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It takes a lot to get a score under 6.5 on MAL, but man does Battle Royale II deserve it. Battle Royale is hard hitting and serious. Battle Royale II is... not. It's set in the same universe as the movies.

To start, the art is awful. I do not say this lightly. The ears are massive, the noses are practically falling off the face they're so low, and the center of the face is a giant blank space. The art is so jarring and bad that it makes the extremely violent content downright bewildering, like turning on Barney and watching him murder people. The artist ... has no idea how to convey motion or impact, and the characters look absurd. At points you even have the comical stars twirling around heads in otherwise totally serious scenes.

The story is bad. The writing is bad. It's not even consistent with its own universe (people don't know about the program, something that's mandatory TV viewing?). The plot is complete nonsense that makes absolutely no sense. They're kidnapping kids, giving them explosive collars, and sending them to fight terrorists... why? What is a kid going to be able to do that a soldier can't? You're burning money for nothing.

There's an entire meta plot about people betting on it, but why? It still doesn't make any sense. The manga somehow manages to get even worse in the second volume, when it introduces this entire plot about the kids turning on each other for completely stupid reasons. The entire series was a trainwreck from start to finish, without a single redeeming quality.

Mod Edit: This review was originally posted for DAMiYAN! (102432) and has subsequently been merged into Kushami: Urasawa Naoki Tanpenshuu (128620).


I'm a huge fan of Naoki Urasawa. This one was a quick one shot and his most recent work. It has some supernatural elements, some gangster elements, and... well, it was pretty short. That said, I love Urasawa's art, and the storytelling really won out despite how short it was. I'd have preferred it if it was a full volume, though.

Some people have speculated that he might expand this into a full series, but Urasawa isn't normally one to do pilot chapters, so I have ... a feeling this will remain as a standalone.

The characters were solid, although as with many one shots they didn't get enough screen time each, and the character art was pretty impressive.