DIGIMON BEATBREAK

Episode 6

This episode gives us the second half of the Yakuza side quest that the show decided to go on last week, and with how strangely placed this storyline feels, I was really curious to see exactly how it would tie into Beatbreak's main plot. The answer to that question seems to be: not at all, as basically every loose end from the past couple of episodes is addressed here. Thankfully, this still results in a mostly solid episode, but it does leave me wondering where the rest of the show will go from here.

After nearly getting gunned down, Gekkomon and Pandamon are saved by the timely arrival of Reina and Makoto, who've been busy following up leads from the cargo heists from a couple of episodes ago, and have traced them back to the Koala-kai boss. With the whole team on the case they're ready to go after his bounty, but the Panda-gumi boss decides to take matters into his own hands, and offer his life in exchange for sparing the rest of the town (and while I'm aware Beatbreak is being aimed at an older audience than usual for Digimon, I'm still a little shocked they were willing to allude to him trying to commit seppuku). Unfortunately, this fails as the Koala-kai boss is only really interested in threatening the villagers to leave, and he decides to send a message by having the Panda-gumi boss beaten within an inch of his life. I do appreciate that Tomoro was willing to call out the Panda-gumi boss for putting himself at risk for no reason, and to berate this attempt at valor as selfish since it was the same kind of act that put his brother in a coma, but it does make it a bit jarring when the very next scene has Gekkomon encouraging Pandamon to go get revenge. It's nice to see Gekkomon be serious about something for a change, but it makes for a weird bit of mixed messaging, and that messaging is only made weirder when Tomoro and the others decide to join them in going after the Koala-kai boss and his partner Astamon.

The battle itself is also a little rough around the edges visually compared to the last few, but it's at least nice to see most of the Glowing Dawn squad all working together to take down Astamon. We also get a decent bit of drama out of this ordeal when Astamon tries to use Gekkomon as a hostage midway through the fight, and Pandamon tries to sacrifice himself to save him, which would have made for a pretty dark conclusion had the show actually gone through with it, but I'm pretty fine with the fact that it didn't. Instead, Pandamon is saved by Gekkomon devouring some of his e-Pulse, and Pandamon is reassured that the Panda-gumi boss still sees him as a son despite disobeying orders by trying to avenge him. Between the actions of both Pandamon and his boss, I suppose if there's any moral here, it's about sharing your burdens with others rather than trying to take responsibility on your own through self-sacrifice. That probably could have been conveyed a bit more clearly, but it does still shine through enough to make the episode work.

I'm glad that this arc had a decent conclusion, but the fact that it ended without any new lingering threads does make me question the decision to do a story like this one so early into the show's run. As I said in one of my previous reviews, I'm not really opposed to the idea of filler, and I think these kinds of side stories are good for fleshing out a longer show. Still, considering we still haven't gotten a lot of time to get to know some of the other Glowing Dawn members like Makoto or Kyo, the show could have used a couple more episodes to focus on them before going doing a two-part detour like this one. All that being said, I can't say I disliked this side story, so if the show was going to take some time to be a bit self-indulgent, there are certainly worse ways it could have done so. I'm wondering what's next since it doesn't seem like we'll be returning to the subject of Tomoro's brother for a while. I imagine this won't be the last detour the show takes before getting back to anything major, but if it's gonna keep taking them, I hope it'll keep finding ways to make them interesting.

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DIGIMON BEATBREAK is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.