Battle Royale

Rating:
Summary: One in a Million
Review: I almost never read fiction - always non-fiction. But after seeing Battle Royale the movie, I needed more information. The desire was so great that I went through this 600 page book in less than a week - once I started reading, I simply could not put it down. After finishing and reflecting on it, I can honestly say that I've never enjoyed a novel more than this. It's not for the squeamish, but it's far from a gore book with no literary substance. The plot twists kept me guessing the entire time; the realistic, frightened poise of teenagers forced to kill; the graceful development of dozens of interesting characters with conflicting motives is something to behold. I hope that others read this book and enjoy it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Battle Royale with cheese please!
Review: From across the pacific, this gem from Japan has sparked my interest in leisure reading all over again. This book delivers a tour de force of emotion, a generous serving of action, and on a platter of such ironic savagery, it easily surpasses the artists in America who have been making their whole careers on the same premises. (I'm looking at you Tarintino).
A brief little history of the Battle Royale saga. Released in 1999, the book received heavy criticism for being too violent. This naturally made the little book into a huge sensation in Japan. From this book, the movie of the same name was released in 2000. Eager to put their foot down on the issue, the diet (the government body of Japan) almost prevented the release of the movie, but settled on slapping an NC-15 rating on it (don't ask me, why). This made the movie hugely successful (go figure) causing a sequel to be made (god why) in 2003, which is rumored to be gorier than the first.
Naturally, if the Japanese govt actually makes it a point to judge a movie for violence, you can guarantee that it won't hit the shores of the US any time soon. With that being said, all that we have here in America is this book so let us go from here.

The book is extremely well written. The details that the author provides are stunningly beautiful in that way that you can visualize all of the horrible things the author puts onto these children. The book also never seems to get boring. You are literally turning page after page realizing that you managed to plow through 200 pages in an hour (personal story). The action, the plot, the situations, are tremendously and beautifully crafted making you truly engrossed in the reading.

The only downside to this book, it has the tendency to wear on your imagination. At times, the author really stretches some of the assumptions and happenings in the plot which causes you to think "what the heck, that makes no sense"

Over all, it's clear that this book is one that everyone who has around 3-4 hours of free time and wants some good, clean, reading. I recommend this book highly to others and definitely rank it as one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant.
Review: Honestly, you assume with a movie like Battle Royale that the book will pale in comparison. And maybe, for the first 100 pages it does: you have -seen- this happen, and a dully translated description of it feels like nothing.

However, the backstories encorporated in the novel Battle Royale really serve to strengthen your empathy with the overall plot and characters. Characters that seemed to have no real emphasis in the movie become three dimensional and not merely gore devices.

The background story of the Republic also serves crucially to explain a parable that, while close to a Japanese view of world and government, should serve closer to an American one. While Battle Royale seems to be an unthinkable act of violence to put 15 year olds through for wagers, perhaps this parable is something that in the 21st century we should be considering. How far is too far?

Kiriyama in the book, however, I just don't find dreadfully evil and delicious as in the movie, but I supposes sacrifices must be made for a well rounded piece of fiction. Definately worth the read, and the movie is brilliant as well. Perhaps after this encounter with the original book I can justify the ugliness of Battle Royale II.

Rating:
Summary: Holy Crap! I was not prepared for this masterpiece!
Review: If you have seen the movie, the anime, or read the manga, buy this. I am a seasoned veteran of Japanese literature, movies, etc... and this book is a piece of gold. Even if you don't like change, this is the book to change your manner of thought. A morally disturbing and utterly evil story line, I coulden't put this down. Everyone who knows me thinks I belong in this plot. Please enjoy a book filled with pain and twists. Hatchet to da face!

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: A co-worker recommended this book and he let me borrow his copy. I didn't have high hopes for it (most of the books that get recommended to me turn out to be of the Koontz & King variety, you know, not good) but I read this as it looked like it had an interesting premise.

After the fifth page I could not put this book down. It is simply a smooth, fluid, action packed, beautifully written book and I loved it. Even more amazing is it was this authors first book. I hear there is a movie adaptation of this book and although I haven't seen it, I can't imagine someone watching it without reading this book first. I returned the book to him today and ordered a copy for myself soon after. I don't give five stars to just any book but I think this one deserved it, if I could give six I would.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Novel
Review: This book is possibly the best I have ever read. The detail is intricate, the plot is in depth to say the least, and the emotion in the book is so real that you actually feel for the characters. The plot of Battle Royale is at the dawn of the millenium, the Millenium Education Reform Act (aka the BR Act) is passed in response to an all time high of delinquency, unemployment, and the fact that 800,000 boycott school. This act randomly selects a class of ninth grade students through impartial lottery, then places them on an evacuated island, gives them day packs with random weapons, and pits them in a fight to the death until only one remains. This book is a must read for fans of action and suspense, and it's also well worth your while to look into the anime series and the movies for Battle Royale.

Rating:
Summary: Favorite book ever
Review: This has to be the best book I have read in a long time, some one on the internet recommended it so I thought I would go get it. When I first saw the book I almost didn't read it, I mean 600+ pages is a lot. But I got it anyway and im happy I did. Its amazing how you are able to relate to the characters who all(even the minor characters) had deep personality. I was able to relate almost all the characters to a friend or enemy I had in high school. This book is scary, intense, sad, and most importantly it makes you think, what would I do, when I first thought that, I was like "of course I wont kill my friends." But I start thinking more and I thought "What if my friends tried to kill me, what if my friends die before I get to see them, what if I crack and play the game."(all of that happens in the book) I mean how well do you know your class mates, enough to put your life into their hands.

