The group continues their way to FAGA and man, I’m not a fan of the fact they can breathe, speak and attack underwater. Like, sure, it’s convenient and everything, but they took away the interesting factor of having to fight in a place with restrictions and they’d have to come up with different ways to fight in this environment. Kind of like what happened with Greymon and the Seadramon several episodes back. Greymon couldn’t fight normally, so he had to come up with different ways to fight against them in this type of environment. It made the fight interesting. However, making it so that they don’t have to take being underwater into account, makes it feel a bit lazy and uncreative. Which is a bummer. Though I do like that they had Tailmon actually use the water to her advantage to whip up a water vortex to make the little mine Digimon explode from afar. And it’s always fun to watch Tailmon just punch Digimon many times her size. So there’s that.
We first get a fight against Ebidramon, who evolves into Gusokumon and when I saw its design, I literally snorted and went: Well… that’s a lot. I don’t know about anyone else, but some of these newer Digimon designs are… VERY busy. I know Digimon designs have always been pretty extra, but newer Digimon just feel like they go beyond that. The battle with Gusokumon ends fairly quickly, though it was mostly done to set up Ga- Tailmon’s inner turmoil. Which was nice since I do really like Tailmon’s character so far.
We get a bit more Gato- ugh, TAILMON development and I really do like that they keep expanding on her character since she feels like, well, an actual character. Tailmon was already a great character in the original series, so I like that they’re taking that and expanding upon it, which is probably why she stands out in this series. While it may seem a bit repetitive of Tailmon to learn to lean on Hikari (again), I feel like her fear of evolving is rather justified. She’s scared that if she evolves, she might become Skullknightmon and attack her friends again. And the trauma resurfacing when she sees the black lightning hit hard. You could see just how terrified she is at the thought of becoming Skullknightmon again and seems to go through an identity crisis because of it. She constantly is reassuring herself that she is the Holy Digimon sworn to defeat the darkness and protect the world, terrified that the darkness in her heart that bore Skullknightmon would resurface. Which makes Hikari’s crest of Light all the more meaningful to her.
I also do find it interesting that the Digimon partners aren’t forced to evolve, but rather they have to act upon the opportunity as shown with Tailmon not going forward with her evolution at first. Kind of like how Ash’s Bulbasaur prevented itself from evolving in that one early season Pokemon episode lol.
We meet the main boss of the episode, Marinedevimon. I remember having a small toy figure of this thing (at least, I think it was mine or was it my friend’s….?) and boy is he creepy as heck as expected from any Digimon with “Devi” in its name. Though it may also be attributed to my fear of deep sea creatures. Anyways, similar to Donedevimon, Marinedevimon seems to have the ability to corrupt Digimon he touches. Though I’m not sure if it’s specifically because he’s a “devi” or it’s because he also harbors a shard of Millenniumon that causes corruption. Though I will say it was a nice little callback to what happened with Taichi was now happening to Tailmon. It also confirms that being touched by the corruption brings up the darkness within the heart, causing whoever to go out of control. Tailmon nearly got reverted back to Skullknightmon if not for Hikari.
I feel like Tailmon is a very independent Digimon as she had to endure so many things on her own. So it’s really no wonder that she struggles to allow herself to rely on others. And she will often lose her way when things become too overwhelming. So I do think it’s important for Tailmon to have someone be there for her and help her out of the darkness. Making Hikari’s name (light) all the more meaningful. And it just melted my heart when Tailmon realized this and started crying. And it definitely was a big character moment for Tailmon to go through with her evolution into the fan favorite, Angewomon. Letting go of her fear and allowing herself to trust in Hikari to be her guide when she starts to stray. That’s a lot of pressure to put on this small child, but I guess that’s fine since Hikari doesn’t seem to stress very much lol. But wow, what a magical girl transformation she did lol.
I do wish that Marindevimon actually spoke rather than only making noises since he just seemed to only be there to incite Tailmon’s development. He basically just sat there and watched as Hikari and Tailmon had their moment. It honestly felt pretty lazy, especially when they could have easily just had Greymon fending him off to not let him interfere with Tailmon and Hikari. But no, guy just wanted front row seats to watching Tailmon’s development. Which I guess, I don’t blame him but- The guy gets one-shotted, which was pretty disappointing, but whatever. Angewomon got a good moment out of it so I guess I can’t complain… too much.
I’m still curious as to how she became Skullknightmon in the first place and it’s a bummer that they didn’t expand upon that this episode. Though they seem to be moving on with the space ship plot so we may not even get a flashback for this. They seem to be pushing the fact that they really want or need to use Hikari and Tailmon as sacrifices for Millenniumon’s rebirth and I am curious as to why that is. I’m sure they’ll address that situation again (maybe) since this is the second time Hikari has been taken. This girl sure gets kidnapped a lot. Overall, I did like this episode since we got more Tailmon development. Not as strong as the previous episode, but still provided a lot of insight on her character and we got her evolution. It is kind of nice that this series took time to develop her despite coming in pretty late into the series. I appreciate that since the character driven episodes always feel the best. But with that, back to plot stuff (that I am unfortunately not that invested in).
