The book is always better, right? Of course, there are reversals of this axiom, and by reading book versions of a couple of my favorite-ever Japanese films lately, I've run into a couple of them. The Woman in the Dunes, though great in either form, is one, and this is another. 
 Kinji Fukasaku's swan song at the end of a four decade career, the film of Battle Royale is harsh, urgent, stylish, tragic, equally completely entertaining and suspicious of those too ready to be entertained by it. It even has its surreal and experimental flourishes. As possibly the finest film from an excellent director, really how could I expect this to be both one of my favorite films ever AND still be better as a book? More significantly Fukasaku's nightmarish actual life experiences recast the shock-pulp setup in the terms of dire reality, in ways that could never apply to the much younger author, Koushun Takami. As an actual middle-schooler during World War II, Fukasaku and his class were forced into munitions factory work to support the war effort. As a result, they were bombed by the Allies as a military target and many died, leaving Fukasaku with a lasting distrust of the adults and authorities that put them in harm's way. In the face of this information, it's much harder to dismiss the Lord-of-the-Flies-updating classmates-forced-to-kill-one-another premise of Battle Royale as lurid sensationalism. Even without knowing the context, the personal significance and passion come through in the film: for all its exploitation trappings, its clear that it cares very much about its subjects, and about its viewers. It's not at all surprising, given all this, the Fukasaku actually took care to make the film more unnervingly realistic and plausible than the novel. 
 All that said, I'm surprised by how much I really did enjoy the book. As befits the action novel that is, I completely couldn't put this down. (Rare now, most action novels seem terminally dull to me at this point). The language itself isn't especially notable, designed for speed and kineticism interspersed with teen cadences, but it's more than functional, and occasionally takes interesting risks. Much more importantly, it shares its vital core with the film: this isn't about good students and bad students, heroes surviving against the odds (though we do get suitable heroes), but about how everyone, individually, deals with the horrific situation they've been thrown into. The violence isn't gratuitous because each character is imbued with compelling background and humanity. Each death retains its sense of tragedy. Which is the feat upon which the surprising success of both book and film is built.