MrHyde

@conor  

 As thepaul1984 stated Battle Royale is more of a social commentary than a solid story.  I read the novel after reading a review of the movie.  I loved the book for it's characters, and the way their personalities evolved over the course of the story.  When I finally tracked down a copy of the movie, I was genuinely impressed with the adaptation.  (Just don't watch the sequel)  Putting a visual to the violence, was disturbing, but not without cause.  The movie was even slightly controversial in japan for it's use of teenagers with the subject matter.

 As someone who has been reading manga for awhile, I was looking forward to the manga.  I was interested to see how it could work with the story and characters.  Unfortunately, I had the same reaction that you did.  In place of letting the characters, who are mostly innocent, fall into the animalistic game, they generated elaborate back-stories about why they need to do what they must to survive.  Now seeing as the original author did the adaptation, it may have been the story that was in his head the whole time.  For me, it was violent and graphic just because they could.

 Basicly what i'm getting at is, read the book.  I would hate for your only opinion of the story to be the manga.

  P.S. - I'm a sucker for most manga, and comics in general.  I would say my fave and guilty pleasure, would be Love Hina.  It's not a great work of literature by any means, but as someone who grew up a geek, it strikes a chord.