#kawarazaki

More about Miharu is revealed in this episode. It does seem as if her main motive for being the leader of GIFT and trying to liberate Digimon is due to wanting to bring back her older sister’s smile. Yes, it’s revealed that Miharu “had” an older sister. No, stop saying it’s Rose! It’s not! Their last names, age gap and height gap are too inconsistent for Rose to be Miharu’s sister. It’s unknown what happened to her sister, but it does put her in a somewhat sympathetic light and makes her situation a bit similar to Tomoro who fights to restore Asuka who has been Cold Hearted.

I do like that GIFT has been tracked down really quickly and the reveal of Miharu being the leader is already known and not dragged out for too long. In a way, this arc has shifted towards a villain group, antagonist group and the protagonist group clashing. The villain group is obviously GIFT. The antagonist group is Rose and Brilliant Thorns. The protagonist group is Glowing Dawn. Tomoro choosing to “side” with Miharu may be seen as dumb, but I think it’s in-character for Tomoro who doesn’t want to make assumptions and judgement just because of what someone told him. Besides, while Miharu may have orchestrated all these crazy acts of terrorism, I feel like Tomoro wants to see for himself on how terrifying she can be before deciding to oppose her. Besides, it’s not like Rose and Brilliant Thorns are trustworthy either. It’s a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of thing.

I know for a fact that the Hitomi glazers who theorized she’d get a sun-themed Digimon to parallel Tomoro’s moon theme are malding right about now. Since Asuka was the one who got compared to the sun, I do wonder if he’s the one who’ll get a sun-themed Digimon. Honestly, it does make sense as one way to write Asuka’s name does require the kanji ‘bright’ (明) which fits sunlight. Speaking of Asuka, yesterday (6/6) was his birthday!

There’s also a side plot with Reina getting injured and getting into a depressive slump because of it. She does seem aware that she’s the only one in the group who’s partner hasn’t reached Ultimate and it does seem to be concerning for her. Rose even called her a weed who can’t take Ultimate form. It’s harsh, but it’s something Reina needs right now. I do wonder what’s causing her to not be able to form a deeper bond with Pristimon to the point that she can achieve the next level. It does seem that something is blocking her path. I do like that Reina protects women a lot; she is for the girls.

Kishiwada having a water portal does raise some questions that will probably be answered in due time. I wonder what sort of water-themed Digimon he has for him to be able to create a portal like that. Anyways, let me know your thoughts on the episode!

I feel like the end of this arc will involve taking down Tactics and Klay, which means he’d be the first of the Five Stars who will be taken down. I had a feeling Klay would be the arc’s final boss and there’s more evidence that shows it. Not only does he do illegal Digimon (and human) trafficking, but he also does illegal Digimon fighting that involves gambling. He’s, by far, the evilest character in this story—only because the other members of the Five Stars and Wong haven’t shown their true selves yet.

It’s also apparent that the Five Stars aren’t necessarily allies. They have the same high status, but that doesn’t mean they’re all friends. Klay clearly wants to usurp Wong’s position, which is why he was trying to get Kyo to cooperate with him. I’m sure that Genjo is clearly going to be the final boss of the entire story because he’s clearly trying to get Klay exposed by hacking into his Colosseum and entering Tomoro which, in turn, will cause Glowing Dawn to come to rescue him, meaning he can see Tactics dissolving and he can record everything that’s happen and present it to Wong. It’s a 5D chess move. This means that either all of the Five Stars knows that Klay does these things or it’s his own personal secret and that Genjo knows about it as he is apparently an experienced hacker.

Poor Tomoro, though. He finally confronts Gokuwmon who has Asuka’s Sapotama, but then he gets thrown into this illegal colosseum for some kind of nefarious purposes. After defeating Greymon and its Owner, he then learns that this is literally a fight to the death as the losers will get Cold Hearted. Given he has the MC plot armor, he’ll be fine, but Raito is certainly not. 

Raito is revealed to have gotten kicked out of Tactics and only joined this colosseum in order to prove to Naito that he’s a genius. His backstory is finally revealed in that the reason why he takes pride in being a ‘genius’ is because he excelled at many things all because he can look at it once. The only thing he couldn’t accomplish was controlling a Digimon, hence why he got entangled with Tactics and Naito. In a way, Raito reminds me of Reo from Blue Lock in that both are geniuses and can mimic anything and anyone, but there’s still something they lack in their lives which they strive for. For Reo, it was to have an achievement that he gained all on his own without the help of his wealth. For Raito, it’s to be able to control a Digimon. However, Raito is a lot more flawed because he has zero compassion for others and his Digimon. All he cares about is being the best and to have proof of it. This is why he is always losing to Tomoro. Tomoro and Gekkomon are in sync emotionally and they understand each other as equals. Meanwhile, Raito cares about Monodramon, but it’s only because he’s a Digimon and a physical evidence of what he has to achieve to be the best. In a way, he mostly sees Monodramon as a tool. I feel bad for Monodramon/Azhdarmon because he clearly wants to help Raito achieve that goal, but they’re never in sync.

