Surprisingly, this Program is no secret to society-at-large but rather sold by the government as an experimental conscription in which the state is afforded the opportunity to collect statistics for the progress of the nation. On their way to school trip, the 42 students are involuntarily abducted by the country’s authoritarian state forces and removed to an island where they are expected to engage in the Program. Set in an alternative Japan of 1997, in which the country is known as the Republic of Greater East Asia, Battle Royale details the story of Shiroiwa Junior High Ninth Grade Class B. Although absent of the mystery-solving element specific to Agatha Christie’s works, Battle Royale initiates a similar process of problem-solving within the violent, political parameters in which 42 junior high school students are isolated to an island and told that they must kill one another.Īlthough an overtly violent premise, Battle Royale rests upon a foundation of dystopian authoritarianism that divorces the novel from the gratuitousness that might otherwise characterise its graphic offerings.
My fascination with locked-room scenarios (in the vein of works such as Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express ) is something that easily translates to the ‘game’ famously depicted in Battle Royale (and translated, for contemporary western consumption, by Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games). Koushun Takami’s cult thriller, Battle Royale, is one that has been on my radar for some time.
While I am well aware that this means I am likely missing out on some truly great novels, I do make the periodic exception w hen I feel that any impending stress will be outweighed by the weight of a book’s overarching narrative. To my overly-anxious mind, the stress that accompanies the tension of books that rest on overt violence or pulse-increasing unpredictability makes it much simpler to give such works a wide berth when considering what to read next. Generally speaking, I avoid with passion any novels that could be categorised under the labels ‘horror’ or ‘thriller’. Sakamochi maintained his broad grin and continued, ‘Your class has been chosen for this year’s Program’. Kawada’s expression remained impassive, though Shuya thought he might have seen the flash of a faint smile. The students froze like subjects of a still life photograph – except Kawada, Shuya noticed, who kept chewing his gum. Then: ‘Today, you’re all going to kill each other’. We’ve had you come here for one and only one reason’.
“Sakamochi clapped his hands a few times and admonished, ‘All right, all right, all right, quiet down, everyone!’ The uproar quickly subsided, and he continued.
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