Anime original by Toei Animation
Streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu

Premise

In a world where humanity’s thoughts and emotions – their ‘e-pulse’ – powers advanced AI technology, Tomoro Tenma is a weird glitch in the system. When digital monsters emerge attempting to devour his e-pulse, he’s forced to team up with violent gremlin Gekkomon to defeat them.

Zigg’s verdict: Beatbreak the Curse

Toei’s stewardship of the Digimon franchise has been a little haphazard over the past decade or so, to say the least. The emphasis has largely been on agressively milking middle-aged nostalgia for the original Digimon Adventure (1999) series, with the actual new Digimon product ranging from disastrous attempts to continue that agenda (the truly loathsome Adventure 2020) to inoffensive, unambitious mush (Appli Monsters). 2021’s Ghost Game represented a substantial uptick in quality, but was ultimately limited by its strictly episodic focus and inability or unwillingness to really develop its cast  and world beyond a surface level.

With that in mind, this first episode of Beatbreak was encouraging on several levels. We’ve got a genuinely interesting premise, with some solid initial worldbuilding that immediately brings to mind several intriguing ways the plot could go. I’m not going to say the focus on AI gadgets is topical exactly, since for obvious reasons Digimon shows have always been obssessed with artificial intelligence, but it does add a nice irony to the proceedings, intentional or not. It’s tough to get too much of a read on our main character Tomoro in the space of a single episode, but between his home in the slums and the (apparent) death of his brother there’s already a lot more going on there than with other recent protagonists. Gekkomon seems fun too, his brattish personality and pseudo-rivalry with Tomoro giving a little more bite to their relationship, even if it’s mostly for comical effect.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention how good this first episode looks, blessed as it is with a rich, bright palette of colours, some very good world design, and strong action scenes with plenty of dynamic movement and choreography. This is something I’m inherently suspicious of – shows by Toei have a long history of technically excellent first episodes rapidly lapsing into potato quality – but it’d be churlish to deny Beatbreak’s strength in this regard. Overall, I’ve got a guarded level of optimism around Beatbreak – it certainly seems to be the most invested Toei has been in the venerable franchise for quite some time, and this first episode gives them a multitude of interesting stories that could be told with such a premise. Let’s hope the show takes advantage of those opportunities rather than coasting on lingering nostalgic goodwill.