5 Changes I Hope the New Digimon Anime Brings to the Table, Ranked

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More information about Beatbreak will likely be revealed as we approach its October release window, but we already have some ideas about what direction the new anime should take. There are some pitfalls we want Beatbreak to avoid, while also continuing some of the stronger aspects of the series. Even though we enjoy recent entries like Ghost Game and the Kizuna films, we want the franchise to move forward and take more risks. The franchise continues to have a dedicated fan base, and we hope Beatbreak can be a modern Digimon anime to bring in a wider audience.

5) Don’t Focus Too Much On Only the Lead Protagonist

Digimon has always been more of an ensemble series than a one-man show. Even though Tai was the clear lead of the original Digimon Adventure anime from 1999, the classic series also gave plenty of focus on the remaining children, detailing every main character’s complicated personal life and whatnot. Digimon Tamers had, at points, given equal focus to the three leads throughout its run.

The Digimon anime always falters when it puts too much attention on one character. One of the biggest criticisms of the 2020 remake of Digimon Adventure was that it focused too much on Tai over the other DigiDestined. So far, only one tamer has been revealed for Beatbreak, which concerns us that the new series will not be an ensemble piece. Hopefully, more of the cast will be revealed as we close in on its release window.

4) Bring Back the Eldritch Horror from Digimon Tamers

The Digimon franchise is typically bright and action-packed, but the series would occasionally dabble with horror. While Digimon Adventure 02 and Kizuna had plenty of atmospheric dread, Ghost Game leaned heavily on a lighthearted horror aesthetic aimed at children. However, Digimon Tamers put the most emphasis on eldritch terror with its villain, D-Reaper, a living virus that begins infecting the real world.

D-Reaper’s appearance and minions are made up of long tentacles, making it appear like a Lovecraftian monster. D-Reaper is also a much more abstract villain, acting like a force of nature or an entity beyond human understanding. Most other villains in Digimon are cartoon caricatures, rarely displaying much depth. We still love our Myotismon and Lucemon, but we would appreciate it if Beatbreak returns to the more abstract and eldritch evil that made Digimon Tamers amazing.

3) Make It Less Episodic

Digimon Ghost Game, the latest anime in the series, suffered significantly from the lack of an overarching narrative to tie everything together. Although there were some plot points, such as the lead protagonist searching for his father, that carried across the show, Ghost Game was primarily a monster-of-the-week anime.

Episodic narratives can be fun, but without a narrative throughline to carry the series, the lack of any story progression within Ghost Game hurt it more than it helped. It becomes repetitive having the protagonists face a new enemy Digimon every week without any narrative progression. We hope Beatbreak will have a more defined plotline that carries the series forward throughout its runtime.

2) Keep It Grounded

Digimon has always been that one magical property that blends the extraordinary with the ordinary. The very first Digimon Adventure short film, directed by future Oscar-nominated Mamoru Hosoda, establishes the franchise’s tone henceforth, cementing the idea of presenting the fantastical elements of Digimon within the real world. Whereas the Digital World was always surreal and abstract, the human world was always conveyed as normally as possible. That made the parts where the Digital World crossed over into the real world stand out more, making the Digimon appear larger than life and adding genuine stakes.

Most Digimon shows have done a solid job of keeping the grounded realism that Hosoda first established. Nonetheless, there have been certain titles that lean closer to a more over-the-top reality. Digimon Data Squad notoriously featured a real-life world that is just as exaggerated as the Digital World. The franchise remains at its best when it sticks with the ethos first displayed by Hosoda in the very first movie. Beatbreak should be closer to something like Digimon Adventure than Data Squad.

1) No Gimmick Evolutions

As the franchise continued, there has been more pressure to change the standard Digimon formula. The original Digimon Adventure featured the lead children each having their own Rookie-level Digimon, which was essentially their default base form. From there, their Digimon can evolve up to two or three times, with the most powerful form being a Mega-Level Digimon. Right away, the franchise attempted to challenge the formula by introducing armor evolutions and fusions in Adventure 02.

Digimon Frontier, the fourth entry, did the most radical change in formula by having the children actually transform into the Digimon. Even though Frontier has its fans, the idea of changing the formula that drastically never felt right with us. The series always works best when it keeps its evolutions simple or adds minor gimmicks. The Burst form in Data Squad was nice, a one-off inclusion that helped keep Digi-Evolutions fresh without changing the formula too much. Contrastingly, the newer fusion mechanic in Digimon Fusions did not work at all. Titles like Digimon Tamers and Digimon Ghost Game understood that staying close to the classic formula worked best, and we hope Beatbreak doesn’t feature any absurd gimmick to stand out.