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HUGE DISCLAIMER. I throughly enjoyed the battle royale movie, it’s a fun watch. The director Kinji Fukasaku, was truly passionate about making it, the camerawork is great, and for its time, it holds up. But I’m not planning on discussing the quality of the film, rather I wish to talk about how the movie is a genuinely awful adaptation of koushun takami’s original novel, from completely rewriting parts they didn’t need to, offscreening character interactions, and absolutely, and I mean absolutely butchering and nearly ruining some of Koushun’s well crafted characters ( specifically YOSHITOKI KUNINOBU. )
SECOND DISCLAIMER. I’m making this post because i absolutely love battle royale as i franchise, i own both english translations, the original japanese novel, the manga, angel’s border, and the dvd for the film, again, I’m not making this post out of malice, i like the film, i just wanted to talk about how the film doesn’t work as an adaptation, because they barely adapt anything properly. And yes, this film is 20+ yes old, yes they couldn’t add everything that was in the novel. In general other than talking about how poorly they adapted the novel, i mainly just want people who’ve just watched the movie, wether you thought it was good, wether you thought it was bad, to read the novel, because trust me, the novel is genuinely a work of art, it’s a extremely deep book with an absurd amount of social commentary and I’m sure there are some points that will make you sob your eyes out.
section one.
UNNECESSARY REWRITES
the movie changes a ton of things about the novel, for starters, for some reason, they changed the way Shuya’s parents died, in the novel both of his parents died in a car crash, while in the movie Shuya walks into his home to see that his father had committed suicide. The original version had his parents pass when Shuya was six, as soon as the accident happened, Shuya was sent to live in a childrens home, there he met yoshitoki, who was the result of a love affair, both of his parents didn’t want him, implying yoshitoki was probably in said childrens home ever since he was a toddler. The two became fast friends. (more on yoshitoki later..)
sakamochi was entirely changed, in the novel sakamochi is an absolute psycho, he had no relationship with any of the students in shiroiwa class B. He strictly was their killing instructor, a government worker, a monster, he is never glorified in the novel (physically he’s described with long hair tucked into a ponytail) , their teacher Mr. Hayashida, had protested his students being used for the program which led to his brutal death primarily at the hands of kinpatsu sakamochi, later there’s a chapter where the reader gets insight on a couple of ways the program works via his point of view, higher ups in the government of greater east asia bet on the students who the believe have the highest chance of winning. In the movie Sakamochi isn’t called Sakamochi anymore? Rather he’s now become Takeshi Kitano, Kitano again, rather than not knowing the students of class B is stated to be their old teacher, yes he’s still decently vile, but for some odd reason he’s portrayed (especially early on) as a victim of harassment because of yoshitoki (I WILL GO INTO HOW HORRIBLY THEY BUTCHERED YOSHITOKI’S CHARACTER LATER) he’s more comical in the movie, he’s also been given a borderline pedophilic obsession with noriko.
Another thing added into the movie version was the video shown to the students, in the novel it simply wasn’t a thing. A LOT and I mean a lot of things happened in a different order in the movie, for starters, Kazuo had killed Izumi, Ryuhei. and Hiroshi way before Mitsuru had arrived to the scene, I have no idea why in the movie they made Izumi one of one’s to have “attacked” him, which in itself isn’t true because in the novel, we know how Kazuo is, he’s incredibly manipulative, he told mitsuru that the rest of his gang had tried to attack him to cause mitsuru to freeze up. And even if it did happen the way Kazuo told it, Izumi never was in the mix, she just happened to be hiding in the bushes and Kazuo just killed her. Another thing is yutaka , keita and shinji’s death’s were done too late, they died halfway through the book, they didn’t even succeed in hacking through the governments systems like they did in the movie.
rapid fire
Hirono’s death. in the novel, hirono wasn’t killed by mitsuko, she never met up with her, it’s as simple as that, she was killed by toshinori.
