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Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 42 - The Burst Mode of Tohma’s Determination

In this episode, Tohma goes to protect his family from the Royal Knights’ attack and his father’s own stubbornness. Many Norstein family issues are aired out and explored, leading to Tohma and his father finally beginning to understand each other.

The nicely short recap focuses entirely on Masaru’s issues in the last couple of episodes and doesn’t even bother mentioning Dukemon. I approve.

Anyway, with Masaru having headed off to another world to prove his dad’s not a mass murderer, we catch up with the invasion in the human world. Royal Knights are casually disintegrating entire skyscrapers with their attacks. I’m still sceptical as to how much good this is doing in terms of destroying the entire planet, which is what would need to happen if Yggdrasil is actually telling the truth about only wanting to avoid the collision. Doesn’t really seem like it to me.

There’s also massive armies of Knightmon, Armour-level (so, basically Adult) Digimon who all work for the Royal Knights, I guess. The narrator – narrating over something that’s not actually recap, which is rare – tells us that they’re invading every city around the world, but I kind of doubt that, too. There’s only like seven Royal Knights that we’ve seen, and even with much larger armies of subordinate Knightmon, I doubt there’d be nearly enough to get to literally every human city ever.

Still, one of the cities they definitely are attacking is Yokohama, naturally. MirageGaogamon, Rosemon and Ravemon are working to fend off the attack, effortlessly taking out individual Knightmon, but the numbers are tough to deal with.

In amongst the battle, Tohma gets a call on his DATS earpiece from Yushima, who’s still hanging out with the Norsteins.

And then there’s an unusually early opening! As this episode’s title already spoils, Masaru’s not gonna be the only one of the crew getting Burst Mode. There’s this one shot near the end of the opening in which only ShineGreymon is seen in his Burst Mode, which might make you think this is one of those (very common in Digimon) times where the most central main character gets to achieve a higher final evolution level than everybody else. But actually, this shot’s misleading! Fair and equal evolutions for all our main cast in Savers, even though this is much less of an ensemble cast and Masaru really is much more the single main character than in any other Digimon series.

We cut back in at an airport, which is having a very rough time of it in the Knightmon’s attack, with flames and destruction everywhere. And yet, one very foolishly reckless plane is trying to take off: the Norstein private jet.

Yushima: “The man is crazy! He’s planning to take off?! After all I went through to stop him!”

Evidently, Yushima called up Tohma and asked him to come here because his father was about to do something extremely stupid and needed to be protected from his own stupidity. I also appreciate the acknowledgement that Yushima, having promised he’d take care of Relena in Tohma’s absence, didn’t just sit back and let this happen and did try to stop it, but in vain.

A Knightmon shows up in front of the plane’s cockpit, smashing the windows and effectively blinding the pilots. Gawappamon (I do not know why Kamemon is still only in his Adult-level form, more on that later) is there to take out the Knightmon, but the damage is done and the plane careers off the runway, unable to take off. (Which is probably for the best. Better it gets attacked now when it’s still on the ground than while it’s in the air.)

Inside the plane, Franz Norstein, Tohma’s father, is not pleased.

Franz: “What the hell are you doing?”

What do you think the pilots are doing, Franz, you must know full well that there’s a Digimon invasion going on, including at this very airport. Someone’s very used to always getting his way no matter what.

A worried Relena staggers her way out of the back section of the plane that’s being used as a makeshift hospital room for her.

Relena: “Father, what happened?”

Franz: “Stay inside!”

[Relena winces at his shout]

Franz: “I mean… it’s dangerous.”

Franz is stressed out enough that he snaps at her and kinda freaks her out, then realises his mistake and tries to explain how he meant it in a softer voice. He did mean well and warn her out of concern for her safety, but he’s not great at showing it, especially at a time like this. Not the best at dadding, this man.

Relena: “Father… why are we leaving for home so suddenly?”

Relena doesn’t listen to his warning and staggers further towards him anyway. I don’t blame her for just wanting to understand what’s going on and why her father’s even putting them in such a dangerous situation right now. Evidently he didn’t bother to explain his Big Important Norstein Reasons to her.

More attacks shake the plane, knocking them both to the ground. Franz gathers up the fallen Relena in his arms, desperately crying out for someone to help them.

Someone does come and help them: MirageGaogamon – or, in other words, Tohma. The big dog-knight effortlessly takes out all of the Knightmon flying around the airport, making the place safe, for the time being at least.

(More points on the using evolved Digimon for transport chart! They really are getting the hang of that at last. But still not evolving him specifically for transport, since MirageGaogamon was already evolved fighting elsewhere.)

Tohma watches with this bitter look on his face as the doctors stabilise Relena in her hospital bed on the plane. She would never have been hurt at all if his father hadn’t been so stubborn and foolish.

Tohma: “No matter where you run off to right now, the situation will be the same. Please stop exposing Relena to unnecessary danger.”

Franz: “I must return to Austria and protect our manor.”

That’s Franz’s reason for the reckless attempted take-off, apparently. As if protecting his manor is worth risking his daughter’s life, or as if he even could protect it himself against Digimon whom he has no way to fight. Someone’s sense of Norstein responsibility is extremely strong, to the point of overriding all common sense.

Tohma: “You *know* that flight take-off is currently prohibited!”

Franz: “That can be fixed just by mentioning the Norstein name.”

Franz, you absolute moron, it’s not about some arbitrary rule that you get to break because of your power and influence, it’s about the fact that if you take off then you’re going to freaking die because of the turbulence and the Digimon. Franz is clearly extremely used to being able to do whatever he wants and can’t quite grasp the idea of a situation so far beyond his control that he literally can’t.

Tohma: “That’s not what you should be saying!”

Franz: “You dare to challenge your own father?!”

Tohma, who kind of hates the Norstein name and everything that comes with it, really cannot stand the way his father is willing to wave it around in order to put Relena in danger, and snaps at him. Franz snaps right back by continuing to cling to his unearned authority based on titles – he’s Tohma’s father, so what he says goes.

Gaomon: “Master…”

Gaomon’s here too, and though he’d usually be a good dog and keep out of things like this, even he can tell his master’s getting rather concerningly worked up about this.

Tohma manages to calm himself just a little and tells his father that more Digimon troops might arrive, so they should take shelter.

Franz: “Take shelter? Don’t be stupid. I’ll have another jet prepared to take us home.”

It’s very rich that Franz insists the suggestion to take shelter and not put themselves in more danger is being “stupid”. What does Tohma mean, Franz should change his mind and admit he was in the wrong.

Tohma: “I just told you, you can’t do that!”

Franz: “Then you’ll act as our escort.”

Franz really is being very entitled about this. Tohma, one of the few people in the world with a Digimon partner capable of fighting off the waves of Knightmon, happens to be here and happens to be his son, so obviously he gets to make use of that for his own purposes. Tohma doesn’t get given a say in it; it’s his duty as a Norstein, obviously.

Tohma: “You are really…”

Tohma’s getting absolutely sick of his father’s entitlement to ordering him around and controlling his life like this. He’s grimacing and shaking in barely-suppressed anger and sounds like he’s very close to snapping out some sort of insult.

Franz: “What? Don’t you at least want to protect your sister’s life?”

And again, here’s Franz, using Relena in order to emotionally exploit Tohma into staying and helping when he otherwise wouldn’t. If he wasn’t putting Relena in danger in the first place, Tohma wouldn’t have any reason to want to do this.

Tohma: “Then… Then, what about you?”

Franz: “What?”

Tohma: “What have you ever protected so far?”

Tohma’s anger here isn’t even specifically focused on this one instance of his father being like this. This particular incident is hitting all the sore spots and turning into a reason for him to let out all of his long-bottled-up frustration about everything his father’s ever done – or rather, not done, as he feels.

We move into a flashback. Little Tohma stands forlornly in his house in Japan, which has been emptied of furniture, holding a funeral portrait of his mother. He’s about to move out to go and live with his father instead.

Franz: “Let’s go.”

Little Tohma: “Okay.”

Tohma mumbles this reluctantly after a pause, obviously not wanting to leave his home and the memories of his mother behind at all, but what can he do?

On the way out, in the hall, he glances at a wooden beam into which is carved some lines and writing, marking his height at different important days in his life. It’s a cute little ordinary-kid thing that he did together with his mom! Aww. Based on the highest-up birthday listed here, Tohma is currently only six years old. Ouch, that’s young to lose your mother. (This is how I knew to cite that age during episode 15.)

Seeing this, Tohma perks up just a little and heads outside to his father, seemingly wanting to show him and share this cute family thing with him, perhaps something they can start to bond over?

Little Tohma: “Dad, wait a…!”

But his father’s already getting into the car and doesn’t listen, too busy and grown-up to care about silly little sentimental things like that. Tohma’s face falls in disappointment.

…Also, something I can’t believe I only just picked up on while writing this: little Tohma tries to call him Dad here. Yet, every time we’ve seen in the present, Tohma calls him Father. Tohma really did want to have a closer, more personal connection with his father, but Franz’s demeanour and unwillingness to engage forced him to make the whole thing more formal and distant. Gah.

