Battle Royale

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Battle Royale is a novel written by Japanese author Koushun Takami. It 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).

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 [link].

Plot overview

Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline, according to the book's prologue, where Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia. Once a year, randomly selected classes of middle-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, though the outcome of each battle is publicized on local television. Late in the book, character Shogo Kawada discovers that the program is not an experiment at all, but a means of terrorizing the population. After seeing such atrocities, the people will become paranoid and divided, preventing an organized rebellion.

Under the guise of a 'study trip', the students are corralled onto a bus and gassed, only to awaken on an evacuated island or isolated area with metal collars around their necks. After being briefed about their role in the program, the students are issued bags that carry bread, water, a map, a compass, a flashlight, a watch and a weapon or a tool, and sent out one by one, with two minutes separating each departure. While most of the students receive guns and knives, some students acquire useless items like boomerangs, some common dartboard darts, or a fork. 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 enter a 'Forbidden Zone' or attempt to remove the collars. The Forbidden Zones are randomly chosen areas of the map that increase in number from hour to hour, re-sculpting and shrinking the battlefield and forcing the students to move around. The collars also transmit sound back to the organizers of the game, allowing them to hear the students' conversations, root out escape plans, and log their activities. The students are not told of the collar's ability to transmit sound, however.

The students are also given a time limit. If twenty-four hours pass without someone killing someone, then all of the collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner(In the movie, the students have 3 days or the collars will go off). It is later mentioned by Shogo Kawada that only 0.5% of Programs end in this fashion.

In the end, only four students are remaining: Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa, Shogo Kawada, and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. There is a car chase and shootout between the three main characters and Kazuo. They win, but two of their group must die before the game can end. Several plot twists ensue before the book ends with two of the three alive and on the run.

Protagonists

• Shuya Nanahara (七原秋也 Nanahara Shūya, spelled Shuuya Nanahara in the TOKYOPOP English adaptation of the manga) is the main protagonist. He has witnessed a good deal of troubling events throughout his life, though precisely what he has seen differs according to different versions of the story. He is willing to trust others, not wanting to take part in the Battle Royale program. He tries to rally fellow students in an attempt to escape, but fails. Consequently, he narrowly escapes death at the hands of his classmates, on several occasions.
• Noriko Nakagawa (中川典子 Nakagawa Noriko) is the story's main female character and Shuya's first companion. Her portrayal changes in different versions of the story. She is shot in the upper arm in the film, the lower leg in the book and manga, and also gets ill. She manages to keep Shuya sane, although she does not know it, and she also is the only other survivor along with Shuya.
• Shogo Kawada (川田章吾 Kawada Shōgo), portrayed as a loner within the class ranks, is a transfer student in all versions of the story. In the book and manga, he was put in class B about two months before the program takes place. In the film, however, he is added to the story very early on, being introduced after the rest of the class wakes up from being gassed on the class trip. He was the winner of a previous program in all versions, but just how long ago before his second time varies from 1 year to 3 years. He said that his father was also a doctor, meaning that he can help both Shuya and Noriko. Later he said that his father was a cook, and then again near the end, that his father was a fisherman. Most importantly, he says that he knows a way to escape from the island and the entire Battle Royale program. But Noriko and Shuya are frequently forced to ask themselves if he can really be trusted.

Other characters and their reactions

The specifics of the events described below differ from book to movie to manga.

Passive students

All of the students react to the program differently. Some students take their own lives, others hide in the shadows and attempt to locate their friends, and a few attempt to escape from the program.

