metalliveblogdramon

[metalliveblogdramon]

Moving, and taking advantage of that to make things a bit more casual given I only managed to rack up 10 followers anyhow, because Tumblr is trying to kill itself:

https://discord.gg/7gTc9s2

@endarkculi I haven’t seen you in a while because your tumblr was moving way too fast and cluttering up my entire dash so I don’t know if you’re even on discord, sorry if you aren’t. We should catch up some time though.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 30

Myotismon is pretty pissed that the kids made it through to the real world, and has his search pattern intensified, particularly utilising those digimon under his command who can pass amongst humans and around kids to a greater

...Or lesser extent.

The kids try to navigate the train network and get to Odaiba. This presents a few problems: First, Koromon and Tsunomon leap in front of a train, assuming it’s a hostile digimon and only survive by being small enough to fit under it as it passes. Then a baby on the train yanks on Yokomon’s petals until she screams, forcing Sora to nervously bullshit that she’s a ventriloquist. This is followed by the entire team falling asleep and missing their stop, then them getting separated in a crowd and lost.

That said, they meet back up at a burger restaurant, with a near miss where Izzy and Joe nearly run into the inconspicuous metal-faced serial killer fellow pictured above. Joe pitches a minor fit when he finds out they spent all their remaining money on “Super combo meals“. As they’re effectively stranded, Tai hits on hitchhiking as a solution. After several failed attempts, Sora manages to flag down her cousin Dwayne. Given that the kids are all named in the dub nicknames based off of their japanese names, I can only assume this is cousin Dwaynuchijou.

Dwaynuchijou tells the kids that he’s just giving Sora a lift, so the rest of them are effectively luggage, and luggage doesn’t talk, Got it? He proceeds to turn the volume of the radio up to max and headbang his way down the road until a news bulletin interrupts detailing the events of last episode.

Koromon shits on the seat, and Dwaynuchijou pulls over to scream at everyone, demanding to know which of the kids did it before accidentally shoving Izzy off a bridge. Fortunately, Tentomon is able to catch him. Unfortunately, squid.

Ikkakumon digivolves in and fights the squid.

Actual dialogue:

“Rough day at work huh?“

“Oh you know, same old, same old.“

This resolves pretty quickly, as the Gesomon is only a champion. Figuring that they’ve blown their cover anyhow, the kids opt to bail on Dwaynuchijou and ride Ikkakumon across the bay to Odaiba.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Movie 1: Digimon Adventure

Going to stick this review here, because this suddenly became relevant. I’ll be following this pattern in general, doing movies as soon as the relevant place in the shows have passed. For adventure and 02, I’ll be doing both the subbed and dubbed films, because holy balls is the american digimon movie a butcher job. More on that when we get to it.

Though really, this is more a short OVA/pilot than it is a movie.

Immediately noticable is much more fluid animation, albeit in a completely different style. We get a few rapid flashes to later in the movie, and an older Tai appearing briefly to say “Four years ago I saw my first digimon“, but the actual opening is onto Kari staring at a computer screen as a digi-egg emerges from it.

Next day, their mother says she’ll be gone for the day and leaves her kids to it. Kari has fallen asleep hugging the egg, and so only the kids get to see it.

Tai suggests frying the egg. Kari expresses dissaproval by blowing her whistle. The egg rolls off on it’s own accord, and when they chase it it hatches into a Botamon. It flees under the bed, and Tai throws his goggles at it. Kari establishes a rappore by blowing her whistle as it blows bubbles.

Kari feeds the Botamon candy, and Tai suggests a few names including “blacko devilu“ as Kari vetos each by whistling. It becomes increasingly apparent that the soundtrack is classical music and baby kari communicates entirely through whistles.

Tai leaves the room for a moment to answer the phone, and when he’s back Botamon is already a Koromon. It tries to steal the family cat’s food, resulting in it getting chased around the apartment and it and Tai getting scratched for the effort.

In the next scene, it’s evening and Tai announces that dinner will be curry and cake. Koromon begins speaking, and this seems to prompt Kari to open up and start talking as well. Koromon declares friendship with the kids, hugs them, then shits in the middle of the floor.

That night, electronic devices malfunction throughout the neighborhood. The other characters we briefly see for a few seconds at a time are probably the other kids, but between the short screen time and the massively different animation style it’s hard to tell.

Koromon becomes an Agumon, and is for some reason as large as their bunk bed, destroying it in the process of evolving.

The kids father comes in drunk, yelling their names at the top of his lungs. Tai has to hold the door shut so that he doesn’t come barging in and see Agumon. Kari climbs on Agumon’s back, and he shoulders his way out onto the balcony and leaps to the street below, crushing a car he lands on.

Tai runs out of the apartment. His mother calls after him but doesn’t seem to give chase. Agumon visits the convenience store, and tears apart a vending machine to get food. A truck nearly hits him, and he retaliates by shooting a fireball that misses and destroys a phone booth. Kari expresses concern that Agumon has gone completely nonverbal again, and keeps calling him Koromon because he’s not corrected her. He begins growling and taking random potshots at passing vehicles, as Kari tries to calm him down. The fire allows Tai to track them down.

Suddenly, the electronics start going on the fritz again, and I’m able to spot Mimi and Izzy, as the other kids start coming out onto balconies in response to a massive moon filling half the sky. The moon splits in half, and Parrotmon drops out as it vanishes.

