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Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale #1
Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale #1
En la república coparticipativa del gran este asiático no existe el servicio militar obligatorio. Por eso las altas esferas de la marina han decidido convertir a "El Programa", un simulacro de batalla en el que todos los estudiantes de un curso de tercer año deben asesinarse entre sí hasta que solo quede uno, en un sistema de reclutamiento obligatorio. Las cincuenta clases de tercero ya han sido seleccionadas para "El Programa" oficial, pero los confiados alumnos del instituto Shikanosai descubrirán que han sido elegidos para el programa especial de la marina. Ahora la pobre Makoto Hashimoto y el resto de su clase deberán completar un curso de guerra con varios exámenes con el objetivo de investigar su desarrollo. Aunque nadie aclara que dichos exámenes causan heridas y la muerte a todos los que lo han intentado hasta ahora...
¡Una nueva historia ambientada en el mundo del Mega-Hit BATTLE ROYALE!
¡Una nueva historia ambientada en el mundo del Mega-Hit BATTLE ROYALE!
206 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 31, 2019
Solitamente non do mai 1☆ perchè per me equivale a carta igienica.
Questo manga e il mio rifiuto di rilettura equivalgono a 1☆. Carta igienica costosa pure.
Ricordate io non da mai 1☆ tranne per casi estremi. Tirate voi le somme.
Questo manga e il mio rifiuto di rilettura equivalgono a 1☆. Carta igienica costosa pure.
Ricordate io non da mai 1☆ tranne per casi estremi. Tirate voi le somme.
April 30, 2016
Ma l'ha scritto davvero Koushun Takami?! Molto meglio Battle Royale 1. -.-"
I disegni sono troppo "infantili" e la trama beh... Scarseggia.
I disegni sono troppo "infantili" e la trama beh... Scarseggia.
August 30, 2022
So I’ll state that I didn’t like the first Battle Royale manga for… quite a few reasons. While I get the idea of expanding on aspects of the original series, and fleshing out characters who weren’t quite fleshed out in the original, the core issue is that I find it to be an ugly, poorly paced slog of a story that seeks, more than anything, to lean in on what made the original novel controversial and make it so much worse. Fights and death scenes are poorly choreographed and run stupidly long in an attempt to “expand” on the original and draw pathos out of [insert redshirt #403’s] death. The character design in general is… really ugly — in addition to nearly everyone looking like gremlins, this is supposed to be a cast full of 14-year-olds and everybody looks like they’re either seven or in their thirties. In addition to all that, it's just… really gross? It’s a manga that really leans into the leery — corpses are depicted in loving detail, sex and sexual assault are constantly referenced in an attempt to be edgy and shocking, and one of the main characters is a (supposedly) teenage sex victim who’s depicted continuously as a titillating sex object. I’m not averse to dark content — I love the original novel and its movie adaptation — but while these never went too far off the deep end, and often had something to say regarding its graphic elements, the manga goes wayyy further mostly just for the sake of having it, which really helps the manga to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
So you can imagine, when even the people who like the Battle Royale manga hate Blitz Royale, that this preemptively cancelled series would somehow be just as bad, right? It was the preconception I held going in, and the fact that the series got cancelled and hastily ended at least gives the impression that I’m not going to get a satisfying ending out of this, but honestly…
…it’s not that bad?
It’s not that good, either, but I’d happily take “mid” over the general grossness that’s the Battle Royale manga. The story follows a girl named Makoto Hashimoto who lives in a dystopic Japan and who, along with the rest of her eighth-grade class, gets kidnapped and placed in a special version of The Program run by the Navy. They’re forcibly separated into corps groups, have explosive collars placed on their necks, and — after the navy gets bored of having them dispose of corpses I guess — forced into military exercises in hopes of surviving and returning home. Almost immediately, though, one of these exercises goes wrong, and it suddenly becomes up to Makoto and her group of supporting characters to learn how to fight, figure their way through the battlefield, and potentially buy their chance at freedom.
The first thing I’d like to mention is the art… which is a mixed bag. Hitoshi Tomizawa, the artist/writer of a previous series named Alien Nine, decided to touch on the totalitarian horror of Battle Royale with a style that looks like something out of a gag manga. On one hand, it’s effective in some places — there’s one panel in particular that shows bloody footprints around a corpse the entire class had converged on, which is a nice bit of detail — and there’s definitely something thematic in how young all the kids look. I also appreciate some of the cognitive dissonances with the art — the guns the soldiers have been drawn in a way different and more realistic artstyle than most other things seen, which really helps sell, like, the idea of innocence ending as the class is forced to grapple with the reality of war.