Later, in Austria, inside the gigantic Norstein manor, little Tohma sits awkwardly on a chair in a hallway as he overhears an argument in a nearby room between his father and his grandmother.

Franz: “Why, Mother?!”

Grandmother: “This isn’t a joke. I have no obligation to meet that child.”

Franz: “He’s my son! He’s *your* grandson!”

Grandmother: “Only through blood. That boy cannot be called a true Norstein.”

Credit to Franz – and a sign of the way he really feels about Tohma that he’s very bad at showing – he really does want to introduce his mother to his son, just because Tohma’s his son. Never mind anything else about those rules of noble pedigree that says he’s not a “true” Norstein because he’s half-Japanese, which Franz’s mother is very insistent on sticking to.

Something to note is that this conversation must be actually happening in German, and we’re just getting translation convention here – Franz might know Japanese, but there’s no way Grandmother Norstein would stoop to speaking some foreign language in her own home. So I suppose, for little Tohma to be listening in, he must already be fluent in German. Which makes sense; he’s a genius, and his mom might have encouraged him to learn it, because of his heritage.

Little Tohma couldn’t manage to sit still and just listen to the argument; by now he’s peering in through the doors to the room, and his grandmother notices him there.

Franz: “Tohma!” [he clears his throat] “What are you doing over there? Don’t you know how to greet others?”

Since she’s awkwardly seen him now, the best Franz can do to salvage this and make it seem polite and proper (and to not be an absolute dismissive dick to his son, which he doesn’t want to be) is to have Tohma introduce himself to his grandmother anyway, despite her wishes.

Little Tohma: “How do you do, Grandmother?”

Tohma nervously walks up and greets her, his gaze on the floor, because he overheard and knows full well that she doesn’t actually want him here. His grandmother lifts his chin to look at his face.

Grandmother: “His eyes are just like his mother’s.”

She doesn’t even greet him back. She just immediately comments – about him, not to him – on the physical feature of his that marks him out as not a true pedigree Norstein and the son of some foreign commoner. Being told you have your mother’s eyes is often meant as a compliment, but very definitely not here.

(Awkwardly, they’re literally not his mother’s eyes. Tohma’s eyes are blue, like his father’s, while his mother’s were brown like a Japanese person’s. It seems like the series’ artists finalised Tohma’s character design as someone who looked European without thinking about this relevant point for his half-blood heritage. It’s a shame; it would have been neat if he had blond hair and brown eyes to kind of reflect that. But, shush, please ignore what we can literally see here and focus on the narrative point of his grandmother’s words. I appreciate the spirit of the writers still wanting to go for this narrative point anyway despite that the character design had screwed them over on having it actually make visual sense.)

Grandmother: “I’m sure it must have been easy for you to mislead that young and ignorant exchange student.”

This is all we need to know about how Tohma’s mother and father met. She was an exchange student studying in Austria, and they happened to fall in love and conceive a child – out of wedlock, of course – despite that such a thing is very much not what a true proper Norstein should do in terms of creating offspring and potential heirs. Franz may have tried to do the proper dutiful Norstein thing, but he couldn’t help being driven by his emotions and his love. A little bit like another Norstein we know, really.

Of course, because a Norstein fathering a child in this way Will Not Do, Franz’s lover quietly took her baby back with her to Japan and raised him there. I imagine the Norsteins would have been quite happy to pretend this embarrassment had never happened, and Tohma would have grown up as a (relatively) normal Japanese kid, if things had been different. But then his mother died in that accident, forcing his father’s side of the family to awkwardly take custody of this kid they never wanted to be associated with.

Tohma’s grandmother finally looks straight at Tohma and addresses him directly.

Grandmother: “Listen closely. You are of the Norstein family, yet at the same time, you are not. You’ll do well to continue bearing that in mind.”

Geez, what a thing to say to a six-year-old kid who’s only just lost his mother and has been taken halfway across the world into a new home. If you’ve ever wondered how Tohma can seem full of himself sometimes and yet at the same time have such an inferiority complex? Yeah, this explains it pretty comprehensively. On the one hand, he’s technically a Norstein, which means that attitude of him being More Important than common people would be subconsciously ingrained into him no matter how much he doesn’t agree with it. But on the other hand, he’s not a “true” Norstein, and he’ll never be good enough for his family no matter what he does. Imagine growing up with that hanging over you from such a young age.

Little Tohma, almost on the verge of tears, glances to his father for any kind of support in this cruel disapproval from his grandmother – disapproval that he knows full well is because of his mom, aka the one person in the world he loves and misses dearly. And wasn’t his father supposed to have loved his mom, too? Surely he’d stand up for her?

Franz doesn’t. He’s twisted his entire face away from Tohma, not saying a word.

Seeing his father refusing to defend his mother against such insinuations, little Tohma feels very, very alone.

Tohma: “I will never forget what you did back then. You insulted my mother, in the most despicable way, through your silence!”

And it seems like Tohma never let that go, for eight years. His mother was the one who raised him and loved him and was most important to him, so of course his first impressions of his father were horribly tarnished by the way Franz seemed to not even care about her. Tohma’s always been carrying that resentment towards his father. And similarly, remember how he brought up his father not helping his mother when she was suffering, presumably from money problems, when they were arguing in episode 34? Though growing up in the Norstein household with someone as uptight as Franz as a father can’t have been fun in general, all of Tohma’s most bitter feelings about it all revolve around his mother. She really did mean so much to him, even though he almost never mentions her to anyone.

Hearing this, realising his son still resents him for this, Franz grimaces and looks away.

Franz: “You know nothing. Nothing.”

His words indicate that there was a lot more to his actions back then than simply not caring and not wanting to stand up for the woman he loved. It’s that he knew exactly how his own mother would react to such a thing. A Norstein isn’t supposed to care about some commoner, and he was desperate to not disappoint his own parent here any more than he already had.

And it’s very true that little Tohma didn’t take Franz’s point of view on this into account at all back then – but then, how could he have been expected to? He was six. Still, Franz acting like Tohma knows nothing at all of the Norstein family pressures he was under even now is maybe not quite as much the truth as he thinks it is, is it.

Gaomon gets their attention and pulls them out of the family quarrel by pointing out that there’s another squadron of Knightmon approaching outside the plane, just like Tohma predicted.

Franz: “Do something, Tohma! Since you’re a Norstein, you should be able to do something!”

In his panic at the renewed danger, Franz instinctively clings to two things – his belief in his son’s abilities, and the notion that the Norstein name in particular makes somebody worth more than someone without.

Tohma rounds on him, scowling. Being told that he should be able to help because he’s a Norstein is the last thing he wants to hear right now, after the words of his grandmother’s that he was just remembering.

To his credit, Franz shrinks back a little at that, seeming to realise that that was not the best choice of words under the circumstances.

Doctor: “Master Franz! Miss Relena is going into spasms!”

(Incidentally, though I’ve been calling Tohma’s father Franz since he showed up in episode 34, this line is the only point in the series at which we actually learn his name. I’m glad we have this, because it’d have been a lot more awkward wording-wise to talk about Tohma’s issues with him, and Franz’s own issues, if I didn’t even have an actual name to refer to him by.)

Yushima: “Well, then. I guess it’s time to show them how serious I can be.”

Yushima, outside the plane and watching the squadron approach, does a Digisoul Full Charge and evolves Gawappamon into his Perfect-level form, Shawujingmon. I do not know why he didn’t have his partner evolved to his highest possible level earlier. Or, well, I do: it’s because the writers wanted to show off this form by having him evolve onscreen, even though he’s not important enough for a full-length evolution animation.

What I also don’t get is why we didn’t see Kamemon’s Perfect form earlier in the series, back during the ElDoradimon arc, where most of the main cast were already Ultimate-level and most of the Gizmon they were fighting were Perfect. That’d have been a much more appropriate point for it. And then maybe we could have got to see an Ultimate-level form for Kamemon here, like we’ve also seen Satsuma’s partner as an Ultimate? (Okay, yeah, I know, Kudamon’s a Royal Knight so he was always going to be that strong, but still.) It’d make Yushima feel a lot less awkwardly behind the times for someone who’s the Chief of DATS and therefore presumably supposed to be kind of a badass.

Still, even at only Perfect-level, Shawujingmon is more than a match for this army of Armour-level Knightmon, because of course he is.

Relena: “Brother…”

Back in the plane’s makeshift hospital, Relena’s been stabilised, somewhat, but she’s still clearly in distress, grimacing and mumbling through her oxygen mask. She reaches out to grasp hold of Tohma’s hand as it rests on the railings of her bed. Tohma gasps – that simple gesture’s reminded him of another very important memory of his…

In the Norstein manor, perhaps a year or two later than the previous flashback judging by little Tohma looking a little bit older, Relena’s just been born. Franz and his mother hurry to consult with the doctors about the condition of the child, while Tohma lingers behind, watching from around a corner, obviously not properly allowed to be here even though this is his half-sister they’re talking about.