Agumon immediately starts taking pot shots at the Parrotmon, and I identify Joe calling the cops to report this. Agumon’s misses blow large holes in the sides of nearby buildings, and Parrotmon turns to face him. I manage to pick out the rest of the gang as Parrotmon shoots lightning out of his forehead, destroying a bridge and causing it to collapse onto Agumon, Kari and Tai. Greymon emerges from the rubble, still feral and bent on attacking the Parrotmon. Kari and Tai were between his legs, so survived. As they clash and brawl, Tai needs to keep a hysterically crying Kari out of danger as they nearly get crushed several times. Eventually, Greymon is knocked unconcious, and Parrotmon is charging an attack to finish him off. Kari tries to use her whistle to wake him up, which fails until Tai takes it and blows one long, loud blast on it.

The Greymon stands up, and instead of the nova blast we’re familiar with, evaporates Parrotmon in a prolonged, white-hot kamehameha-like mouth laser. When the light clears, both of them have vanished and the confused and distressed kids are left standing in the middle of a street full of craters and rubble.

Credits roll over an image of Tai hugging his Greymon in a featureless white void.

That was uh... I’m not sure that really added anything to my experience of the show, in all honesty.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 29

Now back at the summer camp, the kids plot out how to get to Hightonview Terrace, the area where Myotismon entered the digital world. A teacher comes along and they explain away their Digimon as stuffed toys, to which the teacher says they’re filthy and belong in the garbage.

Next scene is Myotismon reacting adversely to sunlight, saying he’ll have to wait for nightfall to begin searching. In the meantime, he tells Gatomon to take charge and get looking.

It’s definitely a good idea to let her have that, right?

The Digimon express surprise to see so many kids about. When told there are millions of kids in Japan, Biyomon assumes this means millions of Soras.

As the camp is snowed out, the teacher is taking everyone directly home. Through a little finagling and emotional blackmail in the form of a crying TK, they manage to convince him to drop them off where they need to go instead.

On the bus, the teacher asks to take a look at Sora’s digivice, prompting Tai to whisper to Izzy “If he was an evil digimon his attack would be homework blaster“, which the teacher overhears and says “Actually it would be tickle blaster“.

Uh...

Gatomon goes about checking on kids, making catty comments about human society and getting into a fight with a dog. Failing to get a positive match, she returns to Myotismon who berates her failure then says the original crest will stay with him, whilst his minions take many copies of it designed only to glow if near the 8th Digidestined.

Upon reaching Hightonview Terrace, the digidestined discover that all of them used to live there at some point years ago before moving away. Before they can draw any conclusions from that though, Gatomon spots them and sets a Mammothmon on the area.

After it destroys this guy’s bike, he calls it an overgrown shag carpet, throws his helmet at it, tells it to respect other people’s property and complains that people aren’t respecting leash laws anymore. As it continues to rampage, it also continues to inspire very jaded and indifferent reactions to it’s prescence. Only when it smashes up a pile of cars at a crossroads does anyone begin to care, if only to call the cops on it.

The kids pass a convenience store, and Joe as the eldest is able to recall that four years ago there was a terrorist bombing in the area that caused many families to move away, probably why everyone left the area. A cop car passes, and they follow it around the corner to see Mammothmon. Biyomon digivolves and assaults it, but doesn’t do too well due to it being ultimate level. Rather than help, the kids stand about in a daze as they start to un-repress memories of witnessing a digimon battle at this exact spot - The supposed terrorist attack.

Eventually though, Sora snaps out of it and activates her crest to allow Birdramon to reach Garudamon for a more even fight. She proceeds to ride him like a bull at a rodeo, toss him about by the trunk then finish him off with her fire attack.

Meanwhile, the kids piece together that the fight they witnessed before was between a Greymon and a Parrotmon. They realise that the reason they were selected as digidestined was because they witnessed the attack.

Tai also mentions that Kari was there, and a few sentences later it’s suggested that the 8th digidestined was probably someone else who was there that day. This doesn’t click with anyone for some reason.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 28

Gennai tells the kids to come visit him, and they can talk about getting that gate open. Turns out he lives under a lake near Myotismon’s castle, and he parts the water to let them enter.

I get to skip over a fair bit in my summary here: What am I meant to say in depth about “Gennai avoids giving them any straight answers about who he is or what he wants from them except for the one pointer in the right direction he contacted them to give“? At least he’s somewhat useful this time, giving them a copy of the cards needed to open the gate and some instruction on how to use them.

Also he flips out and tries to choke Tai when he suggests just trying the cards in every order until they hit the right password.

“The wrong combination could take you to a world where humans and digimon switch skin“ - Gennai

Izzy stays up late as the rest of them get some sleep, and is able to wring out of Gennai:

Izzy: How are you different from digimon?

Gennai: I have no attributes.

The next morning:

Gennai: Izzy I've installed a port on your computer that can connect to a digivice. Also, I installed a new screensaver. You know that one with all the colourful fish swimming around? I really like it. 

He sends them off back to the castle, which is now swarming with Devidramons because I guess Gatomon set them to auto spawn or something. Megakabuterimon clears the immediate batch.

