Favorite Digimon #11 - Piedmon

O MY RUBBER NEN

I don't like actual clowns. The makeup is distracting and weird. As a kid, I liked it when actors would be silly goofballs, but only when the they just wore regular clothes. Real talk, Steve from Blues Clues did probably some of the best clowning of all time. The man made being dense into an art form.

And I don't really like horror-clowns, either. I admit they're creepy, but I'm just tired of it. Insane Clown Posse, Carn-Evil, John Wayne Gacy, IT, Killer Clowns from Outer Space, that movie where the guy somehow turns into a clown as if "clown" is a species and not a profession - miss me with that junk.

What I do like, however, is Japan's weird take on the clown, which they refer to by the French name, Pierrot. (Piedmon is named after the Pied Piper of Hamlin for some reason in the English version, but in Japanese he's just Piemon, obviously after pierrot.) Japan mashes it up with harlequins, jesters, and stage magicians more often that not. There's no grotesquery like the clown from Spawn, or ironic ugliness like Gamzee Makara, the designs are more slick and cool. See: Hisoka, Buggy, Harle, Dimentio, Kefka, Douke Bancho, etc.

Anyway, Piedmon clearly comes from that same school of design, and I'm all about it. I especially like how he wears his throwing swords in a cross on his back, and each one has a different suit on the hilt. The way his clothes flair at the shoulders and thighs is neat, too. Somehow those bits of puffiness exaggerate how skeletal-thin he is underneath it.

You know something else cool about Japanese clowns? They don't honk.