Grandmother: “A girl?”

Tohma’s grandmother sounds vaguely displeased at hearing the child’s gender, despite that she herself is a woman and seems to be the matriarch of the Norstein family. I guess that ingrained sexism still runs strong enough that she was hoping for a boy regardless.

Doctor: “However… both the mother and child were in danger during the labour process…”

Grandmother: “Very well. Do everything you can to save the child’s life.”

…But not the mother’s, apparently? I guess she can be sacrificed, in the name of bringing a new Norstein heir into the world. Presumably, after his, ah, mishap with the “ignorant exchange student” who was Tohma’s mother, Franz was married to a European woman of suitable noble pedigree, and since then they’ve been trying to conceive a child who can be a proper true-blood Norstein heir, unlike Tohma. That’s far more important than said woman’s life, right.

Grandmother: “She is a precious child who has finally been born into the Norstein family.”

Implicit in her words, which little Tohma clearly picks up on in some form as he listens from around the corner, is that he was never a precious child, and they never cared about him being brought into this family.

Sometime a little later, with baby Relena safe and sleeping (her mother presumably didn’t make it, because we never hear anything more about her), little Tohma heads into his sister’s hospital room to see her for the first time, while nobody else is around. He probably isn’t allowed to see her with others around, because he’s not Norstein enough, but how could he not want to anyway?

Little Tohma: “So you’re Relena.”

The way he phrases this, like she’s so important already, even though she’s just a little sleeping baby, says a lot.

Little Tohma: “Everyone is worrying for you.”

Not stated but thoroughly implied in Tohma’s words: just like nobody ever worries about him.

I get the sense that he’s come here to see her not just because she’s his sister, but because he wants to try and understand what’s so special about her that makes her so much more important to his family than he is, even when she’s just a baby. After all, Tohma’s still pretty young himself, and genius or not, he probably doesn’t entirely grasp the Norstein politics and understand what it actually is that makes him “not good enough”.

Baby Relena, of course, understands all that even less. She begins to cry and wave her arms around, searching for some kind of human contact, and manages to grasp Tohma’s hand as he holds onto the edge of her crib. As soon as she does, she stops crying and chuckles happily.

Tohma stares in surprise. He takes his hand away, experimentally, and Relena immediately begins crying and reaching out for it again. Tohma keeps staring at her, like he can’t believe it. She wants him.

Somebody wants him.

Slowly, Tohma lowers his hand back towards his baby sister, and as Relena grabs hold of it, again she stops crying and becomes happy.

This is exactly what little Tohma needed. Someone who doesn’t care about any of the Norstein pedigree nonsense, and loves him unconditionally exactly the way he is. He smiles back at her, and there’s a kind of subtle determination in it. You can almost see him resolving then and there to do absolutely anything for this little girl.

I love this sequence; it shows so subtly and succinctly just exactly why Relena is so incredibly important to Tohma. She gave him unconditional love when he needed it most, when nobody else in his family would. No wonder he went and devoted his entire life to getting himself a medical license and research degree, all for the sake of curing her. No wonder he pretended to participate in genocide to keep her safe when an evil man put a bomb around her neck.

In the present, Relena’s still holding Tohma’s hand. He puts his other hand over hers protectively.

Tohma: “I will do something… for Relena’s sake. But I won’t be doing it because I’m a Norstein!”

No matter how he feels about his father’s approaches, he cannot ever say no to protecting Relena. But he can at least do so while making it clear exactly who he’s doing this for, and that it’s not about those Norstein ideals that have caused him so much pain.

With that, Tohma heads out of the hospital section, leaving Franz and Relena in there. Franz calls after him, in vain, and then looks back at Relena, wincing. Seems like Tohma’s words lodged somewhere.

Gaomon: “Master…”

Tohma: “It’s all right.”

Tohma says this without looking at Gaomon, speeding up in his exit from the plane as if to prove just how all right everything is by getting straight into the action.

No, Tohma, it’s not. You are clearly not okay right now, with all this baggage that’s being dredged up. Gaomon can tell. (Gaomon, talk to him about his issues! You too-obedient dog, you.)

Outside the plane, Shawujingmon is still taking out Knightmon but is beginning to get overwhelmed by numbers, so MirageGaogamon joins the fray to help out.

Tohma: “Yushima-san! I apologise.”

Yushima: “Hm? For what?”

Yeah, Tohma – don’t apologise when you’ve done nothing wrong! I like how Yushima points out that he’s got nothing to be sorry for. Apparently Tohma being around his father and subjected to those ridiculously high standards has made him feel like he needs to apologise for something as insignificant as, I dunno, taking an extra minute to leave the plane and come help because he was dealing with family issues.

After some more fighting, the Knightmon fall back as one of the Royal Knights, RhodoKnightmon, descends dramatically from the storm clouds.

(Guh, thanks to Digimon Frontier, my brain still can’t help but want to call this guy LordKnightmon, which is how his name was romanised in those subs, but nope, I am going to insistently make myself stick to what the Savers subs call him anyway, because Savers.)

RhodoKnightmon: “You will pay for laying your hands on my subordinates.”

[Tohma scowls]

Tohma: “Let’s go, MirageGaogamon!”

MirageGaogamon: “Yes, Master!”

Yushima: “Don’t! Tohma!”

Yushima can be seen taking notice in the background upon seeing Tohma’s uncharacteristically fierce and charge-in-headfirst approach. Tohma is not being himself, and Yushima, who’s good at observing interesting people and figuring out the gist of their issues, can tell.

MirageGaogamon, as ordered, simply zooms right up to RhodoKnightmon, who dodges his attack and counterattacks with a super-speed flurry of blows from every angle, sending MirageGaogamon crashing to the ground. That’s the sort of reckless mistake Masaru might make, but not usually Tohma.

Tohma: “Damn it…”

Yushima: (His composure is breaking… Just as I assumed, he’s agitated about something.)

Again, I like how Yushima can tell. Tohma’s getting too worked up by his family issues to be thinking straight right now.

Franz: “I… I…”

Meanwhile, in the hospital section of the plane, Franz is also getting rather worked up with his own issues. He briefly flashes back to all the times Tohma’s snapped at him this episode, perhaps starting to realise that his son might have a point.

We move into another full flashback – this one from Franz’s perspective. It’s not long after Relena’s been born; maybe a few days or so? Long enough for the poor state of her long-term health to have been confirmed by the doctors, at any rate.

Grandmother: “Tohma shall succeed the Norstein lineage.”

Franz: “What did you say?”

Grandmother: “Because of her weak body, Relena will not do.”

Thinking about this from Franz’s perspective, this has got to have been a slap in the face. He finally goes and does the Proper Thing instead of being led by his emotions, marrying, and conceiving a child with, a woman he presumably didn’t have any feelings for (and even if he didn’t, it’s still got to hurt that she died giving birth). And after all that, it turns out those efforts still weren’t good enough to produce a proper heir after all.

(It’s probably not a surprise that Relena’s so ill, when you think about how much the Norsteins seem to care about proper “pedigree” – her condition may be a result of the rather shallow gene pool available among European nobility.)

Grandmother: “Instead, arrange for a lady of suitable pedigree to become Tohma’s wife. Choose one that will prevent others from talking behind our backs.”

Even though a part of Franz might be happy that his son is finally being recognised, his mother makes it clear that Tohma’s existence is still a stain on their reputation, and he needs to make up for that and cover it up by giving Tohma a suitably pedigree wife. Clearly the “talking behind our backs” remark is referring to what other noble families will be/have been doing about Tohma’s heritage and Franz’s “mistake”.

(Also, imagine how this must have felt for Tohma. You’re a Norstein, except you’re not really. Oh, wait, except you are, but only because you’re the inferior back-up option, now have all these immense pressures and standards to live up to as we decide the rest of your life for you. Gah. It must have been such a relief for him when he ran off to medical school and then also joined DATS, just to be able to get away from all that.)

Franz: “But Mother!”

Grandmother: “Understood?”

Franz: “Yes…”

Franz’s expression wavers before he gives in and accepts his mother’s demands. Seen from this perspective, it reads as quite similar to the way Tohma has been protesting his father’s unreasonable demands, and has been given little choice but to accept them and go along with the Norstein Way. It’s not just Franz; every member of the Norstein family imposes these values and pressures on their offspring, until they learn to impose it on theirs in turn. It wouldn’t even be fair to say that Franz’s mother is the sole villain here, because although she’s never presented in a sympathetic light in this episode, she must also have grown up with those same pressures from her parents until she internalised it all. (Especially as a woman leading the family, which it seems like this culture is still vaguely sexist about.)

In short: the Norstein family is messed up as all hell, by its very nature.

As Franz, in the present, clutches his head and grimaces from his own issues and guilt, one of the doctors comes and tells him they’re ready to move Relena back to the airport so that they can transport her onto the replacement jet. (They’re still apparently going with that plan to continue trying to fly back to Austria, although I wonder if Franz would really be so willing to stubbornly insist that’s the best approach any more. But either way, they’ve at least got to move Relena out of this plane.)

