#chamblemon

So, Asuka is still alive and probably won’t be evil or be a plot twist villain like I initially had expected—hey, at least I got the part about him being alive correct! The only way to restore Cold Heart patients is to find the Digimon that took their e-pulse. For Hitomi, the Hyemon with the piercing was the one who attacked her and the scarred one took Asuka’s, but that Hyemon later became absorbed into a mysterious humanoid Digimon who appeared in the opening. Originally, I thought that would be evil Asuka, but it’s apparently a Digimon. Given how menacing it looks, It’s definitely going to take a while for Asuka to be restored—Hitomi will definitely recover first. Also, shout out to Miyu Irino for that letting out that anguishing cry when Tomoro saw Asuka’s catatonic state. You see why he’s so good and why I like him so much?

Still, I do like how Digimon is breaking old trends by having the younger sibling trying to rescue the older one this time around. Tomoro’s situation can be seen like a “what if Taichi went out of commission and Hikari has to be the MC” sort of scenario. It’s definitely a good way for Tomoro to learn how to not be co-dependent and become his own person instead of a plot device because let’s face it, if Tomoro wasn’t the MC, he’d be plot device that would be chronically kidnapped.

Cleaners are essentially modern-day mercenaries. If you play games, you should understand the concept of job quests where you accept jobs and earn rewards from them. That’s basically what the Cleaner system is. However, the unfortunate thing about this system is that kids as young as Makoto have to be registered as a Cleaner so they won’t be targeted for not having their Digimon registered at the ministry. Tomoro is only 15 and everything that transpired with him glitching Hitomi’s Sapotama and Geckomon hatching from his own caused him to have a bounty that he didn’t even know about. At least Tomoro and Geckomon don’t have to experience the creepy Chamblemons from Ghost Game and are just encountering sillier ones with their own tamers. 

Apparently, Kyo and Asuka are acquainted with each other, which is why they know where to find the Tenma brothers but they were too late. Kyo seems like a nice guy with how he’s always cooking for the younger kids and calls them family. Given how dead his eyes are, he is either someone who got way too traumatized in his past that he’s being motherly as a method to heal from past wounds or he’s secretly evil…I hope he’s not evil. Still, not even Kyo answers why Tomoro’s e-pulse is special. But he knows about his living situation—it seems that the Tenma parents live separately from the kids, either the parents are divorced or they work abroad and Asuka was old enough to look after Tomoro.

Since a Digimon will be born from a person’s Sapotama and the Sapotama has all of their information, Digimon-Human relations equate to parent and child in this universe in some way? Congrats, Tomoro, you became a single dad at 15! Good luck trying to reign your gremlin lizard son. Still, I’m surprised that Geckomon hasn’t evolved yet. I think the last time a main character’s digimon took a long time to digievolve was back in Tamers where Guilmon evolved around the two-digit episode mark? Given that the story is more plot-driven this time around, I could see Geckomon evolving either next episode or the episode after. Also…Geckomon can be hit or miss with some people but I think he’s strangely endearing…

The voice actor cast is pretty stacked but I feel like it’d take forever for me to explain everything since there are a lot of characters in this episode. Let’s start with Kyo Sawashiro. He’s voiced by Yohei Azakami who voiced Ron Kamonohashi from Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions. Regarding Digimon, he was in Digimon Survive as Ryo. His partner Murasamemon who is also Cougarmon, is voiced by Daiki Hamano, who voices Jean-Jacques from The Case Study of Vanitas and Go Onizuka from Yugioh Vrains—this is his first Digimon role. Regarding the mushroom guys, one of them is voiced by Yasuhiro Takato, who voiced Pumpkinmon from Digimon Ghost Game. Young Tomoro is voiced by Sakura Kawaguchi who voiced the Funbeemon from the previous episode. Teen Asuka is voiced by Ryosuke Kanemoto who was in Ghost Game as Kazu. It’s interesting how they bring back people who were in past Digimon media.

I honestly can’t wait to see how Tomoro will fit into Glowing Dawn and what will become of him as the story progresses. Will he be able to rescue Asuka? Will he ever get along with Geckomon? Will he become friendlier as time passes? Let me know your thoughts on this episode!