All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow)

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - Printable Version

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All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - NickT - 2014-05-24

OK, so this book has been mentioned a number of times on the forum, but I thought perhaps it is time to give it a thread of its own.

Despite the strange English name ("All you need is Kill") , it is a sci-fi book originally written in Japanese by 桜坂洋 (Hiroshi Sakurazaka)

The Japanese kindle version is available here: http://www.amazon.co.jp/All-You-Need-Kill-集英社スーパーダッシュ文庫-ebook/dp/B00C7PU87G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1400936321&sr=1-1&keywords=all+you+need+is+kill

You may also be aware that there is a Hollywood film being made of this, called "Edge of Tomorrow", starring Tom Cruise, that will be released in my country next week. I haven't seen it yet, and don't know if it will be any good, but the fact that it is about to be released has rekindled (no pun intended) my desire to read this book in Japanese on my Kindle. I tried a few years ago and gave up because it was too hard. I have restarted now, and am currently about a third of the way in, and I am enjoying it more this time. The first 10% or so was tough, as it is an extended battle scene with lots of military terminology, but once you get past that it gets a lot better. I still wouldn't describe it as an easy read, but it is definitely enjoyable.

The IMDB page for the movie is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I also recently became aware that this is being made into a Manga, which may mean that there is an anime adaptation down the road. It is being illustrated by the artist who did Death Note and Hikaru no Go, two manga I enjoyed which I thought had good art work, so I have high hopes for it.

You can find the manga here: http://www.amazon.co.jp/All-Need-Kill-JUMP-BOOKS/dp/4087033198/ref=la_B004LUE7C2_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400936397&sr=1-2

Actually the manga hasn't been released yet (release date on Amazon is listed as 19/06/2014), but if you know where to look online you can find the first few chapters which I think have been serialized. I've read them and it was quite enjoyable, and a lot easier to read than the book if you want an easy way in.

Translations are also available in English and various other languages.

Is anyone else reading it before the movie comes out? Is there anyone who has read any of the versions in Japanese who is willing to offer up a review?

Edit: Added the acronym "AYNIK" to make it easier to find this thread using search.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - tashippy - 2014-05-24

Never heard of the book. When I saw the subway ad I thought they'd ripped off Japanese ideas, and then I saw that it was a Japanese author. The guy who illustrated Hikaru no Go changed manga layout possibilities. I'm sure the movie will garner more attention, and, as you said, anime eventually.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - nest0r - 2014-05-24

http://ja-dark.tumblr.com/post/85224312032/japanese-study-says-e-books-more-effective-in-teaching

*innocent whistle*

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - tashippy - 2014-05-24

妖怪が来た。謝謝

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - NickT - 2014-06-28

OK, well it seems nobody cares about this, but since I have finished reading the book, watched the film, and the manga has now been released I might as well post some concluding comments. They may be of use to someone, either now in the future.

The film:

I quite enjoyed it, although I’m not sure it merits 8/10 as scored on IMDB. It was quite fun, if you like that kind of thing. The person I was with hated it, but never mind.

The plot is very different from the book. Although they share the same basic concept (which you are probably already aware of if you have seen the trailer or read reviews) the actual progression of the story, and even the premise, differ in a number of ways. They have different endings (and beginnings, come to that) so watching the film won’t spoil the plot of the book and vice versa.

Most of the changes were changes for the worse, I would say. The book was better. Having said that there were a least a couple of things that changed for the better in the film, so it wasn’t a total washout. They fixed a few of the plot holes from the original, but unfortunately introduced some new ones.

I won’t mention all of the changes, or spoil the story for anyone, but here are a few observations.

• Rita Vrataski （リタ・ヴラタスキ）was way more kick-ass in the book. She was still tough, certainly, but nothing close to the invincible killing machine she was in the book.

• I don’t understand why they had to make the Tom Cruise character （キリヤ・ケイジ in the book) such a douche-nozzle at the start of the film. In the book, he was just an inexperienced rookie, not a bad person, or a coward or a twat like he was in the film. It didn’t really add anything and in fact just added a layer of implausibility. The whole point of the book was that it was a 1 in a billion event, and could have happened to any soldier (and he was just any soldier.) In the film he was already “special” beforehand, so it was just a massively implausible coincidence that it happened to happen to him.

• They missed out a lot of the explanation and backstory in the film. If you liked the film and actually want to understand (some) of what was really happening, then you need to read the book.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - NickT - 2014-06-28

The book:

Well I don’t want to give all the plot details away, but in terms of readability I would say it was quite a tough read. It is SF / military, so there is a fair amount of terminology from both those fields that doesn’t come up in every day life. In addition, soldiers tend to talk in a rough way with lots of slang, and a lot of the dialog immediately precedes people getting killed or shouting while they are fighting aliens. The dictionary failed me quite a lot.

I wouldn’t recommend attempting it personally unless you have passed N1 and got at least 10 novels under your belt. About a quarter of the way in I decided to just stop looking up the words I didn’t know and just enjoy the story. It was much more enjoyable that way although inevitably there were a few bits I didn’t completely understand. By reading it that way I was able to finish the rest of the novel in about a week.

For most people I would recommend starting with the manga (which didn't exist when I started reading this, otherwise I would have done the same) but overall it was an enjoyable and rewarding experience, so if you think you can read it then go for it.

