When I was about twelve, I read THE BACHMAN BOOKS, a collection of four short stories written by Stephen King. It was a pretty wild ride for my young mind. Two of them (RAGE and ROAD WORK) were contemporary takes on human anger that disturbed me so deeply that I have never read them again. Even after reading almost a dozen of his books, those two stories were the ones that made me question King's mental state. They were that unsettling.

THE LONG WALK is the entry that stuck in my mind: a future where an authoritarian regime forces 100 teenagers each year to participate in a government-sponsored walk-to-the-death contest. I think what drew me in was the society depicted in the story: an entire country treating the walk as a national holiday, complete with betting, sponsorships, and media coverage. It's so bleak that it captivated me.

THE RUNNING MAN depicted another dystopian future - but this time, adults are forced to compete in a gladiatorial games of death spectacle on a live television show, hunted by "Hunters" for the entertainment of the masses. It was more cartoonish and over-the-top than THE LONG WALK.

Anyway, I've always had the sense that BATTLE ROYALE is a subconscious blend of THE LONG WALK and THE RUNNING MAN. Takami says he never read King, but I'm not entirely convinced.