Yumiko Kusaka
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Yumiko Kusaka (日下友美子 Kusaka Yumiko) is a character in the novel Battle Royale, and the film and manga of the same name. In the English-language manga she is nicknamed Yumi.
In the film she was played by Misao Kato.
Yumiko has a blood type of AB.
[edit] Pre-Program
Yumiko Kusaka is one of the class of third-year students at the fictional Shiroiwa Junior High School in the fictional town of Shiroiwa in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. Yumiko was a member of the Halo Church, which was where she met her best friend, Yukiko Kitano. Yumiko and Yukiko were inseparable, and although they both attended the church, neither was very devoted to the religion - they saw it more as a social meeting. They shared everything, and one time clubbed together to buy a pair of earrings they both liked, keeping one earring each. Yumiko was always energetic, and was a tomboy. She batted fourth on the softball team. Like Yukiko, Yumiko had a crush on Shuya Nanahara, but she didn't want to admit this to her friend in case it caused tension between them.
In the novel, when Yumiko was a child, she accused a friend of stealing one of her pens. Upon her arrival home, she realised that the pen had been in her bedroom all along, and that she upset her friend for no reason. This made her determined to try to see the best in everyone, and to be more trusting.
In the manga, Yukiko and Yumiko are said to make the same mistakes and make identical creations such as cakes. In Ms. Takata's home economics class in the fourth grade in primary school, the two almost make identical hard-boiled egg creations; Yumiko had brighter yolks as she spent less time hard-boiling the eggs.
[edit] During The Program
Yukiko meets with Yumiko after leaving the school (due to the death of Boy 7 Yoshitoki Kuninobu, Yumiko leaves immediately after Yukiko).
In the novel and manga, they make their way to what had been the island's tourist information centre on the eastern slopes of the north mountain. They chat and discuss who they had crushes on, and realise that they could not bear to kill each other.
In all versions, believing that many of their classmates could not bear to kill each other, they make an announcement over a megaphone, calling for their classmates to meet them and discuss things as a group. However, their voices alert Kazuo Kiriyama to their location, and he creeps up on them and shoot both of them with his machine gun.
In the novel and manga, before the two of them die, Yumiko admits to Yukiko that she has a crush on Shuya too. Both die due to gunshot wounds to the head. In both the novel and manga, her assigned weapon was a pair of grenades, taken by Kazuo after her death.
In the film, her weapon was possibly a wakizashi, which was not used by her in the film but was used by Kazuo Kiriyama when he kills Toshinori Oda. In the film, Yukiko immediately dies after the initial round of gunfire, while Yumiko survives this round. Yumiko cries in pain as Kazuo holds the microphone to her mouth. Then Kazuo finishes her with several gunshots to the stomach.
