Random Thoughts of a Random Dude

Budget apparently took a hit this week. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, given there’s some neat visuals that don’t require much movement here, but it’s still noticeable.

The villains of this episode are the weirdest and most underwhelming so far. I don’t know why the writers decided to pull an Adventure 2020 and have Yatagaramon be silent in this episode, but it didn’t work. It was justified (if annoyingly overused) in Adventure 2020 since most of the enemies had simple, self-evident motivations that did not require dialog to be understood, but that is not the case with Yatagaramon here. A lot of people are confused about the reason why it just abandoned the fight in the end, and that would not have been the case if Yatagaramon had actual dialog, like the rest of the antagonists have had thus far. The bird fanatic guy is weird enough to carry most of the episode by himself, the idea of a guy having an experience with Digimon and coming out of it thinking they are divine is compelling, but since he’s not involved in the resolution, he can’t save it. He does give us some good moments, though; him grabbing Hiro during the fight gave off a different vibe of danger than normally, his confusion when everyone seemingly disappears after Ruli activates the Digital Field reminds us of how strange the protagonists and their situations are, and his chasing after the birds wondering if he’s lost his life purpose as Yatagaramon leaves is a good ending.

Anyway, we soon see Hiro and Gammamon on the street. It’s winter, and the cast have changed their outfits to reflect that (except Angoramon, because big bun hair I guess). Unlike in previous episodes, Gammamon is fully materialized. He’s holding a box of chocolates that Hiro asks him not to eat right now, thus proving he still knows nothing of giving little kids candy. Gammamon drops some of the chocolate and a crow eats it. This thus starts Gammamon’s main conflict of the episode with him wanting revenge on the crows for eating his chocolate and for humiliating him by being better fliers than him. No, I’m not joking, he’s still talking about the chocolate after Yatagaramon is defeated.

Hiro is soon called by Ruli to help her friend Mika Kashiwagi, whose pet bird Chiroru had been abducted by violent crows (a sentence I never thought I’d have to write). Since it appears to not be an isolated case, the protagonists decide to work together to solve it, though Kiyoshiro has to be baited into it by Jellymon after trying to cite his responsibilities as dorm leader to escape. Ruli mentions that Kiyoshiro should do most of the work on the afternoons since he had the day free since he isn’t actually taking classes. She asks what he normally does during the day, and you know what, I’d like to know the answer too, because if Kiyoshiro’s not taking classes then everything about him just got more bizarre.

Everyone collaborates on the sleuthing. Kiyoshiro is doing the heavy lifting, analysing the information on the attacks and setting up a control room with Jellymon and Gammamon (or maybe despite Jellymon and Gammamon), but Ruli is monitoring the information on social networks and interviewing people, and Hiro notices the weirdness of every attacked cage having the same type of electronic lock. It takes Kiyoshiro some hours, but he figures out the pattern and the location and time of the next attack. The group heads there soon enough, confronting the bird fanatic and his boss, Yatagaramon.

The group starts to fight, and they get stomped, seemingly defeated after a very cool sequence where Yatagaramon activates its Haguro attack. Angoramon and Jellymon tell the kids to escape, but Gammamon is still raging over the loss of his chocolate and decides to attack Yatagaramon alone. Of course, he fails, and is thrown at high speeds towards the ground, unable to stop himself with his wings, desperately wishing he could fly. So does Hiro. This allows them to unlock a different evolution, KausGammamon, who is capable of… gliding. That’s… not flying. Anyway, KausGammamon initially fails at fighting Yatagaramon but, after using a wind draft to gain more speed, is able to land a beatdown on the big bird. Yatagaramon is seemingly unharmed, but after a quick look at KausGammamon, decides to leave. Coupled with a previous reaction shot from Yatagaramon right after Gammamon evolved, I assume it decided to leave because of seeing not just a flying creature fight alongside a human (it previously had no problems with trying to kill Gammamon who can also fly), but a flying creature evolve thanks to a human. The fact I have to assume this resolution is the absolute weakest point of the episode. Echoing this apparent resolution, a bunch of liberated birds choose to go back to their human owners, among them Mika’s Chiroru. Angoramon finishes the episode saying that “bonds take different shapes”, a double reference to this return and to Gammamon’s different evolutions.

Other notes on this episode:

This was the first Digimon episode Hiroyuki Kakudo has directed since Xros Wars. In case you don’t know, Kakudo was the lead director of the original Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02, as well as the Digital Monster X-Evolution movie. More recently, he directed this anime’s opening sequence.

Some big Serial Experiments Lain vibes from the crows in Mika’s room and from Yatagaramon’s unmoving floating mid-air.

Gammamon has some good moments to emphasize his innocence in this episode, like his confused smile after Hiro talks about the potential dangers from the birds at the zoo being released, or more charmingly, momentarily forgetting the danger and staring in amazement when Yatagaramon pulls him above the clouds.

Gammamon is crossed by a red and a blue line during the KausGammamon evolution sequence. I assume it’ll be by red, blue and green lines for Wezen’s and all of them mixing into white for the Perfect-level evolution, so that leaves GrusGammamon’s sequence as a mystery.

Hiro’s friend Kotaro Nomura returns from episode 2, and he’s still thinking primarily of hitting on girls. He did look like he cared about the birds in the Gardening and Caretaking Club, though.

I feel the “calling out attacks” thing felt so much less awkward without the backgrounds behind them, and when the background was used, it actually looked cool and not-awkward for once.

If last episode, people thought Sirenmon was movie advertisement, this episode they think Yatagaramon is a bird-shaped drone.

The episode explores how regular people are taking the clearly supernatural stuff going on in their city. On the one hand, you have the commercialized way the karaoke tries to use their “haunting” to covertly advertise itself, despite how clearly shaken and hurt the girls who suffer though it are. This is contrasted in every way to the offerings left on an altar inhabited by a Youkomon, after said Digimon helped a woman. And I do mean “in every way”: the radical change in scenario from the dark closed spaces full of electronic equipment and music of the karaoke to the peaceful, quiet, natural open spaces while approaching the altar is one of my favourite things in this episode. To continue the contrast, while Sirenmon is starving for praise and an audience to like her songs, uncaring of how scared and hurt they are (and we learn at the end she’s aware of this), Youkomon desires to be left alone and resents the fame his good action has brought him, and how common these “Hologram Ghost Pilgrimages” are getting. To finish with that “public reaction”, we see that when normal bystanders see Sirenmon flying through the streets, they understand this is weird but assume there’s a mundane explanation behind it (namely, a movie). I wonder if this assumption of mundanity will remain a thing through the rest of the series.

As for our protagonists, Ruli is still chasing leads on supernatural stuff for her Lirurun account and being actively disappointed when it turns out they’re not ghosts but Digimon. You would expect her to not be so enthusiastic about throwing herself at supernatural stuff after what happened with Dracumon, but I guess having Angoramon and Hiro as back-up means she doesn’t feel she has to be. After the relative disappointment with Youkomon (relative because she was still happy to meet a Digimon), she immediately sets her sights on the karaoke haunting. They soon confirm this is the right place by seeing a trio of victims stumbling out of the building and the attendant not-really trying to convince them to keep quiet (Angoramon makes sure to praise this marketing scheme, so we can add “marketing” to the list of things he’s an expert on). Ruli is excited over the possibility of actual ghosts and the click potential of this story. They meet Kiyoshiro and Jellymon, who apparently had the same idea to investigate this haunting (I’ll assume Jellymon forced Kiyoshiro into this, because that’s the only thing that makes sense).

