Creative Staff
Story: Junya Inoue
Art: Junya Inoue
Translation/Adaptation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
After Ryouta Sakamoto is deposited on an island and forced to kill others with unique bombs called BIMs in order to stay alive as a player in live-action “BTOOOM!”, he and his newfound ally, Kiyoshi Taira, search for a way off the island. En route, he encounters a heavily armed teenage girl, who, suspicious of his motives, unleashes a vicious barrage of BIMs in his direction. Though initially unwilling to engage, Ryouta decides to fight back. But will earning another victory on the island lead to him losing more of his humanity and committing yet another unpardonable sin?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Coming down from the non-stop action of volume 2, we actually get a pretty decent break in this volume. Which is weird because the content and pacing mirrors that of the first book, which I had a lot of issues in how it was played out. This time however, I found the dynamics and story much more palatable, despite a few moments that still managed to repulse me.
Picking up with Ryouta’s encounter with the still nameless female character, we start the book off with the unnecessary and uncomfortable. The woman is always in a high level of agitation and aggressiveness towards Ryouta who is trying his best to communicate with her. Over the course of this exchange, Ryouta deciphers from her actions that some man must’ve attacked her on the island, thus putting her in such a flustered state. We then begin the trend, which continues throughout the book, of weirdly placed pages and panels of the female being sexually assaulted by some grotesque overweight guy who drips of horrible nerd stereotypes. As we’ve discovered with BTOOOM! so far, subtlety and taste are not in the book’s vocabulary. The images we are presented with are wildly voyeuristic as we get to helplessly watch this girl being groped, have her clothes ripped off of her, and watch this gross dude suck and drool all over her breasts. Nudity is in full effect and no detail spared. However, the ways the panels are framed is once again not to present horror to the reader but to titillate. This is the issue with these pages. No need to mention that there is no reason the author just had to have her be an assault victim, but he never once tries to gain our sympathy. If the pages do not repulse you, they likely will arouse you as that is their intention. No thanks BTOOOM!, no thanks. It doesn’t help that in Ryouta’s confrontation, the girl accidentally tases herself and in her unconscious state Ryouta, if only for a brief moment, begins to start sneaking peaks under her skirt. We learned in the last volume that Ryouta is a sociopath, and his moment of clarity is a welcome one because it shows that he does have some level of decency. However, this is only after we get some “nice” shots of her cameltoe and panties. I really do wish this shit would stop.
After that whole nightmare scenario, we spend the rest of the book in a pretty decent place. Ryouta takes the unconscious girl with him and meets back up with Taira-san. The three then work on trust issues and trying to establish a common ground for them to work together and not be fearful; which is a little tough because we know what Ryouta was about to do to the girl previously. While sitting around a fire and eating some of the food from the case the girl had on her, the group is then attacked by a large, and vicious, group of Komodo Dragons. This kicks of a struggle that occupies over half of this volume. It isn’t all high paced action however as this scenario is basically a back drop for multiple situations where betrayal is a very real thing.
Since it isn’t an action set piece, this situation allows for a lot of breathing room that fully occupies the book without ever feeling as if it’s been going on for too long. It basically plays out like a trial by fire for all three of them regarding trust and reliability. This is the kind of character dynamic that the series has been lacking in so far that really warms us up readers to the possibility of actually liking our main cast, another thing that the series has been lacking. I think it actually works pretty well too. There are more intercut panels of the woman’s molestation that keep a continuous edge of unpleasantness to everything but elsewise it’s a pretty good character piece with enough going on to make the book relatively enjoyable. Now I just hope the girl gets a name in the next book because…I mean, really?
In Summary
The series has been slowly but steadily improving over the course of these initial three volumes. Despite previously watching the anime, and being less than impressed, I completely blocked out the show when I began reading the manga. Wanting to take it at face value. That “clean slate” approach has been both a bane and a boon to the manga. I was so split between total hatred and mild entertainment with the first book and it has to really work for my acceptance. The anime for more of a constant ambivalence for me as I couldn’t be really bothered to care one way or another. Since the manga has to work for my approval and is slowly climbing up there, I have relatively high hopes for the series as it progresses. There’s still a lot of kinks in the work overall but as long as it keeps doing what it’s doing well and jettisons the repulsive and moronic bullshit that it has…I think we’ll be looking at something here.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: August 20th, 2013
MSRP: $11.99
