I believe I indicated at some point how random these reviews would have to get, so today, let's do Crabmon because I just felt like it! This design really could have used some pop-out eyes, easily the most endearing feature of an actual crab, but Crabmon is a solid, pleasant design and otherwise as good as a lover of crabs could ask for from a Digimon, especially a child level Digimon suitable for "main partner" status.

Crabmon even shows up as just that in the anime, however briefly, and appropriately paired up with a surfer kid! I like the idea of a kid who lives out on the coast and loves the sea and one day this crab starts talking to him and is like "yeah I'm both a crab and a computer monster, there's lots of computer monsters but I'm the crab one. Do you like the beach???"

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Despite the fact that there's an adult-level lobster Digimon out there, Crabmon's go-to adult stage is typically this kickass bony fish, dressing up a stylized coelecanth in all the BEST trademark Digimon features. It's got flesh-rimmed eyes peering from rugged holes in its cranial armor plating, horrifying teeth, paddle shaped claws, external rib bones and areas of excessively veiny flesh! I most of all love how the hind fins are really emphasized as weird little feet. I really can't imagine a better Digimon fish for those who like both Digimon and fish.

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We could really just end this on Crabmon and Coelamon, but interestingly enough, Coelamon has repeatedly been able to evolve into this beautiful combination of anomalocaris and a eurypterid, translated in English as Scorpiomon because I guess they thought American kids, who aren't taught biology as a fundamental class, would be too confused otherwise.

This fella was actually the first time I ever saw Anomalocaris referenced in any media at all, and boy was that ever a treat to an American kid who DID know exactly what that was, and tended already to feel rather smug about it.

While the taxonomic progression of a crab to a fish to a panarthropod doesn't make much sense, I do love the idea of a Coelacanth monster evolving farther back through time into an apex predator of the Cambrian sea! It's just too bad that one of Anomalocarimon's only appearances in the series was as a minion of Metalseadramon who was subsequently killed for his bungling, a trope I really never care for in cartoon villain interaction.

Now, if the last eleven reviews are an indication, there will probably be comments on this asking why I forgot about something or another that can evolve from one of these Digimon, but I promise, it's only because I'm planning them for some other review. There are INFINITY TEN ways you can sort Digimon together, and we're only going to lump a bunch into whole "families" when they're especially coherent and especially "canon" as such.

Otherwise, the vast majority of these reviews are going to be just like this one: a short, sweet look at a couple of directly related or PROBABLY related Digimon as best as I can manage.

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