| Battle Royale | 
 enlarge | Author: Koushun Takami
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  145 reviews
Sales Rank: 10372
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 156931778X
Dewey Decimal Number: 895.635
UPC: 782009113331
EAN: 9781569317785
ASIN: 156931778X
Publication Date: February 26, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence in a dystopian world, it is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old director Kinji Fukusaku.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 140 more reviews...
 Captivating Read... The Pages Roll By. November 18, 2008
I had "Battle Royale" on my "to read" list for quite sometime. I finally managed to get my hands on it, and it was worth the wait. "Battle Royale" is a captivating read, from start to finish. As the tile suggests, the pages fly by and after several hours, I could not believe that this tome was 600+ pages.
The storyline is intriguing, like a car wreck. That timeless saying about watching a car wreck is a perfect metaphor for the children in this book. I didn't want to learn what these 15 year old students were capable of, but I could not stop reading. For the most part, the story lines were interesting and engaging - for the most part. Unfortunately, I did not especially appreciate the manner in which the background of each character was conveyed. The background of each character was told throughout the book, as each character became a more integral part of the story. As such, there were times when I was less interested in the past and more interested in the present. Of course, it would be nearly impossible to tell the motivations of 42 students all at once at the beginning of the story. That wouldn't be any better.
Additionally, I did have some slight difficulty differentiating the characters at the beginning of the story. Nevertheless, despite these minor faults, the drive behind the story and the main characters is what is most memorable about this book. I will never forget it, and I doubt any reader will either, given the chance.
J.Stoner
 Battle Royale November 7, 2008
This book was simply amazing. It gave amazing details of scenes, and captured me the very first time i picked it up.
Violent, disturbing, intelligent and unmissable. October 24, 2008
On its original publication in Japan in 1999, Battle Royale was a surprise hit. Its author, journalist Koushun Takami, had written it for a literary competition but it had been rejected due to its controversial content and violent storyline. Of course, these very things combined with its searing commentary on Japanese society and reviews drawing comparisons with William Golding's Lord of the Flies made it immensely attractive to a younger audience.
The setting of Battle Royale is a little confusing, but it is eventually revealed that the book takes place in an alternate-reality timeline where Japan remained a police state after WWII and still controls much of Asia. Japan's schoolchildren and students are becoming more and more unruly as American culture and notions of freedom seep into the country, most notably via illegal musical imports (Bruce Springsteen's lyrics from 'Born to Run' are an influence on the main protagonist). To keep them under control, the Japanese government has instituted the Battle Royale programme. Every year, fifty classes of schoolchildren are dumped on various islands, equipped with weapons and told to slaughter one another. The last survivor is allowed to go free. The idea is that this horrifying threat will enforce peace and tranquillity on Japan's schools, but of course this doesn't quite work, with instead the programme being seen as a game to be followed and the winners become celebrities.
The novel follows one such class of schoolchildren as they are shipped to an abandoned island, given weapons and have failsafe bombs attached to necklaces placed around their heads. Any attempt to swim off the island or remove the necklace will result in it exploding. If at least one student isn't killed every 24 hours, all the bombs will be detonated simultaneously. The situation appears hopeless, apart from something the organisers didn't plan for. One of the students has played the game before...
Battle Royale is a scintillating novel. The premise is pretty shocking, but works brilliantly. By taking a bunch of schoolkids and ramping all of their petty animosities and arguments to the max and then giving them high-powered weaponry, Takami creates a situation which is both horrifying and, insanely, is also convincing. The characters are all pretty standard archetypes, with the class bully, the stuck-up rich girl, the innocents, the nerds, the peacemakers and so on, with Takami exploring the hierarchy of classroom power and how it is affected, or more accurately how it isn't particularly affected, but the disturbing situation these teenagers are placed in. The novel's length (over 600 pages) allows him to paint all 42 of the kids in reasonable detail, adding backstories and motivations to each character, usually engendering the reader's sympathy for each one just before they get violently offed.
Battle Royale works as a searing condemnation of humanity and how easy it is to slip into barbarism (much like Lord of the Flies, though with less spears and more petrol bombs and samurai swords), the inability for any repressive regime to maintain control over the imagination of the young and also that overconfidence always leads to a downfall (the ending of the novel, although possibly predictable, is deeply satisfying).
Battle Royale (*****) is the first novel I've ever reviewed which I feel compelled to add an advisory warning to: this book features a bunch of 14 and 15-year-olds killing one another (and some adults as well) in various inventive and disturbing ways. The book is pretty full-on in its depiction of violence and cruelty. That said, the violence is not gratuitous. There is a story, character or thematic reason for everything that happens, and the cumulative effect of the narrative is exceptionally powerful. The book is published in the UK by Gollancz and in the USA by VIZ Media.
GREA YET SCARY October 2, 2008
If a boy about the age of 10 read the original novel, he would have soiled himself, had nightmares until he was 20, and then some!!!!
Battle Royale is set in Tokyo (In the novel it is referred as the Republic of Greater East Asia) where ninth grade students are randomly chosen to fight each other to the death on a deserted island. The students are provided weapons (guns, knives etc.) to quote from the movie, "Eliminate natural advantages." It is not for the faint of heart. There is graphic murder and violence and sexual talk and near-relations.
BE CAREFUL!!! But, it is an excellent and revolutionary book READ if not FAINT of HEART!!!!
Excellent Character Study for Strong Stomachs September 25, 2008
(Please read Full review for clarity of what I am about to say)
This is a Horrible book!
By horrible I mean that it is an Excellent book, well paced, extrememly well written and includes characters (Not JUST the leads) that you actually Care about...
...which is where the true Horror comes in.
Some out there might have seen the movie, detailing what happens when an oppressive government (think of life under Pol Pot, Kim Jong III or Hillary Clinton) forces jr, high school students to kill each other in a fight to the death. Now, the movie version was slightly edited down - it would have to be, to fit into the time frame of a film - and really only examined the motivations of the Main characters for the most part. Not so with this book.
Most of the characters are given their own (sometimes small) moments in the sun - the author really gets into their heads and hearts for the most part and makes the reader care - sometimes deeply - about them.
Which is a shame as most die horribly.
There are one or two subplots, one character in particular devises an elaborate plot to retaliate - but ... well, i don't want to ruin things, but the author shows that intellect, friendship, young love, kindness, innocence - even madness - mean nothing in this bleak horrible game.
It is very effective and thought provoking, but heart wrenching. There is also a different ending than what is seen in the movie, and one or two places that are hard to follow due to "loss in translation from Japanese to English" but these are minor concerns.
An excellent read and a strong book, but it is very very explicit and sad.
Five stars plus!
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