They get to the portal, and the castle begins collapsing in on them as they try to puzzle out a pattern in the cards and the nine slot grid laid out for them. Unable to work anything out, they tell Tai to do it on the basis that he’s the leader. This comes as complete news to him. They tell him they’re happy to go along with whatever method he sees fit for solving the puzzle, so he immediately delegates to Izzy.

Izzy is able to work out that it’s a grid of vaccine/data/virus one way, and rookie/champion/ultimate the other by analysing the symbols and his pokedex entries on the digimon on the cards.

Unfortunately, there’s still one spare card to eliminate.

Suddenly spider.

Many spider.

Oh no!

Also the castle is still collapsing they might want to hurry this up.

Sora yells at Garurumon to digivolve again (?) and he does so, breaks free of the webbing and cuts the others loose. Weregarurumon manages to do that anime thing where the villain is engulfed in white light, reduced to an outline then distorted and blown away, but his attacks are the last straw and the spire the castle is on snaps completely and begins freefalling. Tai selects which card to go with completely at random without looking, making it a 50/50 coin toss. Luckily, destiny. They all get through, and end up back at summer camp rather than in skin swap universe.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 27

The next episode opens on a bright sunny day at what seems to be the same camp, cheerful music playing. Guess he just left and let them get some rest then.

Izzy calls them over and says Gennai is contacting them again. This is met with resentful grumbling. Gennai announces good news and bad news: The good is there’s an 8th digidestined, the bad is he can’t remember who it is and also Myotismon is heading to Japan to look for her.

Gennai: If you don’t meet up soon, our worlds will be doomed.

Tai: Doomed? We need spies on the inside!

And with that non-sequitur we cut to Myotismon’s castle, where a bunch of mooks are getting boot-camped by this goddamn weirdo:

Nanimon braga that he’ll soon have these losers in fighting shape, then notices two odd digimon standing off to one side:

Punkagumon and Reggaepalmon volunteer for duty and are accepted. Demidevimon wanders off and tells Myotismon the recruits he asked him to gather are ready. Myotismon asks if they’re worthy of him, and Demidevimon assures him the motley assortment of Sukamon, Numemon plus some Veggiemon he rounded up totally are.

Then this surely only minorly important cat minion shows up and assures him she’s rounded up actually useful minions, “Purrrrrrrr your instructions“. A Bakemon comes in and tells Myotismon his portal to the human world is ready to go.

We get a brief cut to outside where we establish Gennai led the protagonists to the castle and told them about the portal, then pan over the wall to see Nanimon’s drill sergeanting montage. After overworking them to exhaustion, a Sukamon suggests getting him drunk so they can slack off giving him soda, because “the bubbles will go to his head and make him as dipsy as a Doodlemon“. A Numemon slugs his way up the wall to the kitchen and starts tossing down wine bottles full of orange soda.

Man, look at him go.

Palmon whips her vines over the wall to let everyone else into the castle. The internal layout turns out to be a gravity defying Escher mess, and whilst they pick their way through that Myotismon admires his Digimon Card collection, sure to last more than one set and grow to rival other popular collectable monster fight card games.

He orders Gatomon and Demidevimon to hold the kids off whilst he uses the cards to open the gate and slip his army through.

The kids follow some minions heading for the gate, and the real army, depicted in silhouette, slip through. Before Myotismon can follow, the kids show up and he orders Demidevimon and his loser brigade to lead the delaying action. The digidestined partners immediately digivolve, and of course Demidevimon’s squadron flee, Nanimon surrenders -then- flees, but at least Demidevimon still has his dignity.

Thankfully for him he’s bailed out when Gatomon takes charge, and despite being a tiny cat the size of most rookie digimon, takes out all five present Champion digimon in as many seconds. The kids make a break for the gate, at which point she uses the ring on her tail to activate two statues, which transform into Devidramon, the same demonic dragons who pull Myotismon’s carriage and for some reason aren’t  actually an ultimate level form of Devimon. (Just imposing champions)

The Devidramons are agile and have a hypnotic gaze, making them tricky opponents more than capable of holding a proper delaying action, at least until Greymon gets frustrated enough to digivolve to metal, nuke them, then return to Koromon.

Gatomon taunts the kids from the gateway as it begins to close up, and they make a last ditch attempt to run through... Then she just activates another two Devidramon statues. Tai tries to weave around and plow on regardless, and smacks face first into the closed gate.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 26

The whole gang, minus Sora, meet back up, noting her abscence. Mimi and Agumon are able to recall brief sightings of her, and so they resolve to chase after her digivice blip. Matt in particular notes that there’s probably something wrong if she can’t or won’t meet up with the group.

Cut to Myotismon kicking Demidevimon down a flight of stairs and further berating him for his failures, like a Badcraftsmon blaming his digitools. Demidevimon retorts that at least he managed to keep Sora from activating her crest of love.

The kids are attacked by a yellow and black striped Flymon, which comes after them with it’s barbed stinger, much as it’s namesake, a fly, would. This speedbump provides Tsunomon and Koromon an excuse to get back to their rookie stages, before Birdramon swoops in, kill steals and leaves without a word. They go charging after Birdramon to chase after Sora, and manage to catch up and corner her.

