History Literature / BattleRoyale

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Kiriyama gets one where he's outnumbered and surrounded by five other students questioning him and disarms one of their Uzi before he kills them all in seconds, casually grabbing all the fallen peoples firearms and explosives, leaving only one students nunchuks behind.

* BoomHeadshot: Common in the Manga (along with an eye is blown out of its socket by the sheer force.)

* ArtisticAge: A lot of the characters in the manga do not even remotely resemble people in their 20's, let alone junior high school students. Shogo Kawada with his beard is the most unrealistically adult-looking character, while Yutaka Seto (who is about one or two years younger) looks like he's ten. And the hyper-sexualized manga version of Mitsuko looks and acts like she's in her 20s.

Originally a novel by Koushun Takami, ''Battle Royale'' was adapted into a live-action movie and a DoorStopper manga series (it has over ''3000 pages''). The plots of these adaptations have minor differences, but each feature the same general events. An [[ForeignRemake American remake]] was announced in 2006, but it quickly fell into DevelopmentHell (though most view ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', which has a nearly identical premise, as a suitable Western equivalent).

** And then there are those, such as Yoshio and Kaori, who try to kill the other students after [[MurderMakesYouCrazy losing]] [[AxCrazy their sanity]] to paranoia and the moral dilemma of killing others to survive.

* DubInducedPlotHole: The English translation of the manga introduces the conceit that the Program is actually a televised reality show, rather than just a government program. This creates multiple plot holes, including Mimura failing to realise that the collars are wired for sound (which goes from a foolish oversight in the original to totally inexplicable in the translation), and Kawada choosing a location to fake Shuuya and Noriko's deaths in an area where what's really happening can't be seen even though the entire island is meant to be covered in cameras so the footage can be broadcast (it's hardly unthinkable that there wouldn't be ''some'' camera blindspots, but in the original he chooses a heavily forested area so the government can't tell what really happens using satellite imaging).

** Others like Hiroki, Kazuhiko, and Sakura are more concerned with finding their loved ones before finding a means of escape. [[spoiler: Though in the case of Kazuhiko and Sakura, their escape is more [[SuicidePact meta]][[BetterToDieThanBeKilled phor]][[TogetherInDeath ical]].]]

** And then there are those such as Yoshio and Kyoichi who try to kill the other students but [[MurderMakesYouCrazy lose]] [[AxCrazy their sanity]] due to the moral dilemma of killing people to survive the Program.

* NothingIsScarier: How the Greater East Asia Republic uses the Program to spread fear among the citizens and retain control over them. After each Program experiment, the government only reports the winner of the experiment, along some other minor details, to the public and never goes into the specifics of each experiment. This leads to the citizens assuming the worst and believing that every student eventually turned on each other, which then leads to the citizens concluding that they cannot trust anyone else. The result is that any hope for the citizens uniting and rebelling against the government is practically quashed.

** Practically ''any'' of the students who refuse to kill each other, given the situation they are in. Particular mention goes to Shuuya [[spoiler: although things end well for him, kind of]], and Yumiko and Yukiko, the two girls who went to a little gazebo and used a megaphone to shout out their location. [[spoiler: Kiriyama guns them down with multiple shots.]]