Because, surprisingly, compared to its predecessor… there are actually some deeper themes here! Maybe I’m being influenced by the author of the original Battle Royale novel appearing in the last couple of pages and talking about the story and the real world context, but… I’m kind of into the vibes it has of exposing children to the horrors of war, and forcing them to leave their old lives behind and try to fight for themselves where they can. It’s absolutely derivative of Battle Royale the novel, yeah, but I dunno, after the first manga’s sole purpose was “just how much blood and anime tiddy can we show?” it’s nice to be reading something with a clear mission statement behind it. I’m also fond of some of the culture-centric stuff — it was pointed out to me that the idea of the navy creating their own, much more different Battle Royale Program plays off of the historical tension between the army and the navy of Japan, which is neat.
I think that’s where my compliments end, though, because while I did note that the artstyle could be effective at points… by far and large it's rather unfitting, and at some points outright bad. The characters, in general, look rather cartoony, with their penis noses and off-model heads and ears half the size of their faces, and while it’d probably work with, say, a slice of life or a gag manga... within a dystopian horror like Battle Royale it's hard to reconcile a lot of what’s going on when, say, the main character you’re following only has her eyes 2/3rds drawn. I get that this could be leaning into the themes of loss of innocence and such, but… this is a dissonance that I don’t think works quite as well. And while I can get the idea behind all the soldiers looking identically indistinct, having all the class look incredibly similar to one another… doesn’t, assuming we’re meant to care about whether the class can make it out or not.
This leads to my other issue: the characters are… not exactly distinct. I can maybe forgive most of Makoto’s classmates because my impression is that they’re meant to be redshirts but even among the apparently important people so far, in terms of character traits… we know Makoto’s unlucky? Mostly because she keeps harping on about it? There’s this blond kid who was going to be Makoto’s love interest but then the soldiers beat the shit out of him for “idle talk” so now he’s evil? That’s it. Everybody else is… kind of a blank slate. This is, evidently, meant to be a story that hinges upon you caring about the characters — hoping they persevere, being impacted by their deaths — so the fact that there’s so little to really latch onto makes things… rough, especially knowing that this is only a two-volume story.
So… yeah. A mixed bag, definitely leaning more towards the “bad” end than good, but… I dunno. I kind of expected something eh going in, and I got that, but I feel like there’s at least enough promise for me to actually be kind of interested in how it goes? Even if the cancellation/the fact this story ends next volume kind of puts a damper on things. 2.5/5.
My reviews of Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale:
Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale, vol. 2 →
So you can imagine, when even the people who like the Battle Royale manga hate Blitz Royale, that this preemptively cancelled series would somehow be just as bad, right? It was the preconception I held going in, and the fact that the series got cancelled and hastily ended at least gives the impression that I’m not going to get a satisfying ending out of this, but honestly…
…it’s not that bad?
It’s not that good, either, but I’d happily take “mid” over the general grossness that’s the Battle Royale manga. The story follows a girl named Makoto Hashimoto who lives in a dystopic Japan and who, along with the rest of her eighth-grade class, gets kidnapped and placed in a special version of The Program run by the Navy. They’re forcibly separated into corps groups, have explosive collars placed on their necks, and — after the navy gets bored of having them dispose of corpses I guess — forced into military exercises in hopes of surviving and returning home. Almost immediately, though, one of these exercises goes wrong, and it suddenly becomes up to Makoto and her group of supporting characters to learn how to fight, figure their way through the battlefield, and potentially buy their chance at freedom.
The first thing I’d like to mention is the art… which is a mixed bag. Hitoshi Tomizawa, the artist/writer of a previous series named Alien Nine, decided to touch on the totalitarian horror of Battle Royale with a style that looks like something out of a gag manga. On one hand, it’s effective in some places — there’s one panel in particular that shows bloody footprints around a corpse the entire class had converged on, which is a nice bit of detail — and there’s definitely something thematic in how young all the kids look. I also appreciate some of the cognitive dissonances with the art — the guns the soldiers have been drawn in a way different and more realistic artstyle than most other things seen, which really helps sell, like, the idea of innocence ending as the class is forced to grapple with the reality of war.
