#mercurimon

[vitriolic-angel]

I am funny I swear-

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 24 - The Past Revealed! The Heartless Gizmon: AT!

In this episode, Mercurimon and Kurata recount the events of the past, including Yukidarumon adopting Ikuto, why the Digital World expedition went wrong, Suguru bonding with Mercurimon, the formation of DATS, the Digimon massacre, and how absolutely everything bad is Kurata’s fault.

We don’t start with a recap for once! This episode has too much stuff to fit into it for there to be any time for one, apparently. Instead, we start with Yukidarumon.

This is a flashback, of course. She’s wandering through her snowy forest as she comes upon a baby Ikuto, in his crib with his robot toy, wailing profusely. She already has the motherly instincts to pick him up and try to comfort him, and as she does so she hears Ikuto’s human mother screaming his name through a nearby Digital Gate, just before it closes.

…Technically the timeline of this doesn’t entirely line up, because episode 20 established that Ikuto must have been alone in the Digital World clutching his robot toy and feeling sad for quite a while, in order for his emotions to latch onto the toy. But now Yukidarumon is about to take Ikuto away from the toy and the crib, and yet apparently the Digital Gate that brought Ikuto here has only just closed. Whoops?

I guess we can imagine that the Digital Gate – perhaps specifically this very early prototype one made by the Noguchis’ experiments – is a bit wibbly wobbly timey wimey, in that several hours passed in the Digital World while only a few moments passed on the human world side. Or something.

Yukidarumon: “Iku… to? So… you’re called Ikuto.”

The point is, things needed to happen this way for the sake of being able to explain how Yukidarumon knew Ikuto’s name. (Though I suppose it would have been neat if the writers had decided to have the name Ikuto grew up with be a different one than what his human parents think of him as. I guess that option just never occurred to them until their plans were too finalised to change, alas.)

There’s also the fact that Yukidarumon has this cute moment of realising this human baby’s name while the Digital Gate is still open and Ikuto’s human mother is still screaming desperately for her child on the other side of it. It definitely seems like there would have been time for Yukidarumon to toss Ikuto back through the gate, if she’d acted fast enough. But let’s be fair to Yukidarumon here: it’s not every day you stumble across a situation like this, so it’s quite understandable that she wouldn’t have clicked that she should have thrown the baby through the wormhole until after it’d already closed.

Baby Ikuto, for his part, just seems happy to have some comfort and attention again after (what should have been) a long time alone, not minding or maybe even properly knowing that this isn’t his real mother. So, no longer able to send him back home, Yukidarumon takes him with her.

Back in the present, we continue from the end of last episode, when Ikuto rushed into Mercurimon’s throne room yelling for him and Masaru to stop fighting.

Agumon:  “Aniki is in the middle of a man-to-man fight right now!”

Ikuto:  “You can’t!”

Agumon:  “Don’t interfere with him!”

Ikuto hasn’t picked up that Masaru’s fight is actually supposed to be more of a negotiation than an attempt to defeat him. Agumon tries to explain this to Ikuto, but, uh, not very well. I do love how Agumon is totally on board with his aniki’s manly principle of communication-through-fists, though. He actually gets it. (Of course he would; he was the first person Masaru ever did that with.)

Ikuto rushing forward does manage to stop the fight that was about to start, albeit probably more because Mercurimon has a lot of things he wants to say to Ikuto than anything else.

(Falcomon is briefly seen grimacing as Ikuto rushes towards Mercurimon. I’m not entirely sure why, but since it’s a deliberate choice the animators made, there must be a reason for it. Maybe he’s scared of what Mercurimon might say to Ikuto? But Falcomon was the one who reassured Ikuto last episode that Mercurimon wouldn’t be mad at him, so that doesn’t seem right.)

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon! I met my mother in the human world! I… I wasn’t really a Digimon, right? I’m human, right?!”

The way he asks this, it sounds like Ikuto realises that Mercurimon must have always known. (Yet, he’s too young to have pieced together the fact that if Mercurimon always knew, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to have been angry at Ikuto for any kind of sudden “betrayal” of turning out to be a human.)

It’s also interesting how he brings up meeting his human mother. Partly it kind of reads like an excited kid wanting to tell his dad about one of the cool things he did on his trip – but also, in this context, it seems like meeting his human mother was the clinching moment that made Ikuto believe he was a human, regardless of the number of times people had told him so before that point.

Mercurimon confirms that yes, Ikuto was human and born in the human world.

Masaru:  “That doesn’t give you the right to try and kill him!”

Masaru is getting right to the point here, because, remember, everyone who’s been in the human world for this past arc of episodes has assumed that every attack has been Mercurimon’s doing, including the ones where Gotsumon tried to kill Ikuto. That sure made Mercurimon look like a pretty terrible excuse for a father figure.

Mercurimon, of course, has no idea what Masaru even means by this, because he’d never dream of hurting Ikuto. After some explanation, he confirms that he never ordered Gotsumon to do that.

(Everybody accepts this as the truth with no fuss, which says a lot about how trustworthy Mercurimon is compared to Gotsumon.)

Falcomon:  “Do you mean Gotsumon decided to do that on his own?”

Mercurimon: “There are many Digimon who hate humans to the extreme. Gotsumon was one of them.”

For being fully aware of how much Gotsumon hated humans, Mercurimon was perhaps being a little careless letting the guy be around Ikuto so much. I guess he assumed Gotsumon would at least make an exception for Ikuto and not, you know, repeatedly try to murder him?

I imagine Mercurimon would be quite angry at Gotsumon about the confirmation of his attempted murders were he still around, but the point’s pretty moot given that he’s now an egg.

Mercurimon also doesn’t ask after Gotsumon at all and doesn’t even necessarily know he got defeated. Which sure shows how important Gotsumon ever was to Mercurimon. I’m sure Gotsumon would be rolling in his egg if he knew. (Metaphorically, because he’s not actually conscious in that state.)

Ikuto:  “I used to hate humans, too. But… When I met Masaru and the others, I realised… not all humans are bad.”

Aww, Ikuto, look at how he’s grown. Look at how calmly and clearly he’s able to articulate this, too; he’s not even admitting it in a reluctant or confused way.

He also doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge against Gotsumon for repeatedly trying to kill him, perhaps because he can understand the blind prejudice and hatred of humans that drove him to do so. This poor kid spent so much of the past arc thinking he deserved what Gotsumon was trying to do, just because he’s human.

Ikuto:  “What’s most important, I got to become friends with Falcomon.”

What do you mean, become friends with Falcomon, Ikuto?! You two were obviously already best friends from the start!

This is very telling of the heartbreaking fact that Ikuto never actually realised this until that moment in episode 21 where Falcomon was the adorablest bestest friend. More on why I think that is later in this episode.

Ikuto:  “Humans and Digimon don’t need to fight, do they?”

They don’t! They can be friends! They should be friends!

Ikuto’s only the second person in this series to really properly articulate this idea, after Chika in episode 13. It still feels appropriate that it’s the younger kids who express this first, even though it took Ikuto a lot, lot longer to get to that point.

Kurata:  “Friends, you say? You must be kidding me. Digimon are dangerous beasts who only inflict harm upon human beings.”

Kurata takes this moment to butt into the conversation and step out of the shadows of the corridor that he and his men were skulking in. (Okay, look; we have to assume they were hidden in the shadows back there to the point that Mercurimon couldn’t even see them, because if he’d noticed them at all, he should have reacted sooner.)

The men point their fancy sci-fi guns up at Mercurimon. This is not a very legitimate threat, because we learn later this episode that those things are just regular flamethrowers, which I doubt would even leave a scorch mark on an Ultimate-level. But I guess it looks threatening, at least.

Mercurimon: “You! What are *you* doing here?!”

Mercurimon’s reaction upon seeing Kurata is immediate and furious, which is why we have to pretend he just couldn’t see the man until now. He would not ignore Kurata’s presence if he was aware of it.

Mercurimon:  “It can’t be… Did you bring him with you? I’ve misjudged you, Daimon Masaru!”

Oh nooo, Mercurimon is being (briefly) led to think that another Daimon he trusted has deliberately betrayed him. Thankfully this won’t last very long, but, ouch.

Masaru:  “What do you mean?”

Mercurimon: “Don’t try to fool me! That man is the very one who killed our comrades, including Yukidarumon!”

And on that bombshell that I’m sure absolutely nobody had already figured out, we go to the opening.

Okay, but for real, though, I don’t actually mind that the Kurata-is-evil “reveal” is so easy to see coming, because the narrative never really treats it like it’s a huge mind-blowing reveal. Kurata’s general demeanour was always super smarmy and shifty, and all of the characters were clearly vaguely uncomfortable with his presence. Tohma and Satsuma were shown being actively suspicious of him and aware that he probably had ulterior motives. The only thing that’s any kind of a surprise to anyone in-story is exactly how bad Kurata’s actions and goals were and are.

We don’t see any more of Mercurimon feeling angry and betrayed at Masaru and co. after this, so I can only assume that seeing their genuine surprise and fury at realising the full extent of Kurata’s terribleness convinces Mercurimon that they really didn’t mean harm by bringing him here and aren’t in league with him. Alas, if only he’d had an opportunity to see the same from Suguru.

(There should probably be a little more questioning of “but why did you bring him here if you’re not on his side?” and explanation that they basically had no choice, but shush, this episode’s got a lot to fit in as it is without recapping bits the audience already knows. Maybe that conversation happened offscreen in between the more important bits that we’re going to mostly see as flashbacks.)

I’ll run as much as I want

without looking back!

We’re somewhat approaching the end of the episodes that use Savers’ first opening, so how about we get back to looking at its lyrics again? This is the first couple of lines of the chorus, and it also plays over those shots of the trio and their evolved partners running through what feels like the Digital World even though it probably actually isn’t. The thought of someone running as much as they want through the Digital World without ever looking back is in fact rather appropriate for the mindset of a certain someone in this episode.

As we return from the opening, we’re in another Yukidarumon flashback! This is a bit later, as she’s taking care of baby Ikuto in her igloo house, and Mercurimon pays her a visit. Gotsumon is there in tow; he appears to be the one who told Mercurimon to come here.

Yukidarumon: “What are you, one of the Olympus Twelve, doing in a place like this?”

Don’t think too hard about this Olympus Twelve being namedropped. Digimon has this lore thing where certain powerful Digimon are considered part of these Important Groups of so-and-so many individual Digimon, but most of the time, for the purposes of the narrative in any of the series, this doesn’t actually matter. So don’t bother wondering where the other eleven are; we won’t be seeing them. The point is, Mercurimon’s an important figure, and Yukidarumon was not expecting to see someone as significant as him visiting her humble little home.

Mercurimon: “I’ve come to pull out the roots of calamity before they sprout.”

That sure is a way of describing Ikuto that sounds quite familiar to those of us from the story’s future. I strongly suspect that these aren’t Mercurimon’s own words and that Gotsumon is the one who fed him this idea. Yes, this helpless flailing human baby is totally going to directly cause great disaster.

Yukidarumon: “Calamity?”

Gotsumon:  “He means this!”

Gotsumon fervently points at the baby in her arms, and this along with the fact that he brought Mercurimon here certainly supports that this whole come-get-rid-of-the-terrible-human-baby thing was all his idea.

Mercurimon: “Digimon and humans were never originally meant to interact with one another.”

This is also an idea that we heard Gotsumon expressing in the previous episode. I’m a little less sure that Mercurimon got this one from Gotsumon, because it does seem like it might be a general opinion of Digital World rulers at the time. It’s certainly a more rational idea than the notion that a single human baby could be the root of disaster.

Mercurimon demands the baby and reaches out to Yukidarumon, his mere hand bigger than her entire body and strong enough to crush her effortlessly if he wanted to. She refuses, holding Ikuto protectively away from him. Such a good mama bear.

Yukidarumon: “This child, Ikuto… I will raise him! I’ve already made up my mind about this!”

As Gotsumon flails at her for daring to be defiant towards Mercurimon-sama, Ikuto starts crying, and Yukidarumon gently shushes him in her arms. Mercurimon smiles, just a little.

Mercurimon: “I’ve heard of this. Human mothers act this way towards their children to protect them. Do you intend to be that child’s mother?”

Yukidarumon: “Mother? Mother… I like the sound of that. All right. Starting today, I will be Ikuto’s mother!”

It’s very neat how, although she’d already resolved to raise Ikuto, Yukidarumon hadn’t properly thought of it as her being his mother until Mercurimon brought it up. Digimon do not usually do the parents thing! Digimon like Yukidarumon who have this motherly instinct and decide to raise babies are an exception, not an expectation, and she needed to have the concept brought up before she even realised she was doing a thing that’s natural for humans. (It’s a little unclear how Mercurimon knew about human parenthood, but I guess it makes sense that if any Digimon would have picked up some stuff about human culture, it’d be one of the older and wiser ones around.)

This also sheds some light onto why Ikuto and Falcomon wanted to raise Piyomon’s egg. Remember how that was the reason Falcomon got involved and the whole plot got kickstarted when the egg showed up at Chika’s house? Ikuto and Falcomon wanted to follow in Yukidarumon’s footsteps and be parents, like she was to them, despite the fact that Digimon don’t usually do this! That’s adorable, and also a little naïve of them. They weren’t to know they’re not old enough yet for it to be appropriate for them to raise a kid of their own.

(And they weren’t to know that human co-parenting usually doesn’t happen between a pair of friends/sort-of-brothers, either, which I enjoy a lot. Look at these budding Digi-parents being blissfully unaware of the bullshit amatonormativity that says co-parenting must always happen with romantic couples and nothing else. Why shouldn’t people be able to raise kids with their friends?)

Look at the caring smile on Mercurimon’s face. He’s kinda got a bit of that parenting instinct, too, even though it’ll take him longer to realise it.

We get some cute montage shots of a toddler Ikuto playing in the snow with Yukidarumon, some other baby Digimon, and Falcomon. Perhaps these were also Digimon that Yukidarumon “adopted” thanks to her motherly instinct, although probably not quite so officially; Falcomon at least never brings up the idea that he’s Ikuto’s brother, even though he kinda sorta is.

It’s also a little surprising that Falcomon’s already Child-level this early on in Ikuto’s life, which you’d think would make him somewhat older than Ikuto mentally. I feel like it’d make more sense for Falcomon to also be a Baby-level at this point. But maybe the writers didn’t do that because they didn’t want us to not realise this was Falcomon. (Falcomon doesn’t have a Baby form that looks really obviously like it evolves into Falcomon and nothing else. One of his possible Baby forms is Puwamon, actually, which certainly could have caused some confusion.)

Mercurimon: “Yukidarumon loved Ikuto from the bottom of her heart, just as if he were her real son.”

This is Mercurimon in the present, who’s implicitly been recounting the events of the flashback to the group. The earlier Yukidarumon flashback we had was not witnessed by anyone who’s around any more, which is why we had to have that one kinda on its own at the beginning, but the rest of the flashbacks this episode are framed by one of the people here in the present telling everyone about it.

Mercurimon: “But that man ripped apart the bond between Ikuto and Yukidarumon!”

Kurata:  “Don’t be fooled by his one-sided excuse of a story.”

Yes, sure, Kurata, a story about a mother’s love for her son and the injustice of that bond being broken is totally one-sided.

Kurata:  “The real victim is actually me.”

The thing is, Kurata genuinely believes this angle he’s spewing. He has no trace of irony here; he really does see himself as the victim in all this. That’s what’s twisted him into the awful person he is and is going to continue to be.

As Kurata narrates us into a flashback about how terrible the Digital World expedition was, one of the first things we see in it is these utterly adorable Gomamon playing together. Yes, clearly these horrible evil Digimon are the ones really at fault here.

The expedition team is at Wanderer’s Cape – we get a quick establishing shot of that upside-down mansion from episode 16 – and the expedition seems to be going perfectly smoothly, for now. Things weren’t actually terrible right from the beginning of it, it turns out! (This was contradicted by some lines in earlier episodes about the expedition, because the writers apparently hadn’t quite hashed out all the details of this until now.)

Suguru Daimon is observing and taking photos of the Gomamon playing, thrilled with what he’s seeing. He’s being a Digimon scientist, observing these new and exciting creatures in their natural habitat!

Satsuma:  “Professor Daimon, please be more serious about this! We’ve come here to search for Ikuto-kun!”

Yushima:  “Now, now, Satsuma-kun. I can’t blame the Professor. This world is full of things I’ve never seen before.”

Just like we’d expect from a ten-years-younger Satsuma and Yushima, Satsuma has a rather uptight and serious approach to this mission, while Yushima, despite being the older and more senior of the police detectives here, is a lot more laid back about things. He’s examining one of the alien plants here with interest, and it’s not even his job to do so like it is Suguru’s. This is a cool world! Who says they can’t stop to enjoy the wonder of it while carrying out their mission!

(The BGM right now is Savers’ Main Theme, appropriate for the wonder and discovery of it all.)

The Gomamon are scared off by the sound of a gunshot nearby. Kurata is backing out of a cave in terror, pointing the gun at a Lynxmon that’s advancing on him angrily.

Kurata:  “S-Stay away from me! Stay away!”

Suguru:  “Don’t shoot, Kurata! Throw your gun down!”

Suguru has already picked up on the fact that the Lynxmon is only reacting to Kurata’s hostility. Kurata doesn’t listen and fires again, ineffectually, and in response the big fire cat leaps at him.

Suguru puts himself in the way and throws the Lynxmon over his shoulder. Because of course Masaru’s dad is a badass who wouldn’t hesitate to fight a huge Digimon with his bare hands if he needs to; what else did you expect?

The Lynxmon falls into the sea – not a great fate for a big cat made of fire – but only because the cliff edge it landed on collapsed, not because Suguru was aiming to throw it in there.

Suguru:  “Why did you shoot?”

Kurata:  “You have to ask?! That thing was about to attack me!”

So in other words, it hadn’t attacked him yet. Kurata shot at it first. We only have Kurata’s word that it even would have attacked him otherwise; it’s very possible that he was overreacting to territorial hostility or even just the Lynxmon’s kinda scary appearance. Things would probably have been fine if Kurata had kept his nerve and backed calmly out of its cave.

Everything started because Kurata is a coward who jumped to assuming the worst of Digimon based entirely on his own instinctive fears, instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt and treating them like living, sapient creatures. That’s still the core of why Kurata is doing this today.

One of the Gomamon rises out of the sea and evolves into an Ikkakumon, attacking the group of humans as they flee. Kurata would have seen this as further evidence that Digimon are nothing but dangerous beasts, but Suguru and Satsuma and probably the rest of the expedition group can tell that it’s only doing this because it feels threatened by the humans after what just happened.

Present-day Kurata narrates how their expedition became hellish after that. Presumably word got around among the Digimon that these invading humans were hostile, and they began to attack out of feeling that they needed to defend their world. It was all because of Kurata’s actions, but Kurata can’t admit that it’s his fault and believes himself to be a blameless victim of these horrible monsters.

Kurata:  “As we trembled from constant fear of Digimon attack…”

It’s very unusual of Kurata to actually admit that he was ever afraid of anything. But in this particular context, when he’s talking about everyone being scared, and he’s using it to make a point of how horrible and terrifying the Digimon were towards them, it tracks that he might make an exception and be willing to frame his – no, not his, definitely the whole group’s – emotions this way.

As the group in the flashback enters Infinity Ice Ridge to try and take shelter, they’re confronted by SaberLeomon.

SaberLeomon: “You won’t escape, filthy humans!”

His words imply this isn’t the first time he’s seen them, and this is probably true. In previous flashbacks to the expedition and how badly it went, we saw SaberLeomon roaring in the background in at least one shot. Turns out that wasn’t just a generic big scary Digimon to emphasise the point; that was an actual relevant character. SaberLeomon seemed to have an especially anti-human stance as Digimon go, so it follows that upon hearing about these hostile human invaders, he might have personally taken it upon himself to deal with them. The expedition team had probably been fleeing from him and narrowly avoiding death at his fangs for a while.

The team flees further into the mountain’s caves, only to find themselves in a dead end with SaberLeomon approaching behind them. Realising they’re trapped, a terrified Kurata pulls out a device from his backpack.

Kurata:  “The space-time oscillation bomb. We can use this to force the Digital Gate to open!”

Suguru:  “Don’t! That thing hasn’t been finalised. It’s too dangerous!”

This is the same technology that Kurata used in the present day to open the Digital Gate that ended the huge battle in episode 21. This was probably the Noguchis’ invention to begin with – interdimensional gates are their area, not Kurata’s – but evidently Kurata has copied that technology and been improving on it for himself in the ten years since.

It’s also very relevant that this is mentioned as being a potentially dangerous untested technology, and that’s not just because it explains why the team only used it to escape as an absolute last resort. This space-time bomb is something that can in theory open a Digital Gate, they think, but nobody really has any idea how dangerous it might be or what other side-effects it might have. A bomb sure doesn’t seem like the safest or cleanest way to open a wormhole between two dimensions, does it.

Kurata:  “This is the only choice we have if we want to survive!”

Still, though, I can kinda see Kurata’s point about how things have gotten bad enough to use this here. It does look like their options right now are either risk the untested dangerous technology or get eaten by a very big and very angry lion.

So he activates it, and sure enough, a Digital Gate opens up just behind the group. Seems harmless enough; what was the big worry about? Kurata probably insisted to himself in the aftermath that Suguru should have quit whining about “safety” and let him use it sooner.

Kurata:  “It was a really close call. If the space-time oscillation bomb had exploded a second later, I’m sure we would have been ripped to pieces by the vicious Digimon.”

Kurata in the present is embellishing this somewhat. Yes, things were pretty bad and their chances without the bomb definitely weren’t looking great, but they were not literally one second away from certain death. But I don’t think Kurata even realises he’s exaggerating this. His mind would have twisted things to paint the Digimon in the most horrible dangerous light possible, and himself as the poor blameless victim who only barely escaped with his life.

Mercurimon: “That’s right, you coward! You ran off! But that man didn’t. He tackled me from the front and kept up a tough fight to the very end.”

Mercurimon’s talking about Suguru, of course, continuing the flashback for us. Suguru’s fist erupts with a familiar orange Digisoul as he roars in determination, and he leaps to punch SaberLeomon in the face. (An interesting distinction is that Suguru didn’t need to punch something to activate his Digisoul like Masaru does; his flared up before the punch.) Suguru can’t have ever experienced this phenomenon before now, but it’s very like Masaru’s dad to just completely roll with this sudden power he’s found himself with and immediately use it to his advantage.

The Digisoul-powered punch was strong enough to floor SaberLeomon for a short while, giving the others a chance to begin escaping through the Gate. And by “the others”, I mean the Noguchis and the detectives, because Kurata is nowhere to be seen in this flashback. He must have been the first to scarper out of there the moment the Gate opened, with no care for what happened to his comrades.

As SaberLeomon gets up, Suguru stays behind to hold the Digimon off while the rest of his comrades flee through the Gate.

SaberLeomon: “Impossible. How can a human have so much power?”

Suguru:  “When a man wants to protect something, he can find hidden strength within him.”

Just in case it wasn’t abundantly clear enough by now where Masaru gets it from, here we are. Of course this is why the whole manliness thing of Masaru’s matters so much to him – because he learned it from his dad.

The real answer to why Suguru was able to be so powerful is because of the sudden appearance of his Digisoul, which as we know has allowed Masaru to punch Digimon several times his size and do at least some damage. But maybe what Suguru’s saying – that it’s due to his fierce desire to protect his comrades – isn’t inaccurate either. His Digisoul did only show up now, when they were utterly cornered, rather than at any other point earlier on.

Plus, Suguru isn’t even partnered with a Digimon, which one might have assumed was necessary for a human to get their Digisoul at all. Apparently it isn’t!

Suguru:  “Just like you have your reason to fight… I have friends that I must protect!”

I like Suguru acknowledging that SaberLeomon has a reason to be fighting them, out of a feeling of needing to defend the Digital World from these invaders, and isn’t just the mindless monster that Kurata sees him as.

Ever showing us where Masaru gets it all from, Suguru says this as his whole body becomes cloaked in Digisoul and he leaps to punch SaberLeomon right in the eye – an eye that’s bigger than Suguru’s entire fist. Ouch, that’s got to hurt; Suguru’s showing some initiative to make up for the vast difference in natural strength. This knocks SaberLeomon down for the count, and he just vanishes from the narrative for the rest of the flashback; I guess he was knocked unconscious? Or he decided to leave things to Mercurimon and quietly left, not wanting to get punched in the eye again.

Mercurimon: “How interesting! I shall fight you!”

Hearing Suguru’s determination, Mercurimon suddenly steps in, having not been seen in the flashback until now. Presumably he’s also here because he’d been following the human invaders’ progress, though knowing Mercurimon I imagine his approach to it was a bit less hostile than SaberLeomon’s. It seems like he steps into the fight less out of wanting to kill Suguru – who is the only human even left there by now – and more out of being interested in Suguru’s manly principles about protecting his friends. It’s like he wants to test out how strong that really makes him.

(The fact that Mercurimon showed up only after everyone but Suguru had escaped through the Gate means that he and Yushima shouldn’t have talked like they’d met before in episode 18. I went over that at the time.)

Suguru:  “No matter who it is, I won’t hold back!”

Suguru completely rolls with this sudden change of opponent. He can probably pick up that Mercurimon isn’t even necessarily trying to kill him and he doesn’t need to fight back out of any kind of self-defence. But he’ll happily go for a fight to test their strength against each other anyway, because that’s just who he is. Again: can you tell where Masaru gets it from.

Masaru:  “Th-That is so cool! Hey, hear that?! My dad fought with Mercurimon!”

Masaru is adorably excited to hear how awesome and manly and badass his dad was. It’s exactly the kind of person he’s always believed in his dad being, and he’s so thrilled to learn that it’s true.

Agumon:  “Yeah! That’s just what you’d expect from Aniki’s dad.”

Agumon doesn’t have nor understand Masaru’s dad complex, but he can certainly agree that someone who is Aniki’s dad ought to be awesome in the same way that Aniki is.

Yoshino:  “He’s amazing, in all implications of the word.”

Meanwhile, Yoshino can find just as much reason to snark about the father’s ridiculous over-the-top-ness as she can about the son’s.

Mercurimon: “Suguru was strong. Even in front of me, his heart never faltered.”

Mercurimon seems to admire this about Suguru’s nature, which is probably a lot of why Masaru coming along and punching him with the same Digisoul and being that same way reminded him of Suguru so strongly.

Mercurimon: “Why have you stepped onto the sacred grounds of the Digital World?”

Suguru:  “Because an unknown wind was blowing here.”

Suguru. That is not supposed to be the reason you came here; you were here looking for the missing people. But the fact that he doesn’t even initially bring that up as his reason tells us that, while he obviously cared and was willing to help find the missing humans, he’s here because he wanted to come anyway, just to explore the unknown.

(Maybe part of the reason he stayed behind to let his comrades escape was also because he didn’t particularly want to leave this soon, despite the danger they were in.)

He has such a ridiculously melodramatic way of putting it, too. An “unknown wind” – what a dork. And I should also mention that he and Mercurimon are having this exchange while punching each other, fist-to-fist, because of course they are. Communication through fighting! Well, while fighting, at least.

Mercurimon:  “A wind?”

Suguru:  “I want to know the unknown. I want to see whatever I wish. That curiosity is a man’s instinct! It’s a natural desire!”

Suguru is such a scientist, so intensely curious that he’ll step into an alien world with no hesitation, just to see it. And I love how that curiosity is so important to him that he’s insisting that everyone feels this way and has connected it to his own concept of manliness.

This is one thing about Suguru’s concept of manliness that isn’t specifically echoed in Masaru’s! Masaru doesn’t have that same burning scientific curiosity and probably never heard any specific mentions of this from his dad back when he was four, so it just never ended up being included in his own idea of manliness. Instead, Masaru’s concept of manliness formed more around what he feels are the most important traits for people to have – most of which is similar to who his dad is, but not quite this part, because he didn’t really know about this part of his dad.

Suguru explains, upon Mercurimon’s accusation, that he and his comrades never meant to attack and damage the Digital World. He eventually gets to the point that they were really there to find some missing people.

Mercurimon:  “I believed Suguru’s words and told him everything.”

It’d be quite easy for him to still be suspicious after Suguru’s group spent a lot of their trip appearing hostile towards Digimon – but no, Mercurimon trusted him! Suguru is the trustworthy type, and Mercurimon’s a rational enough person to see that he meant it. (If Suguru had tried to talk things out and explain himself to someone like SaberLeomon, I can’t see that going nearly so well.)

In the flashback, Mercurimon hears that one of the missing people is Ikuto, and he tells Suguru that a comrade of his is raising the boy.

Suguru:  “I see! So he’s okay! Noguchi’s gonna be happy to hear about this.”

Mercurimon: “Noguchi?”

Suguru:  “That’s Ikuto’s father.”

Just his father? Come on, Suguru, don’t be so male-centric. Ikuto’s mother would be equally if not even more glad to hear he’s safe, given how badly losing him affected her especially. She was one of your comrades on the expedition too, just as much as her husband was.

(Suguru and Mercurimon do not, as far as we see, discuss the option of throwing the baby Ikuto back through the Digital Gate that’s still hanging open behind them as they talk. I guess, if the possibility ever occurred to them, they’d conclude it’s too potentially dangerous when they don’t know where in the human world he’d end up. Mercurimon in particular may not want to suggest it at all because that’d mean asking Yukidarumon to part with her newly-adopted son, and he might be a little bit selfishly on her side in such a matter.)

Mercurimon: “Father?”

Mercurimon is still relatively unfamiliar with this human concept of “parenthood” and seems interested to learn more about it from an actual human. This is what he was talking about when he told us in episode 18 that humans taught him what it means to be a father!

Suguru:  “I have a son, too. His name’s Masaru and he’s a naughty boy.”

Aww! Four-year-old Masaru definitely would have been quite the little scamp, I’m sure. I love how Suguru says that with nothing but fondness in his voice. It’s also lovely that he brings this up kind of unprompted, because Mercurimon wasn’t specifically asking him if he had any kids of his own. Suguru really does love his kids.

(Well, he doesn’t mention Chika here, but to be fair to him, at this point in time Chika is only a baby and hasn’t grown into much of an actual person yet the way little Masaru is beginning to be. I don’t think this bit at least is Suguru being too male-centric.)

Suguru:  “Kids are great. They always look at you with a direct gaze.”

Are you sure that’s all kids and not just Masaru specifically, because he thinks you’re the Best Most Awesome Person Ever?

Though to be fair, young kids do have a directness to them that tends to get worn down by all of the complications and pretences of grown-up life. It makes sense that someone like Suguru, who is after all a lot like our very straightforward Masaru, would appreciate that about them.

Suguru:  “While you try teaching them how to live, you always end up learning something from them instead.”

Aww, again. It’s cute to think that Suguru feels he might have learned a thing or two from Masaru and not just the other way around.

This statement also applies a lot to Mercurimon’s relationship with Ikuto! Ikuto has certainly helped teach him a thing or two about not hating all humans, which he wouldn’t have had without the kid in his life.

Mercurimon then tells Suguru to go and meet Yggdrasil, a being who’s basically the god of the Digital World, in order to get its approval and help with humans and Digimon living in harmony. This is a bit of an abrupt topic change when they were just talking about parents and kids, and Suguru hasn’t said anything yet about wanting the two species to live together (although, he definitely does want that) – but then again, because this is a flashback, perhaps there was more conversation along those lines that we weren’t shown, in between these bits.

Suguru:  “Well, where is this Yggdrasil?”

Mercurimon:  “He is everywhere and yet nowhere.”

That’s… not very helpful, Mercurimon. He literally means this, because Yggdrasil is a god and can just do that, but it is a little bit much that Mercurimon told Suguru to go and meet this person whose whereabouts are straight-up impossible to directly discern.

Mercurimon: “I’d like to help you, but with this thing here, I can’t leave this place. Any comrade of mine who knows nothing of it could get too close and fall into the human world.”

He’s talking about the Digital Gate that Kurata opened up with the space-time bomb to escape, which is still hanging open there in the cave. This is the same Digital Gate that was there in Mercurimon’s palace ten years later, up until episode 18 – it wasn’t just there for no reason! Currently this mountain simply has a regular cave system with no palace in sight, but evidently at some point Mercurimon had the palace built around the Gate to make himself more comfortable.

This also explains why Mercurimon was established as being a leader of a forested area, and yet we always saw him hanging out in his palace inside this icy mountain range. He uprooted himself and settled down here specifically to protect any unwitting Digimon from wandering into the human world and getting hurt. Look at him being a good leader, sacrificing his own convenience to protect his people.

The fact that the Digital Gate created from the space-time bomb just stayed open indefinitely is a feature that we aren’t going to see again in any other Gates opened by the same kind of bombs (such as the one from the end of episode 21). But we can imagine that this is a result of this being the very first prototype version of that technology, and Kurata later refined the bombs to create Gates that close again after a short time.

As it turned out, this Gate can be closed quite easily by Mercurimon firing a powerful attack into it, which is what happened at the end of episode 18. But he doesn’t actually know that’d close it, and that’s something too dangerous for him to just experiment with it on the off-chance it might work. For all he knows, it’d just send his attack right into the human world and cause destruction. So, from his perspective, the best approach is to just leave it there and guard it.

Also, can we talk about how Mercurimon said he would have liked to come with Suguru to find Yggdrasil if not for this? He already trusts this man enough to go on an adventure with him! They’d have been such buds! Mercurimon might even have ended up becoming Suguru’s Digimon partner if things had worked out that way.

Suguru:  “I’m sorry.”

Mercurimon: “Don’t worry. It’s not your fault.”

Look at Suguru feeling responsible and guilty for one of his “comrades” having left this huge messy problem in the middle of the Digimon’s world. Even though he knows it was unintentional and was basically his comrades’ only apparent way to survive, it’s still unfortunately forcing Mercurimon to uproot his entire life to deal with it. He cares about Digimon so much, despite having only just encountered them for real.

(A man shouldn’t apologise for things that aren’t his fault, Suguru!)

So Suguru headed off on this journey to find Yggdrasil like Mercurimon suggested – even though a Digital Gate that could get him back to his own world was right there. Turns out that Suguru wasn’t actually quite so “trapped” in the Digital World after all; he stayed by choice.

It sure is a bit of a thing that Suguru could have gone home to his family and not left them behind for all those years, and actively chose not to. The narrative doesn’t really draw much attention to this point, perhaps because it’s certainly not in Masaru’s nature to put the pieces together and interpret what he’s been told in this way. (After all, he’s always grown up with it as an unquestioned fact that his dad is off doing something that’s so important that he can’t be with his family for it. This narrative can be framed in such a way that it confirms exactly what Masaru always knew was the case, as far as he sees it – finding Yggdrasil is that important, right?)

Still, I think Suguru must have realised that if he did jump through that Digital Gate to go home at any point, he’d potentially never be allowed back here. He’d know that their expedition would be seen as a huge life-threatening disaster by the human authorities, and they’d most likely ban any future attempts to go back there for the sake of safety. And, indeed, human trips to the Digital World were banned for ten years: Masaru and Tohma’s brief excursion in episode 5 was flouting protocol, and then the official ones from episode 14 onwards were a desperate measure because they believed Mercurimon was a direct threat to the human world.

So I think Suguru weighed this up and realised that if he wanted to forge this harmony and spark further relations between humans and Digimon, he needed to do so before he went back home at all. He knew that, thanks to human bureaucracy, he might only ever get this one chance to explore the Digital World and pursue his own goals within it.

(It really is quite telling that when Mercurimon asked Suguru why he was here, the first reason he gave was his own reasons for being here and not the official mission he was technically on. He kinda does have his son’s headstrong recklessness, in a bit of a less overt way. Screw the rules, he wants to explore, dammit!)

Suguru loves his family, but he also deeply loves Digimon. He decided that staying away from his family for however long it took for him to forge this bond between humans and Digimon was a worthwhile sacrifice to make, because he may be the only one who could do it.

Suguru:  “Let’s make one! A world where humans and Digimon can live together!”

Mercurimon: “Yeah, let’s do it!”

They fist-bump at these words, despite Suguru’s fist being comparatively tiny, smaller than just one of Mercurimon’s claws. Another detail that makes this moment very cute is that Mercurimon has shifted into a much more colloquial kind of speech than he normally uses, caught up in Suguru’s enthusiastic spirit. Suguru is his bro now and it’s great.

…Also, as further flashbacks next episode will make apparent, this last little exchange between the two of them actually happened way later than their initial conversation. Like, literal weeks or months or even a couple of years later after Suguru had been off searching fruitlessly for Yggdrasil for a while, presumably coming back from time to time to check in on Mercurimon. Since this whole thing is a flashback, again, I can accept that we could be seeing it in a disjointed fashion that actually had a bunch of gaps and only showed us what Mercurimon felt was relevant enough to tell us in the present, so I don’t think this is too much of a problem. Maybe the writers hadn’t actually decided when they wrote them that these last lines of the flashback were going to turn out to have happened later on, but I think it does make sense that the notable bro-ness between Suguru and Mercurimon there would have taken longer to gradually build up than simply one conversation.

Kurata:  “However, we haven’t heard from him since. He may be lying dead somewhere in this world.”

Kurata probably wishes that Suguru had gone and unceremoniously got himself killed while searching for Yggdrasil. He is not a fan of Suguru, as we’ll be getting into in later episodes. (Plus, Digimon are horrible dangerous monsters, so of course it makes sense that they’d kill any random human wandering around their world; nothing was at all specifically Kurata’s fault for antagonising them, nope.)

Masaru:  “Don’t be stupid! Dad isn’t dead! He’s definitely alive somewhere in the Digital World!”

But of course Masaru utterly refuses to accept any notion that his dad might be dead. His expression for the latter half of that line really shows how he’s forcing himself to believe that, because it just has to be possible to bring his dad back home somehow.

Satsuma:  “Professor Daimon is indeed alive.”

Satsuma suddenly starts talking from the DATS HQ almost as if he’s joining in this conversation, which makes absolutely no sense from a realistic standpoint (those DATS earpieces do not work between worlds), but narratively is actually a pretty smooth way to continue this stream of exposition we’ve been having, from the mouth of someone who knows about this next part.