Sora reluctantly explains she found out what all the crests symbolise, and that hers is love. Tai responds that that sounds about right, and she blows up at him, insisting it doesn’t suit her at all and she’s incapable of love. A flashback illustrates that she started worrying about this pretty much because Demidevimon said she wouldn’t get her crest working then laughed at her. A further flashback shows her underlying insecurity is based off her mother dismissing her interests and demanding she work in the family flower shop.

Tai reveals his strategy to deal with a crying girl is to stand next to her and loudly declare he has no idea how to handle that. Matt chips in that they should just ignore her until she works it out. TK steps in and starts a cycle of reminding her how much she cared about them to follow them about helping from the shadows, then says “When you’re around, I don’t miss my mom so much.“

Demidevimon gloats from the shadows that Myotismon will be pleased to hear the kids are back together, and calls him up to tell him. Myotismon immediately sets out in a flying coach pulled by a demonic dragon in a gimp suit that flies so fast I had to keep rewinding until I could stitch together a composite screenshot.

Whilst waiting for his master to arrive, Demidevimon sneaks a drug reference past the censors and Biyomon is made to go to hell before she dies.

Myotismon descends from the sky, airdropped in a coffin from his coach to stand and declare that “These digidestined are making me a little... Batty!“ before summoning a torrent of bats.

The digimon shoot a flurry of rookie-level attacks back, and well... It shoots down individual bats I guess. Palmon takes the more pragmatic approach of digivolving so she can send out a needle spray and remove bats en masse. Ikakkumon follows suit, and bombards Myotismon with his harpoon torpedoes, to which Myotismon responds by smirking and tanking the attack without damage. He then sweeps everyone over with whips of “Crimson Lightning“. (Weeb fact: In the japanese version these are streams of blood)

A prone Biyomon, slurring her words in a drug-induced haze, insists that she’s the last one standing and needs to go fight him. Sora tries to stop her, but Biyomon yells “You don’t understand!“, reminding Sora of that time her mom wouldn’t let her play football with an injured leg, making her realise “It wasn’t about her flower shop, she just didn’t want me to get hurt!” This causes Biyomon to digivolve, rush Myotismon, take a whip to the chest, then digivolve a second time as Sora blurts out “Birdramon no! I love you!“

Thus we get the debut of one of the least focused on main-cast furrybait digimon. What she lacks in quantity of internet porn though, she makes up for in sheer hugeness, being easily the biggest partner digimon seen so far.

Garudamon takes Myotismon by surprise, managing to stalemate one of this attacks then gather the rest of the team into her hands and flee towards the rising sun. Myotismon grumbles that they won’t escape so easily next time, and we get a generic “Well I sure learned a moral of the story today“ scene that’s interrupted in the last few seconds by a black cloud of smoke blowing in over them as they make camp, from which Myotismon taunts they stand no chance against his power.

[metalliveblogdramon]

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 25

Tai and Joe pedal their way along in the swan boat, complaining about tired legs. Agumon and Gomamon smugly taunt that they’d help if they could reach the pedals.

They reach the shore and the radar blip leads them to a palace full of panicking tadpoles and geckos.

It turns out the Otamamon and Gekomon have appointed Mimi their princess, and now they’re finding it impossible to keep up with her constant stream of demands.

Demidevimon reports to his master and-

Okay that isn’t even a silhouette anymore he’s just coloured in all-grey.

Anyhow the gist is Demi set this whole princess gig up, and Myotismon is making his standard threats of punishment when he inevitably fucks it up.

Mimi declares that she’s princess now, so she’s staying exactly where she is. Tai proceeds to immediately blow his diplomacy check by rudely demanding she cuts this shit out and comes along already, prompting her to have her new servants give them the boot.

They question aloud why the hell the amphibians gave her so much power, and they explain that their master Shogungekomon has been asleep for 300 years since he lost a singing contest, and now they need someone who can wake him up by singing. In flashback, Mimi almost does this but forgets some of the lyrics.

They threw her a feast, and she realised that as long as she delays waking up the shogun she has them by the short hairs and can demand whatever she likes.

Tai insists that they try to wake him up without her, but they all suck at it. Palmon comes along, and they recruit her into an elaborate plot to get a recording of Mimi singing.

Doesn’t work.

That night, Mimi has a nightmare that Devimon and Etemon are chasing her and nobody will help her because she’s been so selfish. She wakes up to Sora watching her sleep (???), who reassures her then vanishes once Mimi’s crest starts glowing, taking advantage of the sudden burst of light to leave.

Mimi summons the digidestined from their cell, lets them go and apologises to everyone before pledging to do the song for real this time.

And of course when Shogungekomon wakes up, he’s pissed off and goes on a rampage, kicking down walls and blasting people with soundwaves. Debris nearly falls on Mimi causing Palmon to digivolve to Togemon to protect her.

So, Mimi focus episode, glowing crest, Mimi in physical danger from a huge monster... We’re about to see Palmon’s ultimate, right?

...r-right?

Just as Togemon squares up to showdown with the shogun, after making up with Mimi and Mimi calling him out for his ingratitude...

Greymon and Ikkakumon arrive, having digivolved offscreen, ambush Shogungekomon and draw his ire. He leaps straight at Tai, prompting Greymon to digivolve into Metalgreymon for the second time and do all the heavy lifting.

