Japanese Title: Genius Tohma has Returned! Beat Meramon
At the Daimon household, Masaru and Agumon enjoy breakfast, with Sayuri happily serving Agumon lots of food on the grounds that he’s like a child. Masaru and Agumon promptly get in a fight over Sayuri’s fried eggs, with Chika glaring at their immaturity.
Having come from Austria, the boy from the previous episode, named Tohma H. Norsteinnote , prepares for the day.
Hoping to pass Agumon off as a stuffed toy, Masaru carries him to school in an irritated mood until he receives a call from DATS about a Digimon incident. They head over to the site, but Masaru has difficulty manifesting his Digisoul since he can’t connect a punch with the fast-moving and intangible Digimon.
As Masaru and Agumon chase after the Digimon, Tohma appears and wipes the memory of the bystanders. Accompanied by his partner, Gaomon, he goes off to chase the Digimon as well.
An even more irritated Masaru returns to DATS, with the capture having been unsuccessful. Tohma appears with the Digimon’s DigiEgg, and his arrival causes the Bridge Bunnies to fawn over him. Masaru tries to pick a fight with Tohma, upset at him for having taken his “prey”, but Tohma simply ignores him. He reports to Satsuma, telling him that he’ll be stationed in the DATS Japanese subdivision.
With Tohma overshadowing DATS’s attention, Masaru tries to make his presence known, and insists that Tohma treat him as his senior before Satsuma and Yoshino reveal that Tohma is the senior, having been in the Japanese subdivision until six months prior - and on top of that, Tohma’s a Teen Genius who’s graduated from Stockholm University at the age of 13, and in fact hails from a noble Australian family.
Satsuma tells them to get along, since they’re now colleagues, but Tohma goes straight to saying that Masaru and Agumon would not be suitable for DATS and should be dismissed. Masaru insists on settling this with a physical fight, they start a boxing match...only for Masaru’s impulsive fighting method to completely fail. Tohma questions Masaru’s vaguely-purposed desire to join DATS only to fight against strong opponents. He easily floors Masaru, deciding that he still doesn’t belong in DATS.
Masaru, however, insists on continuing a fight, saying that even though the boxing match is over, the fight doesn’t end until one side admits defeat. This “fight” ends in a draw, with both parties ending up very irritated.
A signal comes up for an extremely large number of PetitMeramon note , the same type of Digimon Tohma had caught earlier. Kudamon says that PetitMeramon can sprout from just a few flames caused by one, and Masaru realizes that his haphazard attempts to punch the first one had created this mess. Satsuma assigns the mission to Tohma and Gaomon, and Satsuma orders Masaru to leave it to them while Yoshino and Lalamon provide backup.
Tohma has Gaomon work under strategy, getting rid of the PetitMeramon and evolving to Gaogamon. The two of them secure all of the PetitMeramon under four minutes, with Tohma noting that they’ve broken their last record. However, there are two PetitMeramon elsewhere, and Tohma and Gaomon go off to take care of them as well.
Watching from DATS headquarters, Masaru is upset as everyone else praises Tohma’s abilities and runs off with Agumon. Masaru reveals to Agumon that he’s more upset at himself, not really sure what he’s been doing. He runs into the old man who had given him his Digivice, who happens to be cooking fish. He tells Masaru that the sparks have been going out easily when the wind gets strong, but once he makes a strong flame, it can burn no matter how hard the wind blows.
Overhearing a DATS transmission about more Digimon signals in an area Yoshino and Tohma are far from, Masaru decides to go in with Agumon. He has Agumon use his fire attacks in rapid succession on the PetitMeramon, causing them to combine and evolve into a Meramon. With Meramon a large and physical Digimon that can be easily hit, Masaru is able to connect his punch, manifesting his Digisoul and allowing him to evolve Agumon to GeoGreymon. GeoGreymon finishes Meramon off and reverts him to a DigiEgg.
Masaru is satisfied with himself and his victory, while Tohma tells him not to let it go to his head. The two are about to start up another fight when Satsuma shuts them up and makes a startling declaration: from that point on, Masaru and Tohma will be working together as a team.
Tropes
- Asteroids Monster: PetitMeramon spawn from any fragments that split off of the original. A few of them recombine into a regular Meramon when given enough power.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Tohma issues instructions to Gaomon this way.
- Badass Bookworm: Tohma is both highly intelligent and a very skilled boxer. His skills actually make him a better fighter than Masaru's more erratic fighting style.
- Breath Weapon: Gaogamon is able to take out most of the swarm with Spiral Blow, a whirlwind breath attack. Agumon also uses a new one called Baby Burner.
- Canis Major: Gaogamon as the canine partner for The Lancer in this series.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Masaru's attempts to attack PetitMeramon caused it to split into numerous copies.
- Playing with Fire: PetitMeramon and Meramon. Bonus points for PetitMeramon being made of fire.
- Feed It with Fire: PetitMeramon absorbs fire attacks. Exploited by Masaru to get a group of them to combine into the more solid Meramon.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: This episode sets up this dynamic between Masaru and Tohma.
- Shower Scene: Tohma gets one at the beginning of the episode.
- Sore Loser: Masaru calls Tohma one, when he refuses to acknowledge that his unorthodox strategy worked and simply says not to let it go to his head.
- Spin Attack: Gaomon's first attempt at containing the PetitMeramon swarm has him use Double Backhand.