Things take a turn for the worst soon enough, as Angoramon hears terrified screams from a victim of the haunting. For a moment the show really does try to sell the situation as ambiguous, saying that this doesn’t look like a hologram ghost incident. Ruli accompanies the girl to her friends, but while returning gets stuck on the elevator while the cursed song plays, summoning Sirenmon far faster than in the previous cases, looking like she came out of a slasher film. Fortunately, Angoramon once again hears the screams and Jellymon and Gammamon are able to get to the elevator (either via phasing or via destroying the door). Sirenmon flees, and Jellymon gives chase, allowing her to learn that Sirenmon is using the karaoke network to move. After being comforted by her big bunny partner, Ruli finally gets serious and says they have to do something. Hiro immediately comes up with a strategy, cementing his status as the strategic guy on the team.

Then comes the funniest part of the episode, where the gang executes a seemingly well-thought-out plan to isolate Sirenmon inside the largest room in the karaoke (one of them must be well off to afford that room; I’m betting Kiyoshiro) by hacking the entire building (because that hasn’t caused problems before) to close off any escapes through the network… only for Sirenmon to just physically leave the building and almost cause a disaster on the streets. Hiro remembers he can, you know, move this to another world to avoid collateral damage (just to be clear, I don’t think him forgetting is a flaw in the episode, that’s just a realistic in-universe mistake), but Angoramon tells Ruli to do it instead because all Digivices create different Fields and Ruli’s is better suited to battle a flying opponent. Again, an apparently well-thought-out plan… that falls apart the second Sirenmon actually attacks, and all the trees just make her sound-based attacks more dangerous. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, but man, they really aren’t as good at this as they thought they were. At least not yet.

Anyway, everyone hides except Gammamon, who’s a bit too angry for that. Sirenmon’s attacks aren’t individually that powerful, but the sheer number of them overwhelm the group. Gammamon decides to straightforwardly fly towards Sirenmon and keeps flying with a determined face as all the attacks fuse to form a giant shadow claw about to grab him, and it’s only on that moment when he screams for Hiro. I am choosing to believe that scream meant “silly big brother, you were supposed to make me evolve a minute ago”! BetelGammamon survives the attack but needs Angoramon to hold him up. Hiro gets the idea to make Angoramon fly above the treeline so that Sirenmon’s attacks can’t ricochet anymore. Sirenmon praises this strategy so nonchalantly that everyone understands they’re still screwed. Finally, just as it looks Sirenmon is about to kill them all, Hiro has his final genius plan and sings. It’s horrible, utterly horrible, for a moment it even looks like it’s a legitimate attack, but Sirenmon likes it and is inspired to stop being a jerk and practice more singing. And so, Hiro’s uncanny ability to convince his enemies to stop being jerks saves the day. Naruto would be proud. Sirenmon sadly leaves before Hiro can ask her any questions (good to see Hiro’s still trying to find his dad). The episode ends with the cast once again commenting on how weird it is for Gammamon to evolve and devolve so freely.

Other notes on this episode:

I can’t take the Sirenmon haunting seriously. I just can’t. The visuals are horrifying enough, but Sirenmon mumbling her way through Adventure 2020’s first ending is just too much for me.

We get some more cute moments of Gammamon discovering the world, with Hiro explaining to him what offerings are and Gammamon being excited about learning from Angoramon.

Ruli can’t remember Kiyoshiro’s name. She can’t remember it in the next episode either. Is this the start of a running gag?

Angoramon forgets to turn himself intangible and gets stuck on the elevator. Coupled with Gammamon needing to destroy the door, it looks like Jellymon is the only one in the group comfortable with being intangible by default.

Jellymon and Ruli have the same disregard for rules.

You gotta admire Kiyoshiro’s commitment to the plan while being so obviously terrified.

Showing the second victim is practicing to become an idol is a very effective way to get us to sympathize with her beyond just “she’s a victim of a haunting”. Helps humanize these otherwise featureless characters.

The sky on Ruli’s Digital Field reminded me of the Digital World in the original Adventure.

Sirenmon’s performance in the street is the most public the conflicts with Digimon have gotten so far.

So for the first half of the episode, it’s split between wacky bullying hijinks in Kiyoshiro’s room and things getting progressively more ominous outside the room, with certain visual kinks making it obvious the two are related.

Let’s talk about Jellymon first. She’s a fairly standard character, the “loving bully” archetype. As with most of those characters, she starts off with some genuinely mean terrorizing (the fake blood writing in particular went farther than I ever expected this show to go), with her explanation being that she loves his reactions, her ego being clearly off-the-charts between her insistence on being called Jellymon-sama and her asking Hiro to be her servant, but later some of her teasing is clearly just masking her concern, and finally she ends up in awe of Kiyoshiro when he finally behaves assertively. There are a few things that aren’t as obvious, though. This isn’t mentioned in the episode, but her humanoid form is called “Battle Mode”, and she enters it right after sensing there’s something wrong, also making sure she’s directly besides the window (the direction from which she felt the disturbance). She’s clearly preparing herself to have to defend Kiyoshiro. Finally, I couldn’t help but think the sort of lighting used on Jellymon was normally the stuff used to frame love interests as “beautiful”. It’s not overdone, but it’s there. I swear, I don’t ship humans with Digimon, but that’s the impression I got from the visuals.

We get Kiyoshiro’s backstory as a child prodigy who moved to the USA and skipped grades until he got his Master’s Degree at 13 and then came back to Japan. We learn he’s a big fan of Japanese school dorm manga and anime (with such names as “Dorm Star” or “Leave It To Your Dorm Leader”), which is… actually pretty sad? This kid’s comfort while studying on a different country was media about the normal life he wasn’t having. Jellymon repeatedly tells him he’s nothing special, of course, which I’m still unclear on whether it’s just another case of her mocking him or trying to make Kiyoshiro feel normal. The boy himself takes it pretty badly the second time, sulking on his bed and going full chunni while we get some fun slightly-distorted shots.

Anyway, Jellymon terrorized Kiyoshiro enough that he got to the point of hacking the entirety of Kanto to install “virtual talismans” literally everywhere. That boy really lives up to his “prodigy” label. Jellymon of course messed that up by changing the “fortune” talisman and thus messing with the money system everywhere. She says she did it because everything in the human world is fascinating, but specially money and greed, and she wanted to learn the rules so she could be the best at it. Kiyoshiro is somehow totally okay with this explanation and agrees with the reasoning. We need to get these two some kind of moral compass. The slice-of-life manga seem to be doing a good job for Kiyoshiro, but… not enough, if the dude was fine with hacking literally all of Kanto.

It turns out all the ominous stuff was the Deva Majiramon hunting down the one responsible for ruining the flow of wealth. Jellymon realizes this too late and tries to bait Kiyoshiro into running away. The boy is convinced for a second, telling himself he’s not shirking his responsibilities because everyone already evacuated, but Hiro isn’t having it (Jellymon angrily tells Hiro he can stay and get divinely punished instead, which was charming). Hiro tells the older boy that it’s his responsibility as dorm leader to delete the talismans. Being called Dorm Leader makes Kiyoshiro ecstatic, so he immediately agrees. Angoramon and Ruli soon arrive to complete the squad (Jellymon immediately gets closer to Kiyoshiro after seeing Ruli).

