Legendary Spirits



The Legendary Spirits (伝説のスピリット Densetsu no Supiritto), or just Spirits (スピリット Supiritto) for short, are a set of twenty ancient artifacts that are used to evolve into Hybrid Digimon. Each contains the sealed power of a member of the Warrior Ten, a group of ten Ultimate Digimon who saved the Digital World in its distant past. The Spirits grant their respective Warrior's power to their users.

The Spirits and Hybrid Digimon were introduced in the anime series Digimon Frontier, where human Chosen Children use them to Spirit Evolve into Digimon.

=Overview= Each Spirit is associated with the elemental power of its respective member of the Warrior Ten. There are two Spirits for each element: a Human Spirit or Spirit H (スピリットH Supiritto eichi), which creates humanoid Hybrid Digimon with Adult-class power; and a Beast Spirit or Spirit B (スピリットB Supiritto bī), which creates animalistic Hybrid Digimon with Perfect-class power. In certain circumstances, multiple Spirits can be combined to create Hybrid Digimon of Ultimate-class power: using both Spirits of the same element creates Fusion Form Hybrid Digimon such as Raihimon, and using ten Spirits in specific combinations creates Transcendent Form Hybrid Digimon such as Kaiser Greymon. The union of all twenty Spirits creates the Ultimate Digimon Susanoomon.

Both humans and Digimon can use Spirits to become Hybrid Digimon.

The elemental attributes of the Spirits are each represented by a symbol that is a stylized/simplified version of the respective character for that element. Some of the Hybrid Digimon feature their respective symbol inscribed on their armor somewhere, and they are usually in the same place on the Spirits. Kaiser Greymon sports an eleventh symbol meaning "flame" (炎 honō) on his chest. Susanoomon bears a twelfth symbol, stylized after the kanji for "heaven" (天 ten), that is inscribed on his headgear.

The Spirit items themselves resemble the Hybrid Digimon that they create in some way, such as being stored arrangements of their armor or body. Every Spirit sits on a hexagonal base, which has the word "SPIRIT" inscribed on it in Digimoji repeating six times in a pattern around its edge.

It is possible for Spirits to be corrupted into alternate, sinister forms that produce different Hybrid Digimon. The only current corrupted Spirits are the Corrupted Human Spirit of Darkness and the Corrupted Beast Spirit of Darkness.

Toy and Video Game-only Spirits
=Appearances=

In Digimon Frontier, the Legendary Spirits are established as having been created in the distant past after the Warrior Ten's final battle with Lucemon. The Warrior Ten released the Spirits and entrusted them to the Three Great Angels. Throughout the series, the Chosen Children seek out the Legendary Spirits and use them to Spirit Evolve. When not in use, the Spirits that they have collected are stored in their D-Scanners.

A Hybrid Digimon who also possesses the other Spirit of their respective element can undergo Slide Evolution to transform into that Spirit's respective Hybrid Digimon at any time. Both the Chosen Children and the Evil Warriors do this.

A recurring theme with the Beast Spirits is that, unlike the Human Spirits, they are very difficult to control. Kanbara Takuya, Minamoto Kouji, Ranamon, and Duskmon are all overwhelmed by their Beast Spirits and run wild when they first obtain them. Himi Tomoki and Shibayama Junpei also have some difficulty, but Orimoto Izumi and Kimura Kouichi do not.

As the series progresses, the Chosen Children's collection of the Spirits is as follows:



Prior to the beginning of the series, the Three Great Angels each possessed some of the Spirits. Seraphimon possessed the Spirits of two elements: Light and Wind. Ofanimon possessed the Spirits of three elements: Fire, Ice, and Thunder. Cherubimon possessed the Spirits of five elements: Darkness, Earth, Wood, Steel, and Water. When Lucemon corrupts him, Cherubimon bonds four of his five Spirits to Digimon to create the Evil Warriors, and corrupts the Spirits of Darkness and bonds them to the soul of Kouichi to create Duskmon. However, the Beast Spirit of Water does not appear to have been in his possession at this point, as Ranamon finds it in a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean. Seraphimon and Ofanimon's Spirits were all hidden to protect them from Cherubimon.

The ability to use more than one Spirit at a time requires the power of one of the Three Great Angels. Seraphimon's DigiTama gives power to Takuya and Kouji's D-Scanners to allow them to Double Spirit Evolve using both the Spirits of their respective elements. Later, Ofanimon upgrades Takuya and Kouji's D-Scanners into new models that allow them to Hyper Spirit Evolve using ten Spirits each; when they gain this ability, the group reorganizes their collected Spirits to give the Spirits of Earth and Wood to Takuya, and the Spirits of Water and Steel to Kouji, so that they can be used for their respective Hyper Spirit Evolutions. They keep these Spirits for the remainder of the series.

