They sure got my hopes up with this one. Debuting in Digimon Ghost Game, the preview for Chamblemon's episode only told us that this was some sort of parasitic mushroom, and a silhouette with big, glowing eyes told us it had to be an evolution of Mushroomon, previously the only fungus in the setting.

Chamblemon is an Adult stage and therefore a possible evolution for Mushroomon, but as you can see, its design is nothing more than a cheap recolor. It gets a hot pink body and a plain white cap. Its new ability is "Sweepore," which causes mushrooms to sprout from other living beings, which the Chamblemon eats. This novel body horror is the only thing this otherwise underwhelming Digimon has going for it, but I will say they played that up to a fairly shocking degree in the anime, shortly after I already did an article on Ghost Game's creepiest moments.

I don't mean in the usual "wow, this is pretty dark for a kid's show" sense, but that it gets uncomfortably graphic by any anime standard, and feels, uh, more than a little like the animators came fresh off a very different sort of anime.

Like, is this even okay to show here? I didn't even single out the worst looking panel, there are both grodier and more compromising in this episode. There are close-ups of women crying as fungi erupt from their faces and animated sequences of mushrooms being pulled from their exposed skin. Not to be a stick in the mud, but for a series shown to kids, this might have genuinely gone a little wee smidge farther than necessary; it's just funny that I had to say this about an episode involving these goofy pink mushroom people.

Other than the noteworthy creepiness of its anime premiere, though, this Digimon feels like a completely wasted opportunity. Even some slightly different decor and accessories on the same base would have been preferable to a color swap.

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