Tuesday, March 20, 2012

“The Hunger Games” Versus “Battle Royale” – A Critical Analysis of Two Similar Works: Act One – Comparing the Original Books


This Friday, the first big tent-pole release of 2012 hits theatres: “The Hunger Games,” an adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ 2008 smash-hit novel.  I’m excited for the movie, as are many others, but here’s the thing….when I read the book, it felt awfully familiar.  In fact, it was remarkably similar to one of my favorite books of all time, Koushun Takami’s “Battle Royale,” published in 1999. 

So throughout this week, I’m publishing a special three-part article investigating whether or not Collins stole from Takami, and why that informs how we should look at “The Hunger Games.”  You’re reading Act One, wherein I explain all the similarities between the two novels.  Acts Two and Three will go up over the next two days – the Prologue, which explains this whole scenario, was posted yesterday. 

So without further ado, enjoy Act One of “The Hunger Games” Vs. “Battle Royale” after the jump….


Jonathan Lack at the Movies Presents
“The Hunger Games”
Versus
“Battle Royale”
A Critical Analysis of Two Similar Works


Act One:
Rumble in the Jungle
Comparing “The Hunger Games” to “Battle Royale”

I am certainly not the first person on the Internet to point out similarities between “Hunger Games” and “Battle Royale.”  The premises to the two stories are so very similar that it’s impossible not to have stumbled across this argument before, and whenever the issue arises, rabid “Hunger Games” fans immediately jump to Suzanne Collins’ defense, pointing out all the places she could have gotten inspiration from other than “Battle Royale.”  Typically, they argue that Koushun Takami’s work is also derivative, citing comparisons between “Battle Royale” and “Lord of the Flies.”  Both novels examine the breakdown of isolated societies using a cast of adolescent characters.  Thus, if “Royale” can be called imitative, accusations of Collins’ plagiarism can be left by the wayside, and we can just say that she and Takami drew similar inspiration from similar works.  Right?

Wrong.  These arguments are silly and ill-informed, and should you come across such rhetoric, ignore it promptly, for it neglects many key facts.  First, the “Lord of the Flies” comparison is a moot one; while “Battle Royale” shares certain thematic connections to William Golding’s classic, their plots and characters are largely dissimilar; Takami examines social breakdown very differently than Golding did, and it’s important to note that “Royale” comes out of a specific, contemporary Japanese context that further distances itself from Golding’s strong British voice.  No matter what, isolation leading to social breakdown is a theme entrenched in many forms of literary tradition; if one wishes to call “Royale” derivative for this reason, one must be prepared to lodge the same criticism at “Flies,” which is of course ridiculous. 

More importantly, this theme is the key place where “Hunger Games” and “Battle Royale” differ, for “Games” is not concerned with tracing a social collapse among its young characters.  The participants in the deadly Hunger Games do not know each other, unlike the class in “Battle Royale,” who have always been close, or the boys in “Flies,” who form bonds before falling apart; there is, therefore, no existing ‘society’ to watch collapse in “Games,” and with that theme missing, the book shares no substantive similarities with “Lord of the Flies.”  It isn’t fair to enter Golding’s work into this particular discussion. 

In addition to “Lord of the Flies,” many like to argue that “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games” also work in the tradition of Stephen King’s ‘Richard Bachmann’ pseudonym novels, “The Long Walk” and “The Running Man.”  And yes, there are surface similarities between these books, as they all involve gruesome death contests; “Long Walk” in particular parallels “Games” and “Royale” in several crucial ways.  But this simply isn’t sufficient evidence to say that Collins wasn’t inspired by Takami; one can’t ignore the extremely specific elements “Games” shares with “Battle Royale,” far outpacing any parallels found in the Bachmann novels. 

And now it’s time for me to present my evidence: the countless, eerily precise places where “The Hunger Games” and “Battle Royale” match up.  It’s more than just the identical premises; to my mind, at least, suspicious similarities pop up all over the place. 