Doctor: “We must do this while Master Tohma is distracting them.”

Franz: “Tohma…”

Franz mutters his son’s name like he’s worried, or perhaps proud, as it sinks in (not for the first time) just how much Tohma’s willing to risk himself and sacrifice for Relena’s sake.

Out in the fight, RhodoKnightmon gets in an attack on Shawujingmon, instantly devolving him, because of course. MirageGaogamon, while remaining evolved, is taking quite the beating from the Royal Knight too, ending up collapsed in pain on the runway.

Relena’s doctors emerge from the plane, wheeling her bed across the runway as fast as they can while RhodoKnightmon is hopefully not looking their way. Relena regains consciousness and looks over to see her brother rushing to the downed MirageGaogamon’s side. With all the self-preservation of a scared little girl who’s just desperately worried about her precious big brother (that is to say, no self-preservation whatsoever, but let her off, she’s very young), Relena climbs out of the hospital bed and starts running as fast as she can towards Tohma out of some frantic attempt to help him somehow.

Relena: “Brother… No… Don’t go…!”

Or perhaps it’s not about helping him, but some sense that she’s being taken away in a different direction to him, and so she thinks he’s going to leave her and just wants to stay with him? I’m not sure if this is meant as a warning or as a plea.

Franz sees this from the door of the plane and rushes towards his daughter. One of the Knightmon sees a free target and fires an attack directly at Relena, who freezes up in fear as it approaches.

(Seriously, Knightmon, what a dick move. Of all the exposed human targets you’ve got here right now, you aim right at the defenceless child before anyone else?)

Franz desperately reaches out for his daughter as the attack draws close, but he’s never going to get there in time. He collapses before he can see it hit – and looks up to see Relena safely in Tohma’s arms, with MirageGaogamon kneeling behind them. Despite how injured he was, the good good dog managed to stand up and get there just in time to block the attack, because he would do anything for his Master’s precious sister.

Franz couldn’t do anything to protect his daughter – but Tohma could.

Relena smiles at seeing her brother safe (and is hopefully learning her lesson about feeling like she can protect him in a dangerous situation if that’s what it was, Relena that was sweet of you but please) and passes out in his arms.

Franz staggers closer to both of his children, and then he drops to his knees in front of Tohma, as if begging for forgiveness.

Franz: “Even I… Even I have acted out of desperation. I always did everything in my power to protect the Norstein family’s name!”

Finally, after seeing what almost happened to Relena and having himself be powerless to protect her, Franz is willing to humble himself in front of Tohma and admit that he’s not perfect. Everything he’s done has also been out of a desperation to live up to those ridiculously heavy Norstein family pressures, but it’s hard, and he’s never been good enough at it, and he’s messed up his own son in the process.

Franz’s voice cracks with emotion as he says this, and he breaks down crying.

Tohma: “Father…”

This is, almost certainly, the first time Tohma’s ever seen his father cry, or show any real amount of vulnerability at all. This is the first time he’s realising that his father has also been suffering under the Norstein pressures, just like he has. His father’s not such an unreasonable tyrant after all; he’s just a flawed, imperfect human being.

Tohma remembers himself, as a kid, crying alone outside the Norstein manor. We’re not shown why, but surely it must simply have been from all of the pressures put on him and the loneliness it made him feel – this probably happened a lot more than once. That image gets overlaid over the image of Franz crying here and now. Father and son aren’t so different after all. Tohma can understand what his father’s going through, because he’s been through the same kind of thing.

Tohma: “Father. Please take care of Relena.”

[he hands Relena over to Franz]

Franz: “Tohma?”

[Tohma stands up]

Tohma: “I will protect you.”

That seems to be all Tohma needs – coming to some kind of understanding of his father as a person, seeing him be vulnerable – for his protective instinct to kick in towards him, too. Tohma may come across as logical and calculated on the surface, but he really is so deeply driven by the desire to protect those closest to him more than anything else.

Tohma: “I’ll make sure to protect you. I won’t let them lay a finger on Relena, either.”

[he puts a hand on MirageGaogamon]

MirageGaogamon: “Yes, Master.”

I like MirageGaogamon’s “Yes, Master” here. There’s somehow more gravity to it than most of them, like he understands the resolve his master’s just come to and how important this is to Tohma, and he’s even more determined than usual to support him. Tohma didn’t even give him a verbal order, but he knows exactly what his master wants him to do. Good dog.

With that, he and Tohma turn dramatically to face RhodoKnightmon.

Tohma: “RhodoKnightmon! You won’t get away with this any longer! With my name, Tohma Norstein, on the line… I will defeat you!”

It sure marks a turnaround that Tohma’s willing to dramatically swear on his name like this. I imagine this is a lot less about the family name in and of itself, given how much pain and grief that’s caused to both him and his father, and more about just Tohma himself. He’s being proud of every single part of him, his sister and his father, because they’re all his family, even if that family’s pretty messed-up.

RhodoKnightmon: “You will defeat me? Even as a joke, that’s quite insulting. Such a sin is punishable by death.”

Oh my god, more ridiculous Royal Knight pompousness. Yes, clearly, simply saying you’ll defeat a Royal Knight is such a terrible insult that you deserve to die for it. Get over yourself, RhodoKnightmon.

RhodoKnightmon flies at MirageGaogamon, who, despite his earlier injuries, blocks the knight’s ribbon-sword without missing a beat, before Tohma even begins to flare up with Burst Mode energy. I guess his partner’s new determination and resolve already managed to give MirageGaogamon a pick-me-up, even without the whole thing being charged through the Digivice into Burst Mode just yet.

But anyway, it’s Burst Mode time for Tohma, as if the title of this episode didn’t already give that away. Look at this unicorn dog-knight with fabulous hair. I think I actually like MirageGaogamon’s Burst Mode form distinctly more than his regular form, while for the other Burst Modes I’m kind of indifferent. Something about the different shape of his body is more appealing to me.

His animation also involves him dramatically pulling his new weapon out of the moon, which makes for some nice duality with how ShineGreymon’s Burst Mode animation has him pulling his flaming sword and shield out of the sun.

Also, as you’d imagine, we get Believer again, which is always a good time when we haven’t heard it since episode 38.

MirageGaogamon’s new moon-flail weapon shatters one of RhodoKnightmon’s ribbon swords. Then RhodoKnightmon’s attack of striking at super-speed from multiple angles, which did a number on MirageGaogamon earlier, is now something he’s fast enough to block every single strike from.

There’s not much else that’s interesting about the fight. It’s not quite won in a single attack, but it’s your pretty standard comprehensive victory brought on by a new evolution. RhodoKnightmon was never an interesting antagonist anyway, so I don’t mind. This episode was about the family issues, not the fighting.

As RhodoKnightmon disintegrates into an egg, a beam of light appears and carries it upwards towards the Digital World. All of the Knightmon’s eggs were just left here, but apparently Yggdrasil doesn’t want to let any humans get their hands on the egg of one of its Royal Knights in particular.

Later, Relena’s sleeping safely in a hospital bed in the airport building. It seems Franz has seen sense and is not about to try and risk her life again by taking off with her in another jet. Protecting the Norstein manor (as if he even could; he’s probably been humbled enough to realise how out of his power that is right now) is not worth that risk.

Franz: “I see. So you’re leaving.”

Tohma: “Yes.”

Franz: “Will it be all right?”

Tohma: “Set your mind at ease. Relena has already settled down.”

Franz: “No. I was talking about you. Will you be able to come home safely?”

Aww, Franz. He’s very awkward and bad at showing it, but he really does love and care about both of his children. His strict Norstein upbringing just forced him to always treat those feelings like they were a secondary priority next to whatever he had to do to protect the Norstein family name.

It’s also not a surprise that Tohma initially assumed his father’s question was about Relena, because he is thoroughly not used to the idea that his father worries about him. He stares at his father in shock for a moment as the reality sinks in.

Tohma: “It’ll be all right. After all… I am a Norstein.”

I am, again, going to assume that this is not about the lofty Norstein pedigree like his grandmother would have meant it. Instead, perhaps he means it in the sense that, well… being a Norstein messes you up, but that also means it gives you the resilience to get through any kind of challenge and still stay standing. His father must understand that too, surely.

(Something that might be worth noting is that we never get any sense that the influence of Tohma’s grandmother is still around in the present day. She may well have passed away by now? …Or, I suppose, maybe she’s just back in Austria, having not joined Franz on his trip to Japan to cure Relena through Kurata’s methods, because she doesn’t care about Relena enough when she’s not the heir anyway.)

Franz: “I see.”

I kind of like this shot of both of them sitting side-by-side like this. They’re still both so awkward about this communicating and talking-about-their-feelings thing – but at least Franz is now making an attempt, which is significant progress from how he was before.

Tohma exits the hospital room, implicitly leaving his family’s safety in Yushima and Kamemon’s hands. He’s resolved to head out to the Digital World to help Masaru.

Which… is a bit of a sudden turnaround from the end of the previous episode, in which he promised Masaru he’d stay behind to protect the human world from the Royal Knights’ attack. This does somewhat smack of this episode transparently existing to get Tohma his Burst Mode before he can head off and join the real fight.