• Sakura Ogawa (小川さくら Ogawa Sakura) and Kazuhiko Yamamoto (山本和彦 Yamamoto Kazuhiko), known as 'the most intimate couple' in the class, leap to their deaths before the other students can kill them. In the novel and manga, Yukie Utsumi witnesses it first hand.
• Best friends Yukiko Kitano (北野雪子 Kitano Yukiko) and Yumiko Kusaka (日下友美子 Kusaka Yumiko) attempt to rally their fellow classmates together using a megaphone to reach everyone alive on the island. However, their use of the megaphone gives away their position, and Kazuo Kiriyama, one of several students who quickly adapts to the situation (see below), comes up from behind and kills them.
• Yukie Utsumi (内海幸枝 Utsumi Yukie) and five fellow classmates Haruka Tanizawa (谷泽遥 Tanizawa Haruka), Yuka Nakagawa (中川有香 Nakagawa Yūka), Satomi Noda (野田聪美 Noda Satomi), Chisato Matsui (松井知里 Matsui Chisato) and Yuko Sakaki (神 祐子 Sakaki Yūko) hide within the confines of the Lighthouse. Their main goal is to hide from the students and allow the ones who are more 'into it' to kill each other; then they will wait until their time expires. Their plan ultimately fails when Yuko Sakaki accidentally poisons one of the girls, which sparks a chain reaction of paranoia that ends in the deaths of all six girls.
• Shinji Mimura (三村信史 Mimura Shinji) uses his intellect to invent an escape plan. His first plan is to hack into the government's computer and disable their collars, and then bomb the school. He is unsuccessful at hacking into the computer, for he discusses his plan with a fellow student, which is transmitted through the collar, stopping that plan. Shinji then attempts to bomb the school where the Program's staff is bunkered in, which fails after a slight disruption that results in Shinji killing a fellow classmate. In the ensuing confusion, Kazuo shows up and kills both Shinji and his friend and accomplice, Yutaka Seto.
• Hiroki Sugimura (杉村弘树 Sugimura Hiroki) receives a tracking device as his weapon. Sugimura saves Shuya from Kazuo Kiriyama, and leaves him at the Lighthouse. In the novel and manga, he is a black belt in Kung Fu and spends most of the program time looking for Kayoko Kotohiki. In the film and novel, she shoots him before he can tell her he is a friend; in the manga, she goes with him but they are soon killed by Kazuo Kiriyama. He is highly regarded by the others and is one of the three people of whom it is said that, if they were to team up, they could escape. The other two are Shuya and Shinji. His role is truncated in the film version, compared to the novel where he has separate encounters with Shuya's trio, Kiriyama, Kaori Minami, Toshinori Oda and Mitsuko Souma as well as post-mortem encounters with the Lighthouse girls, Shinji Mimura and Megumi Eto. Hiroki fought Kazuo Kiriyama hand to hand equally and won, shooting Kazuo with a pistol seven times. Kazuo lives because he was wearing a bulletproof vest he took from Toshiniri Oda.
• Takako Chigusa (千草贵子 Chigusa Takako), the fastest runner in the class, is attacked by Kazushi Niida, who wants to rape her. She kills him with her ice pick, out of self defence, before getting shot by Mitsuko Souma.
• Kayoko Kotohiki (琴彈 加代子 Kotohiki Kayoko) does not kill anybody, and spends most of the time hiding around the Island. Hiroki Sugimura looks for her for quite a while. In both the film and novel, she shoots Hiroki fatally before he can tell her he is a friend; she is killed very shortly after by Mitsuko Souma. In the manga, she goes with Sugimura but they are killed off by Kazuo Kiriyama, soon after.
• Yutaka Seto (濑户丰 Seto Yutaka), the class clown and a good friend of Shinji Mimura, helps him gather the materials for the bomb plan. In all versions he is killed by Kazuo Kiryama who then kills an injured Mimura; in the film, his character seems juxtaposed with Iijima, as Iijima frequently laughs at inopportune moments.
• Yoji Kuramoto (倉元洋二 Kuramoto Yōji) and Yoshimi Yahagi (a member of the delinquent girls, along with Hirono Shimizu and Mitsuko Souma) were a couple. In the novel and manga, they meet up and have a dispute (Yoji claiming he never loved her) and then reconcile, only to both be killed shortly afterward by Mitsuko. In the film, they simply commit suicide together, hanging themselves in a manner that parallels the suicides of Ogawa and Yamamoto.
