Battle Royale (novel) – Wikipedia

Battle Royale ( BATORU ROWAIARU ) is a novel by the Japanese writer Kooushun Takami. Originally written in 1996, it was not published until 1999. The story tells of the students of a middle school who are forced to fight each other until death in a program managed by an authoritarian Japanese government now known as “Republic of the great Eastern Asia “.

Initially he had been nominated for the “Japan Grand Prix Horror Novel 1999” but had been refused in the final round for its content. Subsequently, the surprise novel became a bestseller. In 2000 he classified fourth in the KONO MYSTERY GA SUGOI! , an annual guide of mystery and thriller, and sold over a million copies.

In 2000, one year after the publication of the novel, Battle Royale It has been adapted in a manga series of the same name written by Takami himself and in an homonymous film. The film was successful but also disputes, being sentenced by the national diet of Japan; However, it has become one of the most built -in films in the country. The film had a sequel called Battle Royale II: Requiem and two other short more short -haired manga adaptations.

Battle Royale It is set in a totalitarian version of Japan now known as the “Republic of the great Eastern Asia” (in Japanese language by the Toa Kyowakoku). Every year a middle school class, randomly selected, is forced to take part in the “program”, a macabre game in which students have to kill each other until there is only one winner. At the beginning of the story, the existence of a secret relationship of the organizers of the program is learned, who realized that a hacker entered the private data but doubt it became aware of something important, therefore they decide not to cancel the program . ^[first]

Under the appearance of a school trip, a group of students from a middle school of the fictitious city of Shiroiwa of the Kagawa prefecture, while they are in the bus are narcotized; They awaken in a school on a desert island with metal collars on the neck. After being informed by the cynical and ruthless coordinator of the program, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, on the rules of the program, students receive bags containing the necessary to survive, bread, water, a map and a random weapon or a tool and are sent out of the school one by one. While most students receive guns or knives, others receive relatively useless weapons such as boomerang, arrows or a fork. In some cases, instead of a weapon, the student receives a useful object for the race. Hiroki Sugimura receives a radar capable of capturing the students nearby and Toshinori Oda receives an bulletproof jacket. ^[first]

To make sure that the students obey the rules and kill each other, the metal collars around the neck monitor their actions and explode if the students stop in a “prohibited area” or if they try to remove the collar. The prohibited areas increase over time by reducing the battlefield and forcing students to move. The collars secretly transmit the students’ voices to the organizers of the program allowing them to hear their conversations, their escape plans and the logs of their activities. The collars will also explode in the event that no student dies within 24 hours. To make children understand that the program must be taken seriously, Kinpatsu Sakamochi shows them the beheaded head of their professor, kills a boy and a girl and hurts another. ^[first]

The plot follows the events of all pupils with numerous flash backs that refer to events that happened before the program. This will be known that Shogo is the winner of the previous edition, this is particular who will take great importance in the continuation of the story. ^[first]

In the final stages of the program, only four boys remain alive: Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa, Shōgo Kawada and the antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. After a chase and a long shooting in which Kazuo is hit in the face by Noriko and ended up by Shogo, the latter pretends to kill Shuya and Noriko, and he turns out to be himself the hacker, who discovered that the collars, below powerful magnetic waves, they go haywire. The winner of the program is declared and welcomed on a ship full of soldiers where Sakamochi is present, the program manager. When Sakamochi reveals that he knows that in reality Shuya and Noriko are still alive attempts to kill Shogo, but he is killed by the latter. Shuya and Noriko go up to the ship by killing all the soldiers on board and gather in Shogo, who however dies from the injuries sustained in the clash with Kiriyama. Shuya and Noriko run away to make up for a lifetime as Shogo had told them to do but both promise to return, one day, to take revenge. ^[first]

• In the novel, the class manager during the clash is called Kinpatsu Sakamochi, in the manga Yonemi Kamon, and in the film Kitano (played by Takeshi Kitano).
• In the manga the death of Hiimizu is caused by a fall in a very deep well of Toshinori Oda, and not by strangulation as in the novel. In the film he is killed by Mitsuko Souma, who shoots her back.
• In the novel Takako Chigusa crushes the eye membrane of Kazushi Niida by blinding him, and sticks his breaking roar in his mouth. In the manga Takako he detaches him an eye and makes him fall on his back on her to stick a dart of the crossbow in his neck belonging to him, while in the film he stabbes him several times.
• In the novel Mitsuko Souma is presented as a beautiful but terrible girl who has had a traumatic childhood, caused by numerous rapes, murders and a dramatic family situation. In the manga we talk about the love he had towards his father, who left for a government question and never returned from his daughter, left in the grip of the mother’s new boyfriend, a pedophile. Before leaving, the father gives his daughter a ring that Mitsuko will no longer take away for the rest of his life. The aspect of the sex-appeal that the young woman creates diabolically with the school kids to seduce them and kill them is also deepened. Mitsuko is killed by Kazuo Kiriyama who shoots them several times, finishing her with a barrage of blows on the face. In the film, Mitsuko’s nymphomania is only mentioned.
• In the novel Yoshitoki Kuninobu is hit by a barrage of shots along the body. In the manga Kamon makes him explode a piece of mouth with a bullet, then kills him. In the film he is detonated the collar, which opens his throat. In all versions, he dies before the start of the program.
• Nel Manga Sono Approfondite D’Amore Come QUELLE DI YOSHIMI YOSHIGI EY KURAMOTO Eiko ONUKI, La Cotta Di Yukiko, Yukiko E Yukie Per Shuya, Nonché La Profonda Amicizia CHE LEGA TAKAKO CHIGUSA E HIROKI Sugimura.
• In the film Kazuo Kiriyama is killed by Kawada with a shotgun stroke that explodes the collar. In the manga he dies in the same way, but killed by Nanahara with the Mimura gun. In the novel he is hit in the face by Noriko and ended up by Shogo.

• KOUSHUN TAKAMI, Battle Royale , Milan, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2009, p. 662, ISBN 978-88-04-58687-6.
• KOUSHUN TAKAMI, Battle Royale , Milan, Mondadori, 2016, p. 613, ISBN 978-88-04-66392-8.