Battle Royale is about the power of love in as sincere a way as any other book/movie/song on the subject. Battle Royale is about teenagers killing each other in graphic, gory detail. Battle Royale is an alternate history novel about the Empire of the East's fascistic regime and its increasingly byzantine ways of dealing with unwanted individuals. Battle Royale spends roughly 60% of the novel telling you how the game works, but almost none of the novel justifying why the game exists at all. Battle Royale worked a lot better as a movie for me. Three stars.