• Close friends Tadakatsu Hatagami (旗上忠勝 Hatagami Tadakatsu) and Yuichiro Takiguchi (滝口優一郎 Takiguchi Yūichirō) hide together and plan to keep away from others in all versions. Where exactly they hide varies between versions. Both are seduced and killed by Mitsuko Souma. In the novel, Mitsuko shares an understanding with Yuichiro before she kills him, sharing a brief, romantic kiss with him seconds after she kills him and saying 'You were pretty cool. You even made me a little happy. I won't forget you.'
• Yoshitoki Kuninobu (国信慶時 Kuniobu Yoshitoki), a very close friend to Shuya, is killed by the teacher. The reason for his death varies from version to version. In the novel and manga he is angered because the instructor says that he raped his guardian (orphanage overseer) and by showing his anger he is expressing his hatred towards the instructor, thus at the government and thus breaking the law. In the movie he is killed for being a class clown, having stabbed his teacher with a butterfly knife earlier in the movie (when he taught at his school), and to demonstrate how the collar works. He was in love with Noriko Nakagawa and after his death Shuya Nanahara promises to keep Noriko alive because his best friend loved her and he failed to protect him, so he would instead protect her.
• Fumiyo Fujiyoshi (藤吉文世 Fujiyoshi Fumiyo) is killed by the teacher, along with Kuninobu. Fujiyoshi is killed for whispering during the training video, by having a knife hurled into her forehead.
• Sho Tsukioka (月岡彰 Tsukioka Shō) is the sole homosexual in the class and a member of Kiriyama's street gang. His father owns a gay bar and he often entertains in it. He views himself as if he is a woman inside, and is incredibly narcissistic. He devises a plan to follow Kiriyama around the island until Kiyirama kills everyone off. Once Kiriyama has done this, Sho plans to kill him and become the winner of Battle Royale. He purposely does not show up at the alloted meeting place with the Kiriyama's other street gang members. He instead witnesses Kiryama's deception from a distance, and decides to trail Kiriyama until the end of the game. His ability to follow someone unnoticed, as a well as his initial wisdom against meeting Kiriyama, are attributed to the street-smart nature he developed hanging around his father's bar. He is eventually tricked by Kiriyama into lingering in a danger zone. In the film, he is just part of a gang of kids who are easily killed by Kiriyama.
• Keita Iijima (飯島敬太 Iijima Keita) is a loner who was once a friend of Shinji Mimura. One day, when going to the movies with Shinji, Keita decided to stop at a bookstore. Shinji agreed to this because he also wanted to go. On their way out, Keita left his purchase behind and returned to retrieve it, and local gang members began harassing Shinji. Initially trying to ignore them, Shinji ended up in a fight with them, which he won. During the fight he saw Keita hesitate within the bookstore when he saw the fight outside. Shinji has been unfriendly with Keita ever since. When Keita wishes to join Yutaka Seto and Shinji, Shinji turns him down. Shinji points a gun at Keita and tells him to leave. Shinji fires the gun in an attempt to scare him off, but accidentally hits and kills him. This begins a chain of events which leads to the ultimate failure of Mimura's plan, in the novel and manga. In the film, Iijima helps Mimura and Yutaka from the beginning, and all three are killed by Kazuo Kiriyama.
• Mayumi Tendo (天堂真弓 Tendō Mayumi), a fairly quiet girl, is the first student to be killed by another student in game time. She leaves the school only to be shot through the neck seconds later. Her dead body is the first thing Shuya (the next person out) sees. In the film, she dies before his eyes.
• Izumi Kanai (金井泉 Kanai Izumi) is captured by members of Kazuo Kiriyama's street gang Ryuhei Sasagawa and Hiroshi Kuronaga in the manga version. She is taken to Kiriyama so they can 'kick things off with a pink party', and is killed soon after. In the film, she is shot with the rest of the gang by Kiriyama. In the novel, her dead body is discovered, along with Kuronaga and Sasagawa, by Mitsuru Numai. Kiriyama claims that Izumi just happened to be there (and so she was not abducted and brought there, as in the manga), and later explains that she was there when he arrived, where he then took Izumi captive and flipped a coin to decide what he should do.
• Megumi Eto (江藤 惠 Etō Megumi) is one of the first to be killed. Megumi hides in a house, but is discovered by Mitsuko Souma. Mitsuko deceives Megumi into believing she is a friend, then knifes Megumi with her kama.