We’ll start with a series of bullet points, but before we begin, please keep in mind two things: First, I didn’t go into “The Hunger Games” looking for comparisons.  I didn’t even know what the book was about, and it had been years since I read “Battle Royale.”  That such similarities struck me at all speaks to how strongly they stand out.  Second, I like “The Hunger Games.”  I really do.  I don’t think it’s a great book, but it is a fun page-turner, and I’m glad I read it.  I don’t make these comparisons to disparage the quality of the book.  A work can be plagiarized and good at the same time, and even then, there are imaginative bits to Collins’ novel I’m quite fond of.  I am of the opinion that her work pales in comparison to “Battle Royale,” but we will get into such value judgments in the next section.  For now, we’re only examining the facts, and they are as follows:

Similarities Between Books:
  • Chiefly, the premise, which is the strongest indicator of copying and absolutely cannot be ignored in this debate, no matter how much some fans would like to: “The Hunger Games” is about a dystopian future where the tyrannical government demonstrates its control over the people by hosting an annual event, the titular Hunger Games, where 24 children, aged twelve to eighteen, are randomly selected from across twelve districts to compete in a battle to the death, where participants are forced to kill one another until only one adolescent survives.  “Battle Royale” is about a dystopian, alternate-history Japan where the tyrannical government demonstrates its control over the people by randomly selecting a class of 42 high school students, aged fifteen, to compete in a battle to the death, where participants are forced to kill one another until only one adolescent survives. 
  • The titular Hunger Games were established in response to the districts of Panem rebelling against the government; in modern times, the Games are maintained to keep the public in line.  While the history of the alternate-world Japan in “Battle Royale” is less clear, it is explicitly stated that the government runs the program to intimidate the public and maintain its fascist power.  Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 film adaptation of “Royale” is even closer to “Games” in this regard: in the movie, the program is initiated as a direct response to widespread student rebellion. 
  • In both books, a lottery system is used to choose the ‘players’ (a literal “Bingo” style public lottery is used to selected individuals in “The Hunger Games,” while the government randomly selects whole classes of students in private in “Battle Royale”).
Katniss and Gale in "The Hunger Games" movie
  • The protagonist of “Battle Royale,” Shuya Nanahara, is close friends with a girl named Noriko Nakagawa; she has always had a crush on him, but he has never felt that way about her until they team up during the Battle.  They fall in love over the course of the novel and ultimately wind up as the only two survivors of the Program.  In “The Hunger Games,” one could argue that Noriko’s role is split in two between Gale Hawthorne, Katniss’ best friend from District 12, and Peeta Mellark, the other tribute to the Hunger Games from District 12.  Gale fulfills the platonic, childhood friend side of Noriko’s character, while Peeta is the love interest (sort of…it’s way too complicated) and teammate during the carnage.  Additionally, just as Shuya must care for Noriko after she is injured, Katniss must do the same for Peeta when she eventually finds him, and they are the only two survivors of the games (and though Katniss and Peeta don’t ‘get together’ in “The Hunger Games,” Wikipedia tells me they do in one of the book’s sequels).  So in short, both books end with one boy and one girl, romantically linked, left alive in the end.
  • A man named Kinpato Sakamochi runs the Battle Royale program depicted in Takami’s novel, and is an effectively unsettling antagonist because of his casual enthusiasm for the slaughter; when telling the kids the rules, he acts like it’s just another day at school, and when he addresses all the players over the loudspeaker during the program, he’s cheerful.  This disturbing disregard for the lives of children is found all over “The Hunger Games.”  The most direct parallel to my mind is Effie Trinket, coordinator of the Games for Katniss’ home district; she runs the lottery for who will participate in the killing contest like it’s a fun social event.  She’s only significant for the early parts of the book though, and after that, Sakamochi’s attitude is split into multiple authority figures. 
