Customer Reviews

Battle Royale, Vol. 3

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As everyone has posted on this message board, there are shocking scenes of explicit sex that's definately not for the prudish. I agree with every poster here- the last chapter "Fallen Angel," which documents Mitsuko's past sexual escapades, is needlessly unecessary and exploitive, even for adult magna. It's already established in the earlier volumes that she is a sex-crazed pimp, so why must the authors further elaborate this by having her commit every sexual act in the book, including- blecch!- a urine scene? (I hope that's urine). Thumbs down on "Fallen Angel," but I will defend the chapters dealing with Yoshimi and Yoji- as graphic as their sexual exploits are, it is essential to the story, revealing to us a complex relationship further complicated by their participation in the Program. I find their story touching, and proves how effective "Battle Royale" does in making all it's participants human- we're even refered back to Fumiyo, who died so gracelessly in the first volume and here brought back in the memory of the boy who had a crush on her, Yutaka. "Battle Royale" is more than just an ultrviolent pulp, it's a smart and very suspenseful thriller not seen since the E.C. comics of the early 1950s, ingeniously balancing scenes of horror, romance, and humor (I never laughed as hard as when reading Takako confronting Kazushi in the middle of the book,warning him he "will die a virgin"). Of course, the "Fallen Angel" chapter places the series a step back, but otherwise it does good in its continuation of this great series. I can't give it five stars, but if only I could give it a score of 4.9...

While I agree that some of the sex scenes were gratuitous-they didn't advance the plot, the other ones-the ones with
Yoshimi and her boyfriend were an integral part of the story. As for the explicidness of the scenes, here I totally disagree with the other reviewers-I don't see how they can be any other way. To make them "tastefull" would be totally out of character for the story - the whole point is to show everything unflinchingly, good and bad, all the aspects of the human existence, even the ugliest parts.
Overall, this is a good installment of the story, would have gotten 5 stars if it wasn't for the Mitsuko Souma sex scenes, which are gratuitous.

This is a decent volume in the series, but it gets bogged down at times by the ungodly amounts of sex, and a lot of overly dramatic dialogue. The dialogue I expected. The sex... not so much. And when I say sex,I mean graphic sex, and when I say graphic, I mean pornographic. Yes, you see everything. And, while normally I would look the other way, this time I was rather mad. Why? Well, for one, the sex was totally pointless (at least for the last section of the story) and at times wholey disgusting (there was, shockingly enough, a urine fetish scene). And for number two, most, if not all, characters involved in those scenes are 15 or younger. Now, they do not appear to be 15. They appear quiet the opposite. They all seem like adults, with very adult features, such as one girls GIGANTIC breasts. And while the first two books only hinted at some adult content, this book shoves it in your face, pees on you, and then leaves you covered in who knows what. And yet, the plot is still good. A bunch of a new characters are brought in to the story, and things do move along. But the sex holds this back from being a five star book.

As Shuuya, Noriko, and Kawada try to decide on their next move, Shinji Mimura has already made his. He's been able to scrounge together some resources from the abandoned houses on the island, including a laptop, and has hooked up with the rat-looking Yutaka. His plan is to disrupt the Program computer systems and disable the exploding collars that all the participants are wearing. It seems Sugimura, the martial artist, is desperately combing the island, not looking for victims, but for a girl he cares about. Then there's the lovely couple of Yoji and Yoshimi, a couple who might have to make a life or death decision about their relationship. To top everything off we have an extremely graphic side tale about the sluttish vixen Mitsuko, a girl that would make Lizzy Borden look like a pious saint.

The great characterization continues in Volume 3 but the formula is showing its first signs of weakness. It's starting to come down to 1.Introduce character 2.Show flashback 3.Character lives or dies. The whole scene where two people look at each other and you wait anxiously to find out whether they are playing the game is getting old too. There are some great plot twists and the character backstories on the whole are well done. The insertion of the side story at the end about Mitsuko, dubbed "soon-to-be-infamous" by the book jacket wreaks of high camp and comedic exploitation. The sex scenes are purposely grotesque in order to cover up what is actually happening in them. Still, overall this series is great. Probably needs to tinker with its formulaic storytelling in order to keep my interest for future volumes though.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... someone put a blanket on that high school girl! She's running around naked! Seriously, this is not good. Aren't there laws against depicting minors like this, in explicit sexual situations, that never got to the folks at TOKYOPOP. It wasn't just nudity; it was full-blown sex scenes and even rape. I was so offended by this that I've actually hidden this volume away, as if I'm ashamed to let others know that I'm reading filth. I'm only hoping that the characters responsible for all the ugliness in this volume die off soon so that the overall story of Battle Royale could get back on track. As of right now, I'm an extremely disappointed, but loyal, fan; I'm hoping Battle Royale changes soon, preferably within the next volume.

I can only recommend this volume to those of you who are of a mature mindset, and who understands that this is solely a work of fiction. Battle Royale the manga series comes with a lot of baggage, including incredibly gory violence, but this volume introduces graphically one very ugly element, that being rape. This is definitely a manga that should have attained an "A"-adult rating; this couldn't even be considered soft-core.

This manga is about the famous asia movie battle royal. It's all good and stuff. This particular manga is pretty hentai. The story is good, but the artwork is really weird. It's a little over exaggerated. But personally the story is god enough to make up for the crappy artwork.

I loved BR movie and would tell all my friends about it. But this....This is crap. For some reason I just had to read the first 3 books but now I have officialy stoped reading. The character development is very good but one thing that keeps this from being good. ITS WAY TO GRAPHIC FOR ITS TASTE! I know it says Mature on the back but still jeez! I mean you see some much brains and intestince get shot or pulled out. For an example Shuyas orphin brother gets shot in the cheek and you see a graphic picture of him laying on the ground with a huge whole with his tung sticking out. And than the teacher finishes him off by shooting him between the eyes. Its extreamly violent. And when you get to the last chapter on this lets just say if your into Hardcore Pornagraphy than you'll like this. This book went waaay overboard. But its in your taste what you like. All I know Is I've stoped.
The novel and Movie is really good!
BATTLE ROYALE 2 was not that good.
Later.........

Having never read any manga before i took a chance with Battle royale. The first two books were interesting and i think for a couple of weeks i became obsessed with wanting to know what was going to happen next. In that time i purchased through AMAZON the korean edition of the battle royale movie, so in two hours i became aware of everything that is going to happen. The books do offer you a lot of background information on the characters, told in flashbacks. Book 3 offers a lot of info on the very evil Mitsuko, while the story was interesting i was shocked by how graphic the book is. Now i'm not a person who is prudish at all, and i'm not easily shocked, yet i was stunned at how graphic the depictions of sex were. Overall it was too much,i already know how the story ends so i'm definetly NOT purchasing book 4. EP