Kiyoshiro stays behind to delete the talismans while BetelGammamon and Angoramon try to fight the Armor Digimon. They proceed to get stomped almost immediately, stopping the insert evolution song. Kiyoshiro, having been high-strung the entire episode (and almost the entire series so far, really) refuses to budge to Jellymon’s attempts to get him to run away because he’s dorm leader and tearfully asks her to help him (with the mess she created). Jellymon is impressed by his assertiveness and helps, telling him if he has time to cry, he has time to hack. They almost finish, but Majiramon destroys the room they’re in while there’s still one left, knocking Kiyoshiro out. The Armor Digimon stop restraining the protagonists to stare in reverent awe at their leader’s incoming actions. Just as Jellymon loses hope, Kiyoshiro chuckles, the insert song starts again, he gives off a badass introduction ending with “limit break” so we don’t forget he’s a dork, as Majiramon’s incoming attack just makes him look cooler due to lighting, uses a synchro attack with Jellymon to destroy the final talisman, and formally takes responsibility and apologizes to Majiramon. Jellymon, of course, takes no responsibility, just prompts Kiyoshiro to do it. Majiramon accepts this and leaves, and the episode ends with Kiyoshiro not remembering what happened, and Jellymon calling him “darling” quietly behind his back. From the way it’s framed, you would expect it to be something Jellymon would hide from now on, but then she’s freely calling him darling in the next two episodes, so whatever.

On other characters, Gammamon was pretty cute this episode, eating the weird stuff dripping from the ceiling, climbing on Kiyoshiro or playing around with the snakes. That last one gives us a pretty good and subtle big brother/little brother interaction between Hiro and him when Gammamon has to throw away the snakes while whimpering, with the clear implication that Hiro scolded him off-screen. They also have the exact same reaction to seeing Majiramon: joyful amazement, momentarily forgetting the danger they (or at least their friend) may be in. Also, is it just me, or did Hiro’s reactions to Kiyoshiro in this episode feel pretty harsh? On the one hand he ignores Kiyoshiro’s cries for help when previously he had been shown as doing anything he was asked to; on the other hand, he does seem to believe Kiyoshiro can and should handle his problems himself. It gave me this weird impression of Hiro respecting Kiyoshiro enough to trust him to take care of himself while also lowkey disliking him enough to not really want to do much for the guy unless it’s absolutely necessary (like, he risked his life for him, but he does that for everyone).

The way de-materialized Digimon interact with the world here continues to make the conflict in episode 3 (Angoramon vs Dracumon) very weird, but the staff has said in interviews it’ll eventually be explained, so I guess I’ll keep waiting. For now, I’ll just not Jellymon can freely interact with the world before Kiyoshiro gets the Digivice, Angoramon can hit stuff while in hologram mode and Majiramon is keeping himself from physically destroying stuff but that doesn’t stop him from overloading electrical equipment with his mere presence. Angoramon and Gammamon are now in hologram mode by default, showing our protagonists have learned from previous episodes.

Other notes for this episode:

Both Angoramon and Jellymon notice something is wrong, but Gammamon doesn’t. Well, there goes the headcanon that Gammamon had particularly good instincts.

Angoramon pretty much cements himself as the exposition guy this episode, providing the info on Majiramon. He’ll do the same in the next few episodes.

Armor Digimon as servants to a Deva is a pretty neat reference to how Armor Digimon evolve into Deva in a lot of products.

Hiro immediately activating the Field function of the Digivice to move the fight away from the city is a good way to show he’s learned from the previous episode. Pity he messes that up in the next one, but you can’t always be in your A-Game.

Let’s start with the worldbuilding since that was my favorite part of the episode. When Angoramon synchronized with the digivice and materialized last episode, he somehow got insight onto at least some functions of the digivice (I’m assuming being a Digital Monster enabled him to do that), and this prompts Hiro to ask the questions he’s been craving the answers of since episode 1. This series uses basically the same origin as (I’m told) the null canon: Digimon were born from a computer virus that got leaked into the internet. The Digital World is a world that exists alongside the human world and where Digimon live, and the ones we’ve been seeing in the human world arrived there through gates that randomly appeared. “Randomly appearing gates between worlds” tend to be an indicator that something is seriously wrong in the Digital World, so we’ll see if that leads to anything later on. Angoramon also comments on the phenomenom of evolution, how it’s a process that normally takes a long time and that is equivalent to growth in humans, and how Gammamon suddenly evolving and then devolving is strange.

We also get a look at some capabilities of the digivice. Angoramon notices that it can dematerialize Digimon synchronized to it, but not that it can transport them to a space similar to the Digital World. Hiro makes this discovery by making a mistake when trying to dematerialize Gammamon (we later see the commands for both are fairly similar). While I liked seeing them discover what they can do... I’m not a fan of the execution. Sure, Angoramon noticing something Gammamon didn’t makes perfect sense since Gammamon is just discovering the world, but it’s strange that Hiro wouldn’t notice that himself simply by playing around with the digivice. Come on, you’re telling me the scientist’s son who, by his own admission, has picked up a lot of things from his father, wouldn’t test what the controls of his new device do? It’s also strange that Ruli keeps Angoramon materialized despite knowing how to make him invisible, since that’s risking people figuring out he’s not a hologram. Same goes for Hiro at the start, who’s aware that he can turn Gammamon invisible, and wants to hide him, but doesn’t think to turn him invisible before leaving his dorm and waits until he’s in the middle of the street to try. That particular scene also comes across as weird because this is a Halloween episode, if there is any point at which he and Ruli could simply say “ah yes, this is a friend in a costume”, it would be this one, but neither try. At least we did get some neat friendly teases between Hiro and Ruli over what either noticed and missed later on.

Speaking of Hiro and Ruli, we see them interact outside of mortal danger (and also inside it, but this time Hiro isn’t ignoring Ruli), and it’s a decent dynamic. Ruli clearly wants to keep in touch with this strange boy that introduced her to a strange world, so we hear Hiro say she told him of the ability to turn Digimon invisible, and we see Ruli ask him to come help her decorate the Cosmo Culture School. Ruli tests how much Hiro is willing to do simply because people ask him to, to which Hiro eventually answers that it’s “easier that way”. Ruli was unsure whether she could keep the Digivice (her connection to this strange new world Hiro introduced her to), and after Hiro confirms she can, she decides they’re in first-name basis now (which is huge in anime, though I’m unclear on it’s actual importance for actual Japanese children in 2021). Their dynamic when dealing with danger... isn’t perfect, which is great, since it has no reason to be. Hiro offers himself as decoy to figure out what’s making people disappear, in a move I’d call self-sacrificing if I thought Hiro considered it a sacrifice (rather, it’s Hiro being purely pragmatic without considering for a second that the risk to himself is important, at least until Ruli points it out), and the rest of the gang follows him from a short distance away. They get distracted by the Cosmo-kun hologram malfunctioning and by an animate Jack-o-lantern decoration turning out to be a Candmon in a costume, and lose sight of Hiro (which Ruli notices as soon as the surprise wears off). They manage to track him very quickly, just as Hiro is getting the “friend” treatment by Pumpmon (also known as “Pumpmon shoves your head into a heavy pumpkin and then carves eyes and mouth on it while you’re terrified he will stab you”; charming guy, that Pumpmon).

And, on that note, we move to our antagonist-of-the-week. Simply put, Pumpmon is the least scary of the 4 digimon-of-the-week so far, and this is not only because of how not-scary he looks (Dracumon doesn’t look scary and he worked magnificently). It’s because of how the episode builds the atmosphere to him, using the most rote of horror movie cliches and assuming giving Pumpmon a knife will make up for it in impact (it just looks tryhard). It does not work as kid’s horror the way the previous episodes did, but it also plays far too straightforwardly to succeed as absurd comedy. This is seen from the very first scene, where one of Pumpmon’s mooks attacks a teenage boy, and we know how short it is compared to said teen, but the boy just screams as a helpless victim instead of at least trying to defend himself, so the whole thing looks unconvincing (and too serious to be funny). Another scene has Pumpmon appearing from the Cosmo-kun bot, which would have been a very good moment if we (and his soon-to-be victim) hadn’t seen him outside of it a few seconds before, so we know he only did that entrance to look cooler. Voice acting doesn’t help Pumpmon either, since outside of some well-done unhinged laughs, he sounds like he’s trying too hard to sound scary, which also means the “he’s not malicious, just misguided” development doesn’t work as well as for Mummymon, since Mummymon never sounded like he was malicious, whereas Pumpmon does, even if he does it badly. It doesn’t help that Gammamon says he gives him bad vibes (which breaks the apparent pattern until now of Gammamon only saying that for actually evil digimon, and thus damages Gammamon’s characterization). That said, there are some scenes that do work, the best one being when Pumpmon’s mooks suddenly appear in a sink and a locker to attack new victims, a moment that works even better by following it up with the absurd comedy of another mook force-feeding pumpkin-shaped cookies to another victim. There’s also the music during Pumpmon’s motivation-dump getting more and more distorted as it goes along, which definitely helps the unhinged atmosphere of that moment.