Satsuma:  “The blueprint of the Digivice we received from the Digital World is solid proof of that.”

Suguru invented the Digivice! This is the only series of Digimon in which the Digivices were invented by a human, and I think that’s really neat. The Digivice exists as a tool to support the human-Digimon bond by channelling a human’s Digisoul in order to power up a Digimon they’re partnered with, and it’s very appropriate for the series’ theme that it was a human who decided to create such a tool. This series is all about humans and Digimon choosing for themselves to try and forge a harmony between their two species, despite all the obstacles.

Kudamon goes on to narrate how Suguru sent him and Kamemon to the human world as ambassadors of a sort.

Kudamon:  “We were to co-operate with humans and create an organisation that provided protection to any Digimon who came wandering into the human world.”

Suguru was the founder of DATS! He found Kudamon and Kamemon on his journey and asked them to go and partner up with Satsuma and Yushima, his old comrades from the expedition whom he trusted and who already knew about Digimon, to form the organisation that existed to keep wayward Digimon out of the human world.

I also really like how he specifically calls this “protection” of the Digimon. Even back then, way before anyone had figured out the emotion thing, they already had the sense that the Digimon who wound up in the human world were victims who needed protecting, rather than enemies. Just as it should be for an organisation founded by Suguru, DATS’s mission was always about trying to maintain peace between the two worlds until Suguru could reach Yggdrasil and start working on a more overt relationship between the species. It was never about antagonising and attacking Digimon for “invading”.

Tohma goes on to realise that this is why Kudamon and Kamemon were never in any DATS database: because they were special ambassadors… and I guess apparently DATS wanted to keep that part hidden from the more junior agents, for some reason? You’d think that wouldn’t prevent there from at least being data about their species and abilities kept there, though, just in case any other Kudamon or Kamemon happened to wind up rampaging or something.

This also explains why, when we heard a list in episode 12 of all the Digimon who’d hatched in the human world as eggs, Kudamon and Kamemon were not included in that. They didn’t come as eggs!

During this, we also see some brief flashback shots of Satsuma and Yushima working as DATS field agents back in the early days before they’d recruited anyone else, with Kudamon and Kamemon kicking ass and turning wayward Digimon back into eggs even just in their Child forms.

(Given how young Yoshino was when she met Budmon, Lalamon would have been in the human world already by the time DATS formed. I wonder how long it took them to track her down and recruit Yoshino? It really is kind of a shame that the series never explores that.)

Mercurimon: “The Digimon who unfortunately roamed into the human world were turned into Digieggs and transferred back to the Digital World.”

If you were wondering how Tohma was reacting to the exposition from DATS HQ, it’s probably because Mercurimon was giving a more hearsay-ish account of this in his throne room, having presumably heard about this stuff from Suguru. We the audience heard it directly from Satsuma and Kudamon just because that was neater.

The fact that Mercurimon might have heard some of this stuff about DATS from Suguru explains why it’s not completely incorrect for Mercurimon and Yushima to have spoken with some familiarity in episode 18. It’s plausible that they could at least have heard of each other via Suguru.

This does, uh, soooort of raise questions about why DATS was so quick to assume Mercurimon was totally super evil, if they’d been kind-of co-operating with him all this time. I guess, even if Mercurimon heard a lot about DATS, DATS don’t necessarily need to have heard all that much about Mercurimon. Whatever Suguru told DATS about him may have been vague enough – and also long enough ago – that it wasn’t enough to properly sway Satsuma’s judgement in the present day.

It’s also possible that Suguru’s main point of contact within DATS was Yushima, and not Satsuma, such that Yushima was the only one who had any real inkling that Mercurimon was a decent guy. After all, Yushima went to the Digital World on his own in episode 18 to negotiate with Mercurimon while the rest of DATS were still thinking about attacking him. Though really, Yushima, if you knew this stuff about Mercurimon then you should have communicated it to your colleagues before they went on a dangerous mission to attack the guy, geez.

(There’s, uh, perhaps a slight hint of the writers not having had all of this stuff initially planned here. But shush, it holds up just about well enough for me to accept and go with it. Also, I can relate. Writers are human and fallible.)

Before we move on, one more thing about the fact that Suguru founded DATS: Sayuri definitely knew about this, of course. She mentioned in episode 14 that Suguru was always trying to find a way for humans and Digimon to live in harmony, which is very specifically what Suguru was actively trying to do while in the Digital World. Of course Satsuma and Yushima would have kept her informed about what her husband was working on and why he was still gone, as far as they knew.

(She never told Masaru any of this, did she, despite knowing his dad wasn’t quite as “missing” as he’d been led to believe in more ways than one.)

This also finally gives me the chance to talk about why Sayuri appears to not have a job and yet be getting by just fine as a single housewife in Japan. Suguru is effectively actively working for DATS in the Digital World (at least as far as DATS knows), so whatever government funding pays DATS’s salaries is also going to be paying Suguru. Given he can’t exactly spend it in the Digital World, that money would be passed onto his wife.

Masaru would have grown up just accepting that his mom had money despite not having a job, because he’s a kid and not exactly one to think about how economics works at the best of times. He’d never have thought to question this and figure out that actually his mom having money proves his dad isn’t quite as completely missing as he seems. Sayuri certainly wouldn’t have ever wanted to bring it up, either. Explaining that Dad is gone because he’s busy earning money for the family would just make little Masaru wonder why his dad couldn’t do that from home like most other parents do.

Man, there’s so much interesting adorable potential in the Daimon family and how many lies Sayuri must have told her kids. I love Sayuri.

Anyway, moving on with the actual episode: now that we’ve established Suguru and DATS’s mission of peace, Mercurimon shifts to furiously telling us how Kurata shattered that peace when he came to the Digital World to massacre Digimon.

We see some baby Digimon playing in a forest – three of them are the same three species of baby Digimon that were playing with Ikuto in the earlier Yukidarumon flashbacks, so this is probably meant to be the same individuals. A Digital Gate opens up, and Kurata and some helmeted troops drop through it.

(Apparently the writers forgot about the typhoons from the Digital Gates that SaberLeomon recounted in an earlier episode. Maybe we can pretend those are happening elsewhere offscreen.)

Kurata:  “It’s showtime!”

This is clearly the most appropriate thing to say to kick off some mass murder. He’s using gratuitous English, too, which probably sounds even smarmier to a Japanese-speaker.

But that’s kind of the point, because Kurata has so thoroughly convinced himself that Digimon are dangerous monsters that he doesn’t think of this as him committing mass murder on sapient people. He’s viewing it as him showing off how clever and powerful he’s become with his inventions. Everybody look at him, saving humanity from this terrible Digimon threat.

…Nobody is there to see this “showtime” other than his troops; the baby Digimon fled, so there aren’t even any Digimon nearby. Yet this instinct of Kurata’s to want to show off about his accomplishments and deeds is going to be quite a relevant part of his character.

The troops’ big fancy sci-fi guns are flamethrowers, which they use to set fire to the forest. That in itself isn’t especially impressive, but the real purpose of that is presumably to herd fleeing Digimon such that they can be more easily rounded up and picked off by Kurata’s real weapon.

Some of the Kuramon – remember them, those little CCTV-providing baby critters? – inform Gotsumon and Mercurimon that humans are attacking, so they rush outside from Mercurimon’s cave within the mountain.

(It’s… not a palace yet. Huh. Apparently Mercurimon had the palace built around his spot where he guards the Digital Gate only after he began hating humanity in the wake of this. That’s an interesting little detail that I rather enjoy.)

Mercurimon: “That Suguru… He betrayed me!”

Now that we know more about Mercurimon’s relationship with Suguru, it’s easier to understand why he’s instantly jumping to the assumption that this was Suguru’s doing. As far as Mercurimon understands it, Suguru has put himself in charge of all interactions that humans had with Digimon. The only humans who even knew about the Digital World were supposed to be those that Suguru had trusted with this. So if this is happening, if humans are attacking, surely Suguru has to have okayed it? Which must mean that he was always lying and trying to lull Digimon into a false sense of security with all his talk about peace.

(Suguru knew of Kurata, of course, and knew that the expedition went south because of him. But I wouldn’t be surprised, knowing how Suguru is (he took this man on as his assistant, he must have seen some potential for good in him to begin with) that he wanted to give Kurata the benefit of the doubt and never dreamed he’d turn out this bad. I certainly can’t imagine him telling Mercurimon, “yeah, all my old comrades are cool and trustworthy, except that Kurata guy, he sucks, can’t promise he’s not going to suddenly show up one day to murder you all, but nothing I can do about it if he does, *shrug*”.)

Also keep in mind that Suguru was busy searching for Yggdrasil and only occasionally came to catch up with Mercurimon, so it might have been a long while since they’d last talked. A lot easier to forget those feelings of trust you have for someone when they’re not actually there.

And, though this episode doesn’t make this explicit and it’s only something I can confirm thanks to information we get later, Mercurimon never saw Suguru again after this day. If Suguru had simply shown up at some point afterwards to explain to Mercurimon that he’s deeply sorry about this and truly had no idea it would happen, Mercurimon would have been able to tell he was genuine. But… he didn’t. He never came back to see Mercurimon at all. Of course Mercurimon would jump to assuming that this was because Suguru had betrayed him and didn’t care any more, and that perhaps he never really did in the first place.

Back to the flashback, Falcomon and little Ikuto also see the forest fire from a distance, and realise in a panic that it’s near Yukidarumon’s place, so they head over there, not caring about the danger to themselves.

In the midst of the chaos, the human troops’ sci-fi flamethrowers are interrupted by the sound of… a regular-ass revolver, because Digimon is ridiculous and Revolmon is a Digimon that exists. A trio of Revolmon nervously threaten the invading humans and declare that they’ll protect their world.

Kurata:  “What little pests you are. You pathetic Digimon think you can defy humans? Let me show you my greatest masterpiece!”

There goes Kurata again with the gloating. He didn’t bring out this masterpiece of his to begin with – he waited until he had an audience of an irrelevant handful of soon-to-be-dead Digimon that he could show off to. It’s a very hypocritical, self-contradictory view he has of this: on the one hand, these Digimon are just monsters who aren’t people and he’s not doing anything wrong by killing them, quite the opposite – but on the other hand, he recognises that they’re intelligent enough to be able to be impressed and intimidated by his genius masterpiece such that he feels it’s appropriate to show off in front of them.

The troops pull out a modified variant of a Digivice – hmmm, looks like someone copied and altered Suguru’s design for those rather than inventing it from scratch, I wonder how Kurata feels about that fact – and Realise a Digimon called Gizmon. It looks similar to the one that caused DATS to kill SaberLeomon recently, but not quite the same. That was its Adult-level; this one is merely the Child-level.

One of the Gizmon impassively murders two of the Revolmon with its striped laser without even responding to them, and their eggs disintegrate. As the third Revolmon freaks out about the disappearing eggs – they’re completely gone, no Digimon knew this was even possible before – and tries to flee, another Gizmon turns and murders him too.

(Revolmon are Adult-level. By all known laws of evolution levels, these Child-level Gizmon shouldn’t be powerful enough to do this. But evidently Kurata invented these to throw the usual evolution level hierarchy out the window.)

Elsewhere in the forest, Gotsumon has somehow reached Yukidarumon first (I guess he flew most of the way on his Yanmamon, maybe? It’s not here in this scene) and tries to tell her to flee. She won’t, because she still doesn’t know where Ikuto is and whether he’s safe. What a good mom. …If she’d been less of one, maybe she’d have fled to save herself and still be alive.

(Of course, Kurata would probably leave Ikuto be since he’s human, but Yukidarumon doesn’t know that these attackers are only out to kill Digimon.)

The humans and their Gizmon show up, and Gotsumon immediately flees like the coward he is. (Gotsumon, dude, if there’s ever a time to drop the pretence and use your full power and be Insekimon, it’s now.)

Yukidarumon stands her ground as the Gizmon towers over her. She hears Ikuto approaching from the opposite direction and rushes towards him, desperately telling him to get away from here – and a laser shoots right through her body.

She collapses, and the Gizmon turn and leave to go do some murder elsewhere, apparently (thankfully!!!) not noticing Falcomon approaching with Ikuto.

Kurata has retreated to watch his carnage from a nearby hillside while sucking on a lollipop, which is, again, totally the most appropriate thing to be doing while committing mass murder. Just, ugh, the disgusting casualness of it. Now that he’s had his fun showing off, this is simply a mundane, necessary task to him. Pest control.

Kurata:  “If we leave these vicious monsters alone, they’ll come to attack the human world someday. All Digimon must be eradicated.”

He has genuinely convinced himself of this, even though, logically, if Digimon were ever going to come and attack the human world, they’d have done it ages ago. But they once threatened and terrified him, personally, so that must mean that they’re obviously this much of a threat to the rest of humanity and Kurata is doing his world a favour by eradicating them. It’s definitely not that Kurata is just a coward who’s massively overreacting to one single incident that was really entirely his own fault.

He’s interrupted by the appearance of a very furious Mercurimon, who utterly destroys the row of Gizmon behind him in a single attack. Kurata’s inventions aren’t that good at flouting the usual rules of evolution levels, clearly.

The giant wolf-man towers over Kurata, and here is where I can’t help but yell at the screen for Mercurimon to just stomp on him, just crush him right there, it’ll solve all of our problems – but he doesn’t, not yet.

Mercurimon: “Wretched human, why did you break your promise?!”

Because he wants to understand. He feels so furiously hurt and betrayed by these humans that he thought he trusted, and he assumes that this human here is in league with Suguru and was also a part of that promise and trust that he’d extended, so he can’t help but desperately want to know why they would do something like this.

That’s why Mercurimon ends up giving Kurata just enough time to escape. It’s tragic and excruciating, yet so understandable and – I’d use the word human, but Mercurimon really wouldn’t appreciate that word being used for him right now, would he.

Kurata doesn’t answer at all; he just screams in terror and begins to flee. He may gloat in front of Digimon he knows he has all the power over, but up against a Digimon who outmatches him in power, he’s still nothing but a terrified coward.

Mercurimon realises he isn’t going to get an answer and begins to attack, but just that moment of asking in the first place has given Kurata enough time to pull out a space-time bomb and escape through a Digital Gate before the attack can hit.

(This Gate closes right behind him, meaning Kurata fled alone, without his troops. I guess that means they got stranded in the Digital World to be hunted down and killed by Mercurimon in his fury. I really would not put it past Kurata to have let that happen to his men.)

In the burning forest, Falcomon and Ikuto are with a dying Yukidarumon. This is the same scene we saw in a flashback in episode 20, though I personally don’t mind seeing it again here now that we have the full context of what’s happening to her and why. I can also confirm with more certainty that the moment just after she disintegrates is definitely the first time little Ikuto ever called her “Mom”, because he called her “Yukidarumon” otherwise at multiple different points during this whole flashback.

…So, based on how we saw it work for the Revolmon, Yukidarumon – who’s also Adult-level – really should have died instantly as soon as she was shot. But shush, it’s dramatically appropriate for her to get to have this heartbreaking dying speech to Ikuto in which she almost but doesn’t quite manage to tell him he’s a human. Maybe she was able to hold on for longer because of the strength of her bond with him. I could buy that; Digimon-human bonds can empower a lot of stuff.

Later that night, after rain has put out the forest fire, Ikuto is still lying right there in the same spot on the ground, sobbing. Falcomon stands over him sadly, but doesn’t seem quite as grief-stricken. Either he’s maybe a bit more emotionally mature than Ikuto currently and is better at dealing with it, or perhaps he wasn’t quite as close to Yukidarumon and as officially-adopted by her as Ikuto was? This is why I haven’t gone as far as to refer to these two as literal brothers, even though they practically are, because I don’t think Falcomon quite was Yukidarumon’s “son” in exactly the same way as Ikuto.

Either way, Falcomon is being a good and supportive friend, just patiently waiting there with Ikuto, no matter how long it takes him to stop crying.

Gotsumon:  “This is Ikuto’s fault.”

Gotsumon shows up to be an insensitive dick. Dude, what the hell; human or not, this kid’s mother was just murdered, and you’re telling him it’s his fault?

Falcomon:  “What are you talking about, Gotsumon? What did Ikuto ever do?!”

Go, Falcomon, stand up for your friend! Meanwhile, though, Ikuto is sitting up, but he’s not saying anything or looking at anyone. It’s almost like a part of him is willing to accept that Gotsumon is right.

Gotsumon:  “Strange things have occurred in this forest ever since Ikuto came here! I knew it all along, you *are* the root of calamity! Leave this forest at once!”

This is more of Gotsumon’s bullshit along these lines. Strange things have happened since he came? This is literally the first strange thing that’s happened, short of Ikuto’s appearance itself. Talk about confirmation bias.

It’s true we now know that this is technically causally true, in that Ikuto getting swept into the Digital World sparked off the expedition, and the expedition sparked off Kurata’s bigotry and paranoia about Digimon, which led to this. But Gotsumon isn’t aware of any of that and is just making this up based on his own prejudices. And none of that chain of events makes this Ikuto’s fault as a person; getting rid of him will not and never would have stopped the bad things from happening.

Falcomon:  “No! Ikuto didn’t do anything wrong! Right, guys? Guys!”

The “guys” in question are three of the baby Digimon we saw fleeing earlier, who must have managed to hide and survive. Again, these are the same three baby species that were in the earlier Yukidarumon flashbacks with Ikuto, so we’re probably meant to assume that these are also Ikuto’s kinda-sorta-vaguely-siblings.

But evidently they were never as close to Ikuto as Falcomon was, because they don’t agree with Falcomon’s protests. They look away nervously, not wanting to outright agree with Gotsumon either but seeming to feel like he might have a point. And note that Gotsumon hasn’t even mentioned the part where Ikuto’s a human during this conversation – obviously – but even so, these baby Digimon can apparently sense there’s something weird and different about Ikuto and don’t have enough of a bond with him like Falcomon does to override that. I will let the baby Digimon off here a lot more than Gotsumon, though, because they’re very young kids themselves. Gotsumon has no excuse.

Ikuto gets to his feet, still silent, looking like he’s about to listen to Gotsumon and leave the forest after all. (Where else would he even go? He wouldn’t have any idea, would he. It’s almost like he doesn’t belong anywhere.)

But before he can leave, Mercurimon shows up and points out that Ikuto leaving won’t bring Yukidarumon back.

Mercurimon:  “It is Yukidarumon’s dying wish that you shoulder the destiny that befalls this forest.”

That… really wasn’t actually Yukidarumon’s dying wish at all. Her dying wish was very clearly for Ikuto to not hate humans, while this is something totally different. But I’m sure Mercurimon is aware that he’s making this up out of nowhere. He’s saying it to try and give Ikuto a reason to stay in the forest that he considers home, something that’ll override Gotsumon’s words that he’s taken far too much to heart.

Ikuto looks up at Mercurimon as he says this, the first proper response to someone else that he’s shown in this whole conversation. Mercurimon making this about Yukidarumon’s supposed wish did help him listen.

Mercurimon: “Ikuto, live in this forest. As the Digital World’s warrior!”

Ikuto nods at this, and then we cut to him standing on a hill overlooking the forest as the sun rises, putting on his face paint for the first time.

Little Ikuto:  “I am Digimon! The Digital World’s warrior… Ikuto!”

He is so tiny and yet so determined to be the strongest most protective warrior.

This is why Ikuto was always so fiercely adamant about fighting the humans and protecting the Digital World when DATS first showed up to face him. It wasn’t just because humans had killed Yukidarumon and he wanted revenge – it was also specifically because Mercurimon told him to be a warrior.

I can understand why Mercurimon did this: he wanted to give Ikuto a sense of purpose to his life after Yukidarumon’s death so that he wasn’t just wallowing in grief and listening far too much to Gotsumon’s bullshit about how this is all his fault. I doubt he ever actually wanted Ikuto to directly fight any humans; he has to have known Ikuto would not stand a chance against forces as strong as the ones Kurata brought that day. Mercurimon is not very warlike by nature and was probably just hoping that he’d scared Kurata off such that the humans would never come back and this’d never have to happen again. He simply wanted Ikuto to feel like he was doing something to help, while hoping it’d never actually have to come to that.

But also… not the best fatherhood strategy there, Mercurimon. He meant well, but he’s also – understandably – not very experienced in how to be a good parent figure and help out a grieving kid. His thinking would certainly also have been skewed by his own anger at the time he said this, and if he ever had second thoughts about it later, he couldn’t just take it back, because it’d become part of Ikuto’s very identity. Ikuto clinging so strongly to this idea that he’s a warrior and he must fight the humans is part of what got him so messed up and fixated on revenge, which made it even harder for him to accept that he was a human when the time came.

This is also, I believe, why Ikuto never properly realised until episode 21 that Falcomon is his best friend! After all, warriors don’t have friends, right? They just have fellow warriors who help them fight.

Meanwhile, Falcomon, who was never told to be a warrior and never bought into this whole thing like Ikuto did, was always patiently trying to be there for Ikuto through this bad coping mechanism while seeing himself as Ikuto’s friend and not his fellow warrior, even though Ikuto never quite saw it the same way. Falcomon is so good.

Back in the present, Mercurimon is fiercely declaring to Ikuto that, yes, this human Kurata is the one who murdered his mother.

Kurata:  “‘Mother’? What do you mean by that? To humans, *all* Digimon are the enemy! I’m merely fulfilling my mission to protect us against the demonic hand of the evil Digimon!”

Kurata is so absolutely determined to cling to his worldview that Digimon are nothing but dangerous monsters that he must eliminate for humanity’s sake. He has to make a huge point of questioning the “mother” thing and insisting it’s nonsense and he’s in the right. If he acknowledged to himself how obviously flawed his premise is, then everything he’s doing would fall apart. It’s so obvious to us how wrong Kurata is that this might sound on the surface like typical over-the-top villainous spiel, but there is actual psychology that makes sense for him behind this all.

It's also relevant that he seems to consider this his personal mission to “protect humanity”. Look at him, he’s a saviour. He is the most importantest bestest human to ever live, because he’s doing this. We’ll get more into this part of Kurata’s character later, but stuff like this is the root of it.

Yoshino:  “Your story isn’t a very logical one.”

Yes, Yoshino, you tell him. Kurata can probably easily brush this off by telling himself, well, she’s just not as smart as him, and she hasn’t been through the horrors that he has, so what would she know.

Tohma:  “Ikuto’s hatred and Mercurimon’s hatred… All of it was caused by you?!”

Yep, Tohma, that’s about the size of it. LITERALLY EVERYTHING IS KURATA’S FAULT. All of the conflict we’ve had so far has been driven by the two sides assuming the worst of each other as a result of Kurata’s actions.

Kurata:  “What will you do if it was? Will you, as DATS members, attack me? That’s quite strange.”

This is probably largely Kurata saying that DATS shouldn’t attack him because their official orders on this mission were to protect him and his men, despite knowing full well that he’s betraying the supposedly-peaceful purpose of the mission by being, well, like this.

But there might also be a hint of Kurata’s twisted psychology in here, in that DATS exists to deal with Digimon in the human world, and in Kurata’s head that means “eliminate the Digimon menace”. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he genuinely believes they should be siding with him on this matter of murdering all the Digimon.

Masaru:  “You’re the lowest of the low, you bastard! You’re a goddamned disgrace of a man to the entire human race!”

I enjoy how unapologetically vehement Masaru is in his new opinion of this guy. Everyone else in the room is definitely thinking along the same lines about Kurata after what they’ve just heard, but of course Masaru, who never beats around the bush about anything, is the one to just come out and say it.

Kurata:  “You can’t even gather the nerve to get rid of one Digimon. All you do is flap your mouths. What a disaster.”

Yeah, it really does seem that in Kurata’s Kurata-centric worldview, he’s genuinely convinced himself that DATS should obviously be helping him kill Mercurimon and that’s what they’re supposed to be here for. What do you mean DATS’s actual overall mission is about harmony with Digimon, what nonsense.

Kurata:  “I’d have preferred things to end with you and Mercurimon striking each other down.”

Kurata was always trying to get DATS out of his way, as evidenced by the time Hashiba randomly waltzed in and almost had DATS dissolved for no actual logical reason that Kurata must have secretly had a hand in.

Seems like here he was planning to kill two birds with one stone by getting rid of DATS and also using them as sacrificial lambs to make his point about the terribleness of Digimon. I imagine the story he intended to go back to Hashiba with was something along the lines of “oh, we tried to negotiate peace with Mercurimon, but he’s just such an irrational monster that he refused to listen, so DATS had to fight him, and he killed them in the process of being taken down! See, Digimon really are monsters who all need to be destroyed! Let me do that for you!”

Alas for Kurata, DATS has more sense than to actually fight Mercurimon after hearing how literally everything was Kurata’s fault, because of course they do. Kurata just can’t wrap his head around the idea that he is not actually in the right and other humans will not automatically agree with him about how Digimon are the worst, not even when he explains what a tragic victim he totally is.

So instead, Kurata snaps his fingers, and a striped laser pierces through Mercurimon’s body from behind. While everyone was talking and having lengthy flashbacks, it seems Kurata gradually snuck a man with a Gizmon back there without anyone noticing, ready to ambush Mercurimon if DATS didn’t agree to fight him.

Which might seem careless of Mercurimon, but I can understand why he wasn’t more careful about this. See, Mercurimon’s just not a warlike person. Though the original massacre twisted him into hatred and vengefulness towards humans in his surface attitude, he still never actually initiated any conflict. It’s not in Mercurimon’s nature to think of things as a war where he needs to outplay his enemy or die, not even when faced with Kurata in his very throne room.

Instead, he spent all of this time trying to make the other humans here, the ones he still trusted, understand what’s going on and why Kurata is evil. Just like last time when he let Kurata get away, Mercurimon gave Kurata too much time because he couldn’t help but want to communicate.

Kurata:  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting! These are my greatest masterpieces, Gizmon: AT!”

As Mercurimon collapses heavily with a groan of agony, Kurata’s still laying it on thick with that gloating showmanship about his creations. (That “ladies and gentlemen” is also in gratuitous English.) He is the cleverest most importantest saviour of humanity, everybody look at him.

(This Gizmon: AT is the name for the Adult-level form of the Gizmon line. I’m probably mostly going to call them all just Gizmon for short, despite these suffixes that denote their specific evolution level.)

Masaru:  “Kurata!”

Agumon:  “Aniki, I’ve never felt this pissed off in my entire life!”

Masaru:  “You are *not* getting away with this!”

The episode ends on some delightful fury at Kurata from Masaru and Agumon – especially Masaru – which I for one think is a great ending note.

(I also want to make note that Masaru’s line here in Japanese has a certain specific phrasing that’s more literally along the lines of “you are completely unforgivable!” We will be hearing those words again elsewhere, though admittedly perhaps only because it’s kind of a stock anime phrase.)

Overall thoughts

Oh boy, it’s a big one! As you may be able to tell from the fact that this is the single longest commentary post so far (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it keeps that title all the way to the end of the series), this one’s packed with juicy stuff. While this is pretty much entirely a flashback episode, almost all the flashbacks are new content that’s really interesting and informative about all these important players in the backstory and it’s great. It also feels very narratively appropriate that we get all of these big revelations about the backstory and how things began at exactly the halfway point through the series.

Lots of good moments for Mercurimon’s character in this episode. It’s sweet how Mercurimon needed Yukidarumon, and later Suguru, to let him learn to soften up to the idea of parenthood and humans maybe being okay. And I enjoy how, as much as he’s a Big Powerful Ruler, he makes lots of mistakes due to still being a fallible person, even aside from his prejudices: he gave Kurata the chance to go free because he just wanted to communicate; he messed Ikuto up and made him focus too much on being a Warrior because he couldn’t think of any better way to help him cope.

Then there’s Suguru! I love that the flashbacks this episode finally let us see Suguru being a character and not just a mysterious revered figure. He’s a ridiculous over-the-top manly dork just like his son while also being distinct in his intense scientific curiosity, it’s great. I love him bonding with Mercurimon and teaching him about parenthood and talking about Masaru unprompted, what a lovely dad. And though they’re not spelled out, I really dig the implications that Suguru actually chose to stay in the Digital World because he wanted to.

This is also the episode in which we first get a proper look into Kurata and his psychology. It is so very fitting for Kurata that it all started from some tiny, would-have-been-meaningless incident in which he was a coward; everything about him and his atrocities stems from that core part of him. Kurata is a really well-written and realistic villain and I appreciate him for that a lot; there’ll be more on this next episode and throughout his arc in general.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 25 - Smash Kurata’s Ambitions! Fly, Yatagaramon!

In this episode, with Mercurimon grievously wounded, the DATS team furiously fights back against Kurata’s artificial Digimon weapon. Ikuto, now knowing who’s really behind all of his suffering, finally reaches a resolution in his feelings about humans.

Narrator:  “However, what they learned from him was the shocking truth.”

Are you sure, anonymous recap narrator? Are you sure it was even remotely shocking that Kurata turned out to be super duper evil? I don’t think it was, somehow.

Maybe what they mean by “shocking” was the sheer cruelty of the Digimon massacre, which they just learned about in full. Yeah, let’s go with that.

As we finish the recap, Mercurimon collapses in agony, clutching the wound in his side where he was shot, which has turned into glowing yellow visual noise, some of which is slowly floating out of him. It’s a neat effect; Digimon don’t bleed, of course, but this sure looks like some kind of digital equivalent of him having been severely, horrifically wounded.

Ikuto and Falcomon rush to his side in a panic to try and do something to help, but Kurata tells them it’s pointless.

Kurata:  “That wound makes him past the point of saving.”

It sure does. We saw what that same Gizmon: AT laser did to SaberLeomon – it suddenly made it not just possible but easy for him to be taken out by a less-evolved Digimon. And when he died, the egg disintegrated. All of Kurata’s weapons contain some kind of specific property he must’ve created that causes the eggs to disintegrate and the Digimon to die for real. Of course Kurata doesn’t want those “vicious monsters” ever coming back.

Masaru:  “You bastard! How dare you attack from behind like a coward!”

Hah, I love that Masaru is furious at how underhanded and cowardly this move of Kurata’s was. There’ll be more on this from Masaru later in this episode.

Kurata spouts some more of his usual spiel about how Digimon are a danger to humans and must be eliminated, which, again, he has utterly convinced himself is the truth of the matter.

Kurata:  “Let me put it very simply. My goal is… Digimon genocide!”

Turns out, this is a series about preventing attempted genocide. Now it’s starting to make sense why it’s called Digimon Savers.

…And, okay, Kurata probably shouldn’t actually be calling it genocide here. People who commit genocide do not admit that they’re committing genocide; that’d be like acknowledging that the people they’re mass-murdering are people. But that word was a subbers’ decision that maybe wasn’t the right one. The word he used in Japanese wasn’t specifically “genocide” and literally translates to something more like “complete erasure”. That’s not admitting that Digimon are people or that he’s committing a terrible atrocity at all.

Tohma:  “You manipulated us for that purpose?”

Tohma isn’t surprised here at being manipulated, because he and Satsuma could very much tell that Kurata was Up To Something. He just had no idea that Kurata’s real purpose was something this deeply horrific.

Kurata:  “From my experiences in the Digital World Exploration Squad ten years ago… I learned first-hand the true savage nature of Digimon. I realised that Digimon will only bring destruction to humanity and that they must be destroyed!”

Yes, Kurata, sure. “Realised”. “Learned”. Like these notions are totally just the objective truth about Digimon that nobody else is intelligent enough to see, and not the paranoid exaggerations of a selfish coward who’s incapable of seeing things from anyone’s perspective but his own.

Kurata is absolutely a thoroughly irredeemable piece of human trash (and, boy, he’s only going to get worse from here), but I really appreciate him as a villain, because you can actually understand what makes him that way. He’s realistically evil, because he’s human. I don’t mean that in the narrow-minded sense that Humans Are Inherently Bad and always being violent and destroying nature or whatever; I mean it in the sense (that could equally apply to a Digimon character) that humans are flawed and irrational and people. Kurata’s evil comes from him being a flawed irrational human person whose human psychology happened to cause him to deal with a traumatic experience in the absolute worst possible way, culminating in him trying to commit genocide.

If you’ll permit me to criticise other Digimon seasons here just briefly, this is remarkably rare for Digimon. Most Digimon villains try to take over the world and kill or oppress Digimon or humans simply Because They’re Evil, and those are just the kinds of things evil people do, right? The evil comes first, out of nowhere, with no explanation; it Just Is, because Evil Just Exists.

But that’s not how real evil actually works. Rather than doing terrible things Because He’s Evil, Kurata is evil because he does terrible things, and he does these terrible things for realistic reasons tied to his experiences and psychology that we can actually understand, even as we’re horrified by it all.

Kurata:  “Even my greatest obstacle, Mercurimon, is now knocking on death’s door.”

It’s interesting how Kurata sees Mercurimon as his single greatest obstacle to his goal. Does he think Mercurimon is the only Ultimate-level Digimon left out there since he killed SaberLeomon? I doubt it. This is probably more about how he’s still centring everything around himself – Mercurimon is the biggest threat because he once attacked Kurata personally while Kurata was busy attempting this genocide the first time. Kurata must have been terrified at just how close he came to dying to Mercurimon’s fists that time, though he’d never consciously admit it. Obviously that makes Mercurimon far more important than any other Ultimate-level Digimon out there who would also almost certainly object to the genocide and try to fight Kurata once they heard about it.

Masaru:  “Just like me and Agumon… If we’d talked through fists, we could have come to an understanding with Mercurimon!”

Oh, Masaru – he’s still thinking about how his interrupted fight with Mercurimon would have been an attempt to communicate with him and reach an understanding! And he’s explicitly presenting it as the same thing that he did with Agumon when they first met! This talking-through-fists philosophy of his is really starting to come together.

Kurata:  “Why are you so angry? I’m just getting rid of one Digimon!”

Look at this slimebag trying to present his actions as not even that bad by arguing that he’s only killing (not even killing, they’re not people, it’s not murder) one measly Digimon – while having literally just stated his intention to kill absolutely all of them. He’ll twist things however he can to present himself as being in the right, with no heed at all to basic logic.

Masaru:  “You bastard! Looks like you won’t get it until I punch you out!”

Masaru has had enough of Kurata’s bullshit and runs in to punch him. I don’t blame him, Kurata is the most eminently punchable person we’ve ever met. Yet, I also like the way he presents this as trying to make Kurata get it. He’s still, in a sense, thinking of his punching as communicating, like he’s hoping on some level that beating the crap out of Kurata might snap some sense into him and force him to admit how obviously wrong he is.

Kurata orders his Gizmon: AT to get in the way and then retreats to a greater distance. He doesn’t outright show it here, but I think Kurata is scared of the thought of Masaru getting into a direct fight with him. His cowardice is mostly centred around Digimon, but it can extend to other humans, too – anyone who’s trying to hurt him, really.

Kurata:  “This makes for good entertainment! Let me show you Gizmon’s strength!”

Yes, Gizmon versus a human teenager is totally a fair fight and definitely not Kurata letting himself feel powerful and in control by showing off his brilliant creation.

Masaru is initially frustrated that the Gizmon is in the way of his real target, but then he rolls with it, leaping into the air with the power of anime physics to punch it right in the robotic eye.

One evolution later, RiseGreymon’s attack doesn’t leave a scratch on the Gizmon, and it retaliates by morphing its wing/propeller-things into something like foldable polygonal tentacles that reach out and slam RiseGreymon into a wall. Gizmon: AT is an Adult-level, but like we saw before, Kurata’s creations do not care about evolution level power differences.

Tohma:  “You should have tested how strong it was before you jumped in!”

Masaru:  “Shut up!”

Come on, Tohma. How do you test how strong something is other than try to fight it? And even if he did know how strong it was, what was he gonna do? Not fight it because of that? Hell no, not Masaru.

MachGaogamon and Lilamon get in on the action too (sadly no offscreen evolutions for us today). MachGaogamon’s attempt is equally fruitless – and I note that Tohma also just rushed in without testing anything first. Then Lilamon attempts her Un Deux Pollen, which is apparently an attack that paralyses the foe on a mental level by captivating its “heart”, rather than a more physical effect. This fails, too.

Kurata:  “Bewitching attacks won’t work! After all, Gizmon has no heart!”

This has kind of been apparent already from just looking at the Gizmon; though they’re technically Digimon, they’ve behaved every bit like soulless machines, mechanically following orders and showing no hint of initiative of personhood.

Kurata:  “I created this new Digimon from the Digimon that I’d captured and modified.”

Masaru:  “You *modified* Digimon?!”

Yoshino:  “No way… How could you do that to them?”

Tohma:  “He erased its emotions to turn it into a doll that’ll simply obey his orders.”

Everyone – especially the Digimon, though they don’t say anything here – stares in horror at learning even more of how despicable Kurata is. It might have seemed like the Gizmon were simply something like powerful robots he created, but I guess, in order for them to be Digimon and have the incredible power that Digimon have that far surpasses any human weapons, there needed to be some essence of actual existing Digimon in there too. So Kurata just captured a bunch of poor unsuspecting Digimon on one of his many secret trips to the Digital World, then blended them up and mashed their essences together until all of their soul and personality was completely gone. Eurgh. Those poor Digimon. That’s an even worse way to go than having your egg disintegrated.

Kurata:  “What do you think? Such strength at only the Adult-level!”

Tohma:  “Adult-level?!”

I like how Tohma knows his evolution levels enough to react to how unprecedented this is.

Kurata:  “Gizmon will fight exactly how I tell it to. Digimon are only useful when you use them as tools.”

It may seem hypocritical that Kurata, who hates Digimon so fervently, is using Digimon himself to complete his goals. And while it’s not like Kurata isn’t a huge hypocrite in many ways, this bit actually does make consistent sense in his mind and is very telling of his approach to all this.

The physical body of a Digimon itself isn’t the problem for him; he hates and fears Digimon because they have free will and he can’t control them, and therefore at any point they could totally come and viciously murder him and all of humanity like the beasts they are. But a Digimon that has no soul, that’s engineered to only obey his orders and is completely under his control? That’s no problem. That’s just a useful weapon that shows how clever he is and gives him power over the rest of the Digimon who are such a threat to him.