In the group's second battle with Lucemon, Kouichi gives the Spirits of Darkness back to Kouji when he is killed by Lucemon. The reaction of Kouji's Spirits of Light and the Spirits of Darkness triggers Kouji and Takuya's Ancient Spirit Evolution into Susanoomon.

In the final battle against Lucemon, the Warrior Ten are reborn as the ten Human Form Hybrids as entities in their own right, who protect and encourage the Chosen Children. As a side effect of the powerful bond established between the Spirits and Chosen Children from all of their time spent traveling together and Spirit Evolving, the Warrior Ten have inherited some of the traits of the Chosen Children (for instance, Fairimon now speaks Italian, like Izumi), and there is some sort of link between each Chosen Child-Warrior pair (e.g. Löwemon's time spent with Kouichi allows him to sense that Kouichi is still alive in the Real World).

In "The Gathering of the Legendary Heroes! The Digimon All-star Showdown!!" Kanbara Takuya uses the Spirits of Fire to become Aldamon for the fight against Quartzmon's forces. Near the end of the battle, Himi Tomoki sends the rest of the Spirits to Takuya so that he can become Susanoomon by himself.

In the "Frontier Generation" special, Kanbara Takuya and Minamoto Kouji use their Human Spirits to defeat a Megadramon, following the same Spirit Evolution mechanics as in Digimon Frontier. Takuya also uses his Beast Spirit of Fire to Slide Evolve into Vritramon when fighting Metamormon with Yagami Taichi and Zeromaru.

The four Spirits of Fire and Light appear as items that, once obtained, allow compatible Digimon to evolve into the respective Digimon (Agnimon, Wolfmon, Vritramon, Garummon) as long as they also meet the other evolution criteria. The item is not consumed in the evolution, so the Digimon can be evolved into any number of times. Kaiser Greymon, Magna Garurumon, and Susanoomon also appear in the game, but their evolution criteria do not involve the Spirits at all aside from the former two evolving only from Vritramon and Garummon.

In Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Complete Edition, any of the Digimon evolved using the Spirit items can be transferred back to Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth after both games have been cleared, but the Spirits are not made available in Cyber Sleuth so these Digimon cannot be evolved into natively there.

All of the Legendary Spirits, including the corrupted forms of the Spirits of Darkness, have one card each in the Digital Monster Card Game. The Human Spirits (excluding the true Human Spirit of Darkness but including the corrupted version) were all introduced in Starter Ver. 7, the Beast Spirits (again, excluding the true Beast Spirit of Darkness but including the corrupted version) were introduced in Expansion Kit S, and the true forms of the Spirits of Darkness were introduced in Booster 17.

The Spirits' cards are all Option Cards of the Item Category, and are used as part of the Appearance Requirements of many (but not all) cards featuring Human Form and Beast Form Hybrid Digimon. The Appearance process for these Hybrids is labeled "Spirit Evolution" (スピリット進化 Supiritto shinka), and requires that the Spirit card be played in the player's Support Box to evolve a Digimon of an appropriate level (Level IV/Adult for Human Form Hybrids, and Perfect for Beast Form Hybrids). The Spirit remains in the Support Box until the resulting Digimon is removed from play. In addition to the Appearance Requirements use, each Spirit card also confers a number of additional effects onto the Digimon that used it to Spirit Evolve. Unrelated to Hybrid Digimon, some Human Spirits have an additional effect that allows them to substitute for certain Digimental cards.

Spirit cards are not used to evolve into Fusion Form or Transcendent Form Hybrid Digimon. These Digimon all have other Evolution/Fusion/Appearance Requirements instead.

In the Digital Monster Card Game, all Spirits are given formulaic, abbreviated names: Human Spirits are "Spirit of (x) H" ((x)のスピリットＨ) and Beast Spirits are "Spirit of (x) B" ((x)のスピリットＢ). Because the Corrupted Spirits of Darkness were released first, they occupy the formulaic H and B initials for Darkness, so the two true Spirits are instead called "Spirit of Darkness L" (闇のスピリットＬ) and "Spirit of Darkness K" (闇のスピリットＫ), taking their initials from the respective Digimon that they create, Löwemon and Kaiser Leomon.

Trivia

 * In Digimon Frontier, Cherubimon's possession of his Spirits is a reference to the (Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth) and in "Endless Death Match! The Prelude of Lucemon's Revival" the element for Darkness is mistakenly shown with the symbol for "metal" (金 kin) instead. Incidentally, Ofanimon possesses the Spirits of Fire, Ice and Lightning, which is a common combination of elements in media.

=Additional Information=