Sakamoto brings Himiko to the room to try to find out who she is. Unfortunately, she won’t say anything until Sakamoto leaves.
Now that that’s taken care of, let me now introduce to you Shiki Murasaki, former real life BTOOOM! player and a nurse with about 15 years experience. An incident happened at her hospital about six months prior to the current game. The doctor that was involved with the incident was someone that Shiki trusted. So she doctored the evidence to protect him. However, despite doing this for him, he left her high and dry to take the blame, and face a media frenzy.
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A short time afterward, she received the letter (same as the one from The Bloody High School Girl). It’s not said if she picked someone or not. I’m guessing she may have nominated the doctor. Whatever she did with it is moot for this episode. All that is known completely is that both Shiki and the doctor were sent to the island. They even had a relationship while on the island.
However, as soon as they got 6 chips, the doctor turned on her, attacking her with a homing bomb. Obviously, it didn’t kill her, but it did take off her left hand (which would have been where her chip was). With her chip in hand, the doctor was whisked away on a helicopter, mockingly saying that he’ll live for both of them.
So, what is the moral of Shiki’s story to Himiko? Trust no man on the island. Well, that should be simple enough for Himiko…
Except that she now wants to trust Sakamoto. Again, we go back to her wanting to trust him. I already said why she should in the previous page, but we need to take a look at Shiki’s argument. First off, Himiko is young and potentially vulnerable — especially now that her short range weapon of choice, her stun gun, is either gone or out of power. Two, she’s confused by so much that has happened to her. Three, Shiki just doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt like that again so she’s trying to protect her. However, I think Shiki starts to be, at least, okay with Sakamoto after she’s told of their plan.
What they’re going to do is try to get the seven collected chips they would need to get off the island. However, when the helicopter shows up, they would hijack it, forcing the helicopter to take as many people off the island as it can — or at the very least, Sakamoto, Himiko, Taira, and Shiki.
There’s only one problem I see with this plan: they’re planning on using the bombs to take control. I get the feeling that once Tyrannos sees that someone has all the necessary chips, they’re going to deactivate the bombs, making them useless in a plot like this. However, the plan can still work for two reasons: Miyamoto’s knife (which they have in the supplies case) and Shiki’s scythe. I’m sure in using both that they’d be able to take control of the helicopter.
Meanwhile, more games are afoot on the island as a pointless character introduction happens. I say pointless because she had nothing to do with the rest of the episode. We meet Hidemi Kinoshita, a woman who I guess is in her mid-twenties. She is currently armed with Timers and killed her partner in order to keep some Komodo Dragons away from her. And that was pretty much it.
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While the activities are going on at the island, the Game Manager (still without a name) is talking to his boss at Tyrannos Japan about how they’ll make this game into a viable show. Basically, they’re recording the events on the island to make a reality-type program. However, instead of using actual people on the program, they’re going to turn everyone into a 3D model. This would allow them to profit on the footage without actually showing real people get killed.
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I’ve said it many times, especially with episode 3 (Survival) but it still needs to be said: something is seriously wrong with Tyrannos. How they can get away with stuff like this is just mind-boggling. Yeah, I realize this happens “because TV” but it still doesn’t make much sense.
Oh, and as for Taira, he’s alive. His hand is wrapped up and elevated as he rests, trying to recover.
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And it is here that we meet the final new character of the episode. Ladies and gentlemen, the guy with the glasses from the opening, Dr. Masahito Date: former real life BTOOOM! winner.
Surprised? Well, so is he. He has apparently been put back on the island even though he won the game before (using Shiki as the last chip). I’ll start here with the things to look forward to.
First things first, I think Date is back for one of two reasons — besides the obvious “someone nominated him” option, which is boring in my opinion. One, he may have been forced back on the island after it was revealed that he did not kill the seventh person to get his chip. However that argument can be quickly shot down as Tyrannos has camera’s all over the island and would have been able to see her still alive.
Which leaves option two, and the more likely of the two: Date was brought back with the other game’s previous winner to test out the balancing. Remember last episode? The Game Manager said that the balancing in this game was better than it ever was. It’s possible that Date was brought back to test it out.
Second, if Date was a winner and there were only two games played before this, then why do Iida and the Game Manager have chips on their hands? Obviously, it’s not from winning a previous game. What’s the deal?
Third, how will Taira react to seeing Sakamoto when he returns? Obviously, he was upset when Sakamoto left him bleeding out last episode, but I’m not sure what his condition will be. I get the feeling that he’s going to convince Sakamoto to let Date stay with them, since Date helped him recover, which could lead to a whole new can of worms opening.
Fourth, just when will Himiko open up to Sakamoto? It appeared that she wants to but, with the warning from Shiki, it’s possible that she won’t say anything until she knows Sakamoto’s motives for sure. We can all sit back and say that Sakamoto won’t be like Date (because we know he isn’t at all like him) but she doesn’t know that for sure. Either that or she is saving it for if he decides to turn on her to reveal it.
Fifth, what kind of role will Shiki play in the future? She stayed at her room instead of going with Sakamoto and Himiko but you’d have to imagine that she’ll return. They’re on an island with a limited number of people. She’s gonna show up again.
Finally, from what was seen on the teaser, all the major players — that are still alive — will be returning. Date will be introduced to Sakamoto, Kira will escape his entanglement (Best in the World), Kinoshita will make an appearance, and the sunglasses guy from episode 3 (Survival) will race Sakamoto for what appears to be supplies. All I know is that it’s shaping up to be an action-packed episode.
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BTOOOM! is developed by Madhouse, published by Showgate, and licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks. You can catch new episodes every Thursday night on the simulcast on Crunchyroll.