Reactive students

Though most of the students remain passive and refuse to kill, other students relish the opportunity to wreak havoc upon their classmates.

• Due to a freak accident sustained during an operation when he was an infant, Kazuo Kiriyama (桐山和雄 Kiriyama Kazuo) was born a sociopath with the mind of a genius and the inability to feel emotion. He quickly becomes the main antagonist and succeeds in killing eleven of his fellow classmates (fourteen in the film), only to ultimately be killed by Noriko Nakagawa. In the movie, he is a 'transfer student' who signed up separately to participate in the game, and was included to provide an additional threat to the other students. In the film, he is killed by Shogo Kawada, who hits him several times with shotgun rounds before he gives in to dying, with a haunted, maniacal grin still on his face. Ironically, he starts out with the weakest weapon, a paper fan (in the novel, his original weapon is a knife). After killing other students, he gains more weaponry.
• After being raped when she was a child and forced to sell her body for her mother’s gain, Mitsuko Souma (相馬光子 Sōma Mitsuko) became a hollow shell. She deceives students with fake tears, a beautiful face, and sexual pleasures, only to kill them shortly afterwards. She manages to kill seven students (eight in the film) before Kazuo finally kills her.
• Yoshio Akamatsu (赤松義生 Akamatsu Yoshio) is the first student out of the schoolhouse where they are briefed. He runs off, but later comes back and climbs onto the roof of the school, in order to try and assassinate others. He is the first student to kill somebody - girl 14, Mayumi Tendo. He shoots her from behind, in the neck with a crossbow, and then once more in the thigh (possibly post-mortem). He later attempts to kill Shuya Nanahara but fails. Nanahara knocks Yoshio unconscious, and he is then finished off by Kazushi Niida.
• Mitsuru Numai (沼井 充 Numai Mitsuru), along with Ryuhei Sasagawa (笹川竜平 Sasagawa Ryūhei), Hiroshi Kuronaga (黒長 博 Kuronaga Hiroshi) and Sho Tsukioka, are members of a street gang. In the novel and manga, the gang is Kiriyama's street gang. Mitsuru has the utmost devotion to Kiriyama, seeing himself as the 'loyal advisor' to the king, Kiriyama. He is deceived by Kiriyama, meeting him along with the other street gang members (minus Tsokioka) at a certain point on the island (specified before the game by Kiriyama), thinking their alliance would formulate a plan, only to discover the dead bodies of Ryuhei and Hiroshi, then being dispatched by Kiriyama shortly after. In the film, as Kiriyama does know them before the game, Mitsuru is merely the leader of a group of students who corner Kiriyama, and are easily killed by him. Izumi Kanai is a member of Numai's gang in the film.
• After killing Yoshio Akamatsu with his own weapon, the tenebrous Kazushi Niida (新井田和 Niida Kazushi) comes upon Takako Chigusa. Aside from desiring to rape Takako Chigusa, he attempts to shoot her when she runs from him. A vicious fight ensues, and ends with Kazushi being impaled with Takako's ice pick. In the film adaptation, Chigusa uses a jackknife (which was the weapon issued to her in the beginning of the game), and brutally stabs him multiple times, including in the genitals (as a response to his attempt to rape her).
• Being little more than an ugly rich kid with high views of himself, Toshinori Oda (織田敏憲 Oda Toshinori) sets out to preserve his talents with the violin. Toshinori hates the students in his class, calling them the 'vulgar masses'. He hates Shuya because he is good looking and plays rock music, which Toshinori has a great disdain for. Although he kills Hirono Shimizu in the novel and manga, Kazuo Kiriyama (whom Toshinori states he despises, because he is handsome) quickly kills him. In a bit of dark humor, we find out that, several years prior, Kazuo attained a level of skill with the violin that far surpassed that of Toshinori, and when he grew tired of playing the violin, he threw it away. (Oda's storyline does not appear in the film version, where he is little more than fodder for Kiriyama.) His method of killing usually involved feigning death when shot in the vest, and then rising to kill his opponent, a trick later used by Kiriyama against both Sugimura and Kawada.
• Tatsumichi Oki (大木立道 Ōki Tatsumichi), a new student in the class, goes mad and tries to kill Shuya and Noriko with various weapons. In the book and film, he uses an axe; in the manga, he uses a machete, but after a fall with Shuya, his weapon ends up stuck in his head.
• Kyoichi Motobuchi (元淵 恭一 Motobuchi Kyōichi), the male class representative, goes angry after witnessing Shuya kill Tatsumichi Oki. He truly believes it was not an accident, and that Shuya was really playing the game. After mumbling math equations, he tells Shuya he will kill him and everyone else, so he can win the game. He says he will go to a fine school and study extremely hard. He is killed by Shogo Kawada before he can shoot Shuya. His weapon, a Smith&Wesson M19 revolver, is taken by Shogo and later given to Shuya. In the manga, he is trying to win for his father, who is a government official, but he is shot by Shogo Kawada with a shotgun.
• Kaori Minami (南佳織 Minami Kaori) and Mizuho Inada (稲田瑞穂 Inada Mizuho), described as best friends, have different deaths in different versions. In the movie, Kaori and Mizuho are shown dead with weapons still in them, prompting the assumption that they killed each other in some type of altercation. In the novel, they never see each other on the island. Kaori Minami goes mad after a misunderstanding, in a surprise altercation with Sugimura (in the manga, she goes mad after shooting a cat) and attempts a killing spree. She gets into a shootout with Hirono, whom she attacked without provocation, and is killed due to Shuya's attempt to stop the shootout. Meanwhile, Mizuho Inada ends up being the last person alive, other than Kiriyama and the main trio. She is delusional, believing to be a space warrior princess, and tries, unsuccessfully, to kill Kiriyama. In the manga, Kaori's fate is the same as in the novel, but Mizuho is paranoic, schizophrenic and obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons. This means that fear results in delusions, which are usually subject to what is on her mind at the time. She tries to kill Shuya when he finds her, believing herself to be her roleplay character, a warrior princess. Later, while Mizuho is worshipping a cross, Kiriyama turns up and shoots her in the head.
• Hirono Shimizu (清水比呂乃 Shimizu Hirono) is one of Mitsuko's gang, along with Yoshimi Yahagi. In the film, she corners Mitsuko and tries to punish her for murdering Megumi and stealing her boyfriend. She is the only one in the film who is not deceived by Mitsuko's innocent act. She pushes Mitsuko to the ground and shouts at her to apologize to Megumi. She is ready to kill Mitsuko when she uses Megumi's weapon, the stun gun, on her. Hirono falls to the ground and Mitsuko steals her gun and shoots her to death. In the novel and manga, although part of Mitsuko's delinquent gang, she only uses her weapons in order to defend herself. She gets into a shootout with Kaori Minami, which she wins but not without injury. She is attacked by Oda, whom she promptly shoots (not knowing of his bulletproof vest), and is then strangled after he 'rises from the dead'. In the manga, he kills her by pushing her into a well, in which she subsequently drowns.

