When I was young, my Mum printed out a random guide and workbook about Digimon that she found on the internet.
There’s one I would never forget because of how bizarre I though it’s design was…
G is For…
Goddramon
I’ve mentioned Goddramon giving me nostalgia before, so it’s probably not too surprising that I’ve chosen him.
When I first saw Goddramon in an image that was probably about 50 pixels by 50 pixels, I honestly wasn’t sure what I was looking at – winged snake? winged seahorse?
This printed out activity/guide book had a lot of weird translations and used a mix of both dub and original names. It also had all the Mega levels for the Adventure partner Digimon, despite them not appearing in the anime.
I can’t remember how old I was when I first learnt of Goddramon, but I think I can work it out along with why it was listed as Patamon’s Mega form
Fun fact before we really dive into it, I have an auto alt-text generator for the images on each post, I mostly change them, but it’s fun. Especially when it automatically tags Goddramon as ‘A close up of a parrot’. Which is exactly what little child me probably thought too.
The printed off book had Holydramon has Gatomon’s Mega form, so, now I can see Goddramon a little closer, it does at least make them match a little side by side – also it seems to resemble an animal and therefore matches up with Patamon.
This book is actually probably the reason I prefer Holydramon as Gatomon’s Mega form. I think it listed Plesiomon as Gomamon’s fully evolved form, but I’m not 100% – it could have been Vikemon.
I would have said that this book used the evolutions from when Ryo had the Adventure partner Digimon in his team, but no, Seraphimon was still Patamon’s fully evolved form there.
Why the choice of Goddramon and not Seraphimon stumped be for a while a few years ago until I did some research.
Goddramon debuted in 1999 (Anode Tamer) while Seraphimon didn’t actually Debut until 2000 (Hurricane Touchdown followed by Digimon World 2) onwards.
This means that this book must have had this down as pure speculation as this was all that was possible and reasonable as an evolution at the time.
As a final answer as to why Goddramon was listed as Patamon’s fully evolved form: Goddramon’s debut card has him evolve from Holy Angemon.
This card came out in the year 2000, but as did Seraphimon’s debut card, however, they came out two months apart – the booster set with Goddramon was released in February 2000 while the starter set with Seraphimon was released in April 2000.
The above reasoning can also deduce the book must have been printed off for me either the year 2000 or 2001.
I first watched the Digimon Movie shortly after it’s VHS release, which I couldn’t get an exact date for other that the American VHS release of February 6th 2001.
IMDB has listed that the Australian release date was the 28th of June 2001 and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t shown in cinemas here as I probably would have seen it, but in any case, we can probably safely say that it was the year 2000 judging by the fact as The Digimon Movie was released on the 6th of October 2000 in cinemas in America which featured
Looking at the listing on IMDB has now also informed me that the movie didn’t debut in Russia until 2010.
One more fun fact before I finish writing, Goddramon is actually another Digimon design contest winner! [archived source, he’s third place]
So what’s the most nostalgic Digimon for you that begins with ‘G’?
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