Digimon Beatbreak Episode 22 Review- Hunters Become The Hunted
It’s been a long, excruciating wait, but Beatbreak is finally back and on Granit’s birthday! It does seem like the end of the second arc is starting, which also means that Beatbreak will finish its first half soon! That’s kind of crazy… Last week, Klay has become a bounty. However, in this episode, it extends to Tactics as well. This means that Granit, Hotaruko, Raito and Naito all have a bounty on their heads now. It’s a little ironic how the bounty hunters become the hunted bounty now. Though, I do wish that the bounty thing was a bit more elaborated on since it seems like only Honoka bothered showing up. Also, how did she know that the Tactics members were gathered there?
Even though Tactics being the hunted is the prime focus, it mostly focuses on Hotaruko who’s still a part of the group…until the end of the episode that is. How Hotaruko came to work for Tactics is revealed. I do remember that some people thought that Hotaruko skipping grades, graduating college and becoming a researcher was a lie she made to deceive her family, but it doesn’t seem like it. Her backstory does imply all of it did happen. Shakkomon was born when her Sapotama glitched after she told it to shut up after it warned her about her lack of sleep. However, the pressure of her birth caused a destruction in the laboratory where she was working at, leaving her in debt. Because of the Klay Foundation covering up the laboratory debts, she joined Tactics because of her debt to Klay. I have seen some criticism about how Hotaruko’s backstory isn’t tragic, and I don’t feel like it needs to be. Her whole story is just that she’s a normal person who just got dealt with unfortunate cards. Not everyone needs a backstory like Granit’s. What satisfied me the most was how Hotaruko slapped Naito Will Smith-style. He deserved that and I’m glad that Hotaruko was the one to do it!
Still, her backstory does shed light on her behavior towards Makoto back in Episode 17. She was poor. No one wanted to be her friend. She had a hard time relying on others as a result. Her inability to depend on others also stemmed from her time as a researcher with her colleagues hoping she’d get some rest and her Sapotama saying the same thing. It all makes sense… I always did say that despite her working for villains, she’s not a bad person, with her having the most compassionate heart of the three. I’m glad that it rewarded her in the end with a defection, a desire to make friends in Granit and Raito and forging a stronger bond with Makoto—though, it did fly by a bit too fast…
Because the episode focused mostly on Hotaruko defecting, the Kyo vs Naito battle is definitely not as much of a priority because we all know how it’s going to end. This time, Murasamemon finally deals the final blow, causing Gigasmon to revert back to its baby form and Naito somehow escapes with the help of Klay. I just hope there are no more children for Naito to punch—he should really stop that. It was pretty cowardly of him to escape without his Digimon. By the way, if you’re wondering why Naito is so loyal towards Klay, last week, the production staff had a small stream on Twitter where they talked about some side content. Naito’s loyalty towards Klay was brought up in that Naito is indebted to him after he saved him when Klay was once a mercenary and not a businessman.
I do feel like Honoka only showed up to give the viewers a taste of what she’ll be like when she’s implemented into the story later on. She seems to be a new face in the Five Stars as she meets Kyo for the first time, despite knowing his name due to her crush on Kaito. This means that there is a former Water Star that Kyo knows of. She’s also quite strong as she’s able to fend off against NightChiropmon and Tylomon with ease. However, the fact that she retreated because she found her bounty cringe was quite unexpected. I do wonder if it was just to throw viewers off?
Anyways, Honoka is voiced by Rie Kugimiya who has been in Digimon before as Ikuto Noguchi (Keenan Crier) in Digimon Savers, Digitamamon in Ghost Game and Ukkomon in Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning. Her partner MarineChimairamon is voiced by Takako Honda who voiced Ajataramon in Ghost Game. Since this Digimon show has staff that had been in Savers, I wonder if the casting was done on purpose…
I do wonder what happened with Raito and what will become of the defected Tactics members… I do wonder if Haruomi will return after all of this. I feel like Raito’s redemption could be helping out the people he hurt before, but that could be just a stretch… Anyways, it does seem like next week is the final showdown with Klay and it’s getting me hyped up because the preview does make it seem like Murasamemon is going to evolve into Mega! Though, Megumi Han, the voice actress of Gekkomon, did leave an ominous message that Glowing Dawn will meet a terrible fate next week. Thanks to that, I’m going to be restless for an entire week… Let em know your thoughts on this episode!
Digimon Beatbreak Episode 17 Review - The Difference In Upbringing
The title of this episode is called Antipathy. If you’re not sure what that word is, it means “a deep-seated feeling of dislike” or “aversion”. This suits the events of this episode, especially how Hotaruko behaves towards Makoto towards the end.
