25 Star Destroying Techniques
Gravimon’s first appearance in Digimon Fusion is during episode 31, and it doesn’t take long for us (and the Fusion Fighters) to realize just how bad this guy is. He is not just a sadistic leader and tactical genius, but is also a high-ranking member of the Bagra Army and the Dark General of Canyon Land. Gravimon’s ultimate attack is called Gravity Bang, and it is a forbidden technique. Gravity Bang takes all of the gravity pressure of the Digital World and places it upon Gravimon, and when he reaches his limit, it detonates all of his energy. The power of this attack is strong enough to destroy a star, and may even obliterate Gravimon himself!
Tactimon is one of the Three Generals of the Bagra Army, and also has a really powerful hidden technique.
The attack is called Hoshiwari, and it is capable of splitting a star in half. There isn’t much information given on how this attack works, but Tactimon certainly never uses; probably because it is just too dangerous. It would have been interesting, in a horrible sort of way, to see Gravimon or Tactimon to have used these attacks. Both certainly go overboard, but hey, bad guys need to have ridiculous attacks too!
24 Mon Stands For Monster, Or Does It?
Digimon is short for Digital Monsters, obviously. The full name of “Digital Monsters” is even shown on the show’s logo. However, during the time of the American subbed series of Digimon Fusion, some fans started questioning this and came up with some really intriguing theories about what else the Mon in Digimon may stand for. One theory is that it has to do with marketing. With each of the Digimon having “mon” at the end of their name, it’s highly unlikely anyone will question what they are or what anime/manga they are from. People would think “Those are Digimon” instead of “Are those Digimon?”.
However, another theory, which I consider to be the most interesting of the fan theories, ponders if maybe instead of mon just meaning monster that maybe instead it relates to the file format for the Digimon themselves. Taking into consideration that Digimon are digital lifeforms, this theory actually seems a bit plausible. Maybe it is really supposed to be a reference to “.mon” just as “.doc” is the extension for Word documents or how web pages typically end with “.html” or “.php”. Digimon are made up of computer data after all. So maybe, just maybe, the file name for Cutemon is really Cute.mon or Bakemon is really filed as Bake.mon!
23 Deputymon Was Heavily Censored In The Dubs
22 The Digimon Universe
21 The Sacrifices Of Baalmon
20 The American Version Has Lots Of Changes
19 The Show Barely Escaped Being Cancelled
When Digimon Fusion first started airing in Japan as Digimon Xros Wars, the ratings were great. However, the good ratings did not last for very long. As the first season neared its end, the ratings started to drop. The ratings had become so bad that the anime was at risk for cancellation! In fact, the ratings were so low that the first season of Digimon Fusion had some of the lowest ratings in the history of the Digimon franchise. There was some speculation as to what caused this, but many fans believe it had to do with the show having many delays and being switched from a primetime slot to a Sunday morning slot.
But what saved our beloved Digimon Fusion series from being canceled in the end? Toys! A series of toys and merchandise were launched when the series was first launched. The toy sells were really good. The higher-ups in the network liked that part, and knew it would probably keep fans watching the show. Personally, I’m glad the show was saved, even if it ended up being just to benefit toy sales. Besides, some of the toys from this series were pretty neat (one of my favorites was Digimon Xros Loader).
18 Manga Based On The Anime?
There are many anime that are based on a manga. Usually, the manga has been out for some time, sometimes even for many years, before demand for an anime version comes about. A good example of this is with the Naruto series – the first time Naruto ever appeared as a manga was in 1997, but the anime didn’t make its debut until 2002. Digimon itself has an interesting history, having started off as a virtual pet toy similar to the incredibly popular Tomagatchi (not going to lie, I’ve bought another one since growing up) before becoming a manga and then an anime two years later. It’s a little different for Digimon Fusion though.
The manga for Digimon Fusion appeared in the V-Jump magazine June 21, 2010. It wasn’t long after that the anime made its premiere on TV Asahi. The debut episode for Digimon Xros Wars in Japan was July 6, 2010, just barely over two weeks after the start of the manga! This has had many fans speculate if the anime was even really based on the manga, or if the manga was more-or-less based on the anime. It’s definitely an interesting and odd theory.
17 Cursed By Networks
Time and time again, the Digimon Fusion series has had issues sprung on it by the networks involved in airing the anime. This started when the series changed channels from Fuji TV to TV Asahi in Japan. Even just during the first season, there were frequent delays in new episodes, and this was only made worse by the anime switching from a primetime slot to a Sunday morning slot. When it changed slots, the result ended up being an entire month without any new episodes being aired!
The series was hit even harder with the English dub by Nickelodeon.
After the first two episodes were aired on Nickelodeon, the third was pre-empted for Worldwide Day of Play (a reasonable action, mind you), but when the third episode was supposed to air the following week, the first episode was rerun instead. This was just the beginning of the mishaps from the series being aired by the Nickelodeon network. During this time there were many delays and even random times of the show not even being aired. This led to the show eventually moving to the lesser-watched Nicktoons channel. When these mishaps are combined with the horrible treatment of the series by TV Asahi in Japan, many in the Digimon fanbase started joking that the Digimon Fusion series must have some sort of network-related curse.