Toshinori’s death, yes he was still killed by kazuo, but his death occurred later, and his head wasn’t cut off with a sword, kazuo blew his brains out with his machine gun, which feels like the only weapon besides grenades that Kazuo uses.
Keith’s death, keita never joined Shinji and Yutaka, while he tried to, Shinji refused to let him join due to past disagreements, Shinji eventually shoots him dead, leaving yutaka and him to be attacked and killed by kazuo.
Leaving the infirmary, the trio wasn’t chased out by kazuo, rather they left on their own volition as the infirmary was about to become a forbidden zone, later they were ambushed by two hand grenades while they were crossing a field. They even had a full blown gun fight with Kazuo before being separated.
Keiko, Shogo literally didn’t mention keiko up until nearly the end of the book, it’s implied he had a girlfriend at one point in the infirmary, but Shogo didn’t talk about it while they were in the infirmary.
mitsuko’s backstory (i will touch up on this during her own segment)
honourable mention, unlike in the movie, Shuya got a weapon, a knife, that’s the WHOLE reason why tatsumichi attacked him, he saw Shuya’s knife and attacked him out of fear
The last thing i do want to talk about in this section is the way the game is described, at the start of the film the program is described as something that was happening due to how cruel kids had become, how selfish they were to the point adults were scared of them. While in the novel, the program is simply a thing that exists to show that government of greater east asia had power over anyway, and with this small thing, it opens the gate to something else that the government would do in the novel, they’d simply kill or imprison anyone for even the most trivial thing that they believe is against them.
Section two
cut off characters, character interactions, deaths and conversations.
mini rapid fire before a delve into it.
yoshimi’s death, yoji’s death, tadakatsu’s death, yuichiro’s death, sho’s death, kaori’s death, Hiroki meeting up with the trio, the trio bonding, Shuya and Shogo’s disagreements, Shuya’s nightmare, yumiko and yukiko’s conversation, all of the actual yutaka and shinji scenes. Chisato’s feelings for Shinji. And there’s definitely a ton, a ton more scenes, interaction’s and mini plot points that I didn’t include.
Yoshimi’s death. Yoshimi and Yoji died together, but unlike in the movie, where their deaths were off screened and then it was implied that they had committed a lovers suicide. The two actually died in an incredibly tragic way, like most characters in battle royale, yoshimi was looking for anyone to pair up with, but because of her part in mitsuko’s group, she believed she’d be shunned by the other girls, she didn’t want to meet up with mitsuko because truthfully mitsuko scared her. Luckily she found her boyfriend, Yoji, the two have been going out for less than a year, but when she was with him, he made her feel loved, he wanted her to be safe, after getting with him she’d even started distancing herself from mitsuko. After their tearful reunion, Yoji asked for Yoshimi’s gun, Yoshimi, trusting him gave it to him, he then would instantly turned it on her. What followed was a tragic mess. Yoshimi, after having the muzzle of the gun against her forehead, basically accepted her fate, she thanked yoji for making her so happy before telling him to do it. This caused Yoji to snap out of it, he seemed as if he was able to cry before mitsuko suddenly stabbed him in the back of the head with her sickle, killing him instantly, Yoshimi would then question mitsuko while practically sobbing her eyes out, when mitsuko tried pulling the sickle out of yoji’s head, Yoshimi stopped her, telling her that it was probably hurting him, finally after a bit, mitsuko decided to shoot and kill yoshimi.
Kaori died to hirono after a gunfight, while in the middle of it, Shuya stopped the two, Kaori stopped to listen, but just as she did, Hirono shot her in the head, after Kaori fell she ran into the forest, injured from the fight.
Sho was the only remaining member of kazuo’s gang, knowing that Kazuo killed the others, sho was following kazuo to try and catch him when his guard was down to kill him. He simply failed, stepped into a forbidden zone, and got his head blown off.
Most of the scenes mentioned above are pretty self explanatory, so I’ll move onto the third and final section, yuichiro’s death WILL be heavily mentioned while taking about mitsuko.
