What's all this fuss about Hunger Games?

It's been bugging me the last few days since I first heard about Hunger Games.  Personally, I don't buy the premise that the author, Suzanne Collins, got the idea of Hunger Games from flipping channels between a reality show and news coverage of a war...that feels contrived.

So I point to precedence.

Obviously, we can point directly to Lord of the Flies, in a post-war society that feared the breakdown of norms.

But Running Man established this nonsensical farce where Reality TV observes convicted people attempting to elude their fate by surviving a series of encounters.

Death Race changed the venue to racing with tricked out cars.

13 raised the level of jeopardy by turning the scene into a parlor game of rich people betting whimsically on a perverse version of Russian roulette.

But to me, the basic themes of Hunger Games come nearly directly from Japan's Battle Royale.  In a dystopian society where the children rebel against adults, the adults have created a law - the Battle Royale law.  By lottery, a class of students is chosen then secretly taken to an isolated island where they must kill each other until only one is left alive, or else they all die.  Except the ending revolves around a boy and girl in love, where the boy vows to protect the girl, only to end up being the weak (badly injured) one, and must be cared for by others.  Ultimately, whether this couple lives or dies is not entirely within their control...after all, that is how fate works.

• Dystopian society;
• Children as the protagonist;
• Lottery as methodology;
• Winner is the sole survivor of kids killing kids;
• The children are tracked by location and their conversations;
• Love story between boy and girl;
• Fate is not in your control, despite what you may have been led to believe.

Anyway, go rent Battle Royale - assuming you have the stomach for gore - and be prepared for a wild ride that is romantic, dark and comedic.  It's okay if you don't catch all the subtleties of the story, as they play off modern Japanese society.  But when you're done, ask yourself if you actually believe that Suzanne Collins got her story from a chance situation of flipping between reality tv and war coverage.

via TVropes