Student List

Boys		Girls
Number	Name	Number	Name
1	Yoshio Akamatsu	1	Mizuho Inada
2	Keita Iijima	2	Yukie Utsumi
3	Tatsumichi Oki	3	Megumi Eto
4	Toshinori Oda	4	Sakura Ogawa
5	Shogo Kawada	5	Izumi Kanai
6	Kazuo Kiriyama	6	Yukiko Kitano
7	Yoshitoki Kuninobu	7	Yumiko Kusaka
8	Yoji Kuramoto	8	Kayoko Kotohiki
9	Hiroshi Kuronaga	9	Yuko Sakaki
10	Ryuhei Sasagawa	10	Hirono Shimizu
11	Hiroki Sugimura	11	Mitsuko Souma
12	Yutaka Seto	12	Haruka Tanizawa
13	Yuichiro Takiguchi	13	Takako Chigusa
14	Sho Tsukioka	14	Mayumi Tendo
15	Shuya Nanahara	15	Noriko Nakagawa
16	Kazushi Niida	16	Yuka Nakagawa
17	Mitsuru Numai	17	Satomi Noda
18	Tadakatsu Hatagami	18	Fumiyo Fujiyoshi
19	Shinji Mimura	19	Chisato Matsui
20	Kyoichi Motobuchi	20	Kaori Minami
21	Kazuhiko Yamamoto	21	Yoshimi Yahagi

Parallels

The story has some parallels to the story The Most Dangerous Game, as well as William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies and Stephen King's novels The Long Walk, Rage, and The Running Man, the latter of which was also made into a movie. Takami is an admirer of King, and named the students' hometown and school Shiroiwa, which translates as "Castle Rock", the name of a town frequently used by King as a setting for his stories. King, in turn, had borrowed the name from a location in Golding's novel. The main scenario of the film is somewhat reminiscent of Peter Watkins' 1970 film Punishment Park. There are also similarities to the film , which is a parody of American reality TV. (One might also find weak similarities to Robert A. Heinlein's novel Tunnel in the Sky.)

Manga

A serialized manga adaptation of Battle Royale, written by Takami and Masayuki Taguchi, was published in Japan by Akita Publishing.