    • It should be noted that in the film version of “Battle Royale,” Sakamochi’s character is substantially reworked; he is named Kitano, named for the legendary actor who plays him, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano.  This character is very world weary, and while he takes some pleasure out of the Program, there is more depth and nuance to his actions than you’ll find in any adult character in Takami’s book or “The Hunger Games.” 
  • In both stories, the killing game takes place in a Jungle setting (my mind’s eye imagined nearly identical spaces), and many similar scenarios take place because of this (specifically, the way characters will set traps/hide themselves/find water and food, etc).  The only difference is that “Battle Royale” happens on an abandoned island, so occasionally, characters will find groups of empty houses. 
  • At the start of both contests – the Hunger Games and the Battle Royale – the ‘players’ are each given a backpack with a random weapon and other supplies, such as food and water.  This “evens” the playing field, to a degree, as the weapon could be invaluable (guns in “Battle Royale,” bows and arrows in “Hunger Games”) or entirely useless (one character gets a fork in “Battle Royale,” while Katniss gets nothing more than a knife in “Games”).  In both stories, the protagonists don’t start doing well until they find better weapons (a bow for Katniss, guns for Shuya and co.). 
The map players are given in "Battle Royale"
  • In both stories, those in charge of the killing contest force the players closer together to ensure continued carnage.  This is accomplished through the use of “forbidden zones” in “Battle Royale,” where players are told not to inhabit certain areas of the island at given times; otherwise, an electronic collar on their necks will explode and decapitate them.  In “Hunger Games,” the ‘game-masters’ force players together by manipulating the environment.  Early on, for instance, a giant wall of flame attacks Katniss, forcing her to flee to a different part of the arena.  In both cases, the actions of those in charge limits the amount of space players have to battle, leading to greater conflict as the contest progresses.   
  • In both novels, the ‘players’ are given periodic updates about who has died.  In “Battle Royale,” this is accomplished by reading the names of the dead over a PA system, and in “The Hunger Games,” the faces of the dead are flashed in the sky.  Even more obviously similar are how the characters react to these announcements: every address is invariably followed by Shuya and Katniss doing a mental rundown of who’s left, what this means for their chances, where survivors they’d like to meet up with might be, how the news affects where they should go or what they should do, etc.  They also both have people they care for in the Games, so there’s lots of fretting when announcements start as the protagonists hope they don’t hear/see certain names/faces. 
  • Both books feature an older and stronger figure assisting a younger, less experienced participant.  In “The Hunger Games,” Katniss befriends and protects the youngest contestant, Rue, while in “Battle Royale,” Shuya and Noriko are assisted by Shogo Kawada, a slightly older boy who survived a previous Battle program.  In this way, Shogo can also be seen as a parallel to Haymitch in “Hunger Games.”  Haymitch is a previous ‘winner’ from Katniss’ home district, and assists her with both his knowledge and, later, supplies, something Shogo also does on a more direct level.
  • In both novels, the most powerful, capable participant is painted as the antagonist, and survives through to the very end: Kazuo Kiriyama in “Battle Royale” and Cato (no, not the Green Hornet’s sidekick) in “The Hunger Games.”  Collins describes Cato (no, not Inspector Clouseau’s butler) and his actions very similarly to how Takami writes Kiriyama. 
  • The surviving couples in both stories each become government targets; “Battle Royale” ends with Shuya and Noriko being chased by officers, while the government is very perturbed at Katniss and Peeta at the end of “Games.”  As I understand it, the evil regime tries to kill them in subsequent books. 
  • Of less import, but worth noting: the participants in “The Hunger Games” are aged between 12 and 18, the median of which is 15, the age of all participants in “Battle Royale.”  Katniss Everdeen, protagonist of “Games,” is sixteen, suspiciously close in age to the characters in “Royale.” 
"Oh my god...the similarities!  They're so obvious!"
It seems to me that Suzanne Collins also borrowed liberally from Kinji Fukasaku’s 2000 film adaptation of “Battle Royale,” and I’d like to point out several such examples:

Similarities Between “Hunger Games” Book 
and “Battle Royale” Movie
  • In “The Hunger Games,” Katniss has no dad and a deadbeat (or, at least, useless and disinterested) mother.  Shuya Nanahara is an orphan in Takami’s book, but in the film, his father is also gone, and it’s implied that his mother was never there for him.
  • Though the Battle Royale program happens once a week in the novel, it is an annual event in Fukasaku’s film, just like the Hunger Games. 
  • In “The Hunger Games,” each announcement of the dead is preceded by the Panem national anthem.  While no music is played during the PA messages in Takami’s novel, the instructor Kitano plays pieces of classical music to start his announcements in Fukasaku’s film. 
  • In fact, much of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Hunger Games is similar to how Fukasaku imagines the Battle Royale.  In Takami’s novel, the Program is always held in a secret location, and there is no media fanfare except to announce the name of the winner during nightly news bulletins.  In the film, however, cameras come flooding in at the end of each annual Program to interview the winner, and Kitano runs the Program with darkly humorous fanfare.  In addition to the aforementioned classical music, he shows the children an ironically cheerful instructional video before the Battle starts.  Most importantly, Kitano very overtly views the Battle as sport, telling the students that “Life is a game.”  This is a significant tonal departure from Takami’s novel, but it’s much closer to the Reality Show framework of “The Hunger Games.” 
The humorous instructional video in "Battle Royale"
  • In the sequels to “The Hunger Games,” “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay,” Peeta and Katniss, survivors of the Games, lead a revolution against the government that forced them to kill.  Koushun Takami wrote no sequel to “Battle Royale,” but Kinji Fukasaku’s son Kenta did make a sequel to the film in 2004, titled “Battle Royale II: Requiem.”  In it, Shuya and Noriko lead a revolution against the government that forced them to kill.  This is one bit of ‘borrowing’ I will not hold against Collins, however, as I do not expect her to have sat through “Battle Royale II.”  It is possibly one of the worst movies ever made, certainly among the most disappointing sequels.

Okay, now that I’ve established fairly overwhelming evidence for the derivative nature of “The Hunger Games,” let’s apply all this knowledge in more general terms.  I’m sure some fans of “The Hunger Games” will look at all these similarities, shrug, and say “so what?”  To that, I have to stress this point: context matters.  Bullet point comparisons only tell part of the story.  You actually have to sit down and read both novels to truly understand how derivative “The Hunger Games” feels.  Again, I knew nothing about this book when I started reading it; “Battle Royale” was far from my mind.  I hadn’t even perused it in years.  But it only took a half hour of reading or so for me to feel like I’d experienced this story before. 

Collins’ prose in the early chapters was a big indicator for me; it reads very similarly to the English translation of “Battle Royale.”  Specifically, she’ll start in the present, following Katniss as she goes about her day, and presenting exposition through Katniss’ thoughts and reflections (the book is written in first person).  It’s Katniss who tells us what the Hunger Games are, who Gale is, how her family history has played out, etc.  Takami does the same thing through Shuya, albeit from a third-person perspective; Shuya tells us about “Battle Royale,” his thoughts give way to his personal history, backstories of his classmates, etc.  The prose of the two novels differs significantly after a little while (Takami follows many characters omnisciently, while Collins focuses solely on Katniss), but it’s one of those tonal comparisons I just couldn’t ignore.

And when the Games actually start, it really is eerie how closely the contest mirrors the progression of Takami’s “Battle Royale.”  Yes, “Hunger Games” has many original layers: the Reality Show angle, outside help from ‘sponsors,’ Katniss’ unfavorable opinion of the other contestants, etc.  But underneath all that, the contests are unshakably similar.  I tried to ignore this while reading, but I couldn’t: the rules, the logistics, the decisions characters make, etc….so much it felt so inescapably similar to a book that had made a big impact on me, and at a certain point, noticing similarities became a subconscious process.  I understand the urge some readers have to put aside the comparisons in favor of Collins’ more creative elements, but this ignores the facts, and the facts are that much of “The Hunger Games” is way too close to “Battle Royale” for comfort. 

But at the end of the day, they are separate works, with distinct goals and styles, and now it’s time to look at the differences.  I believe the simplest way to describe the contrast is as follows:

“The Hunger Games” is the dumb American version of “Battle Royale.”