But I want to be fair and say even though I gave it 5 out of 5, and its my favorite book of all time, there is one bad thing I cant seam to get over. That thing is their age, the 7 main character seam to be very adult for only being in 9th grade, and most the time I think this book would be more realistic if the kids where a few years older(maybe like 11th or 12th grade). But besides for that one minor flaw this book is perfect. But be warned this book is also very violent, I had a few nightmares about this book. I hope this review was helpfull.

Rating:
Summary: Royale With Cheese
Review: It would be something of an understatement to say that the hype for his book was overwhelming. I had seen the film version long, long before getting my hands on the beefy novel -- it's already a bonafide cult classic destined to sit beside RIKI-OH: The Story of Ricky. You can imagine my anticipation when I hoofed it to work and sunk my teeth in.

Shuya Nanahara is an unfortunate sod who lives in Japan. The good news is practically every girl in class has a crush on him. The bad news is that en route to a "study trip" their bus takes a detour and winds up on a remote island somewhere. All this is well and good, but that was just basic setup and already we're 60-something pages in! Guess what -- when the reader's interest is at its lowest, it's not wise to practically begin your tale with droning exposition that doesn't apply anywhere else in the story. As we go on, the narrative will suddenly screech to a halt and we're treated to endless scenes of one-dimensional students with identical names reciting stale soap-opera platitudes.

Eventually we learn that a totalitarian government has ferried the kids off to the island so they can kill each other. Cue up the characters griping about how cool it would be if the government was Democratic. They're so evil, they've banned Rock N' Roll, even! Why'd they do that? So Shuya and a buddy can recite Bruce Springsteen lyrics like solemn profundities, of course. For the next 500 pages the cliches come flying like bullets from a MAC-10 -- for every inept "action" scene there's at least three of meandering babble. Middle-schoolers tend to get existential when they're pitted against one another, and you can smell the angst whenever a character dies and someone's there to bawl about not saving him/her. This is not helped by stilted, awkward translation that should have been proofread more than once. For 600-odd pages we go, slamming headlong into the sloppy conclusion like a ton of slushy concrete.

Does this sound like the next big Must-Read Coffeehouse Book? It's big, and I've noticed a lot of "trendy" types raving about how meaningful and important all this foolishness is. Some have gone so far as to compare this to Lord of the Flies, which couldn't be more inaccurate. LotF was mainly concerned with the buildup prior to the sudden explosion of violence, as well as factions and crude "governments" springing up out of the rubble. This starts off with a boy getting machine-gunned in the chest by a commando. There are two kids who like to kill others and the rest hide and are slowly killed off one by one while they gripe about how dumb life is. You tell me how these can be compared.

Don't believe the neverending hype for this book. Its only redeeming qualities are some fiendishly creative deaths and the occasional moment of accidental comedy. Really, Battle Royale's dry, uneven translation should be the least of your worries. Nobody under the age of 16 should be reading this book. Anyone over the age of 16 should be slapped upside the head for trying to milk "life lessons" from it.

Battle Royale is too ambitious for its own good. Takami apparently wanted to highlight his novel with sensational scenes of gratuitous bloodshed, but between these scenes he gropes for a meaning like a blind man looking for a contact lens. Maybe quite a few things got lost in translation. It's too meandering for an actioner and it's too ADD-stricken for an allegorical study of "being young and alive in a 21st-century world". Just see the movie, it takes much less time away from your diminishing life.

Rating:
Summary: Lord of the Flies my ass OR When Japancraze goes too far
Review: I've heard Battle Royale called the "Lord of the Flies of the new generation" -- a whiplash claim that doomed this book from the start. Hardly as poignant as Golding's haunting prose and sense of isolation, the comparison is senseless.

In fact, I laugh at this even from the "depiction of the ruthless dog-eat-dog world" view. Back-stabbing and "claw your way to the top" politics aren't very well depicted through a tale of some Japanese kids having to kill each other. That's a quaint idea, but the real reason this is popular is because American teens are obsessed with Japanese cartoons and other violent media, and, here's a shocker, Battle Royale is also a gut-wrenching manga.

Never eloquent (this could be blamed on the translation, which looks as if it were completed by someone with about 6 months of experience with the English language) and hardly affecting because of the characters' inability to express themselves in any way other than immature babbling (reading the word "awesome" three times in a paragraph pains me, even if it is in the thoughts of a school-boy protagonist), Battle Royale is little more than a blood bath, sure to be swallowed up by the pimple-faced, Larry Bird-white basement-dwelling geeks that only America hosts.

It's simply sophomoric to say Battle Royale is allegorical or symbolic, or much more simply, even meaningful. It's not Lord of the Flies. I don't know if it were the thin, single-layered characters, blatant violent descriptions, or the puke-ish vacillating translation that got to me most, but it didn't matter anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre and mildly-entertaining
Review: When I saw the film that was based on this novel of the same name, I was on the edge of my seat. When I read the book, I just wanted to get the whole experience over. "Battle Royal", for me, was one of those books that, despite an original premise, turns out to be poorly written and unexciting. The pacing in the book is dreadfully abysmal and the characters are all a tad bit too annoying for my taste. The dialogue is ridiculous, cliche, and unimaginative. I don't know if this is a product of poor translation, but the book suffers for it. On the bright side, the concept is an exciting fresh look at Kafka-esgue fascism, and it is gory (if that is your thing). All in all, "Battle Royale" is a tedious yarn that tries too hard to be something that it cannot be: a great sci-fi novel.