Metalgreymon headbutts Shogungekomon, launches missiles straight down the horns on his shoulders and leaves him buried under a pile of rubble. Mimi delivers a crappy one liner (”He deserved to hear that last flat note!”) then asks if she’s allowed to keep her princess dress when they move on.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t look like Demidevimon can afford much more escalation to his punishments.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 24

It’s an Izzy Episode!

We see Izzy and Tentomon walking through some hills, Izzy trying to work out a search pattern to find Tai and Tentomon complaining about how long they’ve been walking.

Demidevimon desperately tries to set up a trap before they arrive, Myotismon having given him one last chance to secure a crest. Because obviously, send a rookie to fight 7 guys theoretically capable of being Ultimate.

Izzy and Tentomon approach, then Demidevimon scrambles to hide and starts taking survailance photos.

Izzy wants to try to find Gennai and ask for real answers. Tentomon finds some signs left by Demidevimon that warn of fictional hazards such as rains of poop, bottomless pits of poop, trained attack poop... It’s a strange obsession this show seems to have, but I guess it dates back to it’s origins as a virtual pet franchise that rushed out a cartoon to compete with Pokemon.

Anyhow this leads them to stand on a false bit of ground and fall into a bottomless pit.

They find themselves in a pocket dimension ruled by this fellow: Vademon. Vademon threatens them with falling until Izzy agrees to bargain away his curiosity, leaving him lethargic and disinterested. Vaderzim sucks Izzy’s curiosity into a raygun and hands him a book full of zen-like platitudes on the importance of freedom from rational thought. After he leaves, Tentomon notices someone is trying to contact them and he takes Izzy’s laptop and opens it up.

This creates a plothole: The call is the other end of the call with Tai from a few episodes back where it was Izzy contacting Tai. Still, the message to not return to the digital world is sent albeit phrased completely differently.

In Vademon’s private chambers we learn that he runs a literal curiosity shop: He trades in it as a commodity for cash. Demidevimon rings his doorbell and asks if he can buy Izzy’s crest, to which Vademon replies that that’ll be pricey as he doesn’t generally stock other items. Demidevimon offers his own curiosity in a trade, and Vademon agrees and withdraws to go fetch the crest.

Izzy is meditating by contorting his body into the letters of the alphabet. As he reaches N, Vademon appears and tells him to discard all physical posessions besides his clothing, then grabs the crest when he tosses it and zaps Tentomon for trying to intervene.

Vademon leaves, allowing Izzy to assert dominance over himself.

Up above, Vademon tries to extract Demidevimon’s curiosity, which seems to prove tricky. Down below, the sapping effects of Vademon’s dimension take their toll on Tentomon, forcing him to devolve first to Motimon, then further to his baby form Pabumon. Seeing his friend suffering causes Izzy to snap out of it in a slightly trippy sequence where he sees his memories reflected in Pabumon’s floating tears.

Though no longer lethargic, Izzy still lacks his curiosity and is struggling to think clearly. Luckily, the sounds of Vademon and Demidevimon arguing lead them to Vademon’s shop area, and Pabumon is able to grab the crest and trick them into running into the dimensional pocket where Izzy is able to bar the door and lock them out.

Whilst Vademon works to bash down the door, they locate Izzy’s curiosity and get it back into his head. In the ensuing chaos after Vademon breaks the door, Izzy and Pabumon manage to flee through the shop into the dimensional pocket where Pabumon has room to rapidly evolve an entire three stages into Kabuterimon.

Vademon begins summoning meteors which batter Kabuterimon around until Izzy is able to activate his crest and cause a fourth digivolution in the space of about a minute.

Megakabuterimon (not to be confused with Kabuterimon’s Mega) is able to casually batter his way through the meteors...

So Vademon tosses an entire planet at him.

Megakabuterimon is hurled back a good distance, but his Horn Buster attack destroys the planet and the shockwave sends Vademon flying. Megakabuterimon catches Izzy and we cut to above ground, where Matt and TK arrive just in time to see a kaiju-sized insect erupt violently from the ground amidst a pillar of light, causing an earthquake in the process.

Matt and TK run up to a collapsed Izzy and Motimon and ask them what happened. Motimon says that Izzy took a self help course, Izzy says he flunked out and the others laugh despite having no context for the joke.

Gennai appears briefly, tells Izzy he left a file on his computer and vanishes again. It’s a pokedex.

Myotismon calls Demidevimon up for a status report, then upon hearing “Yeah uh, funny thing happened...“ sets a flock of smaller bats on him.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 23

Fresh off swan-boating out of sight, Matt and Gabumon find themselves on an unfamiliar shore, where they witness a Frigimon, Monzaemon and Kokatorimon heading up a hill and decide to follow them.

The digimon head into a restaurant where a Veggiemon is acting as manager and waiter, and find that Joe and Gomamon are working as kitchen staff. It turns out that Demidevimon led them there, and when Joe tried to pay the bill in yen he discovered they only accept US Dollars.

So yeah, tricked into slavery, presumably because Veggiemon is a bit nuts and won’t let them work off the meal in a reasonable timeframe.

Yep, next scene shows Veggiemon asked them to work 3 days for the food costs, then kept finding excuses to up the debt such as “wasting ingredients“.

Also the restaurant owner is an egg. An ultimate level egg. With a weird accent I can only describe as “Igor“.

