Battle Royal High School Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2006-09-03 (updated 2010-11-17)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Just the synopsis of Battle Royal High School is enough to make your head spin. Every cheesy anime cliche you can think of, at the same time! Seriously, it crams five different dueling factions into three bodies and only 60 minutes of anime. Frankly there's only one reason to watch it, though: A solid hour of superpowered fighting and stuff blowing up in graphic detail. Even if you do manage to follow the impressively convoluted plot, none of the characters are likable enough to care about, the love triangle is a complete afterthought, and none of it makes much sense anyway. But you probably won't care--you'll be too mesmerized by the exquisite detail with which the carnage and property damage is rendered. This one-shot may be from the late '80s, but it has detailed destruction like nobody's business. The best bit, however, is some un-destruction--the "hero" (if you can even call him that) reconstructs an exploded girl from the inside out. You don't see that every day.

In all, Battle Royal High School combines old-school martial arts action, splatterfest demon invasion, a lot of superpowered sword fighting, and a smattering of humor into one action-packed and thoroughly confusing nugget of anime, but the real draw is the beautifully-animated carnage and property damage. If that's your thing, get some. Otherwise, forget it (though anybody with the stomach for it should see the girlfriend-reconstruction sequence at least once).

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2006-09-03 (updated 2010-11-17)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Just the synopsis of Battle Royal High School is enough to make your head spin. Every cheesy anime cliche you can think of, at the same time! Seriously, it's that confusing--it crams five different dueling factions into three bodies and only 60 minutes of anime. Frankly, there's only one reason to watch it, though: A solid hour of superpowered fighting and stuff blowing up in graphic detail.

Really. That's the only reason to watch. The plot is so convoluted it's impressive, but I doubt you'll care what's going on even if you can follow it. Besides, you'll be too distracted by the actual draw of this whacked-out little chunk of action: Stuff blowing up. A lot of stuff blowing up. Monsters blowing up, animals blowing up, people blowing up, cars blowing up, classrooms blowing up, and entire schools blowing up. All in the most exquisite detail. Oh, there's also a lot of monsters getting torn into small, gooey chunks, but that pretty much counts as blowing up, too.

Yes, I suppose there's a whole lot of sword fighting and other forms of brawling, too, but the best part of all that is still the resulting property damage.

What's impressive is how good it all looks--Battle Royal High School might be a product of the late '80s, but it must have had one heck of a budget, and every last yen went into lavish sequences of exploding educational paraphernalia and flying chunks of evil. Seriously, some of the scenes are almost mesmerizing for the meticulous care with which every glob of gore and bit of bone is rendered. All this and it still has the rougher, more detailed linework you'd expect from an older production. The most impressive bit, however, is (somewhat ironically) something un-blowing-up: A sequence of our hero reconstructing an exploded girl from splattered gore--from the inside out. It only lasts a few seconds, but wow, you don't see that every day.

Past the loads of action and visual spectacle... yeah, that's really about it. The only character who's even likable enough to care about is one of the two potential love interests, a feisty girl who spends most of her screen time chasing the hero or punching him. The "love triangle" is amusing for how much of an afterthought it is--the "sweet girl" corner spends more time dead or unconscious than anything else.

The only other significant characters are the five different warring factions. If you bother to keep track, they include a very evil fairy queen and her minions (don't laugh--these fairies are nasty little critters), a slightly less evil lord of the dark world, an egotistical high school Karate champ who likes to wear a jaguar mask (wait, that reminds me of a video game...), a grimacing demon hunter, and a laid-back space-time cop in a battlesuit with a light saber (seriously--it even sounds like one). The most impressive feature of this crowd is that they all end up sharing only three bodies, and basically spend the entire movie trying to kill each other in various combinations. Frankly, you could care less who wins. High schooler Rikki is mildly appealing for the dumb-jock grin he wears through basically everything, but even he's sharing a body with a guy planning to conquer Earth, a fact that doesn't seem to bother him in the least.

Come to think of it, nearly every character in Battle Royal High School is possessed by somebody, so they get a lot of mileage out of a small voice cast--almost everybody gets to be both good and evil. That said, the acting is passable but unimpressive in both Japanese and English. In the dub, Rikki is probably the best of the lot. He's the most distinctive in the Japanese version, too, although his evil doppelganger sounds way too whiny for an evil lord.

There is technically background music, but it's barely noticeable and entirely forgettable. The end theme is better--a poorly-sung but distinctive bit of hard-edged classic J-Rock.

In all, Battle Royal High School combines old-school martial arts action, splatterfest demon invasion, a lot of superpowered sword fighting, and a smattering of humor into one action-packed nugget of anime, but its distinguishing features are an impressively convoluted plot and amazingly well-animated carnage and property damage. If that's your thing, get some. Otherwise, forget it (though anybody with the stomach for it should see the girlfriend-reconstruction sequence at least once).

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The schoolyard evil thing is relatively similar to Ogre Slayer, and the semi-humorous old-school carnage reminded me of Ushio and Tora, though that series is closer to comedy. It also bears a passing resemblance to The Ultimate Teacher, mainly for the schoolyard warfare.