Thursday 16 July 2015

Battle Royale: The Book & Graphic Novel

Hello 
An nyoung 
Konnichiwa 
Ni hao 


Well today is kind of like Manga Madness but with a book and a graphic novel, as far as I'm aware Battle Royale also has a Manga but I haven't read it, I haven't been able to find it yet. So shall we begin?

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Wrote by Koushun Takami, Battle Royale was originally released in 1999 in Japan where it was criticized as violent exploitation when it was first published but surprised people when it became a best seller, 2009 saw the book translated into English, and rereleased in 2014 with a new translation. The book has also been translated into Korean, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Norwegian, Turkish and Hungarian. I think it's safe to say that it's a popular book. I read Battle Royale last year (2014) and I had trouble putting it down (I watched the film first which made me want to read the book) as always the book is better than the film and Battle Royale is often compared to The Hunger Games as their plots are very Similar, Suzanne Collins has always stated that she knew nothing of Battle Royale until her book was published, in my opinion the ploys are too similar for it to be a coincidence but who am I to judge.
Battle Royale is set in a fictional police state of Japan known as The Republic of Greater East Asia, a program is created to stop any future rebellions in the guise of military research. The program consists of a class of upto 50 classmates aged 15 placed onto a island where they are forced to kill one another until only 1 survivor remains and the outcome publicised on local television. Under the guise of a school trip third year class B of Shiroiwa junior high school are placed onto a bus and then gassed to find themselves waking up in a school  on a vacated island with metal collars around their necks, they are told the details of the program and then given survival packs which contain a random weapon or tool and then set on their way one by one by student number (there is 42 students 21 male and 21 female). To make sure all the rules are obeyed they are told about their metal collars and that they are used to track each student and if any of them are in a forbidden zone or attempt to remove the collar it will detonate killing them.
The book follows all the students mainly male students 5: Shogo Kawada, 6: Kazuo Kiriyama, 15: Shuya  Nanahara,  19: Shinji Mimura and female students 11: Mitsuko Souma and 15: Noriko Nakagawa.
In my opinion the book is wrote amazingly and you feel emotions for characters that you feel you shouldn't because of how they are, it's definitely a  book I recommend to every one.
The book shows the map of the island the class are on and shows the forbidden zones and their designated times.
There is also a class register revealing all 42 classmates.
The book is separated into 5 parts; Prologue: Government Memo, Part 1: Start Game, Part 2: Middle Stage, Part 3: Final Stage and Part 4: Finish.
 After each chapter it reveals how many students are remaining and keeps the reader up to date at the start of each part also.

Battle Royale is a book the keeps you on the edge of your seat and entices you to keep on reading to find out who will kill who and who will be the winner. If you were placed into this situation could you kill your friends to survive?


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Angel's Border is set around a scene in the Battle Royale book it centre's around a group of girls that hide out in a lighthouse. The graphic novel contains 2 short stories of the girls hidden away in the lighthouse, story one features girls 2: Yukie Utsumi, 9: Yuko Sakaki, 12: Haruka Tanizawa, 16: Yuko Nakagawa, 17: Satomi Noda, 19: Chisato Matsui and boy 15: Shuya Nanahara. Story 2 features the same girls but with boy 19: Shinji Mimura. It shows them before they were entered into the game allowing the reader to connect and have some background with the characters that you didn't get in the book.











Sadly as much as I got into the graphic novel and even wanted Chisato and Shinji to get together it obviously wasn't to be as Angel's Border has the same ending as in the book all I will reveal is that they don't survive but how they die I will leave for you to read to find out.

Let me ask you a question that I asked earlier if you were put into a game like this could you kill your closest friends to survive? Remember only ONE can SURVIVE.
See you soon! 


An nyoung 
Sayonara 
Zai Jian 
Bye 

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