* UnbuiltTrope: ''Battle Royale'' is often credited with inspiring the BattleRoyaleGame genre, which is named after the book and its various adaptations. However, ''Battle Royale'' plays the tropes found in the Battle Royale Game genre for [[PlayedForDrama drama]]; as a result, it unintentionally acts as a DarkerAndEdgier deconstruction of the video games it inspired.
** One, the work notes that a society that is perfectly fine with a regularly occurring DeadlyGame is most likely a dystopia. In addition, it describes how a fascist government can use said Deadly Game to maintain the status quo.
** Games such as ''VideoGame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds'' or ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'' encourage killing the other players to win, but ''Battle Royale'' notes that realistically, killing other people, especially one's friends, to survive goes against most people's instincts and would naturally invoke a moral dilemma. In fact, the top killers in the Program were a sociopath, whose brain damage gave him a LackOfEmpathy, and a cynical EmptyShell who wanted to take revenge against the world due to her abusive upbringing; on a similar note, some students go insane trying to justify killing their classmates.
** Similarly, most video games in the genre have team modes, encouraging teamwork and allowing multiple people to win in every round. In the Program, ThereCanBeOnlyOne with no exceptions, so while people can team up with one another, eventually there will be a point in which betrayal is necessary to win. Furthermore, the inevitability of betrayal can lead to feelings of paranoia and distrust within teams, which then can lead to mutinies and thus earlier dissolutions of teams. [[spoiler:The protagonists do subvert the one winner rule, but they had to rebel against the Program's overseers to do so.]]
** The random weapon distribution in the Program for ''Battle Royale'' works differently from those found in the video games. In the video games, the weapons are usually scattered randomly around the map, but in the Program, the overseers randomly assign each student with a weapon. Since there are no other weapons on the island other than possible {{Improvised Weapon}}s, the assigned weapons greatly influence each student's short-term and long-term strategies. Furthermore, there is a possibility one can start with a JokeItem, something that is rather scarce in Battle Royale video games but more common in the Program. As a result, the Program's playing field is rather uneven with some characters receiving machine pistols and shotguns as starter weapons and others receiving forks and boomerangs. Indeed, the protagonists, Shuya and Noriko, start off with some rather terrible weapons, which emphasizes the unfairness and cruelty of the situation.

** The parents and government of UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} allow this to happen doing absolutely nothing to stop it. In fact, the Defense Forces are the ones that ''had the idea'' and carries out the sick games. Admittedly however, protesting tends to get you shot in the head or arrested, as the Government are to showcase at every opportunity. See also CentralTheme.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Not the guns (which are [[ShownTheirWork well-researched and realistic]]), but the BulletProofVest, which takes the name rather more literally than it ought to. A bulletproof vest that a kid could wear and fight in ''might'' stop a .357 pistol round fired from a few feet away -- it might even stop ''seven'' -- but it would feel like [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown being bludgeoned with a brick wrapped in a slice of lemon]]. It would also be of questionable use against the Ingram, Winchester, and shotgun and is worthless against knives. Also, [[BreakableWeapons their protection tends to get worse when they get shot]]. It could have been reinforced with ceramic and metal strike plates, but these are uncommon in real life because of their weight and cumbersomeness for ''adults'', let alone kids.

* CentralTheme: The main and most obvious one is trust and WhatYouAreInTheDark, both of which is tested by the Program. The film has an additional theme concerning TheGenerationGap between youth and elderly.

* HandWave: The film largely handwaves the premise, which is extremely flawed, by vaguely explaining it in 30 seconds of a 2 hour film and then never touching politics again.

* HonoraryTrueCompanions: Hiroki and the lighthouse girls provide some aide to the main characters and get offers to join their group, but [[spoiler: none survive long enough to do so]].

* CentralTheme: Next to violence, Japanese society's perceived frontline between the youngsters and the elders. A common interpretation of this story is that the adults (that is everybody past their mid-20s or so) see themselves as helpless against the deep trench between them and the youth and intentionally shift the trench between the students by forcing them into a PrisonersDilemma DeadlyGame with the resources of the elder generation (a strict hierarchy and military weapons). Even the students' parents either can't do anything about it or don't care about it (see AdultsAreUseless too).

* ExcusePlot: The backstory of the novel and manga involves Imperial Japan winning World War II. How did this happen and how exactly did this escalate into a bi-annual government sanctioned child death match that's lasted ''fifty years''? It's not ''really'' explained, but there had to be ''some'' scenario to even attempt to justify how there could be a child death match arena, which is obviously necessary for the story to exist.
** The film changes the setting to TwentyMinutesInTheFuture and changes the motive of the battle program's existence to the government trying to curb teenage delinquency during an economic recession. [[SarcasmMode Because the first thing any reasonable government would do is indiscriminately kidnap and force children (ANY children, not just delinquents) to kill one another to flush out unruly youths, and everyone would just be okay with it]]. It makes even less sense than the novel or manga (which at least attempts to justify the lack of resistance to Japan being a fascist dictatorship and police state), but again, like the novel/manga, [[BellisariosMaxim you have to let it pass]] because it's really difficult to realistically justify anyone coming up with a legal kiddy death match no matter the explanation.

