Battle Royale

[PILMAN]

Whats the difference with the manga and the novel?

I'm being told the manga was edited by Tokyopop to be a gameshow rather than stick to the original story? I'm curious as I want to pick up one or the other.


****EDIT Arrr I bumped a old thread sorry.

[Matrim]

I just finished reading the manga and boy was it an awesomе ride or what? I think this even beats 20 Century Boys and is now my favourite manga. Not only the story is brilliant but the art is realistical and beautiful, just how I like it. And the character development is just stellar, made me really feel for so many characters. I never get to cry because of books or movies but when certain Battle Royale characters died I really wanted to be able to cry for them...
I haven't watched the movie, nor do I intend to, I see no way to have even a quarter fo the depth of the manga. But I'd love to read the book some day and see how it differs fro mthe manga.

Spoiler for the whole manga, read at your own risk!:

Where do I start? So many memorable scenes, so much sadness and gore and yet so much beauty and bravery? I really, really liked Takako, too bad she was eliminated early on. And the whole lighthouse arc really hit me hard, it was a great example how easy things can go so very wrong in such a deadly environment.
I think one the big problems of the manga is that Kiriyama is just too superhuman. I can somehow buy him being exceptionally gifted and being able to learn and do just about everything but jumping like a kangaroo with a bulletproof vest was a bit too much, don't these things weigh tens of kilograms? He was too much like a horror movie monster, survived agaisnt the odds way too many times.
The other major problem is that Shuuya was too damn idealistic and deserved to die quite a lot of times. I actually would have liked an ending without the final twist - in other words and ending in which Shogo wins by killing Shuuya and Noriko in cold blood. Call me a cruel bastard but I really wanted to slap Sugi and Shuuya many times for their reluctance to kill even people who were stark raving mad, had killed many of their friends and to top it off were attacking to kill them too. I wish Shogo had picked other people to save.
Don't get me wrong, these things frustrated me a lot mostly because the rest of the manga was so absolutely amazing. It kind of made me want to kill all the bastards who were watching The Program, not only those who organised it.

[martino]

The manga was too graphic for me...

I'm still emotionally distressed from it.

[Matrim]

Well, it's very emotionally intense but I don't think this has much to do with how graphic it is - I am much more affected by a "peaceful" death of a character whom I care about than by an extremely gruesome death of some random grunt that I don't give a damn about. I usually don't like blood and gore but it just felt right to have much of this in such a brutal story.

[be0wulf]

Spoiler:

I think the death(s) that affected me the most would be Takako's and the massacre of the Lighthouse Girls. Takako died in the arms of the boy she loved, and the Lighthouse Girls were all friends who didn't trust each other enough.

[dfens]

Matrim bulletproof vests aren't that heavy kevlar is pretty light it's slighty heavier then say a heavy winter coat. Around 2 pounds or so. Of course it will weigh more if you have the trauma plate but those are composite now instead of solid steel plates like in the old days. I can understand if he was the Military level 4A model which is bulky and loaded with metal plates which makes it weigh a ton.

My biggest gripe/plot hole is why didn't Kiriyama take Shinji's Beretta 92 pistol? Everyone else he killed or everytime he came across something usefull he took it so that others couldn't have it especially a weapon.

But the idiot leaves it, Shun finds it and uses as his ace in the whole to put him down once and for all. That whole misjudgement was out of character for Kiriyama a major turning point for the ending of the story.

[Matrim]

Matrim bulletproof vests aren't that heavy kevlar is pretty light it's slighty heavier then say a heavy winter coat. Around 2 pounds or so. Of course it will weigh more if you have the trauma plate but those are composite now instead of solid steel plates like in the old days. I can understand if he was the Military level 4A model which is bulky and loaded with metal plates which makes it weigh a ton.

Interesting. Well, I have watched some films or maybe read it somewhere, I am not sure, in which people refuse to wear bulletroof vest because they are supposed to be very heavy but I guess that's no longer the case or maybe the creators of these films/books had no clue.

Spoiler:

Still, it's an incredible luck that so many Uzi shots ended up in Kiriyama's torso and were stopped by the vest and he was not hit in the head or a limb by a stray bullet.Or that Sugi never noticed his opponent wearing such a vest during their long fight. And this vest stopped an awful lot of bullets, it looked almost magical, I doubt real bulletproof vests are that great, this one was almost like a magic armour that would stop everything and anything.

I think the death(s) that affected me the most would be Takako's and the massacre of the Lighthouse Girls.

Yes, same with me, these were the most poignant deaths, IMO.

[Ashlotte]

Alright so im alittle late picking this one up...Just alittle.

I had heard about it for awhile and seen it in the stores..Kinda sticks out with the plastic wrap and the warning sticker ya know? Well even though its been out for awhile I should probably tag my thoughts dont wanna ruin it for anyone...

Spoiler for Battle Royale:

The concept and execution was pretty interesting although I can't one hundred percent agree with all the hyper violence...I think it detracted alittle from the drama aspect and a pretty damn solid story.

I guess I wished theyd spent some more time with certain characters instead of killing them off so fast. The whole heres "a nice sweet moment" and then on the next page BAM dead got old after awhile.

It would have been nice if they hadnt made kiriyama so absolutely cold blooded...Made quite frankly alittle boring to watch. Whats the point of watching someone devoid of emotion killing people without regret or interest...Would have been more interesting if the main killer was more like shogo in the previous years game....ah well.

One other thing that bugged me was Noriko was supposed to be so important to shu and the manga talks about them being made for each other, but I never felt like they did much to show this supposed deep bond other then saying "It exists"? Even in the prologue I still didnt really feel like I was looking at two people deeply in love or anything...*shrug*

I guess id say overall the manga was a hit or miss kinda thing. Certain parts did bore me to tears and lacked real emotional impact just splatter crap, while others really rocked me to the core. The suicide couple...The lighthouse incident...and probably souma's character in general. The only one to actually get a tear from me was with kayoko and sugi mostly because they took the time to set it all up properly even though the silly pseudo "ki" nonsense in the fight kinda ruined the final impact alittle.

Still worth every penny though for the simple fact that it makes you think...What would I do if I was put in that kinda situation? Story's a good way to make you think about just what kindof person you really are when worst comes to worst, so for that alone id say it was time well spent reading it.

[2H-Dragon]

For me it was just a trip of overratedness and cheap melodrama. The gore was also so-so tbh.

[Nani Kore]

I can safely say that BR is my all time favourite series ever, and the manga adaptation was just amazing. I loved ever part of it. Has anyone here read any of BR?

[KimmyChan]

I actually managed to get up the courage and guts to finally sit and read this series all the way through as my boyfriend owns all 15 volumes of it, and despite being somewhat shocking and offensive in quite a few places, I found it a real eye-opener of a story and enjoyed it to an extent, although it is a series that I probably won't choose to pick up again out of choice in the future as it's just far too harrowing

[grylsyjaeger]

I saw the movie a few years back on a whim and never enjoyed it that much. From memory the CGI used for bullet impacts and blood was laughable.

Then over Easter I picked up the novel at a market for a couple of dollars after recognizing the logo. Well I read the novel in two days just flat stick it was so riveting.

Then I saw there was a manga too so I just binged reading that over the past four nights and my oh my what a story. Even though having read the novel combined with seeing the movie previously, the manga was still a real page turner.

The gore put me off a little at first but I'm glad I kept reading. The extra stories included in the manga that give us that glimpse of who the characters are really made the series for me.

Spoiler:

Like most people Takako was my favourite character in the manga. I felt so bloody sorry for her and Sugi.

Sigh.