Koushun TakamiRezensionen

Wow, this was bad, really bad. It starts with the reason for this novel’s popularity: It consists of 98% pure violence porn: We get to witness how about 40 15-year-old classmates from junior high school brutally murder each other.

Actually, they’re more like slaughtering each other and through my reception of the text, I had the very unpleasant feeling of watching a violence-obsessed author act out his most revolting fantasies. Takami almost gleefully presents his sadistical ideas with excessive and gratuitous violence.

While I presume the novel is meant to be a commentary on societal pressures and the dehumanising effects of violence, I felt that the graphic descriptions of bloodshed and gore were used purely for shock value and did little to further the plot or develop the characters.

Speaking of which: The next percent is the characters displaying the character depth of a paramecium, a single-celled organism… Takami tries to give each of them a backstory but I struggled to keep track of them all and found that they blended together in my mind. The main characters, Shuya and Noriko, were somewhat more developed, but their “romance” felt forced and unconvincing. I never truly became invested in their story or cared about what happened to them.

I also found the writing style to be uneven and clunky at times. While some passages were well-written and evocative, most were either very simplistically or even awkwardly phrased.

The final 1% is made out of extremely naïve theories, e. g. “A bad person was simply born that way.” And that’s the maximum level of “critical thought” this novel reaches…

Despite not being the worst book I've ever come across, this revolting, violence-glorifying monstrosity still ranks among the top 5.

Zero stars out of five.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Mastodon | Instagram | Pinterest | Medium | Matrix | Tumblr

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam½

Story: 4 / 10
Characters: 2
Setting: 5
Prose: 2

Maybe most translated, young adult books are bad. Anyway, definitely some of the worst writing I've come across. The story does get better as it goes on. Nevertheless, who really wants to read a story with 46 characters?
Absolutely do not read.

Best book I have read in a long time. I couldn’t put it down!

trigger warnings/content warnings: explicit and violent accounts of death/injuries/torture. some rape mentions

Cosa succede quando prendi 42 studenti e li costringi a partecipare a un gioco dove devono uccidersi a vicenda? Tutto dipende dal carattere e dalla storia personale del singolo studente. E questo Takami lo sa bene.

C'è chi non ci sta fin dal principio. C'è chi impazzisce. C'è chi si nasconde. C'è chi non lo accetta. C'è chi si rifiuta. E c'è chi sceglie di giocare. Nessuno dei 42 studenti reagisce in maniera uguale e, grazie al cambio di punto di vista, il lettore può apprezzare la varietà di comportamenti.

Tuttavia, il punto di vista principale, privilegiato rimane quello del protagonista, Shuya, un giovane fondamentalmente buono e dalle idee pericolosamente eversive (ama la musica rock, vietata dalla Repubblica della Grande Asia dell'Est). Le sue vicende si intrecceranno con quelle di Noriko, ragazza delicata e gentile, con la quale si alleerà nel gioco per la sopravvivenza.

E fin da subito apparirà chiaro che si tratta di un "gioco" di morte: ogni assassinio, incidente o suicidio viene narrato con crudezza e senza pietà.

Tutto però rimane sostanzialmente anonimo fino all'entrata in scena di Shogo, uno dei 42 ragazzi, il quale si unirà a Shuya e Noriko. Shogo appare fin da subito alternativo a tutti gli altri 41 ragazzi: è più maturo e più consapevole. Diventerà un'insostituibile guida e un amico vero e prezioso. Nonostante la narrazione non si svolga mai del suo punto di vista, vi innamorerete di lui, della sua forza, della sua integrità, del suo sangue freddo, del suo saper riconoscere le cose importanti nella vita.

"Dovete fare quello che volete. Mettetecela tutta, seguendo la vostra coscienza"

"Combatti solo quando lei è in pericolo. Combatti chiunque, anche un semplice scassinatore o la Repubblica del cazzo della Grande Asia dell'est o un extraterrestre. [...] E' una stupidaggine morire inutilmente."

"Penso che lui non riesca ad avere "speranza nel futuro". E' senza futuro. Esiste una cosa più orribile di questa? Cioè, anche una persona mediocre come me qualche volta pensa che tutte le cose siano insignificanti. Perché faccio colazione quando mi sveglio? Anche se mangio, alla fine finisce tutto in merda comunque e basta. Perché ogni giorno studio, vado a scuola? Anche se per caso dovessi avere successo in futuro, alla fine la vita finisce comunque. Anche se mi vesto bene e divento oggetto d'invidia per la gente e guadagno un sacco di soldi, alla fine non c'è senso. Tutto è insignificante. Certo, questa vita di merda è quella che si può avere in un paese di merda come il nostro. Ma sai, noi abbiamo anche la capacità si sentirci felici e di divertirci, no? Sono piccole cose, ma è abbastanza per colmare questo vuoto. Almeno io la penso così."