Kurata:  “Oh, yes. If you agree to co-operate with me in annihilating the Digimon, I’m willing to let your Digimon live.”

This also goes along with that same principle. If Masaru, Tohma and Yoshino’s Digimon partners are working for him and helping him with his genocide, then they’re under his control, and so he has no need to fear them. Thus, he can in theory leave them alive, if they agree to this. He’s willing to offer this as a potential bribe to get the DATS trio to help him instead of stand in his way.

It also goes to show how utterly short-circuited Kurata’s sense of empathy is that he has any conception that this offer might actually tempt them. Surely they also only see their Digimon as useful tools, not people, and would be quite happy to help him eliminate the rest of the totally-not-people Digimon so long as they get to keep their tools around?

Kurata:  “Are you going to act against me? I’m part of the Ministry of Confidentiality. If you oppose, you’ll be convicted of treason.”

When that previous offer is clearly not about to sway them, Kurata tries a different tack to convince them not to fight him. He mentioned last episode that he was planning to have Mercurimon and DATS kill each other, and he seemed a little frustrated that that didn’t come to pass. Apparently he would really like these three to not be getting in his way one way or another, forcing him to expend the extra effort he’d need to get rid of them. Despite all his gloating about his Gizmon creation, he does not appear to be truly 100% confident that it’ll manage to kill them all without them escaping somehow.

This also says a lot about the influence Kurata knows he has over Governor Hashiba. He’s confident he can go back to Hashiba and spin a story about how he was the good guy heroically taking down that monstrous Mercurimon who refused to listen to his negotiations, and then DATS betrayed humanity and turned against him rather than help. That does just about track with how Hashiba appeared to be viewing this whole conflict.

Tohma:  “I’ll *never* support you of my own free will!”

Masaru, Tohma and Yoshino are, of course, having absolutely none of it (I enjoy Tohma’s line here in particular, for Reasons), so they jump back into fighting. This shifts into the background as we move over to Ikuto and Mercurimon, the latter of whom is still slowly dying on the other side of the throne room.

Mercurimon: “Ikuto, listen to me. I’ve always been in doubt. The human world or the Digital World… I wondered which one would be most suitable for you to live in happiness. Since you didn’t know of anything beyond the Digital World, I wondered what you would think upon meeting humans. Will your human heart be reawakened? Or will you continue to hate them? I wanted to know the answer to that.”

I suppose this is what Mercurimon meant when he mumbled vaguely about wanting Ikuto to fight humans so he could “awaken as a true Digimon warrior” back in episode 18. But it seems like he was thinking of this in a very all-or-nothing way, much like Agumon’s question of “who will you side with?”. Like Ikuto’s “human heart being reawakened” means he’ll just become completely human in his mindset and stop caring about Digimon at all. Obviously he was never going to do that, Mercurimon!

Mercurimon: “But… now I realise that the doubt I felt… was wrong. What will bring you happiness isn’t choosing one from the other. It’s creating a world where both humans and Digimon can live together.”

Ikuto can choose to side with both! Ikuto figured that out all by himself in the end – Sayuri prodded him into realising that he had the right to choose, but the actual decision he made to try and stop the fighting was entirely his own. And now Ikuto’s helping Mercurimon see that, too! It really is like Suguru said: sometimes your kids are the ones who end up teaching you things.

Mercurimon: “That man… Daimon Suguru was aware of that.”

Though I suppose Mercurimon also partly picked up this mindset from Suguru in the first place. He’s reawakened to it lately after Masaru’s punch and all of his reminiscing last episode caused him to remember that Suguru really was a good man who meant everything he said and didn’t actually betray him.

We see a flashback of Suguru giving Mercurimon a Digivice, explaining what it’s for and telling him that Ikuto will need one someday. This is how Ikuto had a Digivice! Mercurimon must have passed it onto Ikuto at some point after Yukidarumon’s death, to help him with the whole “warrior” deal. That actually must have been a rather conflicted moment for Mercurimon, given that he was gifting Ikuto this device that had been given to him by the man he, at the time, felt utterly betrayed by.

This flashback then ends with the fist-bump and the “Let’s do it!” exchange between Suguru and Mercurimon, the one that I mentioned last episode actually happened a lot later than the rest of the stuff we saw Mercurimon flash back to then. This here is the reason I knew that bit came later: because it happened after Suguru had given Mercurimon a Digivice for Ikuto. It’d have taken Suguru a while to do enough experiments in the Digital World to be able to create Digivices (DATS was probably beginning to be formed around this time, too). And also, flashbacks in a later episode will imply that all of these Digivice experiments of Suguru’s must have happened while he was on his journey to find Yggdrasil, so he must have popped back into Infinity Ice Ridge to check in on Mercurimon now and again.

Hearing this, Falcomon realises and points out for Ikuto that Yukidarumon must also have known he was a human all along. He reminds Ikuto of her dying words, and Ikuto finally, finally realises what she really meant to say to him: “You must never hate the humans, because you are…”

This is something Ikuto and/or Falcomon could have figured out a while ago, from the moment they realised Ikuto was human. But, they’re just kids. And they’re kids who grew up with the general Digimon population harbouring a very fierce hatred for humans, so it’d make sense in their heads that, surely, for Ikuto’s parent figures to have ever loved him, that’d have to mean they didn’t know, right?

Mercurimon: “Forgive me, Ikuto! For my hesitation… and for being unable to keep my promises with Suguru and Yukidarumon!”

It’s sweet that he apologises for having the wrong idea about Ikuto needing to pick a side. And I assume what he’s getting at regarding Suguru and Yukidarumon is that he became convinced Suguru had betrayed him and was overcome with hatred towards humans for the past several years such that he wasn’t able to work towards harmony between the two species until just now, and it’s too late for him now.

(It also feels slightly like he’s apologising for dying. Are you apologising for dying, Mercurimon? Don’t apologise for dying, that part is not your fault.)

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon! Don’t die! Don’t you leave me behind, too!”

At this anguished scream of a desperate kid not wanting to lose his second parent figure to the hands of the same murderer who took the first one from him… we cut to the inappropriately upbeat opening!!!

…Not exactly the best choice of where to put it, here, though to be fair I don’t think there are many points in this episode that would be much better. Things are getting dark enough that the upbeat-ness of the first opening song doesn’t always fit so well.

There is a second opening song that we’re going to shift to. However, though we’re now in the second half of the series numbers-wise, we won’t be seeing the new opening for a few more episodes’ time, for reasons I’ll talk about then.

I’ll open up tomorrow boundlessly

with these hands!

More opening chorus lyrics! This bit about “opening up tomorrow” makes me think of Suguru’s desire to create a future where humans and Digimon can live in harmony, even if he has to choose to stay behind in the Digital World and do it all himself. And now Masaru and co. are trying to do the same thing, too! Or, they would be, if they didn’t have to deal with Kurata first.

Back in the midst of the fighting, the DATS trio’s partners are continuing to have their asses handed to them by this single Adult-level Gizmon. (MachGaogamon’s Winning Knuckle attack continues its trend of not remotely winning anything.)

RiseGreymon manages to catch the Gizmon off-guard and slam it into the ground from behind. At this, Masaru rushes in to help with a punch – I love how he still sometimes directly takes part in fights even once Agumon’s evolved and he really ought to stay back – except the Gizmon spins its blades to become a huge propeller. The gust sends Masaru flying backwards before he can connect, and the blades slam into RiseGreymon moments later.

(They are trying to keep things somewhat reasonable with Masaru’s involvement in these fights, in that it was only the gust that blew him back. If he’d been hit by the actual blades, he’d be very much a goner.)

Kurata:  “Isn’t it obvious by now? Our side is stronger and faster! Why don’t you just give up?”

Kurata is still having a good gloat about all this. I suspect that the reason he’s allowed the fight to drag on for this long without just finishing them off is that he’s enjoying playing with them and relishing in how much power and control his genius invention gives him. This is very Kurata of him.

Masaru:  “Yeah, right! I won’t give up until I’ve kicked your ass!”

Kurata:  “Really… I’m getting quite annoyed by that persistent obstinacy of yours. You’re just like your father, Daimon Suguru.”

Hee, of course Suguru was just as determinedly stubborn about things as Masaru is. And Kurata is very deeply irritated by Masaru’s behaviour reminding him of Suguru.

Masaru:  “What?!”

Kurata:  “Ten years ago, after learning of the potential menace the Digimon could bring, I advised Daimon Suguru, who was my superior back then, to eliminate them before things got worse. He wouldn’t listen.”

This is accompanied by a silent flashback to the expedition group at camp, Kurata and Suguru facing each other as Kurata talks and waves a gun around in agitation, obviously advocating for using it. Suguru calmly pushes the gun down and says a few words that we don’t hear just yet.

Kurata scowls in indignation upon hearing these words. Whatever Suguru said, it really, really got to him.

Kurata:  “And now look at the results.”

Just as Kurata does with everything, he’s convinced himself that he was obviously in the right back then, that Digimon really were dangerous and needed to be destroyed, and Suguru was being stubborn and idiotic to ever suggest they should just treat them like people (gasp) and leave them in peace. Poor Kurata, so unfairly victimised by these vicious Digimon and now also these stupid, stubborn humans like Suguru and his son who won’t let him do the obviously right thing and murder them all.

Kurata:  “Not only have they kept their vicious ways, but even ten years later, the atrocious rampage of Digimon in our world has increased!”

This is accompanied by some flashbacks to rampaging Digimon from earlier episodes – specifically Elecmon and Aquilamon, who I guess were picked because they happened to be some of the most destructive. Clearly nobody gave Kurata the memo about the emotions thing: that Digimon who rampage in the human world are not in their right minds and are actually being influenced by humans, albeit not deliberately. Though, even if Kurata did know about that, I’m sure he’d still find a way to twist it around in his head and blame the Digimon. That still just basically makes Digimon dangerous forces of nature and definitely not people who are actually victims in all this, right.

It's also some irony that he’s complaining about the way the Digimon rampages have increased in number over the years like that’s the Digimon’s fault. To be fair, I don’t think he’s aware of whose fault it really is, but.

Kurata:  “This is all because of Daimon Suguru’s thick-headed obstinacy!”

All of it? Sure, Kurata, all of it. You just go and blame literally everything on this guy that you hate for being more right and open-minded and understanding than you, forcing you to briefly confront the idea that maybe you’re actually in the wrong here.

(As Kurata says this, Masaru scowls at him having the gall to blame all of this on his dad for such a stupid reason.)

Kurata:  “*I* was right! There’s no choice but to obliterate the Digimon threat!”

Yes, Kurata, you have definitely totally proven this with facts and logic and definitely aren’t just twisting the truth to avoid acknowledging that you ever made any kind of moral mistake about anything ever. It sure is convenient that Suguru isn’t around right now to continue explaining to you why you’re actually still extremely wrong, now vastly more so than you ever were to begin with.

This is all still very, very human of Kurata. It’s not easy to admit you’re in the wrong about something. Sometimes people deal with that by doubling down and insisting even more fervently that they’re definitely in the right, which can snowball and end up making them so much worse than they ever were in the first place.

Masaru:  “Cut the crap! I’d rather have Dad be as stubborn as a mule than to be a coward like you!”

Kurata:  [his eyes narrow] “What do you mean by that?”

Masaru:  “Listen up! When you exchange fists with someone, you’re not just delivering pain! Your heart hurts much more than the pain they receive!”

Masaru’s fighting philosophy is so good! This is why I’ve sometimes stressed that Masaru would never beat up random bystanders just to feel strong and only ever fights people who want to fight him. He fully acknowledges that inflicting physical pain on another sapient being takes a psychological toll on you yourself, never mind the physical pain you’ll also be receiving if you’re fairly evenly matched. A true, honourable fight can only happen between people who are mutually accepting of this pain they’re in for and willing to go for it anyway for whatever reason that might be important to them, be it to defend something, to prove a point, or even just for sport.

Masaru:  “The way you’re punching them one-sidedly just shows that you’re a coward who’s afraid of pain!”

And Kurata’s nothing like that. Not only is he constantly hiding behind more powerful subordinates of his to avoid putting himself at physical risk on the front line, he is also constantly running and hiding from any of the psychological pain that’d come from acknowledging that he’s hurting and killing sapient people and doing something bad. That’s why he’s twisted his mindset and worldview so fervently to insist to himself that Digimon are just vicious monsters and he’s in the right: because he’s a coward.

I highly doubt Masaru has been following every single nuance of Kurata’s psychology, but I love that he thoroughly gets this one core part of it, thanks to his own fighting principles and this being the exact opposite of them. Masaru is such a good and fascinating character.

Suguru:  “You are a coward.”

These are the words that Suguru said to Kurata when he was pushing the gun down in that flashback we just saw. And now here’s his son telling Kurata the exact same thing, not even in a deliberate attempt to mimic his father (because he couldn’t have known), but just because he also feels it’s true.

Kurata’s scowl deepens.

Kurata:  “You’re exactly like him. I wanted to play around with you a little more, but now I’ve changed my mind!”

Kurata doesn’t even try to deny or argue against the notion that he’s a coward. He can’t, because he must know deep down that it’s true. So instead, confronted with this core undeniable reason why he really is in the wrong about everything, he continues to utterly refuse to acknowledge it and basically throws a tantrum.

Kurata:  “I’ll have you disappear along with the Digimon in a freak “accident” in this foreign world!”

Which is to say, he quits the gloaty showing-off he was doing with his Gizmon: AT and shifts to using every bit of the power he has to just try and shut Masaru up by killing him. He doesn’t have to think about whether Masaru (or his father) might have a point about him if they’re dead.

(This is also very likely why he was so eager to suggest that Suguru was probably lying dead somewhere in the Digital World last episode. He just wants the man who might actually be able to prove him to be in the wrong gone and out of his way.)

Kurata:  “Gizmon: AT, evolve!”

Kurata pulls out a modified Digivice, the same kind as we saw in the flashbacks, to evolve his Gizmon. Note the utter lack of him doing any kind of Digisoul Charge. Digisoul spills out of the device itself at his command, but absolutely none of it came from Kurata.

There’s this neat trippy visual effect as the Gizmon smoothly morphs into its evolved form. This is such a departure from the usual fancy evolution animation or even the shorter versions we get for less important Digimon. It feels like the evolution we’re seeing here is deeply wrong and unnatural in some way.

Kurata:  “What do you think? It used artificial Digisoul to undergo a pseudo-evolution!”

Kurata does not appear to have a Digisoul, and even if he did, there’s no way he has the emotional connection with his soulless Gizmon necessary to use it to evolve them. So, in lieu of that, he figured out a way to cheat the evolution process artificially, somehow. Even Kurata is admitting that this isn’t at all a proper evolution by usual Digimon standards, given how he calls it “pseudo-evolution”.

(Honestly, knowing what Digisoul is, it’s rather interesting that Kurata managed to create an artificial version of it. Kind of a shame that’s never expanded upon beyond this mention of it.)

This is Gizmon’s Perfect-level, Gizmon: XT. It advances on the group and shoots out a wide beam that leaves a huge curved gouge in the stone floor, while RiseGreymon only just manages to carry the humans out of the way in time. (Kurata was very much aiming for the humans there.)

Masaru refuses to be discouraged and calls for the all-three-attack-as-one thing again. I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t try this earlier while they were fighting the AT form, but hey, rules of shounen drama escalation mean we’re getting it now. The animators this time apparently didn’t bother to animate their attacks actually combining like they did last time they tried this – they all just kind of hit the Gizmon’s defensive barrier at separate points – but I suppose, narratively, we’re supposed to think that this really was the strongest thing they could have pulled off.

All this results in is yet another instance of that shounen trope: We got ‘im! – *smoke clears* – No, we really didn’t. I guess, in defence of the team’s efforts, the Gizmon looks a little bit scuffed now? Just a little.

As Masaru and the trio of Perfect-levels rush back into the fray, the focus moves back over to Mercurimon. Mercurimon recognises that Masaru and co. stand no hope of winning as things currently are, so he forces himself to his feet amidst groans of agony. He wishes Ikuto and Falcomon farewell, knowing that this is the last thing he’ll do.

Ikuto:  “No! Mercurimon! The thing Yukidarumon told me, I… I finally understand! But I still don’t like this! I really do hate humans after all! They do something so horrible to you, Mercurimon… I’ll never forgive them for this!”

Oh, Ikuto. He’s so nearly there, but he’s still just a little stuck on conflating the actions of certain humans with all of humanity, just like he’s been doing his whole life. It’s hard to shake free of that, now of all times, as he’s watching his father figure die in horrible pain from a human’s actions.

Mercurimon: “Look upon him, Ikuto. He’s a simple-minded fellow who speaks crudely, and his actions are preposterous.”

Bahaha. Guess who he’s talking about. As he says this, we watch Masaru leap at the Gizmon: XT, get painfully smacked to the ground, and then stubbornly force himself back to his feet and stagger forwards again. He’s so determined, no matter the odds.

Mercurimon: “But is he a bad guy? Do you hate him so much that you wish he didn’t exist?”

At this, Ikuto remembers the conversation he and Masaru had back at Masaru’s place. “Is it really okay for me to… be here?” “Of course it is.” Of course Ikuto couldn’t hate someone who finally let him feel like he might belong somewhere.

Ikuto:  “Masaru let me meet my real parents.”

Technically that wasn’t really about Masaru, because that was a DATS order and it’d have happened anyway even if Masaru hadn’t been there. But it seems like Ikuto picked up, despite how furiously he was dragging his heels about the whole human-parents thing at the time, that Masaru was the one who was the most personally invested in helping him meet them. It turns out he’s really touched by that! Aww.

Ikuto:  “Not just him. Tohma, Yoshino, Chika, and Masaru’s mother… Everyone treated me nicely.”

Mercurimon:  “Do you hate them?”

Ikuto winces and shakes his head fervently. He already knew this; Mercurimon’s just helping him realise it and put the pieces together.

An explosion from the battle catches his attention; he looks up in a panic to see all three humans and all three Digimon lying on the ground in pain and exhaustion as the Gizmon advances on them. Ikuto doesn’t want to see any of them getting hurt, let alone killed.

Through the smoke, Ikuto sees Kurata, the one responsible for his friends’ pain, still smirking cruelly about this whole thing.

Mercurimon:  “By now, you should know who you are really supposed to hate.”

I like how Mercurimon still isn’t outright telling Ikuto the answer here. He’s just giving Ikuto the right prompting to let him figure it out for himself, because all the pieces are already there.

Mercurimon: “Ikuto… Live… as a human with a Digimon’s heart.”

With these words, Mercurimon musters the last of his strength and charges forwards to punch the Gizmon in its equivalent of a face. The Gizmon starts to fire another huge beam from its “eye”, but it barely begins the attack before Mercurimon’s fist barrels right through it, knocking the giant machine to the ground.

As Mercurimon stands over his foe, his entire right arm flares up with the same glowing yellow digital-wound effect as the one on his torso. Punching right into the attack the Gizmon fired is probably what did that. Not that Mercurimon cares; he’s dying anyway. It must be further agony on top of everything else, but he doesn’t even flinch.

Masaru:  “Mercurimon! Why did you help us?!”

It seems Masaru hadn’t properly picked up on the fact that Mercurimon had re-warmed up to most (non-Kurata) humans by now? I guess any signs of Mercurimon having felt that way during all of the flashbacking in the previous episode probably got drowned out by his sheer hatred of Kurata in particular, such that especially someone like Masaru probably couldn’t be expected to have noticed. Masaru did lament at the beginning of this episode that he didn’t get the chance to come to an understanding (through fists) with Mercurimon. Perhaps, having not done that, he’s still assuming Mercurimon was basically on the warpath with all of humanity, like DATS has believed for many episodes now.

Mercurimon:  “I wanted to try believing once more… in what your father, Daimon Suguru, said… That a time will come when Digimon and humans can live together in harmony.”

But at least Masaru can understand it now. Mercurimon’s going to die not as an erstwhile enemy who could have become an ally given more time, but as an actual genuine ally who wants the same thing that Masaru’s father did.

Kurata scowls upon hearing this notion, and as if in response, the Gizmon manages to stir enough to fire its striped laser right through Mercurimon’s body again.

Kurata:  “Harmony between humans and Digimon? That day will never come!”

Kurata laughs uproariously as Mercurimon gasps in agony (what an absolute asshole), decrying the ridiculousness of the idea… which is kind of a contrast to his scowl about it just moments before. It’s like he has to show off his power and remind himself how good he is at murdering Digimon in order to be able to reassure himself that, yes, anyone who thinks harmony is a possibility is obviously just stupid and wrong and has no power to get their way anyway; he’s totally in the right, as always.

Mercurimon: “I-Ikuto…! Be strong…!”

These are the last words Mercurimon manages to gasp out to his surrogate son as his entire body fades into that glowing yellow noise. He knows this is going to be agony for Ikuto yet again, and that’s all he can think about as he feels himself about to die. What a good dad. He wasn’t always perfect at it, but he cares so much.

As Ikuto screams Mercurimon’s name and rushes forwards with tears in his eyes, Mercurimon’s form disintegrates into an egg, and the egg shatters. He’s gone. Ikuto’s run stumbles to a halt, and he falls to his knees in grief.

Over on the other side of the battlefield, the Gizmon: XT is looking rather worse for wear, sparking and collapsing – not completely destroyed, but seriously damaged. Mercurimon didn’t die for nothing. He did everything he could with his last stand.

Kurata:  “How dare he make a mess of my masterpiece! Really, he just refused to die, and he was a hindrance to me to the very end. Digimon like him are known as fools the second they even *think* about defying humans!”

Kurata is busy justifying and writing off Mercurimon’s heroic final effort to defend his species as some insignificant pest being annoying and foolish and getting ideas above its station. Yes, definitely not a respected ruler, and father, and living, thinking person that you just cruelly murdered or anything, Kurata. Not at all.

Kurata:  “A time of co-existence between humans and Digimon? He threw away his life for an empty fantasy like that? I’m speechless by the sheer absurdity of it!”

It couldn’t possibly be that such a thing is actually quite reasonable and would be perfectly achievable if not for Kurata single-handedly getting in the way of it, no, it’s definitely an empty fantasy that’s completely absurd, has Kurata stressed enough yet that he is very definitely totally in the right here

Ikuto listens to the bullshit Kurata is spouting, his fists clenching in anger and hatred at this one specific human, his tears halting for now. He gets to his feet, as a familiar BGM intro we haven’t heard in quite a few episodes now begins to start up.

Ikuto:  “Kurata! This is revenge for Mercurimon!”

As he and Falcomon rush forward, Ikuto pulls out his Digivice and does a Digisoul Full Charge for the first time. He’s finally figured everything out, and so he’s more than earned that next evolution.

(Note how he actually calls out “Digisoul Full Charge!” despite having never used any actual words for his regular Digisoul Charge. He’s spent enough time around his DATS friends by now that he knows what it’s called and what words to say.)

That BGM? Yeah, that’s Believer, again, for the first time in ages! The last time we heard it was literally when Yoshino got her Perfect-level back in episode 17. They like to save Believer for the triumphant moments where it’s really appropriate, and there haven’t really been any of those in a while until now, at least not during fights. Again, I really like that Savers does this with its evolution song. Instead of just “oh, here we go again” with the thing that happens literally every episode, it makes the times Believer is used really feel like they matter.

Yatagaramon is a huge crow who incidentally has three legs, because the mythological Yatagarasu he’s based on was a three-legged crow. It’s a neat little detail that I like.

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon. I get it now! It’s not Masaru and the others I should hate! It’s humans with evil hearts!”

Ikuto says this as if he’s trying to reassure Mercurimon that he’s figured it all out now, even though Mercurimon’s gone. And though this conclusion seems obvious from our perspective, it’s really such a big deal that Ikuto’s managed to reach it, given how much of a prejudiced black-and-white worldview he was clinging to in the beginning that he’s slowly had to unlearn, piece by piece. I’m sure Mercurimon would be proud of him. And Yukidarumon, too.

Yatagaramon flies at the Gizmon and grabs its laser-eye with one of his feet just before the laser fires, causing it to explode from the recoil. He throws it into the wall, and with one big attack, it’s over. Rather quick considering that the other three Perfect-levels were going at it for the whole episode without getting anywhere, but we can thank Mercurimon for weakening it. …And maybe Yatagaramon’s also powered a bit by a New Evolution Buff, which is very much not an actual concrete concept but is my term for the way Digimon’s evolved forms tend to appear the most amazing and powerful in the first episode they show up in, for the sake of drama.

(Though, such a thing being an actual phenomenon in-universe wouldn’t be too much of a stretch, considering Yatagaramon’s being powered by the Digisoul of an Ikuto who’s riding the high of having just figured this out, and the grief of having just lost Mercurimon. That won’t be quite as powerful later on once he’s kinda got used to it all.)

It makes sense that things work this way, but it still feels really unfair that Kurata gets to keep his Gizmon’s egg.

Kurata doesn’t even comment on having lost this fight. He just tuts, has one of his men throw a space-time bomb to open up a Digital Gate, and leaves. It doesn’t seem like he brought any other Gizmon with him, and he probably doesn’t want to stick around to find out what Ikuto and the rest of them would do to him while he’s effectively defenceless. Definitely not him being a coward, or anything, right, just a, uh… tactical retreat.

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon… I… will live as a human. A human with a Digimon’s heart.”

There’s only a very short little scene at the end here to fully underline Ikuto’s resolution to follow Mercurimon’s near-final words to him, which seems appropriate.

Masaru nods to Ikuto with an unspoken understanding that the kid is now 100% fully on their side. Their new goal, official DATS mission or not, is to stop Kurata however they can.

…Not entirely sure how they’re planning on achieving that right now, considering that Kurata just fled back to the human world while they’re currently stuck in the Digital World with no way back, but we’ll see how that goes next episode.

There’s a brief stinger with Kurata at the end, showing him in some kind of eerily-lit secret lab of his.

Kurata:  “One of my masterpieces was defeated, but I still have much more in store. Much, much more.”

He’s not referring to the fact that he has plenty more Gizmon where that one came from (although he really does; we’ll be seeing a lot more Gizmon in episodes to come). Rather, he’s looking at something else entirely floating in a huge tank of green liquid.

And while this line of his is of course for the sake of stinger-exposition for the audience, it does make some kind of in-character sense for Kurata to gloat to himself about this. He needs to reassure himself that, so what if DATS and their buddies exceeded his expectations and defeated his one Gizmon: XT, he definitely still has all the power and is completely in control here.

Huh, I never actually talked about the first ending song, did I? Well, you didn’t miss much; all it has is literally just Masaru and Agumon running across a beach, and the song’s lyrics aren’t particularly interesting. Anyway, this episode debuts the second ending song for the series, now that we’re in the second half.

It’s almost as uninteresting as the first one, but we do see all three of the DATS trio with their partners (featuring their new outfits that we’ll be seeing them in for the rest of the series starting next episode), running across a field to meet Ikuto and Falcomon. It’ll become routine soon, but seeing it here for the first time does help solidify that, yep, Ikuto and Falcomon are very much part of the main group now.

Overall thoughts

This one’s also a pretty big episode, in terms of its impact on the plot and direction of the story going forward. It feels fitting how this big momentous 24-25 “two-parter”, so to speak, comes right slap bang in the exact middle of the series, numbers-wise. Functionally the episode itself is mostly a big fight scene, admittedly, but there’s still lots of fun character stuff going on in it too.

I still really enjoy Kurata as an interesting realistic villain, with all his ridiculous layers of justifications to shield himself from any notion that he’s in the wrong. All the gloating and showing off he does a lot in this episode will be very relevant in future. That line about Digimon only being useful as tools is very telling: he hates Digimon because he can’t control them.

Masaru continues to be good; I love his philosophy about how real fights involve you acknowledging the risk of physical and emotional pain for yourself. And it’s delightful how that happens to put him in the perfect position to call out Kurata’s cowardice, which really is the core of why he’s doing all this.

The fight itself is nothing too special, but it’s got a fair bit of fun Masaru determination and tenacity, and things do feel like DATS is pretty screwed and outmatched until Mercurimon steps in.

Ikuto’s finally figured out who he really needs to hate! Look at how far he’s come through his arc. Very deserving time for a new evolution for him. I really enjoy how Mercurimon guides him towards the answer but doesn’t ever tell him outright, leaving Ikuto to piece it all together on his own. What a good teacher.

For that matter, I enjoy Mercurimon also finally figuring stuff out, realising he was wrong to feel betrayed by Suguru and hate all of humanity after the massacre. It’s a nice ending to his arc, too. He was introduced to us as a “villain” and was conflicted and antagonistic for a lot of the time we knew him, but he dies as the hero he always really was, and I like that. Mercurimon was Good.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 21 - Big Panic in the Human World! The Digimon Army Advances!

In this episode, Gotsumon leads an army of SaberLeomon’s followers to attack the human world. As DATS becomes overwhelmed, Gotsumon offers to cease the attack only if Ikuto gives himself up, but Falcomon refuses to let that happen.

First, a quick note about the title. The subs I use translate this episode’s title as, instead, “Big Panic in the Real World”. This is incorrect, as the Japanese very unambiguously uses the word “human”, so I’ve used the correct translation here.

I made a point of correcting this because this distinction is a meaningful one. Unlike at least some other Digimon series, Savers never calls the human world the “real world”. Doing that would imply that the Digital World, and by extension Digimon, are arbitrarily less “real” and deserving of respect and personhood just because they’re digital in nature. It’s very appropriate for the themes of this series that this is never implied to be the case, not even by any of the human characters.

After a short recap, we’re re-shown the last few moments of the previous episode in which SaberLeomon appears before Mercurimon. (Thankfully this repeated bit is also short enough that it doesn’t feel frustrating to sit through again.)

SaberLeomon: “Right now, the Digital World is facing peril that it has never known the likes of before. If you continue to let these humans do as they please, it will be too late for us. Mercurimon, you should already know this.”

It sure seems like he’s talking about a lot more than just DATS wandering into the Digital World to fight Mercurimon under some mistaken assumption that he’s an evil overlord, doesn’t it. Like he and Mercurimon both know there’s a bigger threat to them out there (hmm I wonder why they could think that, given past events) that they’re beginning to sense is getting closer again.

SaberLeomon is of the opinion that the best way to deal with this is to attack the human world and wipe out all humans before anything can happen, and he’s here to ask for Mercurimon’s help in such a battle.

Mercurimon: “Our companions will not escape injury if you go through with this! Sacrifices must be minimal. Let us deal with only the humans who have intruded into our world.”

Mercurimon’s still showing that same mindset of not wanting any Digimon to get unnecessarily hurt in wanton warmongering, and I still respect this a lot.

Mercurimon:  “Do you have a problem with my methods?”

SaberLeomon: “They’re pathetic!”

SaberLeomon is not happy with Mercurimon’s approach, but ultimately leaves to do his own thing without managing to convince Mercurimon to stand with him. Still, Mercurimon stands up defensively at the “pathetic” comment and is left grimacing as SaberLeomon leaves, so it seems like this got to him a little bit. Maybe these two really did use to be pretty good friends and it hurts Mercurimon to realise his old friend thinks so little of him now. Or perhaps this conversation made him doubt whether his more pacifistic approach really is the best way to protect his people.

Back in the human world, in the forests around where Ikuto’s parents live, Hashiba’s men are busy searching for Ikuto after the end of last episode. Ikuto and Falcomon manage to give the men the slip by hiding in a tree, like the forest-dwellers they are. …Except then, when they think the coast is clear, they drop to the ground and almost immediately get spotted again. I guess this is for the sake of opening the episode with an exciting chase sequence, but geez.

They’re bailed out by the DATS car, which Yoshino is driving offroad like an absolute badass. (Have I mentioned she is the most competent member of this team.) …And then I guess offscreen they have a long and boring drive back into the city while constantly looking over their shoulders for the government men, because next time we see them they’ll be back at DATS.

In the Digital World, Gotsumon, who was present during Mercurimon and SaberLeomon’s conversation, comes to meet SaberLeomon on his own.

Gotsumon:  “SaberLeomon-sama’s intentions, I… I truly admire! I have been sharing those exact same thoughts!”

I know just enough Japanese to be able to hear in Gotsumon’s speech for this scene that he’s being really simperingly polite, almost irritatingly so. The subs can’t quite get this fully across, but they do their best. He really, really likes sucking up to authority.

Not that he’s lying about having been thinking the exact same thing. He really wants to go to the human world and murder some humans, too.

Gotsumon:  “I have experience in crossing over to the human world.”

Yeah, sure. Literally once. Kinda overselling how useful you’ll really be able to be to him here.

Really, the more meaningful credentials Gotsumon should be flaunting here is his ability to boss around stronger Digimon than himself and get them to do what he says, which would be perfect for leading an army. Perhaps that’s not something he wants to mention in front of a Digimon even stronger than the kind he usually bosses around, though.

Though SaberLeomon seems much less impressed by Gotsumon than Gotsumon clearly wants him to be, the not-quite-revealed-yet implication of the scene is that SaberLeomon does indeed agree to lend Gotsumon some Digimon troops to go attack the human world with.

(Said troops are presumably groups of Digimon that are loyal to SaberLeomon and share his opinions on wanting to attack the human world. So while, on the one hand, Mercurimon doesn’t want to put any of his Digimon in unnecessary danger, on the other hand, if the participating Digimon are willing to face that danger, that’s fair enough. SaberLeomon isn’t necessarily being that tyrannical – at least as a leader of Digimon – by doing this.)

(…That said, none of the Digimon in this army are going to get lines or characterisation, so really, who knows how they feel about this.)

Opening time! There’s always been this sequence in the opening with the DATS trio amongst a rather destroyed-looking part of a human city, which hasn’t really been relevant until now – the Digimon they usually deal with don’t cause that much destruction – but it’s about to become a lot more appropriate to current events.

After the opening, everyone’s back at the DATS HQ, talking with Satsuma about the fact that they brought Ikuto here despite Governor Hashiba trying to arrest him.

(For the record, though they’re not seen or mentioned at all in this episode, Ikuto’s parents actually did get arrested. We’ll encounter them again in a later episode.)

Yoshino:  “Everything is a misunderstanding. It’ll all clear up with some investigation.”

Yoshino is still running under the assumption that the arrest on Ikuto and his parents was entirely about the false conclusion that the Noguchis were “deliberately harbouring” Hagurumon. She hasn’t the slightest inkling that the arrest could have been orchestrated by someone who wants the Noguchis out of the way regardless of whether it’s justified or not.

Masaru:  “Ikuto was just trying to protect his parents!”

Of course Masaru would take that angle. He understands exactly why Ikuto fake-confessed to it being all his fault. (Well, except for the part where on some level Ikuto feels like it really is all his fault and he deserves to take all of the blame.)

Throughout this whole conversation, Ikuto is right here in the room, sitting with his back to the group, Falcomon at his side. But everyone’s only talking about him, as if he isn’t really here at all, and it’s obviously getting to him. He must feel less like a person that they care about, and more like a liability to them.

As the DATS members continue to discuss what to do about Ikuto and the fact that they disobeyed orders to bring him here, Ikuto quietly gets up and leaves. None of them notice.

Satsuma:  “Find a safer place and move him there.”

Masaru:  “In that case, he can come to my house.”

Masaru is so good! He offers this up immediately without Satsuma asking it of him at all – he wants to take Ikuto in and give him a place to stay and feel at home.

Masaru:  “No objections, right?”

Agumon:  “No objections, right?”

They say this while sauntering towards the chair where Ikuto should be, like the matter’s already settled. Agumon’s habit of sometimes echoing his aniki’s words for emphasis is still cute.

…But of course, Ikuto and Falcomon aren’t there. This is what happens when you talk about him like he doesn’t exist instead of involving him in the conversation about his fate, guys. Even Masaru, who cares about him the most right now, got too wrapped up in the official DATS vibe of things to think to do that until just now.

DATS continues to have unintentionally terrible security, as Ikuto and Falcomon managed to escape the entire building without being caught, so Satsuma orders the trio (Tohma is here too) to search for them.

Masaru:  “Man, he always needs looking after!”

Masaru is still being exasperated and yet so caring. He absolutely will look after Ikuto whenever it comes to it; he just wishes Ikuto would stop making himself need it so much.

Ikuto and Falcomon are in an alleyway somewhere not far from the DATS building, peering out into the city.

Falcomon:  “Ikuto, where are you planning to go?”

Ikuto only winces at these words, remembering several recent events: Gotsumon telling him he’s human and has no place in the Digital World; his human mother doting on her new baby; Hashiba yelling for him to be arrested. Nobody needs him or wants him around. All he does is cause trouble for everyone. He isn’t planning to go anywhere, because he doesn’t belong anywhere.

He doesn’t answer Falcomon and just moves to wander miserably further into the city. When Falcomon tries to call out to him, Ikuto lashes out, yelling at him to shut up.

Ikuto:  “You go back!”

Falcomon:  “Go back? But to where?”

Ikuto:  “Back to Digital World. You can still go back.”

It’s not that he wants Falcomon gone. It’s that he wants Falcomon to be able to be happy, and home, and where he belongs, because at least Falcomon is still a Digimon and still belongs there.

Falcomon:  “But I want to go back with you…!”

Ikuto:  “I can’t…”

Of course Falcomon doesn’t want to go anywhere without Ikuto! (have I mentioned he is Ikuto’s FRIEND and I love him.) Ikuto brushes this off, because he feels like he can’t go back to the Digital World and so Falcomon would be better off going back there without him. Thanks to Falcomon’s phrasing, it does not occur to Ikuto that Falcomon would rather stay in the human world with him than go back home alone.

Ikuto:  “I don’t belong anywhere any more.”

That’s the first time Ikuto’s actually said what he’s clearly been thinking for the past two episodes. It’s only fitting that the circumstances in which he’d finally somewhat open up about his feelings regarding this are when he’s alone with Falcomon, even if he’s also trying to push him away right now.

Ikuto:  “Don’t follow me!”

With this, Ikuto rushes out into the city. Falcomon, of course, immediately tries to follow him – but he gets startled by a passing car (still a bit of a scaredy cat, this bird), and by the time he’s collected himself, Ikuto’s out of sight. Falcomon’s not about to give up; he takes to the skies to try and search for his friend, but with such a big city, it’s going to take a while to find him.

