Battle Royale

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Battle Royale
バトル・ロワイアル (Batoru rowaiaru)
Genre	Drama Romance Science Fiction
Novel
Authored by	Koushun Takami
Publisher	Ohta Publishing VIZ Media Orbit Books Calmann-Lévy Heyne
Publish date	April 22 1999 February 26 2003 July 6 2006 August 23 2006
No. of volumes	1

Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル, Batoru Rowaiaru^?) is a novel written by Japanese author Koushun Takami.

Battle Royale (ISBN 1-56931-778-X) was first published in Japan in April 1999, and it is one of Japan's best-selling and most controversial novels. It later formed the basis for a popular movie (which spawned a sequel), and has been adapted as a manga series (released in 15 volumes, which were later adapted into English by Keith Giffen and published by TOKYOPOP), which itself now has a sequel.

An English translation of the novel was published in the United States by Viz in February 2003, and has been available in the United Kingdom since July 6 2006, Orbit Books [1]. Furthermore a German translation exists, published by Heyne.

[edit] Plot

Okishima Island map seen inside the cover of the novel.

Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline; according to the book's prologue, Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国 Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku). From time to time, fifty randomly selected classes of secondary school students are forced to take arms against one another until only one student in each class remains. The program was created, supposedly, as a form of military research and population control, though the outcome of each battle is publicized on local television. A character discovers that the program is not an experiment at all, but a means of terrorizing the population. In theory, after seeing such atrocities, the people will become paranoid and divided, preventing an organized rebellion.

Okishima Island map seen in the first volume of the manga.

Under the guise of a 'study trip', a group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School (城岩中学校 Shiroiwa Chūgakkō), a junior high school operated by the fictional town of Shiroiwa (in Kagawa Prefecture), are corralled onto a bus and gassed, only to awaken in a school on an isolated, evacuated island, wearing metal collars around their necks. After being briefed about the program, the students are issued survival packs (along with a random weapon or a tool) and sent out the island one by one. While some of the students receive guns and knives, many students acquire useless items like boomerangs, some common dartboard darts, and forks. In some cases, instead of a weapon, the student receives a tool; Hiroki Sugimura finds a radar that tracks nearby students, and Toshinori Oda receives a bulletproof vest.

To make sure the students obey the rules and kill each other, the metal collars around their necks track their positions, and will explode if they linger in a 'Forbidden Zone' or attempt to remove the collars. The Forbidden Zones are randomly chosen areas of the map that increase in number as time goes on, re-sculpting and shrinking the battlefield and forcing the students to move around. The collars secretly transmit sound back to the organizers of the game, allowing them to hear the students' conversations, root out escape plans, and log their activities.

Okishima Island map seen throughout the film (the special edition film DVD case also contains a small card size map); the lists in Japanese are the students' names

The students are also given a time limit. If twenty-four hours pass without someone being killed, then all of the collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. It is mentioned that only 0.5% of Programs end in this fashion. (In the film version, this occurs after a total of 3 days have passed since the start of the Battle Royale, regardless of the timing with which people die; this was a change made for the film version.)

In the end, only four students remain: Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa, Shogo Kawada, and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. There is a car chase and shoot-out between the three main characters and Kazuo. Kazuo is killed. Heeding Kawada's advice to "show no mercy," Shuya and Noriko board a nearby ship and kill the soldiers on board. Kawada succumbs to his wounds and dies, and Shuya and Noriko escape to the mainland, where they become fugitives.

[edit] Student list

The main cast of the film version of Battle Royale.

[edit] Other characters

Yonemi Kamon is the instructor in the manga version.

[edit] All versions

• Masao Hayashida (林田昌朗 Hayashida Masao): The teacher of Class 3-B at Shiroiwa Junior High School. He is executed when he pleads for the lives of the 3-B students. He is nicknamed "Dragonfly" because of his glasses.
• Keiko Onuki (大貫慶子 Ōnuki Keiko) (Keiko Inoue in the English-language manga): Shogo Kawada's girlfriend from his previous school in Kobe; Keiko was in Shogo's class when the two were in a Battle Royale. His relationship with Keiko and the outcome of the previous Battle Royale hardens Shogo Kawada.

[edit] Novel and manga

• Ryoko Anno (安野良子 An'no Ryōko): The superintendent of the Charity House, a Roman Catholic orphanage. In the novel and manga, she is raped when she protests the conscription of Shuya and Yoshitoki into the program. Anno never makes an actual appearance in the novel, and is never mentioned in the film.

[edit] Novel

• Kinpatsu Sakamochi: The teacher in the novel version. He enjoys watching the students die and bets on Kazuo winning. His name is a takeoff on Kinpachi Sakamoto, the protagonist of Kinpachi Sensei. He dies when Shogo impales him with a pencil.
• Private Tokihiko Tahara (田原俊彦 Tahara Tokihiko), Nomura (野村), and Kondo (近藤 Kondō): The soldiers in the novel version. Tahara, described as "the frivolous one," shoots Noriko in the leg. The soldiers are killed by Shuya and Shogo in the end. They are named after characters in Kinpachi Sensei.

[edit] Manga

• Yonemi Kamon: The teacher in the manga version. He is very similar to Sakamochi and dies the same way.

[edit] Film

Kitano is the instructor in the film version.

• Kitano: The teacher in the film version. Unlike Sakamochi and Yonemi, Kitano is not overly sadistic. He has an unhealthy obsession with Noriko. Shuya guns him down with an SMG towards the end of the film.
• Lieutenant Anjo: A soldier in the film version.

[edit] Game

B-R-U.net developed a free Internet game Battle Royale Ultimate with PHP and Perl in Japanese. This site distributed a game and it has been translated into both Simplified and Traditional Chinese by the community.

The English-language official Battle Royale site stated that it had a Flash mini-game in development

[edit] See also

There have been a number of adaptations into other media which themselves have spun off sequels. These include:

• Battle Royale, the film adaptation
  • Battle Royale II: Requiem, the film sequel
• Battle Royale, the manga adaptation
  • Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale. the manga sequel
• Tokyo 10+01 (a.k.a. Tokyo Eleven), which heavily parodied the Battle Royale film [2]

[edit] External links

• Battle Royale - battleroyalefilm.com
• Asian Cinema Website - Insightful reviews of the original movie and its sequel.
• Official English-language Battle Royale film website
• Battle Royale Trading Card Game
• Battle Royale preview at Mangareviewer.com
• Comparison of Special Version and Original Version
• ThePPN:Battle Royale
• Battle Royale reviews @ cityonfire.com
• Battle Royale Center (Taiwanese)