The manga follows the plot of the novel fairly closely, but also expands on the backstory of each of the students. It is also far more sexually graphic than the novel and film versions, and is also noted for its intense, gory violence. The name of the main character is transliterated as Shuuya in this version (rather than 'Shuya' as it is spelled in the novel). Also, the manga changes the time that the story is set in by almost 10 years, using the term 'in the near future', but on Shogo Kawada's profile, it references the program 2005 season; he says his last program was a year ago, leading to the assumption that the manga sets the story in 2006.

The manga revolves around seven main characters, including the righteous Shuuya Nanahara, the gentle and caring Noriko Nakagawa, the hardened veteran Shogo Kawada, the genius Shinji Mimura, the kind-hearted kung-fu master Hiroki Sugimura, the troubled Mitsuko Souma, and the cold, merciless Kazuo Kiriyama. As of January 2006, all 15 volumes have been released in Japan. In the US and UK all 15 of the volumes have been released as of April 2006.

TOKYOPOP Version

An English-language adaptation of the publication, published in multi-volume format by TOKYOPOP, was extensively rewritten by Keith Giffen, whose script does not completely follow the original comic.[Mile High Comices Presents Newsarama @ view Askew.]

The major difference between the Japanese and TOKYOPOP version is that Giffen rewrote the BR program as a Reality TV show program, rather than keeping it in tune with the BR Act, which leaves plotholes through the panels of the manga, especially in Volume #15. This can be partially attributted to the fact that when TOKYOPOP had released Volume #1, the Japanese Battle Royale was up to Volume #9 at that point, thereby not giving TOKYOPOP or Giffen ample material to prove that their rewrite would backfire.

According to TOKYOPOP editor Mark Paniccia, in the Newsarama article:

For adapting the work, Giffen was given a tight Japanese-to-English translation of the story, but his assignment was by no means just to tweak a translation. "I told him to do what he felt he had to do," Paniccia said. "I told him to Giffenize it."'

To which Giffen responds:

'"It's a good story that Takami is telling," Giffen said. "What I do is go in and make bad scenes that much worse. I loved the movie of Battle Royale, and also love the manga. I just wanted to do it right. I wanted to do justice to it, and I knew I couldn't get away with doing a straight translation, because it would be horrifyingly bad."'

In April 2006, Tim Beedle, a former associate editor of Battle Royale, stated on the TOKYOPOP Messageboard the reasoning behind the decision to have a more literal adaptation:

'Prior to starting work on the first volume of Battle Royale, its editor (Mark Paniccia, who has since left TOKYOPOP) made a decision to hire Keith Giffen, a well-known American comic book writer, to provide a much looser adaptation than usual. He made this decisionfor a variety of reasons, but two seemed to be more prominent than the rest. First, due to BR's extreme content and M rating, it was going to be a tough sell. (Some of the largechains refuse to carry M-rated books.) Hiring a known writer could help compensate for this by driving sales. Second, more than any other book we were publishing at the time, BR had the potential to find a crossover audience in the direct market among American comic book readers, who often are adverse to trying manga.'[Tokyopop Messageboard post on subject of edits made ot manga.]

Film

A film based on the novel was released in Japan on 16 December 2000, and like the book, the film aroused much controversy. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, the movie follows the plot of the novel with a few differences. Among them, the character of the program administrator is greatly changed. Shogo Kawada and Kazuo Kiriyama are transfer students in the film, Kiriyama playing the game voluntarily. Various students start with different weapons and die in different manners. The 'victory' deadline is changed from the book; in the film, the students are given 3 days to 'win'. If 2 or more remain alive after that time, all the collars will be detonated. The precise manner in which the 'winning' students escape the program is changed in the film. In the film, they escape the Island on a boat and are later seen in mainland Japan, attempting to continue their life incognito. Also, in the film, Japan is not a police state, but, before the year 2000, suffers a major social and economic upheaval, causing students to skip class and behave violently. It is to combat this that the government passes the "Battle Royale Act", which stipulates that every year, one 9^th grade class is to be put on an island and forced to kill one another.

Also, the teacher in the film, Kitano, was the class' 7^th grade teacher who got stabbed by Shuya's close friend Yoshitoki. He has also developed an unhealthy obsession with Noriko, who liked him as a friend before the class entered the Program. This version of the teacher is unique to the film.