Matt tells Joe that he needs to get back to TK, but will come back and help him work off the debt. Before he can leave however, Demidevimon appears in Digitamamon’s (The egg) office and bribes him to keep Matt and Gabumon on site as well.

Digitamamon: Where do you think you’re going? Your shift starts now so get inside and get cooking or you’re fired!

Matt: I quit then.

Despite acting cool in the face of this non-sequitur, Matt is forced to stay when Digitamamon tells him “There’s no telling what kinds of accidents your friend might have in the kitchen if you go.“

The next few scenes show Matt failing to communicate the hostage situation and Joe being a doormat and getting another 20 days added to his sentence.

We get a scene of Demidevimon trying to sabotage Joe, then Sora coming out of the bushes and undoing the sabotage before going back into hiding. I have no goddamn clue why Sora is lurking about so much.

Demidevimon approaches Matt and in a move that’d only work in a children’s cartoon, plants the idea Joe is intentionally extending their debt to screw with him.

Tai and TK eventually find the place using the digivice radar function, and Joe immediately greets them with “I’m so glad you guys are here, please don’t break anything!”

Tai points out it’s a restaurant, they can just leave, it’s not like there are any armed guards. Matt says he’s not leaving if it means going anywhere with Joe, who wants him to stay at the restaurant. Logic doesn’t seem to be his strong suit.

Demidevimon shows up, Tai mentions that Demidevimon is evil and Matt immediately snaps out of his fog of stupidity.

And so they try to leave, triggering a fight scene with Digitamamon who bursts into flames and doubles in size.

Digitamamon proves invulnerable to Garurumon’s attacks whilst he has his shell closed, and then Veggimon provides an extra complication in the form of a hostage situation.

Ikkakumon evolves to provide a distraction as Joe climbs onto the roof and manages to leap down on Veggiemon, freeing TK but getting caught up himself. He then tries to insist not to worry about him and just attack. Witnessing this is enough to activate Matt’s crest of friendship and allow Garurumon to digivolve to...

A gay furry icon.

Digitamamon falls easy prey to Weregarurumon, who catches and dispels his Nightmare Zone attack and tosses him across the horizon. Veggiemon flees, and we get the everyone makes up scene, with Joe being commended for his bravery in the hostage situation. Matt apologises to him, and Weregarurumon devolves into Tsunomon offscreen.

We get a short scene of Demidevimon talking to his shadowy master and getting punished for his failures again, and this time we get a name: Myotismon.

Finally we get the group finding two radar blips, and of course they immediately decide to split up again.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Also if you’re following along and wondering why Demidevimon never used a called out signature attack, that’s because the english dub cut out all but one entirely plot important use of his attack from the series, because it’s a hypodermic syringe attack and they were worried it might be seen as a drug reference.

Mushrooms of forgetfulness are totally fine though!

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 22

Finding themselves back where they fought Etemon, Tai and Agumon see nobody else around. Tai gets a blip on his digivice showing the proximity of another, which woulda been pretty handy the last time everyone split up but oh well. They follow it to a nearby oasis, where they find Tokomon, along with TK’s digivice and crest.

Tai asks Tokomon where TK is. Tokomon mentions TK having a “new friend“, then details a flashback to the group trying to find Tai and Agumon after they left.

Around a campfire, someone suggests asking Gennai for help, to which Joe replies “And where do we find Gennai? One wild goose chase is enough if you ask me.“ They go to sleep soon after, and Tokomon witnesses Sora and Biyomon sneaking off in the night, claiming they’ll look for Tai alone. Over the next few days more people split up until only Mat, Gabumon, TK and Tokomon were left. They come to an abandoned amusement park, which Matt is somewhat suspicious of. He tells TK to wait whilst he and Gabumon look around, and peddles off in a novelty swan boat and vanishes. TK waits a week for him to come back, to no avail.

As he’s giving up hope, this non-suspicious individual shows up:

In case you’re wondering, yes: Demidevimon is Devimon’s rookie stage. He’s not the same Devimon reincarnated like Tokomon though. Demi Moore admits to being “A bit of a wise guy“ when Tokomon voices suspicion, but waves it off as “I used to work for Etemon but you don’t need to worry about that anymore.” He offers to search for Matt, then flies off and returns a few minutes later and tells TK his brother was sick of babysitting a crybaby and won’t be back.

Tokomon tries to assure TK this isn’t true, “And we’ve been working on the crybaby thing, you’re getting a lot better“. He goes off to confront Demi DeVito, who says he has no proof and calls him racist. Tokomon responds by blowing a bubble attack, which TK witnesses, siding with Demographic who twists the knife by saying it’s only natural Tokomon would be jealous of TK’s new friend.

Back in the present, Tai decides to get TK and Tokomon back on speaking terms.

We then see two Gazimon, one with cool shades, debating if they should seek revenge on the Digidestined for slaying their master. They decide to eat mushrooms instead. I’m assuming this interlude will mean something later.

TK and Dem Bones go on various amusement rides, with the bat trying to convince the despondent kid to just forget Tokomon already. He decides to try something else and flies off just as Tai approaches. TK still wants Tokomon to apologise for his earlier behaviour, and refuses to look for the rest of the kids due to feeling that they’ve abandoned him one by one.