Out of the Tactics trio, Hotaruko is the most compassionate as she was the only one against the idea of using young children as bait, as shown back in Episode 14. This correlates to the events of this episode as Hotaruko is revealed to have younger siblings, who are probably boy-girl twins, and a single mother who is raising three kids all on her own while running the okonomiyaki shop (okonomiyaki is Japanese savory pancakes). Her father had passed away, meaning that Hotaruko is essentially the eldest daughter in an Asian family in that all the pressure to help her family lies on her. However, she’s lying to her family.
If Reina and Granit are opposites in terms of how they view life and survival, then Makoto’s ‘rival’ and ‘opposite’ is Hotaruko. Both are similar in that their Digimon was the reason they lost everything. For Makoto, he lost his family and his cushy life at Shangri-la Egg. For Hotaruko, she was climbing up society by being a very studious girl and even graduated college by skipping grades, but by the time she got a job as a researcher, it all came to a stop when her Digimon was born and she now has to be a cleaner and live a rough life where she can’t see her family as often as she would like, but does it for their sake.
This is where Hotaruko’s feelings of antipathy comes into play. The moment she learns that Makoto used to live at the top of society but now is a Cleaner who works odd jobs and little pay, she gets angry because Makoto could easily try to climb his way to become a top Cleaner, or be someone accomplished despite his fall from glory, yet he chooses to be passive and soft-hearted about it all. She hates the fact that he has no motivations and no goals in life while she’s here trying to make end’s meet by working at a terrible job where her colleagues suck, her boss is strict as hell, and her boss’s boss is shady as heck. She essentially has no one to fully rely on other than herself as she’s the one who decided to join Tactics and go through such rigorous training and risk lying to her family because she doesn’t want them to worry and also doesn’t want anything bad happening to them. Remember that there are risks if people are associated with Cleaners.
However, I do think that Hotaruko is right in a way. While Glowing Dawn works and functions as a found family, Makoto can’t always be relying on Reina and Tomoro to help out. Sometimes, he needs to take matters into his own hands. It would also be good development for NightChiropmon as he hasn’t gotten the best track record by far. I get that Makoto and Chiropmon aren’t suited for combat, but if Ludomon who has yet to evolve and only function is to be a shield has more usage than a Champion-level Digimon at this point, you need major redemption at this point. However, Makoto’s greatest strength is that he’s kind. I honestly liked that he helped clean the broken shards of the okonomiyaki shop and doesn’t hold Hotaruko’s disdain against him. He’s going to kill with kindness.
I feel like the Digimon featured in this episode are just props instead of being super plot-relevant. Koemon wasn’t that significant.Though, the Burgermon and Burpmon duo is interesting in that they work in a symbiotic relationship, showcasing that stray Digimon can team up and benefit each other. It showcases how Digimon can survive in different ways like how Pandamon gets adopted by someone who’s not his Owner and lives a compelling life.
There are a lot of Digimon veterans in this week’s episode. Koemon is voiced by Makoto Tsumura who voiced my favorite Digimon protagonist Takato from Digimon Tamers. Tsumura also voiced Koemon in Ghost Game. Burgermon is voiced by Ayaka Saitou who voiced Pillomon and other Digimon in Ghost Game. Burpmon is voiced by Megumi Urawa who voiced Cody (Iori) Hida and Armadillomon/Armadimon from Adventure 02 and other Digimon characters in different media.
For the human characters, Hotaruko’s mother Nagisa is voiced by Mami Kingetsu, who makes her Digimon debut. Some of her roles include Miss Merry Christmas from One Piece and Alice from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Kou, the brother, is voiced by Eriko Kadokura who voiced Tyumon and other minor characters in Ghost Game. Ao, the sister, is voiced by Honoka Mitsubishi who voiced Pyocomon in Ghost Game.
Beatbreak has been hitting it well with these past two episodes that humanizes the Tactics member. To be honest, Hotaruko is slowly becoming my favorite of the Tactics trio. However, it does seem like next week’s episode doesn’t seem to focus on Raito, but it could just be a case of the trailer not showcasing the important parts until the actual episode airs. I do wonder what Raito’s backstory is going to be like because he’s still the one with the worst impression. Let me know your thoughts on this episode!
Digimon Beatbreak Episode 13 Review - Five Star Dirty Tactics
We’re finally back after a week…but why didn’t the opening update? Maybe I’m so used to openings of long-running anime updating whenever something major happens that it feels weird when the story starts going in deep and the opening is just silly stuff the protagonists do. No, it’s not because it’s a Digimon opening—Adventure 02 updated when Ken joined the party and the supporting Tamers were added into the opening. Toei, you had a week to update everything.
Nitpicks aside, this was a good introduction to the second arc where there’s buildup for possible major events in the future. I’m glad that the rest of the Five Stars were introduced in this episode, even if not much about them was given out. Kaito and Genjo showed up in the previous two episodes. Kaito used to be friends with Kyo who was the former Gold Star. However, they had a bad breakup falling out to the point that Kaito doesn’t even want others to mention his name, but Kaito is surprisingly an honorable person as he doesn’t like underhanded tactics. Genjo purposely let that Marinebullmon out from a lab that he’s supposedly in charge of—and on purpose at that. While his reasons are unknown, Genjo is giving out similar vibes to Spinel from Pokemon Horizons in that both work directly under the evil organization’s boss and as an ominous and menacing aura despite having soft features. Also, Genjo is the Owner of Gokuwmon, who possesses Asuka’s Sapotama.