Se vi è piaciuto Hunger Games, non potete davvero perdervi questo romanzo. Se Hunger Games vi ha fatto schifo, correte a prendervi Battle Royale e leggete cosa accade quando 42 ragazzi (o forse molti di più) vengono costretti a giocare un gioco senza umanità.

I listened to all 19.5h of this in audiobook form and I look forward to watching the movie and reading the comic very soon.

Did Susan Collins get her idea for the Hunger Games from this book? Some think so.

This was a fun read overall with lots of action and gruesome scenes. Kept me hooked throughout. Although I feel in retrospect I may have not been the intended audience due to some highschool tropes and scenes.

I'm not sure if it's the fault of the translation but Battle Royale is written in such a simplistic style, all telling and not showing, but this makes the book a fast and easy read. Halfway through the book, I started growing bored. The deaths of all the students was getting repetitive, however each student's circumstances and back stories were interesting, and I was kind of surprised that so many of them were motivated by their romantic desires-- but then again, maybe it shouldn't be so surprising after all, considering the age of the characters. The anxiety and hope the characters felt, in relation to their romantic interests, definitely reflected my experiences as a teenager. The main couple Shuya and Noriko were bland choices for main characters; the story would have been more interesting if it had focused on Kiriyama or Mitsuko instead. I was a little disappointed there wasn't more of a confrontation with them.

Holy shit.


I just...............holy shit.



While I learn how to breathe again, I will attempt to talk about what has been consuming my entire life for the last 3 days or so. I picked this book up because I saw a recommendation from someone who said that it was similar to Hunger Games - which I loved. Honestly, they are different in a lot of ways. The main premise of this story is a class of high school students in what is called The Greater Republic of East Asia (I think it was meant to be mostly Japan, but I'm not sure) get thrown into this thing called The Program. This country is clearly dystopian, rock music is banned, people get killed off for speaking out against the gov, etc. This Program was founded in 1947 and each year one class of students is selected at random. Apparently it is supposed to be a sort of social experiment. The selected class is forced onto an island, given weapons at random, and forced to kill each other. The people running this Program are vicious and horrible. They kill two students for simply annoying them before the "game" even really begins. The students all have collars around their necks and are told that if they try to remove them, they will explode and kill them, if they are in a forbidden zone, it will explode, if no one dies within 24 hours, everyone's will explode, if they try to escape, guess what? Their collar will explode.


The novel mostly takes place with 3 main characters, Shuya, Shogo and Noriko, but you get a tiny bit of the perspective of every student at one point or another. It was a little hard to keep everyone straight, I am not familiar with asian names and there were so many of them, and they were all so similar that it took me a little while to get them down. The writing is pretty simplistic and very easy to follow, and it gets violent. The simplistic style helped to bring out the violence in a kinda weird way. The book catches your attention right in the beginning, a lot of people die within the first 100 pages or so and you really get into the story. It stays consistent in keeping your attention throughout the book.

I only had a couple of issues with this. The girls.......well the girls were pathetic. Most of them just spent the novel crying (understandable, I would cry in that situation too) or gripping about their crushes. The boys did that too actually. Most of the kids last thoughts were about the people they had crushes on and how they didn't tell them etc. None of them really thought about their families, or what they would have wanted to do with their lives etc. It just bothered me a little. I mostly got over it, but the girls thing really bothered me. The main girl, Noriko was really pathetic, she was sick most of the time, and all she really did was reload bullets. There was only really one girl actually strong and playing the game (she was nuts, but still).

Other than that, I really liked the novel. I love dystopian, high adrenaline, people thrust into horrifying situations novels and this was just that. The ending!!! I really wasn't expecting it, and it caught me off guard in the best possible way. I was really pleased with how the author brought everything together. THe last line.......brilliant.

Written in the late 1990s, Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline, Japan is a totalitarian state, called the Republic of Greater East Asia. The government chooses a class of fifty junior high school students, who are forced to kill each other another until only one student remains, supposedly for military research. Here, during a school trip, the 21 boys and 21 girls of Shiroiwa Junior High School are gassed, wakening on an evacuated island, wearing explosive metal collars. After explaining the rules, students are randomly issued survival packs (with water, food, and a random weapon) and sent out in two-minute intervals.

