Digimon Beatbreak Episode 8 Review - Back To School
I consider this a bittersweet episode in that while Glowing Dawn did defeat the rogue Mimicmon, they had to hand it over to the Ministry of Civil Protection as Kawarazaki appeared at the end. They might have won, but the villains, the Ministry in this case, were the actual winners. Kyo’s dream of coexistence with the Digimon just took a few steps back in this episode… I honestly really liked the episode because of the whole “villain wins” situation.
It was nice to see Hitomi again! The government’s control over society is actually really terrifying as Hitomi tries to explain about the monster that attacked her to the doctor after she had recovered from Cold Heart, but they brush it off and say that it’s an “after-effect”. Given how the ministry also covered the Mimicmon incident as “security issue accident”, this definitely does make one wonder just what is the Ministry doing behind the scenes and what they do with the Digimon they retrieve from Cleaners…
Mimicmon wasn’t even evil in this situation as it was born from its owner’s desire to get rid of rival students blocking his way from the top. Its owner, Hajime, wasn’t arrested by the Ministry and is still out and about, still attending school without a care in the world. He even requested Tomoro to keep quiet about the whole incident because he desired to keep rising to the top to get to the Shangri-La Egg, showing off how corrupted society is, even towards teenagers like him. For a story about utopia, the cracks are clearly visible, yet people ignore it.
This is the first time one of the members of Glowing Dawn gets abducted by a Digimon. In this case, Tomoro gets abducted by Mimicmon. Instead of sitting around and waiting for the others to rescue him, he actually uses his situation to his advantage as Mimicmon sucks his e-pulse, but destroys it from the inside due to its uniqueness. While the reason Tomoro’s e-pulse is considered special has yet to be given a concrete answer, the fact that it can cause a Digimon to explode does feel like it could be used as a plot device later on.
The episode is also bittersweet in the sense that Tomoro can’t really return to his everyday life anymore. He can’t even return to school due to his bounty and such. While he can go back to his house to get stuff like a change of clothes and other necessities, who knows how long it’ll take until the Tenma residence gets seized by the government? The way that Kawarazaki calls Digimon glitches right in front of Tomoro’s face does feel like a parallelism of how Tomoro is considered a “glitch” due to his e-pulse.
Unfortunately, Gekkomon hasn’t evolved and now dethrones Guilmon in terms of the amount of episodes it takes until evolution. To be honest, I don’t mind that Gekkomon hasn’t evolved yet—I like the way he is now. I predict that he’s going to evolve around Episode 12 just so there’s enough time to get used to the cast and enough time to create a second version of the opening that will update with Gekkomon’s evolution. Given that there’s around 48-50 episodes, having major elements be told through every fourth of the story does seem like a reasonable amount of time?
Mimicmon is voiced by Ami Matsushima who voices the Sapotama. She has been in Ghost Game where she voiced various different background characters and Digimon. Hajime is voiced by Masamu Ono who voiced Flybeemon in Ghost Game. Hitomi’s friend Ako is voiced by Mayu Kimura who also voiced background characters in Ghost Game. The anime sure likes bringing back voice actors from previous shows, regardless of how minor their roles were.
It sucks that Hitomi got into danger again even after returning to the story. It does make me wonder if she’ll return again. Despite having a rather plain appearance compared to the other prominent characters, her voice actress is rather known, so I’m sure she’ll return—let’s just hope she doesn’t end up in danger again. What are your thoughts on this episode?
