WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 62 of Digimon Adventure 2020, "The Tears of Shakkoumon," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Though Episode 62 of Digimon Adventure 2020 doesn't bring any new forms or Crest unlocking, it does introduce a new, powerful Digimon from centuries past. And, in the process of battling it, Tai has an important revelation pertaining to his and his fellow Chosen Ones' purpose in the Digital World.
Click to start this article in
"The Tears of Shakkoumon"'s titular creature is a golem-like guardian who arrived in the Digital World in ancient times. It appears in the episode to attack -- unprovoked -- Sora, Biyomon, Tai, Agumon and Neemon, who are tending to the latter's newly-grown crops. With lasers firing on the group from every angle, Shakkoumon makes it difficult for even WarGreymon and Garudamon to get close to it. Instead, a non-combative solution is needed.
When Sora discovers the ruins of the civilization it once protected in the episode, her Crest of Love opens her up, empathetically and empathically, to what transpired then: Shakkoumon, which is the DNA Digivolved form of Angemon and Ankylomon, was used by a group of Cupimon to protect them from hordes of demonic Digimon. The Cupimon then sealed their saviour away with the ongoing command to keep defending their home, at all costs. Waking up from a dream-like state, Sora realizes that Shakkoumon isn't in control of its actions. Like any automaton without a will of its own, it's merely continuing to carry out its masters' orders, opening fire on the ones who disturbed it from its slumber.
As Neemon hinted at when it described a "benevolent" figure who once watched over the land, Shakkoumon is actually a gentle giant. So, Mega-evolving her partner to Hououmon and using the purifying move, Starlight Explosion, Sora is able to tap into that suppressed side of Shakkumon -- even bringing it to tears with her overwhelming love for all things; humanizing an otherwise blank-faced, imposing creature.
In the aftermath, Tai comments that watching her and Hououmon subdue the golem helped him realize that the Chosen Ones' job in the Digital World isn't just about fighting, tying together what the gang's search for the true meaning of their Crests has all been about. Preventing the "Great Catastrophe" from befalling their isekai world in Digimon Adventure 2020 is still a priority, but potentially that war might not necessarily be won with brute force alone.
