Btooom!

I watch a lot of anime, when I mean a lot I can proudly say I have covered about 50 different series at the least. This one ranks up there, with the suspense, difficulty and tactical awareness of the game, and the whole bringing out the crazy in normal people plot. A must watch. I rate this on similar lines as death note, dead man wonderland, Mirai Nikki, high school of the dead just to name a few.

If you are into anime series that constantly keep you at the edge and do have a sense of realism and plausibility all through the story or 'world' that has been created, then this is for you. If in turn you like more fantasy heroic idol worshiping anime's as bleach and naruto or one piece, then you should look else where because this is some serious stuff.

Btooom! Is a series that is so good to the point that we need another season. While certainly, the romantic ending is quite a fine piece to be experienced. It is just far from enough, as it leaves too many questions that have been left unanswered. But it is still a good series that takes pride in its good writing. In a sense, you have to see for yourself just how good this series appears to be.

I am waiting for the next season and I like the story so much.....

Plot

A young man gets transported into a video game he plays called Btooom. A plot is uncovered involving an organization that aims to conquer the world by dominating the virtual world.

Cast

Unfamiliar with anybody involved.

Verdict

I've never read the original Btooom! Manga so I have no basis for comparison, I took it for what it was and it is a very mixed bag.

It starts strong on account of the premise being fairly interesting, being a gamer I doubly appreciated it and I was engrossed however it's quite goes from decent to average faster than you can say Call of Duty is overrated and though I was interested in the direction it was going I found myself thankful it was only 12 episodes.

The anime is dark, there's no goofy voices, over the top expressions or standard anime tropes here which I appreciated as I despise that stuff. It was gritty and hard hitting, but something was missing.

Then there's the perviness of it all, there are a couple of very eye brow raising scenes. You know the ones, the stuff you'd never see in anything American yet seems the standard in Japan, perverse and creepy for the sake of it, even the hero who we're supposed to be rooting for gets in on this action.

And then the biggest flaw? Yep that's right, the show gone cancelled on a cliffhanger so Btooom! Is an unfinished story rendering it a quite pointless watch.

Could have been a memorable enough anime, the ignorance and selfishness of the creators doomed it to mediocrity.

Rants

As an avid gamer since the mid 80's I appreciate stuff like this, especially when it's clearly made by gamers (Unlike most Hollywood efforts). The trouble is gaming has changed so much over the years, the primary change being the online element. I miss couch coop! Modern online gaming is offensively toxic to the point I find it best to mute everyone the moment I go into a new game. Whether it be League of Legends, Call of Duty, the worst community of all time Town of Salem or Among Us which wow just use the Pride banner in there and see how that plays out! You think people are vile behind their keyboards on social media? They're worse behind a controller.

The Good

Solid premise Surprisingly decent characters

The Bad

Inconsistent quality Ends on a cliffhanger Some senseless perverseness.

The animation was quite good, and the anime mostly followed the original manga story, sadly only for the middle of the 1st arc, which is the best of the story for me.

The only minus point would be the censorship of some of the original scenes, and the fact that the anime end early, so if you want to see what happen after,you need to read the manga.

Ihmo, it's a nice anime/manga for the survival fans, even if others like Darwin games are even better.