Digimon Beatbreak - Episode 17 discussion

Not quite as smooth as last week's, but it does seem like they're trying to lay the groundwork for how to redeem Tactics. Good luck with their leader...

Beatbreak continues to draw interesting parallels between Glowing Dawn and Tactics. Hotaruko and Makoto both had their lives upended by their Digimon. Makoto lost his home while Hotaruko lost the ability to support her home by being kicked out of school. However, Makoto found a new family that can support him while Hotaruko fell into a job where she feels she has to do everything on her own and not rely on others, but all its doing is putting distance between her and her loved ones.

Hotaruko's backstory may not be as "harrowing" as Granit's but its still very compelling, gives me the same vibes as someone who got kicked out of highschool and had to get a seedy job to support themselves and their family. It really doesn't matter how much Hotaruko may or may not agree with tactic's methods, she needs this job more then anything.

Also poor Makoto. He just wanted to help but all he did was be reminded of his own weakness. At least he got to help Hotaruko's mother, which was sweet.

But yeah good episode. Excited to see where Hotaruko's and Makoto's development goes from here.

Also I love burgermon.

It may not come up again but that pair of digimon seem to have solved the problem of E-pulse only being able to come from humans somehow.

Feels like every member of Tactics is damaged in some way and really just need to be rescued in some capacity, however that might be possible.

I knew that Hotaruko was lying about going to school and being a researcher but I assumed that she left on her own accord cause she thought being a Cleaner was the better path for her. Instead she was kicked out of school and forced to be one to support her family.

The fact that Hotaruko has a completely normal family, and still acts like an absolute pyscho willing to sacrifice kids in order to evolve digimon to get a bigger bounty, just to keep up appearances that she doesn't really has to, makes her one of the worst characters in the series

Also na imagine getting bodied by a Burgamon (child version), Wolvermon may have beaten the jobber allegations last chapters, but boy does this look bad for Shakomon and Hotaruko that's straight out embarrassing, and Nightchiropmon also didn't fared much better, stakes so damn low i was struggling with trying to not skip the battles

Considerably mid episode, specially after the hard hitting one that was ep 16, in fact this may have been even weaker than ep 15

So far Hotaruko is the most boring support and antagonist character, her case and background are the least endearing among all the human characters, Makoto's childhood friend who was being used by her corrupt dad to kidnap Digimon is way better as a foil and counterpart, compared to her, Hotaruko's character is just lacking, she is also an hypocrite she herself is a privileged prick has a loving family, they own their own house and their own business, living a double life trying to keep up an unnecessary lie is not good enough when everyone else has parents in jail, is an orphan abandoned by their family, a refugee and war survivor, or was exiled from high society and their crooked dad tried to use the black market to get back in without them

The conflict on the episode itself was also really mundane, it is a wholesome fluffy pair of food thieves, compare that to a kid who is so obsessed with grades it decided to kidnap and put the competence in a coma, or a gang trying to kick and entire shopping district out of their houses to do real state fraud, or hell even Redvegiemon taking revenge too far and acting like a deranged bully wanting to kill the digimon partners in front of their humans for payback

I don't know who is behind the world building and character creation, but this episode just doesn't matches in with what the series has shown so far, we literally start with the protagonist losing his brother and being orphaned

Granit may be in for redemption, but Hotaruko is on the shit list, the only thing good out of her is her family, and that's not stopping her from being a scumbag that puts kids in the hospital chasing a paycheck that she doesn't really needs, her family is not actually poor, and she doesn't actually has to send money back, they are not in the struggle! you know who was in the struggle? Tomoro the damn protagonist!