In June 2006 New Line Cinema bought the rights to the film and story and began planning a remake version of the film.

A sequel, , followed. The music soundtrack for both movies was composed by Masamichi Amano, and features pieces of real classical music with some original composition.

Status of distribution in North America

Despite rumors to the contrary, the film is not banned within the USA or North America; such a ban would be illegal under the first amendment to the United States Constitution. Rather, there has never been a distribution agreement due to the controversial nature of the film and reportedly unreasonable distribution terms specified by Toei, specifically the price of distribution being somewhere between 1-2 million dollars and that it must be a wide release on the order of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (This, incidentally is not the first of Toei's controversial moves in regards to its properites and the western market.) These two stipulations put it outside of the range of most smaller movie distributors, and the larger distributors would not handle the film. Therefore, technically the film is not banned, but neither does a local distributor for it exist. It has been exhibited at film festivals in North America. Nonetheless, 'bootleg' copies of the film imported from China and Hong Kong have widespread availability on the continent, and a 'Special Edition DVD' of film was carried to a limited extent by retailers such as HMV in Canada and Tower Records in the United States; the legal status of this edition is not clear. Also, the film's UK distributor, Tartan Films, has released an all-region NTSC DVD version of the film that is available in North America from specialty outlets. One widely available Hong Kong import is a special edition that contains both films, although it lacks English subtitling.

Battle Royale is now available to rent using the Online DVD rental service Netflix as well as . [link]

Issues regarding translation

There are some minor issues in subtitling in the movie. Perhaps the most apparent to most people is that the subtitles are often grainy and difficult to see on some editions of the film, particularly VHS and VCD versions. The situation is slightly better on some DVD copies, where the subtitles are programmed in rather than burned in, although the translations on the Special Edition DVDs varies greatly, for instance between the UK Tartan release and the Korean Starmax release.

One place where the subtitles lose some of their meaning is the lighthouse scene, where the breakdown of civility is conveyed using features (concerning levels of politeness) of the Japanese language (known as keigo in Japanese).

Main Cast

Boys		Girls
Character	Actor	Character	Actor
Yoshio Akamatsu	Shin Kusaka	Mizuho Inada	Tsuyako Kinoshita
Keita Iijima	Ren Matsuzawa	Yukie Utsumi	Eri Ishikawa
Tatsumichi Oki	Gouki Nishimura	Megumi Eto	Sayaka Ikeda
Toshinori Oda	Shigero Yamaguchi	Sakura Ogawa	Tomomi Shimaki
Shogo Kawada	Taro Yamamoto	Izumi Kanai	Tamaki Mihara
Kazuo Kiriyama	Masanobu Ando	Yukiko Kitano	Yukari Kanasawa
Yoshitoki Kuninobu	Yukihiro Kotani	Yumiko Kusaka	Misao Kato
Yoji Kuramoto	Osamu Onishi	Kayoko Kotohiki	Takayo Mimura
Hiroshi Kuronaga	Yuuki Masuda	Yuko Sakaki	Hitomi Hyuga
Ryuhei Sasagawa	Shiro Go	Hirono Shimizu	Anna Nagata
Hiroki Sugimura	Sosuke Takaoka	Mitsuko Souma	Kou Shibasaki
Yutaka Seto	Yutaka Shimada	Haruka Tanizawa	Satomi Ishii
Yuichiro Takiguchi	Junichi Naito	Takako Chigusa	Chiaki Kuriyama
Sho Tsukioka	Shigeki Hirokawa	Mayumi Tendo	Haruka Nomiyama
Shuya Nanahara	Tatsuya Fujiwara	Noriko Nakagawa	Aki Maeda
Kazushi Niida	Hirohito Honda	Yuka Nakagawa	Satomi Hanamura
Mitsuru Numai	Yosuke Shibata	Satomi Noda	Sayaka Kamiya
Tadakatsu Hatagami	Satoshi Yokomichi	Fumiyo Fujiyoshi	Aki Inoue
Shinji Mimura	Takashi Tsukamoto	Chisato Matsui	Asami Kanai
Kyoichi Motobuchi	Ryo Nitta	Kaori Minami	Mai Sekiguchi
Kazuhiko Yamamoto	Yauomi Sano	Yoshimi Yahagi	Takako Baba