Anyway, Ruli and Hiro bait Pumpmon and his gang into a small room, where Pumpmon hurts his gang because they’ve clearly never worked together in this way before (a subtle parallel to Hiro and Ruli messing up their first team-up a few minutes ago?). Pumpmon gets enraged and summons a gigantic pumpkin to crush them, but Gammamon evolves and easily destroys it, as well as burns Pumpmon. Hiro stops him before he continues, though, and tells Pumpmon he was trying to get friends the wrong way and that he should have simply asked, and then offers to be his friend. This moment... felt ridiculous, the all-loving kid hero played to absurdity, there’s not even the realization of how much he’s hurt others like Mummymon had. At least Ruli lampshades the ridiculousness of everything as it happens. Hiro uses the digivice to go back to the human world, but the group notices that Pumpmon and his gang didn’t go back with them, leaving the reasons as to why a mystery.

Other notes about the episode:

Hiro cheers himself up about the uncertainty of his father’s wellbeing by saying he appeared to be doing well. It’s still unclear to me when was that recording supposed to be done, if before Hokuto vanished (and thus recorded in the digivice) or afterwards (and thus recorded in the Dim Cards).

No Kiyoshiro in this one.

Ruli’s friends are called Aoi (light haired) and Mika (dark haired).

One of the victims comes face to face with one of Pumpmon’s gang while carrying a candle, which is good foreshadowing of Candmon being a member of that gang.

Pumpmon can interact with the world, which isn’t strange considering Clockmon and Mummymon could. What is strange is that Candmon and Ekakimon, Child-level digimon, can do the same, unless the costumes are Pumpmon’s creations and they are only manipulating those costumes, or something like that. Anyway, it diminishes the events of the previous episode more and more.

Speaking of Ekakimon... why were they used? Pumpmon and Candmon fit the Halloween theme, but Ekakimon doesn’t.

Angoramon reads the Digimon Analyzer on Pumpmon, which fits him as the “smart guy” in this series.

There’s two very clearly defined segments to this episode. The first one is Ruli slowly losing hope as she suffers through the scribbles curse, and it is a complete success. For the past two episodes we’ve seen Ruli constantly go out and look for the mysterious hologram ghost phenomenom (in fact, it’s the very first thing we saw of any of the protagonists in the show), so seeing her be so completely unprepared to deal with it actually happening to her is a good twist. Seeing her initially dismiss the scribble curse is a bit weird considering how enthusiastic she’s been with hunting down other potential leads on supernatural stuff, but it’s understandable when considering giving credit to this one meant saying that she herself was in danger (a thought that perhaps she didn’t want to admit to herself).

There’s two main elements to the atmosphere this segment builds. The first is the efforts Ruli makes to cope with her curse and try to solve it. She finds out she can both conceal her curse and interact normally by wearing gloves, and then she seeks out a known previous victim of the scribble curse, who’s understandably too distressed to be of any help, only unnerving Ruli even more. She tries to reassure her friends that there is nothing wrong with her in that oh-so-typical “I don’t want to burden others” behavior. Seeing her try and fail to deal with the curse does a great job at helping us empathize with the despair she’s feeling, specially since we know she has no chance of solving it herself. The second element is the paranoia added by the multiple shots of cameras, as well as the subsequent shots form the perspective of said cameras. This is a great way to emphasize how trapped Ruli is, as well as the invasiveness of technology in our privacy. It’s not just the cameras that work to create this paranoid atmosphere, though. There’s an interesting moment before anything happens where she seemingly hears something outside her room and goes to check it out. The thing is, we as the audience hear nothing, and we’re left to wonder if Ruli herself heard anything. We later learn Angoramon can’t interact with the world, so he couldn’t have made any actual noise, so was Ruli somehow already sensitive to his presence? Was it mere paranoia? Was Angoramon even outside, given that from what we know he would have most likely been in the same room as her to listen to her playing?

Of course, maybe that particular scene was just paranoia, but the rest of it wasn’t. The truth is that the party responsible for the curse, Dracumon, is watching her from the cameras. From the first scene, we know Dracumon targets things and body parts that his victims are proud of, from stuff as simple as earings to a football player’s leg, and, of course, Ruli’s fingers only start disappearing after we see how passionate she is about playing music. He could only have known this if he was spying on his victims, and he would only target these if he wanted them to suffer as much as possible. We see the curse on Ruli’s fingers lessen a bit just to give her hope that she’s recovered, only to crush it immediately afterwards. Ruli eventually figures this out, and tries to confront the unknown figure by screaming at empty air, but after getting no response, emotionally exhausted from the events of the past day, finally breaks down in tears in her room, as Dracumon starts mocking her in a voice we hear but she doesn’t, fully revealing his sadism, asking her to suffer more so he can be entertained. It’s at this absolute lowest point that Ruli finally gets a message from Hiro, the first sign of hope in this episode, and the second segment starts.

If I’m being honest, I’m not as big a fan of this second segment. Atmosphere is not as well built, neither is pacing, drawing quality ocassionally goes for some very distorted faces and bodies that I’m not a fan of. Anyway, Ruli and Hiro set up a meeting (and if Ruli agreeing to this meeting with a random internet stranger isn’t the biggest proof of how desperate she is, I don’t know what is), where Hiro and Gammamon immediately notice Angoramon’s presence. For the next few scenes, Hiro and Gammamon will constantly interact with Angoramon while Ruli’s mostly left confused and increasingly frustrated, feeling the deadline to her terrible fate approaching.

Angoramon gives us some good information on what the Digimon stuck as “Hologram Ghosts” want. According to him, unmaterialized Digimon can’t touch humans, and the likes of Dracumon wish to materialize to amplify the extent of their abilities. This... sounds off, considering we’ve seen Clockmon hit people with his abilities and destroy Hiro’s window, as well as Mummymon actually have to will himself to be intangible (which means he’s tangible by default). I’ve seen some theorize this is due to their relative power (Clockmon is an Adult and Mummymon a Perfect, which makes them more powerful and with far more data than a Child level like Dracumon, even if he’s very powerful indeed).

Anyway, Hiro runs off to get a Digivice V for Ruli without really explaining anything to her.  Upon his return, he proceeds to give the hammiest “induction to the Digimon Tamers team” speech ever to bait Dracumon into showing himself, which works. He confronts Dracumon (after said Child-level beats both Angoramon and Gammamon fairly easily) on how he has no chance of ever materializing himself without the help of a human, to which Dracumon responds by hypnotizing Hiro to do it for him. What a competent villain.

Ruli puts on the Digivice V but seems intimidated by Angoramon once she sees him, and unsure whether she should materialize him or not. When confronted, Angoramon answers that he’s protecting her because he likes to listen to her piano playing. Ruli decides this guy is the good kind of stalker and tells him to not hide around to listen and show himself next time, and then materializes him. Angoramon proceeds to get a power boost from the materialization (which he uses to hit Hiro in the stomach) and then another from synchronization with Ruli (which he uses to beat Dracumon in a very satisfying way).