##Edit:

People seem to think that Hotaruko's family is poor and financially struggling and in need of her economic support, [but that's not the case](https://imgur.com/td2Z06f)

[Hotaruko's background is that she was an elite student](https://imgur.com/bRK7Wu1), allegedly at least according to her mother (this is important later), who focused so much on academic success she [was never able to made friends](https://imgur.com/rhhvcQT), then eventually skipped grades, graduated college, and joined the World Union

To her family Hotaruko was and is a genius, a super elite member of society, and a successful career oriented woman

But all that is a lie, the reality is that Hotaruko is someone who looks down on others, is obsessed with the idea of being an elite and successful (in fact chances are that this is the real reason why she never was able to made friends, and not her "dedication to her studies"), and is willing to go tot he lowest lows in order to get results, despite the fact that she never finished high school because she actually dropped out of it

She of course blames it all on Shakomon, but given her bad personality, chances are she was already struggling academically and on her way to not becoming an elite student, similarly to the case from episode 08 The Vanishing Classroom, in which a student unable to keep up manifest a Mimicmon in order to literally remove the competition, chances are this is also the reason why Hotaruko ended up with Shakomon

But instead of getting rid of her partner digimon, or use it to cheat the system, she dropped up, and is now living a double lie that allows her to present a false narrative to her family and save face

The lies that she tells her family is also something that she deflects, she insist that she is doing it because [her mom wouldn't be able to handle the truth](https://imgur.com/uP8ZY5n), when the truth is that Hotaruko can't accept the fact that she is not an elite

Hotaruko's character is that of someone that is ashamed of herself, who poured her whole identity on becoming an elite member of society, and who has failed on making it a reality

In fact the episode is called Antipathy, she doesn't actually comes with a tragic backstory, she is living a mess of her own creation and blaming it one everyone else

Now with all that said, do i still think this is one of the weakest if not the weakest episode of the series? yes i do, because the direction of the episode was extremely poor to the point that most watcher totally missed the point, and misinterpret Hotaruko's whole situation, thinking that she is an underprivileged kid whose family needs her to send them money in order to survive, and that's not the case!

And yes, i still find her as a weak foil and counterpart to Makoto, and would have preferred that spot being reserved for her childhood friend

Hotaruko has a surprisingly normal backstory and also our only display of how cleaner life affects someone that is not an orphan, although it's probably due to the Tactics work philosophy, and her mother probably knows she's lying, but didn't muster the courage to confront her yet.

We also get the second conflict of the arc set, as Hotaruko sees his demeanor as a weak softness fostered by a life of privilege, even after becoming a cleaner, but also because he has no drive to become stronger and relies too much on his friends, reinforcing the belief that she can't rely on anyone and must do everything by herself, which is what happens.

Overall, this arc is setting the conflicts between the characts very well, but we're still at the start, so let's see what else they have in mind for this cast.

Damn, Makoto x Hotaruko ship sank the same episode it sailed. I think it's very still possible to salvage it though. Seems like they're laying the groundworks for Tactics members' character developments. I hope Raito won't get it though. It will be more fun if one of them remains a total jerk till the end.

Ayyy Commandramon in next episode preview! D-Brigade is one of my favorite Digimon factions, I hope this Commandramon is not a one-off and there's the rest of the group in this show.

Nice episode, lighter than the previous obviously but was interesting seeing Hotaruko's family.

Yeaaaa Hotaruko is terrible.

I think they had a rough idea of how Tactics would parallel Glowing Dawn but clearly put more thought into the details for some pairing over others. In this case I think their first thought was a poor kid taking on responsibilities they shouldn't need to versus a rich kid that ran away from theirs but that doesn't work because she isn't poor, sure maybe the business isn't doing great but we've seen how actual poor people live in this universe, Tomoro and his brother were slumming it in a neighborhood that was half submerged, Glowing Dawn are living in an abandoned building. Her family has a shop, she went to good school, they are not poor.

Even outside of that this plot doesn't work with how her personality has been set up and developed in the episode itself, her personality needed to be more headstrong for it to work. She's been shown as calm, kind, understanding but a bit of pushover that goes along with shit she doesn't agree with because of her situation, suddenly getting her "eat the rich" switch flipped over Makoto who's been bumming it for awhile feels unnatural.

ESPECIALLY considering she's working for a billionaire. Like where's that distrust and hate when her team is getting orders from Mr. Shady Business from the Five Stars?

Kind of a shame, I felt like she could've been the first to flip and leave Tactics for their clearly morally reprehensible ways but if that happens now it'll kinda feel unearned because she actually is kinda terrible too lol