This was an action-packed, violent, gory predecessor (by at least a decade) of The Hunger Games. It was refreshing to see both male and female killers, and the author’s exploration of the student’s feelings about themselves and each other was well done. The constant tension between trust and betrayal kept readers constantly wondering what would happen next, and I liked the several twists at the end. I had a hard time keeping track of the student’s Japanese names, wondered why there were a seemingly infinite number of bullets as well as how the students were so proficient using weapons they have never handled, and finally, how three students, with injuries, can overpower a ship’s adult crew in their daring escape.

Loved the movie, and loved the book. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt, though, and say the translation was a bit stilted. I found it tough to read just because the writing/translation doesn't always flow well, and Gollancz seem to have skimped on the proofreading (spaces before full stops, and occasionally a missing word).

Content-wise, though, it's fantastic. More violent and action-packed than [b:The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset|7938275|The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset (The Hunger Games, #1-3)|Suzanne Collins|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1274791992s/7938275.jpg|11349083], and the main character spends less time hiding in cupboards or passed out during crucial moments. That's a win for me right there.

Quick Thoughts
That character shouldn't have survived. Totally unrealistic. I almost lemmed it, but since I'm on 7 of 10 and manga is a quick read anyways, I'll probably just finish it.

Moved to [b:Battle Royale, Vol. 01|57893|Battle Royale, Vol. 01 (Battle Royale, #1)|Koushun Takami|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388901600s/57893.jpg|56398].

Mimura & Sato are the most interesting. i think it manipulative for takama to pull at your heartstrings.

Some notes and impressions (subject to revision as I continue through the series).

Note: I actually read the "Ultimate" edition which contained the first 3 volumes.

Short Answer
Good--if not terribly original--action, seinen manga if you skim the numerous flashbacks.
Note: I'm going to read the novel and see what the differences are.

Originality
The themes and story ideas raised in this book are not terribly original. [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512] dealt with the total loss of civilized behavior among children even younger than the children in this story. Running Man (a 70s? movie) was about a gladiator game show very loosely based on Stephen King's [b:The Running Man|11607|The Running Man|Richard Bachman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333160557s/11607.jpg|3652165].

Art
Professional, detailed and realistic--not artsy. It is action-oriented and doesn't build atmosphere with dramatic two-page landscape shots.

Story
Even though the flashbacks were interesting in the beginning, they become repetitive and by vol. 5, I'm quite tired of hearing about the main MC's idealistic background. They are also so numerous that the pacing is terribly slow.

Takami misses a chance to make the story more interesting when he kills off Mim before he's able to attack the HQ, which happens in a completely unrealistic way (Kiriyama survives a point-blank bomb explosion). It was almost enough to make me lem the series.

The pace of death is regular. unrelenting, and ruthless. Some of my favorite characters get killed right as they triumph.

World:
It is no coincidence that Takami chose the name, Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国), as the name of his fictitious authoritarian country. The name of this country happens to have the same first 4 characters as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亞共榮圏), which was the name given to the geo-political region that fascist Japan aspired to during WWII.

America is viewed from afar as representative of freedom--at least for now. Rock 'n roll from America is banned and American girls are to be envied ("at least American girls must be suffering the boredom of baseball just as we do" [paraphrase] says one of the girls in the cheerleading squad). Perhaps Japan wasn't defeated in WWII and there was some kind of peace accord.

Characterization
The characters are believable and behave consistently.

Suspension of Disbelief:
If I ignore the fact that the writer stated that these characters are 9th graders and instead I believe that they are 17- or 18-year-olds--or even 16--then I'm back on solid ground. And that is acceptable because this story is metaphorical. It might even be allegorical: the idealist, the veteran, the naive, the heartless, the revolutionary, the animal, the blindly faithful, the ruthless, the double suicide. And it sure runs the gamut of its allegorical character types through the wringer.

10 June Update: Finished vol.4.
9 August Update: Finished vol.7.

**mild spoilers **

An enjoyable and bloody satire, doing for Japan what Orwell and Stephen King did for the UK and US.

Takami makes the most of his large supporting cast to offer a multitude of different responses to his premise, and there’s more than enough action, intrigue and incident to justify the page count.

I’d love to give it five stars but a few issues hold it back. The fascination with adolescent romance does come to be a bit cloying, a couple of twists are repeated (I’m sure a bulletproof vest isn’t *that* bulletproof), and the one queer character is a horrible stereotype. The ending’s also a minor disappointment, lacking the boldness the story shows elsewhere.

