having been an otaku since i discovered sucking my thumb as a veritable pastime, i figger it was only a matter of time before my otaku-ness lead me to Battle Royale. yeah, being sent to a remote island somewhere in the pacific with thirty nine other students, having the main objective of killing each other off was something i thought of as an inevitability. survival of the fittest to the extreme. HAH. how's THAT for reality tv.
but yeah, i just finished reading the first ten chapters of Battle Royale english translation. good thing i watched Kill Bill a few days ago, otherwise i would have been hugging a pillow and sweating coldly at a corner in my room while having my overactive brain visualize each nerve-wracking paragraph. so right now i'm just hugging a pillow. heh.
reeeeaaaa-hea-heally sexy. :P
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and here's an excerpt from the novel, taken from the tenth chapter. it's about a love letter written by a mysterious girl who crushed on the lead character, shuya nanahara. uneasily brings back thoughts of highschool love. what was it aunt hilda said? "at sixteen, it's always true love."
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Shuya looked straight at Noriko’s face. She looked half-asleep. "Do you understand?"
"Yeah. I do." She cut her words off a little, but then went on. "I’ve always been watching you."
It was the kind of thing that normally might have been spoken more nervously. And if possible, in a slightly, but not to ask too much, just slightly more romantic setting. Then Shuya thought of a love letter that had been thrown onto his desk one day in April. It had been unsigned and composed on light blue writing paper. It hadn’t been the first love letter for the former Little League genius short stop, or as he now called himself (and occasionally was called by others), the rock’n’roll star of Shiroiwa, but naturally that one had left an impression and he treasured it. He thought that was probably because he had liked the message, which read like a poem.
"I don’t mind if it’s just a lie, or just a dream / just turn back to look at me," it started.
"It’s not just a dream, it’s not just a lie / the smile you’ll show me someday / but it may just be my lie / but it may just be my dream / the day you turn to look at me / won’t be a lie, won’t be a dream / the day you call my name."
And then, "It isn’t a lie, it isn’t a dream. I really love you."
Could that letter have been from Noriko? The writing resembled hers, and that poem-like phrasing... was it hers?
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sigh... atatakai da ne...
