Customer Reviews

Battle Royale, Vol. 9

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

 

 

First, we can see the mental figth between the boy's "Froggy" and Hiroki Sugimura. In my opinion, the description of the thinking from "Froggy" are one of the best in the series. Which of them will survive?

Second, Shuuya woke up in the lightouse and finds himself in a goup of six girls. Unfortunatly, one of the girls wants to kill Shuuya with unexpected consequences. A very hard and deadly fight began.

Without any doubt, this is one if the best volumne from battle royal. The art is - as usual - excellent and the dialogues are fine. You wil fall in a world of fear and violence, in which friendship or the social status don't count.

Boy #11, Hiroki Sugimura, is continuing his escapade to meet up with Girl #8, Kayoko Kotohiki. Unfortunately for him, he finds Boy #4, Toshinori Oda AKA "Froggy", who considers himself above the rest of the "vulgar" classmates.

Also, Boy #15, Shuuya Nanhara, finds himself in the lighthouse on the northeast side of the island. A group of 6 girls inhabits it also. One of the girls, Girl #9, Yuko Sakaki, witnessed the death of Tatsumichi Ooki, and believes Shuuya is a demon boy. She wants him dead, and she may have her way.

This was quite and excellent volume. The art is, as always, fantastic, and the adapted dialogue was fine. This volume also showed people's fear, hatred, sadness, and regret. Full of emotion and hard-hitting action, this is a volume you will not want to miss.

The staff wielding martial arts master Hiroki continues to try to track down his friend Kayoko as around him the remaining contestants of the Program continue to be whittled down to a handful. As he searches he finds himself in a confrontation with the aristocratic buffoon Toshinori Oda, who is too smart for his own good, and on top of that, is brandishing a pistol. Will the good-hearted Hiroki liquidate him or will he once again fall for the puppydog eyes and crocodile tears that could get him killed? Meanwhile, Shuuya is being nursed back to health by a group of girls who have decided to sit the game out and find a way to disrupt the play. Of course, fighting against the Program is what Shuuya was made for, so plans are soon made to join up with other like-minded individuals. But there is a serpent in their midst in the form of Yuko Sakaki. Yuko mistakenly thinks that Shuuya is playing the game and hiding his true self, and she's lost it to such an extent that she actually sees him as a demon. What she sets in motion due to this belief might just destroy all of them!

This is the most hard-hitting volume of Battle Royale that I've read in a while. While some of the violence doesn't really make sense, when has violence EVER made sense? You can't really fault any of the characters for overreacting once the bullets start flying, because there's no telling what YOU would do in such a situation. There are some very tiny but refreshing moments of romance and comedy in this installment which show you a glimpse of what a normal life might be like if these chracters can survive. Refreshing but tragic. Masayuki Taguchi's clean but grotesque art continues to evoke feelings of revulsion and strange beauty even as the story moves along in a slow inevitable march of death.