And I recognize that this statement is going to take some explaining if I am to avoid a ritual stoning.  No matter.  Even if “The Hunger Games” is your favorite book of all time, I’m confident you’ll see exactly what I mean soon enough…..


This article is being presented in three parts on www.jonathanlack.com, with part 2 publishing tomorrow and part 3 on Thursday.  If you would like to read the full, unedited version of the article, please e-mail webmaster@jonathanlack.com and we will send you a PDF version of the complete article. 

21 comments:

  1. Bravo. Every "critic" on the internet seems unable to actually compare BR the book to Collin's book - which I think says it all. They have to resort to using the movie (which still bears striking similarities) to try and downplay how blatant of a rip off it is.

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  2. Yes! This needed to be said.

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  3. Very nice - I actually just finished reading Battle Royale and can't believe the similarities.

    Has anyone mentioned the mockingjay whistle and bird whistle similarity? That's actually the one that did it for me. It's too different and too unique to be a coincidence.

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    1. Exactly. Same for me as well. And what about the going deaf in one ear due to explosion? That was a huge "similarity" for me.

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  4. You know, I didn't think of that one, but very good point! Using a bird call to find each other....that's got to be one of the most striking similarities, hasn't it? Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out!

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  5. I see your list calling out all the differences while trying very hard to portray them as similarities.

    History is littered with examples of people coming up with similar ideas independently of one another, including the automobile, airplane, light bulb and motion pictures. Many similar books, movies and comics have been produced simultaneously by artists and writers who never heard of each other. DC and Marvel came out with Doom Patrol and X-Men, virtually identical comics, the very same month. Coincidences happen, especially with a theme as obvious as "battle to the death for a reality TV show." There is no need to call Suzanne Collins a liar or accuse her of plagiarism for producing a book that's thematically similar to an obscure film from the other side of the planet that nobody in America could even see until long after her work was published.

    P.S. the bird call in HG was NOT used "to find each other;" it became a code signal for the revolution.

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    1. actually, Battle Royale was available through Netflix at least as early as 2005 and would have been a familiar title to anyone who is a fan of Tarantino...

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  6. Jim -

    I do not think Collins is a liar or a plagiarist. I never say that in this article, and if you read parts two and three of this article, I go on to defend her and explain exactly what you said - sometimes, stories are similar, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. Please read what I actually wrote before judging me or my work. I wrote this article to compile all the similarities I could find, because many fans of both works wanted to see them. I just wanted to lay the facts on the line. Again, of you read the entire article, I defend Collins.

    It is also silly to say that no one heard of Battle Royale before Hunger Games. That is simply not true. I read the book four or five years before Collins was published, and saw the film around the same time.

    Finally, you are incorrect about the bird call. It later became a code signal for revolution, but at first, Rue comes up with the idea so she and Katniss can locate each other after Katniss goes to destroy the food supply. Just as Shogo comes up with a bird call so he and Shuya can find each other after Shuya goes to fight Kiriyama.

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  7. Jonathan,

    I am writing to call you on your doubletalk...You stated in your first and second paragraph of "Act One", "Thus, if “Royale” can be called imitative, accusations of Collins’ plagiarism can be left by the wayside, and we can just say that she and Takami drew similar inspiration from similar works. Right? Wrong."

    Now, I have not read the rest of your article, and you may go on in the rest of the article to defend Collins, but here you effectively say that Collins plagirized Takami.

    The works may be very similar, but this does not mean she plagirized. I was in a creative writing class in college, and each student was given the first paragraph of a story and told to write the rest. Most stories had uncanny similarities to the original. This was the point of the exercise. My story was almost identical to the original, and I had never read the original work. Granted, we were given the original author's first paragraph, but I think the basis for the two stories, "Hunger Games" and "Battle Royale" in previous works (namely the myth of Theseus, and the actual Roman "games", as well as any good war story or movie "Platoon" for instance) gives any author more than a first paragraph for a starting point. If you have a similar stating point, you will have characters that experience similar things.

    As for the bird calls... Bird calls have been used as signals in war long before Takami and Collins were twinkles in their parents' eyes.

