Call of Cthulhu

The Call of Cthulhu
Someone at Toei and/or Bandai (mostly likely Chiaki Konaka, see below) seems to be extremely fond of the writings of author H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote the tales of the demon, Cthulhu (right). Numerous references to the mythos have appeared in the Digimon series.

The first, most obvious reference to the Cthulhu mythos is Dragomon. Or to be more precise, to use his Japanese name, Dagomon. Dagomon is named after Dagon, a Phoenician fertility deity, who features in Lovecraft's stories as an outer god (Lovecraft version pictured at left). While Dragomon gets his name from Dagon, his physical appearance as a tentacled monster is based on the appearance of Cthulhu himself, as is evident from the Cthulhu picture on the above right.

Additionally, Dagon was served by the "Deep Ones," frog-like creatures who would do his bidding (right). It's no stretch of the imagination to consider the "Scubamon" to be Dragomon's equivalent of the Deep Ones, given their frog-like appearance after they return to their true forms. This has led to some fans calling them the "Digital Deep Ones."

There is a small reference at work during the Daemon Corps episodes. The symbol on Daemon's hood is a version of the "Elder Sign," (left) created by the Elder Gods in Lovecraft's stories as a means of protection against Cthulhu and the other Old Ones. The symbol adorns the door of Cthulhu's crypt.

The name of the Hypnos organisation in the third season of the show is another reference - in Lovecraft's stories, "Hypnos" was the god of sleep (or more specifically, dreams). Hypnos acted to prevent Earth's dreamers from sending their dreams beyond Earth's "dreamscape" - preventing them from moving from one world to the next, in much the same way that the Hypnos organisation in Tamers worked to prevent Digimon from moving from one world to the next in the early portion of the series.

The Yuggoth deletion program used by Hypnos is another reference - in Lovecraft's stories, Yuggoth is the name given to the planet Pluto.

The Japanese name for the Hypnos-created Juggernaut program is "Shaggai." In the Cthulhu mythos, Shaggai is another planet outside of Earth's solar system.

In 3.44, "The Messenger," we briefly see a professor from Miscatonic University. Monster Maker Curly is also presented as working at this university. Miscatonic Univeristy, located in Massachusetts, featured heavily in Lovecraft's stories, as a place where many bizarre things happen