So I want to stress before I whine that you should watch Digimon Beatbreak because I'm about to whine about it, but it's only because I love it so goddamn much. These gripes are less me saying "this ruins the meal" and more "this tastes pretty great but I can tell they skimped on the special sauce."
Toei really is the Disney of Japan. When people say that, they usually mean it fondly - both studios put out tons of their childhood favorites and create a wide range of animation - but when I say it here I mean both companies are very good at doing the bare minimum for their biggest properties because they figure they'll print money anyway. We're less than a cour into Beatbreak and you can already see its attempts at sakuga striggling against it's middling animation budget, which is annoying to see in any anime but particularly in a huge legacy properly that is trying to get a foothold with a new generation of viewers. The animation isn't bad by any means, but it's easy to see the moments where with just a little more time and money the fight scenes could have been blowing up social media and getting the seal of approval from the cabal of anitubers and anitokkers that are actually what get people watching anime these days as opposed to... say... making sure all your episodes can be one-and-dones with clickbait concepts to try and mimic Tiktok as if the success of that medium means Gen Alpha never appreciates anything serialized or even just longer than 22 minutes and that no amount of high-quality animation could possibly change that.
Aw, fuck, I spilled my Demon Slayer and Kpop Demon Hunters all over the floor! Would you look at this absolute mess?!
Speaking of messes, to be fair, it could be much worse: We could be back in circa 2014, the area when Toei REALLY wanted to see just how little money they could get away with giving to their big IPs and, dear God, if you ever want to watch something where the most prominent message being presented is is "we think you will support absolutely any slop we throw at you if it's connected to an IP you already love" then basically everything Toei was doing around 2014 is for you. We've got...
Sailor Moon Crystal premiered, and we probably have vocal Sailor Moon fans to thank for Toei not continuing to push the envelope of "how little can we spend to make money off nostalgic fans" longer than they did because they were the first to sound the alarm on the whole prospect. The online-first anime promised to be more faithful to the original manga, which sounds great until you realize it takes time, money, and talent to replicate Takeuchi-sensei's emotionally etherial style and remember what this article is about. Uh... at least they fixed a lot of the bad art for the DVD release? Unfortunately, that didn't save us from the awful anime CGI transformation scenes that were clearly trying to be faithful to the manga but were too busy looking like... most anime CGI. (It's worth noting that's a repeating trend in this list and why my brain connected it to Beatbreak to begin with - none of these creators aren't talented people - some of them even have some fantastic series on their resumes - but no amount of great creators behind the helm of a project can save it from just not having the money to utilize said talent enough anymore than even the greatest baker can save a cake that was only allowed five minutes in the oven.)
Happiness Charge Precure, widely considered to be the worse Pretty Cure series, so bad that not even having the cutest outfits in the franchise could save it, confoundingly directed by the same guy behind what is widely considered the best precure of all time. Rather, it'd be confounding if we didn't already establish this was when Toei had all of their series in a bare minimum support chokehold. There was this aura of insincerity around the whole show
The absolutely worst adaptation of any arc of One Piece: the Dressrosa arc, which really started the dubious trend of modern One Piece episodes covering less than one chapter each, which doesn't work well for a series that is mostly action-packed frenzies at all. You'd think this would lend itself well to heavier, more emotional and politically charged moments at least, but this absolutely cursed pacing was accompanied by awful animation and sound design that took the weight from everything. When every moment is sprinkled with dramatic pauses between sentences to fill time, nothing ends up feeling dramatic at all. Several arcs, hundreds of episodes, followed continuing this trend, with the next big arc, Whole Cake Island, occasionally dropping "specials" that were code for "this episode actually is decently animated" but in general a solid 300 fucking episodes of One Piece can be watched at 1.5 speed to almost feel like a reasonably paced shonen anime.
(There's a reason I tell people they need to READ One Piece, not watch it.)
This problem has persisted the longest of any on this list is still being fixed in bits and pieces; in 2018 the Wano Country arc started and someone beind the scenes mercifully realized that if you're going to pace your action series that slowly, the action actually has to be well animated. Toei started giving its biggest property not only a proper budget, but the extra funds to call in talented animators from around the world for contract work. This decision, combined with Wano generally being more dialoge-heavy to leave a little less padding for time, meant people actually started caring about the anime outside of the most diehard fan spaces again.
As this year ends, One Piece is going on a hiatus until March 2026 with the plan to start releasing episodes on a seasonal schedule equating to roughly a whole two chapters per episode, and I want to tie everyone against this decision to a chair, staple their eyes open, and make them watch motherfucking Dressrosa again.
digimon
And that's just the dumpster fires I'm aware were burning based on the fandoms I'm personally in. I checked a few other Toei properties and based on my limited research, they were mostly either dormant or Dragon Ball, which started a new series called Dragon Ball Super in 2014, and when I threw "Dragon Ball Super Animation" into Google I was met by exactly what I expected for a major Toei property in 2014.
Wowwwww. At least, apparently, they got fixes in the DVD release and it got better as it went like it did for SM Crystal? We really were all on that struggle bus for a while, though, and Toei really did think they could get away with it and anime fans - a famously chill and forgiving bunch - wouldn't scream bloody murder.
Did I need to give you a full history lesson about one of the darkest times in modern anime to make my point that Digimon Beatbreak deserves more money thrown at it? Probably not, but you're reading this on the most bare bones neocities blog in existence so I'd hope you came prepared for a little ADHD hyperfixation meandering. Anyways, my point is if Toei wants Digimon to really take off again, they need to pay up to show they believe in this franchise as much as they want a new generation of anime fans to believe in it, and seeing a creative team clearly pushing up against the mediocre budget provided by a company worth over 300 BILLION YEN is just so goddamn frustrating.
You really should still watch it, though. The writing is really something special, even if the animation isn't.
ANYWAYS...
I have a second Neocities now! I put all the shiny badges I get for watching too much anime on there and am also working on a section for my pile of fanfic prompt checklists I hope to actually complete someday. It's also much, much prettier than this site. Yes, I CAN code, I just sometimes choose not to.
I made a tumblog for yuri manga art edits because I used to post them on Instagram but I got locked out of my account due to a sudden phone number change and I like Tumblr more anyway. I can't stress enough that any edits are based on how good the art is, not the story. Some of the manga I pull from... well they aure are some manga alright.
I made a cute little button that links to the page with my tip jar because oh God, please, my laptop can barely open two programs without having a full blown panic attack. I promise not to annoy you guys about this on every post going forward but if you like what I do and want me to be able to keep doing it, every dollar helps! (It also happens to be the website's comments page and if you can't help financially, a comment so I know I'm not screaming into the void is always good for morale and deeply appreciated.)
