Shuya takes Noriko under his wing after his best friend is killed, believing that he has a duty to honor his fallen friend by protecting his crush. The students desperately fight amongst each other for survival, with mentally ill bullies Mitsuko Souma and Kiriyama killing many. The collars secretly transmit sound back to the organizers of the game, allowing them to hear the students' conversations, root out escape plans, and log their activities. To make sure the students obey the rules and kill each other, the metal collars around their necks track their positions and will explode if they attempt to remove the collars, or linger in 'Forbidden Zones': randomly chosen areas of the map that increase in number over time, re-sculpting and shrinking the battlefield and forcing the students to move around. Hiroki Sugimura finds a radar device that tracks nearby students, and Toshinori Oda receives a bulletproof vest. While most of the students receive guns and knives, some acquire relatively useless items like boomerangs, dartboard darts, or a fork. The students are issued survival packs and a random weapon/tool, and sent out onto the island one by one. It is mentioned that only 0.5% of Programs end in this fashion. If twenty-four hours pass without someone being killed, then all of the collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. The students are also given a time limit. A teacher, psychopathic sadist Kinpatsu Sakamochi, briefs the students: the class has been chosen to participate in the Program. They awake in a classroom on a small, vacated island, surrounded by troops, and wearing metal collars around their necks. En route, they are gassed – the 'field trip' was a ruse for the Program. Ostensibly, it is to help the government and its military research survival skills and battle readiness – in actuality, it is meant to instill terror and distrust in all of Japan's citizens to curb any attempts at rebellion, by showcasing the government's power and ability to target citizens' families and preying on the fear of being killed by a friend.Ī group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School ( 城岩中学校, Shiroiwa Chūgakkō), a junior high school in the fictional Kagawa Prefecture town of Shiroiwa, prepare for a field trip – among them are wannabe rock star Shuya Nanahara, whose father was killed by the regime Noriko Nakagawa, the demure crush of Shuya's best friend Shogo Kawada, a quiet, tough young transfer student and sociopathic prodigy Kazuo Kiriyama. 68 Program ( 戦闘実験第六十八番プログラム, Sentō Jikken Dai Rokujū Hachi Ban Puroguramu), wherein fifty randomly selected classes of third-year junior high school students are kidnapped, dropped into a remote location, and forced to kill one another until only one student of each class remains. The government has established a military program, the Battle Experiment No. The government controls everything, and anything 'immoral', such as rock music, is banned, unless it beatifies the government, along with an unnamed dictator with a strong cult of personality able to bend the whims of the populace. The state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia ( 大東亜共和国, Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku), arose after an alternate World War 2 where Japan emerged victorious and a rebellion was put down by the combined military and police forces. Map of Okishima Island, seen inside the cover of the 2003 English translationīattle Royale takes place in a fictional fascist Japan in the year 1997. The film spawned a sequel, and two more brief manga adaptations were also created. The film was both controversial and successful, becoming one of the year's highest-grossing films as well as prompting condemnation by Japan's National Diet. In 2000, one year after publication, Battle Royale was adapted into a manga series, written by Takami himself, and a feature film. Upon publication in 1999, the novel became a surprise bestseller. The dystopian novel was previously entered into the 1997 Japan Horror Fiction Awards but was eventually rejected in the final round due to concerns over its depictions of students killing each other.

The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a fictional, fascist, totalitarian Japanese government known as the Republic of Greater East Asia. Originally completed in 1996, it was not published until 1999. Battle Royale ( Japanese: バトル・ロワイアル, Hepburn: Batoru Rowaiaru) is the first novel by the Japanese author Koushun Takami.

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