Dentist Man finds the Gazimon and they now have amnesia and mushrooms growing out of their bodies. He realises these are a patch of “Mushrooms of forgetfulness“ and flies back and offers them to the kids. Tai and Agumon are immediately hostile and demand to be taken to Matt, but agree to eat a meal first. Tai cooks the shrooms whilst talking in a french accent, and Agumon leaves to take a shit.  At the bathroom, Sora’s voice echoes out of nowhere and tells Agumon not to eat the mushrooms. He dashes back to the others as the camera angle changes and shows Sora and Biyomon were hiding in a nearby bush for some reason.

Agumon yells at the others not to eat the mushrooms, and when they express confusion he declares them to be poisonous and tries to force Dembski-Bowden to eat one. When he refuses, TK and Tokomon make up and Tai gives TK his digivice and crest back, and the crest starts glowing. (If you think this means TK has unlocked ultimate level digivolution like when Tai’s crest glowed... No.)

Denny’s tries to grab the crest, and Tokomon assaults him then finally manages to Digivolve back to Patamon. Their battle leads them across several rides in the amusement park, until finally Patamon manages to propel Demidict Cumbermon off a rollercoaster into the lake.

And huh, guess I was wrong about the next villain not showing up for a few episodes, at least in ominous shadow form.

Tai, TK and their mons resolve to keep searching for the rest of their friends, and Tai ends the episode with the line “I guess sometimes it doesn’t take a mushroom of forgetfulness to forget who your real friends are!”, which I suppose is as good a moral as any.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Just before we move onto the next arc... Well, it’s a little fuzzy where the last arc ends and the next begins really, but Etemon’s gone and we’ve resolved the immediate impact of that by getting Tai and Agumon back to the digital world. We have a bit of time before the next main villain shows up in person, and he’s going to form the meatiest arc of this season.

Etemon was a bit better executed than Devimon in my opinion, in that he got more screentime and presented a looming threat for longer. On the other hand, he still wasn’t all that deeply characterised, and it’s dissapointing that an Elvis themed villain didn’t get a full-blown musical number. Still, he served his role well enough. It’s not really hard to outdo Devimon’s prescence, especially when you’re more of a gag villain and have a lower bar to reach. Not that I want to sound -too- harsh on Devimon either: He was an intro villain, and had a decent enough fight scene. He just lacked prescence in the story. I don’t think the dub exactly helped him, but given his amount of screen time I can’t imagine being fractionally better scripted would have done him a lot of good.

Anyhow this post is turning out more rambly than I meant it too: The main point I wanted to get to was that in theory, the next arc is where the series should hit it’s stride, and I’m definitely curious to see how well it holds up against my nostalgia.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 21

When we left off, Tai and Koromon were stranded in Tokyo after falling into a black hole-like vortex. Given the sudden circumstances and being seperated from the other kids, Tai can’t even enjoy being home and indeed, by this point is kind of untrusting as to whether this is even real or another trick of the digital world. Having never seen the physical world before, Koromon is no help there.

They accost this small child and angrily demand to know if she’s real. This goes about as well as you’d think, causing her to burst into tears as a crowd gathers to stare at the small angry limbless pink creature. Tai catches on belatedly and tells Koromon to shut up, then picks him up and flees. It’s about this point where I start to notice how out of place Tai’s anime protagonist haircut and outlandish outfit looks in generic crowd scenes.

Tai becomes excited to get home as he gets closer to his appartment, thinking he can show Koromon to explain his months-long abscence and then check if the others managed to get home. I notice that the name on the door has been edited to KAMIYA, a mistranslation of Tai’s actual surname Yagami that I believe is consistent across english materials from this period. I then notice I’m being a huge weeb and unpause the video.

Nobody seems to be home, so whilst Koromon deepthroats a Caco-Cola, Tai checks the calendar and discovers it’s the same day that he left, and since his parents are off visiting an elderly relative whilst he’s meant to be at camp, that means he has the place to himself for now. Tai, unfamiliar with Narnia logic, starts freaking out about time travel until they hear groans coming from another room.

We’re introduced to Tai’s sister Kari, who couldn’t attend summer camp or go visit her grandmother because she’s currently too sick to travel.

...And thus has been left home alone, despite being 8 years old and again, ill.

She immediately recognises Koromon, though can’t explain why. As Kari plays with Koromon, Tai phones the other kids parents to check if any of them are home, to no result.

Tai makes everyone omurice and is dubbed saying “It’s good to be home“ when he’s obviously saying “itadakimasu“. I restrain the urge to shove myself in a locker for being such a goddamn weeb.

Koromon has a conversation with Kari whilst taking a dump. Meanwhile, Tai watches a bit of TV and sees a report on bizzare weather patterns worldwide, during which he can see phantom images of digimon flickering in and out of the footage of afflicted areas. Kari is glad that someone else can finally see the monsters on the news, their parents having dismissed it as an overactive imagination. The PC flickers on and a grainy transmission flickering in and out of reception of Izzy warns Tai to not try to come back to the Digital world, due to it apparently being in complete chaos.

