Let’s set up the scene a bit, shall we? Imagine that you live in Japan, a country which not too long ago faced one of the biggest, most terrifying attacks in history in the forms of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Your parents have lived through it, and they have told you of the countless horrors they’ve encountered – people scorched and burned to death, people killing each other over resources, people gradually dying due to radiation poisoning. You grow to resent violence and death, but surprisingly, most people of your generation, and the young ones from the next one, don’t seem to share your opinion. They adore violent pop culture such as movies and manga (Japanese comic books). The more violent it is, the better. How do you write a book that can show the horrors of violence to a young, contemporary audience while trying not to have the message too “in your face”? You write “Battle Royale”.
The book tells the story of an alternate universe where, following the second World War, Japan descended into a totalitarian regime not unlike that of North Korea in the present. People dress the same, act the same, and all Western influences, such as music or movies, are forbidden – unless they portray Japan in a good light. The Japanese government terrorizes its people in various ways, but the most notable one is the “Battle Royale” program. Each year, a random class of middle schoolers (12-14 year old kids) is kidnapped, outfitted with explosive collars, placed on an evacuated island, given a weapon and told that if within three days there is more than one of them alive on the island they will all die. Thrown into a complete hell literally overnight, the students find themselves forced to commit horrible murders for the sake of survival. Some choose to die with dignity, others descend to their primal selves and begin hunting down the others, using their looks or superior fighting skills to overwhelm them. But on the island, you’re not allowed to be a good person, because good people die first.
“Battle Royale” executes its flaw perfectly. The violence in the book, while not gratuitous, is realistically portrayed and described like in no other book… or movie, for that matter. But despite the fact that this game of death is at the core of the story, it’s not the focus. It’s the characters. Almost all of the 40 students fighting for their lives are given a fleshed out personality, backstory and motivation. That makes each death that much more emotional. While there are several characters who take on the role of “hunters” and start exterminating the other students, we can understand why each character is doing what they’re thinking. A huge mistake that the movie adaptation of “Battle Royale” did (alongside several other major ones, but that’s a rant for another time) is making the main antagonist just some guy the government hired to hunt down the kids, which goes completely against what the book was going for. Here, we know who both the hunter and the hunted are, so we care about the characters no matter what the outcome is. And let me tell you, it’s not just the hunters who get to kill.
Above all, “Battle Royale” is an exploration of the human mind under duress. When the chips are down and it’s kill or be killed, who are you going to become? And more so, it’s an exploration of the mind of a teenager, someone who only a few years ago used to be a child and is now on their way to being an adult. No, that’s still not right – it’s the exploration of the minds of forty teenagers. And if you think you can handle the violence (or even if you don’t think you can), it’s definitely one worth diving into.