Falcomon:  “Ikuto… That’s mean, just dumping me like that…”

Ikuto absolutely did not do this to be mean. He did it out of his tragically irrational belief that he doesn’t belong anywhere with anyone, but that at least Falcomon can still go back home to the Digital World and be happy. From Ikuto’s perspective, he was trying to be kind to Falcomon. But Falcomon is still just a child and wouldn’t think to consider any possible interpretation of things in which he wouldn’t want to be with Ikuto, so he can’t realise that.

Masaru, Tohma and Yoshino have also split up to search the city for Ikuto, but are having no luck.

Yoshino:  “He should be with Falcomon. Have you found his Digimon signal?”

Miki:  “Still looking. I haven’t found any traces yet.”

Apparently Digimon signals are things that can’t always be detected, even when there’s not any particular special conditions masking them? Yeah, there’s, uh, some flimsy handwaving necessary for the fact that the plot sometimes requires Digimon signals to not be immediately detectable. Still, I appreciate that the writers remembered this was a thing and at least attempted to explain it, rather than completely forgetting about it and hoping the audience would too.

(Though, in this one instance, finding Falcomon’s signal wouldn’t actually help much.)

Time passes. Falcomon’s still flying above the city, hopefully not looking like too obviously weird of a bird to anyone who notices him. Ikuto finds a random spot underneath a railway bridge – where Falcomon can’t see him from the sky, not that I think hiding from his friend in particular is on Ikuto’s mind – and just sits there. He probably doesn’t have any further plans about what to do with himself beyond getting out of everyone’s way like this so he doesn’t keep causing them all trouble.

Evening falls. Masaru has been searching all day.

Masaru:  “I’m exhausted… Damn that squirt for making people worry about him…”

He’s still just frustrated at Ikuto for making them worry, with no attempt to deny that he’s one of the people worried about him, even if he admits that somewhat indirectly. Such a good big brother.

Masaru starts drinking from a water fountain, only for Agumon (who was inside his Digivice all day) to appear and nom the entire fountain’s plinth with his huge mouth. He responds to Masaru’s protests by spraying him with the fountain’s water for a moment before getting serious. Look at him being a dorky kid.

A call comes in on Masaru’s earpiece about a Digimon signal, but it’s not Falcomon. It’s a whole army of Digimon.

(This begs the same question as in episode 19 of how they all found a Digital Gate to get here so easily, which has the same answer of “because it makes the conflict happen, shush”.)

Kudamon:  “The moment we’ve feared is finally here.”

I assume this is Kudamon still effectively running under the assumption that Mercurimon is super evil and totally bent on attacking the human world. The fact that Tohma seemingly didn’t report the whole massacre story certainly doesn’t help with Satsuma and Kudamon’s impression of things. Perhaps Kudamon in particular should be expected to have a more nuanced take on the situation, because he’s from the Digital World and knows about some of its politics… but then again, he hasn’t been back there since he became a part of DATS, so he’s probably pretty out-of-the-loop in terms of even vaguely recent Digital World events… including the massacre.

This Digimon army only consists of two different kinds of Digimon, Pteranomon and Boarmon. Really, it’d have been cool to see a lot more variety in the types of Digimon shown here, instead of weirdly implying that these two particular species happen to be especially war-happy – buuut let’s give the poor under-budgeted animation team a break. The Digimon Analyser not-so-helpfully introduces these as Armour-level, that weird gimmicky evolution level that it doesn’t actually inform us is basically equivalent to Adult in terms of strength.

Satsuma sends an order to the regular police to evacuate all areas where the army is, and then instructs Masaru, Yoshino and Tohma to meet up in the same spot to stop the army together. I’m, uh, not entirely sure that’s the best strategy, but it lets the three characters interact with each other while fighting, so it makes the episode more interesting to watch than if they were all fighting these hordes separately.

Yoshino:  “This really is the worst…”

Yoshino’s still been dropping her “this is the worst” catchphrase regularly throughout the series, but I like this play on it, pointing out that this time it really isn’t such a hyperbole. Don’t speak too soon, though, Yoshino; we’re not even halfway through the series yet. Things can and will get even worst-er.

Masaru:  “It doesn’t matter how many there are! We’ll get rid of every last one!”

Tohma:  “What a Masaru-like way of thinking.”

Tohma took the words right out of my mouth. He’s saying it with an amused smile, too, totally willing to accept Masaru’s Masaru-ness by now.

Masaru:  “Even if there’s one or two hundred of them or whatever, this street fighter, Daimon Masaru-sama, will destroy ‘em all!”

It feels appropriate that he’d bring up the street fighter thing again right now to puff himself up and feel totally capable of this, because after all, this is his turf these Digimon are invading.

Gotsumon, who’s here and leading the army, orders it to begin attacking, and chaos breaks out.

Lilamon gets caught in the brunt of an attack and has to be bailed out by MachGaogamon (offscreen evolutions, by the way!). I would be somewhat side-eyeing the fact that it’s specifically the female character needing to be saved, but this did only happen because Lilamon and Yoshino were saving a little girl’s life and got caught off-guard in the process, so maybe it balances out.

Masaru, meanwhile, can’t do his evolution offscreen because then we wouldn’t get to see him punch a Digimon for this episode, and we couldn’t have that.

Satsuma and Kudamon, watching from HQ, comment on how desperate the situation is getting. Satsuma stands up and pulls out his Digivice – first time we’ve seen it, but of course he has one too – implying that he’s this close to getting out there and joining the fight himself.

But alas, this is not the episode in which we get to see how badass he and Kudamon can be just yet, because they’re distracted by Governor Hashiba entering the room. Not that he says anything for now, and not that him being here should necessarily stop Satsuma and Kudamon from joining the fight if they have to, but perhaps Hashiba’s presence snaps Satsuma back into a more must-follow-the-rules sort of mindset. Fighting isn’t meant to be his job these days.

There’s more fighting. Lilamon gets slammed into a wall by an attack, and this one I am kinda side-eyeing a bit, because MachGaogamon and RiseGreymon are still handling themselves just fine and barely seeming to be hurt at all. I know Yoshino still has her anxiety and issues, but Lilamon is a lot more together as a person and is now being powered by Yoshino’s determination to overcome her anxieties, so I don’t think it’s reasonable any more that she should be any noticeably weaker than the other two.

Each of our Perfect-levels can take out these enemies one at a time pretty effortlessly (they’re effectively Adult, and we all know how evolution levels work), but there’s just so many of them.

Tohma:  “If this keeps up…”

Masaru:  “Keep your chin up! The fight’s just beginning!”

Masaru, of course, is refusing to be fazed by such circumstances. He fights while outnumbered in his street fights all the time and never backs down; this is basically just the same as that, but bigger!

A Pteranomon fires missiles at the trio of humans, quickly enough that their partners can’t get there to protect them in time. They’re saved instead by the pair of PawnChessmon, who are suddenly here, conjuring shields around them. It’s time for Miki and Megumi to finally get in some fighting!

The two of them appear dramatically on top of a nearby building and do an extremely co-ordinated simultaneous Digisoul Charge, complete with fancy poses. They totally practiced this together, just waiting for the day they’d finally get to show off and look cool in front of their colleagues.

Because Miki and Megumi are minor characters, they don’t get to be on par with the main characters evolution-wise, so their partners can currently only evolve to their Adult forms, KnightChessmon. At least them being minor characters also means we don’t have to sit through a full evolution sequence for them.

Not that the KnightChessmon get to do much, because now that we’ve had this little moment of showing that Miki and Megumi’s partners can fight and evolve too, it’s time to have something other than fighting happen.

Gotsumon’s voice booms out across the whole city (uh, somehow; it sounds like he hijacked all of the city’s broadcasting systems because… he’s digital, I guess?), announcing a one-hour ceasefire. He’s willing to call off the attack permanently if the humans comply with two conditions of his.

Gotsumon:  “One, destroy all transportation equipment in the human world which connects with the Digital World.”

Actually a sensible request! Rather than wasting time and energy and way too many completely innocent human lives trying to eliminate all of humanity, simply threaten the humans who matter into not being able to come to the Digital World ever again. This would be the simplest way to solve the Digital World’s problems, even if he is kind of basically doing terrorism to get this to happen.

Gotsumon:  “And two, hand over the cause of this entire calamity, Ikuto.”

…But condition two is Gotsumon still just being a prejudiced prick who is hellbent on murdering Ikuto in particular. This is not necessary – not even if he insists on believing that Ikuto is totally responsible for everything bad! If all of the transportation equipment gets destroyed, Ikuto will be stuck here in the human world, and he won’t be the Digital World’s “problem” any more!

SaberLeomon may have had a hand in telling Gotsumon to do this ceasefire and give humanity condition number one, because it’s a lot more sensible than Gotsumon’s usual schemes (though I also wouldn’t entirely put it past SaberLeomon to have wanted to keep attacking). But condition two was definitely all Gotsumon’s personal agenda, because SaberLeomon has no interest in Ikuto at all.

Ikuto has been wandering aimlessly around the city, even since the attack began. Perhaps he felt when he saw the army approaching that this was still all because of him. Gotsumon’s words seemingly confirm it.

Masaru:  “Cut the crap!”

Yoshino:  “There’s no way we’ll accept such conditions!”

The problem with including condition two is that it’s so completely unreasonable that none of DATS are ever going to be willing to give up Ikuto just like that – and because of that, they’re also brushing off the somewhat-more-reasonable condition one. Condition one alone may have been something DATS would have been willing to negotiate about and might actually have got Gotsumon somewhere in protecting his world.

(Or, well, it’d have seemed like it – but I suspect that not every human who has access to interdimensional transportation equipment would have actually complied.)

Unfortunately, Hashiba declares that they will comply with these conditions, and orders DATS to search for Ikuto and hand him over, despite furious protests from Masaru in particular.

Hashiba:  “This is the sacrifice of one person over the lives of thousands of others. Which one is more important? Surely I don’t have to say it?”

It’s a fair enough objectively-impersonal reasoning, but also, the smarmy grin Hashiba gives as he says this certainly doesn’t come across like he cares about the fact that he’ll be sacrificing a child for this. He must only be thinking about saving face any way he can by stopping the attack. This is perhaps making him come across as a little more outright evil than is really necessary for someone with his role, but, eh. Hashiba’s actual character isn’t nearly as important as simply the effect he has on the plot by being the obstructive politician he is.

Satsuma:  “Unfortunately, this is the decision of the government. We cannot overrule it.”

Satsuma really does not like the fact that this guy is his boss and he has no choice but to answer to him, does he.

But DATS aren’t going to have to search for Ikuto, because Ikuto’s come here on his own to willingly give himself up.

Ikuto:  “Gotsumon! I’m right here! So stop attacking!”

Gotsumon:  “Oh? How admirable of you. What’s brought about this change of attitude?”

You did, Gotsumon, by telling him he doesn’t belong anywhere and that he brings nothing but disaster to everyone. You had no idea how much that would make him believe it.

Ikuto:  “Hurry up and do it! Then go back to your Digital World!”

Ikuto doesn’t answer, of course, because he doesn’t care about admitting how he feels about all this to Gotsumon of all people. And I don’t think he even realises that it’s Gotsumon who made him feel this way, because to him, right now, it’s just the truth.

That “hurry up and do it” is a lot less innocuous than it sounds. What Ikuto knows he’s really saying is “hurry up and kill me”. This kid is actively intending to give up his life right here, and he doesn’t even really care.

Before Gotsumon can give his troops the literal execution order, Masaru rushes forward to try and reason with Ikuto.

Masaru:  “Stop! Ikuto! You don’t have to do that!”

Ikuto:  “Don’t come! I’m… bringer of disaster. I don’t belong… anywhere!”

He really, actually believes what Gotsumon said about him. The events of the last few episodes – the mess at his parents’ house, and DATS wondering what the hell to do with him, and now this – have only confirmed it to him: not only does he have nowhere to belong, but all his existence does is cause problems for everyone else. He genuinely thinks that everyone around him would be better off if he were dead. This poor, poor kid.

Masaru:  “Shut up! You find for yourself the place you belong in! If there isn’t one, then you make one!”

Masaru is so good! It’s so appropriate for someone as self-assured as him to have strong opinions about carving out your own place in the world, to the point of doing it all by yourself if nobody else will give you a starting point. It’s not that close to Masaru’s own situation, since he already very much belonged with his own family, but it still feels right for his personality and identity that this is something he’d immediately be able to express these thoughts about.

Masaru:  “Don’t lose hope and do this kind of stupid thing! It won’t make anyone happy!”

And I love this: Masaru realising that Ikuto believes he’s doing this for the sake of everyone else, and telling him that that’s wrong. There are so many people who care about Ikuto – his human parents, Mercurimon, those at DATS, not least Masaru himself, to say nothing of a certain adorable bird friend – and Ikuto getting himself killed is going to do precisely the opposite of making any of them happy. It’s also very Masaru for him to hate the idea of anyone ever just giving up, especially if it’s someone he cares about.

Ikuto:  “No-one… No-one needs me!”

That is just blatantly, provably not true. But Ikuto has got so caught up in this spiral of hating himself simply for existing that he’s forgotten all about that right now.

Getting bored of being interrupted by this, Gotsumon advances again to try and end things – only for Falcomon to swoop in from nowhere, furiously headbutting and then bitch-slapping Gotsumon in the face. Look at him protecting his friend!

Ikuto:  “Falcomon! Why?”

Ikuto doesn’t understand why Falcomon would ever want to protect him, oh my god this poor lost confused kid.

Falcomon:  “Don’t ask why! We’re friends, remember?”

Of course they’re friends! And while part of Ikuto forgetting this has got to be down to all of the recent revelations about his humanity and him unintentionally being the cause of a lot of problems, it’s also relevant to note that Ikuto may not precisely have thought of Falcomon as his “friend” that much even before all this, back in the Digital World. He was, after all, very caught up in the notion that he needs to be a “Digimon warrior”… and warriors don’t exactly have friends, as such.

Falcomon:  “Now I don’t have anywhere else to go either. Just like you, Ikuto.”

Aww, Falcomon. He must have spent a lot of time thinking while searching for Ikuto, such that he figured out the real reason Ikuto pushed him away. By attacking Gotsumon, he wasn’t just protecting Ikuto; he was showing that he’s willing to sacrifice his place in the Digital World and “betray” his species if necessary, because staying with Ikuto is more important to him than any of that.

Falcomon:  “I love you, Ikuto.”

Of course he does! This is so clearly meant in a platonic way, and platonic “I love you”s are the best and melt my heart every time. There should always be more of them. Falcomon is such a good and precious bird friend to be able to earnestly and openly say this.

Falcomon:  “That’s why I don’t need to belong anywhere. As long as I’m always with you!”

Frieeeeends! Have I mentioned they are FRIENDS and I am the biggest sucker for friendship and this whole scene melts my heart.

Ikuto is starting to tear up at Falcomon’s words, realising despite everything he’s been feeling lately that there is someone who cares about him and needs him and wants him around. He does have somewhere he belongs already – because he belongs with Falcomon!

Falcomon:  “I don’t care if you’re a human or a Digimon. To me, you are you, Ikuto!”

And of course Falcomon never cared about that! He learned that Ikuto’s a human at the same time Ikuto himself did, but Falcomon was never shown being particularly surprised by or agonising over it, because it never mattered to him what species his best friend was. He always saw right past all that and saw him as Ikuto first and foremost. What a good friend.

Throughout most of this speech, the BGM has been that grand inspiring piece that’s apparently Savers’ Main Theme, which seems appropriate! This series’ (narrative) main theme is all about the bonds between humans and Digimon regardless of their different species, after all.

Look at them being FRIENDS, they are adorable, I love them.

With that, Ikuto agrees to let Falcomon fight with him and triumphantly evolves him into Peckmon. (I remember thinking on my first watch that this’d be a good moment for Ikuto to reach Perfect, but don’t worry, there’s an even more appropriate moment coming for that.) This proves that he’s firmly changed his mind about getting himself killed and is willing to fight back against Gotsumon after all.

Gotsumon considers this to be humanity officially calling off the truce, even though he could still have at least tried to bargain for the first condition of making them destroy all their transportation equipment. Seems he never actually cared that much about that one. What a surprise.

So he orders his army to resume the attack, and the fighting breaks out once more, now with Peckmon and the two KnightChessmon helping out.

There’s a bit where Yoshino screams in fright as a Boarmon bears down on her, but I’ll give them that one – despite how much braver she’s managing to be now, Yoshino is still really freaking scared of all this, so it’s reasonable that she might just freeze up at times. And Lilamon gets to be the one to save her, as she should.

Plus, it’s followed by a shot of Masaru and Tohma getting blasted to the ground by an explosion, so the guys aren’t faring much better in the chaos either.

Despite their valiant effort and newfound backup, DATS are still getting inexorably overwhelmed by their opponents’ numbers. It does not look like they are going to be able to win this battle at all.

Looking out over the carnage from a distance, we see a man in a labcoat, someone we haven’t been introduced to yet but whom anybody who’s been paying close attention may be able to recognise. (Because of that, I won’t bother being coy about his name, especially because he’ll be properly introduced in the very next episode anyway.)

Kurata:  “Well, well, well… Looks like everyone from DATS is fighting a bitter battle. Let me help you… Be grateful about this.”

A bit full of himself, this guy. You’d think that helping with a battle that DATS is losing would be reward in and of itself, but no, he wants them to be grateful to him and tell him how amazing he is for helping.

He clicks a remote switch in his hand, and a massive Digital Gate opens up in the sky. While most Digital Gates don’t always have suction properties to them, we know that that can be a thing that can happen, thanks to the incident with baby Ikuto. It seems that this guy has figured out a way to give a Digital Gate the suction property on purpose; this Gate begins sucking in everything below it.

DATS and their partners quickly realise what’s going on and grab hold of something to avoid getting pulled in (and all the civilians in the area have long since been evacuated), but the flying Pteranomon, Gotsumon on his Yanmamon, and the hoofed Boarmon can’t really hold onto anything. They all get helplessly sucked into the Gate and back into their world. (This would also incidentally clear up any eggs that were made from the army Digimon being defeated. We weren’t outright shown any of them leaving eggs, but they would have done, and this neatly solves that problem too.)

If you can’t defeat the army, just remove it from the battlefield altogether. That’s one way to end this fight.

The labcoat guy smirks and chuckles to himself as he watches his accomplishment. This is totally someone who has perfectly pure intentions here.

Overall thoughts

This is a fun episode! Though the fighting scenes themselves aren’t especially interesting character-wise, the entire city being attacked by a Digimon army is easily the highest stakes we’ve had so far, which adds some extra tension to it. DATS really do seem like they’re getting completely overwhelmed, and they are, before that certain someone bails them out.

But mostly, this episode is about Ikuto’s ongoing arc, which continues to be great. The way he pushes Falcomon away because he’s convinced he doesn’t belong anywhere and feels Falcomon would be happier in the Digital World without him, ouch, my heart. And then him being so utterly certain that all he does is bring disaster that he’s casually willing to get himself killed to protect the city, god this poor kid.

Good thing Falcomon is here to be the best adorablest friend, I love him, I love his unflinchingly earnest heartfelt speech to Ikuto about how important he is to him, he is exactly the kind of friend Ikuto needs right now, it melts my heart. Falcomon best birb.

Masaru is also in fine form this episode, unthinkingly offering to take Ikuto in at his place (hold that thought), being very clearly worried about him when he runs away, and giving one of his good passionate speeches about why Ikuto shouldn’t sacrifice himself and how to find a place where he belongs. Ikuto still isn’t quite overtly listening to or noticing how much Masaru cares about him just yet, but he's getting there. Masaru’s definitely a positive influence on him.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 23 - Once More to the Digital World! Insekimon’s Rampage!

In this episode, political pressures force the DATS team to return to the Digital World with Kurata as their commander, and they fight Gotsumon. Meanwhile, Ikuto sorts out his confused feelings about the human-Digimon conflict.

It’s abundantly clear here that the recaps only cover events directly related to the plot, because there’s no mention of any of the adorable domestic family bonding that was obviously the best part of last episode.

The episode opens on a short scene of Ikuto sitting in Masaru’s bedroom, gazing out at the Anime Sads Rain outside. He flashes back to SaberLeomon telling him that, since he’s a human, he can’t understand the Digimon’s suffering. It seems like that genuinely got to him and that he doesn’t have the self-assurance to be able to assert to himself that he obviously understands the Digimon’s suffering just as much as any Digimon.

Falcomon is also there, worrying about his friend.

Man this is an extremely early opening for once. Completing the series of shots of the trio in a destroyed city, here’s Masaru getting ready to punch a thing, as ever!

Masaru:  “I don’t get why the Digiegg disappeared.”

At DATS HQ, the crew are very explicitly aware of this having happened to SaberLeomon’s egg and yet commenting on it like its just a weird mystery and not something really horrific, actually.

(What I may not have made clear in last episode’s commentary is that the in-story narrative is definitely going with the fact that they don’t realise they killed SaberLeomon, rather than that they’re fully aware they did and just don’t care. Which is definitely better than them having some actual genuine moral dissonance about this. It’s just still weird to me that they’d somehow miss what it means for his egg to have disintegrated, especially given what they’ve been told by Mercurimon and Ikuto about the massacre.)

Tohma:  “That’s not the only mystery around here.”

Tohma’s referring to the strange mechanical Digimon that showed up to help them against SaberLeomon. Kinda surprised he hasn’t pieced together that these two mysteries are connected. Unless he has, and he’s just keeping quiet about it because it’s only conjecture.

I wonder if another part of the reason the writers never picked up on the fact that everyone should be thoroughly horrified at having killed SaberLeomon is because they were primarily thinking about presenting this like a plot-driven mystery, rather than a character-driven source of drama and tension. Which is definitely the wrong choice in my opinion, but I’m just trying to present possible mindsets to explain the writers’ uncharacteristic major misstep here.

Satsuma enters the room followed by a row of armoured, helmeted soldiers carrying some big sci-fi guns. Anyone who was paying close attention to the silhouettes in a certain flashback will already know what a very Bad Thing this is, but DATS didn’t see that flashback, so they can’t be blamed. Kurata brings up the rear, still acting all casual and friendly.

Kurata:  “Word has it that the transportation equipment is fixed.”

Masaru:  “I didn’t hear about this!”

Agumon:  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Yoshino:  “We can’t have you breaking it again when we finally got it fixed!”

Yoshino’s got an extremely good point there. Not telling Masaru about this until he needed to know was definitely the safest approach. I am amused that this is a precaution they took.

Satsuma explains that they’re going to be accompanied by Kurata and those troops to the Digital World, by order of the Ministry of Confidentiality. We shift into a chronologically-earlier scene of how this came about.

Monster Appears

The Government Knew

These are some front-page headlines, complete with photos of SaberLeomon, that have found their way to Governor Hashiba’s desk. I imagine there were probably also plenty of news reports about the Digimon army from the previous episode, but perhaps this time is the first point at which the government’s knowledge and involvement in all this has also been leaked. Hashiba, who is a politician and a public figure, and whose job it’s meant to be to keep this sort of stuff confidential, is almost certainly in a lot of hot water right now.

Hashiba:  “DATS will go at once to the Digital World and defeat Mercurimon, who is the cause behind all of this disorder!”

They’re still assuming that it’s all Mercurimon’s fault. Satsuma, too, who’s here being given this order by Hashiba, doesn’t try to counter it. Tohma never reported back about the whole massacre thing they learned of in episode 18, so Satsuma still has no reason to assume there’s more nuance to this than just Mercurimon Is Evil. Everyone on the human world side has no idea that Mercurimon actually opposed the attacks in the previous two episodes; they’re assuming everything was done on his orders.

Satsuma’s only protest to this order is that, thanks to evolution levels, Mercurimon is too powerful for them to simply go and fight, and they need time to come up with a strategy.

Hashiba:  “There’s no time for that! We’ve already fallen into a state of warfare!”

If Hashiba was thinking primarily about the war itself, he ought to understand that taking time to devise a proper strategy is the best approach. He’s being impatient less because of the war and more because right now the public is blaming him for the war, and he can’t have that. He is a politician, after all.

Kurata:  “In that case… Why don’t we consider discussing peace negotiations?”

Kurata, of all people, is the first person to explicitly suggest simply negotiating with Mercurimon. That sure is a thing.

He butts into this conversation while leaning casually against the door of the office, and Satsuma asks him what he’s doing here, meaning that Kurata apparently invited himself to this meeting that he wasn’t meant to be a part of. Hashiba doesn’t seem to mind.

Hashiba:  “The other party is a Digimon. Do you really believe talking will get through to it?”

The Ministry of Confidentiality is evidently not very well-educated in basic facts about Digimon, such as, you know, the fact that they’re people and not just big scary monsters.

Kurata:  “You shouldn’t be so prejudiced.”

Ha. Ahem. Listen to me having a totally coincidental and definitely not faked bout of coughing over here. These sure are some words that Kurata said.

Kurata:  “Mercurimon is very intelligent, and it’s quite likely that he can be persuaded through reason.”

Still, note how Kurata cites Mercurimon’s “intelligence” as an argument for why he might listen, like he’s some kind of very intelligent wild animal like a dolphin or a chimp, instead of simply pointing out that Digimon are people. That’s quite telling.

Kurata is also not trying to make any kind of argument that these recent attacks might not have been on Mercurimon’s orders at all. He’s still presenting Mercurimon as explicitly the bad guy, just one who might listen to reason.

Kurata:  “No-one will be hurt if we settle this through peaceful negotiation. You, Governor Hashiba, will not have to take the blame for war, and we’ll be able to come around to an easy solution. Mmm, it’s all full of benefits as far as I can tell.”

It is very clear that Kurata is deliberately appealing to Hashiba’s self-interests here. He works for the Ministry of Confidentiality as well and probably spends a lot of time advising Hashiba on Digimon matters, which is to say that he’s very much learned how to pull the governor’s strings while letting Hashiba feel like he’s still the one calling the shots. We’re getting just a little glimpse of that here, but this can’t be the only time he’s done so.

(Those times in previous episodes that Hashiba waltzed up to DATS and made an official decision that didn’t have properly justified motives behind it? Those were all Kurata’s doing, is what I’m saying.)

Hashiba:  “Since you’ve argued to that extent, I’ll leave you in charge.”

In doing this, not only has Kurata got himself a ticket onto DATS’s next Digital World trip to confront Mercurimon, he’s also got himself put in charge of it. Offering to be the big hero who’s willing to negotiate (and therefore, most importantly, get Hashiba out of trouble) really worked to butter the governor up.

Satsuma is still here in the office for this exchange, watching Kurata’s smarminess and looking unconvinced. He clearly knows something’s up, but he doesn’t know what exactly, and he doesn’t have the authority to be able to protest.

Kurata:  “Well! I didn’t think *I’d* get personally involved in this business!”

Back in the present at DATS HQ, Kurata is still being all humble. He definitely just found himself getting accidentally swept into this after making a casual suggestion and certainly wasn’t planning on getting involved at all.

Kurata:  “But as it’s come to this, I will be your commander from now on.”

He’s not very good at flawlessly keeping up the act, though, since he sure looks like he’s relishing the thought of getting to boss these people around for someone who’s supposedly so humble.

Tohma:  “Captain!”

Satsuma:  “This is an order from the Ministry of Confidentiality.”

Tohma is the first one to actively protest; clearly he can also tell that Something Is Up. Satsuma isn’t allowed to express his own distaste about this idea, but his reluctance is clear in the fact that all he can do is reiterate that this is an order, with no actual vouching for Kurata anywhere.

Masaru:  “Gimme a break! Why do we have to be ordered around by someone who isn’t even in DATS?”

Agumon:  “That’s right! You’ve never even fought a Digimon before!”

Masaru also has problems with this, though I imagine his are less about him having remotely picked up on any of the suspicious political powerplays going on, and more about him simply taking issue at the idea of following orders from some guy who has nothing to do with any of this and whom he doesn’t even respect.

(That said, given that Masaru doesn’t respect Kurata despite the latter being his dad’s former assistant, that still says something about Masaru’s judgement of people. He probably couldn’t articulate why he doesn’t like this guy, but he does not like this guy.)

Kurata sneezes as Agumon gets close to him. He’s still doing that. Totally allergies, definitely not passive-aggression.

Kurata:  “Don’t try to blame this on me. Besides, I’m not necessarily doing this because I *want* to.”

Yep, totally not Kurata’s fault or idea at all.

Kurata:  “The Digimon on the other side have completely made us their enemies. We don’t know when they’ll come to attack us…”

He’s not even passing the buck onto Hashiba here, but rather blaming the Digimon for him having totally no choice but to get wrapped up in this. Us humans, we’re such victims of these unpredictable violent monsters, you see.

Masaru brushes Kurata’s words aside and strides past him towards the Digital Dive machine.

Masaru:  “That’s why I’m telling you to leave it all to us. Mercurimon’s not the type of guy you can persuade through talking in the first place. The only thing that can get through to him are the fists of a passionate man!”

Oh, Masaru. He actually means this, too – the idea that his fists can get through to Mercurimon. It’s not talking, because Masaru’s never much for talking, but he is nonetheless seeing the fight that he intends to have with Mercurimon as an effort to communicate with him. Effectively, Masaru is also advocating for the idea of negotiating with Mercurimon, entirely of his own volition! He just has a rather different method for it in mind, and certainly doesn’t trust Kurata with any of this.

Lalamon:  “It sounds like you’re eager to go to the Digital World, but not to follow Kurata-san’s orders.”

Yep, that’s about the size of it, Lalamon.

Meanwhile, Tohma has been looking concerned, and now he calls out for Masaru to wait.

Tohma:  “It’s too soon. I’ll have to re-adjust the pattern buffer to transfer this large number of people. Please give us one more day.”

Based on Tohma’s behaviour, this is an excuse and not actually the truth. Apparently they were supposed to head off right now, but because of the unexpected Kurata intrusion, Tohma wants to buy himself a little more time to try and figure out what Kurata is up to before he blindly goes along with it.

There’s a brief silent exchange between Kurata and Tohma at this: Kurata’s initial response is to scowl in frustration; Tohma narrows his eyes threateningly; and then Kurata catches himself and puts on the friendly-and-humble act as he acquiesces. It’s a fun subtle little moment of power-play between these two. Kurata hates that Tohma just took some of his control away from him, but he’s forced to accept that he’s currently not in a position to act like he’s the one controlling everything and so has to relent. And Tohma knows full well that that’s what he’s doing with this move.

Kurata:  “Doctor Tohma. I foresee great things from you. Please take care of it.”

Kurata leaves Tohma with this as he walks out, which actually seems to wrong-foot Tohma a little bit (Gaomon notes that he’s gone pale). Tohma is not used to people here praising him in a way that’s about his academic intellect and talent, and was probably especially not expecting it from Kurata of all people. There’s almost something subtly threatening about it, and I think he can tell.

(This is all some very-clearly-deliberate foreshadowing of things to come.)

Tohma:  “Captain. Could there be another motive behind the Digital Dive?”

Satsuma:  “I don’t know what his true motives may be, but that does not change the fact that our mission… is to stop the fighting between our world and the Digital World. Don’t forget that.”

So, before anyone tries to complain that DATS are being really dumb to just let Kurata waltz into the Digital World like this, please be reassured that at least Satsuma and Tohma are both extremely suspicious of Kurata and not buying his act one bit. They unfortunately just don’t really have a choice but to obey Hashiba’s orders and go along with this. Kurata has talked his way onto this mission, and all DATS can do now is try and make sure it goes the way they want regardless.

That said, Tohma specifically is in the best position to potentially figure out what Kurata’s motive is, because he’s not only deeply suspicious of Kurata but also was there when Mercurimon told them about the massacre of Digimon, which Satsuma still doesn’t know about. Yet, the fact that Tohma chose not to inform Satsuma of that fact says a lot about how much he’s willing to think about or confront it himself, so perhaps it’s no surprise he’s not able to join the dots there. It is unfortunate, but very human.

Since Tohma bought them an extra day, Masaru has the evening meal at his house to tell his family – and Ikuto and Falcomon, who are still staying there – about the mission tomorrow.

Masaru:  “It might be difficult for you, but we can’t leave Mercurimon alone when there’s the possibility he’ll attack our world again.”

Look at Masaru understanding that Mercurimon is important to Ikuto and therefore that Ikuto might be conflicted at the idea of him and Masaru having to fight each other. He’s so good.

Perhaps a lot of the reason why Masaru was the first person to genuinely propose some form of “negotiation” with Mercurimon was because of how much he’s been bonding with and understanding Ikuto. Ikuto sees Mercurimon as someone worthy of respect, and so Masaru buys into that too and can also see Mercurimon that way rather than as a warmongering evil villain. And that’s with Masaru having not even been present for most of Mercurimon talking about the massacre in episode 18.

(I suppose that really the first person to propose negotiating with Mercurimon was Yushima, since that’s what he actually went and did in episode 18. But he’s unfortunately not here right now to put that stance across more firmly. Kurata’s lucky that he isn’t; it’d have been interesting to see what Yushima’s take on this whole Kurata situation would have been if he were here.)

Sayuri:  “Oh, my.”

Chika:  “You’re going into danger again?”

Aww, these two. They know that what Masaru’s doing is important, but they still can’t help but worry about him.

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon really hates that humans come into Digital World. That’s why… You’ll push him into war!”

Mercurimon does hate humans coming to the Digital World, but I don’t know if that’d actually push him into outright war against the human world, given how desperate he is to avoid Digimon casualties. Maybe Ikuto’s being influenced by believing that the recent army attack was Mercurimon’s doing when it wasn’t.

Ikuto:  “I go, too! To Mercurimon!”

Masaru’s talk of communicating-with-fists to Mercurimon is one thing, but Ikuto going to talk to him would make even more sense. If Mercurimon would listen to anyone – any human, that is – it’d be his surrogate kid.

Agumon:  “But if you’re gonna go, who will you side with?”

However, this question gives Ikuto second thoughts, because he doesn’t know. He’s still loyal to Digimon, but he knows he’s a human now, and he knows that there’s people in the human world who are good. Who should he side with?

Yet, Agumon, who’s still a child and is seeing this in a rather simplistic way – probably not helped by having his aniki nominally present this as a fight – is approaching this problem completely wrong by acting like Ikuto has to pick a side. Ikuto’s also too young to properly see the flaw in that straight away, so this question just stumps him.

Masaru:  “If you can’t make a decision, stay here. You’ll just make it harder on yourself.”

Masaru is so good, worrying about Ikuto’s feelings and the emotional turmoil this might cause him. It’s also very appropriately Masaru, since he’s always got so much conviction and self-assurance in his actions, that he wouldn’t want Ikuto going and doing something major like this if he’s not sure of himself.

We interrupt this serious discussion of Ikuto’s inner conflict with these two utterly adorable dorks sleeping in a ridiculous heap together. What absolute cuties.

Please also appreciate the “AGU” pillow that Agumon has. They wouldn’t sell those in stores, which means that Sayuri must have made it for him, and of course she would. She’s such a sweetheart.

While we’re here in Masaru’s room, let me go off on a quick tangent and finish a thought I brought up in episode 2 but couldn’t continue at the time because the deal with Masaru’s dad hadn’t been fully established back then. Masaru’s room is really surprisingly tidy for someone like him. So I headcanon that the only reason for this is that one of the things he remembers his dad telling him when he was around was to keep his room tidy, and Masaru very determinedly stuck to that, because his dad means everything to him. Yes.

Ikuto and Falcomon are on a futon on Masaru’s bedroom floor, but Ikuto can’t sleep. He’s still thinking about Agumon’s question of who he’d “side with”.

Falcomon notices he’s still awake and tries to talk to him, but Ikuto just brushes him off and hides under his blanket. Ikutooo, talk to your friend, he wants to help you.

(In the background, quietly enough that it’s not even subbed, Agumon can be very faintly heard mumbling about Sayuri’s fried eggs in his sleep. He still has the happiest dreams.)

Over in the Digital World, Mercurimon is lost in thought, remembering Suguru. He probably tried not to think about Suguru much after the massacre, which he believed was Suguru betraying him, but recent events have put the man back on his mind.

Mercurimon: “There wasn’t the slightest bit of hesitation in his soul. When I felt that same Digisoul hit me, my beliefs wavered. I’ve begun to wonder if not all humans were evil.”

Masaru’s Digisoul from when he punched Mercurimon in episode 18 reminded Mercurimon of Suguru’s very similar Digisoul, which in turn reminded him of the kind of man he’d believed Suguru was before the apparent “betrayal”. He was too wrapped up in his fury back in that episode to dwell on it too much then, but now he’s had plenty of time to reflect on what he’s been reminded of. He’d spent all these years furiously thinking of Suguru as a liar and a traitor, but, perhaps not, after all? Maybe he really was the person Mercurimon believed in, and maybe other humans could be that as well?

(Of course, he ought to know not all humans are evil, purely because of Ikuto. But it seems he places Ikuto in a different category from the rest of humanity in his mind, perhaps because he was raised by Digimon and so it’s different, or perhaps out of simple irrational bias.)

Gotsumon:  “Humans and Digimon are *not* meant to interact with one another!”

That’s pretty difficult to achieve, though, don’t you think, when it’s an inescapable law of nature that Digimon are influenced by human emotions? Sounds more to me like the two species are inextricably linked, no matter what any individual might believe about this.

Mercurimon isn’t so sure about what Gotsumon’s insisting any more.

(And also, something I’ve been meaning to point out at some point: his design looks like he’s wearing a wolf mask over a human-like face, but the wolf eyes are a part of his actual face, because we see them emote on many occasions. He must have some really weird anatomy going on there.)

Gotsumon:  “So many years, I have served you, Mercurimon-sama. That is because I, too, earnestly wish for peace in the Digital World!”

Not entirely convinced about how loyal Gotsumon is claiming he is, given he defected to SaberLeomon for a little while there and is only back because SaberLeomon died, and also given he was secretly plotting to kill Mercurimon’s surrogate kid this whole time. Feels more to me like Gotsumon was just here because Mercurimon happened to be the nearest authority figure for him to suck up to, to try and make himself feel more important than he really is.