Section three.
Butchered characters.
SHINJI
shinji, or the third man is a complex character, with many flaws yet extremely likeable traits. Shinji is incredibly smart and able, he’s strong enough to fight back against much older people (in chapter 51 he is stated to have taken out a group of three high school aged students) in addition to being very able, he’s incredibly intelligent, i mean the guy made a literal gas bomb, plus he can hack through government blocks online.
despite of that, Shinji is somewhat irritable, because even though yutaka and him are best friends, he’s often frustrated by some of his actions, plus he’s extremely judgemental, especially with his opinion of keita, Shinji held a grudge against him ever since keita left Shinji to grab a book he had forgotten, this instance caused Shinji to get basically mugged.
Shinji’s death is incredibly depressing, while actively dying he just wants to make sure yutaka’s okay, him and yutaka have been bestfriends since what feels like forever, their friendship is incredibly deep, he basically has told yutaka everything, the only other person who knows about what happened to his uncle other than yutaka is chisato (i absolutely love her sm, personally I think her and Shinji would be perfect for each other, angel’s border is a must read for all battle royale enjoyers because it expands on Shinji and chisato’s relationship, it explains sadly why chisato likes Shinji, it explains why chisato went for the gun during the lighthouse scene, and it ends with both an incredibly sad quote based on something Shinji told her, and an incredibly sad scene where Shinji and chisato are photographed. Now back to yutaka and Shinji) it’s because of yutaka that Shinji wants to escape, yutaka is absolutely in love with izumi, to the point he’d basically commit suicide in her name, this entire thing is endearing to shinji. a personal favourite quote of mine from this whole chapter is “when yutaka was done speaking he looked at shinji. Shinji looked at him kindly and tilted his head slightly. Then he grinned. “I thought you’d become a comedian when you grew up, but now I think you could be a poet” Yutaka smiled too. Then Shinji said “hey” “what” “I don’t know how to say this, but I think Izumi’s really happy to know someone loves her that much. She’s probably crying right now up there in heaven.” Compared to yutaka’s poetic observations, his words sounded cheap, but he had to say them. Now yutaka’s eyes began to well up with tears again, stripping his cheeks” (man) the two had adorable interactions that developed their characters even more such as “yutaka looked astonished “it’s amazing .” Tickled by his friend’s response, Shinji smiled. Thanks yutaka, it’s always nice to be admired for your talents.” And “”shinji?” Yutaka asked, still looking astonished. Shinji raised his brow. “what is it? You have a question?” “No” Yutaka shook his head .” I-I was just wondering.” “What is it?” Yutaka looked down at stared at the beretta in his hand. Then he looked up. “I was wondering why you’re friends with someone like me.” Shinji had no idea what yutaka was talking about. His mouth hung open. “What are you talking about?” Yutaka looked down again. Then he said “it’s just that…I mean you’re so awesome. I can see how you’d be friends with someone like Shuya. Shuya’s as athletic as you are, and he’s a great guitar player. But—but I’m nothing. So I was just wondering why you’re friends with me.” Shinji stared at Yutaka, who kept looking down. Then he began to speak. “That’s ridiculous Yutaka.” Hearing Shinji’s gentle voice, yutaka looked up. “I am who I am. And you’re you. Even if I’m pretty good at basketball or computers, or popular with girls, that doesn’t make me a better person. You can make people laugh and you’re kind. When you’re serious you’re a lot more sincere than I am. Like with girls. I’m not resorting to that cheap cliché about everyone having something to offer, but I am saying there are a lot of things I admire about you.” He shrugged and then smiled. “I like you. We’ve always been buddies. You’re an important friend. My bestfriend.” (by the way these quotes are on the same two pages)
