No spoilers for the book please. Or I'll strangle you.
So apparently my appetite for young people murdering each other was not quenched by the Hunger Games trilogy. One of my friends who hates popular things was all like "Grumble grumble Hunger Games better when it was called Battle Royale IMHHHHHO" when I was reading the Hunger Games books.
While I had intended to ignore him, I had a lot of problems with the Hunger Games trilogy, especially the later books in the series. MY BLOODLUST WAS NOT QUENCHED.
So, I took him up on his assertion that Battle Royale would be the more enjoyable read (even though he had never read Hunger Games or Battle Royale and was just posting things he read off of gawker), and purchased the book. I'll be giving my impressions after each chapter! Or whenever the hell I feel like it.
Something that I do like about this is I get the full class list off the bat, so I was be giving my projecting rankings for each characters finishing spot at points throughout the story based on how likely I think they are to survive.
And while I would appreciate no one else posting spoilers to ruin the book for me, I will be posting tons of them. SO BE WARNED.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
So far, I've read the two intro portions, neither of which feature any of the characters at all! Some crazy guy is in love with wrestling way too much and explains a battle royale to me like I'm an idiot. Then, we get a TOP SEKRIT GOVERNMENT MEMO about how someone has hacked into their super secret child murder death club and might know about their plans for the next program, but everything is probably cool anyway so go ahead with the plans.
Some reasoning: I posted most of the girls behind most of the guys, because unlike the Hunger Games I'm assuming these are just random 14-15 year old kids, and I'd take a random boy over a random girl at any point.
1) One of the characters names has a word I can't post on GameFAQs, which in my opinion hurts Yopooptoki's chances of winning. His parents didn't even love him enough to give him a non banned name, so his death will be quick, and probably related to poop.
2) A couple exceptions to the boys>girls rule. One of the characters last names looks suspiciously like "katana". I can only assume someone has accidentally entered a sword into the contest. I like the swords chances, but she will eventually be undone by Johnny Gunkablamo.
3) Two Nakagawa girls. I'm assuming they are sisters, but I could be wrong. I know very little about Japanese culture, so maybe Nakagawa is like Smith in Japan. They will both drop in the next rankings if it turns out they aren't related, because I'm assuming they will be protecting each other at first. Even if they aren't related, I'm still assuming they will team up, because if I was ever entered in a random death match, I would immediately form a gang with people having my last name, and then kill the rest of them off, thereby gaining their power. I AM THE ONE.
4) A couple of guys actually have something that sounds like "hero" in their name. Definitely helps. If a guy has the name "Hero", that is almost as good of a sign that he is the main character as his name being "Player 1".
5) Another girl has the last name ChigUSA. I can only assume she will enter the fray with an assortment of firearms, bravado, and a desire to murder anything non-American. I love her chances.
I will now answer questions.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
Your friend sounded cool until seeing that he didn't even read Battle Royale, so he's really just a tool then. Whatever. Battle Royale is my favorite book though, the only novel I've ever read through twice. I bought The Hunger Games but still haven't read it yet. I was on the fence about it because I figured I too would be all "BAH IT WON'T BE AS GOOD AS BATTLE ROYALE," but I decided to try and put that blind bias aside and give it a shot since it seemed similar to something I love.
-- NEW YORK GIANTS: SUPER BOWL XLII/XLVI CHAMPIONS!
Definitely see the movie after the book. Fantastic movie, although very different from the book. Like more different than your normal book-to-screen adaptation.
I'm a few chapters in, but not too far ahead of you.
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"THIS is how you make Nintendo win another generation. Good job, Sony and Microsoft, you're idiots." - Vlado
Haha, I like your completely ignorant character rankings. Some interesting stuff there, although I don't want to comment any further and possibly give even the slightest of spoilers.
-- NEW YORK GIANTS: SUPER BOWL XLII/XLVI CHAMPIONS!
Haha, I like your completely ignorant character rankings. Some interesting stuff there, although I don't want to comment any further and possibly give even the slightest of spoilers.
THIS IS HOW IT IS DONE PEOPLE.
See, hinting that I might have messed something up entirely based on my completely random ranking system without naming anything specific about who or what I might be wrong on. A+ response would read again.
Also, Shogo will be much more cool than your number 19 suggests; trust me.
This is how it is NOT done. From this post alone, I am already able to conclude that Shogo is going to make at least a decent run at things. Don't do this. Don't hint at anything in the future. Or so much strangling.
