BATTLE ROYALE vs. THE HUNGER GAMES

Caution: This post contains spoilers for BATTLE ROYALE, THE HUNGER GAMES, and CATCHING FIRE.

So, I’ve seen a good deal of debate as to whether or not Suzanne Collins copied Koushun Takami’s cult classic BATTLE ROYALE when she wrote her immensely popular HUNGER GAMES trilogy. Earlier, I was hesitant to weigh in with my opinion, since I hadn’t read the book. So I quickly remedied the situation.

Before I hop into this discussion, though, I’d like to point out that Collins claims she had never heard of BATTLE ROYALE until she turned in the final draft of THE HUNGER GAMES. And who am I to call her a liar? That said, I do intend to compare and contrast the two books, but only for fun, not to make any judgments.

There are, however, some strong similarities, so I’ll start by taking a look at those.

 

THE HUNGER GAMES and BATTLE ROYALE parallels:

A girl and a boy pair up—one has a crush on the other, and the other isn’t sure what to think of the one with the crush. The one with the crush has an injured leg and gets very sick, possibly with blood poisoning.

 

When separated from a potential ally, the characters plan to contact each other using smoky fires and bird calls. (However, in THE HUNGER GAMES, the smoky fires are supposed to be a distraction, rather than a means of communication.)

 

One psychopathic, slightly crazy guy goes around mowing people down while a ferocious, evil girl takes the award for Second Most Terrifying Character.

 

In BATTLE ROYALE, the results of the fight are shown on TV as an intimidation tactic. In THE HUNGER GAMES, the entire event is televised (again, to scare people), and the final cut is aired after the Games.

 

***SPOILER: The main characters have to face-off against the psychopathic dude in order to win. In the end, we have two victors instead of one.***

 

CATCHING FIRE and BATTLE ROYALE parallels:

In BATTLE ROYALE, one student is a victor from a previous game, while in CATCHING FIRE, all the tributes are victors.

 

Some students plan to blow up the school where those in the charge of the games are located (similar to the tribute’s plan to blow up the arena).

 

As you can see, we have some distinctive similarities.

So, on the one hand, I want to respect BATTLE ROYALE because it came first. However, I also don’t see any reason to change my opinion of THE HUNGER GAMES as a piece of literature just because it may or may not be a rip off.

In my review, I mentioned I liked several aspects of BATTLE ROYALE, but I’ll include them here just so we’re on the same page. In BR, we get to see into everyone’s minds, so we get to experience the games through various viewpoints, various emotions, and various personalities. We get to understand most everyone’s hopes and fears, what they plan to do if they survive, how they intend to justify killing others, etc…

With THE HUNGER GAMES, we are limited to a single, first-person point of view. We don’t get to watch Cato as he goes around killing people—we don’t get to peek over Foxface’s shoulder as she works out her strategies, follows people around, and navigates the minefield to steal food. We don’t get to experience what Rue feels as she travels alone to light the fires Katniss has set up. We don’t get to camp out with Thresh as he hides and waits for everyone to kill each other. With all these different viewpoints, the book would have been much longer, and perhaps richer, but I don’t know if it would have been better. For that matter, I actually enjoy it when some things are left to the imagination.

On the whole, I feel that THE HUNGER GAMES does more with the idea. BATTLE ROYALE is, first and foremost, pulp fiction. It lingers more on the action and the gore, the violence and the fear. Sure, it has a deeper message—that the government is messed up—and it takes time to explore human responses to situations like this. But it doesn’t go a whole lot further than that. Most of what we see is what happens in the arena, along with tidbits about the kids’ pasts.

With the HUNGER GAMES trilogy, in essence we get to see the whole of Panem. Though we don’t actually visit each and every district, we get a pretty good understanding of what they and their people are like. We get to see the stunning contrast between those in the Capitol and those throughout the rest of the country. We encounter all the unfairness, the injustice. And we get to meet the man behind the madness—President Snow himself. But more than that, we get a vivid picture of how the Games have impacted the culture over the decades, how they have become ingrained in the general psyche, and how they have become a constant shadow hanging over everything.

