Btooom!

Main characters

• Sakamoto Ryōta (坂本 竜太)
• A hikikomori forced to play the game after his mother consented.
• (ヒミコ) / Emiria (エミリア)
• Himiko is a high school girl whom is also Btooom! player and was Ryōta's in-game wife, though they did not notice this at first; her real name is Emilia and she is the biological daughter of Lord Longer Schwart, the main antagonist of the series and leader of the Schwart Foundation.

Opponents

• Kira Kōsuke (吉良 康介)
• One of the Btooom! players believed to be three-star, he was with his father and attorney on the game, until he killed his own father: as a yangire, he was arrested for rape and multiple murder; however, he was sentenced lightly.
• Nobutaka Oda (織田 信隆)
• One of the most dangerous Btooom! players, he was once Ryota's friend back in high school, until a recent incident caused them to be expelled.
• Ken'ya Uesugi (上杉 謙也)
• One of the Btooom! players.
• Kaguya (輝夜)
• One of the Btooom! players.
• Miyamoto Masashi (宮本 雅志)
• A Btooom! player and war veteran, he dislikes using his BIM, preferring to use his knife; died after being exploded using Natsume's BIM and exposed to a corrosive BIM.
• Date Masahito (伊達 雅仁)
• A doctor who worked at the same hospital as Shiki Murasaki, he'd blamed her for his failure and played her feelings while on the island.
• Kiyoshi Taira (平 清)
• One of the Btooom! players who speaks in the Kansai dialect and an old man whom had initially aligned himself with Ryota.
• Kinoshita Hidemi (木下 秀美)
• A selfish and frivolous Btooom! player who joins forces with Nobutaka until he abandons her.
• Imagawa Yoshiaki (今川 義昭)
• A Btooom! player who was killed by Ryōta after trying to chase and corner him.
• Natsume Sōichi (夏目 壮一)
• Kōsuke's lawyer with a large forehead and a fair amount of wrinkles, suffering from drug addiction; died when Sakamoto threw a BIM on him.
• Kira Yoshihisa (吉良 義久)
• The father of Kōsuke Kira whom he'd abused, only to be killed by his son.
• Akechi Mitsuo (明智 光男)
• One of the Btooom! players whom tried to rape Himiko, which made her kill him.

Other characters

• Murasaki Shiki (村崎 志紀)
• A player from the previous round of Btooom!, a year and a half prior to the start of the series and a former associate of Masahito; she'd lost her arm and lived off the island.
• Kondō Isamu (近藤 勇)
• One of the Btooom! players who constantly spoke his mind and argued with Masashi Miyamoto; killed by him through a slit throat.
• Hōjō Misako (北条 美沙子)
• A Btooom! player killed by Nobutaka Oda.
• Iida Tsuneaki (飯田 恒明)
• A former senpai of Ryōta's who works in Tyrannos Japan.
• Sakamoto Yukie (坂本 幸恵)
• Ryōta's mother, committed suicide after she sold her own son out of depression due to her own son's NEET habits and her partner's company going bankrupt.
• Sakamoto Hisanobu (坂本 久信)
• Ryōta's stepfather, learnt his partner sold her own son and committed suicide, just to give him money.
• (吉岡)
• A young man Himiko knew and trusted, he was part of a band and convinced Himiko to introduce her friends to them, before raping them.
• (ミホ)
• Formerly the best friend of Himiko, she'd betrayed her for money and was raped by the group.
• (アリサ)
• Another former friend of Himiko, also betrayed her for money and abandoned them.
• (ユキ)
• Yet another former friend of Himiko who betrayed her for money and abandoned them.
• Mashū Perushie (マシュー・ペルシエ)
• A government agent who helps Ryota to expose the dark secret behind Tyrannos Japan's Btooom! "beta test", then led an operation to rescue him along with other remaining Btooom! survivors on behalf of Iida and Hisanobu.

Manga

Junya Inoue began publishing Btooom! in Shinchosha's weekly magazine Comic Bunch in 2009. Comic Bunch ceased publication on August 27, 2010, but returned on January 21, 2011, as a monthly magazine.[1][2] It was announced in the May 2014 issue of Comic Bunch, released on March 20, that the manga would enter its final arc in the June issue, released on April 21, 2014.[3] Inoue revealed on Twitter that the series will end with the release of its 26th volume,[4] publishing its final chapter in the May issue of Bunch in March 2018.[5] In an unusual twist, the author made two unique endings, providing "the dark" and "the light" versions of the ending, so that the readers are able to choose what protagonist Ryota Sakamoto will do at a pivotal point in the manga's story.[6]

The series is published in tankōbon form by Shinchosha, and has been licensed for release in North America by Yen Press, who released it between February 2013 and August 2018.[7]

With the Btooom! manga ending in March 2018, a manga spin-off/sequel called ''Btooom! U-18 was announced in February 2018 to begin publication that April.[6] The new series was written by Hiroki Ito, who is known for Ouroboros and Impossibility Defense (Funouhan''). The new manga is a sequel to the main story and launched in the same magazine issue that featured the original manga's light ending.[8][6] The spin-off ended serialization in December 2022[9] and was collected into six volumes.

Volume list

The series has been collected into twenty-six tankōbon volumes as of August 2018.[10] All twenty-six volumes have been published in English, with the final volume published in April 2020.[11] The final chapter was released on March 20, 2018, and the final volume was released on August 9, 2018.[4]

Btooom! U-18

Anime

In June 2012, it was announced that the manga will be adapted into an anime television series by Madhouse, director Kotono Watanabe, and scriptwriter Yōsuke Kuroda.[72][6] The 12-episode series premiered in Japan on Tokyo MX from October 4 to December 20, 2012, and was streamed with English subtitles by Crunchyroll in North America, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and South Africa.[73] The anime has been licensed for a 2013 home video release by Sentai Filmworks in North America.[74] The opening theme song is "No pain, No game" by Nano and the closing theme song is "Aozora" (アオゾラ) by May'n. The anime covers the first 50 chapters of the manga (up to Volume 9).

At the beginning of November 2019, the company Televisa through BitMe announced the premiere of 3 new series to its program bar, Among those series was Btooom, the same series was released on November 28, 2019, being dubbed 12 episodes in Latin Spanish and distributed by its video game channel and anime bitme by a large part of South America.

Game

In late February 2017, the BTOOOM! game produced by Masato Hayashi was launched and immediately shot to the top of the charts for free game apps. Despite early success, the game stayed in Japan's top five only for several weeks, and by April 2017 Goboiano reported that the app had "fallen below the top 50".[75] The game was last updated in July 2017 and never received an English port for Android and iOS/iPhone.[6]

Also called Btooom Online, originally developed in 2016, it was a battle royale game, predating PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. The original BTOOOM! manga itself also features a fictional battle royale video game. The manga was in turn inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale.[76]