Btooom!

The Booming ROSSMAN

FADE IN:
INT. WELL-LIT, VERY EXPENSIVE MEETING ROOM OF A JAPANESE TV STATION'S MAIN OFFICE

Company President NOBUNAGA is stern as he looks at all his gathered employees.

NOBUNAGA: Seriously? You assholes have nothing for me? The Winter season is about to start shooting, and we have this huge half-hour block still open? What the fuck?! If I get no ideas in the next 5 seconds, you're all fired! And I'll fuck all your wives! 5...... 4...... 3......

Retard Tsukitami, the new intern, tentatively raises his hand like the mongoloid he is.

RETARD TSUKITAMI: Ummm, well, how about this show where these repulsive dickmunchers are all transplanted to this abandoned island, and they're like all forced to kill each other in order to leave... And the main character will be a complete pussy asshole, and everybody will hate him, including everybody watching... Oh, and this thing should have every, what's the word? Every cliche thrown into it so that it'll be super predictable and make people cringe with almost every line spoken and every action performed, and it'll get them to like not care about what's even going on with the story. And, um, I like boobies, so one character is a chick with big boobies and panties. And man-eating giant komodo dragons! And lots of blood and stuff! Lots! And bombs! Make them all fight, like with only bombs! Because, like, I think bombs are coo'. Bang! Bang! KA-BOOM! BATOOOM! Oh! And yeah, we'll call it "Ka-boom" or "Batoom" or something really coo' like that!

Vice President for Programming, MIKIMOTO looks at Retard Tsukitami in disgust.

MIKIMOTO: I detest you. That was the stupidest pitch for anything in forever. It was lame-sounding, it has already been done 50,000 times before (and much better every time), and it talks down to our entire viewing audience. I wish you would die.

NOBUNAGA: Mikimoto, you're fired! I will have sex with your wife at 3PM today!...

MIKIMOTO: But the Board meeting is at 3PM, sir!

NOBUNAGA: Make it 4:30 then! She will bow before me then. Retard Tsukitami, you're in charge of all new programs! Make us number one in all of Japan very much big time!

FADE OUT WHILE EVERYBODY BUT MIKIMOTO DANCES:

And THAT is how I picture the sales pitch for BTOOOM! to have gone. (Yes, I know it was a manga series first, but shut up.)

This show was dumb, had nothing but whiny, psychotic, and annoying characters filling up its cast, and beyond not making a lick of goddamn sense even within the context of its own universe, the plot contrivances were ludicrous, and the weapons (the bombs used by the characters) were so silly and laughable that I could not believe that any series so ri-goddamn-diculous ever got made in the first place. How many wasted man-hours were poured into this thing?... I don't want to think about it.

So BTOOOM! (yes, all caps with three "O"s and an exclamation mark in the official title) is all about this annoying pin-prick of a douchey 20 year-old NEET (A person Not in Education, Employment, or Training... i.e. a loser of the highest caliber) named Ryouta, and how he doesn't want to do anything ever except play the biggest online gaming hit of all time. For you slow ones out there this video game (a fast-paced Halo-type game, but one where players fight each other with nothing but bombs... Bombs) is called BTOOOM!. Ryouta's a dick who verbally abuses his poor parents, never tries to find a job, and because of this is volunteered by his mentally-beat-down mother to be included in a live-action version of his favorite game that's being run by the company that developed the popular MMO shooter bomber because..... I dunno, product testing with digital, non-living avatars is boring? They love murder and mayhem? The writers are baby chimps addicted to pot?

So Ryouta is dumped on this crazy tropical island with a few dozen other repulsive assholes (whose friends or family volunteered them to die in shrapnel-filled explosions hundreds of miles away from home too), and they all have to kill each other in order to collect 8 other players' crystals (that the gaming company surgically inserted into their hands). These hand crystals magically give the players a built-in sonar that makes not a lick of any sense on this planet or in any other multiverse. God this series infuriates me so! It tries to make the setting appear to be modern times, but then it throws in super-stupid-science gadgets like this radar crystal, or the black hole bombs, and they totally take you out of the tale and shake your head with shame and disgust until you hate everything about what you've just seen.

