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 episodes lack an ending. More often than not a minor cliffhanger is placed at the very end before the ending song (with no after credits whatsoever). The very next episode usually has a summary at the beginning of what transpired between the end of last episode and the beginning of the next. This is absolutely considered as one of the worst offenders against Show, Don't Tell. Because the characters tell us everything, often over the course of 5 to 10 minutes. Most of the time, they could just skip the section and have us watch what happened, but that covers the next problem this Anime has.
Betterman loves to TRY to explain everything. Extra emphasis of try, as most of the time they just spout random nonsense trying to make sense of it. And I leave the fantasy word names of abilities aside here, as most of them could come out of a Harry Potter Book. One of the weirdest moments came at end of the first season when out of nowhere this statement was made: "Plants can read minds of humans like a polygraph."
A bit of minor context: The first season big bad utilized plant pheromone to control an insect army. After stopping of machinery behind the plant that statement was made out of nowhere. There was no further reason to elaborate this, except to sound smart. This feature is prominent throughout the whole series. Really simply things are explained often in such a convoluted manner that the viewer can hardly follow them. Controversially the cast often make the right assumptions out of nowhere, often accompanied with attempts of scientifically explaining them, especially when they are in dire situations. It artificially extends the scene and diminishes the tension severely as all of the battles in the series are won by brawn and not by brain.
The brawn aspect has such a prevalent presence in this anime, that I mostly call this Anime Betterman Ex Machina, as in every single occasion the assumed main-cast fails, Betterman (the character) comes to the rescue and the day is saved, most of the times if not, even he gets saved by another person and the enemy flees.
<The next few sections will contain character and story details and thus possible spoilers.>
While I mention the main-cast: One day, Keita stumbles through an unopened theme park where he's assaulted by the park robots. And because a mass murdering has happened the night before an specialized robot enforcement team tries to find out why and by whom. As one of the pilots has died Keita fills the unoccupied seat and literally falls into the story of this Anime.
Everything about this feels contrived. First of all the robots, have to, for some reason, be controlled by two persons at the same time, one for the bottom and one for the top half. It is never really explained of why and is just so weird. Especially when they start to shout at the bot for voice commands, which must be the single most dumbest idea in the whole anime, but I digress. Aside the voice commands, the bot also features a mind-reading particle converting ability which basically can do everything and more. Melt robots? Yes. Create an ice-storm? Of course. Electrify the water? Surely. The robots itself are such a big Deus Ex Machina device that more isn't really needed.
Ironically the story proves us wrong at every single instance, because Betterman has to show up. He is the namesake after all. Betterman basically are an old lifeform which can transform with the help of certain flowers which grow on freshly departed people. Those transformation cover a small range, from dragon to manta ray and rhinoceros. If one doesn't do the job, he is most likely to switch to another one until he succeeds. The strangest about his character is that he almost has none. Despite the fact that he is somehow connected to the secondary protagonist. But that is also never explained. His sole motivation lies in the protection of his "hope", which encompasses the two main characters, but those didn't do anything at the end, except getting smacked into a wall.
<End of spoilers>
The secondary cast is similar to the main cast. Most of them seem to be involved in the plot, somehow, but don't contribute anything meaningful to it, besides commentary and stalling time.
Especially with some members having, lack of a better term, superpowers, which mostly range in premonition and dowsing (way finding), the prominence of topics this anime tries to handle is far beyond their capabilities. Super Powers, Mecha, Science, Drama, Mystery, Horror, Action, Adventure, School Life. And I probably have forgotten some of them. Not to mention the psychological aspects many of the cast go through. "Verbally abusing their child" and "living with ADHD" are touched upon, but never really addressed.
In many regards, especially with the wide arrange of topics, themes and especially the time this was made: There are many overlaps between Betterman and Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose Anime aired 4 years before the former. At first glance they may seem similar but the difference become apparent fast, as Betterman simply lacks the vision, direction and the nuances NGE had.
Betterman is a weird anime with so many technical terms, fantasy words and explanation that you quickly forget that there is something of an underlying plot in all of this. It mostly covers the hubris of humans in their search for immortality. But everything falls flat in this mess of genres and Deus Ex Machinas. It is an interesting premise dumbed down by its attempts to sound smart without knowing what it wants to do with the words except stringing them together.