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The characters of Battle Royale and associated tropes.

Note: Given the nature of the book, it's not a secret that tons of deaths will be happening in one way or another. There may still be unmarked spoilers and Spoilered Rotten moments on this list (especially concerning secondary characters) and even the amount of tropes in a folder might give away crucial information, so proceed with care.

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    The students as a whole 
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Just another day in school.
  • Adaptational Heroism: 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.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Most of the students' crushes are not reciprocated.
  • Anyone Can Die: Anyone can be hit by death, no matter if weak/strong, rich/poor, idealistic/cynical, smart/stupid etc. And many of them are in very gruesome ways.
  • Characters Dropping Like Flies: There are only three days of time and by the end only one person can live, so you can assume that there will be lots of deaths be happening.
  • Children Forced to Kill: They are 9th graders and forced to participate in the game. If there's not one single winner after 3 days, all of them will die.
  • C-List Fodder: All of the students are well-established in the canon but many of them will die after little characterization to have the casualties needed for driving the plot.
  • Explosive Leash: They all get a neck collar while sleeping. These collars will explode if a) they refuse to play the game, b) they are in a danger zone at the wrong time, c) they try to remove it forcefully or d) they are activated by Kitano at will.
  • Involuntary Battle to the Death: They are forced to take part in the program and kill until only one person is left. Kiriyama is the only person who joins the game voluntarily (in the film).
  • Love Dodecahedron: There are so many secret or not-so-secret crushes among them that you could believe that everyone loves everyone. They don't seem to date very much outside of their class. Unfortunately, most of the crushes are unrequited.
  • Luck-Based Mission: The weapons they get fall into three categories, helpful (guns, grenades, crossbows, knives), Difficult, but Awesome / Boring, but Practical (traditional Japanese weapons, tracking devices, Bulletproof Vests) and completely worthless junk (boxing gloves, pot lids, paper fans) to just screw with the players. It's completely random who gets which weapon.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: They all wear their school uniforms during the Program. Exceptions are only: Mitsuko (wears street clothes) and Takako Chigusa/Yukie Utsumi/Yuka Nakagawa (wear their jogging suits). Shogo and Kiriyama wear different kinds of suits, as they're New Transfer Students.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: They're 9th graders who shoot, stab, slice, strangle, poison and blow up their classmates, but they would never do it if they hadn't been forced by the government. Kiriyama and Mitsuko, being sociopaths, are straighter examples, and have the highest body counts among the boys and girls, respectively.
  • With This Herring: Almost all of them go into their adventure with ridiculously little equipment, and even those who get useful weapons won't receive any additional ammo as far as we see (with the exception of Kiriyama who never runs out of bullets).
  • You Are Number 6: While they still go by their real names, all of them are assigned numbers that reach from "boy #1" to "boy #21" and "girl #1" to "girl #21" respectively.

Male Students

    Yoshio Akamatsu 

Yoshio Akamatsu (Boy #1)

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An overweight outcast who was the bullying victim of the class thugs. Despite being a nice, awkward, and harmless guy, the Program derails him into a frightened, psychotic killer.
  • Ax-Crazy: He eventually becomes like this when he snaps from the fear and imagines those who bullied him will try to kill him. In the manga, Shuya almost manages to bring him back to senses, but then the reality of his killing Mayumi sets in.
  • Bows Versus Crossbows: He finds a crossbow in his backpack which he makes good use of.
  • Butt-Monkey: Picked on by Kiriyama's gang before the program
  • Chew Toy: In his class, especially to the bullies like Ryuhei.
  • Combat Pragmatist: With him being boy #1, he basically just waits with his weapon on the entrance of the school that everyone must pass.
  • Gentle Giant: In the manga, Shuya calls him "gigantor".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: He gets killed by his own crossbow.
  • Otaku: Possibly. He's seen playing a video game on the bus.
  • Too Dumb to Live: He's so pathetic that Shuya knocks him down by throwing an arrow (a flashlight in the film) at him.

