Digimon Staff Profile: Tailmon Betsu

Note: From what we know, Tailmon Betsu was either a Bandai or Shueisha employee who cosplayed as a Tailmon to promote Digimon merchandise, especially the old Digimon Card Game. Different from other Digimon Navigators whose real-life personas are more known, little is known about who Tailmon Betsu was, with even his credit in Digimon Frontier’s 1st episode being left only as “Tailmon Betsu”. Because of that, this profile includes only his activities as Tailmon Betsu, the Catgirl Digimon, that were featured in the V-Jump. As far as I know, his appearances on TV being interviewed weren’t recorded.

Profile

Name: Tailmon Betsu (テイルもんべつ)

History of Activity: September 21, 2000 – October 21, 2002

Titles: “The Cat Emperor of the Digimon Card World”, “Morning Catgirl” “V-Jump’s Demon Lord”, “V-Jump’s version of Demon Kogure”, “The Platinum Knight who Rules over V-Jump”, and “The Giant Star of the Digimon World”.

Digimon History: Tailmon Bestu is a Cat Girl Digimon raised by V-Jump, she was sent to the “Digimon Card Game Dojo” to help new Tamers play the “Digital Monster Card Game”, aiming to create the strongest Digimon Tamer, although she started as an “Amateur Tamer”.

Regarding other Digimon, her favorite Digimon is Angewomon, while Volcamon was the Digimon she hated the most, her best friend was Shakkoumon, and she wanted to marry Dukemon.

She had a close rivalry with Tanukikoji Kaneki, a swordsman who was in charge of the Colosseum. They would often try to play pranks on each other, like when Tailmon Betsu made Kaneki have singing classes with Etemon.

Eventually, Tailmon Betsu finally learned the rules of the Card Game and started to become popular among the players, she even got to appear in the Commercials in “blink-and-you-miss-it” situations, making Tanukikoji jealous. By the end of the year, she had spent all her New Year’s money on Digimon cards while training for the Digimon Card Game Tournament that was going to take place at the Jump Festa.

Tailmon Betsu eventually became important and popular with the children. So she was eventually put in charge of “Digimon Gallery”, a section in the V-Jump in which Volcano Ota shared the newest Digimon merchandise. She would call Volcamon “Vol-chan”. She would also start to appear in the postcard article “Tamers Chatroom”, in which Kenji Watanabe commented on fan art made by the fans.

Eventually, when Tanukikoji Kaneki left the Card Game Dojo to become stronger after he failed to protect his father, Tailmon Betsu was left as the only one in charge of the Dojo, she would then change her targets to Digimonkey and Volcano Ota, attempting to have full control over the Digimon world.

She then started to write “Diary of Tail’s Memories”, in which she shared important events of her life. During the “D-Slinger” event, in which she participated to get money, she reunited with a girl who appeared in the April V-Jump issue on a date and was gifted a box of cookies, but since she wasn’t supposed to be there and the event was photographed, she was fired from the job.

Meanwhile, Kenji Watanabe started a contest on Tamers Chatroom to find a wife. He asked fans to draw new female Digimon so he could go on a blind date, the Digimon shown were the Child-like Prettymon, Gyaru-like Yamanbamon, Doll-like Ichimatsumon, the Panda-like Pandaramon, the Cat-like Gatomon, the Succubus-like Succubusmon, and finally the Mermaid-like Marine Bluemon. Kenji decides to go on a date with Yamanbamon and propose to her, but to his surprise, she is actually Tailmon Betsu in disguise. The two then marry and lived happily ever after

Eventually, Tanukikoji Kaneki returned from his death in another world becoming “Great Tanukikoji Kaneki”, he then challenged her, sending a letter informing he was in South Korea. They needed to be there to spread the word of Digimon overseas. However, since she had a target in her life in different countries, she had to hide her true identity using a mask and completely different clothes.

