Enter The Dark Masters

Upon returning to the Digital World, the group are ambushed by the most powerful group of enemies they've ever faced, and barely make it out alive.

Note: The English video recap for this episode is either unavailable or non-existent.

DA_ep_40_recap — DA ep 40 recap

Episode recap for *Enter The Dark Masters* (Japanese with subtitles).

Synopsis[]

Through a telescope in the Digital World, the Dark Masters observe the events unfolding on Earth, preparing for the arrival of the DigiDestined. Meanwhile, the kids arrive to find the Digital World in darkness, and soon find Chuumon hiding in the tall grass nearby. He explains how he was separated from his best friend Sukamon, and how the world was scrambled up into a single spot called Spiral Mountain, where the Dark Masters rule.

Seconds later, one of the Dark Masters, MetalSeadramon, shows up. All the Digimon digivolve to their Champion forms but they could not overpower the Mega Digimon, and are sent spiraling into an unfamiliar surrounding when MetalSeadramon uses his River of Power.

The children soon find themselves in a location covered in complete darkness. Angemon goes to investigate, but gets attacked and reverts to his rookie form. Machinedramon, another Dark Master reveals himself and the Digimon digivolve to their Ultimate level. They are beaten once again and using his Giga Cannon attack, Machinedramon sends the kids and their partners to yet another completely dark location.

While in the midst of falling into the endless darkness, the group suddenly stops moving and WereGarurumon and Garudamon start fighting one another against their will. Everyone starts moving uncontrollably, and Izzy is the first to notice they are acting like string puppets. It is then revealed that they are all being controlled by Puppetmon, another Dark Master. He uses his Puppet Pummel Attack, forcing the Digimon to de-digivolve and sends them to yet another location, an outdoor arena.

Piedmon, leader of the Dark Masters, turns up and easily defeats Agumon and Gabumon in their Mega forms, WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. He then decides to take each child out one by one, starting with Mimi, but Chuumon takes the blow and gets deleted. All hope seems lost, until Piximon whisks the kids to safety in his invisible bubble. Before leaving, Piximon informed the DigiDestined that simply being together is not going to be enough to win this battle, and they will have to figure this one out themselves. He tells them their next step should be to climb Spiral Mountain. Piximon then sends the children to safety and does his best to keep the Dark Masters from pursuing the DigiDestined.

Featured characters[]

(Numbers indicate order of appearance. Bolded characters are fought by the protagonist(s), and italicized characters feature non-explicitly, e.g. voice, silhouette, image.)

Humans	In-Training	Rookie	Champion	Ultimate	Mega
Taichi "Tai" Kamiya (5) Sora Takenouchi (6) Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi (9) Yamato "Matt" Ishida (11) Joe Kido (13) Mimi Tachikawa (14) Takeru "T.K." Takaishi (16) Kari Kamiya (18)	Koromon (7) Yokomon (8) Motimon (10) Tsunomon (12) Tokomon (17) Bukamon (43) Tanemon (44)	Palmon (15) Salamon (19) Patamon (20) Gomamon (21) Chuumon (22) Agumon (23) Gabumon (24) Tentomon (25) Biyomon (26)	Sukamon (27) Greymon (28) Garurumon (29) Birdramon (30) Kabuterimon (31) Ikkakumon (32) Togemon (33) Angemon (34) Gatomon (35)	MetalGreymon (36) WereGarurumon (37) MegaKabuterimon (38) Garudamon (39) Lillymon (40) Zudomon (41) Angewomon (42) Piximon (47)	Piedmon (1) MetalSeadramon (2) Puppetmon (3) Machinedramon (4) WarGreymon (45) MetalGarurumon (46)

Digimon Analyser[]

MetalSeadramon
		Mega Data
		Cyborg Digimon
		Special Move Ultimate Stream
Chuumon: "This guy is one real hard-nose, and I mean hard-nose! Take my advice: this is one train that you'd rather miss!"

Machinedramon
		Mega Virus
		Machine Digimon
		Special Move Infinite Cannon
Izzy: "He's called Machinedramon! This metallic mutant can blow out a Digimon just like a birthday candle!"

Puppetmon
		Mega Virus
		Puppet Digimon
		Special Move Bullet Hammer
Izzy: "Puppetmon has a controlling personality and a rotten temper! Get him mad and he'll bop you with his hammer!"

Piedmon
		Mega Virus
		Demon Man Digimon
		Special Move Trump Sword
Chuumon: "He's a Mega Phantom Digimon of the worst kind! You never know what he's gonna look like next!"

Digivolutions[]

(Number indicates order of occurrence.)

Koromon	1	Agumon	6	Greymon	15	MetalGreymon (Vaccine)	22	Agumon	29	WarGreymon	31	Agumon

Tsunomon	2	Gabumon	7	Garurumon	16	WereGarurumon	23	Gabumon	30	MetalGarurumon	32	Gabumon

Motimon	3	Tentomon	9	Kabuterimon	17	MegaKabuterimon (Red)	28	Motimon

Tokomon	4	Patamon	12	Angemon	14	Patamon

Yokomon	5	Biyomon	8	Birdramon	18	Garudamon	24	Yokomon

Gomamon	10	Ikkakumon	20	Zudomon	25	Bukamon

Palmon	11	Togemon	19	Lillymon	27	Tanemon

Salamon	13	Gatomon	21	Angewomon	26	Gatomon

Quotes[]

"Oh. We'll just save the world without you, then."

