#captain hookmon

Lars and hookmon

Rookie: otamamon

Champion: hookmon

Ultimate: Captain hookmon

Mega: boltboutamon

A while ago I was browsing through the Digimon reference book to look for interesting designs and this guy caught my attentions.

Captain Hookmon is a heroic ship's captain Digimon that is relied upon to exert its leadership from a pirate ship that cruises the Digital World. It excels in the art of survival, but the duty to support its subordinates weighs heavily on it, and it knows firsthand just how difficult that is. 

Therefore, it not only crosses the ocean with gentlemanly conduct before weak opponents, and so forth, but is also skillful at making its way through the world. It isn't brutal enough to challenge one to an unreasonable battle, but if challenged to a battle it will meet the enemy with all its power. 

The "Rage Giga Anchor" equipped to its hand expresses Captain Hookmon's intimidating air to its opponents just by being held up, and it specializes in violent fighting styles that make free use of its "Pirate's Punisher", which has steady-attack and gunfire functions. The "Leg Revolver" fitted to its right leg is a technique suited for surprise attacks, but Captain Hookmon is such a gentleman that it takes it upon itself to fire off a warning.

Captain Hookmon is obviously a reference to Captain Hook, but it does’t look like the latter, nor does he act like the latter. On the contract it’s a heroic pirate, so I started wondering whether his design and description are references to other pirate captains. 

Luckily, not long after this I started watching the Leijiverse series (a series of anime created by Leiji Matsumoto in 1970s), and Captain Hookmon’s design just starts screaming Captain Harlock to me. 

Tumblr compresses the photo a little, so I’ll describe it:

Both has their right eye covered with a patch, and a scar going through their left cheek.

Their capes are similar.

Both wear two belts around their waist, one of which is a holster belt.

But these may appear to be weak evidence, especially considering these elements are mostly pirate stereotypes, but they are actually less common than expected. Only 2 of the One Piece pirate captains wear eye patches, and none of the Captain Hook media representations wears one:

What made me 100% sure was the similarity in their weapon:

Captain Hookmon’s Pirate’s Punisher looks almost identical to Harlock’s Gravity Saber, a weapon unique to the Leijiverse.

It’s the combination of a saber and a gun. As far as I know, this kind of design only exists in Leijiverse. Captain Harlock, Emeraldas, and Maetel were shown to use it. I think it gives us an exact answer that Captain Hookmon is a reference to Captain Harlock.

Now thinking about it, Hookmon actually looks quite similar to the conductor of Galaxy Express 999 (a train that travels through space in the Leigiverse) as well. They basically wear the same uniform.

Now speaking of Galaxy Express 999, the train that travels through space... It brings up the most obvious reference to Leijiverse in the animated series - the Trailmons in Digimon Frontier.

I mean, somehow the Trailmons have lines that travels into space.

And like the dark Trailmon in Frontier, there is also a ghost train in Leijiverse.

I can’t find an official full illustration of the ghost train, so the art above actually belongs to @masaru2042​. You can find the original post here: masaru2042.tumblr.com/post/173380274056/幽霊列車-yes-for-those-of-you-looking-at-this-thing.

The two dark trains share similarities in their design and function, but I am not sure if it’s a direct reference, as ghost trains are quite common. There’s also one in Mirai that looks quite like the dark Trailmon in Frontier.

And the Infinity Train is basically a green version.

Oops I got digressed by trains... I love trains! But let’s continue to the last Leijiverse reference I noticed in Digimon. 

Mimi’s hat scene in Adventure may also be a reference to Galaxy Express 999

I am not exactly sure about this one. It could totally be a coincidence but as a fan of both shows I would prefer to believe that this is also a reference.

So I was watching Adieu Galaxy Express 999 (the second OVA of the series), and towards the ending I was getting some Digimon vibes. Our protagonist Tetsuro was boarding the flying train that is taking off to Earth, but Maetel - the woman who went through his adventure with him had to stay behind. This gave me some Digimon vibes as we also had a flying trolley at the parting scene of Digimon Adventure. 

And surprisingly, as Tetsuro realized Meatel wouldn’t be going with him, he threw his hat off the train - just like Mimi did! I uploaded the clip to Youtube for you to feel it yourself. (Sorry about the poor audio quality.) I don’t own the video and it is just for the sharing purpose.

I also found this Portuguese subbed version of Adventure’s ending scene and attached it here.

Weekly Doodles ‘20 7

His name is Hookmon, a pirate based Digimon- and boy howdy I just love pirates. He is a champion level Digimon, and has no previous forms from what the wiki said.

However he had an Ultimate form-!

I now literally have a crush on him