Overall Rating: ASynopsis: Battle Royale began life as a novel by Koushun Takami, which was then turned into a movie and most recently, a manga. The series has become infamous in Japan and throughout the world. In it, Japan is a police state, and every two years fifty 3rd year junior high (grade 9) classes are chosen to forcibly fight against one another until only one student remains alive. The results of the battles are then aired on television. The series follows Shuuya Nanahara and six other characters as the try to stay alive and find a way out of the "Program".
I first saw the movie version of Battle Royale a few years ago, and was blown away by it. It has a unique plot, is brutally violent, funny, and shows just how far humans will go to survive. I picked up the first volume of the manga recently, and it was just as good as the movie. The manga version is a little more explicit than the movie, so be forewarned, but it's an interesting read.
If you can take some graffic scenes of sex and violence, I highly recommend both the movie and manga versions of Battle Royale. It's definitely fucked up, but in a good way.
2 comments:
The original book is actually really good too, after reading it and then going back and rewatching the movie things actually made a lot more sense.
I've sorta waffled on checking out the manga figuring the book was awesome and the movie was awesome so the manga is sure to suck - good to know it doesn't. Definitely will have to pick it up at some point in the future.
Thanks for the tip on the novel. I hope you like the manga as much as I did. I've only read the first volume, but it sounds a lot like how you describe the novel (helped make things in the movie make more sense). The manga is written by the author of the novel, which is probably why it's quality is consistent with the novel and movie.
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