamon were designed to embody the qualities of their respective mythological inspiration while looking visually like the opposite. Or that they can embody their great qualities (speed and wisdom respectively) after overcoming their lack of it? It would be an interesting concept, but as Neptunemon shows above, practically the rest of the Olympos XII just play the trope of adapting Greek gods straight. 

And even then...? Even with the cute idea that Mercurymon is a 'Mercury' that doesn't look like the traditional mythological 'Mercury'? I still really don't like his design. 

 3/10. Points given are only for Savers role.

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(Mercurymon is also the basis of headaches for the English dub team. Both the Roman god and the metal are called "mercury" in English, but the Frontier villain themed after the metal is actually called Merukyuremon, after the French pronounciation of the word "mercury", whereas this Olympos XII god-man Mercurymon is called Merukurimon after the English word "mercury". Since Frontier came out years earlier, the English dub team is sort of forced to call this dude "Merukimon" to avoid confusion with Mercuremon (dubbed into Mercurymon). Languages! Names!)

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VictoryGreymon

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

Jumping around slightly, we're covering some Digimon released in the Twins Virtual Pet, and highlighted as the final forms of the Agumon and Gaomon in Digimon Next. 

...it's just WarGreymon, but with his wings being angled differently, his head-spikes changed, and he's holding a big three-bladed claymore. The lack of Wolverine gauntlets really does make him significantly a lot less cooler. The storyline has the Agumon and Gaomon be special 'Arbitrators' that are selected to be super-special-awesome. Okay. 

And... eh. I'm counting him as a WarGreymon variant, and in that regard I feel that while they did try to change and give him a different silhouette, it goes worse in all aspects. Sorry. 

 0/10.
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Z'dGarurumon

• Alternate Names: ZeedGarurumon
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Cyborg
• Attribute: Data

ZeedGarurumon, I like a bit better because its differences make it a bit more distinct instead of just weird. The style of the cannons are a bit different, like it's from a different mecha anime style. The addition of teal is... neat. And ZeedGarurumon's got a big Megatron cannon on its back. That's something. It's a nicer looking change than VictoryGreymon above. 

Both their profiles are extremely bland, too, the type that just talks up their power and their digizoids and their ultra destructive weaponry, which is never anywhere as interesting as they think it is. There's an art to describing super-powerful abilities without making them sound samey. 

What's a Z'd? What's a Zeed? I don't know. I'm just happy (and a bit surprised) that these two never got a dedicated Omegamon form.

They didn't, did they? I just double checked. As of 2026, they didn't. 

 3/10.

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Ogudomon

• Alternate Names: N/A
• Stage: Ultimate
• Type: Avatar
• Attribute / Subgroup: Virus / Seven Great Demon Lords

Ogudomon here is... he's interesting! He is introduced as the 'super demon lord' with seven legs, seven tiny eyes around a central maw, and is the "embodiment of the digital world's sins", and acts as some sort of a master for the Seven Great Demon Lords. I do kind of like his wacky design, from the seven-legged spiderlike body, to the weird central starfish-like mouth with a core, to the weird swords embedded in his knees and the weird, alien-like lizard mouth that jut out from the top of his spider-like body... It's an interesting design, for sure. Ogudomon is also noted to have "the power to atone all sins", whatever it means, and that it can basically counterattack anyone who attacks Ogudomon with the slightest trace of sin? Or something? Ogudomon is supposedly inspired by the Gnostic Ogdoad, but it's a tenuous connection at best.

As this weird master of the Seven Demon Lords (or the fused form of them, in some games), Ogudomon tends to be the main antagonist in many random spinoff games, like Digimon Collectors and some arcade games. I personally kind of find this underwhelming in the same way that Apocalymon is kind of underwhelming. A weird, non-humanoid primal evil that is 'beyond' all the members of a pre-existing set of super-evil villains is interesting, but Ogudomon has no real personality or backstory, and a randomly powerful enemy that exists just to be a randomly powerful enemy. I do feel like they really could've done a lot better in giving us Ogudomon's backstory, or to tie it in with the Seven Sins, but eh, at least it's design is weirdly cool. I am not a fan of the handwave-y backstory, but definitely a fan of the design.

 6/10.
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