But it does make a certain amount of sense for him to join Masaru anyway. As much as they might talk about protecting the human world from attack, there’s just so many Royal Knights (and minions) that there’s very little that one person can do to help, even with an Ultimate-level partner. The only thing that’s really going to make a difference to the fate of the world here is getting through to Yggdrasil, so really, Masaru needs all the help he can get with that side of things. Tohma and the others may have been briefly swayed at the end of last episode by Masaru’s stubborn insistence on Doing This Alone because of his dad complex, but despite the legit argument about staying to protect the human world, following Masaru to help him really was always the best call all along.

Yushima: “He’d rather face the danger than wait for it to come, is it?”

Perhaps that’s one way of putting it. Tohma’s new resolve found in this episode seems to have also come complete with nudging him to take a more head-on Masaru approach to things.

Overall thoughts

This really is nothing but a Tohma’s Issues episode, but it does still feel reasonably integrated into the plot, being wrapped up with the current crisis, which is nice.

And man, what a good Issues Episode it is. I am very glad to have this to cap off all of Tohma’s other issues and development that we’ve had throughout the series. It’s masterfully done – I love how all these flashbacks tell us everything we need to know to fully explain Tohma’s character and let us realise where every part of him comes from: his inferiority complex and perfectionism, his resentment of his father, his devotion to Relena, everything. All my analysis of Tohma in previous episodes has been done with this stuff low-key in mind in the back of my head, even as I’ve not mentioned it directly, because it’s just so vital for understanding what makes him tick.

I also enjoy that this episode shows us Franz’s issues and humanises him a lot, drawing parallels between father and son in terms of the pressures they’re under. This doesn’t excuse Franz for not having been a great father until now, but it’s for flawed human reasons and not simply because he’s A Bad Person. While he was terrible at showing it, he has always loved his kids, and at least he’s now admitted to his mistakes and shown willingness to try and do better. It’s still going to be awkward at the Norstein dinner table for quite a while, but they’ll be able to get somewhere.

RhodoKnightmon is admittedly barely a character, but also, who cares; he’s just here to be a Villain of the Week to give Tohma something to fight. At least the writing isn’t trying to treat him like we ought to be invested in him – see me side-eyeing next week’s episode.

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[Dub comparison]

#digimon #digimon savers #tohma h norstein #franz norstein #relena norstein #the digivice old man

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commentaryvorg · 2 years

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Digimon Savers Commentary Episode 38 - Burst Mode! The Power That Exceeds Ultimate!

In this episode, the DATS team fight back against Belphemon and Kurata, with ShineGreymon back in the fray. Their enemy gains new power that threatens the fabric of the universe itself, while Masaru’s determination finally unlocks the true Burst Mode.

Yeeeaaaahh this one’s an unnecessarily long recap, at two full minutes. We even get Ravemon’s evolution animation in it, and I’m pretty sure this is the only time one of those has been included in a recap. I imagine the reason for it this time is that this episode has some really high-quality animation for Savers’s standards, which may have meant that the animators had less time to make quite as much of it, so they needed to pad out the opening of the episode like this.

Anyway, Agumon has just triumphantly hatched, and he and Masaru are rushing eagerly into the fray against Belphemon, who is now actually Belphemon himself rather than Kurata. The team’s other beaten and injured Digimon realise their comrade is back; MirageGaogamon chuckles affectionately watching Agumon dorkily step on Masaru’s head in midair as they get flung away from Belphemon by a huge gust of wind. These idiots always know how to lighten up a fight and make it feel fun, not terrifying.

Agumon then excitedly waves Masaru over towards a tall building with the front broken open. Rushing directly at Belphemon didn’t end too well just now, but they’ve still got the tried-and-tested method of climbing something really tall to get a lot of height in order to punch the giant Digimon!

Megumi: “But even if Agumon is back, it won’t…”

Yoshino: “You’re wrong.”

Tohma: “We’re a team! When things we did individually were impossible, we overcame them by putting all our strengths together!”

Ikuto: “When together with everyone… power gushes out!”

Yoshino: “No matter how bad the times were… we were able to pull ourselves through it somehow.”

Yoshino and Tohma help Miki and Megumi to their feet in amongst this pep talk about their teamwork. It… maybe doesn’t land quite as well as they intend it to, given that DATS hasn’t actually… succeeded? …at many of their missions since this whole thing started, no matter how much they’ve been working together. But still, the spirit of it is appropriate, now that the whole team’s back together with their biggest fighty dorks back in the game.

As Belphemon peers through the windows to watch Masaru and Agumon race to the top of the building, all the winded DATS members and their partners are spurred by this spirit of teamwork and not-giving-up, thanks to Agumon’s return, into getting back to their feet and continuing the fight.

Masaru and Agumon make it to the roof of the building, and Provocation Infinity kicks in! It’s been a while since we’ve heard that one very much, but I really love the choice to use it here. This was a BGM piece used a lot in the early series, back when things were a lot simpler and more fun, almost always used over these two being their usual reckless fighty selves. They may be facing a world-ending demon lord right now, but Masaru and Agumon aren’t even really thinking about those huge daunting stakes right now – they’re just so thrilled to be fighting together again, just like old times. That’s exactly the sort of mood everyone else in the team needs too, in order to be able to keep facing this without getting too stressed out by the situation to function. Agumon’s return really has made a difference, and not just because he’s another powerful fighter.

MirageGaogamon: “Master, your orders.”

Tohma: “I think you already know.”

I like this, too, giving the sense that they don’t need specific orders right now, because they’ve just got to do what they’ve always done. Which is, of course, at the moment: give Masaru an opening to get his punch in.

Masaru and Agumon stare Belphemon down from the edge of the rooftop, and there’s this lovely moment where they both just shift into a grin. They’ve missed this so much.

Belphemon charges a beam to blast them right where they stand, but before he can fire it, he’s bombarded with attacks from all five of the other DATS Digimon, buying Masaru and Agumon the moment they need. Belphemon’s eyes widen as the two of them leap through the resulting smokescreen with a furious battle cry and both punch him right on the nose.

I love the really unusual “lens” that this shot is drawn with, too; something about the added curviness it gives to their poses and movements makes the whole punching motion feel especially animated and gung-ho and gleeful, which is exactly the right effect for right now. The punch also makes the colours go inverted for a brief moment, further selling the impact. Masaru’s really missed getting to punch Digimon, you guys.

Belphemon collapses onto his back from the blow, as Masaru and Agumon fall backwards through the air, Masaru’s Digisoul blazing.

Masaru: “How you feelin’, Agumon?”

Agumon: “The best! I feel more and more power surging in me!”

They’re SO EXCITED to be back and fighting again that they’re just casually raving about it while falling to the ground, I love it.

Masaru does a good old midair Digisoul Charge, ShineGreymon takes up his place at the front line of the DATS team of Digimon, and Rosemon is on Masaru-catching duty today and drops him off in front of his human comrades on the ground.

Masaru: “Let’s go, guys!”

Masaru rallies everyone else as they all face down a furiously growling Belphemon. The team is back together, ready to go! I really enjoy the upbeat triumphant mood this opening sequence of the episode manages to get across. Very good shounen-ness. There will be a lot of me raving about this kind of thing this episode.

And on that uplifting note, it’s the opening! They did indeed put ShineGreymon Burst Mode in the new opening, even eight episodes before this one in which he finally becomes a thing, of course they did.

Elsewhere, on the outskirts of the city, there’s a long stationary queue of vehicles trying to evacuate, with the Norsteins’ limo among them. Everyone can see and hear, even from this distance, the huge flashes and bangs coming from the fighting in the middle of the city.

Relena: “Brother…”

Yushima: “Don’t worry. He’s not alone.”

Relena: “Mister Yushima?”

Yushima: “They’re a team. The strongest team in DATS.”

Yushima is still here with them, reassuring Relena. Though, really, they’re also pretty much the only team in DATS who actually have Digimon partners, so that’s not, uh, entirely the best way to get across how strong they are.

Sayuri and Chika are still in the DATS underground shelter, clinging to each other and worrying about Masaru. And BanchouLeomon hasn’t moved from his spot on top of that building some distance away from the centre of the carnage, dramatically overlooking the fight and not actually helping. (Again: there is an actual reason he is not doing so.)

Tohma: “Rosemon and MirageGaogamon, circle to the left! ShineGreymon and Ravemon! Turn around to the right and divert Belphemon’s attention!”

Look at Tohma doing a big team strategy! They’re finally properly using teamwork (like they barely did at all last episode, cough) and taking advantage of their numbers! And Masaru isn’t even complaining about taking Tohma’s orders here; he’s got to know that something like this is bound to be what they need against an enemy this strong.

Tohma: “Rook and BishopChessmon! Commit yourselves to background support!”

…Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Translation: you’re not important enough characters for me to think of proper strategies for you, so just hang around in the background and try to help wherever you can, I guess?

