Title: Battle Royale Volume(s): 11 Creator(s): Koushun Takami/Masayuki Taguchi Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: Tokyopop MSRP: $9.95 Genre(s): Action Rated: Mature (18+)

There’s no reason related to anime for me to review this series, partly because Kevin has already reviewed it and because I’ve only read one volume out of the fifteen. But I do have a reason. Just give me a moment to explain: at our school every Monday we have a double period at the beginning of the day. Sometimes we see a movie, sometimes we have a speaker, and sometimes we’re out on the football field doing some crazy activity. For the past two Mondays we are seeing a movie called “Hotel Rwanda”. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? If you haven’t, then it’s about how a hotel manager named Paul must try to survive genocide along with his wife and children in the country of Rwanda where Hutus are being encouraged to kill Tutsis. The violence wasn’t the only shocking factor, and neither was the fact that the UN pulled out and left the Tutsis to die. It’s the fact that the Rwandan genocide really happened, and most, if not all the people in it are real. I kept forgetting that we were watching something filmed on a set. I knew that Paul would live to the end of the movie, but WHEN would he escape? Did his family survive with him? Add to the fact that genocide’s happening again in Sudan (in Darfur, to be specific) and we realize how little empathy we Americans have with the rest of the world and how ignorant we growing adults are. All of that was enough to shock me and make me promise to always be educated and to always remember that while I live in comfort that others live in pain.

What does this have to do with “Battle Royale”? Certainly it’s fiction, but it’s fiction with a grain of truth in it. A boy named Shuuya once saw a television program where the winner was a high school girl who looked like she had gone through the Seven Circles of Hell. Over five years later, when he’s in high school, he’s in a bus with his classmates on a field trip. Everything seems fine until everyone starts passing out. He realizes that the bus driver is wearing a gas mask before fainting as well. He wakes up along with everyone else in a classroom with tiny thin collars around their necks. A man at the head of the room introduces himself as their “teacher”, and tells them that they are participating in a government-sponsored show called The Program. What is the Program? It’s a reality show set on an isolated island where 42 high school students (that is, one class) of twenty-one boys and twenty-one girls are each given weapons and rations and told to kill each other in three days time until one survivor is left. This winner gets a college scholarship to make up for his trouble. If more than one survivor is left, then the collars on their necks will implode and kill them, leaving no winner. You can’t swim for it because the army on the water will shoot you. The teacher demonstrates that he is a merciless –well, I dare not say the word here- when he kills two students and injures one. Then he gives each student their supplies and sends them out the door. That is the last time we see any stability on the island.

“Whoa!” you must be thinking. It reminds one of “Lord of the Flies” as well as “Hotel Rwanda”. And as I mention Shuuya, of course he has to be the do-gooder that saves everyone, right? Sorry, folks. You want that, you go watch something that’s Disney. “Battle Royale” makes it clear that anyone in the series can die, and we will care about these people before their deaths. That means that even though Shuuya vows to stop the killing he will not be able to. The series doesn’t put too much emphasis on him because it uses the rest of the manga to focus on everyone else. And that’s where the series’ brilliance is. In real life, we protest if certain lives get lost, especially ones belonging to our own country, but when it comes to other lives, such as ones on Africa, we go, “Oh that’s terrible” and continue with our lives as if it’s not happening. “Battle Royale” is a wake-up call, albeit an extreme one, to an issue in our lives: reality shows. Are they overrated? Should people be made to eat bugs and do stupid and frightening things for money? Should people die for it? “Battle Royale” also comments on sports like cockfighting and fish fighting. People get entertainment from that, just like the people watching The Program, but are the animals really fighting because we want force them to, or because it’s in their nature? Should we have this right? All of these questions disturb me.

Speaking of which, the violence here shocked even me! This is coming from someone who thought that it was stupid to edit “Yugioh!” or “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker”. Whenever there was violence, I didn’t laugh at all. I only looked at the page shocked. When I left Borders, it was like someone had told me that Martin Luther King Jr. had died that day. It took a while for me to calm down, like I had to for “Hotel Rwanda”. The difference is that while I have yet to continue the series, I have seen the entire movie “Hotel Rwanda” and have plans to see it again. The reason why I didn’t do the same with “Battle Royale”: the second volume was shrink-wrapped. It sounds like a stupid reason, but it’s not. I tend to read manga at bookstores rather than buy it because my parents feel that it’s not worth shelling ten dollars per book for a series composed of fifteen volumes. The first volume was free to peruse and flip through, but several volumes of the series, including the second volume, were shrink-wrapped. It was tempting to rip the plastic off and continue reading, but I resisted because I didn’t want the Borders people to get mad at me. And I was too shy to ask about this dilemma. Later on it turned out that someone had bought the first few volumes of the series, so unless the Borders near my house restocks, then it’s unlikely that I’ll finish the series. It’s best if you read Kevin’s review as it adds more depth and has more knowledge. I’m just offering a second opinion. DO read this series, even if you have a weak stomach! DO read this if you think that your kids can handle it! DO read this even if you’re not a manga fan! Think of it as a fairy tale set for modern times. By fairy tale, I mean the original Little Red Riding Hood where Little Red and her grandmother didn’t have a woodcutter to save them or the tales about the monster under the bed. If Japan really ran The Program, would we do anything to stop it? At this point in my life, I’m not sure. Kevin has more confidence in our government than I do. We’ve intervened at the wrong time, and held back at the wrong time. Even I can’t guarantee that I would’ve done anything if this had really happened, and I’m a person that really connects to the victims. These high-school students could be my classmates. I could be one of them! It would be like going into a concentration camp. It’s not “manslaughter”, as Kevin puts it; it’s downright murder.

My God, I haven’t even mentioned the artwork! It deserves as much credit as everything else! With realistic character designs that set everyone apart, action sequences that flow well and shock the reader, backgrounds that can make you think sinister or scary even without dark shadows or happy without flower patterns, the art is one of the most enjoyable elements of the series. The artist has his own style even for a manga, which is a style in itself. He should have a pension in case he ever gets stroke and can no longer use his fingers. And despite the style, you don’t get the same vibes that you’d get from most manga with hilarious facial expressions and unrealistic character designs. The artist knows when to be serious, and as most of the book is serious, there are few facial expressions that could count as the popular anime ones. I’ve already talked about the violence, so artwork is a covered base. Tokyopop preparation is standard, although I LOVE how the dialog flows. I hope that a lot of thought and effort was put into the translation, because that is just what Battle Royale deserves! It is a morality play, but it doesn’t preach. It’s a violent manga, but it doesn’t show cheap thrills. It’s action-packed, but it’s not something you’ll forget easily. There’s also a novel and a movie version of the series, but as I can’t seem to find the book anywhere, and no one seems like they’re interested in making an English adaptation of the movie or even releasing the original on DVD, the manga has given me my impression of the series. A message for everyone who believes that anime and manga are for kids: they usually aren’t. Battle Royale proves this point perfectly.

Update 11-28-06: I have read volume 2 of “Battle Royale” at the same Borders. Apparently after reading the first volume I was desensitized to the violence in the second although I still found it tragic whenever a student died. There’s one more thing I forgot to mention earlier: this series is unpredictable. You can never tell if someone wants to play the game or if they’re going to kill themselves or if someone else murders them or if they’re against the game. It’s essentially an artificial war-zone. My opinion has not changed.

- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi - -