If you were riveted by the BR Program’s rules—the exploding collars, the rotating danger zones, Sakamochi’s taunting announcements—and by watching Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada push past exhaustion and fear, you’ll feel the same inexorable pull here. In The Long Walk, Garraty and ninety-nine other boys must keep walking or be shot, a premise as stark and cruel as the island kill-or-be-killed. The relentless pacing and psychological unraveling echo Kazuo Kiriyama’s implacable pursuit and Mitsuko Souma’s predatory games, delivering that same pit-in-the-stomach survival tension.

If what gripped you in Battle Royale was tracking a whole class—cliques, crushes, bullies—fracture into alliances and enemies once the Program starts, this classic scratches the same itch. Like the shifting loyalties around Shuya and Noriko or the cult-of-personality menace of Kiriyama, Lord of the Flies follows boys marooned on an island as they devolve into rival camps. You’ll recognize the chilling momentum from whispered plans to open brutality, and the way fragile order collapses without any adult rescue—just as Sakamochi ensures in the BR arena.

If you appreciated how Battle Royale never flinched—from the first collar detonation to Mitsuko’s knife work—and how every injury had consequences, The Troop goes just as hard. A troop of boys on a remote island encounters a bioengineered parasite, and the ensuing starvation, infection, and panic spiral into scenes as visceral as the lighthouse showdown or Kiriyama’s machine-gun massacres. It’s that same closed setting, escalating dread, and graphic, no-mercy violence that made the Program feel so terrifyingly real.

If the ruthless clarity of the BR rules—last student alive wins; everyone else dies—hooked you, this delivers a similarly razor-edged premise. Fugitive Ben Richards is hunted on live TV by professional killers, much like how the Program turns classmates into predators for an audience. The chase set pieces mirror the cat-and-mouse tension of Shuya dodging danger zones and Kiriyama’s ambushes, and the media spectacle echoes the Program’s propaganda broadcasts that reduce human lives to ratings and fear.

If the political edge of Battle Royale spoke to you—the state’s BR Act, Sakamochi’s smirking control, and the Program’s public announcements turning kids into cautionary theater—you’ll find a sharp counterpart here. Katniss’s arena bouts, sponsor manipulations, and rule changes feel like cousins to the Program’s map updates, collar threats, and engineered showdowns that boxed in Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada. It’s that same dystopian machinery grinding down individuals to keep a fearful society in line.