To the Chessmon’s credit, they do blast Belphemon with attacks for long enough to distract him (despite being an evolution level and a half lower than him!) so that ShineGreymon can charge up a huge Shining Blast – really more like a shining tackle – right into Belphemon’s chest, sending him crashing to the ground.

Megumi: “W-Wow…”

Miki: “What’s going on? ShineGreymon’s speed and power are far more than what they used to be!”

If that’s the case (and that Shining Blast was dramatically animated to look very impressive), this is probably something similar to what I’ve been calling the New Evolution Buff. ShineGreymon isn’t a new evolution, of course, but right now he’s being powered by the Digisoul of a Masaru who’s so freaking stoked to finally be fighting alongside his best friend again, and ShineGreymon himself must also be equally stoked, and all of that’s powering him to be even stronger than usual. That all checks out to me.

Suddenly, Belphemon starts letting out a horrible screaming wail, which sends these visible distorted waves away from him as everyone clutches at their ears in pain. Whatever’s going on here, it feels weird and creepy and wrong.

Then, in amongst the unearthly wailing, Kurata’s face forces itself out of Belphemon’s chest. He was still in there even as Belphemon overwhelmed him. His desperate hunger for power and control over everything is not going to get snuffed out that easily.

Kurata: “Hate… Hate… HATE!!!”

Yeah, he’s lost it even more than he had last episode with all the god complex shenanigans. Now he’s nothing but unbridled hatred and fury against anyone who dared to oppose him and imply that he was wrong. It must be that sheer hatred that allowed him to force himself back in control of Belphemon at all.

Kurata: “Daimon…! DAIMON…! In the past, it was Daimon Suguru, and now it’s his son, Daimon Masaru… Why… why do you stand in my way and thwart my goals, my dreams?!”

Which is to say, he’s especially mad at anything related to Suguru, the one man who at the beginning of all this dared to tell him that he was a coward, who tried to argue that he should just not attack the Digimon at all, who almost made it sound as though he might have been in the right to say so. How dare he ever imply Kurata isn’t the greatest and most right about anything, and how dare his son come along and continue to do the same thing by furiously fighting and opposing him at every turn.

(He’s not even that mad at Tohma about the betrayal thing any more, apparently. It’s all just twisted itself into this black hole of hatred towards Suguru and anyone directly associated with him.)

Masaru just gives absolutely zero fricks whatsoever about any of Kurata’s nonsense, and I love it. He is so unimpressed.

Kurata: “Why do you, as father and son, continue to stand before me?! If only you two weren’t around…! If only you two weren’t around…!”

I enjoy this shot of Masaru from Kurata’s perspective, as he overlays the image of Suguru on top of him, imagining them both as basically extensions of the same person who opposed him in the same ways. It’s not even really that much about Masaru to Kurata here, beyond the fact that Masaru’s an afterimage of his father, an extension of everything he stood for that still won’t go away even though Suguru’s been gone for ten years.

Kurata: “I would have easily been able to rise to the top of the world!!!”

Your dreams weren’t even about rising to the top of the world at the beginning of all this when Suguru first told you you were wrong, dude. He really has completely lost himself to his ridiculous god complex and is basically throwing a massive tantrum over not being able to get his way like he obviously should deserve to do, right.

Masaru: “Shut the hell up. You did all this for a puny reason like that?”

Kurata: “Puny?”

Masaru: “I don’t care what happened in the past. Those small-time ambitions of yours… This Daimon Masaru-sama will squash them flat!”

I love Masaru shooting Kurata the hell down like this. I love that he’s brazen enough to call Kurata’s ambitions – of literally being the most powerful person on both worlds – small-time and puny. And hey, he’s right! Who the hell even actually wants to do something like that? What do you even get out of it? Nothing that matters, not in Masaru’s worldview.

And it’s also neat how Masaru expresses that he doesn’t even care about what happened in the past. Despite the way Kurata’s framing it, Masaru’s really opposing him for his own reasons, and not really because he’s specifically trying to continue what his dad started against Kurata. Masaru doesn’t really know much about any of the arguments that would have gone down between Suguru and Kurata on the expedition – but heck, he doesn’t need to; that stuff doesn’t matter.

Kurata screams in fury, his face becoming even more horrifying, at Masaru daring to shut him down so completely. At Kurata’s behest – he’s completely in control of this body again, even though he’s not speaking through Belphemon’s mouth – dozens of chains shoot out of Belphemon and into the surrounding city.

There’s a brief shot of Masaru having a fun “oh, snap” moment, there in his boasting street fighter pose, as he sees the chain come flying towards him and realises, oops, maybe he’s in trouble actually.

One of the chains circles towards Ravemon, and Ikuto stops to call out to him, only to be saved from another chain by Yoshino diving in and tackling him out of the way. Look at her go! RookChessmon, the more defensive one, shields the two of them from the chains, and Ravemon… he dodged the one that was coming at him by barely more than a few feet, luckily.

The chains, embedded into the buildings and roads, begin to glow with power. A furiously screaming Kurata is taking advantage of his human knowledge that the base Belphemon consciousness doesn’t have and sucking the electricity from the entire city in order to power himself up. We’ve seen some other Digimon do this from time to time in some of the earlier episodes – this is just happening on a much greater scale. Pretty much the entirety of Yokohama looks to be losing power.

I feel like it takes Tohma an inexplicably long moment to pick up on the fact that this is extremely bad and they need to break those chains right now before Kurata can power himself up even more.

Before the Digimon can really begin to do so, the chains pull something else out of one of the wrecked buildings – DATS’s logistics support vehicle, one of the ones that got commandeered by Kurata as he took the lead in the war against Digimon, meaning it’s now full of space-time oscillation bombs. Kurata cackles maniacally as he breaks the van open, flings the bombs into Belphemon’s mouth, and… eats them.

Kurata: “IT’S SHOWTIME!”

Look at him and his showmanship thing again. Everyone come watch The Kurata Show, the greatest most powerfullest most important show on both worlds, now with literal reality-tearing superpowers. This reaction of his indicates he swallowed those bombs very much on purpose in an attempt to power himself up as much as possible, not just with raw energy but with this particular very dangerous property. You absolute moron, Kurata.

Belphemon now breathes Digital Gate-like energy, which is a really neat effect. He grows to an even more gargantuan size than he already was – just like a lot of the other Digimon who absorbed electricity earlier in the series – and fires a massive beam made of in-between-worlds-void that tears a huge gash of a Digital Gate all the way across the sky, over and past even the cars evacuating on the outskirts of the city.

Relena: “Mister, is my brother all right? Is my brother all right?!”

Yushima: (Everyone… Don’t die.)

Yushima: currently the best at being reassuring right now. Come on, man, at least tell poor Relena something to help her feel like her brother’s going to be okay.

In the fray, everyone’s frantically dodging more flying chains while trying to break them, unable to get close to Belphemon’s actual body. The Kurata-face in his chest continues to rage about hate, while Belphemon’s actual head snarls and fires off another beam. Though Kurata is 100% in control of Belphemon again, I enjoy the effect of the fact that it’s no longer Belphemon’s mouth he’s speaking through; it makes Belphemon’s body still come across like a terrifyingly dangerous raging beast, even with Kurata piloting it.

The beam’s blast leaves a gaping Digital Gate in the pavement where it struck. Belphemon roars and slashes at a dodging Ravemon with his claws, leaving more Digital Gate gashes behind in midair. All of Belphemon’s – Kurata’s – attacks now literally tear open Digital Gates in their wake. That’s really, really, extremely Not Good.

Masaru: “What’s going on, Tohma?”

Yoshino: “Yeah, what is that?!”

Miki: “It’s the effect of the space-time oscillation bombs, right?”

I like how both of them turn to Tohma for an explanation – he does seem to have caught on to what’s going on based on his reaction – but then it’s actually Miki who answers, because she’s also figured it out. The tech ladies who always operated the Digital Dive equipment would indeed be expected to know about this!

Tohma expositions about how Belphemon grew bigger by absorbing electricity and gained the space-time powers from eating the bombs, over some brief recap shots of all of that happening, even though it just happened. You can very much tell that the animators worked so hard on making this episode’s animation really good that they didn’t have time to make quite as much of it, huh.

MirageGaogamon asks for orders, and Tohma frantically tells everyone to fall back and focus on dodging. Masaru, naturally, protests to this strategy.

Tohma: “Don’t you get it?! The tear he made in space-time is gradually widening!”

Tohma continues by reminding us that the dimensional barrier has already been weakening. Remember that plot point? It’s always been a thing, but so far it’s only really been relevant in that it’s increased the number of Digimon incidents. Except, suddenly, now that Belphemon’s tearing further into the barrier with every attack, the fact that it’s been weakened really, really matters.

Tohma: “Yes… We can’t let Belphemon continue attacking any longer. In our worst-case scenario, this may cause Earth and the Digital World to collide with each other and crumble to pieces!”

Yyyyyup, that’s a legitimate risk. If the dimensional barrier gets destroyed completely, both worlds would be looking pretty damn screwed.

