DIGIMON BEATBREAK Episodes 38-49 Anime Series Review

The strongest arc in this batch of episodes centers on Kyo and his history before he formed the Glowing Dawn. We see he was much more violent when he still worked as one of the Five Stars, and was more than willing to assassinate humans and Digimon alike in the name of preserving the World Union's social order. That changed when botching an assignment led a pair of Digimon owners to take him in, looking for a way to coexist with them. Living with them gradually led him towards adopting the more pacifistic stance he currently operates on. This ends in tragedy when one of his former teammates, Souji, kills them to retrieve Kyo, and Kyo seemingly kills him in revenge, only for Souji to re-emerge in the present.

A lot of what plays out from there is fairly straightforward, as Souji's presence causes Kyo to start pushing his new family away and attempt to kill him a second time before being reminded that he is no longer the man he used to be. However, even if much of the storytelling here isn't all that original, the execution is solid enough to make up for it, and Kyo's arc of learning to take on less by himself still hits where it needs to. Similarly, while Souji is pretty one-note as an antagonist, his lack of emotion is at least conceptually interesting because it leaves him incapable of forming a real connection with a partner Digimon. As a result, he sees them as little more than disposable tools and callously cycles through them when they're no longer useful. Since so much of the show centers on humans continually exploiting Digimon, he largely serves as a good showcase of how extreme that exploitation can get. While I wish these episodes did a little more with that concept, what we get is still pretty effective.

All this extra focus on Kyo also gives us a chance to learn more about Tomoro's brother, Asuka, and the episode showing how the two met is one of the strongest in this batch. It also ends up leaning pretty well into the final arc of the show, in which we learn that Asuka used to have a Digimon of his own with the power to regulate e-Pulse and that the World Union wants to use that power to create a state in which anyone caught with a Sappotama capable of giving birth to a Digimon is stripped of their freedom.

The basic setup is solid and ties back to the show's earlier commentary on how society treats those deemed undesirable, while also feeding into Tomoro's quest to save Asuka. Sadly, it doesn't quite live up to all of its potential. Despite how much of this plot centers on his e-Pulse, Asuka spends most of the arc being puppeteered until the final episode. Tomoro's desperation to rescue him works as a decent source of drama, but it's hard not to feel like more could have been done with Asuka as a character, since we've otherwise only seen him in flashbacks.

The last few fights with the remaining Five Stars are also a bit of a mixed bag. While Kyo's battle with Kaito to settle their one-sided rivalry is pretty satisfying, Reina's battle with Honoka doesn't come off as much more than a designated girl fight since the two didn't have much interaction previously (something which especially isn't helped by fighting being centered around their crushes on Kyo and Kaito). Even the final battle feels a little uneven. The World Union's plan gets hijacked by Digimon who see humanity's continued exploitation of them as proof they can't co-exist, and on paper it's a great twist.

As good as the idea is, they don't get enough time to showcase themselves as characters beyond their talking points, and it limits how well they work as final antagonists. A lot of these issues could be easily mitigated with two or three more episodes in the final arc, but as is, it doesn't feel like the show had enough time for all its ideas to fully breathe.

Still, Beatbreak is far from the first Digimon series to struggle in its final act, and despite its flaws, it's still largely a good time. Even though Tomoro and Kyo get the lion's share of focus here, it's still nice to see nearly all of the show's supporting cast back for one final hurrah. Also, despite being mostly crammed in at the last minute, it's still pretty satisfying to see every member of the Glowing Dawn unlock their partners' final evolution, rather than leaving that to the leads, as some previous franchise entries have done.

The action also stays strong across the board, and the show finally eases up on its fairly conservative use of insert songs. Belting them out in the last few battles makes them more exciting, and fun enough that it's a little easier to forgive some of the writing's structural problems. Most importantly, though, the show ultimately manages to stick the landing.

As on-the-nose as it feels, having the strength of Tomoro and Gekkomon's bond serve as the literal engine for a worldwide revolution that helps shift society toward treating Digimon as living beings is a strong note to end on. Not only does it rock as an exciting way to wrap up such a generally excellent kids' show, but it also fits perfectly with all of Beatbreak's broader social themes.

Calling this show the Digimon franchise's most ambitious anime entry in quite a while would be an understatement. Between its attempt to modernize the franchise and push to tackle heavier subjects, this show had quite a lot on its plate. Although it doesn't quite live up to all those ambitions in the broader strokes of its plot, it nails them more often than not on an episode-by-episode basis, making it feel like an overall success. When it's all said and done, DIGIMON BEATBREAK easily stands as one of the franchise's finest entries to date, and after delivering such a solid show, I'm more excited than ever for whatever it does next.