Because, surprisingly, compared to its predecessor… there are actually some deeper themes here! Maybe I’m being influenced by the author of the original Battle Royale novel appearing in the last couple of pages and talking about the story and the real world context, but… I’m kind of into the vibes it has of exposing children to the horrors of war, and forcing them to leave their old lives behind and try to fight for themselves where they can. It’s absolutely derivative of Battle Royale the novel, yeah, but I dunno, after the first manga’s sole purpose was “just how much blood and anime tiddy can we show?” it’s nice to be reading something with a clear mission statement behind it. I’m also fond of some of the culture-centric stuff — it was pointed out to me that the idea of the navy creating their own, much more different Battle Royale Program plays off of the historical tension between the army and the navy of Japan, which is neat.
I think that’s where my compliments end, though, because while I did note that the artstyle could be effective at points… by far and large it's rather unfitting, and at some points outright bad. The characters, in general, look rather cartoony, with their penis noses and off-model heads and ears half the size of their faces, and while it’d probably work with, say, a slice of life or a gag manga... within a dystopian horror like Battle Royale it's hard to reconcile a lot of what’s going on when, say, the main character you’re following only has her eyes 2/3rds drawn. I get that this could be leaning into the themes of loss of innocence and such, but… this is a dissonance that I don’t think works quite as well. And while I can get the idea behind all the soldiers looking identically indistinct, having all the class look incredibly similar to one another… doesn’t, assuming we’re meant to care about whether the class can make it out or not.
This leads to my other issue: the characters are… not exactly distinct. I can maybe forgive most of Makoto’s classmates because my impression is that they’re meant to be redshirts but even among the apparently important people so far, in terms of character traits… we know Makoto’s unlucky? Mostly because she keeps harping on about it? There’s this blond kid who was going to be Makoto’s love interest but then the soldiers beat the shit out of him for “idle talk” so now he’s evil? That’s it. Everybody else is… kind of a blank slate. This is, evidently, meant to be a story that hinges upon you caring about the characters — hoping they persevere, being impacted by their deaths — so the fact that there’s so little to really latch onto makes things… rough, especially knowing that this is only a two-volume story.
So… yeah. A mixed bag, definitely leaning more towards the “bad” end than good, but… I dunno. I kind of expected something eh going in, and I got that, but I feel like there’s at least enough promise for me to actually be kind of interested in how it goes? Even if the cancellation/the fact this story ends next volume kind of puts a damper on things. 2.5/5.
My reviews of Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale:
Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale, vol. 2 →
November 27, 2012
I'm finding it really hard to believe this is an actual published manga. The art looks like something a fan has done with a biro. It's pretty much impossible to tell the characters apart, and the plot is completely uninvolving.
February 5, 2017
Loved the first manga. As well as the novel and both movies. I can't believe this is the work of an actual mangaka. Someone got paid for this trash? Plot is nonsensical, art is horrendous. I could care less about any of the characters. Since I'm such a fan of BR I just had to read this. But it was painful as hell. If you haven't read this excuse for a manga, don't do it, seriously.
October 1, 2024
A somewhat generous 3-star rating. The art style is... Atrocious.
January 23, 2025
Widać, że to zostało stworzone na potrzeby promocji drugiej części filmu
June 8, 2026
wtf its so funny
June 13, 2022
Nada que ver con Battle Royale. Yo ya sabía que era en una ambientación distinta y que la trama sería diferente, pero me ha aburrido muchísimo y no le he visto sentido, la verdad. Si habéis leído Battle Royale y os habéis quedado con ganas de más, no os leáis esto, quedaos con el recuerdo del final de BR.
May 13, 2014
I am a huge fan of the first Battle Royale. I've read all the manga, I've read the novel multiple times and I've watched the movie even more. I have the collectors edition of the movie, so it came with the second as well. Obviously, the second wasn't nearly as good as the first (even if they are both incredibly cheesy in their own ways...) but this "manga" falls a million miles shorter than the movie did. The art is absolutely atrocious. If I hadn't seen the second movie, I would be beyond confused right now, because this manga makes zero sense. Having watched the movie, I at least have the understanding of what happened after the first, and the movie made complete sense to me over this heap. Hugely disappointing, especially since I love Battle Royale and was pumped there was a manga for the second.
May 10, 2016
I'm sorry but Blitz was not able to deliver the tension and action that the original Battle Royale has. Not even the modification is exciting enough to read through, but I'll take it.
May 9, 2022
Bella merda
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews