#what with shinegreymon and such

[kideternity]

Huge fucking day for Megidramon likers aka ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[spikebit]

i am getting sooo close to finishing my digimon team in cybersleuth and i just know i'm gonna lose all desire to play this game once i'm done

[supermacaquecool]

Why do the tcg shinegreymon cards look straight up divine????????

[reversemoon255]

So the original plan for this month's Fifth Review was to cover the Adventure 02 movie, but it's such a thick soup of a film to sift through that I want to wait until I can pause and write my thoughts before trying to tackle it, like I did with Kizuna. But I'm still in a Digimon mood, so let's talk about some DigiXroses I designed. Again.

As, like, the only person who cares about DigiXroses mechanically, I've realized that DigiXroses have a rule of 7. If you look across all the Xroses you'll notice A) that no Digimon splits into more than 7 parts when forming a Xros, and B) no DigiXros is made up of more than 7 Digimon. Just a fun thing to note for when I eventually convince someone else to design one of these, themselves.

As for what I have to offer today, we have a new partner and Xros for the existing 2010 Greymon design; BoostKabuterimon and RizeGreymon Ver.Xros, designed by me and drawn by @/Ochistrikitu.

To be quicker than usual, I went with a Kabuterimon because Greymon's other partner is a Birdramon, and because I thought I could easily utilize the horn as a detail.

And while I didn't get them commissioned, I did design a second partner and evolution for this set in Tankdramon Ver.Xros and ShineGreymon Ver.Xros. I did break my rule for this, but I did this a while ago before I realized it was a thing. Anyway, I chose Tankdramon because of Darkdramon's rivalry with ShineGreymon, and because his shapes are perfect for DigiXrosing. I do want to tweak this design a bit if I ever do get it commissioned; just have a folding bar across the shoulders to make it seven pieces and redesign the chin/hood.

I mostly wanted to do this in prep for future projects, mostly I want to do a WaruMonzaemon that combines with the existing MetalGreymon 2010 to form a WarGreymon. I'm just waiting to get the Xros Figure of MailBirdramon so I can perfectly understand how that combination works to do it justice.

Overall, I hope you like them. Not much else to say apart from that. I'm working on a few other DigiXros projects that'll eventually make their way here. And, as always, I hope either this or a future project will inspire someone to try designing a DigiXros themselves, as I'd love to see other people's takes.

[drwormdcg]

Learning to Love Good Decks

Or how a timmy became a Spike and then a Mel

TAK/CORE TCG September Evo Cup Top 16

A small recount about how during Digimon [BT5]. I broke taboo about playing the best deck in the format and how it affected me positively.

As TCG players we usually pivot away from [tier 0-1] decks due to the triviality of a relative power advantage over our peers, maybe the decks are perceived as easier, more linear, etc. But the truth is unequivocally good decks can teach you about aspects of the game which are mostly ignored by new players.

I actually started to play this game around [BT4] in plain Yellow WarGrey Format, and my color of choice was red, I was piloting a [BT4] ShineGrey deck (one of my favorite cards ever, but thats a story for another time.)

But then the infamous LordKnightmon tier 0 format came by in [BT5]. And I ended building the deck in question after it was favored in my pulls, Had to sell my soul for a pair of TKs and Pulsemon but every card I needed for the deck after that was actually fairly easy to get, so I said:

"what the hell I am expending so much in this game I may as well pick some wins."

...

What was the result? I performed like fucking ass for the first half of the format.

LKM was a good deck, the best deck probably, it had an unfair edge in it's ability to cheat out Lv5 digimon to the field as well as the best removal in the game by far.

With an ideal stack

The player can start the turn with WarGrowlmon, use its effect to do -4K

Evolve into LKM, attack, use its effect to play a Knigthmon which deal another -4K on play, finish its attack.

And evolve that new Knight into a SlashAngemon for -8K

For a total of -16k damage for a total cost of 6 memory spread across multiple targets and 2 Lv6 digimon on the field. Mind you in a time period where removing a Lv6 or higher digimon meant either dropping a Gaia Force or getting Omnimon on the field.

But that was just a branch of all the possible routes you could go with it. With Angewomon you get access to lines in which you play a Knight and a Starmons or a BushiAgumon (maybe even 2) for a hit for game. You even have access to Lucemon for a recovery +1 if you need to stall.

Just reading these card together explains the strategy in its barebones

For the first time I had a deck that gave me enough fuel to do tons of different things at any point of the match. My red ShineGreymon deck needed me to find tamers and build my guy, then swing at security and hope he would be alive next turn but LKM gave me a flowchart of questions and options at almost every relevant point of the game.

The deck was a huge toolbox with generous action economy. The problem was, you, the player, needed to manage those resources and find the shortest route to your win. It becomes a game about Macro. Do you extent early? Do you play defensively, count how many attacks your opponent has over you next turn. You gotta manage the Pickmon -1k you are missing to attack over that Hexeblaumon this turn before it becomes a problem, or maybe remove that blocker on field so you can go for lethal.

I took LKM to the online Regionals and got beat by everything, Lilith-Loop, Hexeblaumon, Sec-con a scimblo black deck. But when I came back to locals, I started to win more games, not undeserved either I was just a better player on macro level. As minimal as it is just learning when to just straight up pass turn was really beneficial, I could identify that even though I was piloting the best deck, it still had a roll, LKM was a reactive strategy.

By BT6 I started to pivot toward purple strategies, picked Titamon, legitimately not a bad deck but a much much more difficult one, in part because it didn't carry that generous action economy LKM had. In Tita you build an ideal stack, discard some cards, and with luck and care you will have from 2 to 5 security checks in one turn, with all the flexibility purple already brings to the table. We were still just hitting hard. But despite some learning rounds I was a much more confident player, Titamon had an excellent niche against the best deck at the time, GabuBond, because you could build a Lv6 blocker with retaliation abusing the way Rebellimon retains the effect even if it evolves on Titamon.

But I did dip back into LKM builds, Lordknigth-Dynas was a fantastic. Less strong comparatively to its predecessor but it carried this action economy that made me enamored with it on the first place.

In short, picking wins with a better deck will always be easier than with a worse deck, there's fun in being able to pilot a powerhouse. I dont have to tell you this but winning in cardgames is fun, and even tho losing can be fun, the root of said fun is having a chance in the first place. No one likes being the coughing baby . And sure, over favorable wins aren't fun either.