    In conclusion, I am of the opinion that one cannot come to the conclusion that "Takami wrote it first, Collins must have copied Takami." This is a preposterous notion.

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  8. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. That does not, I think, make the opinions of myself and other readers and commenters "preposterous." Preposterous would imply the conclusion is impossible to come to from the given facts. Clearly, the opinion that HG and BR are suspiciously similar is not preposterous. You can accept it's all coincidence, I have absolutely no problem accepting that conclusion, but ignoring the facts of the case outright would be the truly preposterous act.

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  9. Now it is you who are not reading what is written. I did not say that the notion that Collins copied Takami because of the similarities was preposterous. I was saying that the logic leap of: because Takami came first it must follow that Collins plagirized" was preposterous. This is the major arguement I see on the internet. You, at least have pointed out specific instances where there are striking similarities.

    But, my point is that one cannot come to the conclusion that Collins PLAGIRIZED Takami based on these similarities. We can say only that there are striking similarities and leave it at that.

    I cannot argue that the similarities are indeed striking, but Collins did in fact add, as you said, more creative layers. So even to call this the “the dumb American version of “Battle Royale.” is to be untrue to your other comments.

    It seems you are conflicted in your opinions of the books in question. Maybe you are just wanting to get all the facts on the table, and that is admirable. But to continuously praise Collins and then a second later bash her work, is not the way to lay out the facts.

    I like the list of similarities and look forward to reading the promised list of differences. Objectivity is the key.

    All I was trying to do in the first response was to point out that similarities do not PROVE plagirism. Now, in this second response, I restate it.

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  10. That's fair. But as I said before, this is only one part of the article, an if you read the other two (which are already posted, just go to the Hunger Games tab on the left), I think you will see that our opinions are not so different in the end.

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  11. You have a fairly good list here. I am going to try and rebut your points as best I can.


    [Similarities Between “Hunger Games” Book
    and “Battle Royale” Movie
    In “The Hunger Games,” Katniss has no dad and a deadbeat (or, at least, useless and disinterested) mother. Shuya Nanahara is an orphan in Takami’s book, but in the film, his father is also gone, and it’s implied that his mother was never there for him.
    Though the Battle Royale program happens once a week in the novel, it is an annual event in Fukasaku’s film, just like the Hunger Games.]

    Very good. Can you explain to me why Jim Hawkins in 'Treasure Island' likewise has no father figure in that book, why 'Oliver Twist' has no parents along with Harry Potter and why every fairy tale/myth in the world has a plethora of parentless children? Could it be that parentless children is one of the oldest tropes in fiction?

    [In “The Hunger Games,” each announcement of the dead is preceded by the Panem national anthem. While no music is played during the PA messages in Takami’s novel, the instructor Kitano plays pieces of classical music to start his announcements in Fukasaku’s film.
    In fact, much of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Hunger Games is similar to how Fukasaku imagines the Battle Royale. In Takami’s novel, the Program is always held in a secret location, and there is no media fanfare except to announce the name of the winner during nightly news bulletins. In the film, however, cameras come flooding in at the end of each annual Program to interview the winner, and Kitano runs the Program with darkly humorous fanfare. In addition to the aforementioned classical music, he shows the children an ironically cheerful instructional video before the Battle starts. Most importantly, Kitano very overtly views the Battle as sport, telling the students that “Life is a game.” This is a significant tonal departure from Takami’s novel, but it’s much closer to the Reality Show framework of “The Hunger Games.” ]

    The only thing troublesome about the music intros is that they have been used since time immemorial. I seem to remember a trummpet voluntary before the chariot race in Ben Hur. The Ponitius Pilate character gave a rather inspirational speech there as well



    [In the sequels to “The Hunger Games,” “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay,” Peeta and Katniss, survivors of the Games, lead a revolution against the government that forced them to kill. Koushun Takami wrote no sequel to “Battle Royale,” but Kinji Fukasaku’s son Kenta did make a sequel to the film in 2004, titled “Battle Royale II: Requiem.” In it, Shuya and Noriko lead a revolution against the government that forced them to kill. This is one bit of ‘borrowing’ I will not hold against Collins, however, as I do not expect her to have sat through “Battle Royale II.” It is possibly one of the worst movies ever made, certainly among the most disappointing sequels.]

