Episode 8 of Digimon Beatbreak exposes the darker side of the human and Sapotama connection and the pursuit of perfection.
A Mystery
In this episode, Tomoro’s classmate Hitomi reaches out to him about students at their school disappearing. The top students are all asked to go to a room, and once there, they disappear. Hitomi’s friend Ako was taken as she was on the phone with Hitomi, causing Hitomi to get involved.
When Tomoro arrives at the school with Hitomi and Gekkomon to investigate, Hitomi and Tomoro are taken captive by the digimon, Mimicmon. Mimicmon turns them into data of sorts, and stores them inside of itself. Gekkomon, left to battle alone, is saved by Reina, Makoto, and their digimon partners.
Behind the Digimon
Inside of Mimicmon, Tomoro sees the student who is behind Mimicmon and the disappearances. The student was feeling insecure about his placement in the class. He thought that if those student’s “disappeared,” he’d secure a top rank. His wishes were channeled into his Sapotama, which then caused the “glitch” that created Mimicmon. Mimicmon developed a mind of their own and devised this plan to get rid of the top students to fulfill the student’s wish.
This plot line reminded me exactly why I love the Digimon franchise so much. It isn’t afraid to get a bit dark and explore the potential negative consequences of human desire. The student didn’t really want those students to disappear, however, his digimon knew no different. Although the student felt remorse after the fact, we see at the end of the episode that he doesn’t want this incident to ruin his life and get in the way of his true goal: going to the Shangri-La egg. (The ideal society discussed in episode one.)
This reminds me a lot of lore dropped in the Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning movie, where the first digimon was born from a kid’s desire to have friends. This element in this series makes me really excited for what to come. If the story keep going in this direction, I think a major plot point will be of how your shaping your desires based on what society thinks you should aim for can be a bad thing.
His Own Beat
At the end of the episode 8, Tomoro witnesses the Ministry take away the baby digimon that was Mimicmon and he can’t do anything about it. Then he has that conversation with the student and learns his true motivations. Both these things fuel Tomoro into knowing he doesn’t want to follow this “path” set up by society, he’s going to follow his own “beat.” I loved that little title tie-in and I’m excited to see where this beat takes Tomoro and co.
Digimon Beatbreak is streaming on Crunchyroll, with new episodes on Sundays.