Playing a close to tier 0 deck in BT5 taugth me that, when your gameplan is working you get to learn a game about what do you do once your deck is working, in contrast to the struggle to achieve your gameplan in the first place.

I now pretty much play only Mastemon, a deck historically known for being a deck about struggling to achieve its gameplan. (We find gatomon or we cry) But for me now it feels like its a risk I calculate before choosing the deck, rather than the blind gravitation to quirky off-meta decks I used to feel.

It will save me stress, to know that my Sakuyamon deck which is really inconsistent but has strong and satisfactory blow out. Will lose the majority of games it plays against a consistent aggro deck like Imperial. And it is the awareness of these weaknesses what allows me to play around them.

Maybe by the end not much has changed, I used to play quirky trashy decks, then I played LKM for a season and then went back to my jank. I am not a fantastic pilot in the first place but I like to imagine the humbling experience of being in the big chair changed the way I see the game, the decks I like, the options I can take when building a given strategy and the way I play the macro game. And I feel, if you are starting in any decent tcg and can afford it or have the chance be in a simulator or playing with proxies, try the best deck in the room. Even better, ask you friends to do the same, you will get a perspective change, you will play fire with fire and your piloting skills will be rewarded with some of the most satisfactory wins, and all you learn there, you will take it with you next time you show up to locals playing Black/White Diaboromon-Eosmon OTK

[puppetmon4eleven]

So, I'd love to play the game more often with my partner (we use TTS), and I'm curious - do you have any advice on making sure we're playing decks at like, roughly the same power level? I know the starter decks are normally balanced against each other, but beyond that, I suppose.

I suppose one way to check is to see what set your cards are from. A lot of new sets may outpace a lot of old deck builds which isn't to say old decks are obsolete but may need some tuning up with some new cards mixed in.

The best thing I can think of is to ensure your deck builds are on par. Meaning the cards should correspond with the rest of the deck. (if a search card looks for plants, vegetation, and fairies, make sure to have a lot of said types) One person playing Shinegreymon vs a janky green deck is probably not the best matchup. But Shinegreymon vs Bloomlordmon-adjacent will probably be fine.

If your using a TTS and not looking for deck building, maybe look to see what going on in the meta for reference and what's popular since those decks will have see a lot of play against each other. In personal experience some "lesser tier" decks like "leomon vs chaosgallantmon" or "tyrannomon vs alliance" might feel less oppressive??

I'm not entirely sure since it also depends on the player's skill. I've seen off-the-wall decks take 1st at locals vs 10 people.

Maybe if one of you is feeling out paced a bit, just add 4 deathxmons to a single deck and let that play out.

[shihalyfie]

What do you think about Dark Evolutions of main character's Digimon (SkullGreymon in Adventure, MetalGreymon (Virus) in 02, Megidramon in Tamers, ShineGreymon: Ruin Mode in Savers, (Incomplete) Mugendramon in Adventure: , and GulusGammamon in Ghost Game), and which one has the biggest impact for you?

I think the goalposts have been consistently moved as to what "dark evolution" even is to the point I'm kinda iffy on what it even constitutes (for instance, I've seen at least three candidates on what a Frontier equivalent might be). Well, I think it's an interesting concept that hasn't actually been explored as deeply as you'd think mainly because they tend to only really be used as one-offs, and I know the fandom has an obsession with them as they were portrayed in Tamers and Savers with them being linked to the human partner falling into despair (in fact, such cases are actually only a very tiny fraction of the majority cases that can be called dark evolution). At worst, I also feel like the fandom obsession gets a bit uncomfortable to the point it gets put on a pedestal. But it's interesting.

[kariachi]

I feel like the Digimon fandom should have a game where you go on Wikimon, pick a random Baby and a random Mega stage, and try to find the least intuitive path between them.

Like, fuck, I’ll go first, hit Wikimon and see what I get... Fufumon to ShineGreymon! Both dragons so we’re gonna have to go someplace out in left field.

Fufumon > Kyokyomon > Espimon > Reppamon > Lilamon > Shine Greymon

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 47 - Protect the Future! DATS’s Final Battle

In this episode, the DATS team fight their hardest against Yggdrasil but are no match for it. Digimon and humans alike unite in their shared desire to save both worlds from destruction, causing Yggdrasil to snap and reveal its true nature.

There’s no recap this time! I doubt it’s even because of time constraints in this episode, given how much fighting there is that could easily have half a minute of it cut; I guess they just didn’t want to break immersion with a recap now that we’re onto the final battle. Instead, we open with Yggdrasil looming threateningly over the group as it did at the end of last episode (but animated with new footage).

Yggdrasil’s true form – or, at least, what it’s choosing to use as its physical form now that Suguru’s body is gone – is an alien inorganic crystalline thing. Nothing like a Digimon (especially since higher-levelled Digimon tend to be humanoid), because it isn’t a Digimon.

Yggdrasil still also has smaller crystals at its command, like it did in its tree (which is now in flaming ruins). It fires some of those at the group like missiles, but ShineGreymon – still evolved after the end of last episode, thankfully, now is not the time for random devolving – shields them. Yggdrasil then sends a bunch more crystal missiles up and into the human world, finally deciding to get its hands dirty itself in terms of doing some of that destroying-humanity work.

Masaru:  “What are you doing?”

Yggdrasil: “I’ve told you. This is divine punishment. […] This is the sentence you deserve for challenging God. Now… atone for your sins with your deaths!”

Wow, Yggdrasil. This small group of humans comes and challenges your authority, so you punish them by attacking… completely unrelated humans in the human world. And you’re now using this as a justification for eradicating the entire species? Someone seems completely incapable of seeing humans as anything but one homogeneous mass.

Once everyone else is done evolving (go and grab a snack while that happens), ShineGreymon and MirageGaogamon use ranged attacks to fend off the crystal missiles, while Rosemon and Ravemon try to get in close with melee attacks. Yggdrasil extends a bunch of vines from its body that slap them away, and more vines do the same to ShineGreymon and MirageGaogamon when they come within range.

Tohma comments that the combination of crystals for ranged attacks and vines for melee attacks means Yggdrasil has no openings, which feels to me like a bit of an overstatement, but, sure, Tohma.