Other than that, I also like the smaller details of this episode like Hitomi returning and witnessing Tomoro being taken to the Mirror World, which then caused her to tell this to Glowing Dawn, showing that she is acquainted with them now. There’s also another small detail of Hotaruko eavesdropping on Naito and Klay’s conversation with a sad look on her face. Given what happened last week with Raito getting beaten up in front of her while she ate, I wonder if she felt bad about that. She is the most compassionate of Team 7. Even if Raito is an ass most of the time, it doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t care about someone she’s worked alongside with. There’s also Kawarazaki who isn’t being the morally gray bad cop this time around. He is wanting to work with Glowing Dawn to take down Klay. By the way, the fact that anyone involved wth Klay and Tactics get Cold Hearted once they’ve used up their worth like Izumi, the lady trafficker, makes me wonder if Haruomi got Cold Hearted…

Anyways, Digimon voice actor trivia of the week: Greyson’s owner Hiroichi is voiced by Kosuke Tanabe who has been in Ghost Game as Ekakimon and Kyohei and in Survive as Baihumon. Outside of Digimon, Tanabe has been in Pokemon Horizons as Zirc and Ult’s Aragonite and also in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as Lanz. This is hilarious because this is the fourth Xenoblade Chronicles 3 voice actor in this anime. Megumi Han, Gekkomon’s voice actress, voiced Eunie; Minami Tsuda, Hitomi’s voice actress, voiced Mio; Ryohei Arai, who voiced Machmon’s Owner Nogi, voiced Noah and now Lanz is here! As someone who likes XC3, I wonder if Taion and Sena’s voice actors will be in Beatbreak…

It’s been a while since we last had a two-parter in Beatbreak, so I’m really anticipating what will happen next week. Will Raito get Cold Hearted? Will Ludomon finally evolve? I can’t wait. Let me know your thoughts on this episode!

It was nice to see Hitomi again! The government’s control over society is actually really terrifying as Hitomi tries to explain about the monster that attacked her to the doctor after she had recovered from Cold Heart, but they brush it off and say that it’s an “after-effect”. Given how the ministry also covered the Mimicmon incident as “security issue accident”, this definitely does make one wonder just what is the Ministry doing behind the scenes and what they do with the Digimon they retrieve from Cleaners…

Mimicmon wasn’t even evil in this situation as it was born from its owner’s desire to get rid of rival students blocking his way from the top. Its owner, Hajime, wasn’t arrested by the Ministry and is still out and about, still attending school without a care in the world. He even requested Tomoro to keep quiet about the whole incident because he desired to keep rising to the top to get to the Shangri-La Egg, showing off how corrupted society is, even towards teenagers like him. For a story about utopia, the cracks are clearly visible, yet people ignore it.

This is the first time one of the members of Glowing Dawn gets abducted by a Digimon. In this case, Tomoro gets abducted by Mimicmon. Instead of sitting around and waiting for the others to rescue him, he actually uses his situation to his advantage as Mimicmon sucks his e-pulse, but destroys it from the inside due to its uniqueness. While the reason Tomoro’s e-pulse is considered special has yet to be given a concrete answer, the fact that it can cause a Digimon to explode does feel like it could be used as a plot device later on.

The episode is also bittersweet in the sense that Tomoro can’t really return to his everyday life anymore. He can’t even return to school due to his bounty and such. While he can go back to his house to get stuff like a change of clothes and other necessities, who knows how long it’ll take until the Tenma residence gets seized by the government? The way that Kawarazaki calls Digimon glitches right in front of Tomoro’s face does feel like a parallelism of how Tomoro is considered a “glitch” due to his e-pulse.

Unfortunately, Gekkomon hasn’t evolved and now dethrones Guilmon in terms of the amount of episodes it takes until evolution. To be honest, I don’t mind that Gekkomon hasn’t evolved yet—I like the way he is now. I predict that he’s going to evolve around Episode 12 just so there’s enough time to get used to the cast and enough time to create a second version of the opening that will update with Gekkomon’s evolution. Given that there’s around 48-50 episodes, having major elements be told through every fourth of the story does seem like a reasonable amount of time?

Mimicmon is voiced by Ami Matsushima who voices the Sapotama. She has been in Ghost Game where she voiced various different background characters and Digimon. Hajime is voiced by Masamu Ono who voiced Flybeemon in Ghost Game. Hitomi’s friend Ako is voiced by Mayu Kimura who also voiced background characters in Ghost Game. The anime sure likes bringing back voice actors from previous shows, regardless of how minor their roles were.

It sucks that Hitomi got into danger again even after returning to the story. It does make me wonder if she’ll return again. Despite having a rather plain appearance compared to the other prominent characters, her voice actress is rather known, so I’m sure she’ll return—let’s just hope she doesn’t end up in danger again. What are your thoughts on this episode?