Phantasmagoric Sakkakumon (Digimon Frontier: episode 29)

(Check out my previous review HERE. Or to go back to the beginning click HERE)

If you’ve watched this series before, you’ll know how weird this episode is in context. If not, in the previous episode of Digimon Frontier, one of the main protagonists, Takuya, went into the domain of one of their biggest enemies: Mercurymon. He was almost defeated by Mercurymon before getting some sort of deux ex machina power from a legendary DigiEgg the Digidestined team is holding onto. The power manifests as a light that gives Takuya the ability to fuse his Legendary Warrior Spirits and thereby Fusion Evolve into his strongest form yet: Aldamon. Through this new Digivolution he is able to defeat Mercurymon, destroy the final two areas within Sakkakumon’s interior matrix, and seemingly finally destroy this enemy for good.

However, we did not actually see Aldamon absorb the Beast Spirit of Steel, which is Mercurymon’s strongest form. Furthermore, Sakkakumon’s deadened husk remained floating in the sky above the party after their ‘defeat’ of this enemy. None of this really bodes well for the team, but one can be forgiven for thinking the battle is over at this point as the entire episode leads one to believe this outcome really happened. So when episode 29 begins and we find out that Sakkakumon is not dead and defeated, but very much alive, just without a Mercurymon form any longer, it’s quite an annoying prospect. We’ve just seen the Digidestined dispense with this guy for five episodes (or 10% of the entire series’ runtime) and now have to watch an entirely new episode where they battle with his residual energy once more. The senses reel and just when the series was getting good, it begins to drag once more, to pull the veritable rug out beneath us just as the Digidestined were closing in on the Duskmon mystery and finally moving toward the Rose Morning Star to find out what that whole place is really about. Bleh.

But as it were, Sakkakumon descends once more from the lofty heavens of the Dark Continent to rain down destruction, terror and mayhem on our Digidestined pals. But he has learned something from all of the Legendary Warriors of Light’s travails within his interior: namely, he has learned how to harness and use all of their attacks. Furthermore, he can reflect back their attacks when doled out toward him. As Takuya Fusion Evolves into Aldamon and tries pointlessly to break through Sakkakumon’s defenses, J.P. asks Patamon if he still has the power to give the rest of them Fusion Evolutions like Koji and Takuya. However, the little dude, once hatched, now has no such powers and therefore, as in my prediction hitherto, no one else will ever be able to gain this rare ability. Instead, J.P., Tommy, and Zoe all Spirit Evolve into their H Spirit forms as Beetlemon, Kumamon, and Kazemon, respectively. And again, the question of why they would not just rocket up to their highest levels as Beast Spirits first is beyond me, and beyond all rational calculation. Maybe they just really dig their H Spirit digs, you dig?

Whenever anyone launches an attack, Sakkakumon just reflects it back at twice its original power and douses his foes in a taste of their own medicine. Even when the lesser Digidestined get mad and Slide Evolve into their Beast Spirit forms, they are match. Hell, even when they attack all at once, Sakkakumon is so quick that he just oscillates and absorbs each attack patters before reflecting it back at his enemies. The guy is such a tank that J.P., typically high-spirited and strong-willed, advises the team to run away, to retreat from battle just this once so they can regroup and formulate a new plan. Even Takuya agrees and so the group runs away into a nearby chasm wherein they find a tunnel that leads them straight into a large cavern with only one way in or out. A pitch black cavern at that. Dumb dumb dumb.

Sakkakumon gives chase and traps the Digidestined in this cavern before turning off his bio-luminescence to take advantage of the darkness. And then the mind games begin as Sakkakumon uses what he learned of each Digidestined kid’s emotional traumas, failings, and fears while they labored away battling his minions within his internal matrix of elemental arenas. All the kids, except for Takuya who has truly learned to master his emotions and inner demons, start freaking out about how scared they are of the darkness. Fear and doubt enters their fragile pre-teen psyches and they even begin to distrust one another for a few moments as J.P. and Tommy take umbrage with Takuya always being so level-headed and telling them what to do as if he were their leader (and as the Digidestined of Fire, he kinda is their leader by default). Sakkakumon has sown the seeds of discord for a short time, but Takuya truly is a natural leader, and as such he tells his friends to close their eyes and to realize they are now part-Digimon living within their own Digital World.

Their senses are heightened as Digimon and through this power of focus, they can hear Sakkakumon’s breathing and movements. So they refocus their energies and head back into the fray against their opponent. Further, Takuya finds Sakkakumon’s weakness in his central orb/node that never emits an attack nor tries to defend against one. This is his power core. Also, by fusing attacks with each other, they can confuse Sakkakumon’s sensors into taking the full brunt of attacks, which are unlike pure elemental waves of energy. By distracting him with such potent new attacks, they are able to momentarily expose Sakkakumon’s core orb to attack, which Aldamon doles out in abrupt fashion to finally defeat the Legendary Warrior of Steel, absorb all of his Fractal Code, and his Beast Spirit.

At the end of this encounter, Cherubimon’s spirit appears momentarily (but only visibly to the viewers) to express his distaste at losing his final Legendary Warrior (he must already sense that Duskmon is a lost cause) and to alert us that he is releasing some sort of seal. The Digidestined endeavor to search for BeoWolfmon and Koji qua BeoWolfmon continues to search for Duskmon in the interminable darkness at the edges of the Dark Continent.

 

Ciao for now,

The Digidestined Cody

[Continued HERE]