Special mention also goes to the world’s worst katakanaization of an English word that I came across while reading the book. If anyone can guess what ヴェロキラプトル means without using rikaichan then I salute you.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - NickT - 2014-06-28

The manga:

This has now been released, volumes one and two. I haven’t been able to find an “innocent” version yet, but the first four chapters have been released for free on the Kindle here: http://www.amazon.co.jp/小畑健特別号【最新作「All-You-Need-Is-Kill」124P収録】-ebook/dp/B00KX3BM9W/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1403957150&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=all+you+need+is+kil

The free ebook also contains the first few chapters of Death Note, BAKUMAN, and two standalone stories about L that were apparently previously released in a book called “L file no. 15”. All of these manga are by the same artist, who seems to produce consistently good quality stuff. They are worth a read for nostalgia reasons if you are already familiar with them, and if not you might discover something you like.

If you don’t have a kindle, you can also download the first 4 free chapters on “nyaa” (just google it)

So far the manga seems to follow the plot of book the extremely closely (and is nothing like the film), although they did skip over first 10% of the book (which I mentioned above) and compressed it into a single page. I would personally recommend starting with the manga, and if you enjoy it moving on to the book for a more difficult but ultimately more rewarding read.

Although I haven’t found anything in the manga yet that wasn’t in the book, given the infinite-time-loop nature of the story there is a lot of scope of the manga to go off in random directions and add extra depth to the story without compromising it in any way. We’ll see.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - qwertyytrewq - 2014-06-28

NickT Wrote:Special mention also goes to the world’s worst katakanaization of an English word that I came across while reading the book. If anyone can guess what ヴェロキラプトル means without using rikaichan then I salute you.

I guess you'll have to salute me. It took me about 10-15 seconds though to get it though. As far as katakana words goes, it's not too bad if you have knowledge/experience of general katakana principles and this particular word doesn't seem to break any rules. I'm sure there's worse examples out there.

As for the movie, I haven't seen it yet but I will. I wonder how many people know the story was originally Japanese and whether they are promoting it as such? Since Japan has been getting mostly a bad rap in the media lately (whales, right-wing government, that rock island etc) and since this movie has been positively received, it would be a shame if Japan doesn't get credit for it.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - Vempele - 2014-06-28

NickT Wrote:Special mention also goes to the world’s worst katakanaization of an English word that I came across while reading the book. If anyone can guess what ヴェロキラプトル means without using rikaichan then I salute you.

Actually, according to the 広辞苑 it's not the English word they katakanized: ベロキラプトル【Velociraptor ラテン】

See also: ウイルス

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - NickT - 2014-06-28

qwertyytrewq Wrote:I guess you'll have to salute me. It took me about 10-15 seconds though to get it though.

Then I salute you :-) Maybe it was just the sentence I read it in, but the context didn't really help much to guess the meaning.

Vempele Wrote:Actually, according to the 広辞苑 it's not the English word they katakanized: ベロキラプトル【Velociraptor ラテン】

See also: ウイルス

Hmm, Latin? Pretty sure the ancient Romans wouldn't have know what a velociraptor was or had a name for it. Like all dinosaur names they are derived from Latin words, but anyway if the Japanese had taken it from the English the end result would have been the same. V's, R's and L's are always butchered in this way, although I was suprised how wrong they got the C and also the extra vowels inserted threw me. Also I should mention the word used in the book was ヴェロキラプトル and not ベロキラプトル which is (slightly) easier to guess.

I never found ウイルス to be that bad, I've heard non-native English speakers pronounce it that way in English, and I've never had any problems guessing this one from context.

Anyway, back on topic here is the trailer for the Japanese version of the movie, which seems to retain the original title:

I should probably mention that the trailer contains spoilers - I was slightly annoyed as I watched it when I was half way through reading the book, and the trailer gave away a major plot twist which I wasn't yet aware of.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - shinsen - 2014-06-28

nest0r Wrote:http://ja-dark.tumblr.com/post/85224312032/japanese-study-says-e-books-more-effective-in-teaching

*innocent whistle*

I wonder if you could help a brother find similar enlightening articles with a url that is tiny enough to be useful. I'd like to read some books by 水野敬也, especially 夢をかなえるゾウ.

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - JimmySeal - 2014-06-28

NickT Wrote:Hmm, Latin? Pretty sure the ancient Romans wouldn't have know what a velociraptor was or had a name for it.

There are a lot of Latin words that didn't exist in the time of the ancient Romans.

NickT Wrote:although I was suprised how wrong they got the C

They didn't get the C "wrong", in any amount. That's how C is pronounced in Latin.

NickT Wrote:Also I should mention the word used in the book was ヴェロキラプトル and not ベロキラプトル which is (slightly) easier to guess.

Why would "berokiraputoru" be easier to guess than "verokiraputoru"?? Shouldn't the latter be easier?

All you need is kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow) - TsugiAshi - 2014-06-29

NickT Wrote:I don’t understand why they had to make the Tom Cruise character （キリヤ・ケイジ in the book) such a douche-nozzle at the start of the film. In the book, he was just an inexperienced rookie, not a bad person, or a coward or a twat like he was in the film. It didn’t really add anything and in fact just added a layer of implausibility.

The best thing to do with the movie is to just look at it as a retelling of the movie Ground Hogs Day, where the guy happened to be a douche-nozzle, too. It's basically the same movie as Edge of Tomorrow.