It takes place in an alternate-world 1997 Japan, where the country’s economy has collapsed and unemployment has become so rampant most students have stopped attending school, seeing it as a waste of time. Seeing the very foundations of their society crumble, Japanese authorities pass the Battle Royale Act, stipulating that once a year a randomly chosen 8th grade class must fight to the death until only one student remains standing. - A premise which was to mysteriously reappear just three short years later in dubious guise - spoon fed to the mass market through the scholastic book program of the day.
What premise mysteriously reappeared? That kids would fight kids? because while it is true in both films there are significant differences.
1)The competitors:
As 8th graders only in Battle Royale so ALL other kids were not eligible
In the Hunger Games kids ranging from 12 to 18 were eligible making it more stressful for the kids as each year they were still eligible. In BR once you were out of 8th grade you were good.
2) The relationships between the participants:
As the kids in BR were all from the same school class each kid knew each other so it would naturally make the concept of killing each other more personal.
In the hunger Games the competitors were not know to each other so while killing someone else is still bad you at least did not have to kill someone you played with at their house the previous week.
3) The reason for the fight:
I honestly have no idea why a random 8th grade class would be selected to fight to the death. The synopsis quoted give the reason for the Battle Royal Act as being related to the Japanese authorities seeing the foundations of their society crumble. The Wikipedia entry notes the act was made after 800,000 kids walked out of school. How does making 8th graders from a randomly selected class do anything for this? If anything it should keep kids out of school as only kids that go to school are eligible.
In the Hunger Games there is more of a reason for the fighting. Each of the 12 districts that had previously rebelled had to provide a male and female between the ages of 12-18 (my range might be off) to participate. The reason for this was for a yearly reminder that each district should remember its place.
4) How much of the story is the fighting
I do not know how much of the story is fighting among the kids but in the hunger Games it only like the last third of the book.
It seems that while both stories include fights to the death involving kids the differences are so vast that calling one a rip-off of the other is wrong. Calling Hunger Games a rip-off of Battle Royale is like when people would call Fringe a rip-off of X-files just because weird things happened in both.
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