Yukie Utsumi
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Yukie Utsumi (内海幸枝 Utsumi Yukie?) is a character in the novel Battle Royale, as well as in the film and manga of the same name. In the English adaptation of the manga, her name is sometimes erroneously romanized as Yukio. In the film she was played by Eri Ishikawa.
[edit] Pre-Program
Yukie Utsumi is one of the class of third-year students at the fictional Shiroiwa Junior High School in Shiroiwa (the novel and manga set the town in Kagawa Prefecture, while the film sets the town in Kanagawa Prefecture). She is the female class representative and a member of the volleyball team; Yukie, a setter on the team, worked in harmony with her friend Haruka Tanizawa, who was an attacker. Yukie an intelligent, caring girl, is bold enough to say what she was thinking. She is best friends with Haruka, and has a crush on Shuya Nanahara.
In the novel and manga, Yukie sports braided hair, while her hair is straight in the film.
[edit] During the Program
Yukie came up with the plan to gather as many of the girls as possible together, and have them think things through and try to work out a way off the island. She first approaches Haruka Tanizawa.
In the manga, when Fumiyo Fujiyoshi was killed, Yukie was seated behind Fumiyo and watched her die. Her desk was a pool of blood, with Fumiyo's head lying on it, staring at Yukie. In the novel and manga, they witnessed the double suicides of Sakura Ogawa and Kazuhiko Yamamoto by jumping off a cliff. Afterwards, at the entrance of the school, they witness Niida kill Akamatsu. Haruka decides only to let girls join. They approach Satomi Noda, Yuka Nakagawa and Chisato Matsui, but decide not to let Takako Chigusa (since she wasn't a team player) or Yoshimi Yahagi (since she was in Mitsuko's gang) join. The last person she approached was Kaori Minami, who was too frightened to accept the offer.
In the film, the same girls are in Yukie's group, but there is no mention of not allowing Takako nor Yoshimi to join.
In all versions, she receives a gun (in the movie, a Smith & Wesson .357, in the manga and novel, a Browning Hi-Power), and later she gathers her group together and they lock themselves in a lighthouse on the coast of the island. A scout discovers Yuko Sakaki, who's verging on catatonic. After someone delivers an injured Shuya Nanahara to the lighthouse (One of Yukie's scouts delivers Shuya in the novel, while in the film and manga Hiroki Sugimura delivers Shuya), Yukie takes care of him and dresses his wounds; she also convinces the other girls to let him stay. When Shuya awakens, Yukie tells him who has died while he was out. In the novel and manga, she mentions that several people, including Hirono Shimizu, Yutaka Seto, Keita Iijima, Yuichiro Takiguchi, Tadakatsu Hatagami, Toshinori Oda, and Shuya's good friend Shinji Mimura, have died; Yukie then admits that she likes Shuya. In the film, Yukie mentions that Mizuho Inada, Kaori Minami, Yuichiro, Tadakatsu, and Toshinori died.
She does not directly admit her love to Shuya in most different language-editions of the film. Her most famous line in the film is often translated into "Do you know what that means?" Shuya does not understand her statement. In the manga, it is revealed that Yukie has had a long-standing crush on Shuya and proclaims that she doesn't want Noriko to steal him from her. Yukie also gives Shuya his first kiss while he is sleeping, and his second when he wakes up. Shuya thinks his second kiss was his first because he was asleep for the first one, but later in the manga, he realizes he was given one while sleeping.
In the kitchen, Yuko Sakaki attempts to poison Shuya after having witnessed the aftermath of his struggle with Tatsumichi Oki. Yuko accidentally kills Yuka Nakagawa with the poison and then Satomi Noda has a paranoia attack and shoots Chisato Matsui. In the novel and manga, Yukie goes in to shoot Satomi but is gunned down before she can.
In the film Yukie kills Satomi; as she dies, Yukie laments the lack of trust of her friends (In the Japanese version her final word is "baka," meaning "moron," "fool," and/or "idiot"); She also declares her love for Shuya as she dies in the French dub, with her final phrase as "Je t'aime Shuya!" ("I love you, Shuya!" in French).
