1. The Hunger Games (2012)
It's Incredibly Similar To...Battle Royale (2000) Susan Collins claims that she never heard of
Battle Royale in either its movie or novel incarnations before she sat down to write her very own incredibly similar version called
The Hunger Games, but we can all claim whatever we want, can't we? We can spend our lives claiming that we didn't set fire to that dustbin, or that we really, really don't know what happened to the family cat - fact is,
The Hunger Games - which has probably made a ton more money now than
Battle Royale has in its entirety, clings to a premise so similar that any lawyer could probably put together a case for plagiarism in about eighteen minutes. Koushun Takami's 1999 novel is set in a world were a dictatorship government rounds up children and forces them to battle to the death to keep the population in line. Susan Collins' 2008 novel is a set in a world were a dictatorship government rounds up children and forces them€ well, you get the idea. Sure. it's entirely possible that both authors stumbled upon these ideas independently, and that's the story that we've been fed so far, but I'm genuinely surprised that ol' Takami hasn't thought about chasing Collins for some Yankee dollar. In fact, he's been pretty chilled out the whole thing. When fans of Battle Royale went crazy that The Hunger Games was something that existed, he thanked them, but said: "Every novel has something to offer. If readers find value in either book, that's all an author can ask for." I suppose the concept might have been thought-up on two separate occassions, but I doubt anybody would disagree there some incredible similarities going on here. For one, both protagonists are called Shuya Nanahara, which is really weird. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
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