As the others stare in shock at hearing this news, there’s this lovely little shot of Tohma’s hand in the foreground, subtly shaking. He may be mostly hiding it, but he’s terrified at the prospect of what he’s just predicted could happen.

Masaru: “So what you’re saying is… We just have to hurry up and beat that guy, right?”

I love Masaru and his straightforwardness so much. Tohma was scared and defaulting to his usual cautious approach, but there’s no guarantee that backing off would actually stop Belphemon from attacking and continuing to tear down the barrier, not when Kurata’s throwing a massive tantrum right now. What they need to do is keep fighting and actually defeat him before he can. Of course Masaru’s the one who can see that.

(As soon as Masaru starts talking, Tohma’s shaking hand relaxes, just a little bit. Something about hearing Masaru talk casually like this is going to be easy, just like all their other fights, helps him feel like maybe things will be okay. Hee.)

Masaru: “Ever since the beginning, I knew there would be trouble.”

This line reads a little weird, and I think it’s slightly mistranslated. There’s no subject in the Japanese; I feel like what Masaru’s really trying to say here is that all of them knew there’d be trouble in this fight against Belphemon from the moment it began. So why is this anything different?

Masaru: “But what we have to do… hasn’t changed a bit!”

Exactly! Masaru’s straightforward approach is so good and exactly what this team needs. Without him, they might have been scared into backing off and allowed Kurata to tear the universe apart without even trying to stop it, and what kind of attempt to save the worlds would that have been?

As everyone else – Miki, Megumi, Yoshino, and Ikuto – agree that Masaru’s got a point, we see that shot of Tohma’s hand again, and he clenches it back into a fist. Not shaking this time – determined.

Tohma: “You’re right. What we have to do… hasn’t changed at all!”

Look at him being spurred by Masaru into facing this head-on after all, just like they need to!

Tohma: “Get back into position! Our offence will centre on ShineGreymon, who’s the least wounded! We’ll finish him in one strike to prevent any more damages!”

And having a Masaru-like gung-ho attitude to the fight doesn’t mean Tohma can’t also apply his strategy in order to make the most of it! Those two really do complement each other’s styles so well.

You might think that being the least wounded means ShineGreymon ought to be the one taking the hits, but I suppose the deal is that him being in better shape means he can attack more powerfully right now, which is exactly what they need if they want to finish this fast.

Kurata, evidently having heard the strategy, shoots a bunch of chains right at ShineGreymon, but MirageGaogamon appears in front of him and slashes them to pieces. The rest of the team are going to work on dealing with the chains, keeping them away from ShineGreymon, so that he can power up for a huge finishing strike. Even the Chessmon get in on it, hitting Belphemon’s face with their attacks to prevent him from firing another beam.

And Rosemon… for some freaking reason, her Forbidden Temptation attack has suddenly become not just a blast of rose petals that incidentally involves getting PG-naked, but an entire thing that uses the power of that nakedness to distract and charm the enemy. Why. It has never done this before and never will again. Why must Rosemon be subjected to this just because she’s female and an Obligatory Sexy Lady Digimon. Sigh.

The whole time they’re all playing decoys, ShineGreymon works on charging up the most Glorious Burst he’s ever done, several times larger than even himself, just as large as Belphemon now is, and fires it right at him.

Everyone celebrates the success of the attack as they wait for the huge cloud of smoke to clear, which… yeah, that’s never a good sign for how successful it actually was, is it.

ShineGreymon: “Did we get him?”

No, ShineGreymon. The moment you said that, you sealed your fate and doomed yourself to have very much not got him as soon as the smoke clears. How have you guys not learned to tempt fate like this by now, seriously.

And, of course, Belphemon’s right there behind the smoke, growling, looking completely unharmed, even by the most powered-up attack ShineGreymon could manage. Given that Belphemon’s super-Ultimate-level and also currently running on power drained from an entire city, yeah, I can more or less buy this.

Kurata: “My ambitions… I won’t let anyone stop them!”

And perhaps he’s also being powered by Kurata’s sheer overwhelming fanatical determination to control everything ever, that might be part of it, too.

He throws more chains at the Digimon, slamming them into buildings. The Chessmon get entirely wrapped in the chains and, by the looks of it, have all of their power sucked out of them, reverting them to their Child forms. Credit to them, they held out for a really long time against an enemy so much stronger than them, so good going, little guys.

Meanwhile, we are reminded that BanchouLeomon is still standing very dramatically on top of that building, this is totally important, right.

Kurata: “My supremacy is bottomless! Bottomless!”

Kurata’s not even trying to hide any more that this is about nothing except for him being the most powerfullest greatest ever. He flings even more chains towards the defenceless humans on the street, knocking Miki, Megumi, Yoshino, and Ikuto off their feet.

Tohma: “His power is too great! At this rate…”

Masaru: “Not yet! I’ll never give up until I punch him out!”

Tohma is, again, scared as hell about their prospects and instinctively wanting to retreat, but Masaru still refuses to accept that. I love the shadow on his face in this shot, indicating that he’s also just as scared as Tohma is, just as unsure as to how they’re ever going to be able to manage this, but like hell he’s going to acknowledge that, that’d be giving up, Masaru can’t ever do that.

Masaru rushes forward, heedless of Tohma calling out to him, pulling a threatening street fighter pose.

Masaru: “Kurata…!”

Kurata: “Daimon…!”

Masaru: “I will be the one who knocks you down! Me, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

I love Masaru’s furious tenacity, desperately trying to convince himself that if he just postures fervently enough at his enemy, that’ll somehow make him capable of what he’s threatening to do. He will not accept defeat.

Kurata screams his name in rage and fires a huge beam of Digital Gate right at him. ShineGreymon calls out to his aniki, but he’s too far away to get there in time. Masaru stares in horror and braces himself for the impact.

…But it doesn’t come. MirageGaogamon, Ravemon and Rosemon put themselves in the way, firing off their strongest attacks to block Kurata’s beam and prevent it from reaching Masaru.

Masaru: “You guys… Why…?”

MirageGaogamon: “I won’t overlook a friend… who’s in danger!”

We get a shot of Tohma grinning reassuringly; of course his good dog would feel the same way and risk himself to protect his Master’s friend.

Ravemon: “Don’t be so cold. At least let us take care of this much.”

Yeah, Masaru; you can’t be expected to deal with all of this stuff all on your own. Lying flat-out on the street, Ikuto gives a weak thumbs-up.

Rosemon: “Maybe… because it’s in my blood.”

And I love the way Rosemon phrases this! She did it because Yoshino would, and she’s framing her bond with Yoshino like they’re family, even though they’re obviously not blood-related at all! That’s adorable. Slumped against a piece of rubble, Yoshino manages a small smile.

I love this moment and the way it’s presented – it’s the Digimon doing the protecting of Masaru, but each of them are still connected to their human partners and how they’d feel about it, because of course all of them care about stepping in to help their comrade when they can. Friends!

The clash of attacks ends with a big explosion, knocking the Digimon back – but Kurata’s attack is spent, too. They did manage to keep Masaru safe, at the cost of the last of their own strength.

Seeing all of his friends spend all of their energy getting themselves hurt just to protect him, still no closer to defeating their enemy, Masaru can’t bear it any more.

Masaru: “SHINEGREYMON! Lend me…! Lend me…! Lend me the power to save my friends and this world!!!”

He screams this wish to his partner in desperation, as if he’s hoping that just wanting it badly enough will be able to let him get it, even though he’s never had that much power before. (And, hey, maybe it will? Isn’t that pretty close to how it’s always worked?)

ShineGreymon: “Aniki, that’s wrong.”

Suddenly, Masaru and ShineGreymon aren’t standing in the street any more; they’re facing each other in some empty void. What I’m getting from this is that Masaru’s desperate wish to connect with him for more power has activated some kind of telepathy between them, because they really do have that close of a bond. Did you know: this is a shounen anime, with friends.

ShineGreymon: “I know because we’ve always fought together. Power isn’t something that is borrowed or given.”

Masaru: “Yeah, you’re right. Power isn’t something that is borrowed… or given… Power… is combined. Right, ShineGreymon?”

Of course ShineGreymon would know that, when he’s the one who’s always felt the power between them powering him up. Though it is a little surprising that he’s able to realise that the power comes equally from both of them combining their strengths, when he’s always looked up to his aniki; it always seemed before now that he believed pretty much all of his real power came from Masaru. I guess he’s just… figured it out by now? Somehow?

(If you read my dub comparisons, hold this thought for that post. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the dub does this part better.)

A piece of choral BGM that we last heard when ShineGreymon was rampaging kicks in as Masaru’s Digivice appears between them and glows with light. It’s the piece called Burst Mode, and this time, in this context, it doesn’t sound discordantly haunting; it sounds momentous and triumphant, like it should be.

ShineGreymon: “We will defeat Kurata.”

Masaru: “We will protect the world… And our friends…”

Masaru and ShineGreymon have this moment, combining their feelings and their determination to do this, and the light on his Digivice glows even brighter.

Tohma: “Hold your hand over that light! Masaru!”