Suddenly, Mercurimon’s eyes widen, and he stands up. The humans have arrived in the Digital World, and like last time, he can sense it. (Somehow. Guess that’s just one of those Ultimate-level perks.)

Mercurimon:  “An evil shadow is surrounding them. A shadow of deep hatred that intends to bury us alive.”

Not entirely sure how he can also sense this, but… he’s not wrong. It’s a very distinct contrast with the last time humans were here, in which Mercurimon was largely unbothered and willing to leave them be unless they confronted him directly. This time, he knows that this is not okay.

Gotsumon, for once actually being a loyal follower and having his priorities in order, rushes off to do his part to confront the threat before Mercurimon even asks him to.

Gotsumon:  “You are the only one who can protect the Digital World from the humans, Mercurimon-sama! Please don’t forget that!”

How the script has been flipped. It’s now being presented very much like the Digimon, and Mercurimon in particular, are the good guys in this whole situation. Which they are.

Now that they know where Mercurimon lives, the Digital Dive this time put the DATS crew plus Kurata and his troops right on the outside of Infinity Ice Ridge, to save them the time getting there.

Kurata:  “I see the scenery hasn’t changed…”

Kurata has, of course, been here before. During the expedition, at the very least.

Soldier:  “There is no sign of a Digimon within one kilometre of this area!”

Kurata:  “That’s wonderful.”

For having come the Digital World, Kurata sure prefers there to be as few Digimon around as possible.

Tohma narrows his eyes as Kurata leads the group further in. He is still Not Convinced by any of this.

Sayuri:  “Ikuto-kun! Fal-chan!”

Let’s take a moment to appreciate how Sayuri’s started calling Falcomon “Fal-chan”, just like “Agu-chan”.

Sayuri’s calling to them because she made them food, but Falcomon shows up alone to tell her that Ikuto isn’t hungry. We know that’s a sure sign that this kid’s not okay.

Falcomon leaves Sayuri and approaches Ikuto, who’s curled up in Masaru’s room, like he’s trying to hide from the world.

Falcomon:  “Could you be scared of seeing Mercurimon again?”

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon doesn’t forgive traitors… He won’t forgive me.”

That is so completely not true. Mercurimon loves Ikuto like a son first and foremost, and not a single thing Ikuto has done has constituted “betraying” Digimon, anyway. That asshole Gotsumon’s words about how Ikuto doesn’t belong in the Digital World, how every Digimon agrees that this is true, how all Ikuto does is bring disaster – he’s still taken that to heart far too heartbreakingly much. Though it probably also doesn’t help that Mercurimon is rather strict and detached as parent figures go, such that Ikuto may not realise just how much the big wolf-man loves him and might assume he’ll approach this like a ruler rather than like a father.

Falcomon:  “That’s not true! You’re important to Mercurimon…”

Falcomon knows what’s up! He’s been paying enough attention to the way Mercurimon acts around Ikuto to know, even if Ikuto hasn’t.

Ikuto:  “But I’m human.”

This seems to make Falcomon unsure what to counter with. Come on, Falcomon, learning that Ikuto’s human didn’t change a single thing about how you felt about him – you know it won’t for Mercurimon either, surely?

…These two don’t realise that Mercurimon has always known about Ikuto being human, do they. They think he’d take the revelation as some huge betrayal, rather than something he’s always loved Ikuto in spite of.

Ikuto:  “My body… human… But my heart… Digimon…”

Aww, that’s such a good way to put it. He is still a Digimon at heart, despite his human body. The fact that he’s able to express that rather than feeling like he deserves to have no connection with Digimon at all just because he’s physically human is a pretty big step forward, really!

Masaru:  “Just you wait, Mercurimon! My fists will send along the message of my soul to you!”

Back in the Digital World, despite the ridiculous way he’s putting this, Masaru is still very distinctly thinking of this upcoming fight as communication, and I love it. It’s exactly the kind of thing he did when he met Agumon and they befriended each other through fighting! And Masaru doesn’t even know that his fists have already imparted some of his soul to Mercurimon, in that they’ve made Mercurimon remember Suguru and begin to doubt his hatred. There is real meaning and substance to this philosophy that Masaru is beginning to express here.

Yoshino:  “That’s just a fancy way of saying ‘punch his lights out’, isn’t it?”

Lalamon:  “Yep.”

Masaru:  “You don’t get it, do you? Stuff like words is useless between men.”

Yoshino and Lalamon don’t get it, but it’s not because they’re women like one could read Masaru’s response as being about. They just haven’t managed to see through the Masaru-ese and realise that he genuinely is talking about communication. Here, Masaru is presenting “men” as people who understand this concept of communicating through fighting without the need for words, which doesn’t actually have a thing to do with gender even though he and Mercurimon both happen to be male.

Gotsumon shows up on his Yanmamon to demand that the humans leave at once. Kurata responds using a megaphone, which is honestly a practical thing to do when they’re yelling at each other from relatively long distances, but which mostly comes across as pretentious when none of the other characters ever needed to use one.

Kurata:  “We’ve come to talk! We request an audience with Mercurimon-san!”

Gotsumon:  “I won’t! I won’t fall for that! You plan to catch him off-guard and leave Mercurimon-sama for dead, right?!”

Usually Gotsumon judges humans far too negatively, but not here.

And then, even though this is the episode in which we finally fight Gotsumon himself, he first summons a Zudomon, another random dialogue-less Perfect-level he’s found a way to boss around somehow. Though I guess it is very in Gotsumon’s MO to do this, this is… kind of blatant padding for episode time. Apparently this episode didn’t quite have enough story to fill the whole runtime, so we’re going to spend longer on fights than necessary.

(This is another reason why it’s a shame nobody reacted to accidentally murdering SaberLeomon like they should have. Ikuto’s reaction and further conflict over that would have taken up a fair bit more time, sure – but it’s extra time that they had to spare! We could have cut out the extraneous fighting from this episode and spent it on Ikuto accepting the idea that his new friends genuinely didn’t mean to murder a Digimon and are still on his side!)

Here is Kurata’s body language as soon as he finds himself faced with a large, hostile Digimon, even though he has his own troops and the DATS team to deal with the threat. This man is just really terrified of Digimon, though he usually manages to hide it.

Masaru:  “Looks like we really can’t get there that easily!”

…Says Masaru, with a huge grin on his face. Of course he was hoping he’d get to fight some more.

He and Agumon rush straight in, much to Yoshino and Tohma’s eternal exasperation. Zudomon swipes its hammer at them, and they narrowly avoid being impaled by the icicles it produces, then land in a heap in a nearby snowdrift. Yeah, sometimes the rushing-straight-in tactic does not work.

Meanwhile, Kurata and his men are running for cover around a corner. You’d think they’d be helping to fight, but, well, all they have are those big weird guns? They don’t even have any Digimon, right, so it makes sense that they’d just stay back and leave this to DATS, whose job this is?

(Still, if they’re apparently no use at fighting Digimon, it kinda begs the question of why those soldiers are even here, now, doesn’t it, hmm.)

Kurata very helpfully instructs DATS to handle this, through his megaphone, while still hiding around the corner. Agumon is flailing around with his head stuck in the snow. Yoshino is Extremely Done with all this nonsense.

A brief cutaway to the Daimons’ house shows Ikuto at least having come downstairs, but he’s just sitting dejectedly in the living room, paying no attention to the comedy show Chika’s laughing at. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s only half down to his mood – he probably doesn’t get the human-culture humour of it.) Sayuri notices and looks worried.

(Chika’s comedy show that she’s finding hilarious appears to be pretty slapstick in nature, which explains a lot about episode 10.)

We cut back to the Digital World, and you can tell this episode’s padding for time because they didn’t take advantage of the cutaway to have Gaomon evolve offscreen. MachGaogamon flies at Zudomon, but gets hit and crashes into a cliff.

Kurata:  [through his megaphone] “What are you doing? You’re losing!”

Yoshino:  “Oh, shut up.”

I so appreciate Yoshino being so very Done with Kurata’s smarmy hypocritical bullshit, acting like he has the right to boss them around while hiding and providing zero help.

Lilamon and MachGaogamon then proceed to take out Zudomon easily with one attack each, making this a very uninteresting fight that had very little reason to be here.

So, back to the actual main adversary for this episode, Gotsumon.

Tohma:  “Gotsumon! You’re not strong enough to take us on your own! Let us pass!”

Tohma knows his evolution levels: Gotsumon is a Child-level and stands absolutely zero chance in hell against Perfects.

Gotsumon:  “I wonder about that! Let me show you… my true form!”

With this, Gotsumon rises into the air… and starts evolving. Apparently that’s a thing he can just do, at will, without a Digisoul?

It’s very rare to see Digimon evolve without some kind of human intervention in any Digimon series, so I’m not entirely clear on what the worldbuilding on this usually is. But I gather, based on the fact that the higher-levelled Digimon tend to seem older and wiser as characters, that non-human-influenced evolution is generally a thing that happens over time as Digimon age and get naturally stronger. It also generally seems like this type of evolution is permanent, in that the higher form becomes their natural form and they don’t need to revert between battles like the human-partnered Digimon do.

But then, Gotsumon has always seemed emotionally more mature than other Child-levels like Falcomon, so it’s quite likely he is older. That and him calling this Perfect-level form he’s about to evolve into his “true form” makes me suspect that he is supposed to be naturally Perfect-level at this point in his life. Apparently, I guess, Digimon can willingly choose to revert to a lower evolution level than their current natural one if they want to, and if they do so they can evolve back into their “true” form whenever they feel like it.

We’re kept in suspense about Gotsumon’s evolution as we cut back to the Daimons’ house again. Sayuri enters Masaru’s room to find Ikuto and Falcomon nowhere to be seen, except for a black feather fluttering down outside on the balcony. They’re on the roof, gazing up at the sky. Sayuri climbs up there to sit with them (an impressive feat when she’s wearing a skirt) like it’s no big deal.

Sayuri:  “Whenever Masaru was worried about something, he’d always come up here and look at the sky, too.”

Aww, little Masaru! Much as Masaru likes to appear to be someone who’s always confident and together, he must have had plenty of reason to feel worried and sad about things when he was smaller, thanks to the whole missing dad situation. Imagine a younger Masaru climbing up onto the roof to try and escape from the world and stare at the sky and wonder why his dad hasn’t come back. Poor kid.

Sayuri:  “You two… are very alike.”

She’s noticed! Of course she has.

Sayuri:  “Want to talk about it?”

Sayuri is clearly so used to climbing up here because she’s done it many times before to talk to Masaru in those moments when he felt lonely and down. And now she’s doing the same for Ikuto, even though he’s not even her own child. She’s so good.

And now for the dramatic reveal of Gotsumon’s evolved form: Insekimon!

Yoshino:  “…He just changed colour.”

I love that these Digimon writers have the self-awareness and cheek to poke fun at Digimon’s tendency to do this. I love it.

Insekimon’s new paint job does come with some extra perks, though. Inseki means “meteor”, so now he has space powers, and he can levitate.

You’d think that this would mean he’d have wanted to be Perfect-level the whole time, because the levitation is certainly more convenient for getting around than having to ride someone else. He doesn’t even have the argument that his Child form is conveniently smaller like it would be for most Digimon, not when both forms of his are exactly the same size.

Given all this, the only reason I can think of for why Gotsumon liked to be Gotsumon all the time even when his true identity was technically Insekimon is that he wanted people to underestimate him. He’s very good at buttering up “stronger” Digimon and getting them to do what he wants, and perhaps part of why that works so well for him is that these other Digimon assume, oh, he’s just a Child-level, there’s no way he’s actually in charge, I’m really the one calling the shots here. I don’t know if his tactics would work so well if these other Digimon knew he equalled them in strength and wondered why he couldn’t just go and do all this fighting himself.

There’s kind of a parallel to be made with Kurata here, with the way he’s been buttering up authority figures and now we’re seeing him hiding behind and bossing around “stronger” people rather than taking the risk of getting personally involved himself. But Gotsumon isn’t quite as bad as Kurata, given that he’s finally willing to put himself on the front line here. It seems like he feels things are getting desperate enough for him to need to.

As Insekimon’s busy showing off his powers and gloating, Masaru catches him off-guard by leaping off the cliff he was thrown up onto earlier and punching the meteor-man in the face. A pretty well-aimed leap, considering that this target isn’t huge like most of them.

RiseGreymon goes in to attack, but Insekimon vanishes, and then all three DATS Digimon are hit by something unseen. He’s not teleporting or literally invisible, he’s doing the moving-too-fast-to-see thing.

On the Daimons’ roof, Ikuto has implicitly got done telling Sayuri about the whole human-Digimon situation he’s caught in the middle of.

Ikuto:  “What should I do?”

Sayuri:  “I’m sorry. I don’t know. Because you’re the only one who understands the feelings of both the humans and the Digimon, Ikuto-kun.”

Sayuri is so good! I love that she’s able to recognise that, even though Ikuto was turning to her for advice because she’s An Adult, this isn’t something it’s actually her place to have an opinion on. Ikuto is in the perfect position to understand and empathise with both sides of this conflict, more than anyone else, and having that pointed out to him is exactly what he needed.

Sayuri:  “What do you want to do?”

And then Sayuri is also the first person to make it clear to Ikuto that he has the right to choose. He doesn’t have to feel like he’s betraying one side by being too much of the other and therefore he has no business getting involved at all, because he understands both. This is his choice to make.

Back in the fight in the Digital World, the DATS crew are trying to figure out how to slow Insekimon down. Lilamon has an attack called Un Deux Pollen that could paralyse him, but the problem is hitting him with it in the first place.

Tohma:  “If we could at least detect his position…”

Masaru:  “That’s right! When he punches, he should be within reach!”

Look at Masaru doing a strategy again! He needed to be prompted towards it by the others’ discussion, but he can do this kind of thing from time to time. It’s also a very appropriately straightforwardly Masaru way of looking at it, which might be why he’s the one who picked up on this idea before the others did.

RiseGreymon hears this and braces himself as Insekimon zooms invisibly at him. He’s knocked back by an invisible impact in his stomach, and then… literally five seconds later (I counted), Insekimon becomes visible, still exactly there where the impact was. That’s, uh, not how you portray someone moving so fast they can’t be seen? And it’s also not how you attack if you have the ability to move that fast – you don’t just stay there and make yourself visible, you zoom right out of the way as soon as you’re done attacking.

The correct way to portray this would be to have Insekimon’s attack and RiseGreymon’s counterattack both happen so fast that we can’t see Insekimon until after RiseGreymon has already hit him. RiseGreymon needs to be blindly swiping at where he expects to be hit in order for this to work at all.

Regardless, RiseGreymon grabs Insekimon after he’s just hung there stupidly in front of his opponent’s stomach. We’re supposed to see this result as Masaru’s strategy having worked and not Insekimon having been a huge moron, so let’s go with that for the purposes of the characters’ reactions.

Masaru:  “All right!”

Yoshino:  “Unbelievable.”

Tohma:  “You’re using too much brute force.”

Tohma is still not very happy with acknowledging that sometimes Masaru’s straightforward brute-force strategies are actually the best approach to take.

Lilamon showers Insekimon with her paralysing pollen while he’s there in RiseGreymon’s hand, and then RiseGreymon flings him into the air and he’s unable to dodge a Winning Knuckle from MachGaogamon. Unfortunately, Winning Knuckle is still refusing to live up to its name any longer, so all this results in is the stock shounen trope of “Did we get him?” *smoke clears* NOPE. Insekimon is still standing, and still moving, so all that the whole direct-counterattack and pollen strategy achieved was… nothing, apparently?

Insekimon rises into the air to charge one of his space-themed attacks of summoning meteors from a black hole, and it’s while he’s busy doing that and not dodging that RiseGreymon blasts him with an attack that charges faster than his to end the fight. The way it’s presented, it feels entirely like this single hit would have been enough to defeat Insekimon alone and that the Winning Knuckle had nothing to do with it.

So that’s how DATS end up winning – because Insekimon was stupid enough to forgo the advantage of his speed and leave himself open while charging up a huge attack. Not because of any of the actually-somewhat-interesting (if badly portrayed by the animation) strategising they did to try and work around the advantage he had. Why?

In short, this fight is very badly choreographed, and next to the completely extraneous Zudomon fight we had beforehand, really smacks of trying to pad time in the episode. It’s a shame.

Insekimon: “Mercurimon-sama!”

I do like that these are Insekimon’s final words as he disintegrates into an egg. It’s like he’s calling out to Mercurimon as the last line of defence to protect the Digital World once he’s gone.

And, yes, he leaves behind an egg, because that’s what’s supposed to happen.

In the human world, Ikuto’s now heading towards the main control room at DATS HQ to ask to be sent to the Digital World.

Falcomon:  “Are you sure about this, Ikuto?”

Ikuto:  “Yeah. I want to stop the fight.”

Sayuri’s chat with him on the roof was enough for him to figure out and be willing to act on how he feels about all this. Agumon was wrong when he implied this ever had to be about Ikuto picking sides. He can be on both sides at once and simply wish for humans and Digimon to stop fighting. He knows now that humans aren’t all evil; he knows Mercurimon’s not a bad guy either. Neither side needs to fight the other, in theory, but Ikuto’s the only one right now who can properly see this.

A little bit later, the DATS team has made it to Mercurimon’s throne room, which is still a mess of rubble after their big fight last time. Kurata and his goons kind of hang back in the corridor. For the sake of this making any amount of sense, we really need to pretend that the corridor is a lot more in shadow than it appears to be and so Mercurimon can’t properly see them from his throne. The only other explanation is that he’s so focused on Masaru that he doesn’t really pay attention to the bonus humans who tagged along this time, except that doesn’t really make too much sense when Mercurimon explicitly sensed something much darker and more evil with them this time. He can’t see them, okay. Shush.

Anyway, Masaru steps forward.

Masaru:  “Stay back, everyone. We’ll solve this with a man-to-man fight!”

Yoshino:  “Wait, you were being serious?”

Of course he was being serious, Yoshino! Masaru is always being 100% serious when it comes to fighting and manliness. Really, you should expect that from him by now.

Masaru:  “Mercurimon! I’ve come to finish this!”

Mercurimon:  “Is that you, Daimon Masaru?”

Masaru:  “Yeah! No need for any more words! The answer will show itself through our fists!”

Masaru’s generally wording this in a very fighty-sounding way, but you can still pick up on how he’s thinking of this as a negotiation. When he says “answer”, he isn’t talking about “which of us is strongest”.

(Masaru knows perfectly well how outclassed he is by Mercurimon’s strength, as much as he may hate to admit it; if he were approaching this as a fight that he needed to win, he’d be a lot less eager and more subtly stressed about this.)

Masaru:  “That’s being a man!”

Mercurimon: “Hmph. You can’t fight what’s in your blood, is it? We may have been destined to meet like this.”

Hah. Mercurimon knows exactly where Masaru gets this from. It must feel appropriate for him to be about to “fight” the son now after having fought and bonded with the father in a similar way.

As the two rush at each other and are about to exchange fists, Ikuto appears and yells for them to stop. He shows up, panting, at a side entrance to the throne room; maybe there’s a shortcut through Mercurimon’s palace that he knew about that helped him get here more quickly.

Ikuto wasn’t there for any of Masaru’s talk about this fight being his way of negotiating (and probably wouldn’t have realised that’s what Masaru meant even if he had been), so he’s seeing this entirely as a straightforward warlike fight between two people he cares about and doesn’t want it to happen.

Overall thoughts

This one’s another episode that’s a bit of a transitional get-from-A-to-B sort of affair, and it has a few issues, but there’s still plenty of things to like about it.

I enjoy the political powerplays going on in the early parts. There's a clear sense that Kurata is deliberately pulling Hashiba's strings to get himself assigned to this. Meanwhile, Satsuma and Tohma clearly know Kurata is not to be trusted, but they aren't sure exactly why not and don't have the authority or the evidence to protest this even though they can tell it's Bad. Plus the juicy foreshadowing of future interactions between Tohma and Kurata is fun.

Though other even better things could have been done with it if certain events of last episode had been handled differently, Ikuto’s character arc still continues to be solid here. He’s experienced enough in the human world by now that he has all the pieces he needs to realise what he wants to do, but he still isn’t able to put them together and figure it out on his own without Sayuri there to help him and tell him that it’s his choice. Sayuri is good.

I also can’t help but appreciate that this is the first episode in which Masaru begins to vocally advocate a principle of fighting in order to communicate with people! That is not just empty nonsense; he really means this, and this is going to keep being a running theme with his character for the rest of the series. I really enjoy Mercurimon’s moment of doubt and wondering if he was wrong to think Suguru betrayed him, too. Masaru has already got through to him by punching him, a little!

The fight with Insekimon (and the fillery Zudomon) is unfortunately kind of largely there to pad out time and has some very silly badly-choreographed bits. At least there are interesting lore implications with Gotsumon's "true form" being Insekimon. And given how Gotsumon’s been the most explicit actual villain up until now, what with spending most of his time trying to murder Ikuto, it is an unexpected turnaround that in the end he’s defeated as something of a “hero”, actually having his priorities straight for once and fighting to protect the Digital World.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 20 - Save Your Mother, Ikuto! Hagurumon’s Cage

In this episode, Ikuto meets his human parents and refuses to acknowledge them, until a Digimon appears to rampage under the influence of Ikuto’s own emotions from when he was a baby and takes his human mother hostage.

After a (back to being reasonably short) recap of the previous episode, we open on the same ending shot of Masaru looking at the Noguchis’ home from a distance.

Falcomon:  “Is that Ikuto’s house?”

It’s kind of interesting that Falcomon is so willing to call it this. He must have only just learned of Ikuto’s humanity himself in the last episode, but he’s been surprisingly quick to internalise it. Ikuto is human and has human parents, so those human parents’ house is also Ikuto’s house, and Falcomon is okay with that. He must be thinking about this in terms of what would be best for Ikuto – those humans in that house love him and will take care of him! – while also not quite having enough understanding of his friend’s struggles and issues to realise that Ikuto isn’t actually going to want this.

Masaru:  “How about it? Does this place look familiar to you?”

Ikuto doesn’t respond. He’s still sitting downcast in the back of the car, not even looking at the house. He probably doesn’t want to, just in case he does find that it looks familiar to him, which would overturn everything he thought he knew about himself.

Yoshino:  “The event was ten years ago. How can he remember that far back?”

Masaru:  “I can remember! Ten years ago, I fell off the monkey bars once. Look, you can still see my scar!”

Masaru is so straightforward. He can remember some things from ten years ago, so everyone should be able to! No, Masaru, remembering something from ten years ago when you were four is very different from ten years ago when you were a baby.

It’s also kind of remarkable that Masaru can even remember something from that long ago on his end, not just when pressed, but to the point of immediately bringing it up as an example and assuming that everyone should be able to remember things that far back. As you can imagine, this has everything to do with the fact that ten years ago was back when his dad was still in his life. That is 100% why he’s making such a point of this. This memory of his about falling off the monkey bars is one we’ll be hearing about again later, and it very much involved his dad.

Masaru’s scar that he claims to have is not visible in this shot, and it’s never visible in any shot, even on close-ups of his face. Which, sure, is probably mostly the animators forgetting this is a thing. But what we can in-universely take from this is that the scar is really very small and faint, such that Masaru probably would have easily forgotten he had it if he hadn’t made a point to himself of remembering that day.

The group goes to ring the doorbell, but nobody’s inside. They hear sounds from behind the house and head around the side to see a woman doting on her little baby girl.

This woman has an exact match to Ikuto’s very unusual hair and eye colours. Based on the logic of anime genetics, this is absolutely Ikuto’s biological mother, no mistake. The baby also has a little braid in her hair, a lot like the one Ikuto’s always had in his. Turns out that was from his birth mother and not something he did himself in the Digital World!

The whole group watches this from a distance, without being noticed, unsure what to say to announce their presence. After a moment of staring at her, Ikuto grimaces, almost like he might be about to cry – and then turns and runs away.

He must be able to tell that this is his birth mother, but he still doesn’t want to admit it. And even if he did, what then? How can he just go up and introduce himself to her like that? And even if he did that… she’s already got another child, anyway. She doesn’t need him.

The rest of the group chases after Ikuto through the surrounding woods and watch him narrowly avoid running into a man on a motorbike. Ikuto and Falcomon escape further into the woods, chased by Yoshino and Lalamon, while Masaru and Agumon end up crashing into the motorbike guy instead.

The man in question introduces himself to Masaru and Agumon as Kenji Noguchi, Ikuto’s birth father. He’s already heard from Satsuma that DATS had found Ikuto and were bringing him here. He expresses his relief to know that Ikuto’s alive… but then he asks them to leave.

And then we go to the opening, for drama. Okay, look, shush, there’s not a single sign of Ikuto in the opening, because they didn’t want to spoil his existence to begin with. They’re not going to change it to include him now, either, so I don’t know which bit of the opening to put in such an Ikuto-centric episode; have this generic shot of the main trio standing outside DATS.

When we cut back from the opening, Kenji has brought Masaru and Agumon into his and his wife’s abandoned former lab underneath their house to tell them about how they lost Ikuto ten years ago. His wife is still not there for this.

(I like how Agumon flails around trying to get a cobweb off his nose as Kenji talks; it’s a cute detail that gives us something to look at during the expository dialogue.)

The Noguchis were preparing their experiment to open a Digital Gate between the worlds – probably the first time such a gate was ever opened deliberately and not just through natural causes – while baby Ikuto was nearby in his crib, playing with a robot toy. The Gate opened successfully, but, whoops, turned out it also came with a pretty strong suction force that picked up loose objects including some papers and also Ikuto’s entire crib, baby and all, sucking them into the Digital World.

And, okay, it might seem kind of careless of the Noguchis to have just casually left their baby child near an experimental interdimensional portal like this. But in their defence: they live in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, so it’s probably hard to find a babysitter out here. Both of them needed to be there to work on the portal, so they had no real choice but to also have Ikuto in the room so they could keep an eye on him. And his crib was a fairly safe distance away from the portal. The portal was new and unprecedented technology. They didn’t know it was going to suck things in. It comes across to me like perhaps they could have been more careful, but not that they were horrendously negligent and were basically asking for this to happen.

Ikuto’s mother, Misuzu, calls out to him in desperate anguish as she sees him get sucked into the portal, looking every bit like she’s about leap in there after him herself. But her husband holds her back, and the Gate closes seconds later. They both stare in horror as it dawns on them that their child is now lost in another dimension – and then Misuzu clutches her head and just screams. Props to her voice actor here; you can really get a sense of how badly this broke her.

(Back in the present, Agumon has gotten rid of the cobweb and is looking sad and sympathetic at this story, which is pretty adorable of him, especially considering that Digimon don’t quite get this whole parents thing.)

Kenji goes on to talk about him and his wife participating in the Digital World expedition in the hope of finding Ikuto. I enjoy how, while Kenji mostly looked worried here, Misuzu looked so determined. She would have leapt right into that portal the moment it took Ikuto from her if she could have, and now she’s here anyway and she’s going to find her son, and she is not going to think about what she’ll do if she doesn’t.

But they didn’t, of course. All they found was Ikuto’s crib, and the robot toy, which they kept as a memento and still have in this abandoned lab today. No Ikuto.

Kenji:  “The wound in our hearts, especially my wife, Misuzu’s, was very deep. She even stopped talking to other people for a while.”

The show doesn’t actually use the word, but from this I think it’s pretty clear that what Misuzu suffered from was some very severe depression. Pretty understandably so, given everything that’d happened.

They’re now outside, looking from a distance at Misuzu as she continues to dote on her new baby daughter.

Kenji:  “Now ten years later, with our daughter’s birth, her emotional wounds are finally beginning to heal. If she knew about Ikuto now, Misuzu would surely relapse into distress. I don’t want her to be hurt any more.”

His motives are understandable. His wife’s been through a lot, and he doesn’t want her to suffer more.

But dude, Kenji, have you asked her about how she’d feel about this? Are you really sure that you know better than the person who actually has these feelings and this trauma? You might care about her, but you’re not putting very much faith in her emotional agency as a person here. Misuzu didn’t break and fall into depression because she’s a poor weak fragile woman; she did so because what she went through was incredibly traumatic, and anyone might have reacted the way she did. Have some belief in her ability to cope with this. She’s come this far through it all while not even knowing if Ikuto’s alive; surely learning that would help.

Upon hearing all this from Kenji and being asked to leave again, Masaru tenses up in anger.

Masaru:  “Don’t say such selfish crap! Ikuto’s lived all alone, not even knowing what you guys looked like! You call yourselves his parents?!”

He’s getting worked up about this for a very different reason, looking at things from Ikuto’s perspective… except that he’s rather missing the point.

Ikuto had Digimon parents. He had Yukidarumon as a very clear mother, and although she was murdered when he was young, he now has Mercurimon as a sort-of father figure to fill the gap. He never grew up feeling alone, nor wishing for human parents that he didn’t even know he was missing in the first place. This isn’t Ikuto’s perspective on things at all. And Masaru should know at least half of this, because while he wasn’t there for the part where Mercurimon said Ikuto is like a son to him, he has heard Ikuto refer to Yukidarumon as his mother.

But Masaru’s not able to see this clearly, because what he’s doing here is very transparently projecting his own feelings about his missing father all over this other kid’s very different parent issues. He sees another kid who’s been without his (biological) parents for ten years, and he doesn’t even think about the rest of the context before relating that to his own situation. Masaru misses his dad terribly, but it’d be even worse if he couldn’t even remember what he looked like!

And if he was suddenly presented with the chance to finally see his dad again, only to learn that his dad didn’t even want to? What kind of excuse for a parent would do that?! Every parent who has the opportunity to be there for their kid has to do that; Masaru is so sure of that because he knows how painful it is for them to not be. His own dad only isn’t there because he literally can’t be, and that’s the only good reason any parent should ever have for leaving their kid behind.

Episode 11 was Masaru projecting his dad complex all over another kid’s family issues, and now in this episode he’s doing the same thing for an entirely different family. Show Masaru some family issues and he will project onto them. I love that this is a thing he does.

Masaru:  “What’s that stuff about ‘I don’t want my wife to be hurt’? When she’s hurt, you live together sharing the pain! Isn’t that what a family does?!”

This part is a lot more on-point, while still also drawing from Masaru projecting his own experiences. He and his mom and sister have dealt with the pain of his missing dad by talking about it, and sharing it, and being there for each other through it all. That’s his conception of how a family should deal with a difficult experience such as one of them going missing, and it’s genuinely probably the most healthy approach to it! Running away from pain never helps; you deal with it by facing it, even though it hurts.

It doesn’t seem like Misuzu has truly faced and processed any of her trauma about what happened to Ikuto. (She ought to be getting therapy, but There Are No Therapists in fiction, and even if there were you’d be hard-pressed to find one who was willing to buy the whole Digital World thing.) It feels more like she’s feeling better now due to being able to dote on her new child the same way she did towards Ikuto, but that’s not actually facing the problem so much as it’s just papering over it and distracting herself from it. What she really needs is to properly face what happened to Ikuto and come to terms with it, which is bound to be a lot easier now than it would have been before, now that they at least know he’s alive! If Kenji really cared about her recovery and really understood, he should help her with that, rather than continuing to have her run away from anything to do with Ikuto without even giving her a choice.

Masaru is extremely projecting with regards to how he thinks Ikuto would feel about this whole thing, but I do very much agree with and approve of his stance on this aspect of it, at least.

Kenji:  “You don’t know anything… You don’t know how long she’s kept on blaming herself for losing Ikuto!”

Then surely learning that he’s alive and relatively okay would help, not the opposite? Come on, Kenji. Think about things from her perspective, rather than just how much you don’t want to see her in pain, regardless of whether that’d help her or not. She’s stronger than you’re giving her credit for.

The argument gets interrupted by Misuzu hearing their voices, asking her husband if he’s brought guests. Masaru and Agumon are around the corner of the house enough that she can’t see them, and she evidently didn’t hear exactly who they were talking about, so Kenji denies that he has guests (talk to your wife, dammit) and privately asks Masaru and Agumon again to leave.

Masaru fumes some more, but after even Agumon, who doesn’t understand why Masaru’s so worked up about this, suggests they should probably leave, he gives in for now.

Masaru:  “Fine! Sorry for the intrusion!”

He’s technically being polite in his words (which is rare for Masaru!), but his angry tone and the absolutely wonderful dorky stomping of his walk away make it so clear that he is not remotely happy about this. Hmph.

Elsewhere, having thoroughly shaken off Yoshino and Lalamon’s pursuit, Ikuto’s sitting dejectedly in a field of flowers. Falcomon comes to try and talk to him.

Falcomon:  “Ikuto… Don’t you want to meet her? That person could be your mom.”

Being not as filled with rage at humans as Ikuto is, Falcomon doesn’t really care about the fact that this woman is a human and is just thinking, surely Ikuto should be happy to see that he still has a mom?

Ikuto:  “Wrong! My mother only Yukidarumon!”

Falcomon:  “Do you really think so?”

I am going to assume that Falcomon is saying this in response to Ikuto’s phrasing of “only” – that he’s protesting the idea that Yukidarumon is Ikuto’s only mother, and not that she’s his mother at all. Because, blood relation or not, of course Yukidarumon was his mother, and of course Ikuto’s always going to feel that way! Falcomon of all people should understand that, because he loved her too in the same way.

The point is not that Yukidarumon isn’t his mom, but rather that, even though she’s gone, he still has another mom who loves him, someone whom he might be able to belong with like he was afraid he didn’t belong anywhere last episode. That’s more or less what I think Falcomon’s trying to get across here, but I do wish he’d put a little more emphasis on validating Ikuto’s feelings for Yukidarumon – something like “of course Yukidarumon is a mother to you too, but also…”

Falcomon:  “Didn’t you feel it, too? At the very least, I felt it. That person’s hair and eye colour, the way she laughed… It all felt just like you…”

Technically, Falcomon, being a Digimon, shouldn’t actually be aware of the concept of genetic inheritance and children looking like their parents. But even if he doesn’t necessarily get that it’s because of genetics, he can at least tell that, while most humans look rather different from each other, Ikuto and this woman look really similar, and surely that means something about how they’re connected.

The way they laugh is something that’s a lot more likely to be an environmental thing and not actually genetic, though, so Ikuto shouldn’t by all rights have a similar laugh to Mizusu. (Plus, I can’t notice such a similarity myself and don’t think Misuzu’s voice actor actually went to any efforts to sound like Ikuto.) Maybe Falcomon’s just projecting, because they feel similar to him due to the way they look, or just because that he knows this is supposed to be Ikuto’s mother and wants him to have a place where he belongs.

It is cute that Falcomon is so familiar with the way Ikuto laughs, though. They are friends, have I mentioned.

Ikuto, of course, isn’t having any of this and angrily tackles Falcomon to the ground.

Ikuto:  “Did you forget what humans did?!”

With this, we get our first actual flashback to Yukidarumon’s death – part of it, at any rate. The forest is aflame, and Yukidarumon is on the ground; she’s already been fatally wounded, though we aren’t shown what did it. I’m not sure whether there’s anything significant about the fact that Ikuto’s only remembering the moment of her death and not the moment of her being killed by humans, or whether that’s just because there’s parts of this story the writers want to keep hidden from us in the audience for now.

Yukidarumon:  “I can’t go any further. This is farewell. Run away quickly, you two!”

Little Ikuto:  “I don’t want to! We take Yukidarumon with us!”

Little Ikuto and Falcomon try to get under Yukidarumon’s arms to pull her along, bravely refusing to just run and save themselves, but she’s too heavy and can’t muster any of her own strength. All she can do is gently stroke Ikuto’s face and try to tell him one last thing.

Yukidarumon: “Listen to me carefully, Ikuto. A sad and painful fate may be in store for you from now on. But Ikuto… you must never hate the humans… Because, you are…!”

With appropriately terrible timing, Yukidarumon dies before she can finish her sentence. She was clearly about to say “you are human too” – but Ikuto was just a kid who’s always seen himself as a Digimon, and he was far too distraught by watching her die in front of him to be able to figure out what she was working towards saying there.

Still, props to Yukidarumon for trying to tell him this. There are tears in her eyes as she’s dying, not for her own sake, but for Ikuto’s. She understands that this is going to hurt him, but more than that, she realises it’s going to hurt him even more if he lives his life hating humans for this and then one day learns that he is one. The only thing she cared about as she was dying was trying to save him from that pain however she could. It’s not her fault that the dramatic anime timing cut off her message just before the key part.

Little Ikuto clutches at the disintegrating data that used to be Yukidarumon in anguish.

Little Ikuto: “Mom… Mom! MOM!!!”

Based on the way he called her “Yukidarumon” just a little earlier in this flashback… this might be the first time he’d ever called her “Mom”. Ouch. This poor kid. She is absolutely his mom, whether he has another more biological mother or not.

Back in the present, for lack of anything better to express his rage at, Ikuto clutches angrily at a flower. A metaphor about how he keeps directing his fury at the wrong things that don’t actually deserve it?

Ikuto:  “Humans… enemies! I never forgive humans ever!”

It’s the same script he’s always been clinging to ever since she died, even as he’s started to see evidence that it’s not that simple. Because if he doesn’t hate the humans, the people who killed her, what the hell is he supposed to do with all this pain?

(And what’s it supposed to mean if he’s a human too, and if there’s another human who’s technically more his mother than Yukidarumon was?)

Ikuto:  “Come along, Falcomon. I show them that that woman is not my mother!”

It’s very understandable for Ikuto’s state of mind right now that he wants to prove that’s not his mother, but, since he’s going to get interrupted before we see him attempt to do so, I am kind of curious as to how he’s planning to do this. Though, knowing Ikuto and his straightforward impulsive nature (just like someone else we know!), he might not actually have anything specific in mind beyond maybe a vague “fight her because humans are the enemy???”

Some Anime Sads Rain later – I guess it’s responding to Ikuto’s sadness, for a change, or maybe the Noguchis’ in general – Kenji is alone in the abandoned lab when the old Digital Gate begins to spark back into life on its own. Misuzu hears this from outside and immediately comes rushing in.

Misuzu:  “The Digital Gate’s finally opened again after ten years! Ikuto might be coming back to us!”

