English Dub Review: Digimon Beatbreak Episodes 16-20
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Team Glowing Dawn continues their Cleaner work capturing rogue Digimon, but Tactics Team Seven keeps interfering. Later, Glowing Dawn infiltrates a black market Digimon auction, and Tomoro is kidnapped and thrown into a Digimon dog fight ring, organized by Klay Arslan, one of the Five Stars.
OUR TAKE
Our fourth batch of Digimon Beatbreak episodes is upon us, with all of them about our protagonists on Glowing Dawn dealing with Tactics Team Seven. Right from when they were introduced a few episodes prior, it was apparent how they were a foil for Tomoro and the gang. Glowing Dawn is the rag tag found family that fights all the time but love each other at the end of the day, while Team Seven is cold and professional guns for hire that see each other as co-workers more than friends. That does make Glowing Dawn less organized or in synch while Team Seven is more precise and coordinated, but also means that when one of Team Seven messes up or gets hurt, the others are more likely to leave them behind than comfort them or make sure they’re safe. Such is the case in the first two of these five episodes, where Reina and Makoto have some one on one time with Granit and Hotaruko, respectively, while we as the audience get some insight on their complicated relationships with their own Digimon, Ludomon and Syakomon, also respectively. We’ll get into Hatoruko’s history with Syakomon next time, but it turns out Granit met Ludomon during his wartorn childhood when Ludomon burst from the Sapotama. But because of all the understandable trauma, Granit has always sought a way to die. Sad stuff, man.
But the business with Tactics doesn’t stop there, as Raito and Tomoro face off a few times in the remaining three episodes. First, Glowing Dawn takes in a former Tactics soldier, Haruomi, and his Commandramon, with Raito in hot pursuit. After that, they fight when Glowing Dawn tries to rescue captured Digimon and Tamers from an auction, where Raito forces his Monodramon to a new Ultimate form, Azhdarmon, who then goes a bit out of control and destroys one of the prized captured Digimon. As punishment, Raito is forced into a fighting ring, where Tomoro and Gekkomon end up too, and inevitably face off. Here, we see the pressure Raito was under in his past to succeed and excel, but the only thing that he ever found too challenging was controlling a Digimon. We do see that his Monodramon is tightly loyal, it’s clear that what Raito has been trained to view as a success is more about power than friendship, which he’ll hopefully learn is the opposite lesson eventually, as these things go. This batch ends with the battle unresolved, but next time, in another five weeks, we’ll see the conclusion to the Tactics Arc, as well as Glowing Dawn face another battle against one of the Five Stars: The Earth Star, Klay Arlsan. Oh yeah, and a few more surprise Digivolutions for several characters!
