I first watched Battle Royale years ago as my husband insisted I had to see it. It was fantastic, if incredibly brutal, and I fell in love with the concept. Flash forward to my first time hearing about Hunger Games, which was right around the time the first movie was being announced, and I thought the synopsis of the movie sounded strikingly familiar. I am one of those people who immediately claimed it was nothing more than an American ripoff of a great Japanese movie, as so many are today, but my mother had read the books and insisted I give them a try too. She sent me her copies in the mail, I caved out of boredom one day and read the first one, and after a few days I was completely hooked on the story. I agree that the first film/book plays out a lot like Battle Royale, but I hold that it is only inspired by the latter and not a replica of it. If you haven't finished the second and third books, you've no room to judge them because they evolve the story in ways you can't predict and it's worlds different than Battle Royale.

After watching the two movies, I totally agree that 'The hunger games' is a ripoff of 'Battle Royale'. Suzanne Collins had no shame copying the complete movie into a novel.

And how come you say that as an inspiration? I would say 'Hunger games' is nothing but 'Battle Royale' with cheese.

What a coincidence. yesterday i found out about that movie 'battle royale', and i though exactly the same think, that the plot sounds similar to 'the hunger games'. But first i wanna watch it, and probably then i'll comment again!

I agree. a great movie. 

It is still a very good movies   Lots of twists  and not far from the book