Dracumon agrees to release everyone from the effects of the curse, and leaves after giving Hiro his “Evil Eyes”. Ruli hugs Angoramon and calls him fluffy, after which the benevolent stalker says that crime and punishment are only determined after the dust settles, in a show of self-awareness I wasn’t expecting. Dracumon proceeds to show he fooled everyone because he has more than just one pair of “Evil Eyes”. That’s the second villain who gets away.

Other notes about the episode:

Kiyoshiro shows up to remind us that he’s A) a nice, competent head of dormitory, B) really desperate for protection against supernatural stuff and C) clearly being haunted.

Ruli’s friends (one of which is called Aoi) are clearly terrified and trying to hide the fact they’re terrified from each other. It works well.

There’s a shot right as Dracumon is saying he’ll find a partner in crime easily where the perspective starts panning above until we see a couple people working on computers. I’m not sure if they meant this to be meaningful in any way, but it calls attention to itself without really doing anything. It just bugs me.

We see another strange symbol appear on Ruli’s Digivice after Angoramon materializes. Wonder what that means.

Starting with Hiro and Gammamon, we see them trying to build up their bond in some delightfully mundane scenes. Everyone’s already talked about how much they give off the vibe of indulgent big brother and adorable little brother. The scenes themselves are very well done, Gammamon’s squeal in the supermarket when he doesn’t get free food is in the top 3 most adorable things in this franchise, and the scene with Gammamon trying new food and giving his thoughts in little-kid-speech as Hiro takes note is extremely well-complemented by the music and the “lighting” used. Later on, when we get a callback to this scene with Gammamon naming the food he ate and liked, it comes across as... remarkably silly (it did not help at all that the heroic music started when Hiro refers to chocolate as the champion complete with flashback to the chocolate), but the end of that sequence with Hiro going “Let’s eat chocolate again!” and Gammamon answering “I’ll eat more... and I’ll save Hiro!” manages to still work, though, since it’s obvious they’re referring to more than just eating. There’s also the scene of Gammamon making himself a mummy costume from toilet paper... but people who needlessly waste toilet paper in public bathrooms have a special circle in hell for them, so I’ll ignore it for Gammamon’s sake.

Going with Hiro alone, we get some further showcases of his inteligence and attentiveness. He’s about to leave his room but considers the possibility of Gammamon being able to leave, he’s immediately prepared when Gammamon finds something too spicy, he buys supernatural mgazines on a hunch that they could lead him to more Digimon (that he only reads them after Gammamon is asleep furthers his whole aura of “responsible big brother”), and of course he figures out Mummymon’s motivations (fast enough to frame him as remarkably clever but not so fast it comes across as unrealistic). We also see that he covered the hole in his room with a plastic sheet, presumably working all night in that and falling asleep on the ground. Interesting that he wakes up covered by a cloth, since one would assume if he had thought to do that himself, he would also had thought to walk two steps and collapse on his bed. Was it Gammamon? Somehow I doubt the kid that woke up his big brother by biting his foot would think of doing that... Was it Black Tailmon?

He does show himself to be a pretty bad liar (his over-the-top hiding of the hamburger to get it to Gammamon, his claim that Gammamon is a hologram, his claim that there was a hole in his room because he tripped)... which no one calls him out on, pretty realistically. There’s also his constant questioning and excitement at the possibility of finding info on his father and the Digital World. Of course, none of his attempts yield results (Gammamon doesn’t even know what a father is, Mummymon doesn’t know how to go to the Digital World despite later implying he came from there to the human world).

Gammamon, as mentioned before, is in “baby brother discovering the world” mode for most of the episode, though he does hint at some interesting stuff. When asked about where Hokuto is, Gammamon points at a specific direction in the sky, and Hiro understandably disregards it, probably thinking Gammamon thought he was speaking of the North Star. Considering Gammamon’s connections to signals from space in lore, I don’t think Gammamon misunderstood at all. He mentions knowing a digimon who looks just like the dinosaur from the musseum, so I also get the impression the only reason Gammamon didn’t give a good answer to Hiro’s questions about Digimon and the Digital World may have been because Hiro wasn’t asking the right questions. We see some of his abilities, from flying, to finding Hiro through his scent, and, most interestingly, being able to hack digital locks. It remains to be seen if this is a Gammamon-specific ability or if this series is taking the “all Digimon can hack” approach of some other products. On a sillier note, he has intense dreams of chocolate for some reason.

Mummymon is handled very well as the antagonist. He’s civil, answers all of Hiro’s questions, shows no malice in his voice (even while harming people) until he gets angry at Gammamon for ruining his treatment, several hints at him genuinely trying to do good until his motivation is finally spelt out. His whole vibe is of course masked by the way his scenes are framed, the eerie shots of the mummies in the musseum, and of course just how much more relatable the fears this episode explores are compared to the first one (kidnapping, claustrophobia, being buried alive vs rapid aging), even if I don’t think the atmosphere of his scenes is as well crafted as for Clockmon. Upon a rewatch, every Mummymon scene hints at his true nature: the first establishes he doesn’t just kidnap any random person by having him show no interest towards the homeless man who witnessed the kidnapping; the voiceover in the musseum in Ruri’s scene spells out his entire motivation; when we see him walk into glass because he forgot to make himself intangible, we empathize with him in a way we never do with Clockmon, and then the second kidnapping establishes the common ground between his victims. When he kidnaps Hiro, he says he “sees no problems with” Gammamon (in a scene I initially thought was bad subbing until I rewatched it).

And of course, there’s the resolution. The whole vibe of Mummymon’s hideout, the moans of every victim from the still desperate to the ones who seem to have lost hope, the ominous digital circles around every kidnapped person, and of course Mummymon’s well-intentioned but utterly wrong speech about how he’s saving them by making them embrace eternal darkness... As I said before, this episode explores more relatable fears than the previous ones, and this scene takes them to a peak. Mummymon’s change from civil to furious berserker after Gammamon rescues Hiro is appropiately menacing. Finally, there’s the evolution sequence. I mostly love it, since it’s short enough it doesn’t break up the pacing and it’s very hype-inducing and interesting (3 DNA chains for each color of Gammamon evolution, he evolves when one of them collides with him, the same mysterious symbol from the Digivice-V appears during the evolution), but Hiro’s presence in it strikes me as awkward (as the presence of tamers in the stock evolution sequences tends to be), since it makes no sense considering where he was in the actual story. The later attempt to show synchronization between tamer and digimon by making Hiro unconsciously call out the attacks just looks silly instead of epic. As for the “fight” itself, it was basically Mummymon being completely unharmed by BetelGammamon’s attack (I would have been fine with an Adult-level defeating a Perfect, since Gammamon’s evolutions in lore do sound pretty powerful, but I’m fine with this too), but sufficiently bewildered that he’s willing to listen to Hiro. His reaction is a perfect mix of “what have I done” and “my life is a lie“, prompting him to liberate his victims and get life counseling from a 13 year old. At least Hiro reminds him to not let himself be caught. And that makes the second encountered digimon who’s still out there in the world (third if you count the Tyumon that was just chilling in the park).

As far as other characters go, Ruri is actively looking for danger and getting disappointed when she doesn’t find it. If nothing else, at least she’s still keeping her face and those of her friends hidden in her social media account. We hear of her getting info from her followers and also of one follower (Hiro) getting info from her, so perhaps she’ll be the trio’s source of information once they all get together. Kiyoshiro starts off somewhat serious when he hints at having seen lots of dangerous stuff lately and trying to give advice to Hiro, but becomes awkward when asked to elaborate, denying everything. He does still find time to greet Nomura. As for Kotaro Nomura, he comes back and immediately talks of trying to woo a nurse and his mother taking him out of the hospital, presumably to spare everyone the embarrassment. Dude doesn’t even greet Hiro.