Other film characters

Character	Actor
Kitano	Beat Takeshi
Mai (Smiling Winner)	Ai Iwamura
Shiori Kitano	Ai Maeda
Keiko Inoue	Minami Hinase
Training Video Girl (Oneesan)	Yuko Miyamura
Hayashida-sensei (Class 3A homeroom teacher)	Ken Nakaide
Lieutenant Anjo	Gou Ryugawa
News Reporter	Michiko Yamamura
Nanahara's father	Takashi Taniguchi
Bus Conductress (basugaido)	Kanako Fukaura
Soldier	Mikiya Sanada

Additional characters in Special Version

Character	Actor
Jô Kitô (Class 3A basketball player)	Kotaro Kamijo
Shinichiro Tanaka (Class 3A basketball player)	Kiyoyuki Matsumoto
Kôsuke Okiyama (Class 3A basketball player)	Hirobumi Seki
Basketball referee	Kazutoshi Yokoyama
Class 3A homeroom teacher	Tetsu Masuda
Mitsuko's mother	Reiko Kataoka
Young Mitsuko	Suzuka Tonegawa
Mitsuko's friend	Ayana Noguchi
Mitsuko's friend	Nanami Oota
Middle-aged man	Taro Suwa

Trivia

• American director Quentin Tarantino wrote the characters of Gogo Yubari and her sister, Yuki, for his film Kill Bill Vol. 1. The role of Gogo was given to Chiaki Kuriyama, who plays Takako in Battle Royale. According to a fan website for Kou Shibasaki, who plays Mitsuko, Kou was invited to appear as Yuki but was unavailable, resulting in that character being eliminated from the film [link]. Interestingly, in both these movies, Kuriyama has shown a trademark of always stabbing a person of the opposite sex in the genitals. Takako in Battle Royale stabbed Kazushi, while as Gogo she stabbed a barfly hitting on her.
• A Battle Royale fansite, Battleroyalefilm.net, reported that the creators of the sequel postponed the release of the DVD (originally scheduled for June 9, 2004) to later that year, due to 'current events' which at the time was the killing by an 11-year-old Japanese schoolgirl, known as Nevada-tan, of her classmate Satomi Mitarai. The killer was a fan of Battle Royale [link].
• Quentin Tarantino stated, in an interview, that he was told by Kinji Fukasaku that when Koushin Takami wrote the lighthouse girls part of the original novel, he was inspired by Reservoir Dogs [link].
• A reference to Battle Royale appears in Shaun of the Dead. When Shaun and Ed are being attacked by a zombie in their flat, a stylized poster from Battle Royale is on their wall. Another reference that occurs later on is when Shaun uses his tie to secure a wound he received when he got a dart in his head, the wrap looking much like the head wrap for Kawada in the film. Most American viewers would see the appearance of the tie wrapped around his head being a reference to the Rambo character from First Blood.
• Box office gross: ¥16, 950, 701, 800. No.8 in the 10 highest grossing Japanese films of all time.
• The forum for [Resident Evil] Fans, [REFan], holds a yearly RPG named Battle Royale in which the members play as themselves on an island with fellow students and must kill eachother off until only one survives. Things such as weapons, items, the map, friendships and betrayal take place as in the official Battle Royale.

Remake

As of June 2006, Ain't It Cool News website reported that New Line Cinema along with producers Neil Moritz and Roy Lee intend to produce a hardcore, American remake adaptation of the film. However, there has been no screenwriter or director currently involved in the making of the project.

Game

[B-R-U.net] developed a free Internet game [Battle Royale Ultimate] in Perl and in Japanese. It has been translated into both Simplified and Traditional Chinese by the community.

There is also an unofficial 'RPG' in the works, and it can be downloaded [here] for free, although it is not yet complete and development has been postponed.

See also

• , the film sequel
• . the manga sequel

References

External links

• http://www.dvdvisionjapan.com/battleroyale1.htm
• [Movie Trailer]
• [Review of Battle Royale] at Lunapark6.com
• [The Battle Royale Fanlisting]
• [Fan Site]
• [Battle Royale preview at Mangareviewer.com]
• [Survival of the Fittest - Roleplay based off Battle Royale]
• [The Tokyopop battle royale manga page]
• [Battle Royale American Remake Set Up]
• [Petition opposing the BR Remake]
• [Playlist of all Battle Royale: Muffin Remix episodes]

 

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