Digimon Beatbreak #40 Quick Reaction
In this episode, what bad thing could possibly happen to the kind found family that takes in and shows a better life to the heartless mercenary with an extended kill sheet?
It’s a bold move to spend an entire episode answering one question, even one as pervasive as “how did Kyo go from that to this?” But that is what Souji’s presence was designed to draw out, a successful endeavor that leaves the question of whether Souji himself can be made interesting for next time. On one hand, it’s not that novel or complicated an answer. Kyo, after a mission where he doles out plenty of death, gets injured and flees, waking up in the care of a girl tending to him with unconditional kindness. In that moment, you knew exactly how this was going to go. There’s enough joy in taking a break and watching a healthy human-Digimon coexistence for once. But it’s hard to fully enjoy Kyo’s slow transformation knowing full well what’s going to happen in the end.
The second Kyo meets Karina for the first time, you are fully aware of two things. One: Karina is going to be the reason Kyo changes his ways. Two: Karina is going to die. Images planted in prior episodes make it clear we’re supposed to know this. In many ways, the bulk of the episode is a slow march towards the inevitable. At least one of those inevitables is a happy one. And much of the time spent properly illustrates that it is a long process. Kyo doesn’t buy into this family at first, and doesn’t believe that he deserves this sort of love. It’s when it’s explained to him that he’s permitted to have this that he breaks down and fully embraces it. But of course his past catches up with him and Souji goes through Karina, Minoru, and Luxmon trying to find him. It’s Souji’s language in his justification that really clinches it: talking about “unregistered Digimon” and those that tried to stop him from doing his job, that sets off Kyo. It’s language that Kyo himself has surely used, deleting Digimon likely as beloved as Luxmon and maybe even people as loving as Karina and Minoru. Even the term “deletion” undersells what they’re actually doing. Some older Digimon dubs used to use that term because networks didn’t want them talking about killing.
There isn’t much to say about Klay’s return as an information source, which might be a little disappointing after seeing his full potential as a character in the Tactics arcs. He’s incredibly objective in the information he feeds the rest of Glowing Dawn, and part of that is unsettling in its own right. Klay knows nothing about Kyo discovering Nirinso and doesn’t actually state that Kyo killed Souji, just that he had the capacity to and that everyone at World Union quietly assumed he did. Nothing he said was incorrect. It’s the dispassionate attitude both World Union and the Ministry use to sustain power. Getting the story in cold terms like that illustrates what happens when humanity is left out of the equation. It shakes Glowing Dawn, even as they’ve seen plenty of clues to Kyo’s past before. They cling to their version of Kyo because they’ve seen his humanity and what he’s done for them, and regardless of how much of a role they’ll have in this climax, it draws Beatbreak’s overall battle lines in a stark way.
Initial Grade: B+