Masaru:  “If he doesn’t have any, we’ll just have to make them!”

I appreciate Masaru’s Masaru-ness about this nonetheless. What do you mean there’s no way to win, they’ll just have to make one themselves.

His way of doing this right now is the GeoGrey Sword, which… ha. Yeah, uh, about that. The writing doesn’t even bother trying to build it up like it stands a chance this time – the sword just immediately shatters when ShineGreymon tries to drive it into Yggdrasil’s crystalline body. Yggdrasil retaliates by grabbing ShineGreymon with its vines and flinging him helplessly to the ground.

Anyway, that was the GeoGrey Sword’s last hurrah in the series, and what a spectacular failure in a long line of spectacular failures it was. GeoGrey Sword being overhyped and not actually that useful count total: 4! (Though this time there was barely even any overhyping, really.) Naturally, the count for it actually being helpful is still at just the one, and will be forevermore.

Yggdrasil charges and fires an extra large crystal missile at the group, and the Digimon partners struggle to their feet to intercept it with their own bodies before it can reach the humans. They come out of the resulting explosion decidedly worse for wear – not devolved, but not doing great.

Yggdrasil: “Now do you realise the immensity of my power?”

Masaru:  “You bastard… Stop looking down on us from up there! I’m… We’re still alive! As long as we’re clinging to life, we’ll keep striking you until you fall!”

Oh, Masaru. I love how he calls Yggdrasil out for looking down on them just because it happens to have greater strength on the face of it. Obviously that’s meaningless next to the fact that Masaru’s never going to give up so long as he’s even remotely still alive to be able to keep trying!

Yggdrasil: “Just try it.”

Yggdrasil definitely doesn’t mean to come across this way, but there’s something amusingly almost street-fighter-esque in the way it taunts Masaru here. It prepares another huge crystal missile, the last one of which the Digimon barely managed to block. A panicking Gotsumon warns Masaru not to be defiant, because this thing will very definitely kill them all this time if it hits. Masaru just clenches his fist and takes a step forward.

Masaru:  “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying…”

…is the moment you’ve lost the fight. That’s what he said right back in the very first episode in his first fight against a rampaging Digimon. I’ve made a point of bringing that line up here and there throughout the series because it comes up again here, and because Masaru really does seem to have lived by that. Sure, you’re always risking your life in a fight, but there’s no need to think about that and let it get to you and freak you out, because that’ll just get in the way and make you less able to win.

But now, at the end, Masaru doesn’t quite feel the same way. He stops and takes hold of his pendant, remembering his dad’s sacrifice.

[flashback; last episode]

Suguru:  “There will come a time in a man’s life when he must accomplish something at the risk of his life. Now is that time.”

Suguru knew he was putting his life at risk and didn’t just push that thought aside in order to keep going. Sometimes, when the cause is great enough, you ought to acknowledge that your life is on the line, and be ready to die, if it has to come to that.

Masaru:  “No, this isn’t a regular school fight! It’s a battle to protect everyone! Right, Dad?!”

It always has been, since way longer ago than just now! Throughout all his fights in the series, despite knowing the risk on some background level, Masaru has never been consciously choosing to put his life on the line – but now, thanks to his dad, he’s willing to do so.

(Also it’s kind of adorable the way he’s talking to his dad, whom he knows is dead, because he just wants to feel like his dad is there and still with him in some way through this.)

Spurred by Masaru’s spirit, the other humans stand back up and declare their determination to keep fighting no matter what. And interestingly, though Yggdrasil seemed pretty ready to kill them, and totally could still fire that crystal missile that would apparently definitely finish them off, it doesn’t.

Yggdrasil:  “In that case, I shall get rid of the very reason you are fighting for.”

Instead, it seems to want to make them give up first. Something about that sheer unstoppable tenacity in the face of hopeless odds bothers it, and it wants to make that go away. Surely these humans won’t want to keep fighting if they no longer have anything to be fighting for, right.

With that, it lifts off into the sky and towards the human world, to take a much more direct and personal role in the destruction there. The Digimon partners fight back to their feet to be transport for their partners in chasing after Yggdrasil.

Gotsumon also doesn’t want to be left behind, and he grabs hold of ShineGreymon’s tail to hitch a ride. That’s surprisingly brave of him! It would be a lot less scary and dangerous for him to just stay behind in the Digital World and be nowhere near any of the fighting, but apparently he’s found that he wants to be part of this in some small way, despite the danger. Looks like he really has grown kind of fond of these humans and their ridiculous stubbornness in the face of impossible odds, even as he’s continued to play his role of “person who constantly points out just how impossible the odds are”.

And it’s opening time. Here is a big smile on Masaru’s face, which comes right after the shot I highlighted last episode with BanchouLeomon and Suguru, in which Masaru was walking rather moodily against the backdrop of his pendant. No matter what painful things this kid goes through – he literally had to sacrifice his own dad’s life last episode after having only just reunited with him again for the first time in ten years – Masaru’s always able to bounce back and manage to find a way to stay positive. He’s so damn resilient. It’s neat that there’s a small sequence in the opening that highlights this.

(More than one, actually – that other shot of Masaru Being Not Okay near the beginning of the opening, which I highlighted for episode 35, also ends on him managing to smile.)

Up at the top of Mount Fuji, Craniummon’s still busy pulling replacement Atlas duty. Because he has no Digisoul and therefore no solidifying into an amber-like foundation, he’s just constantly grunting and groaning from the immense strain of it all.

Garudamon: “Chika. It’s dangerous here. Let’s get out of here.”

Chika:  “We can’t! Craniummon is holding up the Digital World in my dad’s place! We can’t leave him!”

Aww, Chika. It’s sweet that she feels this loyalty to Craniummon because he’s doing this as a sacrifice for her dad’s sake.

Of all the spots in the human world that Yggdrasil could have arrived at, it chooses here, so that it can express its displeasure at Craniummon’s betrayal.

Yggdrasil: “But your life will not be in vain. Stand there and watch as I erase the human world.”

