For the longest time, I never even gave this series a second glance, because of the name...which, in retrospect, was probably rather short-sighted of me, considering I've enjoyed anime with names like Durarara!! (or simply "DRRRR!" in the official English translation). But I was recently paging through a RightStuf sale, and saw this series was part of it, so I gave it a look.
BTOOOM! is a game of death story--a genre I have a real fondness for. And so far, it's...yet to truly distinguish itself from the pack. The fact that the only weapons available to the contestants are various kinds of bombs is a little different, and the Last Starfighter-esque plot point of the eponymous online game (possibly) serving as a qualifying test to be shoved into the survival game is kinda interesting, but it hasn't developed enough to truly wow me yet.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Several dozen people have been kidnapped, and taken to an island in the middle of the ocean, outfitted with nothing but a case of eight bombs (of various types), each, and told the only way to escape is to kill seven other people and collect the tracking/radar devices implanted in their hands. The main character, Ryouta Sakamoto, is one of the best Japanese players of BTOOOM!, multiplayer game with the same basic rules--since he was chosen seemingly for that reason, it suggests the other contestants were as well...except that there are a lot of Japanese people in the survival game, and it's established that Ryouta's team only just made it into the top ten worldwide rankings. So...maybe my assumption is a red herring. That's pretty much it, for the setup.
Ryouta himself was one of the hardest sells for this series. Initially, he's portrayed as your typical loser of a main character, so common to contemporary anime/manga: 22, lives with his parents, no job or a desire to find one, etc. He's also a tremendous asshole to his mother, and just comes across as an extremely unlikable person. As this volume progresses, attempts are made to humanize him. We find out he does have goals, but he's clinging to them so single-mindedly, that he's developed tunnel vision regarding any other options--to the point that he may even be getting exploited by certain people without consciously realizing it. It helps, but the first impression Ryouta leaves is a hard one to wash away so quickly.
Bit by bit, we do start to see other nuances to him as well. Exhibit A: He's actually horrified by the killing going on around him, despite his chronic exposure to it through the online game, which is an important distinction to make. He still knows the tactics to survive, but he's rattled at the prospect of having to use them in real life. Exhibit B: at one point, he comes across a female player washing herself off in a river, but rather than focus on the obvious fanservice, Ryouta's attention is instead drawn to the supplies she's left on the riverbank. It's a well-executed moment that gives me hope for the rest of the series.
Overall, BTOOOM! hasn't wowed me yet, but it's showing a bit of promise. I did pick up several volumes during the sale, so we'll see if I warm to it more in the next installment. Right now, it's a very baseline game of death series. Not terrible like, say, Doubt, but certainly not as distinctive as, say, GANTZ.