Somehow Tohma knows that this is what Masaru needs to physically do with his Digivice to activate this. I have no idea how he figured this out, since it’s not like he’s ever seen it happen before.

Masaru: “Charge! Digisoul Burst!”

The call for Burst Mode is a little different to the usual ones. That combined with the different animation for it – instead of charging his Digisoul into the Digivice, he passes his hand slowly over the light and then emits a burst of energy from his chest – makes it come across like a slightly different process, which seems fitting, because this isn’t quite the same thing as a regular evolution.

ShineGreymon Burst Mode’s new evolution animation is accompanied with a voiceover of BanchouLeomon, who sensed this happening from his nearby rooftop, narrating how Masaru has finally achieved the true Burst Mode. I guess it makes a nice change to have something else to be paying attention to over the evolution animation that, while we’re seeing it for the first time here, we will also be seeing several more times.

And then we switch from the CGI animation of the evolution itself back to 2D animation, and instantly, wow, the 2D animation looks so much better. The 3D in the evolution animation isn’t that bad compared to some earlier Digimon series, but it does still look rather plasticky, whereas the 2D animation of ShineGreymon Burst Mode for the entire rest of this sequence is fantastic. This part in particular is where you can tell the animators pulled out all the stops and really made the best out of their sadly-way-too-small budget. Usually Savers’s animation is not so great, but this episode, and especially this sequence? Really legitimately good for its standards.

Also, the Burst Mode BGM reached its climax at the end of the evolution animation, so now instead, the intro to Believer kicks in! It’s been a while, again, as it should be. We didn’t even get it for Ravemon; last time was episode 33. Damn right it’s time to feel triumphant and give the music its maximum impact.

ShineGreymon shoots forward as Kurata screams Masaru’s surname and flings more chains at him. The Digimon blocks them effortlessly with his flame-shield, disintegrating them all. Kurata comes at him with a swipe from Belphemon’s massive claws, as big as ShineGreymon himself, but he blocks that too, morphing his shield into a second flame-sword and crossing them above his head. He shatters the claws and then moves in to deliver two flaming swipes to Belphemon’s body, clearly dealing huge damage as Belphemon roars in pain. ShineGreymon Burst Mode comes across as exactly as overwhelmingly powerful as Ruin Mode was, but this time, all that power’s completely under his control.

Belphemon fires another beam of Digital Gate, but ShineGreymon lands on the street and blocks again with crossed swords in a huge flaming explosion, before lowering the swords to create two rows of fire along the road stretching from him to Belphemon. It just, it looks extremely cool, I cannot stress this enough, the animation in this sequence is actually really good you guys

Among the flames, ShineGreymon shifts his head just slightly, threateningly – and suddenly Kurata is terrified, backing away.

Kurata: “Stay away from me!”

[ShineGreymon stalks towards him]

Kurata: “Stay away!”

I love this so much, because these are the exact words Kurata said to the Lynxmon in the flashback in episode 24, the incident that started it all and sparked off this whole genocidal war. All of this happened because at his core Kurata has always been a coward, terrified of Digimon and what they might do to hurt him. Even at the absolute height of his power, Kurata’s still just as afraid, now that he realises that ShineGreymon’s stronger than him and he’s not in control and there’s nothing he can do to protect himself from this Digimon “threat”. It’s some absolutely delightful narrative bookending.

ShineGreymon leaps into the air at Kurata, dispels his flame-swords and holds out a fireball in the palm of his hand.

ShineGreymon: “This will finish you, Kurata!”

Perfectly timed with the vocals of Believer starting up, the flames of the fireball dissipate dramatically to reveal… Masaru. I love that ShineGreymon made such a spectacle out of this being his finishing move that would end Kurata for good. Not any of his own incredible power – my Aniki will finish you. He really believes his aniki’s even greater and more awesome than anything he could do himself.

Tohma: “Go, Masaru!”

Yoshino: “Do it for the Digimon who were victimised!”

Ikuto: “For everyone who suffered under Kurata!”

Miki & Megumi: “Masaru!”

MirageGaogamon, Rosemon & Ravemon: “Masaru!”

All of Masaru’s friends and comrades cheer him on for this final blow! He may be taking the spotlight right now, but this still feels like a team effort with everyone behind him!

Masaru tenses his fist, and his Digisoul blossoms from it, all on its own. This is only the second time Masaru’s ever activated his Digisoul without punching something. The first was back in episode 29 when he was learning about Digisoul and had the trigger of that intense emotion, but here, he’s able to do it a lot more at will. He’s getting the hang of this!

Kurata and Masaru scream each other’s names, and, timed exquisitely with the chorus of Believer kicking in, Masaru leaps through the air towards him.

Masaru punches Kurata right in the giant chest-face, and ShineGreymon follows it up by punching Belphemon right in the demon lord’s own face. Masaru’s punching the human part and ShineGreymon’s punching the Digimon part; they’re doing this together! Masaru’s punch is even so powerful that a huge cloud of Digisoul flares out from behind Belphemon, having gone right through his body with the impact.

And, yep, that does it. Everyone watches in triumph as Belphemon’s huge form disintegrates. Somehow Kurata’s physical body was still in there somewhere (even though he turned himself into Digisoul to possess Belphemon?), and he’s left falling through the air, staring up at the gigantic rift of a Digital Gate across the sky. There’s also a space-time bomb near him, left over from when Belphemon swallowed them.

Kurata: “My dreams… They’re not finished… My ambitions… They’re not over yet!”

Kurata still cannot let it go and accept defeat, not ever, that’d be like admitting he was in the wrong about anything at all, and there’s no way he’s ever going to do that. In what I can only assume is an attempt to escape to the Digital World and regroup and plan his counterattack, he pulls out his detonator for the space-time bomb and activates it with a manic grin.

…And that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the last impact needed to completely shatter the barrier between worlds. Digital Gate void energy spreads over everything at the blast. The rift above Kurata opens wider and wider as if to swallow him up entirely as he looks on in terror.

Kurata: “No… Impossible! Why is this happening?!”

Just like literally everything else, this is happening because of you, Kurata. You brought this upon yourself, and now both worlds are going to have to deal with the mess you left behind.

Ikuto: “Ravemon!”

Ravemon: “Okay!”

Heartbreakingly, adorably, Ikuto of all people is the one who cares the most about Kurata getting swallowed up by the void and tries to have Ravemon save him. Despite all the suffering and grief this man’s put him in particular through, Ikuto really did mean it when he said he pitied Kurata, and he doesn’t want to let him die if there’s anything he can do about it. That’s so, so good of him, after he spent so long fixated on revenge.

But it’s far too late, and Ravemon’s far too far away to help.

Kurata: “H-H-Help me! I’m… still…! Still…!”

Fittingly, Kurata goes out in a state of utter terror, begging for help from people he should know full well have absolutely negative reason to ever want to help him. He’s blotted out by the blinding light from the expanding void, and that’s the last anybody ever sees of him. One can only assume he ended up very dead, and what a karmic death it is.

When the light dies down, Masaru and ShineGreymon look up to see the Digital Gate rift extending infinitely across the sky. Above it is the Digital World itself, hanging impossibly over the Earth. The interdimensional barrier has been destroyed completely.

Well, they sure defeated Belphemon and Kurata at least – but in the process, the universe ripped in two. That’s, you know, just a little bit of a problem.

Overall thoughts

For how much I like this episode – which is quite a lot! – this is one of the shorter commentary posts. But that’s because so much of what’s enjoyable about this episode is in the visuals. For once, things are drawn and animated and timed really well to sell the shounen intensity of the fight, and it’s a blast to watch. I tried to get across as much of that as I could in my descriptions, and you may also notice that there’s a quite a few more images here than usual, which hopefully goes some way towards letting you appreciate this. Definitely in my top two contenders for the title of Savers episodes I most enjoy for the fighting, which, despite how much I love Masaru, is usually one of the things I’m least interested in about any given episode. (The other contender is an episode coming later on, so look forward to that!)

The writing does help a lot with selling the mood of the fight, though, too! I love the opening with our favourite dorks back in their usual fighty times and how this more upbeat mood helps everyone feel braver about continuing to fight, as well as the greater sense of teamwork from DATS now that the whole team’s back together. I also particularly enjoy that part with Tohma low-key being terrified about what the space-time rifts might mean, and Masaru needing to encourage him into continuing to fight rather than being too cautious. Also Masaru being furiously determined in a way that’s totally not at all desperate and overcompensating, very good.

This is the last we ever see of Kurata, and it’s a fitting sendoff for the series’ most major villain. I love the bookending calling back to why all of Kurata’s terribleness began in the first place: his overwhelming hatred of Suguru who once dared to call him wrong and a coward, and that delightful “Stay away!”, showing that he still is exactly the same coward he was at the beginning. Plus a very appropriate karmic death, from something that was entirely his own fault, just like literally all of our problems so far have been.

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[Dub comparison]

#digimon #digimon savers #masaru daimon #agumon #akihiro kurata #tohma h norstein #ikuto noguchi

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