Luckily, I'm almost done with Chapter 0 and have already deduced this much for myself.
BUT YOU'RE ON NOTICE.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
At this point, I don't have any intention of reading the others, although that could change depending on how much I enjoy Hunger Games. I don't read much.
-- NEW YORK GIANTS: SUPER BOWL XLII/XLVI CHAMPIONS!
Prediction Rationale, and Other Random Musings (Chapter 0): Summary: Shuya takes time to introduce as many characters as he can locate on the bus, and Suprak promptly forgets all but a few. A girl, Norkio, offers him and his best friend (the Yopoopoki guy) some cookies, and Yopoopoki clearly wants to bang her. Some kid next to them (who Shuya describes like a mix between James Dean, Ivan Drago, and Mr. Zsasz) refuses the cookies. His name is Shogo, and I made sure to make a note of it so I can remember the name of the guy killing everyone. Some sort of gas fills the bus the kids were all on, and everyone falls asleep, even Shogo after he tries to bust open a window with his bear hands, but he was too tired from ripping phone books in half. Parents are notified, and some are shot. BOOK STARTS OUT GOOD ALREADY.
1) Wait, why was this called chapter zero? I question the logic behind having an introductory chapter, a prologue, and a chapter zero.
2) If you weren't mentioned already in the book, I apologize for the quick, off screen death you will be suffering within the next fifty pages. The book went out of its way to have Shuya make eye contact with every single person around him, even if it was just to say "this kid is a fat loser and nobody likes him." If the author didn't feel like you were worth more characterization than random fat kid, you're out of luck. All of these people are now at the bottom, ranked randomly by whatever random criteria I felt like.
3) There were a couple of exceptions. Yoshio is pointed out as the fat kid that no one likes, which is worse than being ignored. You're about to be thrown into an arena where other kids are going to try and kill you, and they've already practiced on you for the past 15 years of your life without the incentive. For all I know at this point, this battle is being staged by Yoshio's classmates strictly to kill him.
4) Another character, Kyoichi, gets a brief mention as being especially studious and not sleeping a lot. I'm sure doing physics while you're drowzy will help a lot in a deathmatch POINDEXTER. I predict he will be killed in the midst of trying to take notes on where for a lesson that no one else is attending.
5) Yuka Nakagawa is not a sister of Noriko, and has already been referred to as "the fat Nakagawa." When there are only two people with the same last name, and what distinguishes you from the other one is childhood diabetes, I cannot fathom any situation in which you win. She will be the only character to die of natural causes.
6) Shuya being the main character clearly makes him the favorite to win. I am a bit worried the fact that he needs to remind himself of all the distinguishing characteristics of his classmates on a bus ride suggests he is already suffering from some sort of head injury. The only thing he has going against him is that in the time it takes him to slowly scan his surroundings and introduce everyone to himself again, one of the other characters not required to explain things to the audience will just run up and stab him.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
7) Main characters buds seem good picks to go far as well. Already had to readjust my thoughts on Yopoopoki, which is a shame because I'm already tired of typing out his name. Childhood friends of main characters at least tend to get far enough to heroically die protecting the main character, so I feel safe putting him at least in the top ten. The bit in the prologue about how in battle royales "sometimes when allies make it to the end, one will just quit so the other can win" leads me to believe he might actually get to the final showdown with Shuya.
8) Other friends will most likely get fairly far as well. Noriko is clearly going to be "DAT GIRL" and will most likely stick around with the rest of the Superfriends and I wouldn't be that surprised if she made it to the end instead of Yopoopoki, since he seems in love with her. I typically don't like the odds of a person who brings cookies to a knife fight, but she is at least endearing herself to some of the other characters who might not be totally useless. She will most likely die when one of the crazy guys attacks her with a lead pipe, and she counters with a scone.
9) Shinji is awesome. I know this because the wonky translation pretty much came out and told me "Shinji is awesome". I predict he finishes top ten.
10) Either Shogo or Kazou will most likely end up being the main "antagonist" from the students. The prohibitive favorite if they weren't characters in a book that the main character is likely to win. Kazou seems like a safer pick between the two, which is why I have him ranked one higher. He is described as strong enough to take on anyone in the class, and even member of the local Yakuza. I don't know how effective a totalitarian regime is if they still have to deal with gang violence, but whatever, Kazou is on the job. He even has his own gang of followers, but he doesn't seem to interested in them. Ryuhei is singled out as the most important of his gang, but only because he ran back to Kazou like a baby when Shogo was mean to him. I don't think that is a good thing.
