Forum - View topicREVIEW: Battle Royale -Ultimate Edition- GN 1
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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It's worth pointing out that this isn't a translation of the original - it's a complete rewrite. And not a very good one.
Personally, I don't think it comes close to either the novel or the first film (the second film was pretty bad...). It's not as intelligent as either of them, it's a lot shallower than the book and it doesn't add anything to the proceedings except for a lot of cheesy exploitative art and some clumsy adolescent angst. Also, I think Casey's a little confused about demographics - this is a teen-orientated shounen manga with a hint of pretty boy shoujo aesthetics in terms of character designs(*). It's not seinen and it certainly isn't gekiga. Nor does it look or read like gekiga (which tends to focus on realism and adult protagonists, neither of which are at all evident here). Gekiga isn't shorthand for "tits and violence". (*: The protagonist looks like a young Paul McCartney. Why? For the love of God, why?) |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3013 |
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You're right that it was extensively re-written, I believe, but I'm confused about your demographic claim. The graphic content of Battle Royale seems far beyond what you'd ever see in a shounen, and I'm fairly certain it was serialized in a seinen magazine.
On a side note, "gekiga" currently isn't listed in the ANN lexicon and isn't a term I believe I've heard before. Kind of surprised to see it used in the review then: is it a common term that I've just somehow missed? |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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Back when I was in Japan and the series was in syndication, a lot of people besides myself were wondering how long it would take for the series to end since by the end of volume 3 like the interview says spoiler[half the class is dead.] And as we found out over time the pace sure was slowed down. The average would be around 2 to 3 people for a while, and then it would juggle. And then there was spoiler[the final battle with Kirino ]which took forever. Man, that was so drawn out.
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championferret
 Posts: 765 |
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I'm surprised the terrible translation wasnt listed as a flaw. Giffen shouldnt be allowed to rewrite text, period. It made it extremely hard for me to take seriously/not through the book across the room in disgust at some of the crap he wrote.
(plus there was the whole...you know. Making it a reality TV show thing.) Also, and this is the fault of the manga itself...am I the only one who just can not see these kids as being 15? They look like they're in the mid 20s...some even their 30s. |
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bleaksilence
 Posts: 4 Location: Switzerland |
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I agree, I also think the art style did a lot to ruin the atmosphere and ridicule the whole thing.
A lot of people tend to compare it to Gekiga because of the art style. I'm not sure about that and I read that the Mangaka disagrees, too. But why not? 
It was published in Young Champion Magazine which is a Seinen magazine. I couldn't ever imagine BR to be a shounen, it's got such a seinen flair, but I can't describe why. :p |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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You're right - Casey wrote "serialized in Shounen Champion till 2006" but that was a translation error on her part. As bleaksilence said, it was actually Young Champion Magazine. My bad: I went off half-cocked. Still, its tone seemed pretty adolescent to me but then I suppose there's a fair bit of readership overlap between the upper end (in terms of age orientation) of shounen and the lower end of seinen.
Gekiga means "dramatic pictures" (as opposed to manga, which means "whimsical pictures") - basically, it's adult-orientated stuff that tends towards gritty, real world-based (albeit often quite pulpy) narratives. The word's not been much used in the west (presumably because gekiga doesn't have all that much crossover with otaku tastes) but it seems to be being used more frequently over the past year or so, possibly because of the success of D&Q's Yoshihiro Tatsumi books. |
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Pirkaf
 Posts: 156 |
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I couldn't say a bad thing about this manga. I think it's awesome and although the printing quality may not be the best, this big-sized omnibus edition is a must buy for any shonen\seinen manga lover.
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geishageek
 Posts: 571 Location: Pleasant Valley, NY |
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All I ever hear about this manga is that it was terribly re-wrritten. But for most of us, we have never read the original japanese and so the version we get is fine with us, for those that enjoyed it to begin with. I enjoyed the individual volumes of this and have enjoyed the Ultimate Editions as well. I cant complain about the translation/re-write if I have nothing to compare it to, and I think people need to let that drop as a means to tear down the manga all the time. The "re-write" works. The story is linear, and it matches with the overall theme of the manga. Yes, it may be played up at times but Tokyopop has always embellished on things a bit, expecially back when this was first being done. I cant see them re-doing the whole thing to make it fit with more modern translations.
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Senna
 Posts: 99 Location: Somewhere, USA |
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I'm glad I read the comments for this review. I remembered there being some reason I was wary of the manga despite enjoying the novel. The majority of what I've heard about this adaptation is that it's not a good one. (And honestly, I'm less concerned with how the translation compares to the original Japanese than how it reads on its own.)
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Monumension
 Posts: 268 Location: Norway |
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Mmm, this used to be my favorite series once. It's not any longer, but I give it some praise any time I can. I plan to get the German printing of these special editions since they're properly translated.
I believe Manga-ka Taguchi commented about people calling his works "gekiga" in one interview. Don't remember his response right now. It was actually the artwork that drew me into this manga (that, and that I was already a fan of the movie). To me it looked refreshingly different from the faceless shonen and shojo stuff I was used to back then (2002). I also think it ties pretty good with the other two mediums. It's surely the pulpiest version of the story, but the narrative is buildt upon the same elements I enjoyed in both the (somewhat overrated) book and the movie. The exploitation and stereotyped character gallery the manga is often critizised for is, in my personal opinion, just a mild exaggeration of what I found in the novel.
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v1cious
 Posts: 6233 Location: Houston, TX |
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this is the first time i've seen Casey review something that isn't yaoi.
anyways, Battle Royale has to be one of my favorite mangas of all time. the art style is perfect contrast to the violence displayed by the characters. |
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revilenigma
 Posts: 45 |
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I didn't care for the manga, all the students looked over 30 and it was extremely predictable, in my opinion it's nothing but a very poor man's Gantz.
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driverstart
 Posts: 214 Location: America |
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As much as I like the story and stuff, the artwork is way too brutal for me. I'll just stick with the novel.
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Mike On Top
 Posts: 298 |
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After having the information I really needed, I'll continue buying the franchise. For one, Battle Royale was the first manga I read some years ago, for other, it is one of the series to-be-remembered - the art is peculiar, the approach to the dystopic theme is bold (not needlessley abstract), and one can actually follow the cause, the effects, and the consequences for virtually every character in the series. (Although I came to understand Shuuya better from the novel. In the manga he looked like a damsel in distress
 ).
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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She's reviewed quite a lot of stuff that isn't yaoi, actually. My question to her is, what's her justification for praising the sexualized violence of this series while decrying it in others? I haven't read this one (don't really want to), so what makes it different from, say, the collected works of Kazuo Koike? My understanding is Battle Royale has quite a bit of gratuitous rape and violence throughout. |
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