case: ([ Laharl; Hmhmhm. ])
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2007-07-04 06:19 pm

[ SECRET POST #180 ]


⌈ Secret Post #180 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 56 secrets from Secret Submission Post #026.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [ 1 2 ] not!secrets, [ 1 ] not!fandom/repeat.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Thursday, July 5th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Re: 14

[identity profile] luisa-f.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I had a hard time getting used to the style because it isn't the typical pretty people in manga [and boy am I used to my bishies and pretty girls], but the plot was so interesting and I like the characters so much that I got over it, by volume two I'd already gotten used to the art.

Re: 14

[identity profile] hezul.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I keep thinking maybe I'll get used to it if I just take the dive into it, but every time I think about it I end up digging out my copy of the novel again instead.

Re: 14

[identity profile] luisa-f.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I have no way of getting the novel, I've never read it, so it was reading the manga or nothing, and I REALLY wanted to know what the deal it was with BR, after hearing so many people talking about it.

I've just read the manga and watched the movie, but I'm trying to find the book. Though I was so depressed after reading the manga I'm afraid I'll need therapy after reading the novel, is it violent?, I'd ask you if it's as violent as the manga, but since you haven't read it.

Re: 14

[identity profile] hezul.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't draw any comparisons, but I can say that it's still v. violent, v. M-rated? XD;

But of course, it's descriptions instead of images -- which can be better or worse, I guess, depending on how vivid an imagination you have.

Re: 14

[identity profile] luisa-f.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Too vivid an imagination I'm afraid, I absorb books so well that if I read something before going to bed I dream with it, thought me not to read horror before bedtime.

But I have to read this, I loved the manga and the movie so much, BR is one of the best things I've seen/read in such a long time.

Re: 14

[identity profile] ex-impishly.livejournal.com 2007-07-05 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
If you ever feel up to it, I'd suggest trying the book. A lot of the main themes of the manga are absent in the movie and manga.

And, personally, while the book is gory, I'd say the manga is much much worse in that sense.

Re: 14

[identity profile] ex-impishly.livejournal.com 2007-07-05 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
*NOVEL

Not manga. XD; Themes of the novel.

Re: 14

[identity profile] darkrane.livejournal.com 2007-07-05 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
The novel is not nearly as violent as the manga.

Re: 14

(Anonymous) 2007-07-04 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not like I want bishies and pretty girls per se, but like every close up is just disgusting to look at.

*op of 14*

Re: 14

[identity profile] luisa-f.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the only real problem I had was with the smallest kids, what's with the HUGE heads?, but the older kids just looked like adults, and sometimes the expressions were a bit over the top. But it didn't take from the enjoyment, so I guess you could say it didn't bother me that much. Which is weird since I'm pretty shallow, goes to show just how badly I wanted to read the manga.

Re: 14

[identity profile] sevendials.livejournal.com 2007-07-04 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I read the first volume in a bookstore out of curiosity and had much the same problem.

Don't get me wrong, I can put my shallow fangirl aside if needs be and (since most of us are average-looking: I know I certainly am) I'm all for the idea of manga and anime with more average-looking protagonists. I'm pretty sure that was what Battle Royale was trying to do, but for me the artist just pushed it a little too far in the other direction. The end result struck me as just as unrealistic as the average bishie-filled manga, only far less visually appealing, which struck me at least as the worst of both worlds.

There's a big difference between average and ugly, and I find it kind of disconcerting when characters who are clearly intended to look only ordinary in fact look so dramatically plain that they again become outstanding. With a few exceptions the cast, to me, looked more like a gallery of grotesques than the kind of average kids you might see on the street. I also thought some of the cast looked far too mature for middle-schoolers. Yeah, some kids do grow up fast, but a number of the characters looked like adults going to Schoolgirl Night at their local club. I suspect that what troubled me about the characters was the lack of any real middle ground between noticeably attractive and OMGWHATISIT, never mind that most of the population fall quite neatly into precisely that middle ground.

If the art had been a little more to my taste I might have been able to get into this series. But the bad art and the lack (to my mind) of any really sympathetic characters and the fact that, despite how much the premise of Battle Royale intrigued me, I'm not really that into gorefests in the first place all had me deciding that it was something I could reasonably give a miss.