BTOOOM! Anime review.

"It's just a game, right?"

-Ryota Sakamoto

This anime follows the story of  Ryota Sakamoto, a NEET in his 20's without a job, who is currently ranked in the top ten players for a FPS know as Btooom. However this is not your standard first person shooter, the only weapons in the game are explosives, there are no guns of any type. Ryota has a general dislike towards his parents, and one day passes out while playing Btooom, after a fight with his Mother. He wakes up on an unknown island with a satchel of 8 Time bombs, a strange green gem sewn into his left hand, and a small amount of provisions. After trying to get his barrings straight he runs into a man who instantly tries to kill him and is later on told that the only way to get off the island is to play this real life version of Btooom! and to collect 8 of these green gems, including his own then a helicopter will come. That's the basis of the story.

BTOOOM! was a great series, that I hope will be continued with a second season. However, being as into the survival games type genre as I am, it definitely had its ups and downs for me. Going into this I expected a good story packed with non-stop action, with a bit of side story to back it up. What I got instead was a good story, with some really good action, and a LOT of useless flashbacks. Seriously, there were some episodes that would use nearly the full length, around 22 minutes, for a single flashback scene. I don't hate flashbacks, they're essentially to the story, but this was a 12 episode series, and when you're using a full episode for a flashback of how you became friends with a certain group of people, and why they hate you now, and then those people aren't going to be characters in the story taking place in the present, that's a little excessive. With a story like this, there was absolutely no point to do that, and it didn't contribute to the plot at all. It would have been fine to simply show why those friends hate you now, and that could have turned this 20 minute flashback into a 3 or 4 minute flashback. The only other problem I had with it was that the last episode left off with a cliffhanger. Character development was kind of iffy, but it wasn't horrible. Everything else about the anime adaption I liked a lot.

All in all, BTOOOM! was a decently paced series that was just a little too short. While no continuation has been confirmed, I'm still hopeful that it will get the second season it deserves. Good story, nice artwork, gory and intense action scenes are all a part of the BTOOOM! package. If you're a fan of Survival-games, and haven't seen this series, then I'd say it should be your next priority. I liked the series a lot and think that fans of action and survival you'll find the series enjoyable. If you haven't seen the series already, then I recommend giving it a watch.

-Yumu