Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Battle Royale

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/

Content Warnings

itshardizzy's review

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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

thegr8estangell's review against another edition

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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.

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