    It would have been as difficult for her to sit through the sequel as it would have been for her to sit through the original. Neither were released in the USA.

    I am not saying that there are no similarities between the two books/films, but from the trope of one character risking life and limb to save the love interest, (Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (social disgrace), Nancy in Oliver Twist Oliver's life), D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (saving the Queen), James in Harry Potter)to the least likely character in a war movie who becomes a killing machine, they have all been used too many times before for it to be anything else but using a common fictional trope. It takes a great deal more thatn a this to even think that Collins was inspired by Battle Royale and did not give credit. It does not come close to plagerism, which is the actual use of passages from one book to the other.

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    1. I don't understand why you're trying to compare books that has no relevance to this. The point is NOT comparing random books, but two books that share the concept of battling each other to death.

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  12. I wasn’t going to post here, but I’ve just read your article again and I was extremely surprised at how many of the “similarities” you list are either wrong or illogical. Let me go through a few of them:

    “In both books, a lottery system is used to choose the ‘players’ “
    – OK: so how else should they do it? The lottery is an essential plot device in THG, as it explains why Katniss volunteers (incidentally, the volunteering of a “hero” is meant to be another direct reference to the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur) . IIRC, the lottery element in BR is less essential, and there are other methods that could have been used (e.g. choosing the class with the worst exam results). But that doesn’t help the argument that THG is influenced by BR, does it?

    “In both stories, the killing game takes place in a Jungle setting (my mind’s eye imagined nearly identical spaces)”
    – Well, your mind’s eye needs a monocle then, as the arena in THG is not set in a jungle – it’s a North American forest (similar to where Katniss lives). The first thing Katniss notices on entering the arena is the smell of pine. Takami and Collins have basically chosen landscapes for their games that are appropriate for where they are set (island jungle and forest wilderness respectively) – what’s remotely questionable about that?

    At the start of both contests – the Hunger Games and the Battle Royale – the ‘players’ are each given a backpack with a random weapon and other supplies, such as food and water.”
    – No: the Tributes in THG are given nothing other than a standard “uniform”. (They’re also allowed a personal token, but even that seems to be disallowed in the film version.) Everything-else (food, water, weapons, backpacks, etc) has to be fought for. Katniss scavenges a backpack, but it contains no weapon or water: she only collects a knife because it’s thrown at her. Hardly any of the other Tributes collect backpacks at the start, and no other Tributes apart from the “Career” group who control the supplies have any proper weapons at the start (Rue only has a homemade slingshot, for example.) So in short: the setup is completely different from that in BR.

    In “Hunger Games,” the ‘game-masters’ force players together by manipulating the environment. Early on, for instance, a giant wall of flame attacks Katniss, forcing her to flee to a different part of the arena. In both cases, the actions of those in charge limits the amount of space players have to battle, leading to greater conflict as the contest progresses.”
    - It’s true that the Gamemasters manipulate the arena in THG – to a much greater extent than in BR actually. They don’t continually reduce the “playing area” as in BR, though.

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    1. Just because there are small differences added the similar concept, doesn't mean you can disregard the similarities completely.

      Response to your points
      Players could be selected by class.

      Both locations are of highly wooded landscapes. Collins could have chosen a rundown town/city as location.

      Player from both books were given backpacks containing random things. Collins could have chosen to give each player the same weapon, no backpack at all.

      The point is not HOW both books forced their players to come together, but that they both forced their players to come together.

      Obviously if Collins was going to write a book and try to take all the credits, she wouldn't make everything exactly the same. That would be really stupid.

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  13. Having finished the books this weekend, I'd like to expand on to what John M. and summeriris have already written. I tried to keep it spoiler free.

    -"In 'The Hunger Games,' Katniss has no dad and a deadbeat (or, at least, useless and disinterested) mother."

