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woweewhoa's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, Gore, Blood, and Gun violence
Moderate: Homophobia, Rape, Ableism, and Vomit
Minor: Sexual content, Pedophilia, and Classism
heidi_grey's review against another edition
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!
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!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Death, Murder, and Gun violence
Moderate: Rape and Suicide
Minor: Vomit
velveteenrabbit's review
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Gore, Child death, War, Vomit, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Cursing, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Rape, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship
clovetra's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Gun violence, Body horror, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Rape, War, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Homophobia, Vomit, and Suicide
dollhousebooks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Child death, Kidnapping, Murder, Gun violence, Blood, and Cursing
Minor: Vomit, Sexual assault, Rape, and Suicide
and_the_ocean_burned's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Blood, Gun violence, Suicide, Stalking, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Violence, Murder, and Death
mermellie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
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? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Vomit, Suicide, Pedophilia, Misogyny, Homophobia, and Fatphobia
ollie_again's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-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? It's complicated
3.25
I liked parts of this book, but overall it was a little bit disappointing. I thought I'll have more issues with the contents of this book: the violence and even the sexist notions throughout but all of that I could easily overlook. My first main issue is with Shuya. Following a character that is supposed to be "noble" but comes off as a person with no sense of self-preservation is pretty frustrating. Shuya is pretty much piggybacking another character the whole time because without them, he would already be dead multiple times. I was not rooting for him at all and as we get to meet more and more characters and closely see their strategies and motivations, Shuya comes off easily as the most bland and boring character, which might work for a self-insert hero fantasy but not for a compelling and full-fledged character.
My second issue was the constant conversations about who has a crush on whom. I'm not a teenager for quite some time, but I don't think that teenagers are in need of romance drama 24/7 while they are in life-death situations. At least not every single one of them. And how those feelings are discussed is a completely different issue. Just get on with it and get dying. This book would be so much better (and shorter) if the author cut out all the romance crap. The friendship would serve just the same purpose while not feeling cheap, especially because that one characters has/had feelings for their classmate is always revealed in such a rushed way (mostly seconds before death of one or both of the two), it's usually one-sided and it's just about "oh this person is feeling like shit about this person dying because crush, I guess". Characters (and especially girls) freezing and reminiscing about the guys they had a crush on in the most inconvenient times happened one too many times for me to care. The relationship based on friendship worked much better and made more sense, but they were few and far between compared to the crushes.
I could do without the mentions of prostitution of 15y, sexual traumas of way too many girls, but that was something I kind of expected from this book. A lot of things were there just for a shock value and while it might mask as a character's history as to why they are fucked up, it didn't really land.
Might be a controversial take but I would prefer ifthe book truly ended after Kawada 'shoots' Shuya and Noriko, that part shocked me and I was rooting for it to be the plot twist, but oh well, some semi-happy ending needed to be there I guess.
My second issue was the constant conversations about who has a crush on whom. I'm not a teenager for quite some time, but I don't think that teenagers are in need of romance drama 24/7 while they are in life-death situations. At least not every single one of them. And how those feelings are discussed is a completely different issue. Just get on with it and get dying. This book would be so much better (and shorter) if the author cut out all the romance crap. The friendship would serve just the same purpose while not feeling cheap, especially because that one characters has/had feelings for their classmate is always revealed in such a rushed way (mostly seconds before death of one or both of the two), it's usually one-sided and it's just about "oh this person is feeling like shit about this person dying because crush, I guess". Characters (and especially girls) freezing and reminiscing about the guys they had a crush on in the most inconvenient times happened one too many times for me to care. The relationship based on friendship worked much better and made more sense, but they were few and far between compared to the crushes.
I could do without the mentions of prostitution of 15y, sexual traumas of way too many girls, but that was something I kind of expected from this book. A lot of things were there just for a shock value and while it might mask as a character's history as to why they are fucked up, it didn't really land.
Might be a controversial take but I would prefer if
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Gun violence, and Gore
Moderate: Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual violence, and Suicide
Minor: Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Vomit
duyanh's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Violence, War, Vomit, Gun violence, Grief, Kidnapping, Blood, Child death, Police brutality, Gore, Murder, and Misogyny
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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
4.5
BATTLE ROYALE is the story of forty-two kids pitted against each other in a fight to the death as part of an authoritarian program to see what they do to each other. It's ostensibly data for data's sake, cruelty justified by requiring numbers to crunch.
I generally have a lot of trouble with character names, but by the midpoint I was able to recognize the most important ones. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll discussing my favorite characters based on general descriptions rather than names. There's "murder boy", which I know ought to be a meaningless moniker in this setting, but he's the one who is described as not having emotions, and decides to partake in the violence based on what might as well be a coin flip in his mind. I have some concerns with this as a portrayal of neurodivergence and/or mental illness, I lump those together when discussing this character because part of the problem is that aside from discussing him as an emotionless and then murderous person there isn't much to go off of. He's clever and methodical, with a savvy about the game which is mostly implied by the way other characters can tell he's succeeded in an encounter with someone who is now dead. My favorite character is guy with a best friend (whom he's not dating). I also like the main trio of characters, the narrative tends to flip between one of the guys in that trio and then moves to one of the other characters before coming back to him.
The web of relationships between forty-two teenagers on the government-run murder island is complicated, and tends to revolve around who likes whom, who the bullies are, which one of them has the bulletproof vest, or who is seeking catharsis in unleashing a hail of bullets. The misunderstandings, violence, assumptions, and last-ditch attempts to communicate a crush before impending the end of their lives are woven together expertly in a way that feels plausible given the setup. The fact that most of these kids have know each other for years in various classes before this means that every kill has personal context, no matter how much they might wish it didn't.
