Japanese Title: Battle! Rose Morning Star, Ophanimon's Rescue Plan
The kids make their way to the Rose Morning Star, and when they arrive, they hear Ophanimon calling to them on their Digivices. Ophanimon tells them to defeat Cherubimon with the spirits of the Ten Legendary Warriors, and tells them that Cherubimon has been gathering data before cutting off. Izumi wonders what Cherubimon wants the data for, and when Tomoki quietly suggests that Kouichi might know, Junpei bluntly states that Kouichi may know from having been Duskmon and tells Kouji to ask him. Kouichi apologizes and says that he only knows that Cherubimon is gathering large amounts of data, but doesn’t know anything else.
Knowing that there are dangers ahead of them, the kids spirit evolve before entering the castle. Cherubimon senses them coming in and pays a visit to the imprisoned Ophanimon, who refuses to cooperate with him. Cherubimon offers her a comfortable life in the Digital World if she joins him, but Ophanimon insists that she only wants to protect the Digital World’s peace and not to twist it to her own wishes.
The six Legendary Warriors are attacked by a bunch of Phantomon, and while the Phantomon initially put them in a pinch by trapping Agnimon, Wolfmon, Fairymon, Chakmon, and Blitzmon in a Hammerspace alternate dimension within their capes, but Löwemon gets them out by forcing the Phantomon to pull a Cross Counter, breaking the others out of the crystal they’re trapped in, and scanning the Phantomon into DigiEggs.
Cherubimon continues to gather data, saying that soon he will have all of the data in the Digital World, and, once he gets his hands on the Legendary Spirits, will be able to Take Over the World. The Legendary Warriors enter a room full of strange, tortured voices and hands reaching for them, but the hands are warded off by a Goatmonnote , who explains that the hands are actually the disembodied data of Digimon who had fallen victim to Cherubimon. Goatmon offers to lead them to Ophanimon, and while they’re initially suspicious, Patamon takes a liking to him and they take it as a sign that Goatmon is trustworthy.
Goatmon takes them to Ophanimon’s prison, and Ophanimon praises them for having made it this far. Ophanimon explains why she brought them to this world, and retells the story of how Human and Beast Digimon were at war until Lucemon had interefered, how the original Legendary Warriors had defeated Lucemon when he became corrupted with power, and how she, Cherubimon, and Seraphimon had governed the Digital World when they disappeared. Ophanimon explains that Seraphimon was in charge of the Digital World’s law and order, Cherubimon of knowledge and teachings, and Ophanimon of love and life.
However, Cherubimon started to disagree with Ophanimon and Seraphimon on various things, believing that they weren’t able to understand the feelings of Beast-type Digimon. Ophanimon and Seraphimon tried to occasionally see things from Cherubimon’s point of view, but Cherubimon began to believe that Ophanimon and Seraphimon only cared about Human-type Digimon, decided to make a new world for the Beast-type Digimon, became corrupted with evil, and incited another war between the two sides. He then gravely injured Seraphimon, and when Ophanimon offered herself in exchange for Seraphimon’s life, Cherubimon locked her up in his castle while Seraphimon slept in his castle to recover from the injury. Fairymon, hearing the story, wonders if Cherubimon did it because he was in love with Ophanimon.
Ophanimon goes on to say that Cherubimon had five of the Legendary Warriors’ Spirits, created Ranamon, Mercuremon, Grottomon, and Arbormon from four of them, and ordered them to absorb data from the Digital World. Ophanimon sent the text messages to the human world in order to get help and save the Digital World, believing that only children with “pure hearts” would answer the call. She then guided the children to the locations of the other Spirits in a way that Cherubimon would not notice, and Cherubimon had responded by implanting the Spirit of Darkness in a human child - Kouichi - who had stumbled into the Digital World.
Ophanimon tells the group to defeat Cherubimon, believing that he can be defeated since the ten Spirits have been gathered. Cherubimon appears and tells them that all of this was part of his plan; since the children have arrived to his castle, he’s now able to take all ten of the Spirits from them.
Tropes
- Eye Catch: Kouji and Tomoki’s variants are used for this episode.
- Foreshadowing: Cherubimon was shown being engulfed by a mysterious dark force when he became corrupted. It ends up playing a bigger role than at first glance.
- Ms. Exposition: Ophanimon.
- The Sacred Darkness: Lowemon's speech during his scanning sequence invokes this.
- Stock Footage: Other than to provide a minor bonding moment for Kouji and Kouichi, the only real reason that the Phantomon battle is there is to show off Löwemon’s scanning sequence (since the prior episode’s enemy had no DigiCode and thus nothing to scan).
