Killing in the Name: A Review of Battle Royale
Koushun Takami’s novel Battle Royale chronicles how a middle school class must participate in a politically dystopian Japanese government’s combat experiment. This novel has strong correlations to Lord of the Flies, Legend and The Hunger Games as they center around children being forced to kill one another to survive. Takami’s novel explores the idea that innocence in society can diverge into either fighting, accepting, or resigning themselves to a dire fate over which they have no control. This novel is controversial due to the ages of the children who must participate in this experiment; the brutality of the murders; and the lack of agency the parents and school officials have to prevent the …show more content…
Both works have children on an abandoned island doing what they have to in order to survive their ordeal. That is as far as the similarities go. Golding’s novel is set during a nuclear war while Takami’s is set during a relatively peaceful time. Lord of the Flies has British boys descending into madness while stranded on the island with only one of the two groups of boys knowing each other. In contrast, Battle Royale follows a co-ed class of Japanese children as they find themselves left on an island controlled by the government and who struggle with the idea of killing classmates they have known for most of their lives. Insanity, while present in Takami’s novel, is not a main focus of the piece as it is in Golding’s …show more content…
The correlations are so strong in fact, critics and fans alike accused Suzanne Collins of taking her entire plot directly from Takami’s work. “Watching [“Battle Royale”] today, after having seen “The Hunger Games” and hearing from people who claim the books are not a rip-off of [Battle Royale], I am not only reminded how much of a clear rip-off this film is (I can’t speak for the future books or movies), but I am saddened by how powerful the emotion ━ not just the violence ━ is in [Battle Royale] compared to Hunger Games” (Poland). I have read both books and I agree with this, it seems like Ms. Collins simply took the book and changed some names, places and toned down some of the violence. The same number of participants even survive the ordeal; Shogo Kawada gets off the island with his two friends, Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa, but Shogo dies shortly after leaving Shuya and Noriko to escape to freedom in America. When asked about the similarities Ms. Collins responded in part by saying “I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in. At that point, it was mentioned to me, and I asked my editor if I should read it. He said: ‘No, I don’t want that world in your head. Just continue with what you’re doing’.” (Dominus) As hard as I looked, I even had my fiancee check WestLaw, a database for court cases both closed and pending, I could not find
Koushun Takami’s novel Battle Royale chronicles how a middle school class must participate in a politically dystopian Japanese government’s combat experiment. This novel has strong correlations to Lord of the Flies, Legend and The Hunger Games as they center around children being forced to kill one another to survive. Takami’s novel explores the idea that innocence in society can diverge into either fighting, accepting, or resigning themselves to a dire fate over which they have no control. This novel is controversial due to the ages of the children who must participate in this experiment; the brutality of the murders; and the lack of agency the parents and school officials have to prevent the …show more content…
Both works have children on an abandoned island doing what they have to in order to survive their ordeal. That is as far as the similarities go. Golding’s novel is set during a nuclear war while Takami’s is set during a relatively peaceful time. Lord of the Flies has British boys descending into madness while stranded on the island with only one of the two groups of boys knowing each other. In contrast, Battle Royale follows a co-ed class of Japanese children as they find themselves left on an island controlled by the government and who struggle with the idea of killing classmates they have known for most of their lives. Insanity, while present in Takami’s novel, is not a main focus of the piece as it is in Golding’s …show more content…
The correlations are so strong in fact, critics and fans alike accused Suzanne Collins of taking her entire plot directly from Takami’s work. “Watching [“Battle Royale”] today, after having seen “The Hunger Games” and hearing from people who claim the books are not a rip-off of [Battle Royale], I am not only reminded how much of a clear rip-off this film is (I can’t speak for the future books or movies), but I am saddened by how powerful the emotion ━ not just the violence ━ is in [Battle Royale] compared to Hunger Games” (Poland). I have read both books and I agree with this, it seems like Ms. Collins simply took the book and changed some names, places and toned down some of the violence. The same number of participants even survive the ordeal; Shogo Kawada gets off the island with his two friends, Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa, but Shogo dies shortly after leaving Shuya and Noriko to escape to freedom in America. When asked about the similarities Ms. Collins responded in part by saying “I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in. At that point, it was mentioned to me, and I asked my editor if I should read it. He said: ‘No, I don’t want that world in your head. Just continue with what you’re doing’.” (Dominus) As hard as I looked, I even had my fiancee check WestLaw, a database for court cases both closed and pending, I could not find