Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
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Book Reviews of Battle Royale
Book Review: All I can say is ..."wow!"....
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this novel because I wanted to see the movie. The movie is unavailable in the United States (not banned, as we are led to believe) and I wanted to see what the controversy was all about.
We all know the premise of the story, so I won't go over it here. I will say that I could not put this book down. It almost immediately dives into the action and almost never lets up. It is bloody, brutal, and merciless as it hacks away one 9th grader after another. This is where the American controversy lies: Do we really want to see kids this young butchering each other? College kids, yes. Older teenagers, sure. But Junior High kids? The first school shooting after the movie is released in America, and the lucky production company will have a lawsuit on their hands faster than you can say Columbine.
After I read the book, I did make it a point to obtain a copy of the movie. You can spend about 30$ on a region 0, NTSC format DVD, that will play on most standard US DVD players. It was awsome but the backstory varied greatly from the novel.
In reference to a review where the dialogue between students is characterized as elementary, the thoughts and actions of 15 year olds in a sheltered society should be elementary. Up until they were forced to fight and die, the most important thing in their world was probably who had a crush on who. It's part of their youthful innocence or immature view of the world.
And maybe the ending was a bit predictable, I mean you know who the main characters are from Chapter 1. But the book is so good, that in my mind, I'm thinking "who cares?"! Nothing is perfect, and opinions are like (you know whats) - everybody has one.
Just get the book. Chances are if you were interested enough to look up Battle Royale on Amazon, you will probably love it.
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: 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.
Book Review: Multi-leveled socio-political powerhouse
Summary: 5 Stars
"Battle Royale" is a gripping, intense socio-political novel in the tradition of "Brave New World" and "1984." When first hearing the subject matter, a government-sponsored game where a Jr. High School class must kill each other until only one remains, it seems sensationalistic and more action-thriller than thought-provoker. However, there is far more hear than ultra-violence and simplistic teenage slaughter.First, the writing is brilliant, combing the subtlety of classical Japanese literature with the aggression and confrontation of European/American political literature. Each of the 40 students are individuals, with unique motivations and personalities. There are no throw-away scenes or off-screen deaths, and each student's demise is made to feel intimate and important. Each life matters.
Second, the issues dealt with are legion, from the conformity of Japanese schools to the insane bureaucracy and immobility of the Japanese political system. Along with this are more personal issues of loyalty, pain and loss. "Battle Royale" is a thick book, with a lot packed inside. I would imagine that those more fluent in modern Japanese politics and social issues would grasp some of the subtler messages, but there is still something here for everyone.
A minor complaint is that the students act nothing like Jr. High School students, especially not Japanese ones. Maybe this is how they would like to be, but there are a few too many "super-heroes" amongst them, a a few too few crybabies. However, as this is an alternate-reality setting, perhaps in the "Battle Royale" world kids grow up a little faster.