—Joe realizes Gomamon is still in his bag.

Joe: "Would somebody mind helping me?"
Gomamon: "Whoops! I forgot all about ya! Uh oh."
Joe: "You forgot. I'm hanging here by my elbows and you're off in La La Land!"
Gomamon: "Gee, I wonder what it's like to have elbows..."
Tai: "Joe! Figures."

—Joe has the worst luck in both worlds.

"After you guys left File Island, Sukamon and I went on with life as usual. You know, eating, eating, and more eating."

—Chuumon describes the many activities of his daily living.

"Color me cynical, but nothing surprises me about this place."

—Joe gets his first look at Spiral Mountain.

Tai: "Where are all the other Digimon? Are they up there, too? Where's Leomon?"
Chuumon: "I don't know. But what I've been told, they'll plow through anything that tries to get in their way!"
Sora: "Who will?"
Chuumon: "Who? The Dark Masters!"
Tai: "Well they can't be too much tougher than anybody we've wrestled with before."
Chuumon: "No way! They'll beat the pants right off of you!"

—Chuumon tries to warn the DigiDestined that they may be in over their heads.

"Ever notice we're always in the wrong place at just the wrong time?"

—Joe is starting to catch on.

Piedmon: "Well hello there boys and girls, and welcome! Today I'm going to tell you an amazing story! Once upon a time, there were eight DigiDestined. They went with their Digimon companions to try to save the world! The children and their Digimon discover that in order to do this, they have to climb up to the top of the Spiral Mountain! But to their dismay, the Dark Masters defeat them! So sad!"
T.K.: "Hey Clownie! Nobody's laughing at your story!"
Piedmon: "Oh dear, I'm so sorry, did I have to mention that this story IS true?"
Tai: "Well, I think your plot needs a few rewrites!"

-The clownish Piedmon lays on the nightmare fuel, while T.K. and Tai attempt a literary critique.

Other notes[]

Continuity errors

In the English dub, Tai implies that Piximon who told the group that being together would make it possible to win, though Piximon said no such thing. It was Gennai who said something along these lines, and revealed the existence of the eighth DigiDestined in the first place.

Animation errors

When the group are seen entering the Digital World, the gray soles of Sora's shoes are colored white.
In the scene of the group back in the Digital World, the white triangle on Sora's shirt is the same color as her skin.
When the group looks up in the sky, the strap of Mimi's bag is the same red color as her dress.
In the panning shot of the group looking up in the sky, the buckle of Mimi's belt is miscolored.
When Tai and Matt gasp at what they see behind Joe, a section on the left side of Matt's pants becomes shaded for a brief moment.
In a close-up shot of Chuumon speaking, the strap of Mimi's bag is colored red again.
In a close-up shot of Tai speaking with his fist rised up, his closed mouth is still present as he speaks.
When the group run away from MetalSeadramon, one frame shows Biyomon's legs colored pink instead of yellow.
When Matt, Mimi, Joe and their Digimon are blown away by MetalSeadramon, Gabumon's toenails are colored violet instead of white.
When Matt speaks while on the floor, Gabumon's toenails are colored violet again.
When Izzy finds out that they are controlled by strings, his Digivice is purple, while in the next shot, his Digivice is white.
In the panning shot of the group after Piedmon appears before them, the brown lines on Mimi's shoes are missing.
In the scene of the group looking at Piedmon speaking, one of the stripes on Gabumon's fur coat is not colored blue.
When Piedmon rises his hand as Mimi whines, Piedmon's mask is entirely white.
When the group are seen sad at Chuumon's sacrifice, Gabumon's eyelids are the same color as his fur coat and Sora's glove is missing.
When Piximon talks to the group while fleeing, the black band on Tai's left arm is missing.
In the scene after Piximon takes off his cloak, Tanemon's feet are missing.

Dubbing changes

In the original version, the scene of Piximon's confirmed death is shown at the end of this episode, rather than at the beginning of the next, so as to create some kind of cliff-hanger.
When Piedmon threw his swords at WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon, the swords penetrating the two were actually visible. In the English dub, only flashes of light can be seen. Similarly, the moment Piedmon's dagger strikes Chuumon was also cut from the English dub.
In the original version, Piedmon does not announce the names of the other Dark Masters until they appear simultaneously in front of the children, and none of the other Dark Masters speak until this point.^{[citation needed]}

Digimon references

The DigiDestined last encountered Piximon in the episode The Piximon Cometh.

Real-world references

Piedmon references Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors right before introducing the other Dark Masters.

Miscellaneous trivia

Piedmon announces the episode title in the Japanese episode.
This is the only episode of the first Digimon Adventure series to show Salamon digivolving into Gatomon.
During Machinedramon's analysis, rather than showing the previous clip of him in the fog, a similar clip is shown from later on, with the coliseum in the background.
This episode depicts the most discrete digivolutions in one episode for the first Digimon Adventure series, at 32 digivolutions.