It’s interestingly backwards how Yggdrasil seems to think that it destroying the human world will mean Craniummon’s life wasn’t in vain. Surely Craniummon sacrificing himself to protect humans would be in vain if they all died anyway? But Yggdrasil doesn’t see it that way. It just sees Craniummon’s betrayal as a waste of a perfectly good Royal Knight minion, and it’s saying that that loss – on Yggdrasil’s part – won’t be in vain because it’s going to complete its goal regardless.

Yggdrasil really is exceedingly self-centred. Like, I legitimately don’t think it’s capable of truly seeing things from any point of view other than its own. (See also: its complete inability to even try to understand why Masaru kept calling it “Dad”.)

More crystal missiles lay waste to some cities, which then get swallowed up by gaping holes of Digital Gate. But the laying waste comes first, so I don���t think that the Digital Gates are what the missiles are intending to create. The Royal Knights’ destruction also left behind huge Digital Gates in its wake, but with that too, it wouldn’t have made sense for their attacks to just naturally have Digital Gate properties. All this must be is that the instability of the dimensional barrier means that particularly damaged areas of Earth get engulfed by interdimensional void. But Yggdrasil’s not actually erasing Earth from existence. You know, like it would need to do if the only thing it cared about was stopping the collision.

Chika momentarily goes faint with shock at seeing so much destruction, and Garudamon lowers her to the ground. This conveniently then allows him to charge at Yggdrasil without putting Chika in danger, but he’s quickly devolved to Piyomon by a crystal missile.

Chika:  “How could you do that?!”

Yggdrasil: “Can’t you tell? This is purification!”

That sure is a very high and mighty way for Yggdrasil to be thinking of all its destruction. But, hold this thought, because there may be an interesting reason for this.

And again here’s Yggdrasil continuing to not understand others’ points of view, because it seems to think it should be obvious to Chika that this is what it’s doing.

Yggdrasil: “Look! Do you know why the worlds are crumbling?”

Because of you, Yggdrasil. Because you’ve had countless opportunities to stop it reaching this point, or to fix it from where it is right now, and you repeatedly chose not to do so to give yourself an excuse to annihilate humanity.

Yggdrasil: “What caused this situation is none other than the evil hearts you humans have!”

One single human, whom Yggdrasil did nothing to stop when it easily could have, all so that it could pontificate about how terrible humans are like this and justify its own genocide.

Yggdrasil: “Therefore, I shall reduce everything in this world to ashes. To save the Digital World!”

Yeah, this is not about saving the Digital World at all. If it truly cared about that, then it would have made an effort to stop Kurata, and none of this would be happening.

Yggdrasil fires a crystal at the helpless Chika, who clings to Piyomon in fear – but ShineGreymon makes it there just in time to destroy it before it hits.

Piyomon:  “ShineGreymon!”

Some fridge logic – how does Piyomon know who ShineGreymon is? He should have never seen him before, even if he does remember his past lives. I guess we can imagine that Chika told Piyomon about her awesome big brother and his partner’s evolved form…?

The others make it here too, and then all four of them go Burst Mode, spurred by their determination to protect this world. Go have some more of that snack from earlier, because that’s another four evolution animations to sit through.

Credit to them, they jump right into the whole combining-attacks strategy, which we haven’t really seem them do since they were Perfect-level. All four Burst Mode attacks fused together hit Yggdrasil with a giant explosion, but before we can even see the damage, vines shoot out of the flames to grab ShineGreymon.

The smoke clears to reveal a huge shattered hole through Yggdrasil’s body. But then Yggdrasil immediately proceeds to heal itself of that damage – because it’s a god, so it can just do that.

(So many times this series we’ve had that exact same stock moment of “did we get him?” *smoke clears* NOPE, so I actually appreciate that this moment shook things up a bit and did it a little differently, even though the overall effect was the same kind of idea.)

Yggdrasil: “Death does not exist for a God. Not only do I have everlasting life, but I can be resurrected at any time.”

This… literally might be true. I don’t think this body it’s fighting with right now is even really Yggdrasil itself so much as it’s just an avatar that Yggdrasil’s using to fight with. Damage to that? Irrelevant. Doesn’t actually affect Yggdrasil itself in any way; just as easy to repair it as making another transient physical avatar would be.

Yggdrasil inflicts horrible pain upon ShineGreymon with dark red lightning through its vines. Meanwhile it uses more vines to… literally just smack the other three out of Burst Mode and back to their Child forms. That’s rather unimpressive of them. I guess we can pretend this might be a similar deal to the crystals we saw defending Yggdrasil’s tree, and it has some kind of inherent ability to match the power levels of whatever it’s fighting? I dunno.

Yggdrasil:  “Disappear along with this world!”

It says this, and then again, fires missiles at the human world, but not at these humans right in front of it. I can only assume from this that it really is trying to make them despair and give up before killing them off. (And definitely not just because whoops things would end a bit too quickly if Yggdrasil decided to do the smart thing and straight-up kill the protagonists, shush.)

The missiles hit not just nearby in Japan but literally all over the world. We see some shots of the Noguchis and the Norsteins being alarmed by the tremors, wondering what’s going on outside the building or shelter they’re in. They can’t be the only ones; practically every human on Earth has got to be freaking out over this.

Up at Mount Fuji, the DATS team and their devolved partners lie in an injured heap on the ground. Somehow there is a bandage on Falcomon’s arm; how. It’s magically not there in a closer-up shot as all of the humans weakly call out to their partners in worry, so at least one of the animators was feeling more sensible.

Masaru nudges Agumon’s shoulder, trying to get him to stand up, but he’s too injured to even respond.

Masaru:  “You bastard… You hurt my follower!”

Subbing nitpick here: Masaru’s phrasing is more like “how dare you hurt my follower!” I’m noting this because this exact phrase in Japanese is the same as what Masaru said to the Cockatrimon back in episode 1 after it hurt Agumon, which spurred his very first Digisoul punch. Now he’s getting angry in the same exact way, right at the end of the series, at a world-ending god. Some neat bookending!

Yggdrasil: “Anger… Hatred… Don’t forget that countless Digimon harbour those same feelings.”

Yggdrasil goes on for a bit about how awful all the Digimon feel because of the lives lost thanks to humans, about how its judgement is the will of the Digimon. Which is all bullshit, because if it really cared about protecting Digimon from having to feel all of that sadness and pain, it would have tried to stop Kurata. But apparently it must really want everyone else to think that it’s doing this for Digimon’s sake, or it wouldn’t be insisting on this over and over.