* AlternateHistory: The backstory, at least in the original novel and the manga, is that Japan still has a military dictatorship past UsefulNotes/WorldWarII--in fact, it looks like it had one back in 1917. The first Battle Royale Program took place as early as 1947, shortly after the Japanese victory. In other words, it's become so commonplace by the time the story takes place (in 1997, at least in the novel) that no one really cares. The movie takes place in modern Japan, but TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture after an economic collapse and sharp rise in juvenile crime. Which is better depends on [[BrokenBase who in the fandom you're talking to]].

In a fascist, alternate-timeline UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, called the [[PoliceState Greater East Asia Republic,]] the government has a unique way of curbing delinquency amongst its youth: It chooses 50 classes of high school students at random every year, then kidnaps the whole class and places them all on an isolated island with no chance of escape. The students are given one weapon each, then -- under the threat of death -- forced to kill each other until only one student remains alive. This once controversial (but now regularly recurring) military experiment has gone on since 1947 and is known only as "The Program." Out of the latest such class to "volunteer" for The Program, aspiring rock musician and orphaned teenager Shuya Nanahara has no desire to play the sick game -- and every intention of escaping with his life.

** [[spoiler:The manga adaptation is similar but much more optimistic. Shuya and Noriko make it to the democratic America where they are presumably safe from the Republic of Greater East Asia. All their friends, including Shogo, are still dead though.]]

* EyeScream: In the film, Hiroki suffers this fate, and [[spoiler:so does Kiriyama from the frag and heat of the explosion - we get a good luck at his ruined eyes, staggering around in pain before his collar is shot and his head goes bye-bye.]] Niida receives some of this from Takako in the novel and manga too. And, in the manga, Jaguar.

** The [[DeadlyGame Program]] as featured in ''Battle Royale'' inspired a genre of multiplayer shooters known, appropriately enough, as {{battle royale game}}s, combining a SurvivalSandbox with a "last player standing" deathmatch. Some of the more important ideas in battle royale games taken from ''Battle Royale'' include the shrinking battlefield to ensure that the players interact with one another as much as possible and the random distribution of weapons to ensure variation in each round. Brendan Greene, the creator of ''VideoGame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds'' (the first true hit in the genre), openly described his game as a SpiritualAdaptation of ''Battle Royale''.

** Games such as ''VideoGame/PlayerUnknownsBattlegrounds'' or ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'' encourage killing the other players to win, but ''Battle Royale'' notes that realistically, killing other people, especially one's friends, to survive goes against most people's instincts and would naturally invoke a moral dilemma. In fact, the top killers in the Program were a sociopath, whose brain damage gave him a LackOfEmpathy, and a cynical EmptyShell who wanted to take revenge against the world due to her abusive upbringing; on a similar note, some students go insane trying to justify killing their classmates.

* Unbuilt Trope: ''Battle Royale'' is often credited with inspiring the BattleRoyaleGame genre, which is named after the book and its various adaptations. However, ''Battle Royale'' plays the tropes found in the Battle Royale Game genre for [[PlayedForDrama drama]]; as a result, it unintentionally acts as a DarkerAndEdgier deconstruction of the video games it inspired.

** Games such as ''VideoGame/PlayerUnknownsBattlegrounds'' or ''VideoGame/Fortnite'' encourage killing the other players to win, but ''Battle Royale'' notes that realistically, killing other people, especially one's friends, to survive goes against most people's instincts and would naturally invoke a moral dilemma. In fact, the top killers in the Program were a sociopath, whose brain damage gave him a LackOfEmpathy, and a cynical EmptyShell who wanted to take revenge against the world due to her abusive upbringing; on a similar note, some students go insane trying to justify killing their classmates.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Shuya and Noriko have survived, meaning the Program has failed for the first time ever, and Shogo has found peace at last, but everyone else is dead, including Kitano and Shogo, and they're doomed to live the rest of their lives as fugitives. And while The Program has failed, they didn't completely ''stop'' it from happening again... so it's likely that, in six months, another class will be chosen and submitted to it. And again and again.]]
** Further emphasized by the events of ''Battle Royale II''.

* CruelTwistEnding: [[spoiler: It appears that Shogo had made it out of the Program and would escape with Shuya and Norkio... until he dies of a gunshot wound Kazuo gave him in the arena.]]
** [[spoiler: In the manga, Hirono Shimizu climbs out of the well, manages to cure her thirst with rainwater, and meets up with Shuya, Noriko, and Shogo. It looks like things will work out for Hirono until the story reveals that all of the prior events were her own delusions and reveals that she has just drowned in the well.]]

