The animation took a dip from last time, which was kind of expected unfortunately.
But overall the episode was executed well even if I'm not sure I like Joe's devlopment quite as much as Koushiro's.
It also did a good job of keeping the other characters occupied in a believable way; Sora being incapacitated of course and while WereGarurumon could have fought, the fact that there were a lot of Yukidarumon around that could have attacked the kids while he would have been occupied with Mammon, so them making sure to lure all the enemies away actually was like a reasonable choice this time around.
Speaking of Sora, I think it was good thinking on the writer's part to use to use some data ice virus rather than just having abnormal growing but otherwise normal ice freeze her body like it seemed about to when she was first hit. If it looks less than the real thing there's less of an expectation for it to
act like the real thing, as in leaving actual frost bite and such. It's still a bit cheap, but better than the alternative.
One aspect that still kind of annoys me is that it is never clear how much the Digimon know about other species and what they don't. Gomamon seemed well enough informed to know how exactly Yukidarumon's ice attack works and how to cure it, but that ice based Digimon could just freeze the river and walk across somehow never crosses his mind.
It was pretty gratifying to see that it was actually a challenge for Joe to not fall off Ikkakumon, while he slid and jumped around, it created a much better sense of risk but it still leaves an impression of hypocrisy when it's only Joe who has those problems while Taichi and Koushiro don't even seem to register their partners somersaulting through the air.
For Ikkakumon the evolution itself looked better than the fight, honestly. The movement when he clashed with Mammon felt too staggered, there wasn't really much that indicated momentum or weight being thrown around the shockwave effect that I'm pretty sure was only included to make up for the lack of impact in the actual clash animation. This trend of overcompensating in different areas continued for the rest of the fight, most notably when Zudomon spent much more time summoning his hammer in a storm of sparkles than he did doing any fighting with it.
The little scenes of the other groups worked better this episode than the peaks of Yamato's group in the previous episodes, but the Kiwimon part still looked like something that was thrown in just so they'd have
something to do but the cliffhanger at the end made it worth it at least... Tokyo was just in a cave all along, who knew.
Hmm I wonder what's up with Mammon flashing the eye symbol for?!
Dunno, but it swaps his main attack due to censorships, coz his main attack is just like missiles.
That's not true. The missile part of Mammon's attack is basically a rarely used alternate form; The main use of "Tusk Strikes" has always been... you know, physical strikes with its tusks, as described in its profile.
Also the eye glows because it is presumably using its clairvoyance to see ahead, again as in the profile.
Dunno, but it swaps his main attack due to censorships, coz his main attack is just like missiles. Just like they swap MetalGreymon giga destroyer into giga storm
I'd argue the only reason MetalGreymon got Giga Storm was because his debut was against MetalTyranomon who has a pretty much identical missile attack and they wanted something different for MetalGreymon to set him apart and then they decided to stick with the new attack in later episodes. If there's a future situation that missiles would solve better than a laser blast (like hitting a target around a corner or something) I fully expect them to go back to Giga Destroyer.
then why did MetalTyrannomon keep the missiles?
That thing also bothering me. I assumed that they missed that. Do you know that episode 10 has the worst quality control and bad quality animation right? Alongside with episode 4.
That is literally impossible. The whole sequence of them attacking MetalTyranomon over and over and especially Greymon seemingly landing a hit only to be pushed back by a missile was one of the central sequences of the episode, it was the climax of of the "Greymon" part of the fight and a last grand statement of the power-gap between Adult and Perfect level before the protagonists made it to that stage, there is nothing about that anyone could have
just missed; that would be like arguing that the original light saber duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in the original Star Wars was only left in by mistake.
I also disagree about your claim about animation and quality control. Besides a few shoddy shots you'll find in almost any episode episode 10 had pretty good animation, easily in the upper half of episodes so far, as it should have as the big Perfect debut. There was good looking movement, characters were pretty much on model even from greater distances and the actual scene of MetalGreymon's debut and him taking out MetalTyranomon still rank as some of the most fluid and detailed sequences the anime has produced to date, even if it was disappointingly short.