Battle Royale - Koushun Takami

This is a remastered edition with a new English translation by Nathan Collins, as the original was apparently not up to snuff. The book that launched the manga and film, it's Takami's only novel and although based on an enticing premise, it is at best a pulp read with not much to recommend itself stylistically. In a Q&A at the back of this edition, Takami claims that he avoids reading reviews because he is a sensitive man and easily hurt, therefore I'll try to go easy for his sake. Having read the more extensive manga and enjoyed the film many times, I am by no means going to take an elitist position on this, it's simply that the writing leaves much to be desired. I feel that since I've already reviewed the manga last year, I don't need to go too much into plot specifics.

Approaching the franchise backwards, I was simply curious to see how the source material differed. The same problems that rang true in the manga are an issue here; realism is completely absent, characters are bad stereotypes, action and violence comes at the expense of character development, and like many bad pulp novels, it was clearly written with a film adaptation in mind, as evidenced by the ridiculous car chase sequences towards the finale. Many details that would have enriched the dystopic Republic of Greater East Asia are left unanswered, and even when pressed in the supplementary interview, Takami is unable to give answers. Overall it's a half baked idea with mediocre execution (some serious world building is needed) although enjoyable enough as a trashy read.

Rating: 3/5