Still recommended, though. Enjoy the individual stories and characters, and the insights into the perceived dysfunctions of Japanese society.

An ultra-violent, shockingly good read.

In an alternate history Japan (now "the Republic of Greater East Asia"), the government randomly selects 50 third-year junior high classes per year for something called "the Program." Each class is confined to an island and forced to fight until one survivor is left. Each student in the Program is made to wear a tracking collar that not only keeps track of their vital signs and location but is also set to explode if they leave the island. They're each given a little water and food, a map, a compass, and a randomly selected weapon of some sort. The map and compass are handy, because every couple hours one new section of the island becomes a forbidden zone. The tracking collars are set to explode if they're in forbidden zones. They're also set to explode if no one new has died in the past 24 hours, so students can't simply agree to not kill each other. Program survivors are given a pension and are instructed not to tell anyone about their experiences.

Shuya thinks his class is just going on a regular trip. He and the others fall asleep on the bus and wake up to find themselves in an unfamiliar classroom. They all have some general knowledge about the Program, of course, but none of them expected they'd actually end up in it. A man named Sakamochi tells them the rules and kills a few people to underscore that, yes, this is happening and there's nothing any of them can do about it. Then he sends them out one by one: the game has begun.

I've owned this for a while but avoided reading it for a couple reasons. First, it's a brick of a book, and if the writing/translation didn't flow well enough, that could mean months of slogging. Second, I was worried it would be too gory for me.

I can't comment on the accuracy of the translation, but it was certainly very readable - I sped through the book much more quickly than I had expected I would. As for its level of goriness, well, the first few deaths had me worried. Sakamoto seemed to relish shocking the Program participants, and the first few deaths were both casual and horrible. When he mentioned having raped the woman who'd been the caretaker of a couple of the students because she hadn't meekly accepted the news that they were now in the Program, I wondered whether this was going to reach Ryu Murakami levels of nastiness.

Thankfully, either I got used to it all or Takami scaled things back a bit, because most of the later deaths didn't pack the kind of punch those first few did. A warning to those with eye-related phobias, though: there were several eye-related gory moments throughout the book that were detailed enough that I had to skim them. Still, nothing involving intestines, thankfully, and although there were mentions of rape (Sakamoto, plus a male student threatening a female student), there was no on-page rape.

Nearly every chapter ended with a count of the total number of students still alive. The class started with 42 - 21 boys and 21 girls - and rapidly shrunk as the game progressed. Some of the students committed suicide rather than play along. Others found people they could trust and banded together, at least temporarily. Their different approaches, as well as the variations in their weapons (which ranged from proper weapons like guns and knives to "jokes" like a fork or a set of darts complete with a dart board), made it tough to tell how things might go. Just on the basis of who had the greatest amount of page-time, I was able to mostly figure out who'd be there for the final showdown, but some things did catch me by surprise.

Many of the students were just names and basic personalities, although a few of the students were a little more fleshed out. That said, I didn't really get attached to any of them. There were a few who I wanted to see survive because they seemed to be both decent people and prepared for the Program (seriously, why didn't more parents in this world sign their kids up for basic first aid, survival, and weapons training, just in case?), and there were a couple characters I could tell that the author wanted me to root for. Still, while I did think a few of the deaths were tragic and sad, nothing left me feeling wrecked after the book was over. Maybe because I was braced for all or most of the cast to die at some point? I don't know.

Of all the characters, I think I probably rooted for Hiroki the most, although Shogo and Shinji weren't too far behind. And even where Hiroki was concerned, I liked the guy but didn't think he'd actually make it - I mean, one of the reasons I liked him was his stubborn refusal to actually kill anyone. He wasn't stupid about it, defending himself when necessary and otherwise staying hidden, but it wasn't an approach that had a good chance of getting him all the way through to the end. Shogo and Shinji, meanwhile, were both smart, cool-headed, gutsy, and good planners (and both of them came across as being a good deal older than 15 or 16 years old, to the point that I wondered whether it would be revealed that adults who are passing as kids had infiltrated the Program).

It was pretty clear, though, that the author wanted readers to root for Shuya and Noriko the most. Noriko was nice enough, if bland, but Shuya got on my nerves. He was one of those very dense "every girl loves him but he has no idea" types - nearly a quarter of the girls in his class had secret crushes on him. He'd rage against Shogo or others for being callous, and he seemed to have girls in a special category in his brain - it was always more shocking to him when girls were hurt than when guys were, and he was weirdly surprised when Noriko used a gun to help him and Shogo defend their group.

I was expecting this to be a bleak and depressing book, but somehow it wasn't. There was a murder mystery-like appeal to finding out how all the deaths were going to play out, and the ending managed to be satisfying and somewhat hopeful. I enjoyed it overall and am glad I finally read it.

As far as the Hunger Games controversy goes: I know that there were folks shouting that Suzanne Collins copied off of Battle Royale, and now that I've read both the first Hunger Games book and this, I disagree. Sure, it's a similar setup, but the books each handle it completely differently.

Extras:

A map of the island with a list of the various forbidden zones and the times at which they became forbidden, a list of the students in the class, an interview with filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku, and an afterword by Koushun Takami.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I liked this better than The Hunger Games (and of course this book came first), because the psychology is so much more interesting: the 40 kids on the island are classmates, most of whom have known each other for years, so they have all kinds of interesting connections -- grudges, crushes -- that affect their actions.

I feel like I enjoyed this book to much. It was so entertaining.

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami One of the dystopian classics!
 
I think this is a teen novel but being Japanese you can never tell. This is Big In Japan!---------------------Basic Scenario Without SpoilersSet in an alternative authoritarian future where a bunch of school kids get dumped on an island, get given a black bag with some kind of weapon in it and told to kill each other. There can only be one survivor.Various parts of the island become "out of bounds" as denoted by daily loud speaker announcements and a supplied map. Just to reinforce the point they all have a large collar fitted round their necks that will detonate if the happen to find themselves in the forbidden zones. Any attempt to remove the collar results in the obligatory explosion. If there is more that one survivor after 72 hours(?) all their heads will blow.---------------------An interesting exploration into solo vs collaborative attempts to survive and trust vs self interest.Sound stupid but is in fact a good read. Not quite believable, but convincing none the less.

The thrill and the horror of the game continues. By now, there are only 20 students remaining. And the game continues. Two students plot to do major damage, but then a kink comes into their plans. And so it goes. The character development in this is outstanding. The plot is tight, and the action is fast-paced and just takes the reader in, not letting go until the very end. This is dystopian literature at its best, but it is also a great manga and work. Definitely a must-read, and I will be reading the rest.

Now if only certain reality shows would grow some balls and be more like this, we would really get "must-see tv, hehe. Just a thought.

The story continues, and it is as bloody as ever. There are new twists and revelations as the number of survivors continues to decrease. This particular volume had some very intense scenes and surprising twists. Not to be missed. This series continues to be one of the best mangas I have read with a solid plot, depth of character, and plenty of action. I am definitely looking forward to the next volume.

Once I started on the final volume of this great series, I found that I could not put it down. I was up until the late hours of the night just to find out how the story ended. It does not disappoint. The tension, the drama, and the action are all revved up as the number of survivors is down to the last few. And just when you think things may be wrapping up, you get a twist. And yes, the inevitable confrontation between Kiriyama and Souma happens in here as well. The scary thing is not so much the horror and thrills of the story, but the fact that it happens in a near future. To be honest, we may well be a few steps away, given how reality television shows and certain sporting events (MMA anyone?) happen now, from something like The Program becoming popular. Bread and circuses. And that commentary from the series may be the scariest part. As for the story itself, excellent thrill ride.

In terms of reading appeal, if you like works like Orwell's 1984, Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and a lot of violent action, this is certainly for you. I should note that it is not just violence for the sake of violence, but it goes along with the story, thus adding to the horror. The series overall combines plenty of action, violence, a good dose of sensuality with the commentary and substance of good dystopian fiction. Definitely one of the best manga series I have read. And a series worth rereading also. However, I will note, this is not for the faint of heart or the puritanical. Those folks should read something else. Otherwise, if you like an edge to your reading, hop right in.

This is an excellent example of a dystopia for one. But it is also a great story. Take the best of Lord of the Flies, 1984, The Running Man (King's story, not necessarily the film), and add some more violence, sex, and suspense, and you get this story. It grips you from the beginning, and it does not let you go until the last page. I will definitely continue reading this series. This collector's edition offers some extras in terms of an interview with the author, a short essay by a psychologist, and extra sketches. This is definitely not for little kids, but for adults who like a good adventure with suspense and shootings and so on, this is highly recommended. 42 ninth graders go in, and only one will survive.

I used to joke around that the show "Survivor" was not violent enough. I always joked that the show should be give the participants weapons, let them kill each other, and one walks out. This series is kind of how I envisioned that dumb reality show should have been, only on steroids, so to speak. Great series, and one I will gladly follow.