Battle Royale - Koushun Takami

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Published by Haika Soru, 2012.

With the anticipation of the new Hunger Games film, I decided to go and read Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (written in Japanese in 1999, first translated to English in 2003). Around the time when the popularity of the books was at its height and the first Hunger Games film came out, I encountered a lot of comments on the internet saying that the book was surprisingly like this Japanese novel. (There are indeed some similarities between the books, but I don’t think it’s intentional and Hunger Games really isn’t a blatant rip-off from Battle Royale.) So with the Hunger Games trilogy long read, I sunk my teeth into this big book to hopefully satisfy some of my anticipation. The book does deal with some similar themes and it also has lots of teens killing each other off, but it doesn’t quite read as smooth as Suzanne Collins’ books.

The plot of Battle Royale  is as follows: third year class B of the Shiroiwa Junior High School (consisting of 42 students) is going on a school trip. Or so they think. The bus is filled with sleeping gas and when the students wake up, they’re on a deserted island and everyone has a weird metal collar around their necks. It turns out that the class is selected for the Program: the students of the class have to fight and kill each other until there is one winner left. Everyone gets a bag filled with some supplies and a random weapon, and they’re told that if no one dies for 24 hours, the collars around their necks will blow up. So not killing your classmates is not an option.

All the deaths were described quite graphically, so if you don’t have a strong stomach, maybe not read this book. The students become quite violent and those who start off with a bad weapon (one student got a fork in his bag) had to be a bit creative to get their hands on a better weapon. I was surprised that all the deaths are recounted, even of the characters who barely make an appearance in the novel. But you get to read about every death, and at the end of each chapter there’s a count of how many students are still alive. This killing-fest takes place in surprisingly little time. The entire program only takes about a day and a half. This does mean that the book has a good pace, since there aren’t long periods in which nothing happens.

With 42 students, it’s quite difficult in the beginning to tell the students apart. The Japanese names didn’t make it easier for me. But I have to say that Takami is surprisingly successful in keeping you interested in at least the majority of these students. And, of course, the number of students lessens at quite a fast rate. Luckily, the book focuses on three students  who’ve teamed up for most of the time. Good friends Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nagakawa and loner and new guy Shogo Kawada. The growing friendship between these people was nice to read, and it was also interesting to see, both in this friendship and in the novel in general, how hard it can be to truly trust someone and how easily you would normally trust someone.

The most interesting part about the book are the rebellious feelings of the students against the regime. The book is set in the Republic of Greater East Asia, a totalitarian state. Whilst the state claims that the Program has military reasons, it is in fact a means for the state to keep the population in check. The way the students feel about the regime differs from students. The majority of them simply has no idea as to the extent of what the state does to keep its population calm, whereas others are more informed and are therefore more intent on finding a way to cheat the Program. What I also found interesting was Shogo’s awareness of how hard it is to rebel against the state. He is intent on tearing the regime down, but knows it’s a lost cause since the majority of people simply keep their head down and try to survive best they can. He even discourages Shuya and Noriko to rebel with him, encouraging them to escape the country, since he knows rebelling against the state is a suicide mission. It’s quite frightening how strong the state’s control is and it’s clear that Takami was inspired by George Orwell (the first page contains an excerpt from George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia).

One thing that I found quite annoying in the novel was the attitude of the girls compared to the guys. Shuya originally teams up with Noriko because she is hurt and needs someone to look after her. And that’s how it stayed the entire time. Shuya and Shogo had to take care of her throughout the game; she helped reload the guns, but the guys were the ones doing the actual shooting and fighting. And it’s not just Noriko. All the girls in class 3B weren’t really capable to stand up for themselves and were hoping to find someone who could help them. The guys also assumed that all the girls wouldn’t fight, simply because they are girls. There are some heroic moments for girls throughout the novel, but the idea that girls are weak and need someone to protect them was a bit too present for my liking.

And then there’s the writing. I don’t know what the original Japanese is like, but the writing style of the English translation isn’t very smooth. There are quite a lot of short sentences and the text itself is all quite straightforward. This might be a positive thing for some, since there are no unnecessary comparisons and descriptions, but it felt a bit too simple for me. The text doesn’t really flow, it feels quite static. It created a bit of a distance between me and the story.

The elements that could make this novel a good book would be the themes it deals with. The rebellion against the totalitarian state and the revelations people get once they start to think about the regime make for a very interesting book. There’s also the issue of dealing with the guilt of having to kill your classmates. However, the writing isn’t the best and there’s really quite a lot of gore, a bit too much for me as it made me quite queasy at times. So whilst I found the book interesting, I wouldn’t necessarily go around recommending it to other people. I personally preferred the Hunger Games trilogy, as I preferred the writing style and it is slightly less explicit, whilst still dealing with these interesting themes. Though truth be told, Battle Royale might deal slightly better with these themes.   

Ratings: 2.5 out of 5