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Battle Royale

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About this listen

 In an alternative future Japan, junior high students are forced to fight to the death! L to R (Western Style). Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan--where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller--Battle Royale is a Lord of the Fliesfor the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic, now available for the first time in the English language. A group of high school students are taken to small isolated island and forced to fight each other until only one remains alive! If they break the rules a special collar blows their heads off. Koushun Takami's brutal, high-octane thriller is told in breathless. blow-by-blow fashion. Battle Royale is a contemporary Japanese pulp classic now available for the first time in English. Adventure Genre Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Science Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense
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Easily my favourite book of all time. A brutal story with lots of heart and characters you can really care about. It also happens to be incredibly well written and a breathtaking experience that has no equal. There isn’t a book that I would recommend more. The narration is excellent too.

Outstanding

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Such a great book with awesome characters. It has a strange mix of teenage innocence and violence that work brilliantly.

Outstanding book well narrated

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Have to agree with other reviews here, the narrator lets the whole thing down. Stiff and robotic. Story is decent otherwise

Narrator is dull

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I like Mark Dacascos, I really do. He's not the world's greatest actor, but enjoyable to watch, nonetheless. That being said, he was the absolute wrong choice to narrate this. Battle Royale is an absolute masterpiece - literally Takami's only work, and Dacascos delivers it like he's got to read it out loud in detention and half-heartedly reads it begrudgingly every time the teacher leaves the room. It... it is not great. He doesn't seem to put any effort into it at all, which is a shame because Battle Royale is spectacular. Oh, well, top novel, though.

A literary masterpiece, let down by poor narration.

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firstly listen to this for the story it's incredible please don't let the reviews of the narrator put you off, that being said the narration is terrible it's one of the dullest I've heard and considering it's an actor you'd expect it to be more dramatic it's not it's dreadful BUT you need to hear the story my advice read the book.

the story is incredible

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