battle royale novel spin-off?!

Music: How To Save a Life by The Fray

I don't usually repost news and other entertainment tidbits (because I normally don't care about them), but this one hits too close to home.

Battle Royale: Tenshi-tachi no Kokkyō (Battle Royale: Angels’ Border), a new spinoff manga based on Koushun Takami’s dystopian novel Battle Royale, will launch in next year’s third issue of Akita Shoten’s Young Champion magazine on January 11. Mioko Ōnishi (Izo’s Lover!) is drawing the new manga, and Takami is penning an all-new story for it.

The original 1999 novel followed a class of junior high school students who are forced to play a deadly game. On a deserted island, they must hunt each other down, and the last studentleft alive wins. The novel inspired two live-action films, and the first film by director Kinji Fukasaku was converted into stereoscopic 3D this year. Masayuki Taguchi serialized an earlier manga in Young Champion from 2000 to 2005.

Viz Media published the original novel in North America, and its Haikasoru imprint reissued the novel with a newly revisted text, as well as supplemental material from Takami himself, Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition, Batman: The Child of Dreams), and Fukasaku. Tokyopop published the 15 volumes of Taguchi’s manga version in North America.

Source:

http://japanentertainment.tumblr.com/post/2408380860/battle-royale-novel-gets-new-manga-spinoff-in-january

I have mixed feelings, really.

On the one hand, I'm thrilled to see something new from Takami after so long (mostly because I haven't really paid attention to his other works that are not BR-related). On the other hand, I'm always kind of skeptical when it comes to BR spin-offs, especially because the second movie (Battle Royale II: Requiem) is HORRIBLE. Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale, the manga inspired by the second movie, half-bored me to death, and that's saying something, since I finished the first manga in less than a week.

I just don't know how to feel about this newest spin-off, especially since the news didn't contain any plot summary or synopsis.

But still, I guess it's something to look forward to in 2011.

Hoorah?