Japanese Title: Break Through! AtlurKabuterimon
Koushirou and Tentomon search for Gennai, with Koushirou stubbornly pushing ahead while Tentomon expresses some doubt.
PicoDevimon nails some picket signs into the ground, fussing that his master, Vamdemon note is going to punish him. He remembers his last meeting with Vamdemon, who ordered him to steal the Crests from the Chosen Children and threatened to punish him severely if he failed. Panicking that he's going to die, PicoDevimon hides behind a rock when he sees Koushirou and Tentomon coming and takes a picture of Koushirou's Crest with a camera.
Tentomon tells Koushirou that Koushirou's desire to learn about everything, like his desire to find Gennai so he can ask about the Crests, is what he likes about Koushirou. They see a sign in front of them — the same one PicoDevimon placed earlier — warning them to beware falling poop in front of them. Wanting to heed the warning, they turn in the other direction to see more signs warning of poop... and their hesitation on which direction to turn in causes them to fall into a hole that caves out under them.
Trying to fly makes Tentomon fall even faster, and a voice tells Koushirou and Tentomon that they'll continue falling until they fall into hell. The voice tells them that they will fall into hell for possessing "desire" — specifically, Koushirou's desire to know everything — and that if they want to stay alive, then Koushirou has to throw away his "inquisitive heart". Tentomon tells Koushirou that that's what he likes about him, but, not wanting to die, Koushirou surrenders it by saying that he "doesn’t want to know".
The two are warped to a mysterious space, where they are greeted by its master, Vadermon note . Vadermon takes away the inquisitive heart Koushirou discarded, and gives an emotionally dead Koushirou a book on how to obtain "Cosmic Power". Vadermon disappears and Koushirou laps up the content in the book, which is filled with nonsensical Technobabble, pushing Tentomon away coldly in the process.
Koushirou's Digivice beeps and Tentomon opens his laptop to find Taichi on the other end, calling from the real world and asking what's going on. Koushirou sees the message and tells Taichi that this must mean Taichi won't be returning, but to "please contact me once in a while" as the message fizzles out. Completely unconcerned, Koushirou returns to the book.
Vadermon places Koushirou's inquisitive heart in storage, revealing that he does a business in buying and selling "hearts". He is approached by a customer, who turns out to be PicoDevimon. PicoDevimon asks for Koushirou's Crest, offering... a load of poop in return. Somehow attracted to this deal, Vadermon returns to Koushirou (who is performing some kind of "training to get Cosmic Power" by contorting his body in the shapes of the Roman alphabet) and tells him to "throw everything away". Koushirou willingly surrenders his Crest and Vadermon takes it; when Tentomon attempts to reclaim it, Vadermon responds by shooting Tentomon and escaping.
Vadermon returns to PicoDevimon with the Crest, but refuses to hand it over until PicoDevimon makes do on his part of the deal.
Tentomon regresses into Motimon and then into his most basic form, Babumonnote . Babumon cries and begins to blow bubbles, and within their reflections Koushirou sees visions of Koushirou's previous searches for more knowledge and answers to his questions. The bubbles popping snaps Koushirou back to reality, who picks up Babumon and apologizes to him. He then overhears the loud argument between Vadermon and PicoDevimon, the latter still demanding the Crest.
Koushirou realizes that he needs to reclaim his Crest, though he's still unable to process the situation entirely with the loss of his inquisitive heart. He decides to take back both, and while PicoDevimon and Vadermon are arguing, the two of them sneak into the store and recover the Crest and Koushirou's inquisitive heart, in the process cleverly locking Vadermon and PicoDevimon out of the store.
Vadermon and PicoDevimon burst back into the store, and Koushirou has Babumon evolve all the way up to Kabuterimon. Kabuterimon is initially unable to withstand Vadermon's attacks, but Koushirou commands him to stand up again, which, combined with Koushirou's prior revelation that wanting to know more is a part of who he truly is, triggers Kabuterimon's super-evolution into AtlurKabuterimonnote .
AtlurKabuterimon finishes off Vadermon and carries Koushirou outside, just in time to meet Yamato and Takeru. As if to reward Koushirou, Gennai appears... only to cryptically warn them that the distortions of the world are still there and that he'll be sending the Digimon Analyzer as a reference to use before vanishing. Sure enough, Koushirou finds the Digimon Analyzer — the same one the audience has been seeing in every episode — on his computer.
PicoDevimon, having failed to obtain Koushirou's Crest, is punished with torture from Vamdemon... by being stuck all night in a tree filled with overly aggressive bats.
Tropes
- Bowdlerise: As is traditional for English dubs of Digimon, the excrement-based Toilet Humor is carefully edited out.
- The sings warning of falling poop, a bottomless poop pit and a poop monster are changed to warnings of falling sludge, a bottomless sludge pit and a sludge monster.
- Rather than offering Vademon a load of crap, PicoDevimon offers his curiosity. This does end up making Vademon's eager acceptance of the deal make more sense, given how obsessive his desire to own and sell people's curiosities was previously shown to be. It also makes PicoDevimon's attempt to deliver his curiosity from his behind seem a lot more irreverent than in the original.
- Pokémon Speak: Rather unusually for the franchise, as Digimon of all stages are typically depicted as either talking like humans or making recognizably animal noises such as wails or roars, Pabumon is unable to say anything beyond "pabu pabu".