now back to Shinji’s death. Before kazuo attacked them, Shinji had accidentally killed keita, and as soon as yutaka see’s him as suspicious, Shinji drops to his knees and gives him his gun, telling yutaka to shoot him if he doesn’t trust him, Shinji’s actions were taken out of him wanting to protect yutaka, even though he was selfish in not trusting keita, Shinji’s overall goal is make sure yutaka doesn’t die. Quote “”if you don’t trust me then shoot me, yutaka. I don’t care, just shoot me.” Crouching, Shinji added, “i shot keita to protect you, yutaka, damn.” Yutaka suddenly looked at him blankly. Then ready to burst into tears, he uttered, “oh. Oh…” he ran to Shinji. Yutaka put his hand on Shinji’s shoulder and began sobbing out loud. Shinji stared at the ground with his hands on his knees. He realized his eyes too were filled with tears.” and “ he merely cried. Yutaka. I was trying to protect you. How could you suspect me? I trusted you…but then again, maybe keita iijima felt the same way. How horrible to be suspected by someone by someone you trust. I did an awful thing.” After this, while the two friends weren’t on guard, kazuo appeared and shot the two with his machine gun, yutaka obviously instantly died, but Shinji didn’t. Honestly in my opinion the saddest part about the rest of chapter 51 is how Shinji keeps wanting to believe that yutaka, might still be alive. His only thought throughout fighting with kazuo is how yutaka might still be alive. Constantly Shinji refers to yutaka as being alive, simply being horribly injured. “ but Shinji was more concerned about yutaka. Could he still be alive.” And “Then come after me. Yutaka can’t move but I can. You can take care of yutaka later. First come after me. Come on, come after me.” Lastly “but now that yutaka and I are injured.” And it’s only after Shinji’s about to die and he sees yutaka’s face buried in debris he realizes he’s failed everyone he cares about, yutaka, his uncle, his sister and (in angels border) chisato.
by the way, Shinji’s has the worst death in battle royale, everyone else does rather quickly, Shinji first is shot, someone survives that, gets shot again and again, he literally loses all of his toes, his skin is basically rip off from how horribly he’s thrown about by the explosion, he loses his hearing, and lastly he doesn’t die from blood loss, rather he dies of his head being blown off by kazuo. Plus Shinji makes some comments after all of these, starting with him thinking that his basketball career is over, he comments on not being able to hear anymore, etc. his death is incredibly painful and tragic.
YOSHITOKI
oh, yoshitoki my sweet boy, what did they do to you. In the movie, yoshitoki is a complete asshat, he’s incredibly obnoxious and violent, starting off with him slashing kitano’s leg in the first few scenes of the movie, then to his behaviour on the bus, how he basically paraded around loudly, and then his death, were he insulted kitano and refused to quiet down, this caused kitano to active his collar as an example, while dying he ran around and clung onto Shuya. In general, this character…isn’t yoshitoki, yoshitoki, or nobu, in the novel is an incredibly respectful kid, he’s not rude or loud, he’s actually pretty quiet, even Shinji, who isn’t friends with yoshitoki thought fond of him because of his friendship with Shuya.
For starters, during the bus scene, he sat in the window seat besides Shuya, once noriko gave them cookies to try, yoshitoki told her they were awesome, and later he told her that they we good again, after noriko told him he was very nice, yoshitoki instantly looked at his lap and continued eating his cookie. Later, while with sakamochi, he asked who he had consent to him and shuya being in the program since the two boys didn’t have parents, sakamochi responded with ryoko anno’s name, almost immediately he say’s that she was pretty, which irked yoshitoki, due to the fact that sakamochi had killed their teacher, he then asked rather angrily what he did to her, sakamochi hesitates before saying that he sexually assaulted her, sakamochi would then somewhat joke about it, saying at least he didn’t kill her.
