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A review by natreviews
Battle Royale: Remastered by Koushun Takami
5.0
First off, this story was a great one to kick off my 2021 reading list (although my reading of it started in December 2020)! I think anyone born in my generation has heard about Battle Royale, but a lot of us haven’t read the story or seen the film based on the novel. It also gets a lot of comparisons to a popular North American book, so I think I’ll address that quickly.
No, The Hunger Games is not a rip-off of Battle Royale. At most, you can say it may have been inspired by Battle Royale. Other than it being young people fighting to the death until there is one winner (which isn’t a new concept), you can’t really compare the two. As an aside, the blurb on the back compares this to Lord of the Flies, which again, other than kids killing each other on an island, there isn’t really any connection. DON’T GO INTO THIS BOOK THINKING IT’S LIKE THE TWO OTHERS MENTIONED!
Now with that out of the way, this book is a highly important read. Not only the story, but the greater context of the world within the story. I understand why it was initially banned in Japan for a while, they don’t shy away from gore in this novel. It is ment to be there, and it is ment to make you feel something. The brutality of the novel is strategic. It’s not there to be there, it has a purpose and a message. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a Grade 12 or College reading requirement. When I was in Grade 12, we read George Orwell’s 1984, which from a society standpoint shares a lot of the same message, but this hit closer. Yes, it is working with 1997 technology, but it hits home more when they are talking about 14-16 year olds. Even at 21 (weeks away from 22) it hit so much more.
No, I’m not going to spoil the novel. This is one of the books that I don’t want to talk about the plot in a review since that would give it away (other than what is widley known). Although for English/Not Original Lanugage readers, I would highly recommend taking a photo of the class list (included in this remastered edition), printing it off, and keeping track. With 42 people to keep track of in such a small period of time, I ended up creating a death order (just putting their death number and in the order they died in the story), and had the boys and girls lists on two sheets of paper. There I tracked the death number they were, and who/what killed them. It really helps for when characters are mentioned in passing.
No, The Hunger Games is not a rip-off of Battle Royale. At most, you can say it may have been inspired by Battle Royale. Other than it being young people fighting to the death until there is one winner (which isn’t a new concept), you can’t really compare the two. As an aside, the blurb on the back compares this to Lord of the Flies, which again, other than kids killing each other on an island, there isn’t really any connection. DON’T GO INTO THIS BOOK THINKING IT’S LIKE THE TWO OTHERS MENTIONED!
Now with that out of the way, this book is a highly important read. Not only the story, but the greater context of the world within the story. I understand why it was initially banned in Japan for a while, they don’t shy away from gore in this novel. It is ment to be there, and it is ment to make you feel something. The brutality of the novel is strategic. It’s not there to be there, it has a purpose and a message. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a Grade 12 or College reading requirement. When I was in Grade 12, we read George Orwell’s 1984, which from a society standpoint shares a lot of the same message, but this hit closer. Yes, it is working with 1997 technology, but it hits home more when they are talking about 14-16 year olds. Even at 21 (weeks away from 22) it hit so much more.
No, I’m not going to spoil the novel. This is one of the books that I don’t want to talk about the plot in a review since that would give it away (other than what is widley known). Although for English/Not Original Lanugage readers, I would highly recommend taking a photo of the class list (included in this remastered edition), printing it off, and keeping track. With 42 people to keep track of in such a small period of time, I ended up creating a death order (just putting their death number and in the order they died in the story), and had the boys and girls lists on two sheets of paper. There I tracked the death number they were, and who/what killed them. It really helps for when characters are mentioned in passing.