* MaybeEverAfter: [[spoiler:Between Shuya and Noriko. They escape the Greater East Asian Republic together, and though it's not made explicit that Shuya returns Noriko's feelings, it's pretty heavily implied. It's less ambiguous in the manga, where the epilogue suggests they at least get a RelationshipUpgrade at some point, but it's not clear whether they stay together given the manga's DownerEnding]].

* VillainsNeverLie: Kamon boasts that he raped and murdered the head of Shuuya's orphanage, Ms. Ryoko to demoralize him. [[spoiler: In the final chapter, Shuya, spying on the orphanage, sees her alive and well. Kamon, apparently, was just being a {{Troll}}]]

* DownerEnding: In the manga, [[spoiler:after Shuya and Noriko escape the Greater East Asian Republic, there's a short epilogue of Shuya's narration which implies that his and Noriko's relationship eventually became fraught as a result of their PTSD from the Program. He also admits that he never told Noriko he loved her, "even when things were good."]]

** An even bigger one comes when Yutaka [[spoiler: forgives Shinji for accidentally killing one of their classmates, and chooses to stick with him, [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments bringing Shinji to tears as they reaffirm their partnership]]. Cue a barrage of bullets coming from nowhere and ripping through Yutaka's head and Shinji's stomach]].

** Also occurs with [[spoiler: Shinji Mimura and Yutaka Seto. Shinji throws his gun at Yutaka and tells him that if he can't trust him then he can shoot him if he wants to. It leads to a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} where the two cry together]].

** [[spoiler:Hirono Shimizu]]'s manga death.

* FreudianTrio: [[TheMcCoy Shuya]], [[TheKirk Noriko]], and [[TheSpock Kawada]].
* FromClonesToGenre:

* MartialPacifist: Hiroki Sugimura.

* NoseTapping: Hiroki does it.

* SayMyName: "Shuya!" "Nobu!" *BOOM*

* ThoseTwoGuys: Yuichiro Takiguchi and Tadakatsu Hatagami.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano, respectively, in the novel.

** In its native country, its influence is more obvious as it initiated the battle royale genre for manga, anime, and visual novels long before inspiring the battle royale game genre for video games in the west. Some examples of such works in the genre include ''Franchise/DanganRonpa'' and ''Manga/Btooom''.

%% ** [[spoiler:Hirono Shimizu]]'s manga death.

%% * FreudianTrio: [[TheMcCoy Shuya]], [[TheKirk Noriko]], and [[TheSpock Kawada]].
* FromClonesToGenre: [[invoked]] Weirdly enough, the genre that it launched wound up being in another medium entirely. The basic story of ''Battle Royale'' [[FromClonesToGenre spawned a whole genre]] of multiplayer shooters known, appropriately enough, as battle royale games, combining a SurvivalSandbox with a "last player standing" deathmatch. Brendan Greene, the creator of ''VideoGame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds'' (the first true hit in the genre), openly described his game as a SpiritualAdaptation of ''Battle Royale''.

%% * MartialPacifist: Hiroki Sugimura.

%% * NoseTapping: Hiroki does it.

* PrisonersDilemma: A major theme all around. While most of them want to cooperate and find a way to survive together, they know that in the minute the game has started they can't trust anyone anymore because anybody could be playing the game for winning and betray everyone (and Kiriyama and [[spoiler:Mitsuko]] absolutely do).

%% * SayMyName: "Shuya!" "Nobu!" *BOOM*

%% * ThoseTwoGuys: Yuichiro Takiguchi and Tadakatsu Hatagami.
%% * TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano, respectively, in the novel.

* AdaptationalHeroism: The film makes a ''lot'' more of the kids refuse to play, attempt to cooperate, or simply killing themselves - the ones who don't off themselves, Kiriyama wipes out, best exemplified in the delinquent gang near the beginning who simply restrain Kiriyama to interrogate him, while telling him they have zero intention of playing the game.