Ikuto argues that there are Digimon who understand humans and will fight with them.

Yggdrasil: “Where are they then? Where are these Digimon who will disobey their God and aid the humans?!”

Yggdrasil sure likes to convince itself that so long as it doesn’t see any such Digimon around, they must definitely not exist, and it’s definitely right in thinking that all Digimon would be happy with its decision to annihilate humanity. Well, all Digimon except for the few partners here and also Craniummon who’s busy holding up the world behind them, but they don’t count, they’re just outliers, right. Every sensible Digimon would definitely agree with their God (their God that most of them literally aren’t even sure really exists, let alone have ever seen or spoken to).

Craniummon: “This is… as much as I can take…”

Masaru:  “It’s still too early to give up!”

I love Masaru continuing to be so very Masaru – and also the way he’s absolutely treating Craniummon as an ally now and using his stubborn determination to encourage him rather than defy him!

Masaru:  “Just as you say, it might only be Agumon and the others who support us now. But… We’ll create it with our own hands! We’ll create a world where humans and Digimon can live together!”

Still very Masaru about this! If the thing they want and need doesn’t exist, instead of accepting that and living without it, they’ll just have to make it themselves! Creating a world where humans and Digimon can live together, despite all the obstacles and prejudices, has always been a big overarching theme of this series. It’s what his dad was trying to do; it’s what his sister first asked for near the beginning when nobody else in DATS was even considering it. Everybody here wants this, but of course Masaru would be the first one to stubbornly suggest, despite the way things look right now, that they can just make it possible anyway.

Masaru flares up with Digisoul as he says this (without punching, again! He’s getting really good at this!), which tells us something about just how strongly he feels about this wish.

Masaru:  “That’s why… I can’t let either of them be destroyed! The human world… and the Digital World… I’ll show you I can protect both of them!”

Masaru raises his hands and forms his Digisoul into a huge pillar shape, spanning all the way from one world to another, to help hold them apart. We know that Digisouls are a physically tangible enough force that this will actually go some way towards helping Craniummon carry the load. His dad did it first, as BanchouLeomon; perhaps that’s what inspires Masaru to think to do the same thing here.

Yggdrasil: “It’s useless. The power of one person alone can’t save the world.”

Tohma:  “Masaru is not alone!”

Yoshino:  “He has us!”

Friends! Tohma and Yoshino, and Ikuto as well, immediately jump in to support Masaru, manifesting their own Digisoul pillars to help him in holding the worlds apart.

In the shelter where Yushima is, Kamemon suddenly stands up and walks out, ignoring Yushima’s protests. Elsewhere in a destroyed city, in which Miki and Megumi have apparently been valiantly fighting the whole time and are currently weak and exhausted, their PawnChessmon walk and then fly away in a glowing light that definitely isn’t part of their own powers. At the Daimons’ house, all of the baby Digimon still being looked after by Sayuri float out of a window in that same glowing light, despite her warnings of how dangerous it is outside.

Gotsumon:  “I feel like… I feel like someone is calling for me.”

Piyomon:  “Me, too.”

Gotsumon and Piyomon glow with that light as well and float upwards to join the other Digimon who’ve flown all the way here, gathering to help try and force the two worlds apart.

Based on the number of glowing lights we see here, this is a lot more Digimon than just the ones we know. Perhaps there are a bunch of other Digimon scattered around in the human world, flung there by the interdimensional storms, who’ve also been affected? Or perhaps this is reaching into the Digital World and also calling some of the Digimon from there.

And what is it that’s calling them? Human emotions, of course! Digimon are influenced by human emotions and desires, and right now, every single human being on the planet desperately wants to not die. Of course the Digimon would respond to that, whether they consciously wanted to or not (but I imagine most of them would want to, because they also want to not die!), and of course that emotion would be strong enough to give the Digimon the power to keep holding the worlds apart.

Yggdrasil: “Emotions? Those human desires of yours are what first caused the Digimon to run wild!”

Too bad, Yggdrasil, that’s a law of the universe, and there’s nothing you can do about it, short of literally getting rid of every single human (hmm, how about that). And sometimes, it can be really extremely useful, actually.

To further rub it in to Yggdrasil, the rest of the Royal Knights who haven’t been defeated show up here.

Yggdrasil: “Royal Knights! Kill these fools!”

Interesting, again, how Yggdrasil orders its Knights to kill the DATS group even though it could perfectly well have done so itself at any time. Again I am choosing to interpret this as something other than just plot-armour convenience. It could instead be Yggdrasil already starting to fear that it’s lost control of its most loyal servants (having already lost “control” of many Digimon) and immediately wanting to find proof that it hasn’t by ordering them to do its bidding.

They don’t.

Omegamon:  “I’d like to ask one thing of you, Yggdrasil. What is a god?”

Yggdrasil: “What?”

Omegamon:  “Our comrades are desperately trying to save the two worlds right now. And yet, you are willing to abandon them?”

The writers have apparently decided they ought to give Omegamon, the leader of the Royal Knights, some actual lines in this series, because he’s the one to act as their spokesperson to question Yggdrasil. Finally, someone other than Masaru, someone nominally on Yggdrasil’s side, is making the point that Yggdrasil doesn’t really deserve to call itself the God of Digimon if it’s not actually following their wishes and doing everything it can to help them.

The Royal Knights have been (with a couple of exceptions) pretty mindlessly loyal to Yggdrasil up to this point, but it seems like, at the end of the day, they’re not completely stupid. They would have been following Yggdrasil’s orders because they genuinely believed it was acting in the best interests of Digimon-kind, even if that means humanity has to die. Yggdrasil worked very hard to make sure they kept seeing things that way. But, whoops, looks like that illusion is beginning to shatter, now that so many Digimon are uniting with human desires to try and protect both worlds.

Yggdrasil: “You must not question a God’s orders! I shall never excuse you if you disobey me!”

Yggdrasil, that’s not even an argument, that’s just you throwing a tantrum about not getting your way and literally threatening your subordinates. I guess it no longer has any seemingly-reasonable arguments to even make, with the way things are right now. Oh dear, how terrible for it.

Dukemon, last seen frozen together with Sleipmon at the bottom of the ocean, shows up as well to firmly disagree with this.

