Battle Royale

Battle Royale was originally published in Japan in 1999 and first appeared in English in this VIZ Media edition in 2003. Set in an alternate Japan absorbed into a totalitarian state known as the Republic of Greater East Asia, where rock music is outlawed, foreign contact is forbidden, and the government rules through fear and propaganda, the novel follows a class of forty-two junior high school students who are drugged, transported to a remote island, and forced to kill each other under a government program known simply as the Program. One survivor is required. The students are issued weapons, fitted with explosive collars, and given three days.

Rejected by a Japanese horror fiction award committee in 1997 for being considered excessively disturbing, the novel nonetheless became a bestseller upon publication two years later. Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 film adaptation provoked political controversy in Japan and was withheld from wide American distribution for years. The novel’s influence on later survival dystopias has been immense, with Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk acknowledging it as a direct influence, and comparisons to The Hunger Games remaining persistent ever since Suzanne Collins denied having read it.

Softcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. San Francisco, CA: VIZ, 2003. ISBN: 156931778x. #11338.
Very good.