Battle Royale is awesome. <3. I got into it a while ago, and I really like the movie. Not quite as much as the book, but it's still very good. I was a little scared at first (especially when that guy's head got tossed through the window) but I can sit through it now without flinching...much, anyway. Except whenever someone got their throat slit. Still can't look at that.
BRII is...okay. It's obviously not as good as the first one, but it's not that terrible. I agree that there should've been more background to the characters. Some of them died before I even figured out who they were. And you had the whole escaping-from-the-base thing where they just ran into the light and got out okay. But I don't hate it that much. I think Shiori was pretty cool.
But, um, did anyone else notice in BRII how the action actually fades out and back in whenever the characters had to say their last words? I'm serious, I was listening to one of the kids' death speeches, and the second he died, the shooting noises started again. I was sitting there like, "Wtf man?!"