• They/Them

Black, Autistic, Queer, and Tired. Mostly into bad puns. Adult. Alleged comics critic? #1 Black Cyclops Truther



corey
@corey

Okay this is barely below the surface on the digimon iceberg, but if you're aware of the past fifteenish years of discourse this is the the wildest fucking "official¹" evolution line you'll ever see in your life, holy shit.

This is violent.

¹) This is used in the currently Chinese-exclusive (but still canon to the franchise) mobile game Digimon New Century


corey
@corey

Unlike Pokémon, evolution in Digimon is a pretty fluid thing. While there are definitely lines that were designed as a coherent themed family, species A will not always evolve into species B. A big trend in the fandom has always been creating and justifying your own evolution lines, and more often than not, the primary justification is "vibes." Specific "canon" lines are typically reserved for characters primarily featured in the anime, but even those are far from sacred.

That being said, even those characters who feature heavily in the show aren't always designed as part of a full, cohesive line! In the earliest Digimon stuff, the lifespan of any given monster only went up to Level 5 ("Perfect" in the original, "Ultimate" in the dub) but Level 6 ("Ultimate" in the original, "Mega" in the dub) was introduced pretty quickly. While these days, we go up to Level 7 (...we're not even getting into any of the various contradictory names here), most people tend to think of a "full" line as being Levels 1 through 6. The first group of protagonists in the show were designed before Level 6 was introduced, and while there were L6es that thematically fit some of those mons, only two of them were featured in the original show. Everything else was, to some extent, up for debate.

Sure, you wouldn't typically see people saying that HerculesKabuterimon wasn't a logical endpoint for Tentomon, but stuff got messier when you looked at stuff like Patamon or Gatomon, whose earliest assumed Megas were "thematically inappropriate" dragons¹. But, weirdly enough, considering the context of this particular clusterfuck, everyone largely agreed on Gomamon's final form in 1999.

Gomamon, for those who aren't aware, was a little seal dude who turns into a big fuzzy walrus narwhal thing (Ikkakumon) , and finally, in the show, Zudomon - a less fuzzy walrus thing wearing a turtle shell and wielding a giant hammer, with attacks named after both Vulcan and Thor.

Focusing more on the aquatic theme than anything else, it was commonly accepted that Plesiomon (the big thing on the left of the image in the last post) was the end of Gomamon's line. Yeah, it was a dinosaur, but it had a lot of similarities to Gomamon, in color, patterns, and, if you squinted, general shape. It all made sense, no one had any real objections, and everything was good!

And then the second season dropped. We'll get to that once my break hits.


corey
@corey

The second season, Digimon Adventure Zero Two, was a direct sequel to the first, and did its best to mix things up. While Adventure was largely focused on individual character growth of its eight kids, 02’s big thing was relationships, and how each member of its smaller cast (three new kids, two from the first group, and then another new kid) interacted with the group as a whole. This was, politely, contentious, and while I’m not going to get into a lot of that, it's important to note what it meant for evolution.


See, the four new Digimon introduced this season didn't actually get full lines of their own. As part of the initial plot of the season, typical methods of evolution were locked away for large portions of the series. For the first chunk, this meant that the main group would evolve into the new Armor level, which was basically Level 3.5. Each of the three new members of the cast was tied thematically to two members of the original cast, and received an Armor form for each of them. Gomamon’s successor was Armadillomon, who… was an armadillo. Pretty self-explanatory. By tapping into the power associated with Gomamon, he became Submarimon, a cyborg submarine narwhal that his associated human could ride in. Weird, even for Digimon, but it is what it is.

Eventually, half way through the series, they resolved the evolution thing and all the kids unlocked their Level 4s - in Armadillomon’s case, that was Ankylomon, an ankylosaurus with a big ol’ tail hammer, as one does. And, then…

Well, that's sort of it for Armadillomon. Adventure’s setting locked non-age based Level 5 behind plot coupons that didn't apply to the new cast. The solution, tying into the series theme, was Jogress evolution.

Jogress (short for JOint proGRESS), dubbed as DNA Digivolution, is fusion. The cast was split into three groups of two (the leader and the last kid to join, and then the remaining new kids were partnered with one of the two original kids) and when the kids were able to finally work past their issues and understand each other, their hearts would beat as one and their Digimon would fuse together into a Level 5. The first two fusions we saw, Paildramon and Silphymon, were pretty even splits between their component Level 4s. While it didn't appear in the show, Paildramon, the only on composed of two new Digimon, even had an alternate form Dinobeemon, which put slightly more focus on the other half of the fusion. Armadillomon’s was revealed last, and we knew he’d be fused with Angemon, a fan favorite from the first season. When tasked with evenly fusing a dinosaur and a sexy angel man, however, they decided “fuck it,” and went thematic instead. Holy + Old gave us Shakkoumon, a funky looking Dogu statue. Since Level 6 in those days was tied to plot focus, Armadillomon snd Hawkmon fell by the wayside, and never evolved further in the show.

But Digimon has never just been about the show.

In the card game and the D3 Virtual Pet, each Digimon ended up with a complete line for the sake of gameplay progression. Silphymon ended up with Valkyriemon, a clear thematic link that made total sense. Shakkoumon, on the other hand, ditched any sense of progression, and evolved into Vikemon. Remember Zudomon? Vikemon was literally just that but bigger, with Ikkakumon’s fluff, and two maces named after Mjolnir. It was weird, but tied back into the Gomamon connection, so it made some sense. It didn't tie into Shakkoumon, of course, but people rationalized that by saying that was a Jogress, rather than “Armadillomon’s natural line.” Since we said the same thing about Hawkmon and Valkyriemon, a lot of people just sort of accepted that Vikemon was the natural 6, and we just hadn't seen the “natural” 5.

Thing is, even now, 24 years later, Armadillomon and Hawkmon have never gotten natural evolutions past Level 4. We've only ever seen the fusions, even though the other two new Digimon have had “complete” lines (and I have to stress, that’s lines, plural) of their own for years. And, fandom being what fandom is, that’s led to a lot of arguing over the years. A lot of people argue that Vikemon made more sense as a Mega for Gomamon that Plesiomon did, not helped by later Adventure sequels and adaptions flipflopping between the two. While Plesiomon ended up as Gomamon's mega in the expanded story of the PSP Adventure game, he ended up as Vikemon in the sequel movie series, Digimon Adventure Tri. As far as Adventure canon goes, Vikemon is tied to Gomamon, and poor Armadillomon is left in the lurch.

In the meantime, fans have spent a lot of time trying to find a “replacement” Level 6 for him. For the most part, they try to make the best of a messy situation and focus on a thematic progression from Shakkoumon — SlashAngemon is a popular choice, for example. Bandai’s had a lot of fun with this, however - everything from recent TCG archetypes to virtual pets will tie Vikemon to both. When an 02 sequel movie was announced for the end of last year, people hoped there would finally be full lines for the stragglers, but instead we got the first movie in the Adventure continuity that didn't introduce a single new evolution — arguably the funniest possible outcome, IMO.

There are still flame wars to this day, and honestly, I love it. I'm firmly in the “anything’s fine, just vibe” camp, and I think trying to enforce logic and order onto something that's chaotic by design is an exercise in futility and hubris. Thaaaaat being said, dropping Plesiomon as a final form for Armadillomon? In a way that makes sense? Chef's fucking kiss.


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