Other notes about the episode:

The “Previously On” section starts by emphasizing holograms as “new tech”.

Drawing quality took a severe hit for most of the episode, and Gammamon is the most obvious example.

The cut between the eerie musseum scenes and the placid Gammamon and Hiro scenes work really well to highlight the vibes of each by contrast.

There are photos of Mummymon in hologram form, so we know they show up in media.

There’s an Agumon-shaped relic in the musseum, and from what I hear there’s also one of a Shoutmon form, too.

A marine creature with the head of a land dinosaur in the musseum. They’re getting lazy.

Gammamon uses the exact same words and intonation as Koushiro did in the “Who’s that Digimon?” segments of Adventure 2020.

“Mommies of the World”. They’re getting really lazy.

The white stripes in BetelGammamon’s skin have a skeleton pattern, which is a good connection to the “horror” nature of the show.

Gammamon being hungry after devolving is a double reference to all the talk of food prior to that and, of course, thaat Digimon devolve after using up all their energy.

We finish by seeing that Angoramon is following Ruri and may have been doing it for a while. Is that the same with Jellymon? Is that the reason behind Kiyoshiro’s paranoia?

I’ll ignore the OP for now, since that’ll get its own post later, but the very first scene, where Ruri’s friends start talking about the Sewn-Lip Man, is almost certainly my favorite first scene to a Digimon series, no exceptions. The out-of-frame or slightly out-of-focus faces sell this as a mystery. The images showing the slightly futuristic setting of this series, where technology and specially holograms have become an omnipresent part of life in entertainment, education, work, security, even religion, paired with the narration describing this new kind of urban legend for this new kind of world, are as good as anything else in any other Digimon series at establishing the world this story is set in. It even allows its infodump to be wrong (no victim is shown to have sewn lips as the rumours say), to further establish the unreliable nature of this rumours (even when the horrors they describe are otherwise 100% true). The scene where we actually see the “Sewn-Lip Man” (Clockmon) steal a young girl’s time is excellent, suitably horrible, with the visuals and voice actors selling the fear and horror of the young girl and the sadistic glee of Clockmon. I was afraid that the “horror elements” of this show would resemble a gross-out comedy more than anything else, but the episode plays everything very straight-forwardly, and it’s all the better for it. The scene ends with a return to the cafe where Ruri’s friends were speaking, this time clearly showing their faces, as their role of “all-knowing narrators” has ended and we’re left with just confused girls no longer sure of what the story means, and that’s how we’re introduced to Ruri, bold and fearless and lacking any doubts as she says that she wants to look for the Sewn-Lip Man. Her friends don’t really take her seriously, but it’s clear she’s 100% serious. We’re shown her social media profile, where she doesn’t show her face (wise girl) and, interestingly, is next to an old, broken down, obsolete game. Whether that means anything or not is yet to be seen.

That excellent opening sequence aside, we’re finally introduced to our protagonist, Hiro. He’s clearly... tired, unenthusiastic about anything. It’s later revealed through a flashback that his father disappeared in his first day of Junior High School half a year ago, and that Hiro was the one to discover that when he was alone at home (his mother’s job helping refugees means she’s constantly overseas). This has obviously and very deeply affected him (kid has flashbacks inside his flashbacks). We see in almost all his interactions with the people around him that everyone relies on him, to the point his friend Nomura tells him everyone’s taking advantage of him (which includes Nomura himself, obviously). This may be a continuation of his daily life with his father before the incident, since we see Hiro is the one in charge of preparing breakfast at home. Certainly, when questioned about how his resourcefulness while helping Nomura open a locked door, he says it’s because he’s an inventor’s son (why this means he carries a lockpicking toolbox with him at all times is beyond me). Hiro doesn’t initially show much enthusiasm for anything, disbelieving the stories about “Hologram Ghosts” (his remark about how things would be interesting if they existed just sounds like empty small talk). Don’t get me wrong, he does seem to cheer up while teasing Nomura on his obvious crush on “Rirurun” (Ruri’s social account), so not everything is doom and gloom with this kid. He just has... issues.

Of course, compounding his issues is Clockmon’s attack on Nomura while Hiro watches and later attempted attack on Hiro himself. Kiyoshiro makes his second appearence afterwards. Previously, he had appeared in the breakfast scene between Hiro and Nomura to, basically, assert his authority, and then dramatically reveal his fearfulness and superstitious nature when lightly mocked by Nomura. This comes back in his second appearence, where he overcomes his inner cowardice to give Hiro a talisman for his protection, before running away and once again dramatically revealing he has tons of talismans with him. Yes, he’s a weirdo through and through, changing from cool to fearful and then back to cool in the blink of an eye, and I’m loving it. (Sidenote: Apparently Kiyoshiro gave Hiro a “have a safe birth” talisman. I couldn’t stop laughing when I learned that.)

Immediately afterwards, Hiro perceives an invisible entity moving around his room, and he comes into possession of 3 DIM Cards. Remembering them from his father’s disappearence, he puts one of them into the Digivice, and then the other two as a recording of his father’s voice keeps telling him it’s the wrong one. When he does get the right one, the area around him slightly changes to include grass, and he’s able to see the invisible entity, a BlackTailmon that silently points at Gammamon and leaves. A hologram of his father, Hokuto, soon appears, and makes sure to tell him he’s alright both at the start and at the end. One wonders if he didn’t intend Hiro to activate the Digivice shortly after his disappearence, and not 6 months later. He proves to know his son very well by predicting his reactions and interruptions (though the “perfect prediction” trope is averted by having him be wrong a couple times, thus making it more realistic). Hokuto refers to the distorted space around them as the “Digital World”, thus showing he didn’t quite know as much as he thought he did (the distorted space may be influenced by the Digital World, but anyone who’s seen another Digimon series can tell it’s not the Digital World). He tells Hiro to treat Gammamon as a little brother and that “his world will change” after using the Digivice, in what sounds like him trying to share his passions with his son. Hiro himself is clearly disappointed when he realizes this is not his father but just a recording, though. We don’t see much of his interactions with Gammamon before they’re interrupted, but it does look like he’s dismayed at having to take care of Gammamon “too”.

Of course, Clockmon appears so Hiro and Gammamon can have a life-or-death experience to bond over. Gammamon quickly changes from adorable child to vicious fighting beast in a way that reminds me of Guilmon from Digimon Tamers. He and Clockmon start to fight, quickly moving through the city causing damage to several buildings as Hiro follows them running through the street, in a scene that reminded me of the first Digimon Adventure short movie, and that shows the level of power we can expect from Digimon in this series. Hiro wonders if Digimon are naturally battle-hungry (they are). Ultimately, they arrive at a park where Clockmon manages to land his time-stealing attack on Gammamon. It seems to go wrong when the distorted image of a mysterious digimon appears over Gammamon (GrusGammamon, apparently), but that quickly ends, and after briefly freaking out, Clockmon recovers and starts to enjoy himself in sucking the life out of his victims again (charming guy, that Clockmon). Hiro initially freezes, but is inspired by Gammamon’s determination, taking a step forward as Gammamon does, calls him and then his quick thinking and tactics save the day when he throws a branch with pinecones towards Clockmon’s “time stream”, which transforms it into a full grown tree, forcing him to dodge and deactivate the attack. We see both Gammamon and Clockmon comment on this, with Clockmon seeming to have gained a grudging respect for the boy. As they declare themselves as “brothers”, we see the Digivice activating some sort of synchronization between Gammamon and Hiro, with Hiro unconsciously calling out an attack and either enabling Gammamon to use it or boosting its power. It’s not enough to destroy Clockmon, but it is enough to damage him and reverse the harm on his victims. Clockmon escapes swearing revenge, Gammamon comments on Hiro giving him his energy (Hiro previously collapsed to the ground, which may just mean adrenaline ran out and his physicially and mentally exhausted from everything, or it may mean something else) and asking Hiro again to take care of him. This time Hiro agrees, and wonders just what sort of mess did his father brought him to.

