Japanese Title: Yoshino gets her Cinderella Story?! Chrysalimon's Shadow
Yoshino flees from what looks like a large amount of paparazzi, passing by Masaru eating at a restaurant in the process. At the restaurant, a nearby television screen covers a story on singer Neon Hanamura and his girlfriend...the latter of whom turns out to be, to Masaru’s shock, none other than Yoshino.
Yoshino shows up to DATS the next day only to find everyone staring at her. Miki and Megumi demand to know what’s going on and how she happens to have Neon Hanamura as her boyfriend. Masaru doesn’t seem to care much, but Miki and Megumi reveal that they’ve been getting calls since early in the morning from people wanting to reach Yoshino along with hate mail from Neon’s fans. Tohma tells her that even though her name wasn’t revealed on television, a bad encounter with paparazzi has allowed people to decode all of her information right down to her blood type.
Satsuma comes in and explains the situation: a Keramon signal has recently surfaced in the “RPG Building” that Neon lives in. As Keramon has the ability to manipulate information on the net, his presence is dangerous, and DATS has pinned Neon down as a suspect for harboring Keramon. Satsuma has assigned Yoshino as an undercover agent to see if he really is doing so, since the RPG Building has a very tight security system and DATS will be unable to get into it via normal means. Miki and Megumi protest, since they’d like to be assigned to the case as well, but Satsuma reveals there’s a special reason Yoshino’s been assigned to the case: she’s Neon’s childhood friend, and had known him in elementary school.
Yoshino tells the others that Neon’s changed a lot since childhood: he used to be a short, fat kid, barely distinguishable from the singer that’s debuted now. Neon himself suddenly appears to say hello, and Yoshino goes to meet him – calling him by his real name, Hitoshi, which he doesn’t seem to like. Still, he leaves in good spirits, and Yoshino waves him off. As Tohma exposes a stray paparazzi, Masaru suspects that Yoshino may be into this mission for more than just the sake of the mission, and Yoshino herself seems to believe that Neon isn’t a bad person and wouldn’t do something like harbor a Keramon.
At night over dinner, Yoshino and Neon reminisce over school days, and how Neon would always refuse to eat carrots or in general was somewhat of a frail kid. Neon himself is rather elusive, refusing to show Yoshino his work and asking her not to come into his room. Lalamon tells Yoshino that they need to get to work.
Chika and Agumon watch a show about Neon’s popularity over his song getting thousands of downloads and his new girlfriend. Chika seems to be enamored with Neon, impressed about how he’s trying to keep Yoshino from getting too much uncomfortable attention. Chika asks Masaru to ask Yoshino to get a Neon autograph, but Masaru tells her not to pry into other people’s dating lives. Chika grumpily calls Masaru stingy before leaving.
At night, Neon approaches Keramon and gets him to start manipulating data, which broadcasts videos of Neon all over public screens in the city. This gets the attention of Masaru, who also gets the image on the TV despite having turned it off and continues to be confronted with the image even after he tries turning it off again. Suspecting something to be off, Masaru goes outside only to see red sparks flying through the sky.
Masaru arrives at DATS headquarters, where all operatives present are finding Neon’s video transmitted to every network indiscriminately. Yoshino turns out to be unreachable, and Masaru and Agumon go off to chase her. After shaking off the security, he turns up at Neon’s door right when Yoshino is about to investigate, confronting Neon directly. Masaru gets a smack in the face from Yoshino for his efforts, and after she takes him downstairs she tells him not to interfere with the investigation.
The next morning, a paparazzo gets yelled at by his boss for not getting a clear enough shot of Yoshino, and is told to get something more extreme even if it means not using legal methods.
At DATS, Tohma tells Satsuma that Neon’s song downloads have increased significantly ever since Keramon appeared, and suggests taking action. Yoshino tries to stop them, saying that they don’t have enough evidence, but Satsuma approves a coercive investigation. Tohma also requests that Yoshino be taken off the case since her personal feelings may get in the way, which Satsuma also approves.
Disobeying orders, Yoshino goes in anyway, and, having expected this, Tohma has a hidden mic that he’d planted on her activated so that anything she catches will also be transmitted to DATS. Wanting to settle it personally, Yoshino runs into Neon when trying to go into his room, and he tells her that he’d had a fake schedule set up in order to trick the people spying on him. Showing disgust at Yoshino being one of “them”, he shows them what he’s been doing with Keramon and how he’d gotten it to distribute his songs and modify the rankings to make him look more popular.
As the Keramon attacks Yoshino and Lalamon, Tohma and Masaru, hearing this, intervene. Masaru in particular lets loose at Neon, calling him out for gaining popularity through cheating and not his own efforts. The paparazzo happens to get pictures of this, and Neon’s anger causes the Keramon to evolve into a Chrysalimonnote . Tohma evolves Gaomon to Gaogamon, but he’s quickly defeated and reverted to Gaomon; Masaru punches out Chrysalimon, activates his Digisoul, and evolves Agumon to GeoGreymon.
GeoGreymon defeats Chrysalimon, and Yoshino wipes the paparazzo’s memory before he can go home with his scoop. Neon says that he’s upset he’ll have to lose the memory of having met Yoshino again, but Yoshino assures him that she’ll remember for the both of them. When she regroups with the others, she seems somewhat depressed about the affair.
Tropes
- Batman Gambit: Part of Tohma's plan involves planting a bug on Yoshino knowing that she will disobey orders and go see Neon after being told to stay out of the operation.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Keramon has insectoid features and its evolved form is a chrysalis.
- Combat Tentacles: Chrysalimon has spear-tipped ones.
- It Won't Turn Off: Anything showing Neon's music video won't shut down due to Keramon's influence.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Chrysalimon tries to use gas lines to stop GeoGreymon, who explodes the gas in its face.
- Paparazzi: A group of these guys starts following Yoshino around. One of them sees Keramon and has to get his memory wiped.
- Perpetual Smiler: Keramon.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Masaru gives Neon one about how he didn't get famous through his own effort.
- Tempting Fate: Masaru says it's not like Yoshino's love life is affecting her work, only for her boyfriend to be working with a Digimon.
- Van in Black: Miki and Megumi operate in one for the mission.
- Water Tower Down: Chrysalimon throws a water tank at Gaogamon which floods the roof on impact. It's what finally defeats Gaogamon.