In BATTLE ROYALE, the games are not as established. Junior High classes are picked at random and without warning, and the rules of the games are explained when the kids wake up in the arena. Also, this isn’t just a matter of 24 tributes—there are 42 kids in the featured class, yet about 2,000 kids are claimed by the games every year. I’m not terribly great with statistics, but with the reference to a falling birthrate in Japan, I have to wonder how many generations it will take before the government doesn’t have any more new legs to stand on.

But the main thing is that the games in BATTLE ROYALE are more like a viper—you could end up as a random victim, and you never know when the snake is going to strike. Whereas, with THE HUNGER GAMES, the Games are so embedded in the culture, they dominate everything. And I feel like that’s, if not more realistic, at least more powerful. It comes across as more calculated and less reckless.

THE HUNGER GAMES gives us more emotional depth because we get to feel the fear as the Games and the Reaping approach. We get to witness the painful goodbyes, the seemingly pointless training, the build-up and the fanfare that would make for great Reality TV. But we also get to experience the aftermath—how, for the survivors, the Games are never over. How even when you win, you still lose.

So, while both novels are good in their own right, I prefer the HUNGER GAMES trilogy, because it’s not just about the blood and guts. To me, BATTLE ROYALE focuses too much on the body count and too little on what makes the killing awful and important. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, BATTLE ROYALE contains a lot of potential, and THE HUNGER GAMES realizes that potential. But you’re welcome to disagree with me, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the issue.

Book Review: BATTLE ROYALE by Koushun Takami

Warning: As always, I try to stay relatively spoiler free. But it doesn’t hurt to proceed with caution.

Rating: Four Stars—Great

 

 

I had some trouble rating this book. Unlike other novels, where the answer is obvious (like THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, which was clearly five stars), I wasn’t so sure on this one. There were bits I liked a lot, and bits I didn’t like as much. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to give BATTLE ROYALE three stars or five. So I settled on a compromise.

First of all, the premise. In the Republic of Greater East Asia, every year fifty junior high classes (of about 40 students each) are chosen at random and dumped into arenas where they are pitted together in a fight to the death. There can only be one survivor from each class. But when Shuya Nanahara’s class is chosen, he is determined to escape the Games, along with his friends.

Even though the narrative jumps back and forth between various viewpoints, essentially giving the reader a glimpse of what is going on with everyone else, these three get the most face time (and I can’t complain):

Shuya Nanahara. Shuya is a good kid—mature for his age and very smart. Sure, he makes typical mistakes, and he kills when he has to, but he reacts well given the circumstances. He doesn’t lose his head, and he doesn’t abandon his principles. Despite the bloodshed around him, he struggles to believe that his classmates—kids who have grown up together—would actually murder each other. Even when he accidentally takes a life, he doesn’t jump to justify it in the way that others do.

Noriko Nakagawa. Although she doesn’t play a major role, she adds a nice touch to the story because she feels somehow separate from the horror of the Games. While she is timid and gentle, she also does not panic.

Shogo Kawada. He is enigmatic and scary, but in a nice way. I would definitely want him as my ally, and he would make a formidable enemy.

Human Nature and Psychology. As Shuya, Noriko, and Shogo spend their time hiding and avoiding their fellow classmates, the others run around killing each other right and left. And I loved watching how human nature plays out. I mean, these are fifteen-year-olds, but that doesn’t stop them from shooting, stabbing, strangling, and otherwise maiming their peers. On an emotional and psychological level, I enjoyed seeing how the students deal with this whole situation. On the one hand, we have some who think that, if everyone would just calm down, they would all be willing to band together and escape the Games, no harm done. They can’t understand why their friends would murder each other in cold blood.

 

Then we have the slimy people you kind of hate enough to be happy when they die (almost)—the ones who plan to sit it out until only one other remains, and then to claim their victory as self-defense. (What makes it so compelling is that most every person tries to justify the blood on their hands. More than that, it’s interesting to see how many misunderstandings there are, how many people kill or are killed because of fear, how many people make unfortunate/stupid decisions.) And then, of course, we have the psychopaths and the sociopaths, the ones who don’t value human life, who actively hunt their fellows down, and who not only play the game, but enjoy it.

The Switching Viewpoints. Since I like to understand all the characters in a given story, I appreciated the chance to get a peek at most everyone’s motivations and desires. So many people become sympathetic characters, for however short a time, and that makes their deaths significant. They all have tangible lives before the Games—people and things they want to get back to. And I wanted them to survive, even though I knew they couldn’t.

