Battle Royale

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Battle Royale
Battle Royale English translation cover
バトル・ロワイアル (Batoru rowaiaru)
Genre	Drama Romance
Novel
Author	Koushun Takami
Publisher	Ohta Publishing VIZ Media Gollancz Calmann-Lévy Heyne Ulpius Ház
Published	April 22 1999 February 26 2003 July 6 2006 August 23 2006 2006
Volumes	1

Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル, Batoru Rowaiaru^?) is a novel written by Japanese author Koushun Takami. The book (ISBN 4-89392-958-5) was first published in Japan in April 1999, and later formed the basis for a feature film and its sequel. It has also 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 has a sequel.

An English translation of the novel (ISBN 1-56931-778-X) was published in the United States by Viz in February 2003. The English language version is also available in the United Kingdom, published by Gollancz. 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 - Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国 Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku). The story follows a class of students who are chosen for the "Program" - aka Battle Royale, in which they must fight each other to the death.

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.

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 in the fictional town of Shiroiwa (Kagawa Prefecture) are gassed on a bus. They awaken in a school on an isolated, evacuated island (southwest of Shodoshima, also Kagawa Prefecture), wearing metal collars around their necks. After being briefed about the Program, the students are issued survival packs (along with a random weapon or tool) and sent out one by one. While some of the students receive guns and knives, many students acquire useless items like boomerangs, common dartboard darts, and forks. In some cases, instead of a weapon, the student receives a tool; Hiroki Sugimura receives a radar that tracks nearby students, and Toshinori Oda receives a bulletproof vest.

In the end, 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 after the chase ends. Shogo then takes his two partners to a hill where there are a lot of trees. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars. When Shogo is on the winner's ship, Shuya and Noriko board it and kill the soldiers on board. Shogo tells Shuya how to escape, succumbs to his wounds and dies. The two remaining students go to the mainland, where they become fugitives.

Numerous changes were made to story details in the film adaptation.

[edit] Development

Takami describes the characters in the novel version as possibly being "kind of all alike," being "all the same" despite differing appearances and hobbies, and being static characters. Takami used the descriptions in contrast to the manga version, co-written by himself and Masayuki Taguchi, which he believes has a more diverse and developing cast.^[1]

[edit] Concepts

[edit] The Program

Every year since 1947, fifty 3^rd year Junior High School (14-15 years old) classes (47 classes were chosen before 1950) are chosen to participate in The Program. Each class is isolated, and its students are required to fight to the death until one remains. The survivor is the Program's "Winner". Of around 2,000 participants per year, 42 students - one per class - survive. To ensure students obey, an explosive metal collar is fixed around each student's neck. This collar will explode, killing the student, if they try to escape, or break certain rules. Students are also given a time-limit. If the time-limit of three days pass without someone dying, then all collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. It is mentioned that 0.5% of Programs end in this fashion. A Program supervisor announces new deaths every six hours.

The "Program" is officially a military research program. At the end of the story Kinpatsu Sakamochi states that the Program is actually a means of terrorizing the population, with the idea that routinely witnessing such atrocities will cause people to become too paranoid and divided to stage an organized rebellion.

There are a few students who seem to have known about the program:

• Early in the story, in a flashback, Yoshitoki Kuninobu and Shuuya Nanahara (along with the other children from the orphanage) witness a broadcast of the winner in the program before Shogo Kawada's.

• Shogo Kawada was the winner of the last program. Unfortunately, he was held back in the ninth grade and was selected to be in the current program.

• Sakura Ogawa is seen telling Kazuhiko Yamamoto that she bet on a girl in the last program, who died the next day.

[edit] Guadalcanal-22

Each Battle Royale student is fitted with an explosive metal collar identified as the Guadalcanal-22. Its likely namesake is the Pacific island of Guadalcanal, the focus of a decisive battle between the United States and Japan during World War II. This collar will explode, killing the wearer, if:

• someone tries to remove it.
• the wearer lingers in a Danger Zone.
• a special signal is sent to it.

Secondary functions include monitoring life signs and allowing the organisers to listen in on students via a built in microphone. The collar also emits a tracking signal, allowing the organisers and the student given the tracking device (Hiroki Sugimura) to monitor student positions.

The Guadalcanal-22 directly influences Battle Royale's narrative on two occasions:

• Kazuo Kiriyama lures Sho Tsukioka into an area shortly before it becomes a Danger Zone. Through deception, Kiriyama is able to escape unseen and exit the Danger Zone, while Tsukioka waits. Tsukioka notices the deception too late, and is killed when his collar explodes.
• Shinji Mimura's plan to hack the organisers' computer system is thwarted when he is overheard discussing it with Yutaka Seto. The organisers are able to block Mimura's attempt, forcing him to develop a new plan, while alerting him to the built in microphone.

The collar more subtly influences the narrative, by making escape tangibly impossible.

[edit] Danger Zones

Each Battle Royale student is issued with a map divided into a coded grid. Danger Zones are randomly chosen grid-sectors which are declared off-limits to students.

If a student enters a Danger Zone, or fails to leave in time, their collar will explode, killing the student. Once an area becomes a Danger Zone, it remains for the rest of the game. Consequently, the number of Danger Zones increases as the game progresses, forcing students to move around in an ever shrinking battlefield.

• The school headquarters are declared a permanent Danger Zone as soon as the last student leaves the area. This makes it impossible for students to circumvent the game by attacking the headquarters.
• Shinji Mimura and Yutaka Seto are forced to accelerate their attack on the school headquarters when an adjoining zone is declared an impending Danger Zone.
• Sho Tsukioka is tricked into lingering in a Danger Zone, and is killed when his collar explodes.
• Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa are attacked by Tatsumichi Oki as they are exiting a Danger Zone; this leads to a series of fatal confrontations.

[edit] Characters

The main cast of the film version of Battle Royale.

• 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.
• Ryoko Anno (安野 良子 Anno Ryōko): The superintendent of the Charity House, a Roman Catholic orphanage. She is raped when she protests the conscription of Shuya and Yoshitoki into the program. Anno never makes an actual appearance in the film.
• Kinpatsu Sakamochi: The teacher in charge of the current Battle Royale program. 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. He is named Yonemi Kamon in the manga version and Takeshi Kitano in the film. Unlike Sakamochi and Yonemi, Kitano is not overly sadistic. He has an unhealthy obsession with Noriko.
• "Big Sister": The cheery announcer in the orientation video to Battle Royale students in the film version. She announces the departures of students after the orientation is finished.
• 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, and died in a Battle Royale. His relationship with Keiko and the outcome of the previous Battle Royale harden Shogo Kawada.
• Nakata: In the manga Nakata is student in Shogo's first class. He has a crush on Keiko and stalks her. During the Program he makes it to the final four students and holds Keiko hostage, saying that she is better off dead than being with Shogo. Shogo calls him out on being a stalker, and then recommends that he take the safety off of his gun. Nakata glances down to do this and Shogo shoots him, revealing afterwards that Nakata's revolver had no safety. Nakata only appears in the manga version.
• Privates Toshihiko Tahara (田原 俊彦 Tahara Toshihiko), Nomura (野村), and Kondo (近藤 Kondō): Tahara, Nomura, and Kondo are 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.
• Lieutenant Anjo: A soldier in the film version.

[edit] Games

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.^[2]

[edit] Adaptations

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

• The films Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Requiem
• The manga Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale

[edit] References

• VIZ Media's official page on the English translation of the novel
• Conrad Editora's official page on the Brazilian edition of the manga
• Visual Filmes' official page on the Brazilian release of the movie

[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 Center (Taiwanese)