Japanese Title: Palmon Angrily Evolves!
While the kids are walking in the sewers, a drop of water falls on Sora's shirt and gets it dirty, making Sora realize she wants to be home and be able to do laundry. The other kids begin to feel homesick as well. Their reminiscing of home, however, is quickly interrupted by a bunch of Numemon, who are described by the kids' Digimon as the scum of the Digital World due to their sliminess; the group promptly begins running away as the Numemon quickly prove their point by throwing poop at them. Fortunately, the group find a way back to the sunlight, which the Numemon hate.
The kids then come across a bunch of vending machines in the middle of nowhere, one of which, to Mimi's dismay, ends up actually containing a Numemon. It immediately hits on Mimi, who turns him down spitefully, and the sunlight ends up blocked by the clouds... giving cue for a bunch of angry Numemon to burst out of the vending machines and pursue them.
After being separated from the others and running quite a distance, Mimi and Palmon see the Numemon suddenly run away...from a giant teddy bear Digimon, Monzaemon, who is standing behind them. Palmon describes him as a strong but good Digimon: the mayor of Toy Town, one who loves toys and is loved by the toys. Of course, right after Palmon says this, Monzaemon starts attacking them. While running from him, Mimi and Palmon are forced to bite the bullet and hide with a Numemon.
Mimi and Palmon run to Toy Town to see if something's wrong with it and soon runs into Taichi, who is running around with a toy car and blankly repeating "This is fun. This is fun. This is fun." He is quickly followed by the other kids running around, being chased by other toys, mindlessly repeating statements of how great a time they're having. Mimi immediately senses that something's up, and sure enough, upon exploring the town further they find that all of the kids' Digimon have been locked up in a chest. They explain that Monzaemon found all of them, captured them, and turned the kids into mindless toys for the toys.
Outside, Mimi and Palmon run into Monzaemon, and Mimi yells at Monzaemon for taking her friends away and demands them back. They are saved by a bunch of Numemon, who end up completely ineffective. Mimi feels touched that the Numemon are fighting to save her, even if they can't do much, and eventually end up Taking the Bullet for her, which triggers Palmon's evolution into Togemon. Togemon quickly takes care of Monzaemon, removing — as you probably guessed — a black gear from his back.
Now back to normal, Monzaemon explains that his desire has always been to have people appreciate toys that were neglected and tossed aside, but the black gear caused him to take that to an extreme. Monzaemon rewards the kids for bringing him back to normal by using his normal Lovely Attacknote , which, in its normal state, incites feelings of happiness among the kids and Digimon. (Let’s not consider the implications of this.)
Tropes
- Abhorrent Admirer: The Numemon, disgusting slug-like things that throw sludgenote at people and live in sewers, are this to Mimi.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Mimi and Palmon, that receive much more focus than the rest of the group in this episode.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Mimi calls the first Numemon to pop out of the vending machines a short slimy sewer-sliding sludge slinger.
- Always a Bigger Fish: The Numemon chase the kids and their Digimon around for most of the early episode, with the main characters reduced to fleeing as fast as they can from the sludge-slinging slimy horde... then Monzaemon comes along, and all the Numemon flee in terror.
- Bowdlerise: The Numemon throw crap in the original. In the English dub, this is changed to nonspecific "Nume sludge" instead.
- Broken Record: After being hypnotized by Monzaemon, the kids are stuck repeating the same phrases over and over in robotic monotones.
- Brown Note: Mimi sings off-key in the American dub while the gang is in the sewers. Amusingly, when her singing becomes a plot point in "Princess Karaoke", she has a better voice (provided by a different actress in English).
- Cultural Translation: The beginning of the episode has the Digimon and kids playing a variant of shiritori, with whole parts of songs instead of words. Since this would take too long to explain for an American audience, the American dub neatly turns it into the Digimon just singing a song.
- Early-Bird Boss: Like with Andromon, Monzaemon is an ultimate level digimon when the children’s Digimon have only achieved their champion forms.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Downplayed. The Numemon come to try and hold off Monzaemon when he's chasing after Mimi and Palmon, even though he's far stronger than they are and easily throws them about with his powerful attacks.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: When Mimi calls the chief Numemon a short slimy sewer-sliding sludge slinger, he gets mad... because he's insulted that she called him short.
- Living Toys: Toy Town is filled with living toys that move under their own power, and which thanks to Monzaemon turn the tables on the kids and begin to play with them instead of the other way around. Monzaemon, who looks like a giant living teddy bear, also fits the overall aesthetic.
- Mars Needs Women: The Numemon are obsessed with courting Mimi, despite being vaguely slug-like blobs with nothing remotely in common with human anatomy.
- Parlor Games: The episode beginning has the Digimon and Digidestined playing a shiritori game by using whole parts of songs. The American dub opted to turn the whole game into a single song the kids were singing together.
- Taking the Bullet: The Numemon try to save Mimi by making a wall between her and Monzaemon's attack, leaving themselves to be captured by the heart bubbles in her stead.
