Battle Royale: Angels' Border

Gr 10 Up—Two short stories expand the inner lives and past histories of characters originally appearing in the Japanese novel Battle Royale (Viz, 1999). Haruka, on watch with class representative Yukie, attempts to come to terms with her hidden romantic feelings for her classmate with whom she is supposed to be fighting to the death, and Chisato remembers a past encounter with popular cool kid Shinji that revealed a talent for deception and hidden depths. These short episodes expand upon characters dispatched over a few chapters late in the original source, creating motivation for the actions that ultimately caused their respective deaths in the Program. Initially considered exploitative by critics, Takami's cult novel spawned manga and film adaptations and is even considered by some to be a thematic prototype for Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" series. Despite the work's controversial violence, these vignettes focus instead on the ties that bind students who are instructed to ignore those human connections. The artwork, appropriately, has an emotive, romantic quality. Very little graphic content is depicted here, with the most intense sequences being effective portrayals of how the Program psychologically wounded its contestants.—Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH