I am so frigging tired of hearing about The Hunger Games.

I have no wish to see it.

I have no wish to READ it.

I've already read Battle Royale. I LOVED Battle Royale.

Battle Royale was good. Yeah, the translation was kinda sucky and the movie stunk, but the manga? Excellent. And if you can get past the poor translation job, the novel is kinda stellar. Real people with real reactions to a horrifying event set in the near distant future. The SAME event.

I don't know if the story has really been ripped or not (apparently, there's a huge debate on it), but the idea of this heroine--strong and independent, trying to survive the event and get the best of her totalitarian government by breaking the rules that everyone has to die, and actually succeeding--just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In Battle Royale, you see the kids (a classroom chosen from a district that "won" the lottery) breaking down in all sorts of ways--the only kid that really "gets the hang of it" is a complete sociopath. This just seems so much more real to me, and much more believable.

The kids in Battle Royale make mistakes. They screw up and die. They deal with their inner demons and those that some of their classmates become. They protect the ones they have crushes on and die with them. They try to play the game and play their alliances, and still die. They go nuts and shoot eat other, or try fruitless escape attempts, while the world bets on who will win.

I dunno. After reading that, and witnessing the full range of believable reactions, I have trouble suspending my beliefs enough to enjoy something like The Hunger Games. Yeah, maybe they go through training or whatever, and I know she's had a rough life so she's built up for something like that, and she's protecting her sister and the friend who gave them bread. I've read all that. I just get the feeling that, while reading The Hunger Games, I'll be rolling my eyes the whole time. And then everyone will be like, "What's wrong with you? How could you NOT like the Hunger Games WTF???!"

Maybe I'll change my mind eventually. Who knows?

All I know is, I'm damn tired of hearing about it.

...

Please don't flame me.