BTOOOM! Episode 4: Best in the World

WARNING: Due to the graphic nature of BTOOOM!, discretion is advised.

Spoilers Below

Remember last week, when all I had to talk about on this show was one character getting killed, another stepping in his poop and a third standing over a toppled over tree and a decapitated dead guy? Remember how I didn’t have to talk about rape or sexual assault? Seems like so long ago but it was only last week.

Where did it all go?

Let me just say this. I like BTOOOM!, so far. It’s very interesting. But there is some very messed up stuff going on in this show.

Episode 4 doesn’t even build to anything like that. It just comes out right away and says, “Yeah, this is gonna be ****** up.” We get introduced to the kid from the end of the last episode (Survival), Kōsuke Kira, a 14 year old BTOOOM! player who gets abused by his father, commits murder, and practices necrophilia.

Note to the Editors: Please get this writer some psychiatric help when this is over.

So yeah, he killed three women and then proceeded to have sex with the dead bodies. But it’s okay. His dad hired a ~~camera-slut~~ attorney named Sōichi Natsume, a lawyer who specializes in getting his clients little to no jail time. This upsets the detectives, who are pretty sure the kid is going free due to laws regarding minors.

I get the feeling these two nominated all three of them (Kōsuke Kira, his father, and Natsume) and split the ¥100,000 per person reward. Not a bad way to make an easy $2,000 a piece.

Anyway, the three of them end up on the island together. Kōsuke Kira is killing frogs, Natsume is trying to tell him why killing for fun is wrong, and the father is being a prick. During the second day, the supplies are dumped in, with one of them landing near Kōsuke Kira and Natsume. The three find the supplies up in a difficult to climb tree.

The father decides that Kōsuke’s bombs are perfect for the job. So he kicks his son (Father of the Year, he is not) and grabs one of his bombs. After being unable to get the bomb to work, Kōsuke does the job. This is what happens:

As you can see, Kōsuke has what can be called Implosion type bombs (I’ll call them Imploders until an official name is revealed). What happens is that it sucks air on one side to get to the closest thing and then disintegrates everything on all sides. In this case, it left a giant cylindrical shape in the tree, causing it to topple over.

When the father tries to take the supplies for himself, Kōsuke calls him scum. This leads to a rather disturbing picture where the father grabs his son by the balls and begins to squeeze. Having enough, the kid places an Imploder on his dad. The dad tries to take off the shirt it was on but couldn’t get it off in time. The head disintegrates and the body falls.

I don’t know what is worse: this or what Himiko had to go through in episode 2 (The Bloody High School Girl). But I know that it worked in making you feel sympathetic to the character. It probably would have stayed that way, too, if the show decided not to remind you that the younger Kira is a psychopath. He was disturbingly giddy about killing his dad and telling Natsume that it was all self-defense. Having enough of the family, Natsume runs off.