Instantly yoshitoki stand up, screaming about how he’s going to kill sakamochi, he doesn’t calm down, which eventually led to him being brutally shot to death by guards, the saddest part is he wasn’t instantly killed rather he was still breathing, but as noriko and shuya told sakamochi yoshitoki needed medical attention or he’d die of blood loss soon, a guard dealt the final blow, instantly killing yoshitoki.
who was anno to him? Well anno was the headmistress of the childrens home, when Shuya and yoshitoki were kids she was still a high school aged person, but that didn’t mean yoshitoki didn’t view her as a mother figure, according to shuya, yoshitoki had only lost his temper two other times, once when the charity home’s dog mascot was ran over the second can simply be explained by this quote “ the second time was only a year ago, when a man had been using the school’s debt as leverage to come onto ms.anno. After she managed to pay back the money, thereby rejecting his advances, the man cursed her outright in front of them, as if he wanted all the charity house’s residents to hear him. If Shuya hadn’t stopped yoshitoki, the man would have been severely injured. Yoshitoki was extremely kind, and even if he was insulted or picked on he usually laughed it off. But when someone he truly loved was hurt, his response was extreme. This was something Shuya admired about yoshitoki.” And it’s something I admire too, ryoko anno was a mom to yoshitoki, since as aforementioned, he never had parents.
There’s a whole chapter where Shuya has a flashback to when the two were kids, how yoshitoki asked him about love, and Shuya’s response was lacklustre, yoshitoki then asked him if he ever had a kid, would he abandon them. After this, they two didn’t talk about such topics up until he told Shuya about his crush on noriko, after yoshitoki’s death, the last thing he could do for his best friend was to make sure the only person he liked romantically would make it.
the absolute character assignation yoshitoki went through in the movie genuinely hurts, they didn’t need to make a character we’re supposed to care about a fullblown asshole.
MITSUKO.
oh boy, i love mitsuko, she’s an incredibly deep character, in the movie she’s simply portrayed as evil, her backstory is just one simple flashback, that’s all the characterization mitsuko gets. Since they CUTOUT and OFFSCREENED a character who’s incredibly important to her character, and that character is yuichiro takiguchi, at first glance he might just seem like a boring character, but yuichiro isn’t actually a boring character, you see he’s incredibly emotionally intelligent for being considered an awkward otaku, yuichiro knows how people work and feel, I’m not just saying that, in chapter 56 mitsuko and yuichiro talk. Mitsuko, while trying to make herself look scared, asks yuichiro if he was afraid of tadakatsu, since tadakatsu was a much larger and actually strong guy compared to short and skinny ‘ol yuichiro, yuichiro admits he was nervous, but he also tells her that he’s just scared, that’s it, they all are so she should cut him some slack for suspecting her. Later, he tells her that he never believed that she was as bad as others made her out to be, she asks why, then he tells her it’s because of her eyes, as he fidgets with the fresh grass he tells her that he doesn’t think her eyes look mean and cruel all the time, rather they look sad, sometimes even kind, after that he tells her that even if she’s done bad things that doesn’t necessarily make her a bad person, as the two continue to talk, mitsuko genuinely seems to be enjoying his company, he even untied her hands and gave her water, he even promised to protect her, by the end of the chapter he even calls her pretty and she gives him a genuine smiled.
throughout their interaction, mitsuko keeps mentally reminding herself her goal is to kill both yuichiro and tadakatsu, she mentally calls yuichiro naive for him believing she isn’t a bad person, at one point she’s even surprised by the warmness in her voice because unlike before, she feels that she sounds genuine.
