Rating: 
Summary: You know you want to read it.
Review: When I first picked up this book, I had high expectations for it. It was recomended to me many times, but I thought that it couldn't be that great. Or could it? It was.The story is relativly simple. In the future, Japan, or "The Republic of Greater East Asia", is owned by a megalomaniac who delights in kidnapping classes of junior-high students, placing them in secluded locations, strapping bombs around their necks, loading them full of high-powered weaponry, and forcing them to kill their mates that they have known for years. Sounds like fun. The book itself, of course, quickly focuses on a protagonist, so you will have a fairly good idea of who will 'win' early on. However, Koushun Takami gets into the minds of most of the kids on the island. You will get to know a good number of them fairly well, then watch as their brains get torn out, blown out, or crushed out. Oh, yeah, another thing Takami does well is think of nice, creative deaths. I recommend this book to anyone willing to stop saying "That's so horrible" and realize it for what it is - a work of fiction.
Rating:
Summary: woah
Review: I never knew a book could create such a thrilling sensation of death, love, lust, hate, and much more. Like lord of the flies, only more modern and totaltarian
Rating: 
Summary: Lost in Translation?
Review: Perhaps there is nugget of something decent in this tale, but given this translation, I fail to see it. Oh, where to begin . . . Firstly, do NOT expect high literature along the lines of Haruki Murakami. This book is pure pulp through and through. The writing is terrible, the characters are transparent, and the plot is driven primarily by gore, and secondarily by teenage whimsy. However, it lacks even the most basic hallmarks of GOOD pulp--tense moments, steamy sex, big plot twists, etc, et al. Frankly, most of the time I was bored stiff. Secondly, this translation is terrible. The translator tries his darndest to use American colloquialisms, but fails miserably, and most of the time the book reads like a bad BabySitter's Club rip-off. Even the music references (though I assume it was the author and not the translator who picked these) border on the mundane--Bill Joel as an archetype of American rebel music? The closest the author gets to portraying the rebel rock and roll attitutde is by making the lead character a Bruce Springstein fan. And even then, come on, Bruce Springstein . . . That about does. Seriously, don't waste your time. Go read Lord of the Flies, or better yet, re-read 1984.
Rating: 
Summary: thin plot thick blood
Review: i watched the movie version of battle royale not knowing it was based on a book. now i have read the book my opinion is that the book is definitely better. the movie BR plays like a teenage slasher flick, no room for character developments or for the viewer to empathise with their delimma - i watched aghast. the movie version had a number of significant plot changes. some as minor as where noriko was shot even before 'the game' began, to a big change in the relation between sakamochi, the game's 'instructor' and noriko and shuya, the two main female and male student. the movie made sakamochi 'likeable' if there is such a thing who cheerfully announce the murder of 15 year old school kids while the book sakamochi is cold, matter of fact, one-dimension amoral professional who perhaps likes doing his job a bit too much. anyway, before i appear to take the book to seriously which i am not shall i make one more comparison. compare battle royale,BR, to the rather well known 'reality TV' series "Survivor" and the likes. while BR played for keeps Survivor does not, but essentially the dynamics within groups and individuals are similar in a situation of "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!" one winner. a bunch, 42 students, is put on an recently vacated island, give them some food and each a weapon then tell them to kill each other until one is the remainder. takami is certainly no stranger to game theory. thankfull it is not all bang-bang, chop-chop or it be just be about 42 pages instead of over 600. we get a little insights into each student. they are just like any of us. young. smart. stupid. scared. simple. complex. mixed up. dangerous. but mostly this skims along like a skater on thin ice. abruptly, each student, which author takami with god-like overview just introduced to us, is bumped off in a horrific manner. i dont know what the comparison with lord of the flies is about other than giving (western) readers a handle for categorisation of the novel. set in a fictious country described as having a successful fascist government, the government run 'the program' on a class of randomly selected 15-year-olds each year to repress them and to 'create' a submissive society. as the game plays out and the number of students approaches one i, much like, shuya the main protagonist neither register the countdown nor the emotions associated with raw violence. BR asks are questions which we pretty much asked ourselves at some time in life no matter where we lived. must we kill each other to survive? couldn't we all just get along? BR provides some answers and rapidly literally shoots them down. in the end the questions remains open. there is no happy ending. but takami put a very clever twist in the very end which, to me, is that hope and life, their lives, our lives, any body's, rests with us the readers.
Rating:
Summary: LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!
Review: I was recommended the book Battle Royale by a friend of mine. I picked it up and was a tad apprehensive about following along with all the Japanese names and the overall length (600+ pages for an action story). Needless to say there was nothing to worry about. Battle Royale tells one of the most creative, quickest, shocking, and most violent stories of any book I've read in the last few years. The premise follows the sci-fi standard of the human death sport where we play until only one contestant survives. This time we're playing with middle school children on a remote island. You kill your classmates or they kill you. In the midst of the staggering action (and body count) we see plenty of unique personalities emerge and some of the battles are truly inventive. It kept me turning the pages. Anyone who enjoys an exciting read should check out Battle Royale...and if you can't get your fix on Death Sports then I also strongly advise you to pick up THE LONG WALK and THE RUNNING MAN by Stephen King (aka Richard Bachman).
