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anime917's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, Suicide, Torture, and Death of parent
bluejayreads's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.5
This was a recommendation from a friend (the same friend who got me to read the Dark Tower series, incidentally). It’s the original “kids forced into a game where they kill each other until only one is left” story. It pioneered the idea that The Hunger Games made mainstream, gave a name to the entire battle royale video game genre, and the book where Fortnite got 95% of its rules and mechanics. Forty-two fifteen-year-olds are together on an island, and only one can make it out. (It is clarified that they’re fifteen, Japanese junior high is apparently a different age range than American junior high.)
Think of some adjectives that might describe a book like that. You might think of words like “violent,” “gory,” “dark,” and “bloody,” or perhaps even “sad” or “horrifying.” But I bet you won’t come up with the two words I’d use to describe the first half of the book: “Slow” and “political.”
The class starts with forty-two students, but our protagonist is Shuya, who teams up with his best friend’s crush Noriko and standoffish transfer student Shogo for the duration of the contest. The killing starts immediately, and the story switches perspectives often to show how everybody dies, but it keeps coming back to Shuya and Noriko (and Shogo after he joins them). For roughly the first half, Shuya and Noriko hide and talk about how they can’t believe their classmates are just killing each other, and after Shogo joins them there are several long political monologues discussing the fascist government that made this dystopia happen and all the problems with authoritarian governments. It’s a little weird going back and forth between Shuya and company’s story – which is mostly survival, disbelief, and political discussion – and the violent deaths of their classmates.
Reading this as an audiobook was not the best way to read it. The narrator kept the same patient tone of voice regardless of whether he was talking about sports, politics, or kids killing each other, and since I’m not very familiar with Japanese names, it got very confusing to keep the characters straight. It doesn’t help that there’s forty-two of these kids and many of them have names that sound very similar when spoken – Yukie, Yumi, Yuki, Yuko, and Yuka are five different characters. The descriptions, conversations, and deaths were sometimes difficult to follow, as I had to take a moment to figure out which classmate was currently being discussed.
About halfway through, Shuya and Noriko finally accepted that their classmates were killing each other and Shogo ran out of things to say about politics, and the story finally picked up. Despite all the deaths, it didn’t feel like the action got started until this point. After that, though, the action picked up, the plot started moving, and I actually started liking Shogo as a character. The rest of it ended up being pretty good, and there were two minor twists at the end that I did not see coming.
Battle Royale was not entirely what I was expecting. Yes, you get the gore and horror and survival elements of a bunch of kids stuck on an island until all but one is dead, but there’s also a remarkable amount of commentary on fascism and authoritarian governments, and considering the deaths start immediately, I found it surprisingly slow to start. But I pushed through, mainly because a friend recommended it, and it did get better. Overall, it was actually pretty good. Definitely not my favorite, but solidly good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual assault and Grief
Minor: Homophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual content, Trafficking, and Death of parent
taleofabibliophile's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, and Death of parent
Minor: Homophobia and Medical content
victoria29's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Death of parent
atalea's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual content, Suicide, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, and Death of parent
afonyamuffin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I read this book 9 years ago when I was like 17 (which thinking back I’m not sure how good of an idea that was but that’s for another day) and with all the Squid Game hype (I still haven’t watched the show) and The Boyz’s latest release, Maverick got me in the mood to finally reread Battle Royale, which is actually an old favourite. It crazy how many things I missed out on as a teen and I have a lot of thoughts about the book so here we are. I buddy read it with my friend Rebeka and honestly I haven’t been this excited about reading a book and then discussing it with someone so I’m really happy I got around reading it. I will include spoilers in this one because I need to talk about things in details so if you havent read the book or saw the movie I suggest you go read it first and comeback if you don’t want to be spoiled.
So for those who are not familiar with the book and are still here despite the spoilers, it was written in the 90s, which is going to be important to keep in mind as I progress with the review. It takes place in a future Japan setting where junior high students are forced to fight to the death. Shuya and his class are on their way to a class trip when they are kidnapped and taken to an island to participate in The Program, where the 42 students have to kill each other until there is just one person standing. Reading this even if you haven’t heard about this song I’m sure you recognize the story from The Hunger Games. I think if you liked The Hunger Games you definitely should read this one as Battle Royale is obviously one of the stories that influenced Suzanne Collins. However I do want to leave some trigger warnings, this is a much more gruesome book than THG is. The book’s main characters are Shuya, Noriko and Kawada, but it jumps between the other classmates’ point of view as well.
Trigger warning: mentions of rape, domestic violence, homophobia, suicide, blood, gore, death, guns, mutilation, injuries, etc.
Oh boy, do I have a lot of thoughts! Like I said there were a lot of things that I missed out on at the fresh age of 17 and now I’m sitting here like… Let’s start with the questionable things. One of these things is mentions of rape, especially in the beginning. In other cases it feels like it has a reason to be in the story...
More on the blog: https://berriesandbooksblog.wordpress.com/2021/11/07/battle-royale-by-koushun-takami-enghun-spoilery-review/
So for those who are not familiar with the book and are still here despite the spoilers, it was written in the 90s, which is going to be important to keep in mind as I progress with the review. It takes place in a future Japan setting where junior high students are forced to fight to the death. Shuya and his class are on their way to a class trip when they are kidnapped and taken to an island to participate in The Program, where the 42 students have to kill each other until there is just one person standing. Reading this even if you haven’t heard about this song I’m sure you recognize the story from The Hunger Games. I think if you liked The Hunger Games you definitely should read this one as Battle Royale is obviously one of the stories that influenced Suzanne Collins. However I do want to leave some trigger warnings, this is a much more gruesome book than THG is. The book’s main characters are Shuya, Noriko and Kawada, but it jumps between the other classmates’ point of view as well.