So much for insisting that your wife is totally fine and better now so long as she focuses on her new kid and never learns anything about Ikuto, Kenji. That wound of hers is still there and not healed; she clearly deserved to know that Ikuto’s already back.

Out of the Gate comes, not Ikuto of course, but a Hagurumon, who uses its gears to possess baby Ikuto’s robot toy. The robot rapidly grows in size and begins to morph the Noguchis’ entire house into a giant robot, while the couple are still inside it. They flee, but Misuzu gets tripped up by some cables and caught inside. The last thing she manages to do is pass her baby daughter, Yuka, over to her husband so he can get at least her out safely.

Misuzu:  “Don’t worry about me! Honey, take care of Yuka!”

Look at her not even worrying about herself and just being so desperate to not lose another of her children. She is so much braver than her husband gives her credit for.

Kenji and Yuka manage to escape, while Misuzu winds up trapped inside the giant robot-house, caught up in a bunch of cables, and… look, the less said about the way she’s drawn while in this position, the better. The lead artist for this episode is very clearly a Straight Dude; let’s just leave it at that. Ugh.

Elsewhere, Masaru and Agumon meet up with Yoshino and Lalamon, who’ve given up on their search for Ikuto for the time being.

Masaru:  “What about Falcomon’s Digimon signal?”

Lalamon:  “Maybe it’s because of the thunder, but I can’t trace him anywhere.”

I appreciate the writers at least remembering that tracing Digimon signals is supposed to be a thing Lalamon can do and throwing in a quick handwave for why she can’t do it this time. They, uh, don’t always remember to do even that much.

Yoshino doesn’t want to call into HQ for help, either, because she knows full well how much trouble they’ll be in with Satsuma if she tells him they lost Ikuto. She has her priorities straight.

Satsuma happens to call in anyway to tell her about the Digimon signal at the Noguchis’ house. Not that this was entirely necessary, given that the house has become a giant robot that should be pretty visible even from some distance away at this point.

Ikuto and Falcomon, who’d also been heading back here in Ikuto’s attempt to “prove that woman is not my mother”, also can’t exactly miss the sudden giant robot. They recognise Hagurumon, because Digital World natives don’t need a Digimon Analyser.

Ikuto:  “Did he also come here to kill me, on Gotsumon’s orders?”

It’s so sad that Ikuto immediately jumps to assuming this. Gotsumon’s words last episode about how all Digimon agree about wanting him gone really lodged somewhere deep.

Falcomon:  “I don’t think so. Hagurumon is really stubborn, so he never lets anyone order him around. Yukidarumon always said so.”

But look at Falcomon not falling into that same mindset and understanding that Digimon are individuals who won’t all just blindly follow Gotsumon’s bigotry. (I guess they recognise this as not just any Hagurumon but a specific individual that they’ve encountered in the past.) It’s cute that he doesn’t quite trust his own judgement on this and only believes it to be true because of Yukidarumon’s word on it. He’s still just a kid, too.

(Too much of one to have the emotional maturity to be able to articulate properly to Ikuto that of course it’s nonsense to think all Digimon hate him now just because Gotsumon says so. Alas.)

Masaru and Yoshino show up and suggest that Hagurumon is here purely by accident, just like one of DATS’s usual random Digimon incidents. Then Kenji runs up, begging them to save Misuzu from being trapped in there. The DATS pair and their partners immediately rush off to help.

Ikuto and Falcomon linger behind for a moment, exchanging these Looks. Falcomon is obviously thinking of what he was trying to tell Ikuto earlier, about how this woman is also his mom, and Ikuto knows it and is not happy. That’d mean he’s supposed to save her. He doesn’t want to save some human.

Agumon and Lalamon’s attacks are predictably ineffective against the, again, I need to stress this, giant robot house. Hagurumon is only Child-level and should be an equal match for them, but I guess this counts as a very creative and extreme instance of using the environment to gain a power advantage that overrides the usual evolution levels.

Hagurumon: “Mama, where are you?”

Masaru:  “What?”

Hagurumon: “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.”

Look what Hagurumon’s doing: it’s echoing thoughts that aren’t its own! Just like we saw a lot of the rampaging Digimon in the early parts of the series do! This is very much the same sort of deal as the usual Digimon incidents that DATS deals with – and just like those, it isn’t entirely a coincidence that it showed up here.

Tohma calls in from HQ (he’s busy back there fixing the Dive equipment, remember) to remind us that this is Hagurumon rampaging under the influence of a human’s emotions. It kinda feels like an excuse to give Tohma at least some lines in this episode in which he’s otherwise not present, but hey, it was him who figured out the whole emotion thing, so let’s give him this.

Masaru is the first one to cotton on to whose emotions this is about, and he asks Ikuto if he recognises the robot.

Masaru:  “That’s right. It’s the robot you used to play with when you were a baby.”

I love that it’s Masaru – who can often be pretty slow to figure things out – who picks up on this first. Things to do with emotions that a kid has about their parents (and physical objects they associate those emotions with) are extremely his area and he is totally not projecting here, nope not even a little bit.

Yoshino:  “No way! That was ten years ago. There’s no way he remembers.”

We’ve already heard Masaru’s opinion about this argument earlier in the episode (which are: of course he should totally remember if parents are involved, the end). And… maybe Ikuto does agree with Masaru on this. He’s staring intently at the robot-house, like he’s trying to remember. It’s honestly pretty remarkable that he’s even letting himself do that – maybe that’s a testament to how Falcomon’s earlier words did get through to him, or perhaps to how he instinctively trusts Masaru.

One way or another, he does remember: a tiny flash of himself as a baby in the Digital World, clinging to that robot and crying for his mama, just like Hagurumon is doing now, just like Ikuto finds himself unconsciously echoing as he remembers it.

…Which, despite Masaru’s delightful reasons for insisting on it, probably shouldn’t actually be possible when Ikuto was just a baby at the time. But shush, it’s dramatically relevant, and also this is a universe in which human emotions are literally a tangible force, so I’ll buy it for the sake of the narrative.

Masaru:  “That thing’s raging under the influence of your feelings.”

I like the way Masaru informs Ikuto of this, almost like he’s implying that this makes it Ikuto’s responsibility. Even if you don’t mean to have your emotions cause a Digimon to rampage (and nobody ever does), if they’re your emotions, then it is still kind of on you that this is happening. It’s an interesting idea brought up by this whole concept.

Hagurumon: “Where are you, Mama?!”

Hagurumon is still just standing there in the field in giant robot form, frantically moving around as if it’s searching for something. It has no idea that the “Mama” it’s searching for is literally already inside it. The poor Digimon in these scenarios never actually understand the purpose or meaning of the emotions they’re being influenced by. They’re just hapless victims of circumstance.

Ikuto:  “You’re lying! I am Digimon! My mother only Yukidarumon!”

Ikuto suddenly snaps back into his usual script of fierce denial… but it took him longer to start doing that this time. He actually put in the effort to remember, and genuinely did do so, before realising what he was doing and snapping back to this. His defences are slipping.

Masaru:  “Don’t try to trick your own feelings!”

…And Masaru knows it, because of course he does. Everyone else turns to him in surprise, suggesting they see this as an unexpectedly forceful outburst – but it really isn’t that unexpected at all if you know what Masaru’s like.

Masaru:  “Even if you’ve never seen their faces, children can’t erase their feelings for their parents.”

Masaru’s still somewhat missing the point here! The reason children have feelings for their parents is because they have tangible experiences and memories of times with those parents, and that in itself has nothing to do with whether the parents are biologically related to them or not. The parent whom Ikuto has those inerasable feelings for is Yukidarumon, far more than it’s Misuzu. But Masaru doesn’t get that, because he is extremely projecting his own situation onto Ikuto. In his situation it happens to be about blood relations, so he feels it should be the same way for Ikuto’s birth parents.

Masaru pauses in the middle of this to clutch at his pendant, which is still here on his DATS uniform, hanging next to his Digivice on its lanyard. He went out of his way to make sure he could wear it with his DATS uniform instead of just leaving it out. Of course he did; he wants to keep his memento of his dad with him at all times, no matter what.

Masaru:  “When you’re their child… when you’re human, it’s only natural!”

This is so transparently not even a little about Ikuto right now. It’s delightful how Masaru fervently insists that it’s just human for a kid to never be able to emotionally let go of their parent(s) even if they barely remember anything about them. It’s definitely not that Masaru himself is being too desperate and clingy and unable to move on from his dad; this is just how anyone would feel in this kind of situation, right?

I love Masaru’s dad complex so much.

Kenji:  “That’s right! Residual emotion!”

Kenji interrupts this delightfully-issuey moment with some somewhat awkwardly-timed exposition about how emotions can, with the tangibility they have in this universe, potentially latch onto physical objects that are strongly associated with them. Though I’m not entirely sure how Kenji of all people knows this, when his field is supposed to be interdimensional portals and not human emotions. I feel like this bit of exposition could have been given to Tohma earlier instead.

Regardless, that’s why Hagurumon is rampaging from those emotions, even though Ikuto hasn’t felt that way in ten years. Presumably, it was the fact that the robot that held those emotions was brought close to the person the emotions came from for the first time in ten years that caused this to happen now, rather than randomly at any other point in time.

(If powerful human emotions can latch onto physical objects associated with them, and Digimon can get caught up in rampaging off that, this feels like something which could in theory very much happen with Masaru’s pendant. It never does, alas, but man would that be fun.)

With a combination of Masaru’s dad-complex-projection, Kenji’s explanation of how this is from Ikuto’s emotions, and Hagurumon continuing to desperately search for a mother that isn’t its own in a way Ikuto still faintly remembers, Ikuto has been pushed out of his fierce denial and is starting to look awkward. Maybe he might actually want to save her after all, though he still can’t admit it.

With that, satisfied that he’s convinced Ikuto far enough that he doesn’t need to say any more, Masaru gets right to punching. His fist meets the robot house’s much more gigantic one and causes it to crumble. This might seem a bit excessive, until you remember that this giant robot is significantly bigger than the house it came from; the material it’s made from has to be spread quite thin and probably isn’t that strong.

One evolution sequence later, Hagurumon turns its broken arm into a drill, only for RiseGreymon to immediately crush that, too. A Child-level making clever use of the environment can only go so far, it seems. RiseGreymon rips the front of its chest off, exposing Misuzu hanging unconscious inside… but as much as our cyborg dino buddy could easily destroy the whole robot house in one attack, that’d be kinda bad here.

Masaru:  “Go, Ikuto! Only you can save your mother!”

Technically not true, because Lilamon can also fly and is small enough that she could fit inside the gaping hole in the robot’s front to reach Misuzu. But for the purpose of the narrative and the things that DATS – especially Masaru – are trying to coax Ikuto into acknowledging here, yes, of course, it should be Ikuto who does this. That’s probably why Yoshino is standing back and not getting involved in the fight right now; she knows she doesn’t need to.

Ikuto:  “Mom…”

And look at Ikuto actually calling her that! It’s honestly taking a lot of courage from him here to be acknowledging this and doing the right thing, when it’d be so much less confusing and painful for him to retreat behind his usual humans-are-the-enemy barrier that he’s been trying to protect himself with all this time.

I feel like this would be an appropriate moment to see Peckmon again, but alas, Falcomon just gives Ikuto a lift in Child form. Ikuto unties his unconscious mother and then carries her down from there without Falcomon’s help; fair enough, when he’s spent his whole life climbing trees. RiseGreymon, of course, handily ends the fight in a single attack once she’s safe.

(Whoops, there goes the Noguchis’ entire house. Except the lab part, which was underground and mostly avoided being turned into a giant robot.)

As Ikuto carries Misuzu to her husband and daughter, she wakes up and hugs them both, leaving Ikuto to turn away awkwardly and begin to leave, like he doesn’t really feel he should be here. He may have accepted that this woman is his mother on some level, but she’s already got another kid, another family. He still doesn’t feel like he belongs here.

With a prompt from Kenji, Misuzu realises who it was who saved her.

Misuzu:  “You’re Ikuto, right? Please… show me your face!”

Even with Misuzu making it clear that she cares about him and wants to see his face, Ikuto is still awkward and reluctant in turning around. This is strange and confusing and he doesn’t know if he should be here, or if he even wants to be.

Misuzu rushes over to hug him, and Ikuto just freezes in place, not hugging her back, not sure what to do. She strokes his face affectionately, reminding Ikuto of how Yukidarumon did the same thing just before she died. On the one hand, maybe this is helping him feel more like Misuzu is also his mother? On the other, this still has to be so weird and confusing for him.

Masaru watches on from a distance and then smiles at Agumon. He reunited the kid with his long-lost parents. As far as he sees it, this was a resounding success.

Falcomon, meanwhile, has a kind of crestfallen expression. I wonder if he’s just empathising with the confused way Ikuto must be feeling, or whether he’s worried that this means Ikuto won’t need him any more. (Of course he will, Falcomon, you are still his best friend and most important person!)

The emotional moment is cut short as Governor Hashiba from the Ministry of Confidentiality shows up. Remember him, last seen almost dissolving DATS in episode 13? This time, he’s here to arrest Kenji.

Hashiba:  “Not only did you have illegal possession of a Digimon, but you’ve experimented with opening the Digital Gate. Oh, but there’s more! You’ve also been caught doing secret research on the Digital World.”

Consider that the Noguchis live out in the middle of nowhere, several hours’ drive from the city. Hashiba got here surprisingly quickly given that the Hagurumon incident has only just occurred. With that, and the accusation of secret Digital World research that cannot possibly be an interpretation of the events that just happened, it seems like Hashiba had set out to come here earlier, already looking for an excuse to arrest the Noguchis, and conveniently used the recent incident to help fit his narrative.

Like the last time Hashiba showed up all of a sudden to use his authority to shut things down, I sense a certain someone else pulling his strings here. I can definitely think of a few reasons why said certain someone might want Ikuto’s parents, the owners of the only other Digital Gate device outside of DATS, taken out of the picture.

As Hashiba shuts down Kenji’s protests that none of what just happened was on purpose, Misuzu steps in to place herself defensively in front of her husband.

Misuzu:  “Please wait! Kenji-san is innocent!”

I love this little moment from her, being fierce and assertive and showing that she is actually quite badass and capable most of the time. A lot of this episode has been focused around her trauma from losing Ikuto, but that doesn’t make her an inherently weak and frail person the rest of the time when that’s not the subject at hand. I love that the writers cared enough to show signs of that. Kenji does not give his wife enough credit.

Hashiba simply decides this means that Misuzu is the culprit and tells his men to arrest her instead. She’s shocked at this, but even as the men grab her, she doesn’t back down from her defence or try to place the blame back on her husband. Look at her go.

Ikuto’s still here, watching his new sort-of-mother be taken away while knowing full well she didn’t do anything wrong, and he yells at everyone to stop.

Ikuto:  “Don’t get the wrong idea! The one who opened the Digital Gate and destroyed their house is me… the Digital World’s warrior, Ikuto-sama!”

This is sort of technically arguably the truth, if you decide that the person whose emotions the Digimon was drawn here from is solely responsible for the rampage. But that’s not exactly why Ikuto’s saying this. He just wants to put all of the blame onto himself, to keep his newfound parents safe, and because he feels like all this trouble they’re in really is all his fault for just being here and existing. Gotsumon told him last episode that he brings nothing but disaster, and these recent events sure seem to be proving that right.

(Also, look at him talking himself up with the self-sama. He’s never done that before despite all his previous warrior speeches – so he must have learned that one from Masaru. It’s adorable how he’s clinging to that as a way to feel strong when really he’s just hating himself right now.)

Hashiba:  “Ikuto? You can’t mean the Noguchi couple’s only son?”

Ikuto:  “Wrong! I’m not their child! I’m Digimon of justice who come to destroy foolish humans!”

He’s using that same line as before, but this time he knows it’s not true. He’s accepted by now that he is this couple’s son and that this must mean he’s human and not Digimon. But it’s so much easier for him to frame it in this familiar way, because then he doesn’t have to think about the fact that he’s suddenly protecting people he didn’t even care about until very recently. And it also means that his arrest hopefully won’t hurt them as much if he presents himself as their enemy.

Hashiba decides to arrest Ikuto, not instead of his mother, but simply alongside her, so unfortunately Ikuto’s stunt didn’t actually succeed in protecting her at all. But before he can do so, Falcomon creates a smokescreen like the ninja bird he is, and he and Ikuto vanish.

As Hashiba’s men fan out to search for Ikuto, Misuzu is overcome with stress and collapses in her husband’s arms. This could seem like a very stereotypical fainting-woman trope, but given that Misuzu’s trauma is specifically centred around Ikuto disappearing on her, no, I think this is actually an entirely reasonable response for her to have. (And she hasn’t actually outright passed out, because she continues to whimper and mumble Ikuto’s name.)

Masaru is left cursing in helpless frustration at the situation, which might seem a little much, but it really isn’t when you consider how invested he was in all this. This was supposed to be a happy reunion of long-lost family members; they weren’t meant to be forced to separate again, dammit.

Elsewhere, in Mercurimon’s palace in the Digital World, Gotsumon is reporting back about his mission from last episode to “bring Ikuto home”. Which is to say, he’s lying through his teeth.

Mercurimon: “What? Ikuto has betrayed us?”

Gotsumon:  “Yes. While I was searching for him in earnest, not only did he ignore me… but he joined the human side and attacked me!

Mercurimon:  “I don’t believe it.”

Mercurimon is good. He may have somehow managed to miss all of Gotsumon’s not-very-subtle evil smirks, but of course he’d never buy it once Gotsumon starts feeding him lies that are directly about Ikuto. He knows his surrogate son would never turn around and betray Digimon-kind just like that. He still hasn’t picked up on the fact that Gotsumon never intended to bring Ikuto back and actually tried to kill him, but at least he’s got the most important part down.

Gotsumon:  “Truth! It’s the truth!”

Yes, the truthiest truth. You are a terrible liar, Gotsumon.

Gotsumon:  “After all, he is a human. His existence is incompatible with ours.”

It seems Gotsumon is prejudiced enough to have assumed that Mercurimon would actually buy this, purely on the basis that Ikuto’s a human so it just makes sense that he’d side with other humans and do horrible things like betraying Digimon. It’s not like he’s a person who cares about his friends and allies that he’s lived with his whole life or anything, nah.

Apparently realising he’s not getting anywhere on the Ikuto front, Gotsumon changes tack and suggests that Mercurimon should lead an army to the human world to destroy it. I guess he was hoping that starting with “so Ikuto’s totally betrayed you like the horrible human he is” would be a good jumping off point for that topic, but is going for it anyway despite Mercurimon not buying that line.

Mercurimon:  “If we fall into war, our allies will also suffer casualties. Now is not the time for that.”

Look at Mercurimon being a good leader, not wanting to start pointless warmongering that’ll only lead to his people suffering unnecessarily. Exactly the opposite of the “he totally wants to attack and destroy the human world because he’s just evil, right?” that DATS initially jumped to assuming he was.

I really like this stance of Mercurimon’s and really appreciate him for it. Perhaps it’s because I remember, on my first watch, this being the moment it properly hit me that Mercurimon isn’t actually the bad guy. I’d been so led by every other Digimon series I’d watched into completely buying DATS’s paranoid assumption that Mercurimon was simply this Big Evil Digimon We Must Defeat, but Savers is so much more nuanced and interesting than that.

The true villain of this arc of the series hasn’t even properly appeared yet. In the meantime, the antagonistic forces driving the conflict have simply been the fears and prejudices of both sides. Gotsumon’s the closest thing to a villain with his incredible bigotry and desire to murder Ikuto because of it, but other than maybe him, nobody we’ve seen so far is evil.

(And even Gotsumon’s “evil” is a realistic kind of evil driven by prejudice and bigotry, rather than Because He Just Is.)

Mercurimon is interrupted by the arrival of a new face: SaberLeomon, another Ultimate-level Digimon like Mercurimon himself.

SaberLeomon:  “I can’t believe such cowardly words were uttered by the man who once ruled over the Digital World’s woodlands.”

Again with that mention of the fact that Mercurimon is supposed to be the ruler of a forest in the Digital World, even though he currently spends all his time hanging out inside this icy mountain range. There’s still a reason for that.

SaberLeomon: “It’s been a long time, my friend.”

The way he says this reads as more threatening than amicable (the dramatic gleam on one of his huge fangs doesn’t help), but nonetheless, it seems these two do know each other. SaberLeomon, being another Ultimate-level, is perhaps himself a ruler of a different region of the Digital World and may have come to know Mercurimon through their equivalent positions of authority.

The rest of their conversation will have to wait until next episode; this here was just a brief ending stinger to introduce us to SaberLeomon.

Overall thoughts

This is a neat episode! I love how we see the human emotions thing coming back and being done in a way that really matters and contributes to an ongoing character arc. It’s a very cool narrative device to force Ikuto to confront that these people really are his parents and he cares about them – a much more interesting way of doing it than such a moment would have been without involving an emotion-rampaging Digimon, I feel.

I am side-eyeing the way Kenji deals with his wife’s issues a lot (though I think that’s meant to be the point; Masaru does too), but I do really love Misuzu here. Though the purpose of this episode for the sake of Ikuto’s arc kind of requires turning her into a damsel in distress, I love that the writers cared enough to put in all these subtle indications that she’s more than just some weak frail woman. She’s legitimately traumatised and mentally ill and yet also a hell of a lot stronger than her husband gives her credit for.

Of course, this episode also features Masaru Projects His Dad Complex All Over Your Family Issues Part 2, and it’s delightful. Ikuto’s is a very different case from his; it’s so clearly not actually about birth parents, and shouldn’t be about his memories either, but Masaru does not notice or care. He will fervently insist that the way he feels about missing parents is definitely the way everyone should feel about missing parents, without ever mentioning that this is about his own dad, but it’s so transparent anyway. I love Masaru a lot.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 18 - DATS Team Annihilated?! Clash with Mercurimon!

In this episode, as the DATS team finally confronts Mercurimon, things become a lot less black and white for everyone. Ikuto struggles with the thought that he might be human, while the DATS group learns of a past massacre of Digimon carried out by humans.

After a still-fairly-short recap of the previous episode, we catch up where we left off as the DATS trio bumped into the mysterious old man doing some ice fishing in the Digital World by Infinity Ice Ridge. You know, as you do.

Old man:  “I couldn’t even catch a single fish!”

Presumably because there aren’t any fish in the Digital World, or at least, not actual animal fish as opposed to fish-based Digimon? Again, don’t think too hard about what the group has been eating while they’ve been here.

Masaru explains to the others – who’ve never seen this man before – that this is the guy who gave him his Digivice. Apparently Yoshino never thought about why Masaru had a Digivice before he was a member of DATS.

Lalamon:  “So, that means, he’s…”

Lalamon trails off and they don’t discuss this any further this episode, because they’ve got better things to worry about, and because the old man insists on being mysterious about his identity. But it is starting to look like he’s got to be affiliated with DATS in some way, isn’t it. (There’s really no need to be so mysterious, old man! Your identity is not actually that exciting! I’m still obediently not using your name in this commentary because it still hasn’t been revealed yet, but that’s just making you more awkward for me to refer to!)

Old man:  “All right, this way. Follow me.”

Masaru:  “Hey, hold on!”

Old man:  “You want to find Mercurimon, right?”

Masaru:  “You know where he is?”

Old man:  “Well, I did say ‘follow me’.”

Man, in some ways this guy’s even more straight-to-the-point than Masaru. No point explaining why he’s here, who he is, why they should trust him – just get right to the thing that he already knows is their goal here. Maybe that’s part of why he took such a liking to Masaru. They are both very unconventional in their rather different ways.

Yoshino:  “What should we do?”

Tohma:  “We don’t know if we can trust this man.”

Masaru:  “I trust him.”

Yoshino and Tohma have never seen this guy before and have every reason to be suspicious, but of course Masaru trusts him! Even though he’s never actually explained his identity or his purpose to Masaru before, and even though Masaru has never properly listened to any of the man’s vague observational speeches about Masaru’s issues, he can just tell from their past interactions that this guy’s on their side.

Masaru:  “We need to get to Mercurimon either way. If following him means getting there, then I’ll trust that old guy!”

This is also very Masaru; he’s essentially saying that even if he didn’t have something of a history with this guy making him seem trustworthy, he’d trust him anyway just because it appears to be the quickest way to reach their goal. So straightforward.

Meanwhile in Mercurimon’s chamber, Ikuto, Falcomon and Gotsumon are meeting with him. Gotsumon has this very unsubtle “why are you still alive” scowl at Ikuto (he’s tried to kill this kid twice now, geez), but it doesn’t seem like any of the others are paying attention to him and picking up on this.

Mercurimon: “Ikuto, I can sense that something is troubling you deeply.”

We haven’t happened to see much of Mercurimon caring about Ikuto until now, but he does. He’s almost like a sort of father figure to him, really.

Ikuto stares at his own reflection in the ice of the palace floor, remembering what Masaru said to him last episode – “You’re a human just like me”. He brushed it off at the time, but that stuck with him, and he can’t get the thought out of his head. He’s looking at his own face, and… it looks pretty similar to those humans’ faces, doesn’t it?

(Ikuto may hate humans for killing his mother, but he’d never actually seen a human’s face until only a few days ago when these humans arrived. He never knew until now that they look so much like him.)

Ikuto scowls and stabs the end of his boomerang into his reflection, cracking the ice, as if that’ll make him look less like one of those humans.

Also please appreciate the sad and concerned look on Falcomon’s face as he watches his best friend struggle with his identity like this. He is a good friend.

Ikuto:  “Mercurimon! I’m… Digimon, aren’t I?”

Falcomon:  “Ikuto…”

Mercurimon: “Why are you hesitating? You are a Digimon warrior.”

Clever way to technically not call him a Digimon, Mercurimon, so that you can ease his worries without strictly lying to him. He is a warrior for Digimon, that much can be true regardless of his own species. Maybe what Mercurimon wants to get at here is to tell him to focus on that rather than worrying about where he might have come from.

Mercurimon: “Humans are the enemy.”

Mercurimon does seem to believe this, and yet he knows full well that Ikuto is a human, too. He obviously thinks of Ikuto as an exception to this rule, and so he doesn’t even want to get into Ikuto’s species, because to him, when it comes to Ikuto and only Ikuto, being human’s not the point.

(But it is starting to very significantly be the point as far as Ikuto’s concerned, and Mercurimon trying to brush it off like this isn’t going to help once Ikuto becomes sure of it on his own. Mercurimon means well and genuinely cares about Ikuto, but he may not be the best at this fatherhood thing.)

Gotsumon continues to be very lucky that Mercurimon doesn’t care about him enough to be paying him any attention right now, because he gives another very obvious smirk at this comment.

Falcomon:  “Ikuto, are you okay?”

Ikuto:  “I am Digimon… Humans enemy…”

Ikuto is saying this to himself very forcefully. It’s suddenly not nearly as easy for him to believe that as it was just a few days ago. (And Falcomon is still very good in noticing how not-okay Ikuto is and trying to reach out.)

Old man:  “Here’s the entrance.”

Meanwhile with the DATS crew, the old man is strongly implying that he’s been here before, and he doesn’t care whether or not his companions pick up on that.

One of those CCTV Kuramon shows up to try and spy on them, but the old man uses his badass fishing skills – with a suction cup on the end of his fishing line all of a sudden – to grab it and fling it away into the distance, barely batting an eye. Further into the cave, they’re surrounded instead by a group of Tsumemon, the evolved form of Kuramon, because apparently the writers wanted to up threat level for their surveillance to something that couldn’t be dispatched with just a fishing pole.

(The Digimon Analyser claims that Tsumemon is Child-level, but I think it’s actually usually supposed to be Baby? This is the thing I mentioned once before: in most other Digimon canons, there are two Baby evolution stages, but in Savers it’s simplified to just one. So Kuramon would usually be the first Baby level and Tsumemon the second, and I’m pretty sure it then evolves into Keramon, the Child-level that Neon had in episode 8. But I guess Tsumemon just gets to be Child-level in Savers canon, and don’t ask what it evolves into, because that seems more threatening than having the group be harassed by a different Baby-level oh no.)

The DATS partners easily take out whole groups of Tsumemon as they more through the caverns – almost like Tsumemon are supposed to be weaker than Child-level, how about that. Gotsumon gets the news of the humans’ arrival from them, because Tsumemon also do the CCTV thing, and informs Mercurimon, who is still remaining chill about this and not jumping into action.

Ikuto:  “… I fight! Defeat humans!”

There was a lingering pause before Ikuto declared this, which there’d never have been before now. As if a part of him was wondering if he really should go and fight the humans at all – but then he stubbornly pushed those thoughts aside and insisted that no, he’s a Digimon warrior and he will fight the human enemies, that’s how this has always worked and he doesn’t need to think about anything else.

Gotsumon:  “Why? Why let Ikuto go? With Mercurimon-sama’s power, we can easily defeat those humans!”

Mercurimon: “Letting Ikuto fight with humans will help him awaken into a true Digimon warrior.”

That sure is an indirect way of putting it (and Ikuto and Falcomon have just run off, so Mercurimon’s not even doing it for their benefit). Maybe he’s not aware that Gotsumon also knows Ikuto’s a human and is being vague for that reason? Or he just doesn’t want to be frank about it because he doesn’t like thinking about that awkward part where Ikuto is actually human even though most humans are the enemy.

Because of this, it’s also ambiguous what he means by this. Does he mean “awaken into a true Digimon warrior” as in he believes Ikuto fighting and besting humans will somehow symbolically rid him of any ties to his own humanity and make him more of a “Digimon”? Or does he actually mean that he wants Ikuto to learn that he really is a human, but he feels Ikuto needs to face that and figure it out himself in order to accept it rather than just being told? I’m honestly not sure. However, given Mercurimon’s current feelings towards humans – we’ll get into those soon – I think the former is more likely.

Gotsumon:  (Human scum is still human scum.)

Geez, Gotsumon. Still not even letting the fact that he’s fighting on your side stop you from being racist about him.

DATS have made their way into a wide open cavern with a huge elaborate ice palace on the far side – clearly Mercurimon’s place. Before they can head over there, a boomerang flies their way, and Ikuto and Falcomon emerge, high up on a stone pillar.

Ikuto:  “Filthy humans, I will beat you!”

That’s… not quite the usual phrasing Ikuto uses when he’s insisting this. The Japanese phrasing for “filthy humans” is, as far as I’m aware, a fairly exalted sort of register that sounds more like something Mercurimon might say, not Ikuto. It’s like he’s trying to emulate Mercurimon and look down on these humans in a way he’s never quite done before. He’s not one of them.

Old man:  (That kid… could it be…?)

Upon seeing Ikuto, the old man’s eyes immediately widen in surprise. Seems like he already knows the story behind why this human kid might have ended up living in the Digital World, even if he was never quite expecting it to turn out this way.

And then, somewhat awkwardly, there’s the opening right in the middle of a scene as Masaru and Ikuto rush at each other to fight. I’d put an image of Mercurimon from the opening here if I could, except it doesn’t have any sign of Mercurimon anywhere in it. So, um, here’s Masaru doing a Digisoul Charge? His Digisoul is somewhat relevant in this episode, a little bit.

Ikuto:  “I’m Digimon warrior. Defeat all Mercurimon’s enemy!”

Ikuto’s always been one for loudly and repeatedly stating this general sentiment, but this time it reads like he’s trying to convince himself of this more than anybody else.

Masaru:  “Don’t get in our way, Ikuto!”

Old man:  “Ikuto? I knew it, that’s Noguchi’s…!”

Hearing Ikuto’s name just confirmed the old man’s suspicions. I enjoy this little bit of him reacting in-character to Ikuto’s presence based on information he knows, even though the rest of the cast and the audience doesn’t yet and we’re not actually going to learn about it anywhere in this episode. Characters are people, and there’s more going on than what the audience can see!

The writers have temporarily remembered that Falcomon is meant to be especially speedy, as he’s managing to hold his own against all three DATS Child-levels right now. (And again, look at him being so much braver when he’s fighting alongside Ikuto!) Meanwhile, Masaru wrestles with Ikuto, as the old man tries to call out to him.

Old man:  “Stop! Ikuto, you are…!”

It’s maybe a good thing he gets cut off here, because Ikuto is extremely not in any state to be receptive to what the old man would have been about to say to him here about his human parents.

Gotsumon:  “Ikuto! I’ve come to help!”

Sure, Gotsumon. “Help”. He gives another extremely-not-subtle smirk before he begins to attack, and honestly at this point I’m kind of side-eyeing the writers and not Gotsumon himself here. Come on, writers, you’re usually better at subtlety than this. It is already very easy to figure out that Gotsumon super wants Ikuto dead; you don’t need to be so obvious about it.

Gotsumon’s only a Child-level and can’t do much on his own, but like in episode 14 where he used the rocks floating in the sky as a weapon, he takes advantage of the environment. He shoots his rocks at weight-bearing rock pillars and stalactites on the cavern’s ceiling to cause a massive rockfall and cave-in that he can safely hover above on his Yanmamon (who, yes, is still here and still never going to be a character).

Gotsumon:  “All of you will be smashed to pieces!”

Ikuto:  “What do you mean ‘all’? Gotsumon!”

This is the third time Gotsumon has tried to kill Ikuto (along with incidentally also the DATS humans, but he’s definitely always been aiming for Ikuto and intending to use taking out the DATS humans as an excuse to Mercurimon), but it’s the first time Ikuto has been aware of Gotsumon’s presence while it’s happening. The previous two times, Gotsumon was off in the distance and nobody else knew the cause of the rockfall/avalanche. There’s still some plausible deniability to this here, in that Gotsumon technically could be just referring to DATS with his “all”, but not enough for Ikuto to not question this.

Even then, he’s just surprised and confused by it. Gotsumon’s on Mercurimon’s side, so that means he should be on Ikuto’s side, too! Ikuto has no idea just how much Gotsumon hates him simply for existing.

The cave-in is bad enough that a crevice opens up in the floor, and Masaru and Ikuto fall into it, followed by Agumon and Falcomon. The rest of DATS get buried under the rockslide up here, their partners trying to protect them as much as they can.

As things finally still, Gotsumon surveys his handiwork with a smirk, apparently satisfied that he’s really killed Ikuto this time. Don’t you know you shouldn’t jump to conclusions until you find a body, dude. (Does he even know that dead humans leave bodies and don’t just disintegrate into an egg?)

Within the crevice, Falcomon and Agumon regain consciousness on a thin shelf of rock, past which the crevice continues even deeper. Falcomon’s wing is injured; he’s not going to be able to fly to get out of this.

Falcomon:  “That Gotsumon, he’s too reckless…”

Gotsumon maintains his plausible deniability about trying to murder Ikuto, at least to Falcomon. It’s definitely just that he was going for the DATS humans and overdid it, right? It’s certainly easier for Falcomon to assume that than to face the fact that their “ally” just tried to kill them.

Agumon frantically looks around for his aniki and finds Masaru dangling further down the crevice, one hand clinging to a handhold as the only thing keeping him from falling, the other gripping Ikuto’s arm. He somehow managed to grab hold of Ikuto as they both fell, saving the boy’s life at the risk of his own. (Of course he would.)

Up top, Tohma and Yoshino emerge from the rock pile with their partners’ help, but are met with Gotsumon holding the old man hostage with one arm around his neck. They brandish their Digivices but are threatened into dropping them.

Gotsumon:  “Now, let’s see what I should do with you next.”

Not immediately kill them, apparently, or he’d have already done it. Funny how he’s a lot less determined to see these humans dead than he was with Ikuto. I suppose maybe he thinks they might have information on human stuff that would be useful knowledge for him and Mercurimon? Or it’s just that he knows that, for some reason, Mercurimon doesn’t seem to want these humans to be immediately dispatched.

Old man:  “You’re not worth the trouble.”

Gotsumon:  “What did you say?”

Old man:  “Mercurimon! You’re watching this, aren’t you? I’ve got something to ask you. Let’s be honest with each other.”

The old man is again showing he’s a lot more badass than appearances let on, being so completely chill about diminishing the importance of the person who’s currently threatening his life. He can tell that Gotsumon’s just a lackey, a petty individual with his own petty agenda, but one who answers to the more important figure here and who won’t actually kill him so long as Mercurimon still wants them alive.

I also like Gotsumon’s brief indignation at that. Though he sucks up to Mercurimon, he also has an inflated sense of his own importance in this, perhaps because of his skill at talking stronger Digimon into fighting for him.

Gotsumon:  “Insolence! Such insolence! The human assumes too much!”

Mercurimon: “Wait! Bring that man here.”

Gotsumon:  “Yes, at once…”

This maybe knocks Gotsumon down another peg, too. Turns out he’s the one making assumptions, and actually there’s a lot more going on here between this human and Mercurimon that he’s completely unaware of.

Back down in the crevice, Agumon’s desperately reaching out to help his aniki, but his arms aren’t long enough. Falcomon tries to fly, but his wing’s too injured. Masaru’s got to do this himself.

Ikuto:  “Let go!”

Masaru:  “Don’t joke around!”

Ikuto:  “Let go! I don’t want to be saved by human!”

Masaru:  “Stop talking crap!”

This poor confused kid is so single-mindedly furious at humans that in the heat of the moment he feels like he would rather die than have a human save his life. I love Masaru instantly brushing off his protests without even trying to argue them on any level, because obviously that’s a load of crap and nobody should want to throw their life away for something like that.

And on Masaru’s end, he could just let Ikuto go – especially since Ikuto’s literally asking him to – and have a much easier time saving himself. But of course he doesn’t. Masaru is good.

(Ikuto just stares at him in disbelief as he realises that Masaru isn’t going to let go and really is risking himself to save him. Humans are the enemy. Why would one go and do that, for him?)

Somehow, through strength and sheer determination, Masaru manages to pull himself and Ikuto up onto safe ground. He’s left lying flat-out in exhaustion, gasping for breath as Agumon frets over him.

Agumon:  “Aniki, are you okay?”

Masaru:  “That was nothing.”

Oh, Masaru. Of course it was nothing. It definitely didn’t take every ounce of your strength, and you definitely weren’t afraid at any point that you might not be able to make it.

