Ever since this manga first came out, I struggled to get through it. It's only now that I was finally able to complete it. I couldn't get past the artwork, which is both sickening and cringe-inducing. It's a bizarre mixture of different styles that don't click. Some characters are drawn in a very gritty, hyper-realistic style. Some look Disney-esque (Kawada's girlfriend=Belle from Beauty and the Beast). Some characters look like something out of the Sunday comics (Yutaka Sato). Some look straight up bishoujo. And some characters look very "Mad Magazine" (look up: Basil Wolverton, Mort Drucker and Sam Viviano).

On top of the mixture of cartooning styles is the bizarre mixture of cuteness and gore. Goofy characters in their death scenes will be drawn in extreme close-up and in gory detail. Imagine a "gory" closeup of a dead Donald Duck with pieces of his face missing, an eyeball popping out and exposed teeth and skull and you'll get a picture of how ridiculous some of the artwork looks at times.

Another problem with the artwork is that some of the character designs are so grotesque or ridiculous that I couldn't click with them. I was just too put off. The girl with bad acne, "Frog Boy" and the gay character were so ugly, almost troll-like. Other characters were so cartoony, I couldn't take them seriously. (The very first girl who is killed looks very "Family Guy").

One last problem with the artwork is that it seemed as if the artist forgot that the characters are supposed to be young teens. That is the whole point behind why Battle Royale is horrifying, that young, sweet innocent children are being forced to kill each other. If most of the kids look like hardened 25 year old Yakuza, juvenile delinquents or sleazy porn star veterans, where is the horror? It's the same as watching adults kill each other, so the horror is gone.

As for the story, it was better than the movie adaptation. On the other hand, there was too much gratuitous sex and violence. The gore did absolutely nothing for the story; it just cheapened whatever emotion there was to be had or made you so sick that you were more horrified by what you were seeing than sad for the character. For example, there is one sweet little girl who falls to her death, and the artist drew her with all her innards splattered all over her and her body torn apart. How can you feel sad over her death when all you feel is shock or nausea?

As for the sex scenes, there are pornographic scenes in here straight out of a hentai, one which includes rape (sigh). Ironically, the sexual abuse victim is the one who keeps being put in these scenes. It's almost as if the writer/artists were turned on by her back story of being raped as a child that they sexualized her as a teenager, even in death. Going into the manga, you will think she is the most interesting character and villain, but no--she is reduced to nothing more than cheap sexual eye candy for perverted male readers into rape fantasies and lolicon. The artist and writers didn't even try to pretend what she was; as she's dying, they made sure that the perverts got one last look at her naked body and erect nipples before she is killed off for good.

People complain about the main protagonist, but it's the main villain for me who is the worst character. He's like something out of those Freddy/Jason/Friday the 13th movies. No matter how many times he's shot, he gets right back up again as if nothing happened. There's an explanation for why he survives, but still it's too unrealistic how he keeps surviving round after round without so much as a scratch. He's drawn in a bland style, too. He's actually the least interesting looking character out of anyone in the manga--so uninteresting, in fact, that you would not know he was the main bad guy just by looking at him. I think the artist was bored with him or had run out of character designs. In any event, you'll see exactly what I mean when you see him.

All in all, Battle Royale is so-so. If you can get past the gnarly artwork, you might get something out of it. However, I don't think it's the "masterpiece" everyone has made it out to be. As for the artwork, sorry to harp so much on that but it played a large part in why I didn't enjoy the manga as much as I could have.