Slightly Biased Manga

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.

These huge omnibus editions are AWESOME!  Unfortunately, many of the ones that are being released by various publishers are things that I have read, but I love it when I can pick one up.  Especially Battle Royale, which is something I’ve just needed a little push with for years.

There were a lot of extras included with this volume.  Unless it’s something I’m a really huge fan of (and even then not always), character prelim designs are not something I’m terribly interested in.  The updates as to what went on where in the island included between “volumes” were extremely helpful, but I don’t know if they were part of the original release or not.  There were a few character profiles included, but they didn’t add much to the story save for the fact that it mentioned what the original weapon was for the characters.  The interview with the series creator in the back wasn’t very informative, and I also didn’t really like the character analysis included either, though that was one of the most creative extras ever.  I may sound slightly disappointed, but all this stuff taken together was super great and I’ve never seen so much stuff pumped into a single volume of manga before.  There is a lot of love there, and I really appreciate it.

One of the reasons I stayed away from Battle Royale for so long was because you have to really convince me that a tournament-style manga is worth my time.  This may seem hard to believe since I read so many, but I need convincing each time I start one.  Battle Royale seemed sort of unremarkable save for its violence, the plot an excuse to have a tournament, and at 15 volumes, it wasn’t something I was excited about committing to.  But I was totally wrong.

Most people point out the violence in this series as a standout quality, like I mentioned earlier.  Now, I read a lot of violent manga, so it takes a lot to shock me when it comes to graphic violence, and it’s rare when a manga can stand out because it is grotesque.   Battle Royale does, though.  It was almost a slap in the face every time a death occurred, and there are graphic depictions of people’s heads exploding, eyes popping out as a bullet passes through the socket, handfuls of brains being scooped from skulls, and arteries being severed.  This would be enough for me really, but the weapon array is truly astounding, and sometimes the shock comes from the method of execution, some of the more surprising being a crossbow, scythe, and even common knives being plunged into skulls.  It’s also jarring because this series doesn’t revel in its gore in the way other series I read do.  Gross things happen in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, but you can laugh it off in that series because it’s so over-the-top.  This is relatively straight, there’s a lot of crying and reflection when a death occurs, and a lot of the murder scenes are really heartbreaking.  Well, almost heartbreaking, at least.  The violence is still pretty cartoony, but it is harder to take when it’s serious like this.

There are 42 characters to start the tournament.  The disadvantage to most tournament-style series is that mostly the opponents are glossed over in favor of developing the main character’s personality or skills or whatever.  While the characters here aren’t exactly the deepest you’ll encounter in a manga, they are surprisingly developed given their number thanks to frequent flashback scenes showing you their favorite memories, usually right before they die (but not always).  This gives them more of a face for whatever trial they’re about to go through, and it is extremely effective.  There is a main character, but most of the battles in this volume do not happen to him, and its other characters that engage in combat… though Shu gets his fair share of flashback and memories too.

The last chapter is really disturbing.  That is one twisted, sick, despicable girl.

Also, there are a few manga allusions made throughout the series which are varying degrees of obvious.  One of the ones that made me pull a face was a really obvious allusion to “Baron Gong Battle,” one of the other series the artist draws.  The other two were more subtle and I’m not quite sure I pegged them right… “Wild 7″ is the brand of cigarettes smoked in the series and also the t-shirt design Shu sports on the cover.  “Wild 7″ is also the name of a really retro action manga series from the 60s featuring a lot of violence and motorcycle gangs that fought with an array of weapons, though I’ve never read it to draw any parallels between it and Battle Royale.  The third is something my roomate picked up on.  He says the character that Shu is watching on TV on one of the first pages is the main character from “Apocalypse Zero,” though identified by a different name.  I’m willing to believe that, they look enough alike, but I don’t think there was any TV series version of “Apocalypse Zero,” if that makes any difference.  Just an OAV.

But yes, this volume is totally worth your time if you’re at all into the violent, gory stuff.  There’s not much there for people looking for a deep story since the story is fairly simple and the characters don’t have that much depth, but I suppose it also works on another level as a relatively realistic (as opposed to… I don’t know, comedic or over-the-top) take on what would happen if you dropped that many teens on an island and made them hunt each other.