Ikuto’s there too, panting in relief, and now that his life’s not in immediate danger, he thinks back to the cause of all this: Gotsumon gloating that all of them would be crushed. He doesn’t draw any direct conclusions just yet – probably doesn’t want to – but it’s pretty clear what he’s starting to suspect from this.

Perhaps to prevent himself from thinking that through too far, he switches tack to the other strange thing that just happened.

Ikuto:  “Why you save me?”

Masaru:  “Isn’t it obvious? We haven’t finished our battle yet. How could I watch you die just like that?”

Masaru is so good. It’s not even just that he couldn’t stand to let another sapient person die on his watch – it’s also that he sees Ikuto as an opponent. In Masaru’s worldview, that’s not an enemy; that’s an equal whom Masaru respects and cares about on some level that’s more than basic human decency.

Ikuto stares at him in disbelief. Masaru wanted to save his life… because he’s an “enemy”? It’s very clear from the way Masaru said this that he’s not saying anything along the lines of “I want to be the one to kill you myself”, which would at least be something Ikuto could understand. He’s starting to realise that the way Masaru views their ongoing fights is very different from the way Ikuto sees it himself.

Up top where the rockfall happened, Masaru finds Tohma and Yoshino’s dropped Digivices and realises they must be in trouble up ahead.

Masaru:  “Ikuto, we’ll settle our fight later! Let’s go, Agumon!”

Ikuto stares at him in bewilderment, again. What does he mean, their fight is just a thing that can be settled later? Like it’s for fun and competition, not about a warrior defeating his enemy and getting revenge?

Falcomon:  “Ikuto… I think they’re somehow different from the humans who killed Yukidarumon. Maybe there are good humans out there, too?”

As Masaru and Agumon run off ahead, Falcomon tries again to approach Ikuto with these thoughts he’s been having since episode 16. Ikuto brushed him off at the time, but maybe now, after what just happened, he might be able to see this himself? Those humans helped save Ikuto’s life back then, too, so this is the second time one of them has saved him. Surely Ikuto can at least consider that?

Though I do like how Falcomon’s phrasing on this is also pretty hesitant. It’s a struggle for him to accept the idea that maybe some humans are good, too. Still, he’s less stubborn than Ikuto and had that whole mini-adventure with them in episode 16, so he’s getting further with this than Ikuto currently is.

Ikuto stares into the distance and perhaps seems to be considering it for a moment, but then he pictures Yukidarumon. Maybe he’s imagining what she’d say to see him thinking about liking the species that murdered her (oh, Ikuto, you have it so wrong), or maybe he’s just remembering how badly it hurt to lose her and still can’t move past that.

Ikuto:  “There’s no way!”

Either way, that thought of Yukidarumon pushes him back into fiercely insisting that no, humans are the enemy, all of them, and that’s all there is to it. It can’t be more complicated than that. (Because he wouldn’t know how to deal with it if it was.)

Ikuto rushes off, probably desperately thinking that he’s going to go prove that this is just how it is. Falcomon’s left sadly watching him go. He can tell that Ikuto is hurting and confused and angry, and he just wants to help, but he doesn’t know how to get through to him. Poor Falcomon. He’s just trying to be there for his friend.

Mercurimon:  “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Old man:  “It’s been ten years. Looks like you still remember me.”

As the rest of the group are brought to Mercurimon’s throne room, it seems like he and the old man know each other. Tohma deduces from this that the old man must be one of the members of the Digital World exploration squad from ten years ago, which is indeed correct.

This exchange seems fine at a glance from this episode – but unfortunately, it’s not quite accurate. We’ll learn more in a later episode about exactly how the expedition went and how Mercurimon got involved, and it turns out Mercurimon only showed up just after everybody except Suguru had escaped back to the human world. So actually, Mercurimon and this old man should not be talking like they’ve outright met before.

This is a little sign that the writers haven’t quite fully planned ahead for future episodes; they know the overall idea of what went on but won’t quite hash out the exact details of how the expedition went until they get to that later episode. Apparently the production process was such that they didn’t have the opportunity to go back to this episode and fix this bit once they’d realised it didn’t quite fit, either.

Still, this bit is, I’m pretty sure, the only example of a mistake like this in which the writers evidently hadn’t fully planned ahead and ended up creating a small contradiction. Otherwise, this series shows very strong signs of knowing where it’s going – there’s lots of allusions to things the audience doesn’t know about yet and foreshadowing of future events that, while I’m trying to keep this commentary largely spoiler-free, I have been attempting to highlight for those in the know to pick up on and appreciate.

Anyway, this contradiction doesn’t affect too much of what’s going on here, because the real point is not that Mercurimon and the old man have personally met before, but rather just that they know of each other, which is something that could reasonably be true as facts stand. The old man only had to introduce himself as a member of the exploration squad that Suguru was part of for Mercurimon to acknowledge that. And, well, there are also ways the old man himself could potentially have heard about Mercurimon being more than just some Big Evil Guy Who’s Totally Planning To Invade The Human World.

(That’s likely to be a significant part of why the old man wanted to come here; it was never only to check the DATS team were safe. He probably also got wind of the fact that they’re attacking Mercurimon out of some ridiculous assumption that he’s evil, and figured, “um, no, can we at least have some negotiation happen here first before we attack him, please?” It does feel appropriate to the old man’s character that he’d be the first person to see things in a more nuanced way, and it’s also very him that he’d take this into his own hands and just show up like this rather than making it more official.)

Mercurimon: “Where is Ikuto?”

Gotsumon:  “W-Well… um…”

Gotsumon is not yet aware that Ikuto survived, so he’s trying to awkwardly find a way to explain that Ikuto was totally accidentally killed in the cave-in Gotsumon caused that was definitely just aiming for the DATS humans. He apparently didn’t even prepare some kind of speech for this to try and make it sound convincing. Mercurimon is not stupid and was always going to see right through him if he ever did succeed.

But luckily for Gotsumon, the old man changes the subject before Gotsumon can really put his foot in his mouth about this.

Old man:  “You’ve been raising a human child?”

Mercurimon: “Ikuto is like a son to me. Humans have taught me what it is like to be a father.”

Mercurimon really is basically like Ikuto’s Digimon dad! Also, guess which human specifically he’s talking about having learned it from here.

Another thing to note is that Mercurimon needed to learn this idea from humans. Digimon don’t reproduce like humans do and usually don’t have a concept of “parents” at all.

Old man:  “Then why are you attacking the human world?”

Mercurimon: “Silence! It was humans who struck first!”

Oh, look – despite everything that DATS casually assumed about Mercurimon being Super Evil, Mercurimon thinks humans are the ones who are in the wrong here. And he’s saying this in a way that doesn’t remotely sound like he’s deflecting from his own misdeeds, but rather like he’s insulted at the way they could just waltz in here and act like this conflict is somehow his fault.

Points to the old man for coming here to try and have a conversation and negotiate with Mercurimon rather than fight him, but he apparently didn’t look too hard at DATS’s evidence, or lack thereof, to realise that really there wasn’t any proof that Mercurimon was ever attacking the human world in the first place. Mercurimon came there to retrieve Falcomon in episodes 12/13, and he let his anger at humans get the better of him for a brief moment while he was there to the point of seeming hostile, but there was never any clear evidence that attacking humanity was his goal. It wasn’t.

Old man:  “What did you say? It’s true that we humans arrived unexpectedly in the Digital World ten years ago, but we never intended to be aggressive! You understood that best!”

The old man, from his position, is assuming that Mercurimon’s comment about humans “striking first” is referring to their expedition, as that could be interpreted as some kind of hostile invasion. He doesn’t know what else Mercurimon could possibly mean by that, after all.

(And the “you understood that best” is more implication that these two have met and had a conversation before when they actually shouldn’t have, but ehhhh it’s fine, the old man could have also learned that information another way, shush. Mercurimon did come to understand that their expedition wasn’t meant to be hostile, it’s true.)

Mercurimon: “How dare you spout such lies!”

Mercurimon, however, is convinced the old man is coming in here and brazenly lying to his face to act like their harmless little expedition is the only thing he could possibly be thinking of as hostile.

Elsewhere in the palace, Masaru and Agumon are racing through the corridors trying to find Mercurimon, only to be interrupted by a boomerang. Ikuto’s caught up to them, without Falcomon.

Ikuto:  “Fight me!”

Masaru:  “Now’s not the time for this!”

Ikuto:  “Fight me!!”

Ikuto does not care that Masaru has bigger priorities right now and seems to see their fight as some sort of friendly competition that can be put off until later or something. No. Ikuto is a Digimon warrior. He fights humans, because they’re his enemy. Nothing could be more important than that. That’s how this works; that’s all there is to it, and he’s here to prove it.

Back in the throne room – we’re jumping quickly between scenes here, like these are both happening simultaneously – Mercurimon’s fist clenches in anger.

Mercurimon: “That man made a deal with us. To preserve the peace between the Digital World and the human world, neither side would attack the other.”

Guess which man he’s talking about, again. Mercurimon doesn’t seem to want to refer to him by name, perhaps because of how angry he is at him, but yep, it’s Suguru.

Mercurimon: “But humans went back on their word. Without a single warning, they killed a large number of Digimon!”

It's been hinted at for a while, with how several people on the Digimon side have been hating humanity for what appears to be more than just basic prejudice, and there it is. No wonder Mercurimon’s furious at humanity for massacring his kind out of nowhere.

Ikuto:  “Humans… killed Yukidarumon! Never forgive you!”

Back in the fight, with these two scenes still happening simultaneously, Ikuto is just as furious about the same thing. He’s getting up close, using his boomerang as a melee weapon, trying to brute-force his way through Masaru’s block, matching the straightforwardness of his grief and anger.

Masaru:  “Hang on! What do you mean, killed? If Digimon lose in battle, don’t they just turn back into Digieggs? They can’t die!”

Masaru pushes Ikuto back to put some space between them as he asks this – I like how the battle choreography mirrors the flow of the conversation. Falcomon already sort of implied in front of Masaru in episode 16 that Yukidarumon’s fate was worse than just reverting to an egg, but he did so pretty indirectly, so it’s fair that Masaru didn’t properly pick up on the implications of that.

Ikuto:  “Yukidarumon didn’t turn into Digiegg! Disappeared completely, didn’t leave anything!”

Masaru:  “What?!”

Agumon:  “That can happen?!”

That can happen! It’s very much not how things are supposed to work when Digimon “die”, but it turns out that they can actually die. I enjoy Masaru and Agumon’s sudden shock as they both realise, whoa, wait, this is way more serious a situation than they’d been assuming. They’d never considered that Digimon really truly dying was even a thing.

Ikuto:  “Yukidarumon was murdered!”

Mercurimon:  “I will never forget… the ruthless actions of those humans!”

Again, I love the sense that these two scenes are happening simultaneously, two dialogues revealing the same information in different ways. It really helps hammer it home and get across just how furious not one but multiple people on the Digimon side are about this atrocity.

We see a flashback of the massacre – and note how the humans carrying it out are wearing face-concealing helmets. Even if Ikuto saw some of them that day, like I said earlier, he’d never seen a human’s face. He never realised until only recently that these alien monsters that came to his world and murdered his mother look so much like him.

Speaking of “alien monsters”, there’s also these rather less human-looking silhouettes behind the humans. We’ll get into those later, but yep, they were there.

Mercurimon:  “We were tricked!”

Not only is Mercurimon furious at the massacre in and of itself, he also seems to feel like it’s Suguru’s fault, like Suguru betrayed him and the peace agreement they made together.

It wasn’t like Suguru himself was there at this Digimon massacre or anything, but even so, Suguru was acting as something of an ambassador for humanity when he made that agreement. There were only six humans who even knew about the Digital World back then, and Suguru personally knew all of them; he would have been vouching for his belief that they’d keep the peace and none of them would turn around and attack any Digimon. Mercurimon is assuming that Suguru spoke for all of humanity (and Suguru himself probably felt like he did, at the time!).

So really, it’s very easy for Mercurimon, in his rage and grief at seeing so many of his people murdered – murdered in a more comprehensive way than any Digimon had ever thought possible until that day – to jump to the assumption that Suguru was knowingly lying when he made that promise and knew that the humans were planning some sort of attack.

Mercurimon is wrong to think that, but this is just another instance of people being imperfect people and jumping to conclusions in moments of intense emotion. He has a much better excuse about that than DATS did when they decided out of basically thin air that Mercurimon was a bad guy. They were kinda stressed and scared, but at least nobody on their end had been outright murdered.

Old man:  “N-No way… I won’t believe such a thing!”

By refusing to accept the notion that this even happened, the old man is not helping Mercurimon’s feelings of betrayal. Of course he’d find it hard to believe that any humans could do something so terrible, but that’s exactly the same thing Suguru believed when he implicitly promised on behalf of all of humanity that none of them would ever attack the Digimon.

And yet, it happened anyway. From Mercurimon’s perspective, clouded by grief and fury, it’s bound to look like these people were and are just wilfully denying what they know to be true.

The better response for the old man to have here would be to acknowledge that that’s terrible and that he’s so sorry that happened, showing that at least some humans aren’t the kind of people who’d ever want to do this and are still on the Digimon’s side. But he’s also too caught up in emotion at hearing something like this that he reacts by trying to deny it straight out instead of facing up to it. People being people.

Old man:  “We were all for peace between Digimon and humans, and…”

Mercurimon: “Still with the lies!”

Mercurimon must be so incensed at the way this old guy is acting. From his perspective, he’s convinced that the old man has to be fully aware of the massacre and yet is coming in here to spout these empty insincere platitudes about peace and promises like the most two-faced kind of asshole.

Mercurimon: “Even now, you have broken down the wall between the two worlds. Is it not to create chaos in the Digital World?”

Oh, hey, remember this thing about the barrier between the worlds being broken down in a way that isn’t natural? Remember how DATS jumped to attribute that to Mercurimon once they’d decided he was totally a bad guy? Well, it doesn’t look like he actually had anything to do with that – because for his part, he thinks the humans did it. From the way he says it, this is, again, very clearly not him trying to deflect from his own actions and is something he genuinely believes. He’s got a lot better of a reason to assume it, too, since humans have actually maliciously attacked Digimon in the past.

(And guess whose assumption here is more correct.)

Old man:  “Never! Humans have done nothing!”

Mercurimon: “Silence! I can’t stand it any more! Humans who do not admit to their wrongdoing… should be silenced for eternity!”

I really enjoy how Mercurimon isn’t just angry about the massacre, but also at how, so he believes, this human is coming in here acting like he and his associates have done nothing wrong while knowing full well that they’re murderers. Humans being all “yes, we’re the bad guys, we want you all dead” would be one thing, but it makes Mercurimon even more furious to see a supposed bad guy and murderer try to hide that and not even take responsibility for their awfulness. He must have invited the old man here in the hope of maybe having him at least own up to humanity’s wrongdoing if nothing else, but he’s not even doing that.

(And of course, the old man himself has in fact done nothing wrong, but his claim that humans in general have done nothing is false. The old man is only trying to believe in his own species, but really he ought to be able to see and acknowledge the truth based on the genuine anger Mercurimon’s showing. This is not helping Mercurimon see this guy as not actually one of his enemies.)

In his rage, Mercurimon finally turns to violence, firing a huge blast at the group. (Remember, Yoshino and Tohma had to drop their Digivices earlier, so they’re defenceless.) The first blast knocks them down and injures them, but as Mercurimon’s threatening that the next one will finish them off, Masaru rushes in, having located the throne room thanks to the first explosion and cut short his fight with Ikuto.

Somehow Masaru makes his entrance from the rock- or ice-based equivalent of rafters that this chamber has, meaning he can leap down from high above and punch that giant wolf-man right on the nose.

Mercurimon: “That burning Digisoul in your fist…”

Masaru:  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Daimon Masaru-sama!”

You didn’t actually punch him the last time you met, Masaru. He’s not reacting to your Digisoul, not exactly.

Mercurimon: “Daimon? Could you be Daimon Suguru’s son?”

Masaru’s grandiose self-introduction, complete with his full name, ends up rather unintentionally confirming the suspicion that Mercurimon was already having just based on the Digisoul. (Not that he should necessarily know about how family names work – again, Digimon don’t usually do families – but this is more information to help him make the connection. He does already know that Suguru has a son; a certain human taught him what it’s like to be a father, after all.)

Masaru:  “How do you know my dad?”

I love how even in his biggest fighty mood, Masaru is still stopped in his tracks the moment he hears that someone knew his dad. That’s more important than anything to him, even fighting.

Mercurimon: “There’s no need for me to answer you!”

Unfortunately for Masaru, Mercurimon is extremely not in a conversational mood right now, especially not where Suguru is involved. That brief reminder of him through Masaru’s Digisoul caught him off guard just a little, but not enough to quell his anger.

Masaru:  “Damn it! I’ll just have to force you to tell me!”

Masaru is now apparently seeing this fight as not just taking down Mercurimon and protecting the team from his wrath, but also about getting information on his dad through fighting. Of course he is.

Masaru picked up Tohma and Yoshino’s Digivices back where he found them, so all three of them get evolving. At least the Digisoul Charge parts are split-screen, though unfortunately this series does not do split-screen for the actual evolution animations when they happen simultaneously. I just typed this and the previous sentence while the animations were happening without pausing it; that’s how long they took.

Apparently their evolutions also took long enough that Ikuto and Falcomon made it into the throne room. Gotsumon fails at hiding his surprise to see Ikuto alive; Ikuto’s demeanour towards Gotsumon seems almost accusing. Ikuto definitely appears to have picked up on the fact that that rockslide almost killing him was not so accidental.

But luckily for Gotsumon (again), Mercurimon has more important things to be worrying about. (Gotsumon really is not that important to him at all, is he. He’d be mortified if he realised that.)

Mercurimon stands up to fight DATS, telling Ikuto to stay back… which is somewhat at odds with the fact that he was happy to let Ikuto fight them earlier. Maybe back then he didn’t realise they had Perfect-level partners, and he knows here that Ikuto and Peckmon wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

I want to point out that Lilamon is the first one to jump in and attack Mercurimon. Look at her go. None of that Sunflowmon barely doing anything and losing a lot, not any more. …Her attack basically just bounces off Mercurimon, but it was always going to and that’s not her fault. Evolution levels, everybody.

MachGaogamon then goes in for a Winning Knuckle, which very decidedly does not win anything. Winning Knuckle never winning is going to be something of a running theme in upcoming fights.

After RiseGreymon’s attack also utterly fails to leave a mark, Mercurimon leaps in and pummels them… or more like, pummels the ground just in front of them, only getting them hit by the shockwave? With that and the fact that he just stood there and let them attack him first, it almost seems like Mercurimon is going somewhat easy on them. Despite his feelings about humans, maybe it’s that he can’t quite bring himself to hurt other Digimon, even if they’re allied with humans.

RiseGreymon: “Our power doesn’t even scratch him?”

Of course it doesn’t. All three of you evolved further on the way here to face him, and it still doesn’t make a goddamn difference because he’s still the next level above yours. Evolution levels.

Masaru:  “The three of you attack at the same time! If you combine your attacks, it’ll be more powerful!”

Yoshino:  “We’ve never tried that before! Don’t be reckless!”

Tohma:  “Heh. Gutsy as always.”

Masaru, as ever, knows that he is in a shounen anime. I like how Yoshino derides it as reckless but Tohma just rolls with it – because Masaru has tried this before, in episode 5, when it was only him and Tohma. (Or rather, Tohma was the one to suggest the idea back then, because he was getting into the Masaru spirit of things, so of course he would still approve of such a spirit now.)

Masaru:  “No matter what, we’ll force out an advantage for ourselves! That’s what a man does!”

Oh, Masaru, of course it is. This isn’t a particularly complex application of his concept of manliness – just some general never giving up and always trying to find some way to achieve your goal – but it’s still very Masaru.

The three Perfect-levels combine their attacks into a single multicoloured blast powerful enough that it looks like Mercurimon has to actually try for once. He holds out both his arms to block it and is still shunted back by the force of it, the shockwave knocking over Gotsumon, Ikuto and Falcomon at his feet.

Mercurimon was knocked back far enough that he collided with the wall behind his throne and broke through it, revealing the Digital Gate that was always hidden back there. This is that Gate in Mercurimon’s palace that Jureimon told the group about before. (It’s also probably how Aquilamon got so quickly to the human world back in that episode; in his rampage after evolving, he crashed right through that wall behind the throne.)

As the smoke clears, Mercurimon observes that they managed to injure him – that is to say, there’s a small graze on his arm. Three Perfect-levels working together at their absolute full combined strength managed to just vaguely scratch an Ultimate-level. EVOLUTION LEVELS.

The notion that they were able to injure him makes Mercurimon stop playing around and take the fight seriously, and he promptly charges a blast and fires it directly at his three opponents, instantly devolving them. Because of course it does. Masaru did a good job of having enough shounen spirit to make it seem like they had a chance for a moment back there, but this outcome was utterly inevitable from the start.

The humans rush to their fallen partners as Mercurimon towers over them, looking like he is really seriously going to kill them this time for real I swear, only for the old man to step protectively in front of them. He raises a Digivice, Realising… Kamemon.

Remember this little turtle guy? The guy who always makes the tea at DATS HQ, and never seemed to have a human partner? Turns out he does, and it’s the old man! It’s becoming even more clear that this man is definitely a DATS member.

The old man does a Digisoul Charge, and because he’s not an important enough character, we don’t have to sit through a long elaborate evolution animation. Kamemon evolves into Gawappamon, a very bizarre DJ kappa thing who’s only Adult-level – even less equipped to take on Mercurimon than RiseGreymon and the others were. But the old man seems to have enough confidence to try anyway, and it’s not because he doesn’t know how evolution levels work. (He’s a DATS member; he would know.)

Just like how Gotsumon can do damage beyond what his evolution level would suggest by using the environment, Gawappamon can too. He fires his attacks at the rock pillars supporting the room, causing the whole ceiling to collapse on Mercurimon. The DATS group, meanwhile, are closer to the walls and less in danger of being crushed. This old man and his partner know what’s up!

Taking advantage of Mercurimon’s temporary incapacitation – he’s Ultimate-level; being buried in rocks isn’t going to keep him down for long – the old man leads the group around the perimeter of the room towards the Digital Gate, aka the best way to get the hell out of this situation before Mercurimon kills them all. His little trick with Gawappamon is just to buy them enough time to reach it, not out of any delusion that he can actually win.

Masaru:  “You want us to run without even beating him?”

Old man:  “Enough! Just run!”

Masaru:  “No way! How can we retreat like this?”

Oh, Masaru. Of course he wouldn’t want to just give up and run away from a fight. Of course he’d refuse to acknowledge the very clear evidence that they are utterly, completely outclassed right now, and would keep trying to do anything he can to reach his goal.

Old man:  “Agumon and the others can’t carry on fighting. If this goes on, they’ll only be killed!”

This gives Masaru pause, though. He was so single-mindedly focused on somehow winning that he hadn’t properly considered his partner’s condition, but having had it pointed out to him, of course he doesn’t want to get Agumon killed. (Or, well, a somewhat less severe equivalent of it that would only involve him being turned into an egg, rather than what happened to Yukidarumon and several other unfortunate Digimon. Though, having now learned that that can happen, maybe Masaru is worried that it might happen to Agumon here, because he doesn’t know it wouldn’t work like that.)

Old man:  “Right now, you must protect your friends. That’s what a man would do.”

I love how the old man knows exactly how to push Masaru’s buttons and try to get him to agree. It is what a man would do!

Masaru watches, scowling, as Mercurimon gets to his feet. I think he’s realising that retreating for now really is the right thing to do, however much he might hate it.

The old man brings over Ikuto, who was knocked unconscious at some point during the commotion, and hands him to Masaru, telling him to take Ikuto back to the human world. He’s thinking of the people in the human world that he knows are missing Ikuto and want to see him again, rather than about what Ikuto himself would want. The old man came into this whole Ikuto situation rather late and hasn’t got a full picture of what’s going on with Ikuto; I doubt he realises that being brought to the human world is the last thing Ikuto would ever want and this is really a lot more complicated than returning a lost kid to his home. The human world isn’t his home!

But Masaru doesn’t question it – he probably figures Ikuto ought to be around humans too. Instead, as Yoshino hurries him towards the Gate, he starts protesting the fact that, wait, the old man doesn’t seem to be coming with them, is he really going to stay behind to hold Mercurimon off…? Retreating from a fight is already bad enough, but retreating from a fight while your comrade is still there, still risking themselves for you? That’s even worse.

Falcomon struggles to his feet in time to see the humans running towards the Digital Gate and carrying Ikuto with them. From his perspective, it must seem like these humans are abducting his best friend into an alien world. Unable to stop them but refusing to let Ikuto be taken alone, Falcomon does the only thing he can and flies right after them. He’s so good, and being so brave for his friend.

Mercurimon begins to fire an attack towards the Gate, probably furious on top of everything else that they’re running away and taking Ikuto with them, probably not thinking clearly enough to realise that he might risk hitting Ikuto like this. But the group of eight, four humans and four Digimon, make it through the Gate just before Mercurimon’s attack hits – and luckily his attack doesn’t travel between worlds like the humans and Digimon do.

A Digital Gate opens in the sky in the human world (apparently, though this Gate was permanently hanging open on the Digital World end, it only opens in the human world when someone actually travels through it), right above the Yokohama bay, dropping the group into the sea. The DATS HQ must have somehow detected where the Gate was going to open, because a helicopter soon shows up with Satsuma inside, here to retrieve them. Mission not very successful at all, but at least they made it back alive, and Satsuma’s probably counting his blessings for that.

(Satsuma doesn’t have Kudamon around his neck for once. Does that mean Kudamon’s the one flying the helicopter? I’d love to see that.)

Overall thoughts

A nice juicy plotty episode where lots of stuff happens and we learn a lot! There’s still plenty of the Mercurimon arc left to go, but the end of this episode marks a distinct halfway point in it. We’re pretty much about to shift from Mercurimon arc part 1 to Mercurimon arc part 2, now that we have a better idea of what Mercurimon’s deal really is and that he decidedly isn’t just some Big Evil Guy.

I love how this episode’s big conversation between Mercurimon and the old man is so full of people being people, misunderstanding and making sweeping assumptions about the other side in their confusion and anger and defensiveness. I also enjoy the effect of the two-conversations-one-dialogue where both Mercurimon and Ikuto are talking about the massacre at the same time, really getting across how big of a deal this is to multiple people.

Ikuto’s ongoing arc in this episode is great: him struggling to deal with the new realisation that he’s human, Falcomon being a good friend with his already less black-and-white view of humans and trying to help, and Masaru saving him, seeing him as an equal opponent rather than an enemy and generally being Good. Gotsumon’s attempted Ikuto murder count is now at 3, and this time Ikuto noticed it, which is going to be a big deal once he has some more time to process that.

In terms of the fight, evolution levels are always a little silly in that they remove all suspense of who’ll win in a fight where the sides are different levels. Still, Masaru’s determined shounen spirit did a good job of making it seem like the DATS team might have stood a chance for a second there. And at least, in this instance, the disparity in evolution levels serves a good narrative purpose of making Mercurimon seem utterly hopelessly impossible to defeat. Hmm, maybe they should start thinking about a different approach here.

---

[Dub comparison]

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 13 - Masaru’s New Power! Evolve, RiseGreymon!

In this episode, Mercurimon overpowers the DATS crew but is turned back by Piyomon sacrificing himself. As Piyomon is reborn, he rampages mindlessly through the human world, while Masaru struggles to accept that he may not yet be strong enough to protect the things he cares about.

Just like we’re going to be getting almost every single episode from now on (because have I mentioned we’ve reached the plot and stuff happening!), we start with a recap. This one’s pretty to-the-point, summarising the previous episode and getting us caught up to the present in less than a minute. They, uh… won’t all be that way.

We left off as Masaru was recklessly charging at Mercurimon, who, as a reminder, is an Ultimate-level Digimon and therefore hilariously out of everyone’s league right now. With a casual swipe of his arm, Mercurimon creates a huge gust of wind that sends Masaru flying back several metres through the air, before he can even get close.

GeoGreymon fires a blast at Mercurimon. He simply blocks it with his hand, closing his fist to dissipate it entirely. It’s practically effortless for him to stop an attack that we’ve seen being an insta-win time and time again against just about every other Digimon they’ve fought.

Masaru:  “What?”

Masaru certainly seems surprised. He maybe wasn’t expecting to win this one instantly, but not even leaving a scratch on their opponent with GeoGreymon’s strongest move?

Mercurimon retaliates by charging up blue energy in his fist and blasting it at GeoGreymon, sending him flying back, slamming into the pylon and devolving from the impact. He follows up with another blast at Gaogamon and Sunflowmon, who both rush forward to protect their partners from it and also devolve as soon as they’re hit. Mercurimon can instantly defeat all three Adult-levels in a single attack… and it still doesn’t even seem like he’s trying all that hard.

(It’s, uh, sort of questionable why they only devolve and don’t straight-up turn into eggs. I think that’s mostly down to plot convenience, because the writing needs them to be defeated and unable to fight for now but not for this to be a huge problem with huge consequences. Unless maybe human-partnered Digimon who’ve evolved through Digisoul have some kind of inherent defence mechanism of reverting to their Child-levels when hurt, and therefore can’t be turned into eggs in a single attack? Or perhaps, Mercurimon was holding back and deliberately trying not to revert them to eggs.)

Mercurimon:  “You foolish humans. I, Mercurimon, will cast down the iron hammer of judgement.”

That’s, uh, a little pompous of you, Mercurimon. Remember that he only came to this world to retrieve Falcomon, who is now safely behind him and can come home with him at any time. But apparently, seeing humans here, humans who’ve been attacking Falcomon, makes him angry enough to feel like he needs to exert some kind of “judgement” upon them while he’s here.

Also note that he aimed his attacks at the Digimon first, perhaps as if he was aiming to only devolve them, so that he could then attack the humans without the Digimon getting in the way and getting more hurt. He doesn’t denounce Agumon, Gaomon or Lalamon (or Piyomon, who’s also still here) for working with humans, nor imply that they’re going to be sharing that “judgement” of his.

Masaru:  “Don’t get full of yourself!”

Masaru refuses to be deterred (and also honestly has a pretty good point about Mercurimon coming across as full of himself here). He rushes to Agumon and tries to pull him out of the pylon wreckage, still clinging to the narrative that they totally have any semblance of a chance here if they just keep fighting. (They do not.)

Mercurimon begins charging himself up with lightning from the thunderclouds, preparing an attack that will almost certainly super murder all four of the humans present. Piyomon, the only Digimon who still has some strength left (despite his beating from Masaru last episode), realises this and stands up.

Piyomon:  “I will protect you. Goodbye, Chika.”

He must have concluded, after last episode and especially right now, that his desire to protect Chika is even stronger than his desire to simply stay with her. So, as the only thing he can do, he flies furiously at Mercurimon, glowing with some kind of red energy, screaming Chika’s name.

…Mercurimon’s body is still cloaked in electricity from the attack he’s charging, and Piyomon is literally vapourised on contact. Yeah, that’s what happens when a Digimon is three evolution levels higher than you, each level exponentially stronger than the last.

As the smoke, and the static on the monitors at DATS HQ, clears, Mercurimon is standing completely unharmed (of course he is) with Piyomon’s comparatively-minuscule egg in his giant hand.

(No matter how disproportionately strong a power Piyomon was “killed” by, it’s still the natural course of things that he leaves an egg behind and isn’t truly dead.)

Mercurimon:  “He flung away his life to protect a human. What a fool.”

Despite Mercurimon calling this foolish, it seems to be working, because he’s stopped charging his attack. Piyomon almost certainly knew he didn’t stand a hope of actually damaging Mercurimon after seeing the others try and fail. That wasn’t really the point. The point was to show his resolve to literally give his life (well, more or less) for the sake of a human. If a Digimon is willing to go that far, maybe these humans, at least, might not actually deserve Mercurimon’s “judgement”?

Chika:  “Piyomon! Give him back! Give back my Piyomon!”

In her grief over losing Piyomon, Chika chooses to completely ignore the danger and furiously stare down this gigantic, terrifyingly-powerful wolf man. That takes some guts. Masaru is not the only Daimon who is a badass.

Mercurimon looks back at her, not even angry, just watching her. He could still kill all four of these humans with barely any effort… but he no longer wants to. Piyomon’s sacrifice worked.

So he tells Falcomon they’re going home and flies up into the clouds, still clutching Piyomon’s egg, followed by Falcomon. They disappear into a Digital Gate that was, uhhhhh just up there somehow, I guess maybe that could be the same Digital Gate he came in from and it just wasn’t visible because the clouds were in the way, sure let’s go with that.

Chika screams helplessly after Piyomon as they go, because Mercurimon did not listen to her and give him back. Mercurimon must have decided that, since Piyomon has been reverted to an egg, he won’t want to be with Chika this time around and it’d be better for him to start a new life uninfluenced by humans. Taking a still-living Digimon away from a human they love is one thing – Mercurimon didn’t make any moves to abduct the DATS partners as well – but if they’re an egg, it’s fine, because they’re like a fresh new person then, right? What the human wants is irrelevant; it’s better for the Digimon this way.

Masaru looks on, his friends sprawled around him, effortlessly defeated by their enemy, his sister heartbroken with him having been helpless to stop it. This has not been a good day for him so far.

And then for a bit of mood whiplash with the opening! Despite what I said before about this part with them running through the field making me feel like it’s the Digital World, it’s actually definitely not that, because we see the sky here without those distinctive circuit-board patterns and floating rocks. Kind of a shame; I feel like it’d serve the opening better if it was the Digital World they were romping through.

Everyone’s regrouped back at DATS HQ and is getting their wounds tended to, Digimon and humans alike.

Masaru & Agumon:  “Oww…”

It’s interesting that Masaru is one of the ones vocally expressing his pain, because he clearly has a great pain tolerance given that getting into fights is kind of his hobby. He’s probably doing it less because he can’t bear with the pain and more just out of frustration at the fact that he came out of that fight with nothing to show for it but a bunch of injuries.

(Though the bandage that’s around his head right now probably isn’t even from Mercurimon; it’s more likely to be from him being punched really hard in the face by Piyomon.)

Masaru:  “That bastard… I’m gonna get him back ten billion times more for this!”

Tohma:  “Sounds like the weak threats of a sore loser to me.”

Masaru:  “What?!”

Tohma’s really not wrong. Someone is overcompensating juuust a little bit here. And of course Masaru can’t stand for that being said either.

Tohma:  “You in particular felt the difference in power first-hand, didn’t you?”

Masaru just grimaces and can’t shoot back a retort for that one. He did, given that he was the only one of the humans to rush at Mercurimon, and he got blown effortlessly backwards without even getting close.

Yoshino:  “Stop arguing. Not at a time like this.”

Yoshino both looks and sounds really tired here. She does not have the energy to deal with these two’s nonsense on top of everything else, not after the stress of what just happened.

Satsuma:  “We can’t win against Mercurimon in our current state.”

Masaru:  “We won’t know that unless we try!”

I appreciate your always-trying outlook on this, Masaru – but also, you did just try, and you got utterly destroyed while he barely lifted a finger.

Kudamon:  “He is an Ultimate-level.”

Masaru:  “Ultimate-level?”

Satsuma:  “In other words, a Digimon whose power is closest to God’s.”

I guess this is them making An Attempt to explain to Masaru just how outclassed they are by an Ultimate-level right now, though it’s a bit vague to really help. Not, to be fair, that trying to explain it in mathematical terms of power levels would work at all when this is Masaru.

Satsuma’s invocation of “God” seems a bit unnecessarily over-the-top, and probably is. But still, maybe there is a god out there somewhere that we could be comparing an Ultimate-level Digimon’s power to, in time. (It’s odd that this is coming from the human here and not the Digimon, but maybe that phrasing is how Kudamon once explained Ultimate level to Satsuma back when they first met.)

Yoshino:  “Just who is this Mercurimon?”

Kudamon:  “Long ago, he was a great forest king who governed over the Great Zaganda Forest that spread out in the eastern region of the Digital World.”

Look at Kudamon knowing things about the history and rulers of the Digital World. (Remember, he didn’t come here as an egg.) And also look at how he says Mercurimon used to rule over a forest, even though we’ve seen that Mercurimon currently lives inside an icy mountain. Apparently he moved there more recently for some reason.

Gaomon:  “Why did someone like him appear in the human world?”

Tohma:  “His goal may be to destroy our world.”

Um, Tohma? Jumping to conclusions much? All we know for certain is that Mercurimon is really powerful, and that he came to the human world just now for some reason. That does not immediately logically lead to him wanting to destroy the human world, especially not when he turned around and left after Piyomon’s sacrifice despite not being outmatched in any way.

But it’s a fairly understandable mistaken conclusion for someone to jump to in this situation. The DATS team just experienced Mercurimon’s overwhelming power and how utterly helpless they are against him first-hand, and they don’t know why Mercurimon actually came here, because he never said that he was only here to retrieve Falcomon. He also definitely seemed pretty angry at humanity in general from what little he did say, and he did very nearly kill them all before Piyomon and Chika snapped him out of it.

They’re scared of Mercurimon, especially because they don’t know what he wants or what he’ll do next. It’s very easy, in a situation like this, stressed out as they are in the aftermath and not having had a proper chance to calm down and recover, for them to jump to assuming the absolute worst – even for someone usually calm and logical like Tohma. Really, it’s just human.

Lalamon:  “Maybe… the reason why the boundary between the human and Digital World is becoming instable is also because…”

Yoshino:  “It was all Mercurimon’s doing?!”

Tohma:  “It’s possible.”

This is just jumping to even further conclusions, still with absolutely no concrete evidence – but again, it’s just the human thing to be doing right now. (Well, “human” in a not-quite-literal sense of the term, since Lalamon isn’t.) They’re scared and stressed; it’s easy to blow things out of proportion and make connections that don’t actually have any business being made. It feels safer for them to feel like they have Answers to all the mysteries, and to have a clearly-defined Enemy that’s causing all their problems.

Masaru:  “Then all the more reason! Let’s go now to beat up Mercurimon and…”

Masaru hasn’t been joining in with everyone’s wild paranoid theory-mongering, but he is quite willing to buy into it – because if they have a clear enemy, then there’s a clear solution, right? Just go and fight him, obviously!