11) Shogo is a boss. Dude already turned down delicious cookies and tried to bust open a window to escape when everyone else had already passed out like chumps. Apparently he has also been shot twice, if Shuya's description is to be believed. If bullets couldn't take this guy down, I doubt anything else would be strong enough, except for perhaps the power of friendship.
12) Other people introduced were ranked according to how well I thought they'd do in a fight. Athletes ahead of non-athletes. Leaders ahead of non-leaders. And guys who study poetry and make jokes towards the bottom. Although the poetry guy also studies karate, so I bumped him up a little.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
As far as I know, no one has an "off-screen death" and every character at least has a "chapter" dedicated to them. Also, the perspective changes depending on who the chapter is focused on.
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"One of these days, I'm gonna find a loophole my friend." - Man in Black
Damn. Half of these were my predictions/observations when I was reading, only better.
Readthrough looking really good, though, and lol chapter 0. I didn't get it either. I could see a book rendition Kirby's Dream Land 3 doing something similar, it it existed.
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Golden Sun isn't half-bad, but it needs to cut the crap with the Yes/No questions, which make Zubats look like thylacines in comparison.
Summary: Apparently, the author was working off the effects of sleep gas as well, because Chapter 1 is only a couple of pages long. Not much new happens, other than Shuya is apparently the first person to wake up from the effects of the gas, giving him time to survey the entire room and find out they are in a strange classroom with collars attached to their necks. The new "teacher" comes in and introduces himself, and apparently the dude has abnormally short legs, "as if they served as a mere appendage to his torso." I don't know what this means, because appendage means limb, so if Shuya is questioning why his legs look like they might be limbs, I am starting to worry about what anatomical deformity Shuya might be suffering from that he hasn't revealed yet. This might hurt his ranking in future chapters. The rest of the class wakes up, and the chapter ends before anything interesting can happen.
Comments on rankings and other random musings: 1) The only character I moved was fat Nakagawa, who dropped one spot. No other characters besides Shuya are really mentioned, other than a brief aside that Fats Nakagawa serves as one of the two class clowns with Yutaka. A fat girl who tries to hard to make jokes makes me think of a young Rosie O'Donnell, which makes me believe her classmates will turn on her more easily than the other students.
2) Something else I have been mulling over is the revelation in one of the three prologue chapters that the information to this program has been compromised. As far as I see it, there are three likely candidates so far for the hacking: Shogo, Kazou, or some external force. I can't imagine that the author would mention something like this if it wasn't important to the central plot, so one possibility is that some outside force is trying to stop the programs, starting with this class. Perhaps some sort of rescue might save a handful of kids instead of just one, which would allow love interests to escape together. However, if they were really trying to sabotage the government's programs, they might have wanted to do so BEFORE the kids started killing each other so I don't know how likely of an outcome this will be.
The other possibility is that it is someone actually in the class, and my two top candidates right now are Kazou and Shogo. Shogo has the benefits of being pretty much the 15 year old equivalent of Solid Snake, and the fact that he just transferred into the class like a month ago, which times out pretty well to right after the data was compromised. Going against him is the fact he tried to bust open the window on the bus ride over, which seems like he didn't know what was going on and just wanted to escape (unless he just really wanted some fresh air). Similarly, Kazou is portrayed as super mysterious, super awesome, and not afraid to crack some skulls. Also, Shuya is surprised Kazou even showed up because he thought he would just ditch a trivial study trip, which might indicate that he knows something is going on beyond a simple study trip. However, it would be extremely odd that the person hacking the program already happened to be attending the class that was going to be part of it, and then do nothing to warn any of his fellow students. In fact, if he knew what was going on, I would suspect he would just stay off the bus, unless he is a psychopath like crazy, stabby, Shogo. Or maybe nothing is going on, and I read too much into it.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
Summary: The man with the legs that confuse Shuya keeps on talking, and introduces himself as the new teacher. Yukie, apparently unaware of the fact that they are all wearing collars demands an explanation as to what is going on, and the other students begin yelling random thinks like "did we all fall asleep", "who is this guy", and "can I kill that fat kid yet?" Shuya keeps up his job of slowly scanning his surroundings, and finds that Kazou, Shogo, and Mitsuko are handling the situation like bosses. The teacher tells them to shut their yaps, and tells them they are all there to kill each other (which no one yells at), because they have been selected for the program (which someone does yell at). Chapter ends right there after about two pages, giving me concern the author is unaware of how to properly use chapters.
