The Summer Anime 2025 Preview Guide - DIGIMON BEATBREAK

"e-Pulse," which is generated by human thoughts and emotions, was used as the energy source for the AI support device "Sapotama." From the shadows of this remarkable development, terrifying monsters appear. Digimon are living beings that evolve by consuming e-Pulse. Tomoro Tenma is drawn into an extraordinary experience after meeting Gekkomon, who suddenly appears from his Sapotama. While living together with Kyo Sawashiro and other members of the bounty hunting team "Golden Dawn," Tomoro renews his resolve.

DIGIMON BEATBREAK is a new television anime for the Digimon franchise. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

I've known that Digimon are cooler than Pokémon since I was a kid. For one, the cool little Digital Monsters can talk to you, which is just way more fun than something that can only say its own name over and over. Also, some Digimon are scary as heck and want to kill you, which every 90s kid can tell you automatically makes them wicked sick; it's like every Digimon is MewTwo. Finally, as the Digimon movie and the PS1 Digimon World Games go out of their way to remind you, sometimes Digimon have to make poops. Humans, as a species, also sometimes have to make poops. We have so much in common with our digital friends.

DIGIMON BEATBREAK is the first Digimon series I've managed to check out since, I don't know, I think it was the Tamers series that aired back in the day? Regardless, it's been a hot minute since I've been reminded that Digimon Are the Champions, but Beatbreak didn't even have to make it to the opening theme before it had me once again feeling like an excited little dude who was ready and eager to sear Fox Kids' programming into his eyeballs as soon as school let out. The opening fight between the skeezy thief and the members of Glowing Dawn highlights everything fun about this franchise's spin on the monster battling formula: The Digimon are full of personality and cool moves; the Digivolutions that can occur mid-battle are exciting and reliably bonkers; a grown man actively attempts to murder a teenaged girl with a giant, robotic bee. It's great fun.

Then, we get a proper introduction to the futuristic setting of DIGIMON BEATBREAK. I could get all cynical and complain that a world where all of your life's data and private information is inextricably linked to an A.I. egg-gadget is dystopian as all hell, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly the point that DIGIMON BEATBREAK is trying to make. Sure, this is a world that can power fantastical technology with the almost magical “e-Pulse” energy generated by humans, but they also have giant egg-dome paradises that are seemingly reserved for society's elite, and there's a Ministry of Civil Protection that makes even criminals like the guy from the opening break down and tremble in fear. I haven't even gotten to the part where the Sapotama gizmos hatch out Digimon that feed on e-Pulse energy and then afflict them with a Cold Heart syndrome that either leaves people in a coma or outright kills them.

As our hero Tomoro discovers when he meets his new, er, “friend,” Gekkomon, the world of Digimon is much darker and more dangerous than anything Ash Ketchum ever had to deal with, and he's going to have a hell of a time unraveling the mystery of his strange e-Pulse glitches and avenging his (maybe?) dead brother. As for me, I'm excited as heck to dive back into the Digimon franchise with a show that is this stylish and entertaining. Plus, Gekkomon is a deranged little gremlin, and I absolutely adore him. Screw Garfield; give me a plushie of this freak with suction cups on his claws that I can stick to the rear window of my car.

There are no rules saying that children's shows can't be dark, but I was still surprised by just how dark DIGIMON BEATBREAK's first episode is. Perhaps that's because I'm not an avid consumer of Digimon media; I've dabbled, but somehow missed the collectable monster boat when I was little. Still, this episode grabbed me in ways I was not expecting, from its mild dystopian vibes to the contrast between protagonist Tomoro's life with pretty much everyone else's in the story's world.

Most striking to me is the Sapotama. A combination of smartphone and AI device, these weird egg-shaped things clearly rule their owners' lives…and they're not without flaws, as Hitomi finds out early on. That's because Tomoro has the unusual ability to alter Sapotama when he touches them (sometimes – he doesn't know how it works), and when he recharges hers accidentally, he also keys it to his own data. But the bigger question is whether or not altering her Sapotama caused her to come down with the mysterious ailment Cold Heart…and both Tomoro and his brother Asuka seem to think that that might be the case. That means that Sapotama aren't nearly as secure as people seem to assume they are, and that's without even getting into the fact that a Digimon hatches out of Tomoro's.

While we can guess from the first half of the episode, which features a group of Digimon trainers called Glowing Dawn using their monsters to fight bad guys that things are heading in a particular direction, the episode still does a bang-up job of giving us an easy introduction into the series' world. It seems like there are two distinct types of lives being lived, the everyday ones like Tomoro and Hitomi were living and the dangerous ones Asuka was involved in and that Tomoro is flung into headlong. Are Digimon products of the Sapotama that most people simply don't know about? Are Asuka and Hitomi dead? (I'm assuming that Asuka also falls prey to Cold Heart, what with the whole frost on his skin thing.) The mysteries aren't complex, but they are interesting, and I appreciate that the episode seems to trust its intended audience to find the nuance and handle the hard stuff.

I do think Gekkomon is a little annoying, and that would have been true when I was in elementary school as well. But his design is fun (love the tongue), and it's hard to argue with the slick visuals. Details like Tomoro's tears splattering on his glasses are excellent, and I like the use of light and dark in the visuals. DIGIMON BEATBREAK definitely has me wanting to watch another episode.