16 No Movie For You
Most popular anime have movies to go along with either each major arc or individual series. This has been mostly true for the Digimon anime series as well, but there was not an associated movie made for the Digimon Fusion series. In fact, it was the first time a movie wasn’t made for one of the series within the franchise! There has been no official reason giving for not having a movie for Digimon Fusion, but there has been plenty of speculation made by fans of the show.
One suggestion for the lack of a film refers to the low ratings of the series as a whole, which could very well be the case. Another suggestion hints at the series not having an associated film is just another example of how the Digimon Fusion series has been mistreated by the networks in general (the moving of channels and time slots, and the many episode delays). I’m sure I am not alone in wishing there had been a film – I would have been all for one! In fact, for the higher-ups in charge of the anime and related merchandise, it could have done really well for toy sells.
15 Starmon Is Secretly A Master Manipulator
Starmon is one of the good guys. In general, he is super friendly and ridiculously enthusiastic. He rocks his big dark shades like the superstar that he is. As a Digimon that is part of the Fusion Fighters, he takes on bad guys with his friends while helping others who need assistance. While he has the outward appearance of a Digimon you want on your side, he is also a bit of a manipulator. I know, that doesn’t sound right to me either, but it’s true! No really, think about it.
Starmon has a group of followers, the Pickmon. The Pickmon are good guys themselves that pretty much idolize the Starmon. The Pickmon follow the word of the Starmon without hesitation. What Starmon says goes; he is the law of the land when it comes to the Pickmon. Maybe this has to do with them being a smaller Digimon than the Starmon, but one thing is sure, the Pickmon followed the commands of their leader. By way of DigiFuse, the yellow Pickmon would fuse with Starmon to form the Star Axe, and the silver Pickmon would fuse with the Starmon to form the Star Sword. By commanding the Pickmon to follow his will, the Starmon helps to defeat the bad guys, even if it’s in a bit of a manipulative way.
14 Shared Voice Talent
While this Digimon Fusion had a male-leading cast, there were a lot of voice actors from a female-leading anime. Many of the voice actors (or seiyuu, the Japanese term for voice actors in a native-language version of an anime, video game, etc.) came from the anime series Pretty Cure, a magical girl anime metaseries. Here are some of the Pretty Cure seiyuu that were also in Digimon Fusion: Kanae Oki voiced Yu Amano, Taiki Matsuno voiced Lucemon, Kokoro Kikuchi voiced Sparrowmon and Pickmon, and Marina Inoue voiced Tagiru.
A couple of the Pretty Cure seiyuu even played multiple characters in Digimon Fusion.
Houko Kuwashima was given credit for voicing at least five of the series’ characters. She was the voice for Nene Amano, Cutemon, Laylamon, Ren Tobari, Taiki’s mother, and others. Daisuke Kishio voiced even more of the Digimon Fusion characters; eight in total: Dracomon, Gigabreakdramon, Zenjirō Tsurugi, Betsumon, Guard B. MetalTyrannomon, Sephirotmon, Student, Yashamon, and Zenimon. That seems like a lot to me, but really, there were many others from the Pretty Cure series that ended up doing voices in the Digimon Fusion series. Quite an impressive group of seiyuu, if you ask me! As well, there were a lot of seiyuu from various mecha shows that were guest voice actors in this Digimon series.
13 Bringing Back The Goggles
In series 1 – 4 of the Digimon anime and within the manga, the trademark symbol for the leader of a DigiDestined team were their goggles. These were typically worn around the forehead and were styled like aviator goggles. This was noticeably missing from the fifth series, but was brought back for the Digimon Fusion series (hooray!). Within Digimon Fusion, it was Mikey who wore goggles, but there were a few times when others wore them as well. At one point, while in the Lake Zone and Mikey happened to be unconscious, Jeremy took Mikey’s goggles so that he could repair Ballistamon and lead the group into battle. Of course, once Mikey regained consciousness, Jeremy returned the goggles.
In another instance in the Jungle Zone, there was an amusing incident where Shoutman was falling between Mikey and his goggles, and he ends up being pulled up by the goggles. In the third season of the series, both Mikey and Tagiru wear goggles. Tagiru ends up getting teased some for this since Ewan suggested that he only wore them to mimic his hero Mikey, and Mikey claimed Tagiru needed them so that he could become a superstar. While it’s sweet that Tagiru may have been wearing them to be like Mikey, it was even sweeter when Mikey gave him his own goggles after Astamon destroyed them.
12 The Video Game
11 Ballistamon Likes Art
Ballistamon is a fantastic warrior Digimon that is a member of Mikey’s Fusion Fighters. There’s no question about him being a good guy, and he is also incredibly handy to have around thanks the neat compartment in his chest that can be used for carrying cargo. Another interesting thing about Ballistamon is it seems that he is also a fan of art. This is shown to us in episode 15, Trouble in Paradise. Throughout the episode, Ballistamon makes many frequent exclamations stating that “Art is an explosion!”. As well, this little statement is a reference to a couple of different things.
One of these may be pretty obvious for fans of the Naruto anime series. In Naruto, the character Deidara, one of the members of Akatsuki, often says “Art is an explosion!”, which is considered his catchphrase. Both of these may be a reference to an actual person though. The phrase “Art is an explosion!” is the motto for a famous abstract artist from Japan named Tarō Okamoto. Considering abstract art can be explosive in nature, I feel the motto is fitting, and even more so for the two anime characters that make use of the motto.
