Battle Royale

by Jaz

You might now Battle Royale as the Japanese cult movie, or even as a comic, but it was original a ground breaking and highly successful PULP novel first time released in Japan in 1999 – labeled as a Lord Of The Flies of the 21st century, potent allegory of that it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. It was first released in English translation February this year with the third printing in July.

First of all except for the somewhat violet setting and survival theme I would compare it as much to lord of the flies, where lord of the flies themes dwell over how people organize themselves Battle Royale looks at how people in distress panics and with their life threaten are capable of. In fact one of the themes in the book is the latent violent that are inn all of us which can be brought out in extreme situation.
 

Battle Royale is to make it short and without spoiling (in case some of you haven’t seen the movie or read the comic) about a Junior High Class that get selected to a special program competition; they get dropped on an island and the winner is the one soul survivor. If they fail to kill any of each other within 24 hours everyone dies. Except for that there are no rules.
 

Needless to say most students are terrified about this task, but some are more then willing to participate in the game. As the game proceeds we are brilliantly let inn to the minds of a least half of the students. The book is written with a drive and thrill that makes you want to read it to the end without stopping. It is a time very graphical in describing the violence, tough never as extreme as American Psycho.
 

After the end of the book you’re left with many questions and thoughts. It raises criticism and questions about many things. The success driven society, the acceptant of government, individualism, and since you enjoyed the book it says a thing or two as well about our hunger for extreme entertainment. All in all it is a brilliant book that should be owned by anyone interested in modern contemporary writing as well as it’s as I said a thrilling experience.

Title: Battle Royale
Author: Koushun Takami
Pages: 616 (paperback)
Publisher: Viz (English) / Ota Shuppan (Japanese)