Battle Royale 2 (Ultimate Edition)
May 17, 2008
Yeah. For some reason, it’s taken me over a month to write about this, partially because I don’t really know what to say. I’m sure just to spite myself, I’ll wind up making it longer than usual, though.
On one hand, I felt like things kind of slowed way down compared to the last volume. I suppose had the death rate remained as high as the first three volumes (or the one mega-volume I read), there would be no way for the series to last 15 full volumes. While there were still plenty of casualties, the in-between parts (the flashbacks and whatnot, both for the side characters who were getting wiped out and for the main characters) were starting to stretch themselves out. I think this contributed to my general mood of finishing the volume and feeling like nothing happened, even though plenty did happen (a few deaths, like I said, along with a new contact for the main character’s group and some progress with Mimura’s plan elsewhere).
I think the one thing about it that contributed most to the latter feeling of nothing happening for three volumes was the fact that Mimura mentioned a plan at the end of last volume, and 600 pages later the plan has still not been executed. There was plenty of progress on the plan, and the story kept cutting back to Mimura and his pal while other things happened, but this was what I was most interested in, and the fact I kept getting strung along for what was three volumes made me a little mad.
It still manages to be a pretty action-filled story though, even with all the non-violent flashbacks. I appreciate some of the flashbacks a little less than I did last volume just because they start to get in the way of the progress of the story in the present, but most of them tell pretty good stories of their own. I still like Battle Royale a lot, but Mimura’s plan better go into action next volume. I’m just saying.
May 19, 2008 at 2:12 am
[...] good despite being a kids’ comic written to a formula. Connie reviews vol. 1 of Dororo, vol. 2 of Battle Royale (ultimate edition), and vol. 19 of Eyeshield 21 at Slightly Biased Manga. Ed Chavez has an audio review of two from [...]