Oh, and each player in the live, deadly version of BTOOOM! is armed with a finite supply of bombs, and the single bomb bag that they carry is filled with a different kind of explosion from every other person. These different kind of bombs include the ones that creates explosions that spit out acid (in a 100-yard-wide cloud of face-melting destruction), and the aforementioned ones that makes a real-life mini-black hole because fuck physics... Fuck this show.

After first finishing up BTOOOM! I had no idea why this show annoyed me so (Lord knows I've watched stupider stories in the past that I've had no major issues with)... But the more I thought about it I figured that it's because the plot has been done a brazillion times before, and done better every time I've previously seen it. Honestly Battle Royale will never be topped in this field of forcing young people to fight to the death in a closed environment. Hunger Games and the GANTZ manga did a decent job themselves, but it's been done now... It's over. Pick a new plot, writers! Other than the idiotic weapon of choice in BTOOOM!, nothing is unique here; nothing new is tried. Friendships are formed between the people you know will be friends, even douchier dickholes are the bad guys, and the inevitable betrayals of supposed comrades erupt like Old Faithful. Ugh...

I also hated every last fucking character in this series; I cannot emphasize this enough. They were all whiny freaks who DESERVED to die on that island if you ask me. On top of that, the reason for a mega-rich gaming company putting all this shit together and causing the deaths of dozens of Japanese citizens (per round of live action BTOOOM!) could never be justified. It's the silliest premise I've ever even heard of before, and I've seen that Batman Pr0n Parody movie! BTOOOM!'s predictable as all fuck, with absolutely nothing that surprised me during its entire run too... Well, okay, there was ONE surprise: the ending was totally open-ended with the hope of a sequel series in the future. So there wasn't even closure with this bowl of shit soup. Goddammit...

There was nothing in this show I could possibly recommend it for. Nothing.

It's been a long time since I found a show as lazy and aggravating as BTOOOM! It's a pathetic attempt at a Running Man or Battle Royale remake (punishing criminals or assholes by making their bloody murders fun for the entertainment of the masses), only the whole main cast truly deserves to die horribly and there's no Arnold or Beat Takeshi in it. Nothing is new in this series, and I wished it was over after only 2 episodes in. Ain't nobody got time for this!

I give it Two Thumbs Down. Go watch something on the Science Channel instead. Fuck.

The DOCTOR (DAVE)

I played a video game once. It featured this busty young lass who ran around in jungles and underground and shot dinosaurs with her big guns. I didn't do too well at it, but like the game company execs in this rather pedantic animated show the Rossman made me sit through, it gave me the idea to make my own live action version of it!

So I drugged and kidnapped a gaggle of large-breasted beauties, dressed them all in skin-tight tank tops, short shorts, and some calf-hugging boots, gave them all several clips of ammo for their dual pistols that I allowed each of them to have, and then let them loose on one of the US Virgin Islands with about 2 dozen genetically reproduced dinosaurs and hundreds of kidnapped drug cartel officers armed to the teeth.

The dinosaurs ate everybody. Even the plant-eating breeds. And it turns out that dinosaur skin is pretty much impervious to small-shelled ammo. Who knew, am I right?

Anyway, it was still entertaining to watch, but it only lasted about 2 hours, 2 and a half hours tops. Then when a couple of hundred locals and tourists got eaten or shot and started to call in the US Coast Guard I ran and set the charges for the 2 nukes I bought off the black market from the ex-Soviet Union. At least I have a copy of the carnage on tape... I should really transfer that to digital — I've worn the heck out of that tape!

My video game recreation was amazing. This TV show was not very strong. I only give it a "C-". My movie based on that hot babe-game always makes me smile though.

KUNI

This was a travesty of modern storytelling. It is nothing but a lazy man's Hunger Games... Which was a PG-13 version of Battle Royale... Which was simply delightful.

There were some bright spots with this atrocious tale of wannabe shocking blood and guts though. Number one, if somebody claims that this is actually a good show you can tell right off the bat that they are either A) mentally handicapped, B) have never seen any anime before, or C) have not really seen Btooom before and are just trying to jump into your conversation that you were not including them in because they are idiots. And number two, at least this show was not another horrible K-on remake or rip-off.

I laughed at every aspect of this series, but the sad part is that it was a heavy drama. I give it two Kuni thumbs down.