Battle Royale

High school students battle each other to the death in the original survival game!

Decades ago, the fascist government of the Republic of Greater East Asia seized control of Japan. In order to terrorize its citizens and crush any possibility of rebellion, the government established Program 68—a savage military program where teenage students were sent to a remote island and forced to kill each other—also known as the Battle Royale.

Kaede Yamaki, the tough, resourceful leader of Squad 6, has set out to scout the island and find out what’s going on. In the supermarket, she comes across signs of a battle and makes a gruesome discovery. Who else could be there, and what will Yamaki have to do to survive? Elsewhere on the island, tensions within and between the squads continue to escalate. Sakamoto and Ninomiya try to make contact with Kunimitsu, but are they walking into an ambush?

About the Author

Koushun Takami was born in 1969 in Amagasaki near Osaka and grew up in Kagawa Prefecture of Shikoku (the fourth-largest island in Japan), where he currently resides. After graduating from Osaka University with a degree in literature, he worked for a newspaper company, Shikoku Shinbun, for five years, reporting on politics, police reports, and economics.

Battle Royale, completed after Takami left the newspaper company, was his debut work and is his only novel published so far. With its publication in Japan in 1999, it received widespread support and became a bestseller. Battle Royale was serialized as a comic, made into a feature film in 2000, and has been translated into more than ten languages. Since its initial release, Battle Royale continues to be a cult favorite in Japan and internationally.

In 2012, Battle Royale: Angels' Border, a spin-off manga scripted by Koushun Takami, was released.