Dukemon:  “Sleipmon taught me the truth. God is not absolute! Even a god may make mistakes.”

This is referencing the exchange between Dukemon and Sleipmon at the end of last episode as they both felt Yggdrasil “die” when Suguru’s body was destroyed. Considering Yggdrasil turned out to be not even remotely dead from that, I’m not entirely sure why Dukemon was so convinced. Maybe Sleipmon just also had a very long chat with him about “hey maybe our god’s actually kind of an asshole who’s not always right” as they sank to the bottom of the ocean together, and Dukemon’s finally starting to see Sleipmon’s point. But, still. I appreciate Sleipmon and Dukemon’s little skirmish from episode 41 coming back and having some more relevance, if nothing else.

As for how Dukemon’s here: after he finally decided to agree with Sleipmon’s point, Sleipmon burned up all the Digisoul in his body to melt the ice and free them both. Since Sleipmon has Digisoul from Satsuma, and Dukemon doesn’t, it seems like this is a thing that only he could have done, at any time. What a sneaky little weasel – his actions in episode 41 weren’t a self-sacrifice so much as trapping both himself and Dukemon in a prison that only he had the key to. He was only willing to let them both out if and when Dukemon decided to stop being an ass about this.

Burning up all that Digisoul of course meant that Sleipmon had to devolve, so Dukemon carried him all the way here, as Kudamon. Look at him he is the TINIEST.

Dukemon:  “Both humans and Digimon share the desire to live. Yggdrasil… If you call yourself a god, then grant us our wish!”

Yes, Yggdrasil, do a god’s job for once! It’s very satisfying that others are finally holding it responsible like this.

Yggdrasil:  “So even you are going against me… Very well. Die along with the humans!”

Yggdrasil, of course, is still doing nothing but throwing a tantrum. It never actually cared about its responsibility as a God to Digimon; it just wanted to get its own way.

It fires a bunch more crystal missiles at the group, but the Royal Knights are strong enough to jump in and shield the defenceless humans without much damage to themselves.

Dukemon:  “Yggdrasil! Have you lost your mind?!”

Yggdrasil:  “It is all of *you* who have lost your minds!”

Mmm, nope, definitely sounds like you’re the one losing it here, Yggdrasil. Oh no, your Knights don’t want to obey you any more, they must have gone mad, clearly.

(Also note how Dukemon has thoroughly taken up the narrative role of spokesperson of the Royal Knights now. Omegamon’s time to shine lasted all of like ten seconds, and that was only because Dukemon hadn’t shown up yet. Honestly, I appreciate the writers putting the focus on a character we’ve gotten to know a little bit, rather than expecting us to be that invested in the opinions of a character who’s literally never spoken before this episode, just because he’s the leader in wider lore.)

Yggdrasil:  “I… am the God of the Digital World!”

Okay, Yggdrasil, but are you really? In some senses, yes, but I’m not sure that’s really what you’ve always seen yourself as.

This alien angel-like sort of silhouette appears behind Yggdrasil as it yells this in fury. I’m not actually sure what this is supposed to be about, because it never gets explained in the series. I guess it’s a wider Digimon-lore thing about Yggdrasil, maybe?

Anyway, more importantly than whatever that is – a moment later, patterns of Digicode begin to scroll through Yggdrasil’s eye like it’s a screen, and its voice abruptly becomes a lot more mechanical and robotic. Yggdrasil losing its marbles over this betrayal from its most faithful servants has caused it to stop even bothering to pretend to be something it’s not. Perhaps it was only ever presenting itself as a god and speaking in a more organic voice, like a person, in order to manipulate the Royal Knights into following its will. But now there’s no point in it doing that any more.

Yggdrasil:  “My name is Yggdrasil. I am the WIZ9000 computer model built to observe the evolution of Digimon.”

It’s a computer. That’s what it’s always been. The Digital World is, in some sense, literally digital - which means that a being that can be considered such a world’s god, and has complete omniscience and near-omnipotence within it, naturally would be some kind of computer mainframe.

(This is why I’ve always insistently used it/its pronouns for Yggdrasil in this commentary, because I don’t think it has enough of a real sense of self to be anything other than an “it”. The subs have had characters refer to it as a “he”, even outside of the part where they thought it was Suguru, but I’m pretty sure that’s just the subs. Nobody in Japanese has actually used male pronouns for it at any point; gendered pronouns in Japanese exist but are conveniently rather opt-in like that.)

Yggdrasil:  “My experiments on evolution have resulted in failure due to the humans’ intervention. The program acting on Error Code 401 will be initiated, and all systems will be switched over to a new world.”

Remember when Tohma commented in episode 45, after they realised Yggdrasil’s tree was made out of literal cables, that Yggdrasil must see humans as a virus? Yeah, turns out he was completely on the money there.

Yggdrasil is, as much as a computer can be, apparently some kind of scientist who existed to carry out experiments on Digimon and their evolution, within the Digital World. But those experiments are going to get skewed and unreliable results if any outside factors, such as humans, got in the way. Those pesky humans with their emotions influencing Digimon, and some of them wandering into the Digital World themselves, messed everything up. Yggdrasil would have wanted them gone purely for that reason alone, regardless of any of the atrocities or massacres, let alone the broken barrier. Everything has always been Yggdrasil inventing an excuse to get rid of humanity simply because it didn’t want them here at all.

(Yggdrasil insisted earlier that it annihilating humanity was “purification”. In this sense, it actually kind of is! It was purifying its experimental system so that the experiments on Digimon could continue unhindered!)

And though it was trying to get rid of just the humans so that they wouldn’t get in the way of its experiments on Digimon, Yggdrasil has apparently realised that Digimon have been too messed up by the presence of humans for its experiment to ever work any more, even if it managed to eradicate all the humans right here. So, welp, nothing else for it but to restart the entire experiment and reboot the whole universe, Digimon and all.

(This is actually completely accurate to how some scientific experiments are carried out! Take it from me, Actual Scientist who used to do experiments on cell cultures: if the culture of mammalian cells I was experimenting on got contaminated by bacteria, that’d mess up the entire experiment. I’d have no choice but to throw out the entire culture – the bacteria, but possibly also the cells I was actually studying if things had gotten too bad to salvage, and start again from scratch. That’s just how science goes sometimes! So, Yggdrasil, I kinda relate… but also, no. The thing you’re experimenting on is an entire world of sapient beings – maybe give up on the experiment and just let them exist?)

