Dots and Boxes is a pencil-and-paper game for two players (sometimes more). It was first published in the 19th century by Édouard Lucas, who called it la pipopipette. It has gone by many other names, including the game of dots, boxes, dot to dot grid, and pigs in a pen. Starting with an empty grid of dots, two players take turns adding a single horizontal or vertical line between two unjoined adjacent dots. The player who completes the fourth side of a 1×1 box earns one point and takes another turn. (A point is typically recorded by placing a mark that identifies the player in the box, such as...

Battle Royale (Japanese: バトル・ロワイアル, Hepburn: Batoru Rowaiaru) is a novel by Japanese writer Koushun Takami. Originally completed in 1996, it was not published until 1999. The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by the authoritarian Japanese government, now known as the Republic of Greater East Asia. It was previously entered into the 1997 Japan Horror Fiction Awards but was eventually rejected in the final round due to its content. Upon publication in 1999, the novel became a surprise bestseller. In 2000, one year after...