Of course, there were some characters I didn’t sympathize with as much, and I wasn’t crushed when THEY died. But then again, you can’t exactly read this book with a marshmallow heart. Just to give you some perspective, 42 teens go in this arena. Only one is supposed to come out. Attachment is a luxury you can’t really afford.

So now for the stuff I didn’t like as much.

The Writing. I didn’t feel BATTLE ROYALE was that well-written, but I do want to be a little more forgiving because who knows how much artistry might have been lost in the translation from Japanese to English. And there’s style to take into account (BATTLE ROYALE felt a bit too anime for my taste, but that’s a personal thing). [Side Note: If you’re wondering, I bought the 2009 edition from Haikasoru, translated by Yuji Oniki. I’m told this is an improvement on the last version, but not as good as the next. I bought this one mainly for the cover, because I’m deep like that.] 

Repeated Information. I only needed Shuya’s and Shinji’s nicknames explained once, likewise I only needed to be told a single time that both Shuya and Shinji Mimura are stars in their track team or that Yoshitoki Kuninobu had told Shuya he had a crush on Noriko. I didn’t need to be reminded of each student’s seating number (there was a chart at the beginning of the book, anyway, so I could have referred to that if I’d needed to). Also, while backstory does make the characters relatable, repeated or irrelevant information does not serve to advance the plot as well (in my opinion). Overall, I felt the narrative could have been trimmed down a little, especially considering the book is 600 pages long.

Target Audience. The novel may be about fifteen-year-olds, but I’m thinking the target audience should be a bit higher. Of course, maybe I’ve forgotten what it was like to be fifteen. So many of the students are gang members, prostitutes, druggies, etc… Oh, those poor little darlings. Perhaps Japan is a rougher place, perhaps I am merely naïve, or perhaps this was just for the sake of the story? I’m open to any of these options. But I spent the whole book half-wondering if the students should have been a couple of years older, although that would have detracted from the LORD OF THE FLIES vibe (which I kind of sort of loved). Also, there’s some sexual content and some strong language, which made it a little more uncomfortable, considering these are fifteen-year-olds (did I mention they’re fifteen?). (Actually, Shogo is sixteen, but that’s beside the point.)

Overall, despite its pulp fiction feel, BATTLE ROYALE shares a powerful message about the uglier parts of human nature. And though, I feel, it could have been strengthened in some places, it was still haunting.

Dystopian Discussion: Part One

Disclaimer: I do not necessarily recommend every book I discuss.

I could be wrong, but it seems that when dystopian literature is mentioned, the first example that comes to mind for many people would be THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. Even almost seven years after its publication, I still find it stocked in the highly selective Walmart book sections. But there are so many other dystopian novels out there, the market has become flooded, and publishers are less willing to buy these works unless they stand out above the rest. Let’s face it—it’s a small subgenre with only a limited amount of room to breathe—even the most creative specimen is going to share traits with its fellows. So the goal, for writers, is to give their work a fresh twist that makes it unique.

 

 

In THE HUNGER GAMES, every year the government mandates that twenty-four kids (a boy and a girl from each of the twelve districts) must be forced to fight to death in an arena until one survivor remains. These Hunger Games are televised for all to see—both to entertain those in the free capitol, and to intimidate those who live in the oppressed districts (in order to prevent another uprising).

I have heard and seen many people speak of THE HUNGER GAMES as though it is the end all be all of dystopian literature. I agree that it is a remarkable piece, and I have read it multiple times. I’m desperately in love with the feel of it, especially the arena itself. However, staunch supporters of the HUNGER GAMES trilogy who claim that Veronica Roth borrowed from the series when she wrote DIVERGENT, INSURGENT, and ALLEGIANT, might want to pause and think before complaining too loudly. Because, unfortunately for Suzanne Collins, fans of Koushun Takami’s BATTLE ROYALE may have the same thing to say about THE HUNGER GAMES. And rightly so.

 

 

 

While BATTLE ROYALE is much gorier (and I’m going on summaries here, like this one, because I haven’t read the book yet), and while it is set in Japan rather than North America, the basic premises are shockingly similar. After all, BATTLE ROYALE centers around a bunch of school children forced to fight to the death in an arena—a fight that is eventually televised in order to intimidate those who might have considered rebelling. Sound familiar?