Back in Japan, she made two updates to her diary, one was her attempt to find out the origin of Kaneki’s “Tanukikoji” name. The second was their participation on the CS show “Anime Anything Ranking” in which they were interviewed. She revealed she had her own solo interview before as well, but there are no records of this.

Although now her old rival was back from the dead, her other rival, Volcano Ota, had recently been killed by an Angemon via decapitation. While Ota shouted that he would be resurrected as an Ultimate-level Digimon, Tailmon Betsu took the opportunity and became the one in control of the “Digimon Gallery” articles.

Tailmon Betsu was a big fan of Koji Wada and AiM; they had met up in the past. During the D-SPRITS event, she got to once again see their live performance and reunited with them, but Wada was mad at her for becoming much whiter than before. She also said Aliens invaded her bedroom. Then they fought in a hand-to-hand battle!!

Wanting to evolve into Perfect-level, Tailmon Betsu promoted a contest on “Tamers’ Chatroom” asking for new Digimon species she could become. Suggestions were Perm Tailmon, Tailmonmon, Taomon Betsu, and a legless Digimon. Disliking Perm Tailmon’s permanent hair, Tailmonmon’s nature as a Jogress-evolution with Digimonkey, and the leg-less Digimon lack of legs, she decided to load Taomon Betsu’s art, and Matrix evolved into Taomon Betsu.

During the Jump Festa Volcano Ota is revived as the Ultimate-level Pile Volcano Ota and gives Tailmon Betsu live photos of Maki Goto and Nozomi Tsuji as a Christmas present. She also participated in a collaboration with Bandai Candy for “Tamers’s Chatroom” as she was learning how to make a Mochimon-based Mochi cand. She is revealed to still be married to Kenji Watanabe and she always cooks food every night, with her yellow face being the proof of her perverted nature.

At the start of 2002, the end of Tailmon Betsu is announced, and by the end of the year, she won’t be there anymore. This doesn’t stop her as she continues to make more appearances in the magazine, asking for chocolate on Valentine’s Day, and even debuting in Anime doing Poyomon’s old man’s voice on the first episode of “Digimon Frontier”. According to her diary, she did a great first-time job and was praised, while Tanukikoji got yelled at for repeating mistakes. Also, a Digimon Card Game Hong Kong Tournament was being planned.

Meanwhile, she also went to TAVAC (Toei Audio & Video Art Center) Studio to interview the producer of Digimon’s anime, Hiromi Seki. There she saw Tomoko Kaneda, Culumon’s voice actress; she then slipped away from work and proposed to her. However, after finding this out, Hiromi Seki beat Tailmon Betsu up, not allowing this to continue.

Once again trying to spread the word about Digimon, Tailmon Betsu traveled to Saipan, but since Tanukikoji wasn’t on good terms with her, he didn’t travel with her. This time, Tailmon Betsu spent a good time on the beach, only wearing shorts. Although she was attacked by dogs and got lost, she got to meet children and introduce them to the Digimon Card Game and also the game version made for Wonderswan Color. The children became obsessed since “Adventure” was just being broadcast on Saipan.

Returning to Japan, she once again got to appear in a new Digimon Card commercial. As a part of “Tamers’ Chatroom”, she went to BEC (Bandai Entertainment Company), which was in charge of making Digimon games, because there was a contest in which fans could give ideas for games and the Digimon staff would show a prototype of the idea. There she met with Shirayuri Minowa, a representative from Bandai and alongside other colaborators, they chose two ideas to make games about and in the end, teases for the next major Digimon game, “Digimon World 3”.

She also became addicted to the “Digimon Card Game” for Wonderswan, seemingly stopping to take care of herself and becoming very dirty. She also already announced her next travel, saying that he would travel to Brazil during the summer holidays to spread the word about Digimon there.

Before announcing her departure, she went on a journey of self-discovery. Finally, in the December 2002 issue of the Monthly V-Jump Magazine (Released on October 21, 2002), she went on her Eternal Sleep after leading the Digimon World for many years. After that, Kaiser Matsuno took her place promoting not only the Card Game but also the Virtual pets.