But Chika – who’s also here, along with Sayuri – yells at him to stop.

Chika:  “Why do humans and Digimon have to fight each other?”

A very good question, and one nobody else has asked up until now!

Chika:  “The time I spent with Piyomon was really short, but we were able to become friends! There’s got to be some way humans and Digimon can live peacefully together!”

She’s not even talking about everyone being ready to charge down the warpath with Mercurimon; she’s talking about in general.

And really, why haven’t DATS thought about this more? Why is there this arbitrary rule that a Digimon can only live in the human world with a human partner if they both work for DATS – an agency that’s dedicated to keeping humans and Digimon as separate as possible? Isn’t it kind of paradoxical that DATS is utilising these powerful human-Digimon bonds to prevent more such bonds ever having the chance to form at all? They should be encouraging more humans and Digimon to work and live together, not the opposite!

It feels appropriate that it’s the youngest person here, who hasn’t yet got caught up in that adult mindset of That’s Just How Things Work, who’s the first one to see things this way.

Everyone else in the room just kind of stares at Chika, dumbfounded by her outburst. Nobody tries to tell her she’s wrong. It looks like none of them ever quite thought about it in that way before. Yet it seems like they can’t deny that she has a point, even though they also know it isn’t that simple to achieve.

The mood is broken by a Governor Hashiba entering the room, sounding very upset at the mess that’s been made.

Masaru:  “Governor?!”

Miki:  “He’s a dignitary from the National Government’s Ministry of Confidentiality.”

In short, this guy works for a branch of the government that exists to cover up various things they want to keep out of the public awareness – such as Digimon. So naturally, DATS’s operations are overseen by them, and specifically by Hashiba.

Hashiba:  “I believe it is the duty of DATS to keep these Digimon incidents under wraps, but what am I seeing now?! At this rate, you won’t be able to fool the citizens any more!”

“Confidentiality” does indeed seem to be all he cares about. This terrifying Digimon who’s far too powerful for anyone on DATS to defeat right now just showed up, but the only thing that matters to Hashiba is that this might mean – might; none of the general public saw Mercurimon just now as far as we know – that the public will learn about Digimon, causing a lot of trouble for him.

Masaru:  “Hold on a minute, old man! I don’t care if you’re a governor or whatever – don’t butt in when you don’t even know what’s going on!”

Masaru, naturally, does not give a damn about not talking back just because this is some important government politician or whatever and tells things how he sees it. And he’s right, really – while DATS decidedly do not have the full picture either, there may well be a lot more at stake here than just the secrecy side of things.

Sayuri steps in front of her son and bows deeply to the governor.

Sayuri:  “I’m his mother. Please excuse my son’s rudeness.”

Masaru:  “Don’t apologise to a jerk like him, Mom!”

Oh, Sayuri, always trying to keep up that ideal Japanese politeness and yet mother to someone like Masaru. I like how Masaru doesn’t think this guy even deserves his mom’s politeness.

Hashiba gives Masaru a distasteful glare, apparently deciding thanks to Sayuri’s words to write him off as a rude ignorant kid, instead of accepting that he might possibly have a point.

Satsuma:  “Governor. I’ll make sure to properly carry out DATS’s mission next time.”

Satsuma would also probably like to tell Hashiba about all the factors to this situation that make it far more complicated than a simple question of secrecy. But unfortunately, whether he likes it or not, Hashiba is in the position of authority here, so he has to play the obedient subordinate.

“We’ll do better next time” isn’t even a meaningful promise to make! They did a perfectly good job this time of the thing Hashiba most cares about, namely keeping things secret. And if it’s instead supposed to mean “we’ll defeat Mercurimon properly next time”, they can’t actually make that promise, because they’re so completely outclassed against him. Satsuma definitely knows this and is just saying what Hashiba wants to hear because he has no other choice.

Hashiba:  “No, there is no further need for you to do anything any more. I would like DATS to be dissolved at once.”

…And this is why Satsuma has to play nice with Hashiba – because he knows Hashiba has the power to do this whenever he feels like it.

This decision is really kind of out-of-nowhere and not at all adequately justified by what just happened. Sure, things look bad with the threat of Mercurimon looming over them, but nothing catastrophically terrible has actually happened yet. The secrecy hasn’t been ruined, and the DATS agents haven’t been defeated so thoroughly that they can’t fight any more. It is very clearly a more sensible course of action, in this situation, to keep DATS around so that they can at least try to deal with this problem, because without DATS, who else is going to do it?

Hashiba’s never properly explains or justifies his decision to dissolve DATS here, and I believe that’s precisely the point, because I don’t think it was really Hashiba’s decision alone. I think we’re already beginning to see vague hints of somebody else behind the scenes pulling Hashiba’s strings – someone who has their own reasons to want DATS out of the way and is looking for any kind of excuse to convince Hashiba to do it for them.

We cut outside to the harbour, with an absolutely delightful sequence of Masaru throwing increasingly large rocks into the ocean while yelling louder and louder curses after each one. It’s such a fun way to get across his frustration at this whole situation and how powerless he is to do anything about any of it.

(and don’t even question where he got the rocks from)

Agumon is there with him and tries to supportively agree about how mad he is that that dude just came in and dissolved DATS for no good reason.

Masaru:  “That’s not it! That damn Mercurimon… I’m definitely gonna make him pay!”

But Masaru isn’t even particularly mad about the DATS thing, not compared to the bigger issue. He can fight Digimon on his own regardless of whether DATS is telling him to or not; whatever. His problem is that he can’t deal with the thought that this Mercurimon guy might just be too strong for him to beat no matter what he does. Masaru’s supposed to be able to beat anyone!

He punctuates this by pulling the bandage off his head and dramatically throwing it into the ocean. Can’t have anything that might be making him seem weak.

Over in the Digital World, at Mercurimon’s icy mountain palace (very definitely not a forest there, huh), Gotsumon is admonishing Falcomon for causing trouble for Mercurimon.

Falcomon:  “Both Ikuto and I found that Digiegg. I promised with Ikuto that we’ll both take good care of it until it hatched!”

Falcomon and Ikuto wanted to be Digi-dads! That’s why Falcomon was so worried when the egg disappeared into the human world! I’ll say a little more about this later on once we’ve met this Ikuto person and learned more about him and Falcomon, but suffice it to say that this is adorable.

Gotsumon:  “Good grief. Only troublesome things have occurred since Ikuto came here.”

Gotsumon still doesn’t seem to like Ikuto very much, huh. It’s like he’s blaming this whole trouble just now entirely on Ikuto, even though Falcomon also equally decided to raise the egg and was the one to actually go to the human world after it.

Falcomon:  “Ikuto hasn’t done anything wrong! Don’t talk badly about him!”

I enjoy Falcomon immediately jumping to defend Ikuto from Gotsumon’s unfounded nonsense. As we will be seeing a lot of, Falcomon and Ikuto are friends and it makes me happy.

Before the argument can escalate, they both hear a commotion from near Mercurimon’s throne and rush to him.

Gotsumon:  “Mercurimon-sama!”

Falcomon:  “Mercurimon!”

This contrast is interesting – Falcomon doesn’t feel the need to use -sama to address Mercurimon, even though he’s something of a ruler. This could be because Falcomon is a particular exception to how Mercurimon likes to be addressed by people. But I think it’s more likely that Mercurimon doesn’t actually care how less-powerful Digimon address him, and Gotsumon just really likes sucking up to authority.

The commotion is from Piyomon’s egg, which Mercurimon is still holding in his hands.

Mercurimon:  “The human’s evilness is swirling within the egg. I can no longer prevent it from hatching.”

We can indeed see a swirling mass of something within the egg, though Mercurimon calling it “evilness” is definitely him letting his opinion of humans cloud his judgement. This is human emotions – residual ones from Piyomon’s bond with Chika that didn’t quite manage to get fully wiped out when he was turned into an egg. If human emotions sometimes have the power to make a Digimon grow larger and evolve, they can certainly make a Digiegg hatch.

In fact, turns out they can even make it hatch straight into the Child stage, skipping the Baby stage of Puwamon completely. That’s not how things would normally go.

Piyomon:  “Chi-ka! Where are you, Chika? I’ll always… be with you…”

From the words alone, it might sound like Piyomon is himself and naturally wants to see Chika again. But based on his glazed, empty eyes, the way he’s looking and flapping around aimlessly, and his vacant tone of voice, that’s not it at all. Like every Digimon who gets taken over by human emotions that we’ve seen DATS deal with, Piyomon isn’t lucid right now. He’s just being controlled by these emotions of wanting to be with Chika without actually consciously understanding them at all.

That said, this is a very unique case of this, both because the emotions controlling him aren’t in any way negative for once, and also because they’re actually Piyomon’s own past emotions, rather than human emotions from Chika. But it’s definitely the connection that these emotions have to a human that allows them to control him like this, in the same way that negative human emotions usually influence Digimon.

Falcomon:  “He still has his earlier memories, before he turned back into a Digiegg!”

Sort of, but not quite. And as Falcomon saying this in surprise implies, this isn’t supposed to happen. Digimon that get turned into an egg and then reborn usually forget everything about their past life completely.

Mercurimon fires a blast of energy at Piyomon, ordering him to forget about the human. I can only assume that he’s not trying to outright re-egg Piyomon, because he should be able to do that very easily, but is instead trying to use his powers to somehow wipe the human-related emotions and memories from his mind.

It doesn’t work. Piyomon yells in non-lucid defiance, probably a result of the stubborn determination he had his previous life to never leave Chika’s side no matter what, and evolves into Aquilamon as some kind of instinctive defence mechanism.

Now a lot more powerful but equally glassy-eyed and vacant, Aquilamon’s aimless flying crashes him right through the wall of the palace behind Mercurimon’s throne. The next time we see him, he’s going to be in the human world.

While this is a very unique case and it doesn’t usually work quite like this, we just got a glimpse of what it’d normally look like on the Digital World side when negative human emotions latch onto a Digimon and draw them to the human world. Spare a thought for all those poor Digimon, living their lives in the Digital World and minding their own business, until suddenly this alien force from another world completely takes over their mind, pulling them into said other world and forcing them to rampage uncontrollably. It’s really not fair for them at all.

Mercurimon:  “His heart has gone to a place where we can no longer take back.”

Mercurimon certainly seems to have realised that there really is nothing he can do for Aquilamon now. He tried, but when human (or human-related) emotions take control of a Digimon like this, it literally cannot be stopped by anything short of reverting that Digimon to an egg.

(Or possibly Mercurimon doesn’t realise that and didn’t pick up on how non-lucid Piyomon/Aquilamon was, and he’s just thinking that Aquilamon genuinely wants to be with Chika again in a perfectly normal sense.)

Mercurimon:  “How many times will you keep repeating the same mistakes until you’re satisfied… you damn humans…”

Mercurimon, I see the hint that you’ve had some bad experiences with humans in the past – but also, does this really count as even remotely the same kind of thing? It’s just a little girl who wanted to stay friends with a Digimon! And the control those emotions have over Aquilamon right now is not something anyone did on purpose! Nor is any of the human-emotion-driven rampaging that’s been happening, for that matter.

Out in the human world, a boat carrying a news team reporting on the weather sees Aquilamon fly out of a Digital Gate in the sky. Unfortunately, they have a camera, and they caught this on film.

At DATS HQ, while Masaru left with Agumon to take out his frustration on the ocean, and Sayuri and Chika went home, the rest of DATS have apparently just been standing around awkwardly in the control room, unsure what to do with themselves now that they’re technically meant to not be doing their jobs any more. But the Digimon-signal-detecting equipment hasn’t been told any of this, so it dutifully informs them of Aquilamon showing up just like always.

Satsuma:  “Secure Aquilamon before it lands!”

Tohma, Gaomon, Yoshino & Lalamon:  “Roger!”

Governor Hashiba isn’t in the room any more, so Satsuma has clearly decided to flat-out ignore the orders to dissolve the organisation for as long as he can. If there’s a Digimon rampage endangering people, they’re the only ones who can stop it, and that’s far more important to Satsuma than sticking to some politician’s orders that he doesn’t even agree with. Tohma and Yoshino don’t question it, either.

(Satsuma’s probably also thinking that something like this might help show Hashiba exactly why DATS is important and make him change his mind about dissolving it.)

Masaru:  “Damn it! Damn it!!”

Meanwhile, Masaru has been passing the time by continuing to take his anger out on some drum-set rhythm arcade game that’s available in the street. This, and the baseball from episode 6 – I love Masaru’s habit of trying to deal with his feelings of inferiority by indulging in recreation that happens to involve HITTING THINGS REALLY HARD.

In the window of an electronics store across the street, he notices ongoing reports of a monster, realises it must be a Digimon, and rushes off to deal with it too.

Another part of the news team is in a helicopter, reporting in a panic that the giant bird just destroyed their boat down below. Aquilamon approaches the helicopter itself, and their video feed cuts to static as he fires at it. Yeah, they’re all super dead. Aquilamon is straight-up rampaging, like they always do. If he were lucid and remembered everything properly and was genuinely just trying to find Chika, he wouldn’t need or want to attack a bunch of innocent bystanders like this.

Governor Hashiba watches the news reports about Aquilamon from his office, scowling in frustration. Yeah, maybe now you could complain that DATS isn’t doing its job properly, huh? – oh, except that you just told them to stop doing their job at all, and DATS are the only ones who can fix this.

(This kind of comes across like it’s the first time a Digimon attack has been reported on the news, which is a little bit of a stretch to believe? There’s bound to have been people nearby with cameras sometimes, surely – though bear in mind that this anime was made in 2006, back when everyone having a device with a camera in their pockets at all times was a lot less of a thing. This particular rampage is unique because of the whole situation with Piyomon and Chika’s emotions, but the fact that it apparently happens to have been the first to be caught on camera really is just a coincidence.)

Chika and Sayuri are watching the reports from their living room. Chika stares intently at the shots of the giant bird Digimon she’s never seen before… and somehow she can just tell that it’s Piyomon. Power of friendship and the Digimon-human bond, sure, I’ll buy it, this is a shounen anime. So she rushes out of the house to find him, Sayuri frantically following.

…I wonder what Chika thinks of the fact that her friend’s been rampaging and implicitly outright killing people. She wouldn’t know about the non-lucid thing. She probably thinks he’s scared and confused and doesn’t quite understand why what he’s doing is wrong – so of course she’d want to talk him out of it. Perhaps this is a bit like in episode 1 when Masaru thought Agumon was destroying a hamburger shop out of hunger and yet still wanted to talk him down rather than write him off as a monster.

Agumon:  “Now that DATS is disbanded, we’re not allowed to do anything any more…”

Masaru:  “Shut up! Who else can beat those Digimon besides us? We’ve got a duty to do what we have to do!”

Masaru’s the one to voice it, but this must have been the same sentiment the rest of DATS felt when they also decided to do this without even caring about the fact that they’re not supposed to.

Masaru:  “That’s what a man does!”

It’s also great that this is part of Masaru’s concept of manliness. Do what you’ve gotta do to help people, especially if you’re the only one who can!

Agumon is pondering how they’re going to get further out into the water to chase after Aquilamon – they’re at the harbour’s edge – when Tohma drives up in a speedboat. (This is probably the same DATS speedboat that Yoshino used so gloriously in episode 10, but it looks like Tohma can drive it too. I guess when he’s not caught up in making magical scientific unnecessary sprays, he can also make himself logistically useful, sometimes.)

We cut to them out on the water… and Masaru, who was in his civilian clothes, is now suddenly in his DATS uniform. Did he… get changed on the boat? I think the writers are hoping you don’t notice or think about it too hard. (He needs to be in the DATS uniform for the rest of this episode because his upcoming new Digisoul Full Charge stock animation doesn’t have a civilian-clothes variant, buuut then I don’t know why he couldn’t have just kept the DATS clothes the whole time.)

Gaogamon is riding on the front of the speedboat like it’s a surfboard, while Yoshino is at the shore with Sunflowmon. (Offscreen evolutions! Hooray!) I guess this is the reason Tohma’s driving the boat and not Yoshino: because Sunflowmon can fly over the water, but Gaogamon needs a ride.

The two Digimon work together to try and draw Aquilamon closer and make him an easier target, though they don’t get very far. Sunflowmon eventually attempts to straight-up tackle Aquilamon down into the water, which backfires on her spectacularly – but don’t go putting this down to incompetence, because it took a lot of guts for her to try. She’s doing her best, dammit.

Aquilamon:  “Chika! Where are you?”

Aquilamon is still saying these words, mindlessly and without understanding, but Masaru doesn’t know that part. He overhears Aquilamon say this and realises that this must be Piyomon. DATS HQ confirms this, because apparently they can do what’s effectively the equivalent of a DNA test to match individual Digimon signals, which is kinda neat.

Masaru:  “Hurry up, Tohma!”

Tohma:  “What are you going to do?”

Masaru:  “I’ll stop him by force!”

Tohma:  “How do you plan to hit him when he’s high up in the sky? There’s nothing you can do!”

Tohma poses a valid point – how do you punch a bird when you can’t even get close to it? – and Masaru does not like being told this. Even when the opponent’s not impossibly stronger than you, sometimes there’s still just nothing you can do.

Masaru:  “Piyomon! It’s me! Chika’s brother, Masaru!”

Aquilamon:  “Chika…”

Refusing to be deterred, Masaru tries the only other thing he can think of – and it seems to work, because Aquilamon responds to hearing the word “Chika” and circles around to fly towards them. Masaru grins, certain that this means Piyomon remembers him and things are going to be alright now—

—only for Aquilamon to fire an attack at the speedboat, capsizing it, and then fly off. He doesn’t actually remember at all. He’s just mindlessly rampaging, with a particularly strong reaction to anything related to these “Chika” thoughts that are controlling him.

Aquilamon:  “Chika… Where are you?”

If he were lucid, he’d be able to realise that staying with Masaru (and not trying to drown him) would be the best way to help him find Chika as soon as possible. But he doesn’t understand what “where are you, Chika?” actually means.

As a wave engulfs the capsized boat and pulls Masaru underwater, there’s this brief delightful shot of him helplessly watching Aquilamon fly away, his efforts to get through to him and help him reunite with Chika having utterly failed. I enjoy it a lot.

Masaru wakes up on the waterfront with Agumon standing over him, while Tohma and Gaomon lie unconscious nearby. Turns out they were saved by the old man who gave Masaru his Digivice, who put his fishing hobby to some good use just now. We haven’t seen this guy in a while, have we? But this is very much a Masaru’s Issues episode, so of course he’s here to observe with interest, just like always.

Masaru remembers Piyomon – he’s still calling him “Piyomon” despite the fact that he’s in Aquilamon form right now, because he’s still thinking of him as the person who was Chika’s friend rather than a mindlessly destructive force of nature – and looks into the distance to see Aquilamon causing carnage in some industrial area. So naturally, being Masaru, he begins to rush straight there.

Old man:  “Where are you going?”

Masaru:  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m gonna go beat him up and…!”

Not talk to him, mind. Masaru seems to have accepted that trying that isn’t going to work. In lieu of anything else, he’s back to his go-to solution of Fight The Thing.

Old man:  “It’s useless.”

Masaru:  “What?!”

Old man:  “You can’t win over anyone in your present state.”

The old guy has evidently been observing some of what’s been going on with Masaru this episode, and he has correctly noticed that right now, Masaru is in a particularly volatile state of mind. The whole business with having to protect Chika by driving Piyomon away last episode, and then Mercurimon showing up and utterly outclassing him, and now not being able to fight or get through to Aquilamon – all of it’s been getting to Masaru.

Masaru:  “What?! I’m the best street fighter there is!”

But Masaru doesn’t get why this is all a problem for him. He’s Japan’s number one street fighter! He’s supposed to be super strong, strong enough that he can deal with anything! Nothing ought to be a problem for him, right?

Old man:  “As of now, you wouldn’t even be able to defeat me.”

Masaru:  “Since you’ve said that much, why don’t you try beating me first?!”

Of course Masaru wouldn’t stand for that kind of empty trash talk and would insist that the old man proves it. So he rushes straight at him – and before he can get close, the old man reaches out with his fishing pole and uses Masaru’s own momentum to flip him effortlessly over his head.

The old guy did prove his point: Masaru is in such a state right now that he’s overcompensating by being even more overzealously reckless, making him all too likely to overlook the things he really needs to keep in mind in a fight. The usual anything-goes street fighter Masaru would have seen the fishing pole trick coming and dodged it with ease – but Masaru here is so single-mindedly desperate just to prove he’s strong enough that he’s blinding himself to everything else.

Masaru:  “What’s this mean?! How can someone like me who’s good at fighting be…?”

What does he mean, that’s not good enough? That someone as strong as Masaru still can’t always win every fight he wants to? That can’t be the way things are…!

Old man:  “Are you still not aware of your own inexperience?”

Masaru:  “What?!”

He clearly isn’t, old man. But you knew that, didn’t you? You’re just making observations, like always.

Old man:  “If not, then go. Then you’ll realise the truth.”

Masaru:  “Fine! I would’ve gone without you telling me that anyway!”

Damn right he would! Like their previous encounters, the old man is still doing very little giving Masaru actual advice. He knows Masaru can get there on his own eventually. He’s observing and commenting on what he sees, because he finds Masaru interesting, but it’s not meaningfully affecting Masaru himself in any real way. It’s just a neat device the writers are using to help draw attention to what’s going on with Masaru’s issues, and I very much appreciate their desire to do that.

After Masaru and Agumon run off, the old man has one last musing to himself.

Old man:  “The magnitude of all that you’re lacking right now… Until you understand that, you cannot mature to greatness.”

This is probably the most direct he gets about Masaru’s problem here: that Masaru needs to accept that he’s not strong enough yet in order to be able to grow stronger. And of course the old man didn’t say that in front of Masaru and try to present it as actual advice, because there’s no way someone as stubbornly proud as Masaru would ever accept something like that just by being told. He needs to learn it first-hand.

Masaru makes it to the industrial area where Aquilamon is rampaging and immediately begins climbing up a ladder to get closer to him.

Masaru:  “I’ll do it! I’ll defeat that guy all by myself!”

Masaru! It doesn’t have to be all by yourself! Agumon’s here with you too – you’ve already accepted that you need him! And the rest of DATS could be backing you up too, if you needed it.

But no – Masaru needs to prove that he can do this all by himself. Like the old man implied, he’s being so desperate to prove himself that he’s blinding himself to the point.

An explosion from above him sends a piece of shrapnel flying right at him, knocking him off the ladder to land in a heap on the ground. To be fair to him, he did see that one coming; there just wasn’t much he could do to avoid it in that position.

Agumon:  “Aniki! It really is hopeless, Aniki!”

Masaru:  “What?!”

Agumon is just worried about his aniki getting hurt and trying to stop him from doing something too dangerous! But that’s not how Masaru hears it. He stubbornly tries to sit up, winces in pain and is forced to lie back down. It really is hopeless.

Agumon:  “I’m not saying you aren’t strong… But…”

Masaru:  “But what?! You don’t think I have a chance at winning either, do you?!”

Agumon must have realised how his last comment came across and tries to soften it – of course he still thinks Aniki is strong! But even someone as strong as Aniki can’t always do everything.

Masaru completely glosses over the softening and the indication that Agumon is always on his side and just hears the “but” as even Agumon thinks I don’t have a chance. So he forces himself back to his feet this time, determined to prove that wrong.

Masaru:  “I’ll do it! If I dither around in a place like this, my manliness will rot!”

He can’t just give up here. Giving up for any reason, even if it’s because he genuinely feels like he has no chance whatsoever of reaching his goal, isn’t acceptable. He wouldn’t be able to keep calling himself a man if he did that.

(I should make a note, for way, way later on in the series, that Aquilamon is still flying high above Masaru right now, and it doesn’t seem at all reasonable to think that he could have heard this line. Not that it exactly matters at the moment, since he’s not lucid, but this will be sort of relevant eventually.)

The next thing we see, Masaru is standing tall amongst flames and smoke at the top of the structure he failed to climb earlier.

Masaru:  “Hey, Piyomon! You told me that you’ll protect Chika, right?!”

Aquilamon:  “Chi-ka…” [he swoops in closer to Masaru]

Masaru:  “If you’re a man, then defend those words you said with your own life!”

Masaru hasn’t quite properly picked up on the fact that Aquilamon is very much not himself right now and doesn’t even understand what “protecting Chika” means. Destroying the city like this sure isn’t very protective; maybe Masaru still thinks he’s trying to get through to Aquilamon and make him realise that? Maybe he’s thinking about how it’d hurt Chika emotionally to see her friend going on a destructive rampage, and that’s what he thinks Aquilamon ought to make with protecting her from?

But really, I think this is mostly Masaru projecting. He wants to protect Chika – to be strong enough to protect Chika – and he’s damn well going to try and prove that he can do so, even at the risk of his own life. It’s a lot like the fight they had last episode when Piyomon was still Piyomon; each of them was fighting to prove that he was the one strong enough to protect Chika, and the other wasn’t. Masaru is trying to tell himself that that’s still what this is about.

With those words, Masaru leaps down from above and punches Aquilamon in midair, landing below with his Digisoul flaring. (Shush, anime physics, he’s fine.)

Agumon looks… uneasy, as Masaru celebrates the arrival of the Digisoul. He probably still feels like his aniki is overdoing things and is a little worried about whether this is the right approach. But he’s a loyal follower nonetheless, so he’ll evolve and fight anyway.

(Actually, could Agumon even refuse to evolve once Masaru does a Digisoul Charge? We never see any of the partners try to do this during this series… but I’m inclined to think the answer might potentially be no.)

The BGM is eerily silent for the entire Digisoul Charge and (thankfully shortened) evolution sequence, again giving a sense that something isn’t right here. There’s nothing to feel triumphant about. Masaru is trying too hard.

GeoGreymon fires off a Mega Burst at Aquilamon, and Masaru grins for a moment in pre-emptive celebration… but then whatever automatic human-emotion-driven defence mechanism caused Piyomon to evolve back in Mercurimon’s palace kicks in again, and he evolves into Garudamon.

The negative human emotions that cause Digimon to rampage and sometimes to grow stronger and evolve have never been able to make them evolve past Adult level before. (See me eyeing Digmon from episode 5, which was still not past Adult, okay.) But Garudamon is a Perfect-level. Whatever unique special case is going on with Chika and Piyomon’s emotions taking control of him has made him stronger than is usually possible through this phenomenon.

Before the fight can continue, Chika runs onto the scene, calling for Piyomon. (She has to have run all the way to this place, which is on the shoreline and therefore quite far from her house up in the suburbs. Damn, this girl can run when she wants to.) Sayuri is here too, having chased Chika all the way, not wanting to let her daughter run into danger alone.

Masaru:  “Idiot, what are you doing here?!”

Which just means that Masaru’s whole family is now at risk of getting hurt. He’s expressing it in a very Masaru-like way, but he is not happy about this.

Chika says that she came because Piyomon was calling for her (which he was; she’s not to know that it wasn’t conscious of him). She steps forward, looking up at the giant bird-man her friend has become, reaching out to him and gently telling him to come home with her. That has to take some guts, being surrounded by all the smoke and destruction that Garudamon has clearly been causing. Chika trusts her bond with Piyomon so much; she’s so sure that if he just sees her, he’ll calm down and stop what he’s doing.

Garudamon:  “Chika!” [he clutches at his head as if in pain] “Where is my Chika…?”

But it doesn’t work. This proves it even more indisputably than anything else: he doesn’t actually remember her. He’s just mindlessly, violently gripped by the compulsion to seek out a “Chika” without the slightest understanding of who Chika is and what being with her used to mean to him.

As he says this, Garudamon begins to glow with energy, still being driven to attack anything that connects with this “Chika” thought that’s controlling him.

Masaru:  “Get back, Chika! He doesn’t remember you any more!”

Chika:  “That’s not true! Piyomon!”

The evidence is staring her in the face; her friend is about to attack her – but Chika still doesn’t want to believe it. Garudamon fires off his attack; Masaru rushes in front of Chika to protect her, and GeoGreymon (the only one here even slightly capable of taking that attack) jumps in front of his aniki.

Even with GeoGreymon blocking it, the shockwave from the attack sends Masaru tumbling back with Chika in his arms, as Sayuri falls to the ground a little further away. He can barely do anything to protect his family.

Chika:  “Masaru-niichan… Piyomon… Why isn’t he listening to me…? Did he really forget about me…?”

He really did, and there’s nothing Masaru can do to fix it or to stop his sister crying.

Behind him, GeoGreymon collapses heavily to the ground (because Garudamon is an evolution level higher than him, so of course he didn’t stand a chance). Everyone Masaru loves the most is hurting, helpless, potentially about to be killed by the Digimon who’s supposed to be Chika’s friend, and there’s nothing he can do.

Some Anime Sads Rain begins to fall to drive the point home, as well as to add some plausible deniability to the water that starts to run down Masaru’s face.

Masaru leaves his unconscious sister on the ground and stands up, his fists clenching and his shoulders shaking in helpless fury – at himself.

Masaru:  “What’s this crap about being the greatest? What’s this crap about being the best fighter in Japan? Both Chika’s feelings… and Piyomon… I couldn’t protect either of them.”

He’s finally accepting it, just like the old man knew he would. For all of his claims of being the best street fighter in Japan – for all of how he genuinely deserves that title – it still doesn’t mean anything in terms of what he really cares about protecting.

Masaru:  “In the end, my fists… My fists aren’t useful at all!”

Physical strength alone can’t always solve everything. He needed to have it demonstrated to him right before his eyes, very starkly and harrowingly, for it to get through to him, but he gets it now.

Masaru:  “I want to be stronger. I want to be much stronger!”

He’s not talking about physical strength here. He already knew he’s as physically strong as he ever needs to be – he’s just now learning that that’s not enough. He wants a different kind of strength, one that can do more.

Masaru:  “I don’t want to let anyone suffer any more painful emotions…”

After all, you can’t always protect someone’s feelings with just physical strength. It takes a lot more than that, and Masaru’s finally realising how important that is to him.

Masaru:  “That’s how strong of a man I want to be!!”

And of course, to Masaru, this is about being a man. He’s realising now that the best kind of “man”, the kind of man he’s still trying so hard to be, is someone who has that kind of strength to be able to protect their loved ones, and anyone who needs it, not just physically but also emotionally.

With this desperate declaration of his resolve, Masaru’s entire body flares up with Digisoul, to the triumphant sound of Believer, and he doesn’t waste a moment before putting it to good use.

Masaru:  “Digisoul Full Charge!”

I don’t know how he knew to say this, but hey. Maybe he picked it on the fly because it sounds cooler and stronger than just Digisoul Charge.

(Though, uh, he is saying this in English, and Masaru is not supposed to be very good at that language.)

It’s been a couple of episodes since we last heard Believer, which serves to give it some real impact, hearing it again now in this especially triumphant moment. And another thing I like that they do with it here is starting it off with the second verse, not the first. Anyone who’s been paying attention to the lyrics is probably pretty used to the first verse by now and was expecting to hear it, so it catches you off guard to be suddenly hit with entirely new lyrics instead. I dunno; it’s a small thing, but I think it gives more impact.

Now that they’re matched in evolution level, RiseGreymon wins very easily, blocking an attack from Garudamon without a scratch and then defeating him in a single counterattack. But shush. As with at least some of the very easy victories, the real battle was getting to this point. Let him have this triumph. There won’t be many more easy victories from here on.

(Apparently the official romanisation is “RizeGreymon”, according to what we can see in romaji as well as katakana in the background of the evolution animation. But, shush, okay, the subs I have spell it “RiseGreymon” and I’ve gotten used to seeing it spelled that way, so I’m going to continue to do so even if I know it might technically be incorrect.)

Old man:  “The growth of his heart called forth a new evolution.”

It sure did; that’s how this works! Even if Masaru hasn’t quite gained any of the strength he’s wishing for yet, just accepting that he’s not strong enough and wanting to change means he’s already stronger than he was before. It takes strength to admit to your weaknesses and resolve to work on them.

Old man:  “It seems you’ve realised something about what you treasure most, Masaru.”

He sure has. Despite him having made himself Japan’s number one street fighter, that was never really what he cared the most about, and now he’s beginning to understand that.

Also, I’m pretty sure this is the first time the old man has used Masaru’s name! That’s kind of cute, like he’s being less of a detached observer and feeling more affectionate towards Masaru now, in his pride at seeing him grow.

Later, as the storm clouds clear, Chika wakes up on Sayuri’s lap and immediately asks after Piyomon. Masaru holds up his egg without words, a regretful look on his face. He managed to protect his family from physical harm in the end, but he still couldn’t save Piyomon or Chika’s feelings.

Chika walks up to the egg and leans into it sadly, like she’s hugging Piyomon one last time.

Chika:  “I see. Now he no longer has to suffer… Thank goodness…”

I like that she can find some kind of silver lining and see it this way. Even if she doesn’t really understand what was wrong with Piyomon, it’s clear that he was suffering from whatever was making him lose his mind and rampage like that. It’s better for him to be rid of all that, even if it means he also can’t be with her after all.

(And, more on this later in the series, but we can assume that being re-reverted to an egg really will rid Piyomon of all those controlling emotions and let him have a normal Digimon life the next time he hatches.)

Masaru:  (I’ll never let something heartbreaking like this happen again. Both RiseGreymon and I will make sure of it!)

Oh, Masaru. You’re going to really, really try.

Back at DATS, in the aftermath of the incident, Satsuma is explaining to Hashiba over video call that they’ve written off all of the destruction as accidents and the news reports as overzealous publicity for a movie. It seems that Hashiba is more or less satisfied for now on the secrecy front, and he’s rescinded the order to have DATS officially dissolved. Turns out DATS is quite useful when there’s a Digimon destroying the city that can’t be stopped by anything but another Digimon, how about that.

Having presumably just got done sending Piyomon’s egg back to the Digital World, Miki and Megumi report that they detected a different Digimon’s signal mixed in with it – Mercurimon’s. We the audience can figure out how this happened: it must have been from when Mercurimon attacked Piyomon earlier in the episode to try and get him to forget Chika. Something about that process left a hint of Mercurimon’s signal rattling around within Piyomon’s signal somehow, like a human leaving DNA traces at a crime scene.

Yoshino:  “Then, could it be…?”

Tohma:  “By the looks of this, it’s likely that Piyomon was sent by Mercurimon to destroy the human world.”

But DATS didn’t see that happen; they have no way of knowing that Mercurimon was in fact trying to stop Piyomon from even coming to the human world. Given what they know, and given the fact that Piyomon’s rampage was such a unique case of the human emotions thing that it didn’t obviously look like an example of that, it’s relatively easy to jump to the conclusion that Mercurimon’s signal is there because he set this into motion – especially after the conclusions they already jumped to earlier when they were exhausted and stressed. They decided then and there that Mercurimon was simply The Enemy. This information can be read in a way that confirms their suspicions and paranoia, so of course they’d be inclined to do so. It’s just human.

Masaru:  “I knew it. Until we defeat him, we won’t get true peace.”

Even Masaru has got caught up in thinking this way throughout most of the episode, based on him acting like his theory’s been confirmed. His whole inferiority thing from feeling thoroughly outclassed by Mercurimon’s power probably didn’t help on that front.

And, okay, let’s be completely fair for a moment here. If this were literally any other Digimon series, then their assumption of “Mercurimon is the Big Bad Evil Digimon who is Evil because He Just Is, so we need to go defeat him!” would be a perfectly reasonable assumption to make, and flawed human paranoia wouldn’t even need to be a factor. For someone who’s watched through the other Digimon seasons up to this point and is seeing Savers for the first time, there’s absolutely no reason to question this narrative that DATS has actually just fabricated out of basically nowhere.

So Masaru declares that they should go to the Digital World to deal with Mercurimon, and Tohma and Yoshino nod. Despite the huge taboo that sending humans over there is supposed to be if episode 5 was any indication, it seems that the drastic circumstances of oh no Mercurimon might destroy our whole world if we don’t is enough to override the danger.

But Satsuma has something to say. He isn’t trying to tell them they can’t go – rather, he seems to have already accepted that they do need to go, and given that, he feels there’s some information they need to be aware of at last.

Satsuma:  “There is something I must tell all of you. Especially you, Masaru. This is important information concerning your father.”

Masaru:  “My… Dad?”

Masaru seems pretty shocked. Satsuma was probably the last person he expected to suddenly be telling him something about his dad.

And that’s the cliffhanger for the episode! I enjoy how the writers felt that the promise of information about Masaru’s dad was worth making into a cliffhanger. It certainly is one to Masaru, that’s for sure.

Overall thoughts

This is another excellent Masaru’s Issues episode and I enjoy it a lot. Like Savers has consistently been great at, there’s so much little subtle stuff showing how Masaru feeling inferior and powerless and outclassed by the current situation is getting to him, and how he’s dealing with it in an unhelpful way by getting even more single-mindedly reckless. The old man’s observations continue to be a fun narrative device to help highlight this stuff for the audience; I think this is my favourite of his scenes in which he does this.

This is pretty much a conclusion for some of the other Masaru’s Issues episodes in the opening arc – episodes 3, 6 and to some extent 10 – which contained the theme of Masaru struggling to figure out or admit he’s not yet as strong as he wants to be. Now he finally has! Took an even more extreme situation for him to finally reach that point, but he got there. He’s realised that it’s not all about physical fighting, and there’s a greater, more meaningful kind of strength that’s more important to him than that.

It's also fun seeing a Digimon rampage in a less-fillery, more high-stakes way, both because it’s connected to our new arc antagonists, and because it’s a Digimon we already know and care about. We can really see and sympathise with the fact that the Digimon are victims in this whole thing of rampaging due to human emotions.

And speaking of the new antagonists, I really appreciate how Mercurimon is not actually presented as a straight-up evil villain. It is perfectly possible to tell from this episode if you’re paying attention that DATS is wrong in the conclusions they come to about him. The writers know what they’re doing here. As they also do with the part where Hashiba attempts to dissolve DATS for no apparent reason; there’s more going on there than meets the eye right now, too. Savers is good.

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[Dub comparison]