Battle Royale

When I was in high school, I watched the movie Battle Royale.  Those familiar with the Hunger Games should recognize the basic concept immediately, a bunch of children are forced to kill each other in an isolated area for the sake of competition.  However, Battle Royale came out long before the Hunger Games and was written in Japan.  The movie is more violent but also doesn't take itself quite as seriously.  I enjoyed the movie, even if it was a little morbid.

Years later, I was lent a copy of the book, which is pretty massive.  It is very similar to the plot of the movie but enjoys all of the traditional advantages of books over movies.  Because it is a book, all of the students get their own little time to shine and they definitely get more of a back story.  Even though it is blatantly obvious from the beginning who the protagonist is, the book gives each character at least a little page time to show off their quirks.

While the book was interesting, it was translated from Japanese and I feel that a fair portion of the elegance of the writing was lost in translation.  A lot of the time, I felt like certain paragraphs, with just a little tweaking, would have been significantly improved.  Also, I know that this is partially my fault because I am not very familiar with Asian names, but with more than 40 characters it became difficult to keep all the names straight.  It didn't help that there were multiple pairs of students whose names were extremely similar (Yumiko and Yukiko for example).

However, the themes that it explores about loyalty and psychology are definitely poignant.  The students that cooperate versus those who don't and their reasons for their choice are fascinating.  The book is a little gory but overall an enjoyable read.  It managed, with its rather simplistic use of language, to still be a fun read while still making the reader think.  Overall, I would give this book an 86%.