The other Five Stars are Honoka, Rose and Klay. Honoka is described to be a yandere obsessed with Kaito and her partner is MarineChimeramon. She seems to be energetic on of the group in a way as she livens up the serious mood. Rose and Honoka do not get along despite both being women; Rose is described to be an upholder of beauty in a way. Also, seeing Lilamon as her partner feels unusual as Lilamon was partnered with Yoshino in Digimon Savers as a part of Lalamon’s evolution line. I do wonder what Lilamon will evolve into because Rosemon is a boring choice. Klay seems arrogant as he’s a businessman. He also has some prominence as he showed up in the last few minutes of the episode with Seraphy Naito and Team Tactics, who work under him—Naito is Klay’s right hand man. Though, I do find it interesting that Rose and Klay non-Japanese Digimon characters. It gives Beatbreak’s universe a very global feel, especially since the World Union’s leader is Chinese.
Chairman Wong is mainly in charge of world building in that he tells the story about how an island disappeared 20 years ago due to a huge catastrophe. Because of that, Digimon started appearing. It does make me wonder if Digimon was the cause of it. He doesn’t seem to like Digimon all that much as he has a laboratory where he keeps them as experiments that Genjo watches over. He does seem very suspicious. His Shangri-La project is also interesting because it does make me wonder if he was the creator of the Shangri-La Egg. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the egg and the society within it. All I could get out of the meeting is that Wong finds Digimon dangerous, yet he’s still enlisting the help of people who use them. Definitely suspicious.
In addition to Chairman Wong and the Five Stars, there are even more characters introduced in this episode. It feels surreal to see so many human characters in a Digimon show and also having them be Digimon owners at that. Tactics is a rival Cleaner group that are direct foils of Glowing Dawn. Too bad not much about them are shown other than Raito flirting with Reina and him kicking a dude because his uniform got dirty. Since they are the major conflict for this arc, hopefully more will be known about them. My first impressions of them aren’t so great due to them stealing Glowing Dawn’s bounty. Bounty Hunters? More like Bounty Vultures…
Despite the Five Stars portion being serious, the Glowing Dawn portions are silly and lighthearted, which helps alleviate that somber feeling. My favorite part was when Bombernanimon threw his bomb but then Gekkomon deflects it with his tongue. The sound he made reminded me a lot of Yoshi from the Mario franchise. It was also silly for the boys to be so shocked that a guy would hit on Reina since she’s so boyish.
Since there are way too many characters introduced that it’s going to take forever for me to explain the voice actors, I’m only going to explain about Chief Wong, Raito, BomberNanimon and his owner for this episode, just so I won’t ramble too much and make this review way too long. Chief Wong is voiced by Akio Otsuka who voiced Piedmon in Digimon Survive and New Century; his late father Chiako Otsuka was the voice actor of Piedmon back in the first Adventure anime, so it’s a bit of a legacy role in a way. Otsuka’s non-Digimon roles include Solid Snake in the Metal Gear franchise, Heismay in Metaphor Refantazio and Z in Xenoblade Chronicles 3—he does seem to have a penchant for voicing villains.
Raito is voiced by Toshiyuki Toyonaga who voiced Rei Katsura from Appmon. As an Appmon enjoyer, this is crazy to me. Anyways, some of Toyonaga’s non-Digimon roles includes Yuri Katsuki from Yuri on Ice, Kiryu from Wind Breaker and Kazuki Kurusu from Buddy Daddies. Toyonaga is insanely talented as a voice actor, so I’m hyped to see what he has in store as Raito. Raito’s partner is Monodramon who is voiced by Wataru Hatano who hasn’t voiced a Digimon character before, but he is known for voicing characters like Gajeel from Fairy Tail, Spartos from Magi and Shaiapouf from Hunter x Hunter.
Bombernanimon is voiced by Masaya Onosaka who voiced one of the SkullSatamons from Frontier. Some of his non-Digimon roles includes Shinji Hirako from Bleach, Zelos Wilder from Tales of Symphonia and Sylvando from Dragon Quest XI. His owner is voiced by Takashi Matsuyama who voiced Hyemon Scarred back the first two episodes.
I do think this was a good way to introduce the Tactics arc and the group into the story. You can’t help but want Glowing Dawn to pulverize them with how they stole their bounty last minute. It does make me wonder if that will be a recurring thing or if they’ll put up more of a fight in later episodes. Also, that pizza Kyo made looks delicious! It makes me want pizza. Let me know what you thought of the episode!
