I haven't seen the movie of THG and will withold judgement on the films until I do. But the book of BATTLE ROYALE, even the apparently inferior English translation I read a decade ago, is effortlessly superior to the novel of THG. The book of THG was okay and occasionally even had some good ideas, but suffered monumentally from BATTLE ROYALE doing everything so much better and with so much more depth. I initially put this down to the length of the two books (BR is about 600 pages long, about twice that of THG) and then the target age of the audience (BR is aimed at adults), but it wasn't entirely satisfying as an explanation.

I think BR just worked between because the contestants in the game knew one another and had no training. It was much more a desperate free-for-all and it made the audience more involved in the situation (some kid who could have been you in a modern-seeming high school versus an elite archer living in a post-apocalyptic world).

I agree that things shouldn't be judged as better just because they are foreign, but in this case the book (at least) of BATTLE ROYALE is better because it's better-written, better-characterised, more intelligent and less sappy.

The film of BR is definitely not as good as the book (due to time constraints, we don't get to know the characters anywhere near as well, although the new schoolteacher character was an excellent addition) and there seems to be a strong consensus that THG is a much better film than the book, so it could be they're much closer in quality. I'll see when the film comes out on DVD.