Introduction
Keita Aono is an ordinary high school student who loves to chat with his friends about military technology and the girls in their class. One day, Keita is surprised and delighted by a new transfer student in his class, his childhood friend Hinoki Sai. But when Keita tries to catch up with Hinoki after school, he accidentally wanders into Bottom World—an underground amusement park whose opening was canceled due to an unexplained tragedy.
As Keita explores the area, he eventually finds Hinoki in the cockpit of a strange robot. She is here on behalf of Akamatsu Industries, a company contracted with the secretive international organization Mode Warp to investigate strange cases of violence worldwide. After joining Hinoki in the robot, the pair attempt to defend themselves against the various attractions of Bottom World, which have come to life and become violent. However, they are unable to escape until a man with transforming powers—dubbed "Betterman"—joins their struggle. Faced with an enemy he does not understand and a slew of mysterious new technology, Keita joins Akamatsu Industries in a fight against a force they call "Algernon."
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
8 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
BuRizzle
Keita Aono is your average teenager. He’s 17, he likes playing video games, he’s a military nut and he’s just crashed his scooter into an abandoned subway terminal. After regaining his composure, he discovers he’s at Bottom World, a brand new underground amusement park that is set to open that very same day. But something is… strange. The lights are off, the place is seemingly abandoned and something is very very wrong with the animatronics. After being chased down by the park’s mascot, Keita comes face to face with a giant bipedal robot called a Neuronoid. As it turns out, the pilot is his childhood friend Hinoki Sai. Scrambling into the second cockpit to escape the danger outside, the pair find themselves cornered before being saved by a mysterious transforming being that Hinoki seems to…
Read at the sourceRealYRC
This is hands-down one of the strangest, most twisted anime I’ve ever watched—and in a medium like this, with the sheer volume of shows I’ve seen, that’s saying something. But I mean that in the best way possible. This title deserves way more love than it gets. There’s nothing else out there quite like it.
This is a spoiler-free review.
Story
At its core, it follows a couple of teens who join a mysterious organization to pilot clunky, barebones mechs and battle bizarre creatures they know zilch about. Oh, and there’s a macho pretty boy with rainbow hair who turns into a giant monster when he eats fruit. No, I’m not making this up—pretty sure no one was high during production either.
Joking aside, the first thing that hits you is the vibe. It’s this wild mix of lighthearted cartooniness…
Read at the sourceThatAnimeSnobRE
A brainchild of the late 90s, Betterman is a dark sci-fi about a very bleak future engulfed by twisted technology. Like most b-grade anime of that time, the budgets were not the best and the animators were often resorting to simple tricks such as using live action footage instead of bothering to animate something. It’s why the opening looks so weird, combining the actual ocean with generic anime designs. And yes, they are generic despite having weird multi-colored hair like Yugioh characters. It was a trend at the time.
Following the path brought forth by Neon Genesis a few years back, whenever you don’t have the money to show something, go for minimalism and keep things vague or unfocused. The lead monster definitely looks and usually moves around amazingly, but everyone else is very car…
Read at the sourceZanryu1337
It is honestly astounding how self-secure and pretentious one anime can be while simultaneously crash-landing so hard as a flaming hot soup of mumbo jumbo. Betterman tries to juggle so many different topics, genres and minor plot lines that all of them fall out of their hands, creating an inconclusive something of a story with more questions than answers.
Possibly the biggest problem for this Anime was in how inefficiently every minute was used as most of the episodes follow a clearly distinguished pattern. First of all, most of the episodes are mini-arcs as they follow certain events. Some of them are only one episode but some are two or more.
I'll start with the middle section where usually the stuff happens. Action, Drama, et cetera. Now comes the first interesting part. Most of the ep…
Read at the sourcetherex55213
While I will not spoil all the events of the series, I will state the concluding moral of the narrative, including slight reference to some particular events. So, if you want to hear that from the show rather than from here, I'd say end reading here. I have a beef, and I'm going to vent.
Story:
Betterman is a Sci-fi/Horror series set in the Gao-Gai-Gar setting taking place a few years after that series conclusion. From its roots in that franchise it retains the same level of varied and well designed but not well developed characters, heavily detailed but not well researched or internally consistent technobabble, and well engineered but quickly and jarringly switched tones and atmospheres. Where GGG explored physical and technological sci-fi concepts, BM similarly explores biological and t…
Read at the sourceHatul
This is one of the weirdest, most screwed up anime I've ever seen. And in a medium such as this (plus, considering the amount I've seen), that's saying a lot.
But I mean that in the most positive way and I think this title deserves far more attention than it gets. There's simply nothing else I can think of that's quite like it.
This is a spoiler free review.
*Story* 9/10
Down to it, It's about a couple of teenagers who join some secret organization to pilot crude looking mechs and fight against weird creatures they know nothing about, alongside a macho pretty boy with rainbow colored hair who transforms in to a giant monster when he eats fruits...
I'm sure that no drugs were consumed during the making.
Alright, In all seriousness, the first thing you'll notice is that the atmosphere i…
Read at the sourceSeigeengine
Betterman is a show that crosses sci-fi tech, supernatural elements, and at times, straight up magic. I'll be reviewing Betterman with my personal rating system consisting of rating five categories out of 100 points, and then multiplying them out by a weighting factor to get a score between 0, and 100. The categories are Acting/Characters, Plot, Enjoyment, Atmosphere/Theme/Setting, and Visuals/Audio/Effects.
Acting/Characters
The show consists almost entirely of a central cast of characters you'll be seeing a lot of. Most secondary characters that don't become major later in the plot aren't shown in detail. While the characters are not particularly complex, none of them are played up for a single trait. Each has several traits, and are, within reason, believable. The characters are also u…
Read at the sourceankhu
y' know.. this is the best mecha I've ever senn far more better than NGE NGE in my opoinion was pretty booooooring.. but in betterman there was action giong on all the time.. thats why i love this anime.. but there was one thing that reaalyy pissed me off. KEITA AONO that guy is one of the most hated anime characters of mine.. in my opinion he is such a @#$%...but story line is very well made-orirginal plot...
Read at the source