Yuko Sakaki
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yuko Sakaki (榊 祐子 Sakaki Yūko) is a character in the novel Battle Royale, and the film and manga of the same name. In the film she was played by Hitomi Hyuga.
Yuko has a blood type of A.
[edit] Pre-Program
Yuko Sakaki is one of the class of third-year students at the fictional Shiroiwa Junior High School in the fictional town of Shiroiwa, Kagawa Prefecture. As a child, Yuko's alcoholic father used to abuse her, her mother, and her older brother. Her father was stabbed and killed by local Yakuza over a gambling dispute when Yuko was in the first grade. She still had nightmares about him, and had since become terrified of any violent or gory situation.
In the manga, after witnessing two boys in Class 3-B fight, she refused to go to school for a while, and locked herself in her room. Her mother and father try to comfort her, but she closes her door on her father's fingers and realizes that anyone could be violent. In the English-language adaptation, she is a pious Christian, and sometimes saw a psychiatrist.
[edit] During the Program
Yuko runs through the island in a complete panic when she witnesses the fight between Shuya Nanahara and Tatsumichi Oki. From her viewpoint, it seems that Shuya killed Tatsumichi, and she flees from the scene in terror. (After this she refers to Shuya as a "Demon Boy".) It is revealed in the manga that she had a history of delusions, often faith-based, in which she believed killing Shuya was 'God's Will', where she had seen a pastor about her delusions, and apparently had been at least somewhat mentally unbalanced as her file had spoke of her own doctor's notes on her.
Later on, the group of girls in the Lighthouse discover Yuko, who joins the girls. When Shuya was brought to them, unconscious and injured, she was terrified, and prayed that he would die. When Yukie Utsumi brought them the news that he would recover, Yuko decided she would kill him. In the novel and manga, although her designated weapon is a telescoping spring baton, she also possesses a small bottle of potassium cyanide, marked "special bonus", though in the manga the chemical given was marked as hydrocyanic acid; in the film the poison is her designated weapon. Yuko decides to put some of this poison into Shuya's food. Her plan backfires, however, when Yuka Nakagawa eats Shuya's meal and dies. The girls all become panicked, and after an extended battle, Yuko is the only survivor.
In the novel and manga, by this point, Shuya manages to get out of his room and enter the kitchen. Shuya, shocked at the deaths of the girls, mourns Yukie. Yuko runs to the top of the lighthouse, with Shuya chasing her. At the top of the lighthouse, Yuko loses her footing and slips. Shuya catches her and tries to pull her up, despite his severe injuries. Yuko realises that Shuya is responsible for saving her life, even though he suffers agonizing pain, which leads her to realise that he was good after all; her friends died in vain. Yuko is deeply distraught that she discovers Shuya is not as bad as she thought, but also she feels she 'lit the fuse' for the lighthouse fiasco. Yuko pries her hand free of Shuya's, and falls to her death on a building's roof. In the manga, she is seen, limbs twisted and side open, but smiling sadly.
In the film version Yuko opens the door to Shuya's room confesses to starting an incident and runs up the stairs. Once at the balcony, she simply jumps off the lighthouse while Shuya checks on the other girls. Shuya then climbs to the top of the lighthouse to find Yuko's body being splashed by the waves below.
In the manga, after she and the other girls die, Shuya drags Yuko's body inside the lighthouse (proven by the manga showing bloody streaks and a later fixed up Yuko, as her limbs were twisted and her once open side mended by tape (where it had been split open by her fall)) and Yuko is placed with her deceased friends, hand in hand as Shuya laments their deaths, being caused partly by him and partly by their lack of trust despite being such a close-knit group.
