Reviews with content warning for Blood - Battle Royale

I knew I would like this since I really liked the movie years ago, but I'm so glad that I absolutely loved the book!

Did I remember all ~50 characters? No! But the reading pace kept me flying through it and the 20ish that were most important were definitely memorable. The size of the book flew by with the pacing of the short, intense chapters.

This new translation is more action-packed than the original (I compared line by line with the audiobook of the original English translation). You can tell this translator has worked on manga and video games before because the fight scenes are so much smother. But whichever version you have, read it.

What a thrilling, unexpectedly emotionally charged, bloody, anti-fascist roller coaster. This is the inspiration behind Hunger Games and battle royale style video games, but way more politically incendiary.

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wiktoria_bojda's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Battle Royale is a very effective character drama and fun to read action-thiller! There's a lot of effective POV scenes which really get you into the heads of the characters, and even with some of the more antagonistic characters, you really get to feel for them or at least understand where they're coming from.
The action scenes are good, and the booking is Really really good. You can tell that Koushun Takami is a wrestling fan aha.
While it's a big book, it moves Fast, the scenes just flying by and the end of chapters giving you Just enough to want to keep reading and reading to see what happens next.

My main problems with the book are the kinda over the top and vague details of the political system. I definitely believe its a fascistic system, but when it tries to make it a communist system as well, it kinda fails because the state seems to have absolutely nothing to do with communism or it's theories? And then to pit it at odds with imperialist America is odd? I know there's a deep and complicated history in japan, considering their role in WW2 and the rise of nationalism that preceded that, and then in turn you have what happened afterwards and the ways America did change ways Japan did things for the negative in the fallout after bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki... History and the way it effects culture is complicated, and to be fair, I don't really have the knowledge of it as a whole, but I do know many Japanese creators work through these ideas and that it's something that many of them keep in mind so... IDK
There Is something interesting being done here re: that, but also I don't feel like it's really well fleshed out or anything. It works as a backdrop to the character drama and and conceit that makes the story move, but on its own it kinda fails.

But that's honestly a relatively small criticism in the face of the rest of the book, which is a really exciting book about teens being teens and how they experience and process trauma, but Also about them killing each other because a good amount of them don't trust each other and want to survive.

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arixsuu's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An amazing book to start this year. I don't think I can find anything like this one. Best book of the year by far, or one of the best in any case.

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mysteryspouse's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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day_m18's review

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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heidi_grey's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Oh wow, this is really dark. And gory. Check the TWs, I can see why this is not YA even though the main characters are high schoolers.

There are a lot of similarities to Hunger Games (obviously) but BR focuses a lot more on the individual characters, their background and their inner turmoil. I was honestly quite impressed with the author’s ability to create 42 unique and distinctive students that we meet throughout the story. I found it hard to put the book down.

My only complaint is with how stereotypical the female students were portrayed. They are often depicted as whimsical, hysterical, weak, having crushes… or they are killed off right away. Add to that various comments about so-and-so would have made a good wife and you get the gist. I would have liked at least one strong independent woman that had it together!

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velveteenrabbit's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-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

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