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Among collectors, the Battle Royale manga has become one of the most sought-after adaptations around. After original publisher Tokyopop went out of business, the rights to the manga were seemingly lost to time, which meant that no reprints have been done in nearly 20 years. That is finally set to change, as Yen Press is bringing out a fresh printing of Battle Royale – but it looks like they’ll be removing Keith Giffen’s original adaptation.

Battle Royale is an iconic Japanese book about a group of teenagers sent to an island and forced to brutally murder each other by the government. Sort of like The Hunger Games but years earlier and much more violent. The novel was so successful that it spawned multiple films and the manga adaptation. 

While Tokyopop’s English release of that manga kept all the horrific depictions of violence, Keith Giffen made some controversial changes to the story, the biggest of which was making the Program that pits the students against each other into a television program rather than simple propaganda to keep the Japanese populace afraid. This created some plot holes in later volumes as well as a strange drifting timeline that has irked some fans over the years.

The announcement that Yen Press will be republishing the Battle Royale manga as a deluxe hardcover was welcome news to fans who have been desperate to buy the title. The new Amazon listing hints that they will be doing a new translation by Kevin Gifford for this version, implying that they’ll be erasing the contributions of Keith Giffen all those years ago. We can understand wanting to fix some plot holes, but Giffen’s translation has been part of the Battle Royale fandom for years now and is shockingly difficult to get a hold of; it would be a shame if it were lost entirely.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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