Now, Collins claims she had never heard of BATTLE ROYALE before she turned in her own story to the publishers, and I know that it is very easy to rip off another writer’s work without realizing it. After all, we’re swimming in a vat of idea stew, and there’s more than one chunk of potato floating in here with us, so let’s not hit each other over the head with our soup spoons until we find the facts. Personally, I have no opinion on whether Collins is being perfectly forthright or not, because it really isn’t any of my business, and I’m not sure we’ll ever know for certain either way. I’m only mentioning this because it annoys me when people call DIVERGENT a rip-off and act as if THE HUNGER GAMES is the last word in dystopian originality.

Speaking of DIVERGENT.

 

 

In the world of Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT, we don’t have the Big Mean Government breathing down everyone’s necks. Instead, we have a system devised by flawed individuals in an attempt to fix the human race. By splitting society into five factions, each based on an important virtue, people believe they can maintain peace and harmony. Unfortunately, human nature has begun to exert itself.

What I like about DIVERGENT is that, while it’s based in a dystopian setting, that isn’t the main point. Boiled down, the story is really just about a girl trying to find her place and discover who she is. And I appreciate Roth’s originality in not succumbing to the Big Brother theme. While I enjoy novels that delve into the repercussions of a Socialistic construct, I dislike the tunnel vision of so limited a focus. There are hundreds of ways for us go wrong, and Socialism is only one of them.

Another set that came out around the same time as the DIVERGENT trilogy is the LEGEND trilogy by Marie Lu.

 

 

 

 

LEGEND centers around a boy accused of murder and the girl assigned to track him down. Both are horrendously smart, and both are on different sides of the law. Though I felt the LEGEND trilogy shared too many themes with some of its forebears regarding the construct of the government itself, I appreciated the whole LES MISERABLES vibe I got from the first book, as well as the inclusion of the plague (because I like stories that feature some sort of plague). Also, I expected the sequels to leap onto the “let’s take down the government” train that seems to wend its way through many dystopian novels (see what I did there?). But instead, Lu threw me when she took a different direction altogether (but I won’t tell you what happens because that would ruin the surprise). So, while I would only give that trilogy three stars over all for various reasons I won’t go into for lack of space, I wouldn’t say LEGEND was a cheap knock off.

But now let’s look at Lois Lowry’s THE GIVER and Ally Condie’s MATCHED.

 

 

 

In THE GIVER, we have a different sort of dystopian construct, one I find even more delightfully disturbing than the Roman-inspired gladiator-style fights of THE HUNGER GAMES and the Big Brother style government of LEGEND and the faction system of DIVERGENT. In the GIVER, the evil of tyranny is masked as kindness. In blatant dystopian governments, it’s all out there; you know, for the most part, who your enemy is. But at first the characters of THE GIVER don’t even know they have an enemy. In fact, from the outside looking in, this close-knit society could be viewed as a virtual paradise. Until you look closer, that is. Rather than rebellions and massacres, we’re dealing with things like euthanasia, emotional control, etc. While the higher ups are always watching, people don’t necessarily live in fear since they have been led to believe this is for their own good. (Also, they can’t see color, so now you know you HAVE to read the book. See, I can be very persuasive.)

Unfortunately, it would seem Ally Condie decided to paint a strikingly similar portrait when she wrote MATCHED. While the idea of arranged marriages as a way of life is interesting, it’s hardly original. Aside from the love-triangle, MATCHED uses multiple themes from THE GIVER, it would seem, including euthanasia and constant surveillance—not to mention, the bad guys appear nice, and the society looks the picture of perfection. (Too much happy!) There are other parallels, I realize, and other reasons why MATCHED didn’t feel fresh and exciting, but I’ll get into them later when I actually review the book.

 

So there you have it. I’ve covered the first five books/trilogies on my list, and next week I’ll discuss the next bunch (plus, if all goes well, I’d like to share a few more thoughts concerning dystopian literature in general). Also, just as a heads up, I can’t promise anything but I expect to be a little less busy starting in late July/early August, and I hope to write a bunch of book reviews during that time (my regular content won’t change; you’ll just get to read my yammering more often).

 

All book photos from Goodreads.