I was watching the Ibara Insanity DVD earlier, and while the action is awesome I have no idea what's going on as far as the little bullet-looking things in the bottom left corner are concered, and why the players purposely die. Can anyone explain what's going on?

I concur, as I've played Ibara many times and I really have no idea what Zane is talking about! Maybe this oversight would lead to me actually enjoying the game?

Those little bullet icons are on the bottom left are the stock of available bombs.

After they suicide the first ship right off the bat, they go into a bomb-dropping spree, and there must be some point advantage to using the bombs or chaining bomb attacks together, so the purposeful suicides give them the extra bomb stock to utilize for that purpose.  (I'm guessing)

After each death you get an extra row of bombs again, so I think the suicides give them twice the bombs to use or something...   Just a guess though, as I had the same thoughts when I first watched the Insansity dvd as well.

Just a side note, That big "hookshot / bazooka" power move which anchors to the top of the screen is pretty cool though.    I haven't played the game yet though unfortunately.

Yeah, the bullets represent bombs, unless you have a big bullet icon, you only get a partial bomb.  In the simplest form, the purpose of suiciding is to: control rank, regain bombs, score more points, and get more extends.  And keep repeating over and over.

Yea, I've heard the dynamic difficulty (rank) is really insane! I can't wait to get this game!

Oh, the suiciding makes it look like you're an amateur, so the CPU doesn't automatically raise the difficulty?  Wow, talk about punishment for trying to do a 1 coin playthough...

It's possible to clear Ibara on 1-credit without suiciding as there's other ways to manipulate rank, but if you want to score well, you have to suicide in order to get more bombs which need to be ignited at opportune times to get more roses which equal more points.  It's just like Battle Garegga, and was even produced by Yagawa, in that the player is supposed to find a perfect balance where essentially everytime you suicide you're replacing it with an extend.  IMO the whole experience it's absolutely sadistic and brutal, but different strokes for different folks.