Battle Royale
by Koushun Takami
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Book Reviews of Battle Royale
Book Review: "...And we wont stop till we win."
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is awsome. I will not bother with a summary, there are plenty on this page, however this book blew my mind.I picked up this book in the back of a Borders book store and read the cover which said that Battle Royal was a "Lord of the Flies for the 21 century". Having just completed Lord of the flies for the 4th time ... this time for my tenth grade humanities class ... I decided to buy it.
I have heard from a lot of people, including my teacher, that Lord of the Flies was a chilling psychological tale, yet I felt that even though it was a great allusion to the world situation at the time, the Lord of the Flies did little in the respects of exploring the individual psyche.... Battle Royal does just that.
One of the reasons for the book being so long (616 pages) is that it splits itself into many different perspectives and what is going through their heads during the "game", the most prominant beng that of the antagonist, Shuya Nanahara. Battle Royal brilliantly sums up the basic human steriotypes and their perspectives on life. Even though some situations may be a little unbelievable (like how Kazuo ends up the way he is) Battle Royal is a great concept and presented (even through it was translated) beautifly.
One of the best things about this book is the way nothing is held back, nothing is censored. Battle Royal is not for the faint of heart, or the altruistic, because if you have that attitude twords life you woudn't last an hour on that island in "The Program" and would also find it hard to believe some of the choices made in the novel. If you can stand a little discriptive gore and know that the real world isn't all fun and fair, then this is a must read.
Being a 16 year old myself, i can say that nothing in Battle Royal is beyond each and every one of us.
Book Review: Excellent Character Study for Strong Stomachs
Summary: 5 Stars
(Please read Full review for clarity of what I am about to say)
This is a Horrible book!
By horrible I mean that it is an Excellent book, well paced, extrememly well written and includes characters (Not JUST the leads) that you actually Care about...
...which is where the true Horror comes in.
Some out there might have seen the movie, detailing what happens when an oppressive government (think of life under Pol Pot, Kim Jong III or Hillary Clinton) forces jr, high school students to kill each other in a fight to the death. Now, the movie version was slightly edited down - it would have to be, to fit into the time frame of a film - and really only examined the motivations of the Main characters for the most part. Not so with this book.
Most of the characters are given their own (sometimes small) moments in the sun - the author really gets into their heads and hearts for the most part and makes the reader care - sometimes deeply - about them.
Which is a shame as most die horribly.
There are one or two subplots, one character in particular devises an elaborate plot to retaliate - but ... well, i don't want to ruin things, but the author shows that intellect, friendship, young love, kindness, innocence - even madness - mean nothing in this bleak horrible game.
It is very effective and thought provoking, but heart wrenching. There is also a different ending than what is seen in the movie, and one or two places that are hard to follow due to "loss in translation from Japanese to English" but these are minor concerns.
An excellent read and a strong book, but it is very very explicit and sad.
Five stars plus!
Book Review: Fun and insightful
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been eager to read this book for a while since I own both Battle Royale movies and I read the manga years ago. This book is as troubling as it is insightful-- troubling because it shows you the truth depth of human desperation and troubling because it makes the reader enjoy it. This book isn't full of thesaurus words or flowery, flowing descriptions. It's simple and to the point, and every effective. The book shows us how people, normal people, can descend into madness. How many of us would be able to kill someone? I'm sure many people would say, "not I," yet how do we know until we're put in that position? Each character in the book experiences their own personal reaction to fear, violence and the threat of death, which could come at any moment. How each handles this situation is where the insight comes in. We come to see that fear is more complex than the word describes. Some justify killing with logic, however poor, some do it out of instinct, and some do it to protect others. This isn't a book to pass over lightly because of its subject. I know that the thought of middle school students killing each other off on an island is sour, but Battle Royale is an excellent book about human nature and how humans exist in a world out of their control. There is hope, though! The main characters Shuya and Noriko fight a force far larger than themselves, which gives a glimmer of hope in the madness. Granted, there is no peaceful resolution at the end. The world as the characters know it does not crumble or end. It stays strong and in control, but the resistance of a few is only a minor shine to the possible resistance of many. Even in a world of chaos and death, there is loyalty and friendship.Book Review: Translation Fail
Summary: 3 Stars
When I rambled on with a synopsis of "The Hunger Games" to my well-read son-in-law, he pulled "Battle Royale" off his bookshelf and told me it sounded like the same plot. This Japanese novel is nearly the same story and proof that great minds think alike. My biggest criticism is that the translator either wasn't a native English speaker or, if he was, then was too literal in his translating. Many times there were awful errors, convoluted sentences, ramblings, asides and random slang expressions that didn't fit. Translation aside, it was a captivating read: 42 junior high school students think they are on a field trip, but are instead gassed and taken to an evacuated island. There they are given assorted weapons and told to kill each other off until there is one survivor. There are alliances, deceptions, strategies, horror and enough action to fill a dozen movies with bloody death scenes. Keeping track of students with similar names such as Yuko, Yuka, Yukie, Yukima, and Yukiko was a challenge, but there is a list of names and a map of the island included. Each chapter ends with a grim accounting: 24 students remaining, 22 students remaining and so on. Here are some of the similarities to "The Hunger Games": players are monitored, death announcements are made regularly, there are an equal number of males and females, the government is evil, bets are made on the outcome and, naturally, there are romances. I favored "The Hunger Games" since it was richer in back story, had better developed characters and I knew who to root for from the beginning. "Battle Royale" gave me many characters to root for and seemed a little more real to life because of that, but I still preferred the Mockingjay series.Book Review: Social Commentary Sprinkled With Automatic Weapons Fire
Summary: 5 Stars
Battle Royale is a novel of significant importance. Been somewhere public and seen kids who shop at HotTopic a little too much. Well there's probably not much of anything wrong with him/her other than he/she is of a different generation.
So with that said the Japanese Gov't. in this future or alternative Japan has devised a plan to rid themselves of this problem, along with helping to control the population problem. Tell your 9th graders their are going on a trip, then stick them on a deserted island arm them and allow natural paranoia to take over. A class of 9th graders is chosen every year to participate in "The Battle Royale," by a random lottery, the kids are taken on a "Study Trip," when in fact they're on their way to the Battle Site. Once there they are given a weapon on their way out. It might be a very useful one like a gun or a grenade, or it could be a rather useless weapon, like a fork or a hand fan. Because of the "Battle Royales," no one trusts one another anyway, so one can imagine what happens. Its one of those viscious circle kind of things.
An action packed novel full of social comentary, involving generational gaps in society. Though it moves a bit too fast in the beginning to allow any kind of character following, but that all changes once the ranks get thinned a bit. A novel about the generation gap, don't understand your children? Then allow your gov't. to stick them on an island to kill one another. And while your at it instill a national trait of paranoia and dis-trust of everyone, making it near impossible to form a revolution. Limit their freedom of thought. And you've got the most controlable group of people on the planet.