Words for Wednesday: The Hunger Games vs Battle Royale

So about a month ago I noticed that a lot of people were posting about The Hunger Games on Facebook.  Not knowing what this was, I looked it up online.  In doing that I came across a handful of blogs comparing it to Battle Royale, and old Japanese book (ok, by old I mean 1996).  I had read Battle Royale and loved it.  Now I am reading The Hunger Games.  Though the two are very different, I can see why they are being compared.  I must say that I am on team Battle Royale.  Not due to any, Oh I am so snobby and hate mainstream pop culture, but because the book was better in structure and approach.  So anyway, I thought I would write about the two.  I might accidentally give away some key elements so read with caution.  I will also say that it has been awhile since I read Battle Royale so I might get fuzzy with the details.

Battle Royale takes place in an alternative future, one in which Japan is a totalitarian state.  Though not too much is said about the history, it appears to be what would have happened if Japan had won the war.  Anyway, every year a third year Jr High class is selected to compete in an event called the program.  The class (or the grade) is taken to a secluded location and forced to kill each other.  Each classmate is given a duffel bag a map, food, and with a random weapon.  Some people get guns, some people get knives, and some people get ridiculous things like a paper fan or a yo-yo.  Resistance to the game is impossible, as we see when one student is shot when protesting the fight to the man controlling the game.  Also, the students are outfitted with these special collars that can be detonated to blow them up.  They are threatened that everyone will die this way if they don't play the game.

This is one of the plot elements that makes me like Battle Royale better than The Hunger Games.  In The Hunger Games everyone just goes into it accepting the fact that they will be killing other people.  In Battle Royale we get a mixed range of emotions.  Kids who commit suicide because they know they could never harm anyone else.  Kids who try to pull everyone together to find a way to beat the system.  I think it helps that they are classmates and thus know each other and have relationships with each other.  For example, one fat kid starts killing other people.  Not because he wants to, but because he has gone through year after year of being picked on at school.  He assumes that since no one has defended him against bullies, no one will defend him against death, and this puts him on the offense. 

In this sense, we also get reason and motive behind all of the characters (if I recall correctly- there might be one or two that we don't get to read the thoughts of).  And this even with 42 players in the game.  In The Hunger Games we get a little background into how some of the contestants have been training for the games their whole lives, but we don't really know what they are thinking.  I guess in this sense I can relate more to Battle Royale.  I can think about my own classmates and my own human nature and see where I might fit into or play the game.  The Hunger Games seems too far from reality for me to do this, thus I am slightly detatched from it.  Also, in not knowing the characters better (aside from the main ones) I don't care about their deaths.  I think there is so much spent on Katniss's history that we're not involved with the others and aren't hit emotionally when they die.  Maybe I am a hard ass, but I haven't cried at all in The Hunger Games.  I am only halfway through.  But I remember crying a lot earlier in Battle Royale because so many of the deaths are somewhat a mistake or a misunderstanding.  Like with the fat kid- everyone knows that kid in school who has been bullied and who would feel alone in the game.  Or because there is more said between lifelong friends.  Like the one girl who runs all day even though she is hurt to find her guy friend.  Or the two girls who try to call everyone together to make peace, only to get shot by the one crazy student.

I don't want to give too much away, but I also like how the game is set up in Battle Royal in regards to making students come together.  There is a map and different zones are closed down everyday.  If you step into that zone, you automatically get blown up by the device on your neck.  In The Hunger Games they use natural things put in place by the game makers, such as fires and floods, to draw players together.  And I like how smart some of the Battle Royal students are.  In using things like computers they make good headway in defeating the people running the games.  The kids are also more resourceful, using things they find around them to create explosions or to build defences.  In The Hunger Games they get gifts from sponsors, magically.  It seems to easy for them to be rescued.  Not to spoil it, but Katniss gets baddly burned only to receive a healing balm from a sponsor.  Seems a little too easy for me.

Though I haven't finished The Hunger Games, I prefer the plot twists in Battle Royal so far.  In The Hunger Games halfway through the book it is announced that the rules have changed, that there can be two winners.  Again, that seems too easy.  I was looking forward to see how the conflict was going to be resolved if Katniss and Peeta were the last two alive.  But now that storyline is no longer an issue.  In Battle Royal you are reading until the very end to see how in the world the three heroes of the story are going to manage to survive the game without killing each other.

I just want to say that, though I haven't seen all of Cato in The Hunger Games, Kazuo in Battle Royale is so much more of a badass and really scary.  His background is that he was in some sort of accident that left him with brain trauma.  He functions like a normal person, only he has lost all empathy.  Basically, he has no feelings or emotions and thus doesn't mind killing, similar to a lot of serial killers and psychopaths you hear about in real life.  Again, I don't want to give too much away, but his first act is to murder everyone in his alliance and to steal all of their weapons.

The Hunger Games takes place in a modern America where the country is ruled by one Capital City.  The country is now split into 12 districts and every district has to send a boy and a girl to fight to the death in the games.  This is punishment for the districts trying to defeat the Capital long ago.  The two kids from each district might know each other, but they don't know anyone else.  The book is similar to Battle Royal in that they are taken to a remote place to fight, but different in that the game is more complex and has more of a build up.  Like the Olympics, there are ceremonies before the games start which include TV interviews and make-overs.  I felt in the book this goes on too long without much result.  We get to see more of Katniss and Peeta, but we don't learn much about the other characters and the games don't start until further in.  It felt very slow going in reading.  Battle Royale gets right to the action and then uses falshback to tell each students story.  So we get action, story, action, story, etc  Where The Hunger Games is stooooooooooooooooooory followed by aaaaaaaaaaaaaaction.  And what's weird is, I hate action and yet prefer Battle Royal.  But then again, the action in Battle Royal is pretty clever.

In The Hunger Games the players are given nothing at first but they do have a chance to fight for supplies at the beginning.  However, most players scatter to hide and let the elite players get the goods.  There is a kind of romance in The Hunger Games, but it is kind of vague.  And Katniss friendships are slightly short-lived.  But it is a good read overall.  I have been sticking with it and will be excited to read the following two books in the series.  I just find it a bit uneven, especially in terms of character development.  Like how can she fall for Peeta when she has Gale...?  I guess I will have to keep reading.