Other notes about the episode:

Clockmon mocks his first victim for not knowing the time, which may or may not be a subtle criticism on overreliance on technology.

Hiro mentions that someone named “Ishida” has a lot of information on Hologram Ghosts (they’ve been appearing for 2 or 3 years), and considers it strange that they know so much.

Hokuto’s accident broke apart a family photo, very obviously symbolic.

Hiro looks so small in the scene where the police are searching his home.

Nomura is so dedicated to his crush on “Rirurun” that he keeps taking photos of Clockmon even while clearly terrified.

Hokuto really wanted Hiro to have specifically Gammamon as a partner.

I’d theorize that BlackTailmon is actually Hokuto like in Savers... but they really don’t act anything alike, so I’m discarding that theory for now.

Hokuto has an older model of the Vital Bracelet, a black one compared to the blue Digivice V.

The ending seems to be all images drawn by Tenya Tabuno.

A total of 5 new evolutions, which we knew from previous statements there would be 4 unknown Adults and an unknown Perfect. The Adults seem to follow the Red/Blue/Green theme a lot of people predicted for Gammamon:

We have the Red Adult-level, who looks like Gammamon’s main evolution.

The Blue Adult-level, which seems capable of flight and pretty fast.

The Green Adult-level, which looks defensive and capable of long-range attacks.

The Dark Adult-level, which features in the final promotional poster and in the anime guide. Further confirms that the red one is the “main” evolution.

What I’m assuming is the Perfect-level, which is a thematic fusion of the 4 Adult forms (white because that’s what you get when you combine red, blue and green lights, the energy coming from its claws resembles the one that the Dark Adult-level uses).

Action

It felt appropriate to start with this, considering a focus on action was what the initial interviews promised, and they delivered in spades. It wasn’t perfect or too consistent, there were several times when the Digimon not evolving when they could just broke any tension the fights had, but this series had some of the best fights in any Digimon anime. Anything in the first 3 episodes, Greymon/MetalGreymon vs MetalTyranomon, SkullKnightmon vs Greymon and Garurumon, Mugendramon vs DoneDevimon, Mugendramon vs WarGreymon, Millenniumon vs the dragons, Omegamon vs Abbadomon Core… all of them among the best things the franchise has to offer in terms of action scenes, which after so many series where fights were solved by having a protagonist Digimon evolve and one-shotting the enemy, comes as a breath of fresh air (to be fair, this series also had a lot of that, but it had actual great fights to compensate).

Worldbuilding

Another thing promised in interviews was the use of Digimon from all over the franchise, and not only did they deliver, but they also included plenty of references to the “null canon” to enrich the experience for the most hardcore fans. The series made sure to constantly emphasize the savage nature of the Digital World, bringing back the Tamers worldbuilding of Digimon consuming weaker Digimon in hopes of achieving evolution. Along the way we saw a lot of allies fighting back against this status-quo, from things as overt as Leomon organizing a resistance or Petaldramon protecting weaker Digimon from the all-consuming Entmon, to less dramatic stuff like weak Digimon settling down to live together, or the mere presence of a restaurant where everyone can rest for a while of the hardships of their world.

The biggest flaw here was in how the series handled its antagonists. With very few exceptions, every single enemy Digimon in the series lacked dialog, whereas nearly every single ally Digimon could speak normally, and this disparity cheapened the whole thing, because instead of coming across as “this mentality is normal for this world”, it came across as just your normal “everyone lived together in harmony until the villains attacked”, which is very much not what the series was telling us.

Characterization

That brings us to the next point: the lack of personality for most villains. I joked elsewhere that Minotaurmon from episode 19 was the most compelling villain of the series, and that’s not completely a joke. Almost every single villain of the week was flat, plenty of the “main” villains were lacking in dialog (Algomon in the first few episodes, Nidhoggmon, Millenniumon) or turned mindless halfway through (Devimon, DarkKnightmon). Negamon/Abbadomon in the final episodes managed to benefit from this by being the embodiment of an “instinct”, but in general this meant a mook-of-the-week like Minotaurmon managed to be a highlight among the villains simply by having dialog and non-trivial desires.

But what of the protagonists? The popular opinion is that everyone is far blander than they were in the original series, and I agree. But rather than comparing it with the first series, let’s look at what it had to offer to us. Where in other Digimon series, the backstories and issues of the protagonists and their reactions to what’s going on around them make for most of the drama, in this series the drama comes from the villains trying to destroy everything, and for the most part that means the protagonists only need to be distinct and charming on their own, no necessity to create conflict between them. There is an overall character arc for all of them, though: accepting and interiorizing their new duties towards the world they had ended up stranded on, getting to know and love the Digital World. Was this well done? Not really.

Taichi and Takeru, for example, were so much the embodiment of the stock shonen hero that accepting their place in this new world didn’t really reveal anything about them we hadn’t already seen from their first few appearances.

Jou got stuck as an unfunny punchline 90% of the time, to the point of damaging his few “serious” moments in some of his focus episodes. His development of becoming assertive was compelling in theory, but it got muddled with so many unfunny and uncomfortable hotsprings jokes that the impact was lost.

Hikari started as an even more blatant plot-device “mysterious character” than she was in the original series, before unconvincingly changing to cheerful little girl afterwards (the whiplash between her in episode 33 and her in episode 34 was something else), and only really managing to settle into a compelling character in her last focus episode (58, defending the Digitamas from the Bakemon and SkullBaluchimon, which to be fair is a great episode and probably the best showcase for Hikari as a character in any product or continuity).

Koushiro was mostly fine, although we all remember the several times the series seemed to promise it might do something with him (his uneasiness when his family was mentioned, or that line about having to “face the darkness of his past” in the HerakleKabuterimon episode) that ended up being nothing.

Mimi is the fan-favorite, being charming in nearly all her appearances and having some of the best focus episodes, and it’s mostly deserved. If there’s anything I criticize from her, it’s that her focus episodes don’t really add up to anything.

Yamato was fine, started out as a stock shonen rival before becoming the single most chill “lone wolf” in any Digimon series, probably because of what I said before of the conflict between the protagonists no longer being the source of drama. He gets a slow development of caring only for his brother to starting to care for other Digimon for the sake of Sora and Gabumon to caring about the Digital World just as much as everyone else.

Sora was made fun of by a certain section of the fandom for having the worst focus episodes early on, and I agreed, but having finished the series I can’t get rid of the impression that her focus episodes, while perhaps not that good on their own, when taken as a whole explore her character the best of any other. Yeah, this mostly means exploring her compassion (these are not very multi-dimensional characters), but they deepen and deepen both her impact on the Digimon she saves and how she is impacted in turn by them, moving her away from saving others through her combat prowess to saving others by empathizing with the grief of another caring soul, and by the end I honestly ended up considering her my favorite character (despite none of her episodes making it to my list of favorites).

As for the Digimon… it’s following in the footsteps of other Digimon Adventure products by not really having much of interest for the Digimon themselves except for Tailmon.

Overall, for the most part the main characters were decent, but besides Mimi and ultimately also Sora, I don’t think they’re very memorable. All of them start out promising, but never really improved from that promising start (again, except for Sora).

