Reviews with content warning for Grief - Battle Royale

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

20 reviews

jacob_dion's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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remembermenever's review

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The last time I read Battle Royale, it was 2017. I gave it an instant five star rating when I completed it. I thought it was thought-provoking, if I remember right, and an engaging read. Well, it is now 2023. And it is clear that my tastes have changed entirely, as this will not rate higher than a three.

In this reread, something that immediately stuck out to me was that a lot of the characters that had POV scenes all felt very similar in voice, unless they were characters that had multiple scenes. Their voices got muddled together, in such a way that it made it confusing sometimes to remember who was who. And this could be because the author was juggling 43+ characters throughout the novel, from characters who only barely have appearances in the novel, to major characters that we follow for the entirety.

Shuya is a very bland main character, which makes for a very boring main character. He spends much of the novel basically following after Shogo, caring for Noriko, making promises to people that he can’t hope to complete, especially in a death game. He’s also very naive, believing in the good of everyone, even while seeing the results of what is happening all around him. Noriko also comes off as a very trope-heavy character, mostly there to play the part of “damsel”. Shogo is the only one of the unlikely trio who has some sort of plan, and that’s only because of his experiences.

Moving away from the characters, the pacing just made it hard sometimes. The author chooses to jump from character POV to character POV, leaving the reader to have to catch up with what that character has been doing for the last length of time since they have last been with them, if at all. Only then, do they move forward. Some characters get barely a mention, including one character who lasts until late into the game. The choice makes it so that the reader has to keep up with several storylines at once, and most of them are very separate, only tangentially together (the death game).

And maybe it’s just because it’s been six years, or maybe it’s because my tastes have changed a lot in that time, but this just didn’t do it for me anymore. I was never really a fan of gratuitous violence, but I was able to overlook it for the most part all that long ago. I was drawn to something else initially, though I can’t put my finger on what. And now? Whatever it is, it’s gone. Either I imagined it was there… Or I changed enough that I don’t see it anymore.

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fe_aye's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Wow, this book is a lot of things. It doesn’t feel right to call a story about pointless child murder amazing, but this is certainly an interesting read. Not knowing who you can trust, who will die and who will survive. Some things about this story are a bit off, but overall it’s a book with an interesting commentary on society, and trusting each other, along with the fragility of life.

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miketilford's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad 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

4.5

I attempted to read Battle Royale earlier this year, but couldn't get past the first chapter. So here I am attempting it again, and I'm glad that I did.

The story opens up with a huge info dump regarding the world, and the 42 characters in the story. As if I am going to remember anything about any of those 42 different characters with Japanese names, not going to happen. After this, things do pick up, but the book is plagued with info dump chapters that just kill the momentum. I suppose these chapters are suppose to better fill out the world, and maybe give some philosophical view of society, but I wasn't interested in the world.

Don't get me wrong, the story is good, but the writing itself is terrible. I want to believe that most of this is due to translation, but I don't know. Edit: Okay, it turns out that there are multiple translations. I began reading this on Kindle with the original translation, and switched to the new Nathan Collins translation around the 50% mark. The newer translation is way better, but be forewarned that the character names slightly change if you switch translations as I did.

It almost feels like Takami wanted to write a Manga, but couldn't find a publisher, so he wrote a novel instead. Fun fact, after the success of the novel, he did make this into a Manga, so I may not be too far off.

The main villain of the story is comically evil. He's a straight up sociopath that can't experience feelings. Okay sure, this is straight out of Manga / Anime, but fine whatever. This part is a bit much, but I can deal with. The fact that this 15 year old is basically the Terminator is a bit of a joke. Also, I'm pretty sure bulletproof vests are a one time thing.

With all this criticism, you may think that I didn't like Battle Royale. You wouldn't be further from the truth. The story was great, and despite the few criticisms I had, I loved the rest of it. My favorite scene involved the Lighthouse. The entire scene from the setup to the payoff was absolutely great, and completely believable.

Overall, I found this a surprisingly good read.

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stateofiction's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

for an action horror lover, this was everything

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duyanh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

5.0

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jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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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.

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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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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

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akira_outofthegravity's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

An incredible book. I wondered how it would manage to keep me hooked for over 600 pages- but it did! I was hanging onto every sentence. A very dark book though, I did have to put it down at times to calm down, but I loved this book and the ending made me cry a lot.

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