Digimon Adventure Episode 41 Discussion

Sakarii said:
I think this episode shows that there's no scale or reasoning to powers nor how battles are determined in Digimon.

Why can they suddenly defeat Shellmon as Childs? Dunno.

What made Anomalocarimon stronger that he needed Perfects to knock out (not even kill)? Dunno.

Why does being dropped onto the sandy beach equal a death blow over burning? Dunno.

What can a sea digimon use fire moves? Dunno.

They just win or lose with no rhyme nor reason other than "plot". Makes me sad.

EpsilonX said:
I thought it made perfect sense

Their Digimon got stronger throughout the series. Do you think all of that fighting practice would NOT help them get stronger?

To start off with, he's perfect level. "But didn't a bunch of child levels beat an adult level earlier on?" Yes...but Anomalocarimon is a minion of Metalseadramon, while Shellmon is just a wild Digimon. It makes sense that adult levels can't beat him, even if he's an idiot.

That part WAS a bit weird, I think it would have made more sense for MetalSeadramon to throw Anomalocarimon to the ground. But think about it this way - Anomalocarimon was just defeated by some perfect levels, followed by being lit on fire...he was probably pretty weak at that point, so all it took was a drop from the sky to finish him off.

It's a metal sea serpent with a cannon as a head. Fire-breathing wouldn't have made as much sense for Seadramon or MegaSeadramon, but here I think it's fine.

I think they've done a pretty good job, honestly. Up until now, it pretty much only took being on the appropriate evolutionary level to win. But Piemon's statement in the previous episode about how they just gained their Ultimate-level powers and the fact that child levels were able to defeat adult levels makes it feel a bit less arbitrary. I'm glad that it's starting to take more than just "gaining the next evolutionary level" to win a battle.

What I really don't understand is why the Dark Masters are fighting the children one at a time, when in the previous episode it shows that together they could easily overwhelm the children.

Sakarii said:


That's because you patched in your own headcanon to make it work. Which, great, that's a good skill to have. But, I'm looking at what's given and I'm having trouble figuring out the method on how fights are determined.

Or maybe I'm just an idiot. *shrugs* Wouldn't be the first time I didn't put two and two together.



It would if there was a power scale to begin with. Or a way to determine "strong" from "weak" but all there is is the levels and even those tend to be vague as shown with every single boss fight. That's my gripe. The digimon should be getting stronger but how much is natural growth and how much is artificial? It's impossible to tell because there isn't a way TO tell. That we're told they've gotten stronger just because they could beat Shellmon suggests, to me, that there's some logic, or was going to be, but it never got developed or made it in.



All digimon are wild, unless they have a partner. Simply being minion doesn't cut it; we've seen minions that are piss easy to defeat, after all.

The purpose of Shellmon is to show that the digimon have gotten stronger at base level, suggesting there's more dimensions than levels. The problem is that Anomalocarimon and other episodes forego that bit of writing - it's not new, it pops up in the Piccolomon episode but it's repeatedly dropped as soon as it appears. If Anomalocarimon is meant to be that much stronger than Shellmon, the narrative should have addressed it even if it never got expanded on.

What, exactly, makes Anomalocarimon stronger than Shellmon or the partner digimon is my question.



I guess so. Still feels dumb; burning him should have been enough, imo.



None that equals fire though. Even the cannon is more energy than fire... But my annoyance mostly came from that there's waaay too many digimon that are fire based and very few are water based. So for the digimon to be the boss of the sea to use fire... It's like "why?"; it makes no logical sense when he could have a killer water move.



Incorrect. Vamdemon was easily overwhelming their Perfect levels despite him being one himself. The only reason they ever won is because he had a weakness to angels, which is to just justify Angewomon getting the kill. Devimon and Piemon are the exact same but with Patamon's evolutions.

Piemon's statement is meaningless. See second quote.

Plot. The villains themselves don't really matter at large, but rather what they can do for the children's development. And since no development can happenswhen they're together, plot demands they be separated and defeated one by one. Also makes it easier on the animators, heh.

EpsilonX said:
I mean....I see what you're saying. Now that you put it that way, the Shellmon thing does seem a bit weird when immediately after they have the same amount of trouble with an enemy as they usually do. I guess I don't expect a series like this to be too strict, and am okay with a certain level of inconsistency, as long as it's not TOO inconsistent, and Digimon, to me, is at least "close enough." So for all of my answers, my logic was "it's not that much of a stretch because...." rather than "this is the explicit reason why," which seems to be what you were looking for.

Sakarii said:


And that's fine. I've seen this season about five times and am getting cynical that I can't not deconstruct it, haha. Hope you continue enjoying this season!