Comments on rankings and other random musings: 1) The big mover this time around is Mitsuko, who was previously introduced as the leader of a gang of female hoodlums. Shuya didn't have much to say beyond that, and I had assumed a gang of 15 year old girls doesn't really do much other than each others hair and saying snide things about other girls to give them eating disorders. I was mistaken. Mitsuko is completely unphased by their sudden kidnapping (like Shogo and Kazou), leading me to believe she has either been kidnapped before or was secretly waiting for a time where she could murder the rest of her classmates. She also has a couple of underlings at her disposal, who are almost certain to die before she does. Moved up to a top ten finish for sure.
2) I dropped Sakura and Kazuhiko a couple of spots. I had them fairly high up as I assumed the girlfriend/boyfriend combo platter might team up and protect each other for a while, but neither one was mentioned in the past couple chapters. Besides, I don't know how serious they were about their relationship at the age of 15, but upon further reflection I don't they are to the "I will lay down my life for you" stage of their relationship yet.
3) Shogo smiles when the teacher with appendage legs tells him they are to kill each other. Either his grasp of the language isn't too good, or hes a psychopath. The only question at this point is how many of his fellow students he will slay before the match is over (and how many he already killed by the time the teacher finished his sentence).
4) Kazou is also completely collected, even as his underlings are yelling for his attention. This is the second time he's been shown ignoring them. I suspect he is secretly deaf. I shall keep an eye out for this in the future.
5) Someone yells when he says they are part of the program? But not after he says they are to kill each other? Either they already have knowledge of the program (which would raise more questions) or "program" is code for square dancing. I know that was how I always reacted when we were forced to square dance in gym class
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
Summary: Apparently, these children already knew the of the existence of the program, the fact that it targeted kids their age, and were still incredibly confused when they woke up on a strange island with metal collars around their necks. I'm considering altering my rankings so that they all die at the same time of starvation when they can't figure out how to work the doorknob out of the room. When the arms for legs teacher can't get the kids to believe that they are actually in the program, he has soldiers bring in the corpse of their dead teacher. When they all start freaking out, they shoot the corpse again, because apparently what they were truly afraid of was that he might be a zombie.
Comments on rankings and other random musings: 1) I now moved Kyoichi below the fat kid for last place after he had an outburst telling the teacher he was too important to be there. He gets laughed at by the teacher, and all of the other kids secretly marked him as the first guy they should off. Probably not a good idea to start off a death match by loudly announcing to everyone how they were all unimportant in comparison to him, and he made things worse when he went on to tell everyone how they also smelled worse and had uglier mothers.
2) Wait, so the characters in this book knew that every year 50 classes their age were culled from the population and forced to fight to the death? And that every other year, their district was selected, and that the previous year no one from their district was chosen? And that they were all getting on a bus, together, for a random by no means suspicious field trip? I cannot put into words how dumb they and all their parents were. This is, for sure, the time you decide to play sick and not go on the trip. Shuya seems surprised that Kazou even showed up, which suggests to me it wasn't even mandatory. If I was in their shoes, that entire year I would only move by shimmying down the hallway with my back against the wall, and each day after class was over I would jump through the window and sprint home as fast as I could. How was every student not having a panic attack every day in every class knowing it was the year they could get picked?
3) Furthermore, their old teacher is clearly in the wrong line of work. If it is customary for the teacher to get killed along with the class, I think that would be a hard job to fill. I'd take my chances being homeless, thanks.
4) The depiction of the previous winner having lost their mind was a nice touch. It always bothered me a bit in the Hunger Games how all the past winners were pretty cool with having murdered some other kid.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
Comments on rankings and other random musings: 1) "Woops." So, I guy I had projected to finish second overall ends up in dead last after he freaks out when Teacher McNoKnees admits to having had his way with the woman at the orphanage. The good news about this is that I literally cannot do any worse, unless Kyoichi, Yoshio, or Yoshimi end up winning the whole thing. In my defense, I was assuming the entire field would make it to battle before the killings started. The great news is that I no longer have to type out "Yopoopoki" every time I want to post a new list. I'll be omitting the dead character for now on, unless a new dead person is added to the list.
