Battle Royale, Koushun Takami
Battle Royale, Koushun Takami
7 Rating(s)
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Battle Royale

Author: Koushun Takami

Narrator: Mark Dacascos

Unabridged: 19 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/04/2012


Synopsis

In an alternative future Japan, junior high students are forced to fight to the death! L to R (Western Style). Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan--where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller--Battle Royale is a Lord of the Fliesfor the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic, now available for the first time in the English language. A group of high school students are taken to small isolated island and forced to fight each other until only one remains alive! If they break the rules a special collar blows their heads off. Koushun Takami's brutal, high-octane thriller is told in breathless. blow-by-blow fashion. Battle Royale is a contemporary Japanese pulp classic now available for the first time in English.

About Koushun Takami

Koushun Takami was born in 1969 in Amagasaki near Osaka and grew up in Kagawa Prefecture of Shikoku, where he currently resides. After graduating from Osaka University with a degree in literature, he dropped out of Nihon University's liberal arts correspondence program. From 1991 to 1996, he worked for the prefectural news company Shikoku Shihnbun, reporting on various fields including politics, police reports, and economics. Although he has an English teaching certificate, he has yet to visit the United States. Battle Royale, completed after Takami left the news company, was rejected in the final round of a literary competition sponsored by a major publisher due to the critical controversy it provoked among jury members. With its publication in Japan in 1999, though, Battle Royale received widespread support, particularly from young readers, and became a bestseller. In 2000, Battle Royale was serialized as a comic and made into a feature film.Mr. Takami is currently working on his second novel."


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily May on May 17, 2015

Ok, I'm not a massive manga fan and I bought this on a really random whim to find out what the fuss was about... and wow. Seriously, this is not a nice book by any means but it is incredible in a must-know-what-happens-next way. It's full of very graphic (well, it is manga) sex and violence, disturb......more

Goodreads review by Argona on May 04, 2016

I read this manga and the novelization at the same time and I really liked this first volume of the Manga. It's quite amazing for a Manga. It's very graphic and gory, but you probably know what you are getting into when you decide to read a Manga like "Battle Royale". Comparing manga to the novel, s......more

Goodreads review by Dave on May 12, 2016

Ever since I heard that some of the Eastern world (or manga-reading world) had accused Suzanne Collins of ripping off the immensely popular Battle Royale, I had it in my (long) list of books I wanted to read. Then, after years of languishing on that list... well, I never could quite get up the commi......more

Goodreads review by Rocio on September 24, 2023

Titulo: Battle Royale Volumen 1 Autor: Koushun Takami, Masayuki Taguchi Motivo de lectura: - Lectura / Relectura: Lectura Mi edicion: Tapa blanda, 224 paginas, Ivrea Puntuacion: 4/5 Tiene ciertas similitudes con el libro, el unico problemita que le encuentro es que condensaron mucho el libro en este prim......more

Goodreads review by Devann on May 18, 2020

actual rating: 2.5 Not really sure how I feel about this manga adaptation. I have not read the book yet and it has been probably over a decade since I watched the movie so I can't really say how this compares but there was a lot of rapey stuff in this first volume that, from some other reviews I read......more