    * Katniss' mom is not a deadbeat or disinterested mom, she was broken from the depression of losing her husband. In the book (not so evident in the movie) Katniss actually tells her that they can't afford for her to slip into that state again if Katniss dies in the games- which means that although her mom is not as dependable as Katniss, she does help take care of Prim. If it wasn't for that period of depression, Katniss would never have used the hunting skills her father taught her to support her mother and Prim. She would have been useless in the games.

    -"In the film, however, cameras come flooding in at the end of each annual Program to interview the winner, and Kitano runs the Program with darkly humorous fanfare."

    *The "fanfare" and public image (the parades and interviews) of the games is for the entertainment of the Capitol's citizens, whereas the games themselves are partially for the panem's wealthy citizens (they bet on their favorite players) but mostly used to show the district people that the capitol owns them in a "we have your children- we will kill them, and there is nothing you can do about it" kind of way. The playing of the capitol's anthem during announcements only pushes the idea that the purpose of the games is to control the population.

    Any bits that make light of the games (the interviews; Caesar Flickerman's attitude) are there to downplay the gruesomeness of the whole idea, so the the capitol people will follow along and continue to enjoy the games.

    - "The most direct parallel to my mind is Effie Trinket, coordinator of the Games for Katniss’ home district; she runs the lottery for who will participate in the killing contest like it’s a fun social event..."

    * Effie does not run the lottery. She picks the names out of (district twelve's lottery and only twelve's) the bowls because she's district 12's escort. She has no power, and is "cheerful" about it because she is a citizen of the capitol and the games are merely looked at as entertainment. Capitol citizens have never had to worry about sacrificing their children, so they could care less. This idea could easily be cited from human nature; a select population of our own world doesn't have to starve so they don't care that much of the world's population does.

    Also, there are other escorts that select from other district lotteries, and as far as THG fans know they don't have the same attitude as Effie. Even Cinna and Haymitch (and later others) are there to show that Mentors, Prep teams and Stylists will differ from each other and also from their predecessors in the way they view the games and the government.

    -"Even more obviously similar are how the characters react to these announcements: every address is invariably followed by Shuya and Katniss doing a mental rundown of who’s left..."

    * I know this is a slightly offensive thing to say, but this is really grasping at straws. Of course they'll count down how many are left. Every person in the arena is, they would be foolish or careless not to.

    -"In this way, Shogo can also be seen as a parallel to Haymitch in 'Hunger Games.'"

    * Haymitch is more of a "portal to the outside world" kind of character than a true mentor, especially in the movies. He gets sponsors to send things to Katniss in the arena, but most of the actual training is done in the training center with teachers who are experts in specific skills (archery, knot tying, camouflage). Effie and Haymitch teach Katniss and Peeta how to present themselves in the interviews so that the sponsors actually like them.

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    1. This just a continuation of my last post, but it contains mild spoilers for the other books/movies

      -"In both stories, the killing game takes place in a Jungle setting (my mind’s eye imagined nearly identical spaces)"

      *The games take place in a *forest* because this lends Katniss an advantage that other district tributes do not have- from what I remember District 11 is made of orchards and empty plains, Distict 4 has beaches. The other games have been hosted in dry deserts, icy wastelands, and there a jungle arena is actually mentioned.

      -"In both novels, the most powerful, capable participant is painted as the antagonist, and survives through to the very end..."

      * That could be said for every antagonist in every movie, book, and tv series ever made. Also, Cato isn't the true antagonist. President Snow and government (capitol government, the "government" of the games; the gamemakers, and later government in general) are Katniss' enemies.

      -"The surviving couples in both stories each become government targets"

      * Later in the series we find that every single victor is afflicted with some punishment from the capitol, to show that the capitol essentially still owns them even though they won. I wish that this would have been touched on in the first series and it's a minor spoiler, but it makes such an impact on the reader's view of THG's world.

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    2. I agree with you. I think most of this is a stretch. Yes, there are similarities, but a lot of the similarities can be found in many other stories, too.

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