if you're sick of *our* cultural violence and want a step-down palette cleanser this battle royale piece by @japanesepearl is good for fans and newbies alike

there's some good historical context here https://unseenjapan.com/battle-royale-dystopian-thriller-cult-classic/

the original book is obviously about the lost generation/decade and youth violence and the like

but fukasaku took an incredibly personal approach to the film adaptation (which is covered in the linked piece)

his film is every bit as much about violence as it relates TO youth

fukasaku adapted the book into an even more violent piece that points its finger at the adults kids are taught to respect and never question--even when they lie and tell kids to kill or let kids get killed by selfishness, neglect, ignorance, etc

it blames the people in charge

i need to warm up and get something bigger done so i'll lay down some stuff about the battle royale movie until i don't want to anymore.

any halfway well read weeb will already know most of this stuff but whatever.

it's made clear from the start that this is dystopian lost decade shit turned up to 11

the school boycotts come from some irl actual happenings:

1. the new left student movement occupations + riots of the late 60s

2. the "tokokyohi" (now "futoko") issue of school age shut-ins

fukasaku pulls no punches by letting you know who the real big bad is up front.

it's the government. it's the adults who allow the murder game because they're sacred of the results of their own inability to maintain control.

public enemy #2 is the media, natch.

keep in mind this was the late 90s and the mass media had already showed their entire asses in plenty of incredibly fucked up "if it bleeds it leads" moments

this is all very entry level and it's been the same p much everywhere for decades

i can't recall this dude's name off the top of my head but i'm pretty sure him being "kitano" sensei instead of his comedian name (beat takeshi) is a pretty big deal

which of course brings us to the specific type of knife used to cut kitano

which of course the mass media had been turning into a moral panic, partially thanks to a student murdering a teacher with one, right around the time this movie went into development

anyway

ANYWAY

so like 4 minutes into the movie we've already seen Lost Decade, Government Bad, Media Bad, and an (at the time) current example of youth violence moral panic fodder

but this movie was made in 1999

and a certain series of high profile criminal trials were still going...

the book and movie were only about a year apart

and that was only 3 or 4 years after aum. the aum affair is still often cited as the beginning of the lost decade

and the day before the subway attacks the JSDF were running drills in uniform

because they were about to raid aum

the moment the bus enters the tunnel and goes ~underground~

the teacher who noticed something was wrong is (of course) gassed, too. not unlike the people who noticed something was going terribly wrong with aum.

only the authorities have gas masks.

and this is ~6 MINUTES in.

I'd like to clarify something

In the context of the film, we know the JSDF is out because the kids are en route to murder game island

Aum raid stuff is a bit of a stretch and not something I'd include unless I'd seen the stories/myths multiple times https://twitter.com/nezumi_ningen/status/1327830882909118466?s=19

fukasaku doesn't shy away from using real ass examples in battle royale but he also refuses to simply recreate them for shock value.

one of the best examples of this (along with the aum stuff) is a certain character's flashback.

the creepy pedophile with the camera.

it's legit one of the most disturbing parts of the movie.

and the part where he removes the doll's head when trying to coax/groom the little girl in the flashback directly recalls japan's first "western style" serial killer.

this dude is a lot like tsutomu miyazaki.