I see that you're still traumatized by Wolf's Rain.
I have read the novel (and one volume of the dreadful manga) and I liked it, but not as much as the movie. The book was very solid and interesting, but had either a mediocre translation or mediocre prose, and lacked the poetic, operatic qualities of the movie. I was also very affected by several of the performances in the movie - though, to be fair, even more so after I read the book and could fill in the backstory between, say, Kazuhiko (the gentle girl who loves... was it tea ceremony or flower arranging? Something very classic, anyway) and... drat, I forget if it was Sugimura or Mimura who was the boy with the electronic person-finder who goes to protect her.
I was very struck by the far more optimistic perspective on human nature of Battle Royale, in which most of the kids outright refuse to participate, and most of the people who die were either killed by the ringer they had to bring in, or (generally falsely) thought they were defending themselves against a direct attack. There's only four out of about thirty who voluntarily attack each other without being attacked first, right? There's the guy who tries to sexually coerce Chigusa, poor crazy Mitsuko, the nerdy guy who loses his mind right at the start, and Kiriyama, who's a ringer brought in because he's a psycho rather than a civilian.
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Date: 2010-09-28 11:04 pm (UTC)I have read the novel (and one volume of the dreadful manga) and I liked it, but not as much as the movie. The book was very solid and interesting, but had either a mediocre translation or mediocre prose, and lacked the poetic, operatic qualities of the movie. I was also very affected by several of the performances in the movie - though, to be fair, even more so after I read the book and could fill in the backstory between, say, Kazuhiko (the gentle girl who loves... was it tea ceremony or flower arranging? Something very classic, anyway) and... drat, I forget if it was Sugimura or Mimura who was the boy with the electronic person-finder who goes to protect her.
I was very struck by the far more optimistic perspective on human nature of Battle Royale, in which most of the kids outright refuse to participate, and most of the people who die were either killed by the ringer they had to bring in, or (generally falsely) thought they were defending themselves against a direct attack. There's only four out of about thirty who voluntarily attack each other without being attacked first, right? There's the guy who tries to sexually coerce Chigusa, poor crazy Mitsuko, the nerdy guy who loses his mind right at the start, and Kiriyama, who's a ringer brought in because he's a psycho rather than a civilian.