The worldbuilding is communicated in a mix of government propaganda, brief explanations of the current political situation and historical context, and off-hand things the characters say. There's a moment when one of the people running the scenario comments on how he's having his third kid to do his part to offset the declining birthrate. It's a small moment that tells so much about the setting. This one comment speaks to the insidiousness of the government's propaganda, the net effect of randomly killing off a set number of kids every year, and the gap between what the government may have wanted and the actual effect on the population. There are a lot of little moments like this, but that one has stuck with me. It tells so much about the mindset of this person helping hold up a horrific system, and it does so quickly, which is important since this is one of just a couple of times where an adult's perspective is shown.
A theme which the basic premise of the novel didn't prepare me for is the toxic combination of misogyny and the threat of rape as a weapon. I think it's handled very deftly, with a surprising amount of nuance. This throughline begins with an early reference to someone being raped at the government's order as part the program. I appreciate the way the novel as a whole engages with the horrors of sexual violence, and how it (in at least one case) can warp a person if they are unable to get help to deal with it. There are no scenes of rape in the book itself, but the fact that it's a tool of violence which is available to the teens on the island shows up several times.
The cadence of the plot provided periods of rest and some really touching scenes amidst the violence. These opportunities to learn more about the characters in turn made the death scenes more tense and emotionally resonant. Sometimes a character's perspective was shown for the first time right as they were about to die, and some characters appeared several times before someone took them out. I appreciated this mix because it kept up the pacing as a thriller and enhanced the dystopian themes all at once. I highly recommend this, and I'm very glad I read it.
A quick note since BATTLE ROYALE was written before THE HUNGER GAMES, but some comparison is warranted: there are a few tropes in common between the books, however the central dynamic in Battle Royale is that of a group of people who have known each for a long time before they are forced to kill each other. That difference alone means that these books feel and play out very differently. It also matters that the only audience in Battle Royale are administrators who have trackers but no cameras. It's not voyeuristic, they're not performing for a crowd, and they know everyone they kill. It's a commentary on authoritarianism instead of a critique of entertainment culture.
I generally have a lot of trouble with character names, but by the midpoint I was able to recognize the most important ones. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll discussing my favorite characters based on general descriptions rather than names. There's "murder boy", which I know ought to be a meaningless moniker in this setting, but he's the one who is described as not having emotions, and decides to partake in the violence based on what might as well be a coin flip in his mind. I have some concerns with this as a portrayal of neurodivergence and/or mental illness, I lump those together when discussing this character because part of the problem is that aside from discussing him as an emotionless and then murderous person there isn't much to go off of. He's clever and methodical, with a savvy about the game which is mostly implied by the way other characters can tell he's succeeded in an encounter with someone who is now dead. My favorite character is guy with a best friend (whom he's not dating). I also like the main trio of characters, the narrative tends to flip between one of the guys in that trio and then moves to one of the other characters before coming back to him.
The web of relationships between forty-two teenagers on the government-run murder island is complicated, and tends to revolve around who likes whom, who the bullies are, which one of them has the bulletproof vest, or who is seeking catharsis in unleashing a hail of bullets. The misunderstandings, violence, assumptions, and last-ditch attempts to communicate a crush before impending the end of their lives are woven together expertly in a way that feels plausible given the setup. The fact that most of these kids have know each other for years in various classes before this means that every kill has personal context, no matter how much they might wish it didn't.
The worldbuilding is communicated in a mix of government propaganda, brief explanations of the current political situation and historical context, and off-hand things the characters say. There's a moment when one of the people running the scenario comments on how he's having his third kid to do his part to offset the declining birthrate. It's a small moment that tells so much about the setting. This one comment speaks to the insidiousness of the government's propaganda, the net effect of randomly killing off a set number of kids every year, and the gap between what the government may have wanted and the actual effect on the population. There are a lot of little moments like this, but that one has stuck with me. It tells so much about the mindset of this person helping hold up a horrific system, and it does so quickly, which is important since this is one of just a couple of times where an adult's perspective is shown.
A theme which the basic premise of the novel didn't prepare me for is the toxic combination of misogyny and the threat of rape as a weapon. I think it's handled very deftly, with a surprising amount of nuance. This throughline begins with an early reference to someone being raped at the government's order as part the program. I appreciate the way the novel as a whole engages with the horrors of sexual violence, and how it (in at least one case) can warp a person if they are unable to get help to deal with it. There are no scenes of rape in the book itself, but the fact that it's a tool of violence which is available to the teens on the island shows up several times.
The cadence of the plot provided periods of rest and some really touching scenes amidst the violence. These opportunities to learn more about the characters in turn made the death scenes more tense and emotionally resonant. Sometimes a character's perspective was shown for the first time right as they were about to die, and some characters appeared several times before someone took them out. I appreciated this mix because it kept up the pacing as a thriller and enhanced the dystopian themes all at once. I highly recommend this, and I'm very glad I read it.
A quick note since BATTLE ROYALE was written before THE HUNGER GAMES, but some comparison is warranted: there are a few tropes in common between the books, however the central dynamic in Battle Royale is that of a group of people who have known each for a long time before they are forced to kill each other. That difference alone means that these books feel and play out very differently. It also matters that the only audience in Battle Royale are administrators who have trackers but no cameras. It's not voyeuristic, they're not performing for a crowd, and they know everyone they kill. It's a commentary on authoritarianism instead of a critique of entertainment culture.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Child death, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Medical content, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Ableism, Mental illness, Sexism, Misogyny, Drug use, and Confinement
Minor: Homophobia, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Rape, and Adult/minor relationship