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: I went into the bookstore, and couldn't find a book. Suddenly, the bright red jumped out and hit me in the face. I took it off the shelf, smiled at the hidden picture on the cover, then flipped it over. 20 seconds later I was at the register in a rush to get home to start it. I arrived home, and then 200 pages into it, I put it down to get a glass of water. I picked it up later that night, and finished all 600+ pages before going to bed. It was incredible. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys an amazing story, but can stand some gore. This book is wonderfully written, yet still has a gore factor of 8+ (on a scale from 1-10). I hope everyone reads this book. Enjoy, and I hope this review helped you out! =)
Rating:
Summary: Let's get ready to rumble
Review: As others are saying, it's not only a bloodthirsty game on the surface, but it also deals with issues of trust, loyalty, contemporary Japanese society, and how people might react under life and death situations. Friendships unravel messily in the book, but even before the game starts the main character hits on a somewhat common truth that friendships evolve rapidly over the course of childhood, as people's interests change. The cultural barbs are a fairly harsh criticism of the "entrance exam hell" which Japanese students undergo. 9th graders fight each other for positions into good high schools, which affect to varying degrees their university admittances and course their entire future (granted, it could start as far as elementary school; an Italian friend recounted a similar process there). And by turning it into a game where the winner is a brief celebrity, Takami spoofs the Japanese (and worldwide) love for insane television game shows. Generally Takami actually has a somewhat optimistic view of the younger generation, which leads to one of my criticisms. He is critical of what he feels to be sheep mentality by showing a society which has accepted this "culling" system for decades. Adults are for the most part shown as heartless, whereas there kids are explanations for their actions (one of them being a cheesy and unbelievable reason imho). It also seems implausible that the kids generally remain blissfully unaware of their possible fate, taking a "it'll never happen to me attitude" and falling into the typical categories of jock, nerd, otaku, and pop idol fan. This could have been a good way to criticize the cram school mentality of preparing for entrance exams even as grade schoolers since you would think some kids would have taken survival courses in the event they happened to be selected; even though it would have lessened the impact of seeing wholly unprepared and "normal" people thrown into extreme circumstances. Perhaps though it is only because I have a western perspective and see the fault of the Asian method of teaching by rote (i.e. always answer "How are you?" with "Fine, thanks, and you?") instead of teaching them how to think. I guess even Takami does not find it shocking to see grade schoolers and junior high students walking home from cram school at 9 PM like I did when I was over there. The movie version, which I haven't watched all the way through, treats the concept more like "The Running Man", emphasizing the game aspect more by sensationalizing the media coverage of the winners, having the game explained to the new crop of students via videotape by a cutesy girl named "Oneesan" or big sister (shades of Orwell's "1984"), and giving out less guns and more joke weapons (pot lids or headbands). It does address one of my criticisms of the book regarding characterization, although of course it shortchanges many of the other students due to film time. It also has its own logistical problems, but still is exciting to watch. And then there's the manga version.... Definitely an excellent book to read.
Rating:
Summary: incredible
Review: 600 pages, 24 hours. that's how long it took me to read this baby. i could not put it down and that's saying something, because i don't read that many books. lots of action, but i reall think there is a message about human society and human nature that is valuable. an excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: A bit of the old ultraviolent
Review: I practically stumbled over this book at my local book store, the cover intrigued me. After reading the back I bought it. First of all its not really that violent, until you realize the players in the game are so young. As you read you will think back to when you were that age and if you would have hidden from the other players and refused to play, or would have decided to play. I did find the dialogue a bit clumsy but that can be attributed to it being a translation. But lets face it, this is not Shakespeare so certain aspects can be overlooked. All in all this is an entertaining and fast read.
Rating:
Summary: Lord of the Flies magnified.
Review: The premise: A normal high school class, abducted and put on an island, with one goal: That only one student may be left alive at the end of three days, or everyone will be killed.
This is an amazing and a disturbing book, a Lord of the Flies for the teenage generation, and our age groups. Throughout the book, you begin to wonder where you would stand if it was your class. Would you kill people so that you could live? Would you try to band together with your closest friends? Would you commit suicide rather than play the twisted game? Who could you trust?
Koshun Takami has a real gift. He can make the story completely personal and emotional one instant, and disturbingly detached the next. There isn't massive amounts of blood and gore in the book, it's the psychological horror that really grabs you.
This book is one that will stay with you weeks later, and is definately in my top 10 list of books to lend to my friends (there's a waiting list at the moment!!)
AN EXCELLENT BOOK!
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