2) Great way to give a "no one is safe" vibe by immediately killing off the best friend character. I had assumed he had a pass to the final ten, at least, the way they were building him up. I mean, the friends with a well established backstory are given a pass in these sorts of books, it would be like if they just went and wounded the main female love interest off the bat and oh wait I should have read the next two paragraphs.
3) Noriko also tumbles some in my projections. She might be able to bounce back from this, but right now I'm assuming "person with two functioning legs" will be able to defeat "person with one functioning leg".
4) Shinji going boss mode by saving Noriko and Shuya from getting themselves killed as well. I've moved him up to take Yopoopoki's place as bestest buddy. Although, considering how it went for the last guy to hold that title, perhaps I should have moved him in the other direction.
5) It was a "Yoshi" based name massacre this chapter, as Fumiyo Fujiyoshi got a knife through the center of the head just for whispering. I dunno how or why this happened, because the all torso teacher didn't kill Yopoopoki right away when he was screaming about murdering the government and buying apple pies. But Fumiyo gets a knife to the temple because she wanted to borrow Yukie's pencil? Yeah, that seems fair.
6) Someone needs to off this teacher before he becomes any more comically evil. They'll have to be careful though, because apparently his leg deformities forced him to hone his knife throwing ability to an art.
7) GETTING GOOD HYPE HYPE HYPE
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
From: Suprak the Stud | Posted: 5/4/2012 3:47:09 PM | #004 1) One of the characters names has a word I can't post on GameFAQs, which in my opinion hurts Yopooptoki's chances of winning. His parents didn't even love him enough to give him a non banned name, so his death will be quick, and probably related to poop.
Woops? More like prophet.
-- NEW YORK GIANTS: SUPER BOWL XLII/XLVI CHAMPIONS!
Haha I forgot about that after I moved him up to number 2! Also displaying my prophetness: my completely random rankings had Fumiyo only two spots higher than she actually ended up.
More coming soon, as I just read another chapter.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
Summary: Sakamochi explains the rules of the game to the students he hasn't freaked out on and killed yet. Basically, the students need to kill each other, and there are no rules, like Fight Club. Well, there is one rule, which is they have to kill each other. Try to escape by sea? They kill you. Stay in the forbidden zones, which are locations they keep adding to stop students from hiding in one spot? They kill you. Students band together, and refuse to kill each other? Well then they kill everyone. Shuya swears he will kill Sakamochi, which I can only assume would go over about as well as Yopoopoki's attempt.
Comments on rankings and other random musings: 1) No movement this chapter, as no students were introduced or said anything or did anything besides bleed all over the floor.
2) Fumiyo is revealed to be the nurse's assistant. This is the only bit of characterization she will get for the entire book, and it came after she was already dead. But at least we found out the corpse knew something about medicine. This will affect her rankings if she ever comes back from the dead.
3) I have a new theory about Shogo, but I don't have much to substantiate it yet. I originally thought he was the guy who hacked the computer (possibly), but after thinking about it more, I am guessing he was actually in one of these programs before. It would explain both: 1) all of his scars and 2) why he had to transfer into their class after being in the hospital for several months. Boom. Case closed. Unless I end up being wrong, in which case he was the guy who hacked into the computer.
-- Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."
1) Hilarious topic 2) I've read both this book (3 times) and the Hunger Games trilogy. Battle Royale is my favorite novel, though HG has its merits as well. 3) Some of your predictions/guesses are HILARIOUS - you already saw one example of this. It's not a spoiler to say this, is it? I'm totally with you on not wanting any spoilers. But there are definitely some great excerpts in these first 40 posts~ 4) Do check out the movie afterward, it's pretty good 5) I can't unsee Shogo as Solid Snake, thanks
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http://myanimelist.net/profile/angryaria <Die the death>! <Sentence to death>! <Great equalizer is the death>!!
From: AppIekidjosh | Posted: 5/10/2012 2:52:15 AM | #044 5) I can't unsee Shogo as Solid Snake, thanks
Oh man, I'm currently playing through the MGS series now, so I was mostly unfamiliar with it in my previous BR readthroughs. Now I might need to read it again after I finish MGS.
-- NEW YORK GIANTS: SUPER BOWL XLII/XLVI CHAMPIONS!