later(chapter 57) she tries to seduce and kill tadakatsu, as the two kinda…get it on, she feels slightly bad, thinking that at least he’ll have one good memory before he dies, after failing at slicing his neck with a razor blade, she tries using yuichiro as a shield, since tadakatsu won’t shoot him, as yuichiro tries to rationally sort out the situation, he tries to get tadakatsu to give him the gun, once yuichiro moves away from mitsuko, tadakatsu attempts to kill mitsuko, but instead, yuichiro blocks him(remember how he said he’ll protect mitsuko) after yuichiro gets shot, it cause’s tadakatsu to freeze up, mitsuko uses this opportunity and successfully kills tadakatsu. After, she realizes yuichiro is still alive and after a debate, she decides to block his view of tadakatsu’s body, this most likely is because she doesn’t want him to think less of her, which if you’ve paid attention to their prior conversation, it’s kinda obvious. (LONG QUOTE) “then she grabbed his shoulder to turn him over. Yuichiro moaned, “urgh,” and opened his eyes in a daze. His school coat had two holes, one in the left chest and the other in his side. The black fabric was sopping with blood. Mitsuko held yuichiro up. His eyes wandered around for a while. Then he looked up at mitsuko. His short breaths came intermittently, may chin his heartbeat. “M-Mitsuko,” he said, “w-what about tadakatsu?” Mitsuko shook her head. “He panicked after he shot you and just ran away.” Tadakasu had tried to kill mitsuko, so this explanation didn’t make much sense. But maybe he couldn’t think much anymore. Yuichiro seemed to nod slightly. “R-really…” his eyes seemed out of focus. He might only have a partial image of mitsuko now. “Y-you didn’t get hurt, i hope.” “I’m fine.” She nodded. And then said, “you saved me.” Yuichiro seemed to form a slight grin . “I-I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can protect you anymore. I can’t m-m-move…” a foam of blood came bursting out the sides of his mouth. His lunges must have been punctured. “I know.” She leaned over and gently hugged his body. Mitsuko’s long black hair fell onto his chest, it’s ends stained by the blood of his wounds. Before she pressed her lips against his, Yuchiro’s eyes moved slightly but then they shut. This kiss was different from the whore’s kiss she gave tadakatsu. It was soft, warm and kind even though it might have been mixed with the taste of blood. Their lips parted. Yuichiro opened his eyes again in a semi-daze. “I-I’m sorry,” he said, “it looks like…” Mitsuko smiled. “I know.” BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! With these gunshots yuichiro’s eyes opened wide. Staring up at mitsuko’s face, and probably not knowing having no idea what had just happened, Yuchiro Takiguchi died in an instant. Mitsuko slowly removed the smoking revolver from yuichiro’s stomach and held yuichiro’s body again. She looked into his now vacant eyes. “You were pretty cool. You even made me a little happy. I won’t forget you.” She closed her eyes. Almost remorsefully, she once again gently pressed lips against Yuchiro’s. His lips were warm. The sunlight was finally shining on the western slope of the northern mountain. In the shadow of mitsuko’s head, yuichiro’s pupils dilated rapidly.” This is my favourite chapter, genuinely, yuichiro had genuinely become one of my top 5 characters in battle royale. His and Mitsuko’s fondness for each other is absolutely depressing and i really don’t like how they simply cut out his entire character in the movie.
Lastly, Mitsuko’s backstory is pretty different in the novel, it’s genuinely darker, she was sexualized ever since the age of nine, this is because she was sexually abused by three grown men who had filmed their abuse of her, her mother was incredibly neglectful, when she went to her favourite teacher about the abuse she’d gone through, he also decided to abuse her in the same way those men did, after her mother died, she went to live with her aunt and uncle, her cousin hated mitsuko’s guts to the point she’d belittle mitsuko constantly, that very cousin then died in a tragic accident, her aunt blamed her for it, and the only person who wasn’t mad at her was her uncle, who defended her so he could abuse her inappropriately as well. Mitsuko herself in the chapter where she does doesn’t know why exactly she’s such a bad person, or what event made her this way.
little bonus. Her death wasn’t as cool in the novel, she simply was shot, shot a few rounds back, and then got her head blown off, this all happened in the span of 3 pages.
In conclusion i don’t think the battle royale movies bad, it’s amazing for it’s time and there’s a reason why it’s beloved, i simply just don’t like how poorly the book was adapted, and how some people who’ve watched the movie refuse to read the book because they believe it’s the same thing, which it isn’t.
if you haven’t read battle royale i will always recommend it!
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