Finally caught up on EP 11 of Beatbreak and it made me want to gab enough about what we learned. Might repost it as a thread on twitter but IDK because I don't think anyone would read it per the algo (I write too much as Some of You May Know lmao) but also I'd rather just link this lol. This post might be stream of consciousness, apologies beforehand.
Spoilers under the cut, so I hope that works.
So this isn't a new piece of info but Pristimon mentioned wanting to go to the tea shop...it reminded me of how everyone was shocked that Gekkomon not only can eat human food but likes it. But we've seen that Pristimon likes the *smell* of a human creation, tea. Why isn't this as shocking? Obviously smell and taste are different senses but I'm a trash can when it comes to food, so to me, smell IS kinda important alongside taste. And Pristimon clearly loves tea a lot for its smell, almost calming her ritualistically. I don't think she has tasted it, given again, the shock with Gekkomon--But I can't really believe nobody would have not asked the same about her. Unless her preferences have been grandfathered in lol. I suspect we'll know more about the whole tea thing, of course but it's something that came to mind again.
I've seen some fanart floating around in JP twitter with Tomoro and a red scarf, and now I get why, haha. It's a good visual theme. I've been thinking throughout all 11 episodes so far that Beatbreak had been feeling very Adventure-esque in its concepts and executions. Granted, I've only seen Adventure, 02 and Tamers, so I might be wrong--but there's way too much similarities or similar vibes (the mirror reflection angle?!) to the point where my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is that this is actually a secret sequel and the old man from the opening is just a depressed and angry Koushiro LOL and that the terrible events pre Shangri-La Egg was just the Chosen Children all failing or something.
I digress. What I wanted to say is that that red scarf could become a quick visual like Mimi's hat or the goggles. We'll see.
Unfortunately I still don't care about Asuka enough to comment on anything much around him. Which sucks because I do like what we've seen this far, and that Kyo knows him well enough to remember his birthday...but I'm just "okay!" Does this make me a bad fan? Idk but I also have a tendency to not really be into characters that haven't been fleshed out in a way particular to me. This is a random example but I couldn't grok with Yi Sang from Limbus Company exactly until the chapter dedicated to him rolled around. And now I love him lol.
So that's where Asuka is for me. I'm sure I'll eventually yell "baby, NO" at him like I do at everyone else lol.
AND YAHOO, TRIPLE DIGIEVOLUTIOOOONNNNNN. THE STAFF CLEARLY SUPER DUPER ANIMATED KYO AND MURASAMEMON'S SCENES JUST FOR US KYO FREAKS.
...Ahem.
Everyone's theories about Kyo's sapotama went out the window though, oops. I think? But to every Kyo freak who thought he might have been one of the Five Stars previously, WE WIN, YOU WIN, WE WIN!!!!
...Ahem ahem.
I do like that this time the eyecatch was once again "special lighting." By that I mean, we've seen it happen a bit--where one episode will have the eyecatch as a normal cel-shaded illustration, but another episode will have the same illustration but with a different light source. I haven't been able to note the importance of such changes but I am a Kyo fan, which means I only noticed the importance now XD This is the second time we've seen the Kyo and Mura eyecatch, this time with a turquoise and dark slate grey-ish? lighting, with the light source from below. Fittingly it's also the episode where we learn LORE and see Kyo be cool.
His scar is also related to his time in the Five Stars too! Yahoo! That Kaito guy hates him because he left! Yahoo! GOOD LORE.
I don't have the picture on me, and I absolutely do not remember anything else except that they were all really really big lol but we saw silhouettes of the Digimon related to the Five Stars. Seeing Flaremon, and then seeing him and Murasamemon fight, made me think: one Beast Man Digimon is one thing but *two*?
Is it possible that all the Five Stars Digimon are all Beast Men or Women? Well. I say Beast Women but this is Digimon we're talking about, so it's probably Beast Men and "Very Sexy DigiLady" a la BeelStarmon XD
It would be nice if it were Beast Woman though...