After a bit of moping about the situaition he’s in, Tai grabs the phone off of Kari as she’s speaking to their mother. He tries to speak, then panics and hangs up. He has a little bit of a breakdown, but is interrupted by a Tyrannomon emerging from the bay godzilla-style and blowing up a nearby bridge. By the time Tai and Koromon get down to the bay to respond however, the Tyrannomon fades back into the digital world. A Drimogemon bursts through a nearby wall, then fades as well. Koromon laments that he seems unable to digivolve at the moment despite being well-fed.

Kari shows up, having followed them out of concern, and then Ogremon manifests, invisible to everyone but the kids.

He wants to attack them, but, and I’m not joking here, he waits patiently for the traffic lights to change so he can cross the street to do so.

Koromon demonstrates remarkable agility in bouncing up the sides of buildings so as to lead Ogremon into a rooftop confrontation, but proves unable to Digivolve until Tai’s freaking out enough about it to activate the digivice.

The digivice opens up a rift in the sky that Agumon is able to knock Ogremon into, then he vanishes himself because he must go now, his planet needs him.

Tai then works out he can enter the rift by holding the Digivice aloft, and we get a goodbye scene where Kari knows it’s important that Tai leaves, but doesn’t want to be abandoned again.

The episode ends with a closeup back at the appartment of Kari’s own digivice, which just manifested on the coffee table, then a brief shot of Tai and Agumon standing in one of the Digital World’s deserts, wondering where to go next.

[metalliveblogdramon]

Adventure Episode 20

Izzy types furiously, trying to triangulate Sora’s position on his laptop. The rest of the kids try to come up with a plan and get some rest.

TK offers to sleep with the digimon, “In case one of you gets scared“.

Izzy works out where Datamon fled to: Under the upside down pyramid is a right way up underground pyramid, then beneath that another upside down pyramid where Datamon has built his lair.

Datamon reveals to Sora that his plan is to clone her, then try to use the clone to control Biyomon and use her to destroy Etemon.

Also he has her Crest.

Etemon has posted an entire army of Champion level digimon around the pyramid, so to get in they arrange for Joe, Matt and their digimon to cause a distraction and lead Etemon and his army off so that Tai and Izzy can sneak into the pyramid.

Outside, Etemon confronts Joe and they exchange taunts. Etemon calls Ikkakumon a goat, and is hurling around “the power of the Dark Network“ as balls of shadowy energy that cause signficant collateral damage to his own army.

Inside, the Gazimon on security monitor duty pick up on the intruders as they work their way deeper into the pyramid, and Datamon puts the finishing touches on his clone.

Surrounded, Etemon proves a physical match for the partner digimon even without using a named attack or calling on his network. He hurls them around and is able to snatch Togemon’s needle spray out of the air.

“Y’call them needles? Mah granny’s got sharper needles in her knittin’ basket!“

He does sing a little as a finishing move, but sadly it’s not really focused on and has a lot of sound effects and talking over it for the 5 seconds it lasts. If you’re gonna do an Elvis themed villain, they coulda done more than that.

That said for all his power, he’s tremendously distractible. His minions alert him to the intruders in the pyramid, and mulling that over for a few seconds is enough of a window for the defeated kids and digimon to sneak off.

Tai and Izzy find themselves annoyed because they’re nearly at Datamon’s room, but are forced to hide from patrols running around on full alert.

Then a pissed Etemon bursts through the roof directly above them. Kabuterimon tries to hold him off as Tai and Agumon make a break for it.

Another electric fence blocks off the room, and without Izzy there to work out where the gap in it is, Tai is forced to work up the nerve to just pick a spot, blindly step through it and hope for the best. As dumb a move as this might be, pushing through the near-crippling terror of a messy death pays off not only in finding a way through, but in making his crest of courage start to glow.

On the other side, Datamon has finished his Sora clone, and is about to hand over the digivice and crest. Despite being a powerful Ultimate digimon, he just stands there and complains as Tai snatches them off him. Tai runs over to Sora just as Datamon opens a pit in the floor to dispose of her by dropping her into the core of the Dark Network. Tai catches her wrist and passes her her digivice, allowing Biyomon to digivolve and knock down the fence from the inside, dropping it on Etemon and buying the kids time to escape the pyramid. Datamon again just stands about and lets all this happen.

Etemon tries to confront Datamon over his interference, at which point Datamon opens up the floor, causing the entire pyramid to collapse into the Dark Network core, taking him and Etemon with it.

This would be much more of a problem for Etemon if the network wasn’t already basically an extension of his power. Dropping him in just causes him to merge with it and become a massive ball of floating cables with a little monkey dude sticking out of the top.

At this point, Etemon is sucking the data of the world around him in like a black hole, and proves completely invulnerable to incoming attacks, not needing to dodge or block. As bad as this seems, Tai’s crest is still glowing, and as he charges headlong at Etemon this causes Greymon to reach his Ultimate stage for real this time: Metalgreymon.

Metalgreymon headbutts the mass of cables, swipes a dark energy ball out of the air and then finishes Etemon off with some nipple missiles. Sadly, unlike Andromon Metalgreymon’s missiles lack gattling gun tongues.

The network ball implodes into it’s own vortex, pulling Etemon, Tai and Metalgreymon in with it before vanishing.

The kids are left speechless at their friends apparently vanishing, and the episode ends with Tai and Metalgreymon (now devolved all the way back to Koromon) standing around in Tokyo.

[metalliveblogdramon]

mood