Ryota Sakamoto is one of the best players of the online game 'Btooom!' which involves players fighting with small bombs to achieve their objective. Then one day Ryota wakes to find himself on a remote Pacific island with a satchel containing eight of the bombs from the game... he is now playing for real! Over the course of the opening episodes he has to fight some other players and ends up teamed with Hamiko, a girl who unbeknownst to him had played the game alongside him on line and Kiyoshi Taira, an older man who also played the game. During this time we learn that there are a variety of different bomb types and players can only use other people's bombs if that person is dead, everybody also has a chip implanted in their left hand that works as a radar to spot other players and if a player collects eight such chips they will be taken off the island... which of course gives everybody a motive to kill and a reason not to trust anybody.
This may seem like just another fighting-anime but it is much more than that; there is a good amount of action and the tension is always high but this is more about how the characters behave and how the game makes trust difficult. Ryoka and Hamiko make good protagonists; they are obviously skilled at the game but they aren't that much better than other players so it frequently looks as if they could be hurt. The premise itself isn't that different to 'Battle Royale' but the execution is different and the fact that players need eight chips to get off the island rather than needing everybody else to die means it is more believable that they would form teams... even if those teams are fragile. The fact that they are fighting with a variety of bombs is original and when they detonate it is well animated. There is a small amount of fan-service but it isn't excessive enough to be off putting.
The series is only twelve episodes long but the final episode clearly leaves things open for a second season... and I'm sure most people who watched this will be hoping for more; I know I do.
These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles. At the time I write this the series can be watched legally on Crunchyroll.
This may seem like just another fighting-anime but it is much more than that; there is a good amount of action and the tension is always high but this is more about how the characters behave and how the game makes trust difficult. Ryoka and Hamiko make good protagonists; they are obviously skilled at the game but they aren't that much better than other players so it frequently looks as if they could be hurt. The premise itself isn't that different to 'Battle Royale' but the execution is different and the fact that players need eight chips to get off the island rather than needing everybody else to die means it is more believable that they would form teams... even if those teams are fragile. The fact that they are fighting with a variety of bombs is original and when they detonate it is well animated. There is a small amount of fan-service but it isn't excessive enough to be off putting.
The series is only twelve episodes long but the final episode clearly leaves things open for a second season... and I'm sure most people who watched this will be hoping for more; I know I do.
These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles. At the time I write this the series can be watched legally on Crunchyroll.