Numemons aren't the only Digimon mollusks! That honor also goes to this swell child-level bivalve with a pretty novel design. I love when a monster has a shell with natural eye holes, giving it two totally different faces whether the shell is open or closed. It looks a lot cooler with the shell closed, of course, but that's pretty much the point. The fact that its inner slime-blob has a sort of kitty cat face is charmingly strange, and at least the shell still has its own teeth and cool purple flesh on the inside. You might also notice that the shell has the same "radioactive skull" insignia as Phantomon and several other Digimon. It doesn't mean anything, it's just cool.

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A very great deal of aquatic Digimon can evolve from the scallop, but there are no less than four adult-level mollusks it can morph into, counting, yes, the shelled version of Numemon if your mussel parenting skills are lacking enough.

Gesomon is the obligatory squid-based Digimon, and it's a lovely design all around. Its complete lack of eyes are pretty ominous, and quite unusual for a squid, replacing them with those cool metallic hoses and Todd Mcfarlane markings. Actually...ARE those just its eyes? It's not like Venom's eyes from Spiderman look like anything but markings either.

Gesomon adds Digimon claws to its suckered paddles for another neat effect, AND swaps out a squid's beak for another of those "Violator" jaw arrangements! I kinda like how the pink flesh of the jaw makes the rest of the squid look like a costume.

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The octopus Digimon, meanwhile, goes for an entirely different, entirely zany look and feel. It's a Digimon with an awful lot of accessories, but in this case, all of them are pretty great.

I like that its eyes gaze out from the darkness of a huge, broken urn it must have salvaged from a shipwreck along with the sword and the golden crown, the stripey horns are an odd but interesting addition, that gun looks hilariously like a blow dryer and the biomechanical claws stapled to its front tentacles are cool as heck. Its official bio states that it "has a nasty habit of collecting things," and that those claws are actually stolen from the data of a Devidramon!

Most importantly, of course, are the Digimon BARNACLES on Octomon's helmet, which are officially referred to as Fujitsumon and said to act as lookouts for their Octomon symbiote. These have never appeared or been mentioned anywhere else, but I'm glad they get any acknowledgment at all.

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While the cephalopods are cool, I feel like Shellmon is the most appropriate evolution of Syakomon. It was also one of the first couple enemy Digimon the kids ever encountered in the anime, and it feels highly overlooked for how cool and unique it is. How often do you see a dinosaur-shaped gastropod?

The interlocking ridges of Shellmon's mouth are a pretty common design feature in a lot of monsters out there, but it's usually only a stylistic choice that represents having actual teeth. In Shellmon's case, I think it's more obvious that those cool chomping lips are its more literal anatomy, and I like the strands of flesh in the corners of its jaws that push its gooiness just a little further. Add to that its sucker-like fingers and anemone-like hairdo and it's obvious we're not really looking at a reptile.

Shellmon's shell is that of a turbanshell snail, the same inspiration as Slowbro and the Youkai Sazaeoni, though Shellmon is said to borrow these shells in the same manner as a hermit crab. Borrow them from where, we don't know, except that Digimon can steal and repurpose "data" in any way they want, so while it's possible the shell comes from some unknown giant sea-snail Digimon, it may also simply scavenge them from the shells of old Syakomon, who knows.

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Yes, there is a cthulhu Digimon, but named after Dagon, Lovecraft's fish-headed sea-god. As you might expect, it can evolve from any number of aquatic Digimon, but Gesomon and Octomon are the most obvious, with Dagomon even possessing both the squid's metal cables and the octopus's treasure as well as a couple of barnacles!

Dagomon is specified to have arisen from a computer virus that attacked the navigational equipment aboard ships in our own world, and it called "the sinful priest of the ocean floor." The beads around its neck are a rosary it wears when it prays over its own defeated opponents, and it bunches all its tentacles up into a humanoid shape because it just sort of likes to be humanoid, apparently. Personally, I like that the arm facing us works out as a whole second octopus head, and also, that his main head has adorable little freckles under its eyes.

It's almost a shame that I've been so, SO burnt out on the whole concept of Cthulhu since at least the early 2000's, because Dagomon was a pretty rare and novel cultural reference for its time. All but the most hardcore geeks were all that familiar with Cthulhu back in the day, and it really is pretty cool that he's got a Digimon counterpart.

Dagomon was even the subject of an exceptionally weird, dark and confusing episode of Digimon Adventure 02, which included a bunch of fishlike Hangyoumon ("Divermon" in English) literally wanting to mate with Kari (ew??) to produce a new hybrid race that could defeat their new god, a Dagomon seen in shadow only briefly. None of this is ever mentioned again by the series and was seemingly intended as a stand-alone horror episode, but I remember the Fox Kids dub kind of missing that and ending the episode with a "who is this mysterious new villain?!" cliffhanger.

That sign is a real Digimon alphabet code, by the way, and it says "Innsmouth."

Unfortunately, there has yet to be an Ultimate-level mollusk Digimon other than Platinumnumemon, and it would be hilarious if Cthulhu could evolve into a coprophilic angel slug, but he doesn't. The only really interesting evolution options for Dagomon, thus far, are a space alien we're going to review later and the possibility of Devitamamon, but Dagomon only evolves into Devitamamon if it fuses with a Ladydevimon and a blue Meramon in the Digimon Story: Super Xros Wars video games.

This concludes our look at Digimon mollusks until we get around to a certain team of villains who happen to include a pretty interesting mermaid-kraken, so, look forward to that!

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