* AdaptationalBadass: A LOT of people in the manga and in the film, but there are some notable ones:
** Shuya:
*** In the manga, he takes a decent one when he stays true to his [[ThouShaltNotKill ideals]] and manages to take out an entire ship of soldiers without killing any of them. Then takes a bullet for Shogo (while wearing a vest admittedly but still). Any scene that shows him with another student generally shows him trying to break up the conflict, despite both students usually being armed. He's also the one who kills Kazuo in this version.
*** In the film he takes out the teacher pointing a gun at Noriko.
** Kazuo Kiriyama:
*** Kiriyama somehow became more of the terminator in the manga. He is responsible for the deaths of 15 students (the most of any version) and takes much more punishment. [[TheAce He also has a talent for learning how to do anything he tries, sometimes just by watching someone else do it.]] This is best exemplified in how long it takes to kill him in the final fight. Shotgun blast to the stomach? Bulletproof vest'll (mostly) take care of it. Shot in the cheek? Knife thrown in the [[EyeScream eye?]] Still going. Shot in the throat? Well that'll kill me in a couple of issues after I have some flashbacks.
*** And then there's the film where he's re imagined as a violent sadist who [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat manages to keep walking after being caught inside an exploding building]].
** Shinji:
*** In the manga, he establishes himself as this by jumping in front of Shuya in the classroom and standing up to the teacher. He also tries to shoot Kazuo after being machine-gunned by him.
*** In the film his bomb blinds Kiriyama.
** Hiroki takes his martial art prowess to a whole new level in the manga, to the point where he almost takes out [[TheAce Kazuo.]] The only reason Kazuo survives the fight is because of his bulletproof vest. Also worth noting is how fast he takes out Oda and calls him out on his WoundedGazelleGambit compared to the novel.
** The film version of Mitsuko came much closer to killing Kazuo then any other version ever did, [[ImplacableMan even after taking 3 bullets, she kept on coming]] until the 4th one stopped her.
** Yukie in the film is the one to shoot Satomi even after being riddled with bullets.
* AdaptationalHeroism:
** Kinpatsu Sakamochi was a sadistic rapist who often cracked jokes at the expense of the students that died in the Program, and gleefully relishes in the Program pushing scared kids into murdering each other. Kitano, his counterpart from the film, while still no saint, is shown to be much more sympathetic - working a job where the students had zero respect for him (one even ''maims'' him), under the heel of a fascist government in the throes of an economic crash, with a family that ignores him at best (and, at worst, a daughter who outright hates him). He even [[spoiler: tried to make sure Noriko won]] [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe because she was the only student that showed respect for him.]]
** Hirono Shimizu, while not evil in the novel, [[{{Jerkass}} she wasn't very nice either.]] In the manga, [[spoiler: she was open to the idea of joining Shuya's rebellion,]] and it was taken even further in the film where she [[spoiler: called Mitsuko out for killing Megumi,]] the latter of whom she bullied in the novel.
** Mitsuko, in the theatrical cut of the film. In the novel, she's a BrokenBird who [[FreudianExcuse was raped and pushed into prostitution]] as a kid, leaving her a sociopathic EmptyShell killing for the hell of it and to get back at a society that hated her (on top of the [[AlphaBitch horrible shit she did to classmates]]. In the theatrical cut, her backstory is still just as traumatic and she was still an AlphaBitch, but nowhere to the levels of her comic or novel counterpart, and it's made clear [[DrivenToMadness the games pushed her to her limit.]]
** The film also makes a ''lot'' more of the kids refuse to play, attempt to cooperate, or simply killing themselves - the ones who don't off themselves, Kiriyama wipes out, best exemplified in the delinquent gang near the beginning who simply restrain Kiriyama to interrogate him, while telling him they have zero intention of playing the game.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Happens to Kiriyama in the film. He goes from an EmptyShell that kills people because he doesn't know right from wrong, to an AxCrazy maniac that [[PsychoForHire signed]] up for The Program for [[ForTheEvulz fun.]]
** Oda in the manga gets his bigoted undertones [[UpToEleven turned into his driving force.]]

* ShowDontTell: There's an entire chapter that both starts and ends with the instructor exclaiming "I'm so busy!" Either this part didn't translate well, or the author could take a lesson here.

** The character of Mitsuko is depicted for much of the film as one of the lead villains (and was played by a well-known teen singing star), but [[spoiler: she's killed off suddenly 3/4 of the way through the movie when she encounters Kiriyama, a student she can't seduce or overpower, and gets shot dead.]].