I digress once again. I wonder if it's also a visual intimidation thing. Murasamemon would look scary to anyone in the Beatbreak world, I presume, in a world predisposed to not liking Digimon. Flaremon's pretty intimidating and his attack is insane. Kaito is pretty much arrogant as hell too. Maybe the Five Stars group require a specific kind of Digimon. They're all Ultimates of course but they couldn't have birthed them as Ultimates lol.
Kaito egging Kyo on, only for Kyo to simply bow and ask for his family to be spared...which surprised and angered Kaito. I was going to make a "Kyo is the Bob Ross of this show?" joke but I realized that might not fit well lol.
If you don't know who Bob Ross is, he's a famous American painter who's also famous for being kind to a fault. One reason he gave is that he had seen military superiors scream at anyone below them, even those who cleaned bathrooms, and he thought that to be so cruel, he decided he would never raise his voice to anyone for the rest of his life. (You can read more about Ross here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross )
Made me think that Kyo likely had a similar turnaround only, yanno. Not exactly in the same situation likely. Maybe Kyo just found out what really happens to Digimon who are sent to be deleted in the Five Star Way and decided to leave for a more humane way to capture Digimon. (Well. "Humane," anyway, it's still the government. Who says they still aren't deleting the Digimon cruelly...)
So yeah, Kyo must have been a really rough person if we believe Kaito's disbelief. I'd say sociopathic based on how everyone else in the opening looks lol.
This is already getting too long, ahhhhhh UHHHH WHAT ELSE.
OH YEAH, I think some of us thought Gekkomon would have what's called a "dark digivolution," which is a Digimon being influenced by dark emotions from their partner and evolving to an evil, twisted version of their higher level self. Annnnnnd we didn't get that. Welp.
We did get something interesting in that well, first, Gekkomon still didn't evolve. But he still obviously had a dark change. Since Digimon are attached to sapotama, think that's probably why the darkness from Tomoro worked the way it did; Tomoro's stress and hate clearly influenced Gekkomon enough to have *him* stress out and go nuts. The e-Pulse on Tomoro's hand changed, then the sapotama. So I think that's a good twist on the dark digivolution thing. You don't evolve but you still get your Digimon going nuts. And worse, it's more tied to you than previous franchise examples! Pain!!!
Secondly, I think it's been lingering in the background but "communication" I think is definitely the key theme for Tomoro and Gekkomon. Tomoro barely talks, keeps it bottled up; Gekkomon is a HYPERACTIVE chatter-box. In Puerto Rican Spanish, we'd call him a "loro," lol which is a kind of parrot that never shuts up. This contrast was on full display today, with both never really stopping to consider the other's feelings but also never really stopping to talk to each other about why. Plus, I think there's an added bit of jealousy on Gekkomon's part, since he called out Tomoro for always talking about Asuka but... that's his brother! He's in the hospital! That's one family member! It's a little inconsiderate.
But Tomoro also never let Gekkomon "inside"--make him understand why getting a gift was important, and see that Gekkomon was trying *his* hardest to contribute. (Although I also got mad at the poor little baby too lol.)
The lack of mutual understanding and communication is what brought about the darkness, especially with Tomoro's wish of wanting Gekkomon to have never been born. JESÚS CRISTO. That's the worst thing you can say to a Digimon in this show.
...So far!
Although I will say, it did feel weird they had this blowout, considering that in some other episodes they seemed to be on some shared understanding. But well, yeah, the Asuka thing definitely threw a wrench in that.
I think that's all I got lmao. Weeee, can't wait for ep 12. Finally we have KEKOMON, THE...floating hoary lizard head? (edit: I had written Kekkomon originally because it was in the subs for the preview but it seems that it's supposed to be Kekomon. Thank you kindly, toshinorimylove90, in the replies!)
Still cute though.