Trigger warning: mentions of rape, domestic violence, homophobia, suicide, blood, gore, death, guns, mutilation, injuries, etc.
Oh boy, do I have a lot of thoughts! Like I said there were a lot of things that I missed out on at the fresh age of 17 and now I’m sitting here like… Let’s start with the questionable things. One of these things is mentions of rape, especially in the beginning. In other cases it feels like it has a reason to be in the story...
More on the blog: https://berriesandbooksblog.wordpress.com/2021/11/07/battle-royale-by-koushun-takami-enghun-spoilery-review/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Rape, and Suicide
itshardizzy's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
It was so fast paced. The author didn't held back on the killings and I'm lowkey thankful for that because the whole story IS about teenagers killing each other. There was some characters that i felt a bit more connected with but them they were killed :(((. There is multiple POVs but the one more constant is Shuya, who i found just annoying and really naive. the most in-depth characters was Shogo, Shining and Mitsuko in my personal opinion. They all have the most interesting stories specially Mitsuko. Mitsuko is made to be a bad girl but when we take a look at what she had been through is impossible to not feel sorry for her. I believe the author deeply criticized Japanese persons that go after minor girls or that sexualize minor girls. Shinji was actually the one that everyone thought was going to win and he really could have won if it weren't for his deeply dependence for his uncle. He really lived at his uncle shadow and I believe that is why he didn't succeed . The author did a really good job at critizing governments that send their youth to war in his version of Japan, the youths don't need to go to war BUT in return one school and one specific class will be chosen (at random) to be a part of a experiment that will help the government to understand how people react to certain events and weapons, which is basically a war itself but a minor one. . I really had my hopes up about the ending but unfortunately it wasn't what i wanted. Still I liked the book and the criticism that the author pointed out in a very interesting way. Definitely worth to read again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Suicide, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and War
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, and Death of parent
thegr8estangell's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
I'm glad this author wrote only one book. I really liked the premise of this book. I think they were way more brutal in this book than in the Hunger Games (a series with a similar plot). I liked the way that some of the deaths were from the 1st person POV of the person being killed and other deaths were from different POVs. I wished we got more POV time with Kiriyama.
The pacing of this book was all over the place. Sometimes it was fast and tense, other times it was slow and arduous. There were so many flashbacks to stupid elementary school grudges and stuff like that. It got old pretty quick. I skimmed alot of those since they had little to nothing to do with the actual plot of the story.
What really bothered me about this story was the sexism and causal homophobia. Do I expect anything different from a middle-aged Japanese man in the 90s? No. Does that mean I have to look over that to enjoy this book? Not really no. I can still criticize it and still think the book is okay. Noriko was about as useless as Sakura during the Zabuza arc in Naruto. She was written as a damsel in distress and that was all she played the entire time. Just a helpless little school girl who just wanted to survive and was content with letting her big strong men of Kawada and Shuya protect her. Shuya was this weird, white knight character that felt like every girl had a crush on. He was so popular but didn't know it. That was really annoying. He was always this, ethical person during the whole thing. He never had to make a bad or hard choice about killing someone. There was no morally grey with him like there was with Kawada. He was in this situation where he had to kill people but he never had to make that tough decision without weighing the consequences. Kawada was a cool character. I liked him. He was the only rational one in the whole book. I know it's because this was round 2 for him, but still. Good character.
The BIGGEST plot hole was the GOD-TIER status of that stupid bullet proof vest. After one bullet, those things are done. They don't last 14 other bullets to the chest, a shot gun blast, and 300+ rounds of an UZI. They don't. That's not how they are made. That was plot device that got tired real quick.
Overall, I think the violence and stakes were done well. But the actual plot needed some work. Would I read this again? No. Would I recommend this book to someone? Maybe, depends on the person.
The pacing of this book was all over the place. Sometimes it was fast and tense, other times it was slow and arduous. There were so many flashbacks to stupid elementary school grudges and stuff like that. It got old pretty quick. I skimmed alot of those since they had little to nothing to do with the actual plot of the story.
What really bothered me about this story was the sexism and causal homophobia. Do I expect anything different from a middle-aged Japanese man in the 90s? No. Does that mean I have to look over that to enjoy this book? Not really no. I can still criticize it and still think the book is okay. Noriko was about as useless as Sakura during the Zabuza arc in Naruto. She was written as a damsel in distress and that was all she played the entire time. Just a helpless little school girl who just wanted to survive and was content with letting her big strong men of Kawada and Shuya protect her. Shuya was this weird, white knight character that felt like every girl had a crush on. He was so popular but didn't know it. That was really annoying. He was always this, ethical person during the whole thing. He never had to make a bad or hard choice about killing someone. There was no morally grey with him like there was with Kawada. He was in this situation where he had to kill people but he never had to make that tough decision without weighing the consequences. Kawada was a cool character. I liked him. He was the only rational one in the whole book. I know it's because this was round 2 for him, but still. Good character.
The BIGGEST plot hole was the GOD-TIER status of that stupid bullet proof vest. After one bullet, those things are done. They don't last 14 other bullets to the chest, a shot gun blast, and 300+ rounds of an UZI. They don't. That's not how they are made. That was plot device that got tired real quick.
Overall, I think the violence and stakes were done well. But the actual plot needed some work. Would I read this again? No. Would I recommend this book to someone? Maybe, depends on the person.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Car accident, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment