Fanboy Moment

While I'm in the mode, more on Battle Royale.

"Battle Royale" was first a Japanese novel written by Koushun Takami. It was - thankfully - translated into English, but I digress. It's also been a manga and, of course, a movie.

I've enjoyed each and have to say, they're not all the same.

I first saw Battle Royale, sans subtitles, when I picked up a DVD on one of my trips to Japan. I have a Region Free DVD player at home so I watched it.

I was a bit surprised at the level of violence and watched it again. Then I searched the Internet and found a Korean version that had (excellent) English subtitles. I bought that and watched the film and actually found out what was going on.

I later found an English translation of the novel at a book store. I read that cover-to-cover and found the manga had recently been translated. I got that and read it as well.

That's a lot of psychotic material. Just so you know.

So, if you're worried about spoilers, you might want to stop reading. Otherwise, I'm going to go ahead and summarize a bit. The summaries will have spoilers.

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You were warned.

Overall, the three versions are very similar. In an alternate Japan, a class of schoolkids, including the protagonist - Shuya Nanahara - are selected for the BR program in which schoolkids are abducted, put on a deserted island, fitted with collars that contain and explosive, given some supplies and weapons, and told to kill one another.

To quote Highlander: "There can be only one."

The details differ by medium.

The Movie
The kids are "selected" through the influence of a former teacher - Kitano - and set loose on the island. They're each given food and water for three days as well as a map of the island. They're told about their collars:
- the collars will detonate if tampered with
- the collars can detonate by remote
- the collars will detonate in random "dead zones" that move around the island, forcing the kids to constantly move about
- the collars will detonate at the end of three days if there are more than one survivors

The collars also, of course, monitor the kids so the people running the game can tally the kills.

Each kid is also given a random weapon, ranging from an assault rifle to a pot lid.

In this version, Shuya Nanahara is far less-capable and a much softer character. Further, some of the antagonists differ.

The Book
There's more back-story in the book. The Kitano character doesn't exist. A corrupt administrator - Kinpatsu Sakamochi - briefs the kids. It's clearer that the BR program is really just a corrupt "reality show" that government officials use for gambling (betting on the survivor, stuff like that).

Kazuo Kiriyama is a prominent character in the book as one of the amoral antagonists. That character doesn't exist in the movie.

The Manga
The manga follows the book more closely but goes into a few more side-trips (and, of course, adds grisly visuals to the fight scenes). There's a lot more sex and obligatory nudity in the manga.

I'm not going to go into specifics about the story as a whole. In all three versions there's a number of characters - some interesting, some not. Most are doomed.

It's a fascinating story. If you have a reasonably-high tolerance for violence, I recommend the movie. I recommend the book regardless.

I'm not inclined to recommend the manga unless you really like hard-core manga that crosses into hentai territory.