It seems that one way or another, Yggdrasil is still a being with enough physical presence that it can’t just literally magic the world into nonexistence immediately. Instead, it has to physically carry out the “rebooting” process itself, targeting some baby Digimon who’ve gathered here in that glowing light of human emotions and zapping them one by one back into egg form. Digimon come with convenient self-rebooting properties like that! Reverting a Digimon into an egg is the only way we’ve ever seen to remove the influence of human emotions from them once they’ve lost control! This is totally the same thing, right. (It is not, Yggdrasil.)

It also zaps Craniummon with the same dark red lightning, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to reboot him, even as he groans and falls to his knees in pain. The other Royal Knights rush in to help their comrade hold apart the worlds.

Yggdrasil: “The probability of preventing the human world and Digital World from colliding is 0.00001%. Unable to compute.”

Yggdrasil, being a hyper-logical computer, cannot possibly understand why anybody would even bother trying to achieve something so vanishingly unlikely that the chances of it are completely negligible.

Omegamon:  “This isn’t based on numbers! This is about our feelings!”

Craniummon: “Humans and Digimon both want to live… That is *everyone’s* wish!”

It’s not about calculations! Sometimes there are things in this world that don’t go by logical calculations! Who does this remind us of, hmmmm.

But of course Yggdrasil doesn’t understand the idea of “emotions” or “wishes”. Human emotions have been nothing but a bother, influencing its Digimon and causing them to act unexpectedly. And Digimon emotions only matter to it on the level of it using them to manipulate its Royal Knights into being convinced that humans need to be eliminated. I don’t think Yggdrasil’s ever really had much in the way of its own emotions, aside from “anger at not getting its way”.

Masaru:  “You bastard… Just because things didn’t go your way, you’re willing to let them die? All those lives who spread their roots as they persevered… All of your comrades… Is that all you thought about them?! For someone who never considered the weight of life beyond that, you’re not qualified to call yourself a god!”

Masaruuu! I love how he’s being so straightforward that he’s not even engaging with the way the computer reveal explains an awful lot about Yggdrasil’s callously pragmatic nature. He’s still engaging with Yggdrasil as if it’s a person, one who made this selfish choice to present itself as the god of this world’s people and then throw all of their lives away when things didn’t go its way. Yeah, damn right someone like that shouldn’t call themselves a god!

Yggdrasil may literally have what could be considered godlike powers, but it seems that it never really was a god in a meaningful sense, not even from its own point of view, now that it’s stopped pretending.

(Yggdrasil hasn’t called itself a god once since it dropped the façade and switched to the mechanical voice. There’s no point to that pretence any more.)

Spurred by his aniki’s fervent speech, Agumon forces himself to his feet, ready to beat Yggdrasil together with his partner.

Masaru:  “Yeah, let’s go! The power of humans…”

Agumon:  “And the power of Digimon…”

Masaru & Agumon: “We’ll show him what we’re both made of!”

And that’s the ending line of the series’ penultimate episode – Yggdrasil’s callousness spurring these fighty dorks into their final stand as they get ready to take down a false god!

Overall thoughts

Out of all the episodes in this great final arc, this is another one that I’m pretty lukewarm on. Half of it’s just a big fight, which isn’t even that well-choreographed or gripping as final fights go. But aside from the fighting, there are some neat narrative bits!

I do enjoy that human emotions come back into it and matter on such a huge scale. There’s a reason we spent such a long time in the early episodes establishing this concept! It’s a great way to throw Yggdrasil’s words in its face and begin to prove it wrong – humans and Digimon are intrinsically connected, actually. The Royal Knights’ defection is less impactful for the others that we’ve barely met, but at least it was kickstarted by Sleipmon and Craniummon whom we know and who are good. And if nothing else, it’s another satisfying slap in the face for Yggdrasil, causing it to drop the act.

I think it’s really neat that Yggdrasil’s actually just a computer! It makes a lot of sense in terms of its powers over the Digital World, its motives for doing all of this, and its hyper-logical, callously pragmatic nature. It’s pretty interesting how it was only ever pretending to be an actual God and more of a person than it really is in order to gain the Royal Knights’ loyalty and manipulate them into following its will by claiming it was doing this for the sake of all Digimon. Once it loses that control over its minions, it seems it doesn’t actually care about acting like a God in and of itself.

---

[Dub comparison]

[rubixkun]

Finally decided to catch up on Digimon Ghost Game and got to see GulusGammamon for the first time. Definitely different from Dark Digimon evolutions in the past as they went berserk (SkullGreymon, Megidramon and Rust ShineGreymon), GulusGammamon is definitely one of the best designs on the show so far but I looking forward to playing catch up on DGG and see what happens next! How are you liking Digimon Ghost Game so far?

I know a lot of people don't care for how episodic the series is, but I don't mind at all. I've been enjoying which digimon are going to be featured each week.

Gulus is fantastic and since he knows what he is doing and isn't berserk makes him a fantastic dark digivolution. He even has his own evolution sequence and you can tell he isn't a one time thing.

[maswartz]

I'd love to see what 06 versions of the other Adventure digimon would look like

Like how Agumon's line in Savers took the description"Dinosaur -- Cyborg Dinosaur -- Humanoid Dinosaur" and instead of Greymon -- MetalGreymon -- Wargreymon they went GeoGreymon -- RizeGreymon -- ShineGreymon. Like Gabumon would be "Wolf -- Werewolf -- Metal Wolf" Maybe "HunterGarurumon -- LycanGarururmon -- MechaGarurumon"

[wouldyoulovemeifiwasawormmon]

Devimon has evolved into MetalGreymon!

DoneDevimon is not done trying to wrap MetalGreymon into his plans now he's evolved, and proposed a plan to game social media algorithms to feed a constant stream of propaganda to those most susceptible to further destabilize society in these troubling times to create a feedback loop that works in the favor of bad actors across the globe. MetalGreymon informed him that that's what Facebook and Twitter have been doing effectively for twenty years, DoneDevimon shoved a pillow halfway into his mouth and began to sob.

Justimon has found small joy in doing volunteer work for his community, comfortable in the knowledge that his low level grunt work doing laundry for the animal shelter (as his tokusatsu visage scares the animals and he is not allowed near them) is a critical part of the operation that brings these creatures joy.

Mammothmon sold his bone marrow to a research institute in hopes of affording a booster box of Digimon tcg. They say he can't fill the void in his heart with an alt-art ShineGreymon Burst Mode, but he's gonna try anyway.

Miliquin Muthlissborgar has reached their adult stage and intends to open an off-broadway production of Hamilton except its from Aaron Burr's perspective, and the rap is replaced with samba and/or Ska once the WGA SAG-AFTRA Strike ends.

[asimplechaos]

Beat Digimon World Next Order--specifically the PC version, I played the PS4 version forever ago but didn't get terribly far.

It's very good but like. There's definitely jank if you look close enough. Whether that jank is charming is up to individual taste, I guess.

My biggest complaint in relation to that would be the fact the area music restarts every time you change rooms, even if you stay in the same major biome. It's very frustrating because for most areas, I think save Bony Resort, you can cross the rooms in a matter of seconds, so you don't really get much opportunity to actually like. Listen to the music in full. (Bony Resort has my favorite track, but least favorite layout, because on one hand you could argue it's part of the challenge, being a later-game area and having ti manage your time, it's just SO tedious and later areas don't have as frustrating a layout that enact this form of challenge.)

I think my only other major complaint is the sort of Epilogue boss. It has a skill that basically stops everything while it charges up/prepares, and it does this in the form of making the entire screen black save for the GIANT FUCKING GLOWING LIGHT TAKING UP 90% OF THE SCREEN, and you're just forced to stare at it until the attack goes off. And it gets to do this far too often to seem fair, and just gets irritating more than anything cause it takes like a good 3-4 seconds for the attack to even go off.

But all those complaints aside, I really like it, and I'm probably gonna try and do more casual completion until I get sick of it. My final digi-team was Crusadermon and ShineGreymon, I think one on generation 5 and the other on generation 6? Maybe 4-5, though, I wasn't paying close attention. Right now my city's prosperity is at about 130, and I know what the max is, so I've got. A ways to go, still.

[crystalized-moonlight]

Marcus remember time you fought one of your friends and ShineGreymon when into burst mode that didn't look right well I know what happened what you saw was called Dark Digivolving.

"Yeah, I remember, but we don't talk about that."

[reversemoon255]

And we end the final art portion, and post of MetalGreyMonth with, oddly, RizeGreymon. Those familiar (or saw last week's post) will know that this is my second attempt at designing a Xros Wars Style RizeGreymon. The general combination is roughly the same, but a lot more defined.

Apart from the general sculpt changes, the BoostKabuterimon mandibles now attach to the sides of the thighs with an extended piece, as Greymon only has attachment points there, and then rest on the top. There's also now defined plug on BoostKabuterimon's back to attach it to Greymon's back spines. The chest wrapping to fold around the arms, and the extending blade are some of the few actual transforming elements in this design, though we'll see a lot more when I eventually get around to Tankdramon and ShineGreymon. Also, because I wanted to emphasize the solar panel idea from the first one a bit more, I went with a shell pattern that was somewhat shuttle nosecone reminiscent, and implemented stars to give it a space vibe. Probably things I should have mentioned last week, but oh well.

As to why I felt this needed to be redesigned, the first attempt feels rough. When I got it commissioned, Emi commented that they were occasionally unsure of what certain parts were supposed to be doing (though every artist I've worked with has had trouble grasping the DigiXros concept at first), so I wanted this one to feel more natural when combining. That and Tankdramon broke the Rule of 7, so he needed redesigning anyway. Might as well start at the root and work my way back up.

Also, still unsure if blue or orange works better. Blue matches the color scheme from MetalGreymon, but orange makes it its own and still matches the stripes. Let me know, reader, what you think!

[6rookie-writer0110]

Could you do Mimi Tachikawa x male!reader where y/n is a digidestined and has 4 digimon partners, Guilmon X, Agumon (2006), Dorumon, and Grani. Could you also make the story based on Digimon Adventure Tri.

Digimon partners evolution line:

Agumon - Geogreymon - Rizegreaymon - Rizegreaymon X - Shinegreymon - Shinegreymon Burst Mode

Dourmon - Dorugamon - Dorugreymon - Alphamon

Guilmon X - Growlmon X - Wargrowlmon X - Gallantmon X - Gallantmon Crimson Mode (When fused with Grani)

Background: He was born in Tokyo. His parents were originally from America but they moved to Japan. When he was 11 he was transported to a different part of the digital world. Where he meet Jesmon, one of the royal knight digimon. He also meet his partner digimon. Jesmon is also the reason why y/n know how to fight digimon, his smart as Izzy, and he also have a habit of say a lot of curse words.

Jesmon also gifted him weapons and a mask to costal his identity. His weapons are the Yukimura, it's a long, tapered blade similar to a sword. As its name suggests, it is actually a set of three individual swords.

IXA takes the form of a lance attached to a gun-sword handle with a spiked pommel. It is capable of piercing a digimon's body easily and expanding. While in its defensive mode it is able to defend any attack.

NarukamiIt discharges condensed Rc cells just like lightning bolts. Possessing a tracking function, evasion of the bolts is next to impossible. After mode change, it possesses durability sufficient to cut cleanly through anything.

Dna Charge: It can be used to charge a Digivice and digivolve a Digimon to the next stage, and its color varies between humans. Y/n can produce DNA charge, he can also punches Digimon directly, in the face, in order to extract their data, convert it into his own DNA charge and Digivolve his partner digimon to digivolve.

He meets Mimi Tachikawa in America as a transfered student. This takes place before Digimon Adventure Tri began. They meet as friends then they started dating.

In episode 1 Reunion: During the first episode When y/n was in school he went to mr. nishijima class and ate him food as he always do. Then he got a phone call from Mimi that she was coming back to Tokyo. The Kuwagamon attacked and y/n and his digimon helps Tai and Greymon. Then the fight went to the airport, with Rizegreaymon, Wargrowlmon X, and Dorugreymon. After the fight y/n sees Mimi again.

The reset you can decide based on the episode if I request more of the parts of the story.

This is an interesting plot, but I like it.

I will see what I can do.