Pacing

And now we get to the biggest problem of the series: Pacing. I’ve seen it stated elsewhere that this series was more episodic than most (any?) other Digimon series before it, and part of the backlash it got was from not being as serialized as fans expected it to be. This isn’t exactly true. From episode 16 (Eyesmon) to episode 24 (DoneDevimon), this series was as serialized as any other Digimon series has ever been, with nonstop escalation that demanded you keep watching it week after week. Then, from 25 to 35 (Angewomon) or 36 (BlitzGreymon), it pulled slightly back from that never-ending escalation, but was still pretty serialized. It was only afterwards that it became heavily episodic, and by that point it wasn’t expectations set up by previous series that hurt it in the eyes of the fandom, it was expectations set by this series itself in its first half.

Not that the episodes themselves were bad. Honestly, I found myself significantly more entertained by the episodic later half of the series than the serialized first half. Maybe it was because they didn’t feel the need to convince me they were the most exciting, tense thing I had ever seen when they were clearly not (hello, Mamemon episode), or maybe it was that there were more than just endless fights to them, but I normally ended up those episodes entertained and satisfied, whereas with a lot of episodes from Eyesmon to BlitzGreymon, I mostly just felt frustrated after watching them. I agree with the criticism that, when seen as a whole, breaking momentum so hard for so long after months of never-ending escalation wasn’t the right choice, but when seen week after week, I can’t see this change of approach as that bad of a thing.

Conclusion

I think that sums up the series for me. On a weekly basis, it’s pretty entertaining. It’s when seen as a whole that the problems really become clear. There’s been some speculation in the past few weeks of how much the current situation in the world might have impacted the series, but ultimately, I have to judge what actually happened, and I can’t help the impression that this series ultimately left me with nothing of substance after it was all said and done. Like, I enjoyed this more than, say, Appli Monsters, but Appli Monsters have things that stick with you after it’s over. Not so much here, unless you’re a hardcore fan that loves the Omegamon lore this added (which I am, btw; love that Omegamon lore). I don’t think I can recommend this series to anyone who isn’t a hardcore Digimon fan, or at least a hardcore fan of the wider “monster” genre.

One thing I’m grateful to this series for, though, it’s the commercial boost it has given the rest of the franchise. I’m not going to credit it for all the successes it currently has, after all the Card Game would have fell off by now if it wasn’t genuinely well-done and the Vital Bracelet happened because of years of the virtual pet division progressively building up its audience after it had nearly died off, but it’s undeniable they wouldn’t have sold as well without this anime advertising the franchise week after week. Next week, we’ll have the first episode of Digimon Ghost Game, the first time since 2001 that we have a Digimon series being immediately succeeded by another. If that isn’t a sign of how well the franchise is doing right now, I don’t know what is.

Curimon: A Digimon in its infancy with a distinctive single horn on its forehead and a frill ornament. It is so active that its Digitama bounces before it is born, and once it hatches, it moves around with great energy. The horn on its forehead and the frill on its head are immature and soft, and cannot yet be used in battle, but they are useful for balancing and protecting it from collisions when it moves around. When approached by an enemy, they emit bubbles in a majestic and threatening manner.

Gurimon: Grimon is a young Digimon with two horns on its forehead. It bounces around energetically, and when it finds a big rock that looks hard, it hits it with its signature "Tickle Attack" where it pokes it with his horns. When it comes across a rock that has not been broken, it is delighted and runs around with an outburst of energy to become even stronger. Their frills are also hardened and developed to protect their soft bodies and make them look bigger.

Gammamon: A newly discovered, very rare, white, young horned dragon type Digimon. It is said that its evolution into Gammamon is related to a "digital signal that flew from outer space of the galaxy". The two hard horns sprouting from its forehead are useful weapons for attack and defense. The small wings on its back allow it to levitate and even fly a little. They don't show much emotion, but if you get to know them, they seem to take to you little by little. Its special move is the "Horn Attack", in which it lunges with its two horns. It also uses its left claw to unleash a powerful "Break Low" attack.

Pyonmon: A Digimon in its infancy, covered with one large ear and fluffy body hair. It's been shy since birth, and immediately turns its face down when you look into its eyes. However, it is also very friendly, and has been seen rubbing its body against Digimon he likes, and actively engaging in skin-to-skin contact with them. It doesn't like people who try to mess with it, and its big ear slaps are powerful enough to blow away even the fastest growing Digimon. It also dislikes things that make loud noises that resonate in its ears, so it keeps its ears down and walks away.

Bosamon: A Lesser-type Digimon that evolved from Pyonmon. Now that its fringes have grown longer and its eyes are hidden, it can move around without worrying about other people's gazes. Its shy personality has been transformed into a calm one. It has two long ears and its hearing has developed. It is now able to perceive sounds in three dimensions and enjoys listening to conversations between Digimon from a distance. Thanks to this, it has a wealth of information about things it has never experienced. It doesn't like to fight, and is quick to leave the scene when it senses an enemy approaching. Even when its escape is blocked, it hides while the enemy is frightened by hitting it with a series of ear blows.

Angoramon: A beast-type Digimon with long ears and hair covering its entire body. It has a gentle nature that doesn't like to fight, and uses its long ears to detect the approach of enemies from a distance and avoid battle. The long ears can also be rotated to allow for slow flight. In order to maintain its large size, it has a large appetite, and only when it is hungry and its stomach is growling does it lose its super-hearing ability to detect enemies. Its special moves include the "Double Lariat", in which it uses the rotation of its large arms to knock away enemies around it, the "Petit Tornado", a small tornado created by the propeller rotation of its ears, and the "Pyondump", in which it jumps high into the air and crushes enemies with its huge body.

Puyomon: A soft and sticky slime type Digimon found in the "Sea of Nets". Its single, lens-like eye lacks emotional expression, so you can't sense what it's thinking, but it drifts about in the sky and sea, trying to attach itself to things and Digimon with its tentacles. When they attach themselves to each other, they emit a tingling static electricity called "crackling gas", but this is not an attack, but rather a form of communication unique to Puyomon. When the puyomon cling to each other, their "crackling gas" increases in power, making it impossible to get close to them.

Puyoyomon: Puyomon evolved by capturing jellyfish data. It has copied the biological characteristics of jellyfish and has grown multiple tentacles. As you can see from its dull, curious eyes, Puyomon has developed feelings of likes and dislikes, and when it is attached to something it likes, it will not leave. On the other hand, when they feel something they don't like, they release a "zone crackle" of electric shocks that pop and never let them get close to it. Even if it likes something, after a while it gets bored with it and leaves it, drifting off in search of something more stimulating to its liking.

Hiro Amanokawa: He is 13 years old and is a first year junior high school student at a private school, Hazakura Academy. He is a strong person who can do most things by himself, and is often relied on by others. He never turns down a request. He has a strong inquisitive mind, and after meeting Gammamon, he begins to take an interest in Digimon.

Gammamon: A Digimon who was brought to Hiro by his father, Hokuto. He is very curious and has a tendency to try to bite anything. He is mischievous, but he listens to his friends. His favorite food is chocolate, and he even calls it "the strongest".

Ruri Tsukiyono: She is a first year junior high school student at an integrated junior high and high school for girls. 13 years old. She runs an account called "Rirun", which is rapidly gaining popularity on social networking sites. She has many friends and is very sociable. She is looking for her perfect fit and wants to get involved in everything.

Angoramon: A large Digimon with long ears who flies slowly in the sky. He has a keen sense of hearing and can distinguish distant sounds. He is always calm and has a mature personality. He knows a lot about the Digital World. He likes to listen to Ruri play the piano.

Kiyoshiro Higashimitarai (apparently the “Seijiro” was a mistranslation): He is a 14-year-old eighth grader who is the head of the boys' dormitory at Hazakura Academy. He is 14 years old and is a genius who graduated from a graduate school in the United States with flying colors. He usually talks condescendingly, but is actually quite a coward, but once his switch is flipped, he's ......?