    Keita Iijima 

Keita Iijima (Boy #2)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_2.png
A whiny "friend" of Shinji Mimura who seeks his protection during the Program. Subject to Adaptational Heroism in the movie.
  • Adaptational Heroism: In the film, in which he's still friends with Shinji and Yutaka and helps them with their plan.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: In the manga. His Kick the Dog moment listed below and his abandonment of Shinji who was attacked by bullies over losing an arcade game only happened in this version. His portrayal in the novel is far more neutral. Here, during the incident in the arcade game, he refused to help Shinji out of fear, not out of petty revenge. He also was a friend of Yutaka in the novel, didn't try to convince Shinji to abandon him and was still on good enough terms with Shinji for everyone else to assume that the three of them allied themselves when they heard about their deaths or saw their corpses.
  • Adaptation Expansion: In the manga, Keita is simply a Dirty Coward who abandoned Shinji over over losing an arcade game. In the film, he's upgraded to being friends with Shinji and Yutaka.
  • Dirty Coward: According to what Mimura thinks of him in the novel and manga.
  • Dissonant Serenity: He is shown to be laughing at inappropriate times. Kitano calls him out.
  • I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: The victim of this in the novel and manga. Shinji accidentally shoots him while trying to chase him off.
  • Kick the Dog: In the manga, he's established as a coward right off the bat, but that's not a complete dealbreaker in terms of audience sympathy — you'd expect this game to bring out the coward in some players. It's when Keita rounds on Yutaka, accuses him of being worthless, and tries to persuade Shinji to abandon Yutaka in favor of Keita that really settles the matter: This kid might not be a Kiriyama, a Niida, or even an Oda, but he's still scum.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Just as Shinji is about to pull off his plan to escape the Program, Keita happens to show up, oblivious to what's going on at the moment. Eventually this all leads ups to Shinji's plan being ruined and getting everyone involved killed.

    Tatsumichi Oki 

Tatsumichi Oki (Boy #3)

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A transfer student who plays sports and is friends with Tadakatsu and Kazushi. He attacks Shuya early on.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: An in-universe example. Shogo, who doesn't know Oki too well, points out to Shuya and Noriko that Oki could have attacked them for a multitude of reasons. For example, he notes that Oki could have attacked Shuya because he misinterpreted Shuya going for his knife as a sign that Shuya was going to attack him.
  • Ax-Crazy: It doesn't take him long to go off the deep end. Bonus points for having an actual axe.
  • Badasses Wear Bandanas: In the movie, he wears a piece of cloth on his head while attacking.
  • Bloody Hilarious: After his death, when he fell face-first on his own machete. Shuya tries to pry loose the machete from his split face, but it won't budge, so instead he shows his respect to Tatsumichi by closing his eyes. But only one eye closes, resulting in a mutilated corpse winking at everybody.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Dies by his own axe, although it's an accident.
  • Machete Mayhem: In the manga, his weapon is a machete instead of an axe.
  • Mauve Shirt: We see a little of his backstory with the class, but not much, since he was new.
  • New Transfer Student: Just started with the class that year.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: In the film, he sits up after his fight with Shuya saying "I'm okay, I'm okay!" with his axe embedded in his head. He falls dead shortly after.

    Toshinori Oda 

Toshinori Oda (Boy #4)

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"I deserve to win! Mine is the superior intellect!"
A rich kid who hates everyone in his class; he clearly has a superiority complex and eerie similarities to the Columbine shooters. It seems like the Program was pretty much designed for people like him, and he relishes the idea of slaughtering the classmates he loathes.
  • Adaptational Dumbass: Oda in the novel was a reasonably competent survivor who used a helmet to force people to shoot at his bulletproof vest. When Kazuo shoots him there, he plans to either wait until he walks away to grab his gun and shoot him, or wait until he goes for his gun to stab him with a hidden knife. In the manga he makes the odd decision to fake a death rattle when Kazuo assumes he's dead. To say nothing of the movie...
  • Adaptational Heroism: He lacks his Rich Asshole attitude and other negative traits in the movie adaptation.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Oda in the manga gets his bigoted undertones turned into his driving force.
  • Ax-Crazy: It only took a little push to make him start killing his classmates.
  • Bulletproof Vest: His assigned weapon, which he makes good use of.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: He gets bullets fired into his crotch in the manga.
  • Death by Irony: In the manga. The boy who prides himself on being sophisticated and considers everyone of a lower social class than him "vulgar masses", even comparing them to cockroaches, gets possibly the most undignified death in the entire manga (see Cruel and Unusual Death above).
  • Death by Looking Up: In the film, he starts cackling gleefully because his Bulletproof Vest and his helmet saved him, but this attracts Kiriyama's attention (he's on the roof). When he looks up, Kiriyama uses his katana.
  • Death from Above: In the film, Kiriyama with a katana does the job from the roof.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: In the film, Kiriyama spectacularly cuts his head off with a katana while jumping from the roof and puts a grenade in his mouth to blow up the clinic.
  • Even Evil Can Be Loved: Late in the manga, we see a quick panel of his family, presumably his father, mother, and older brother, weeping, probably after hearing news of his death. No matter what an evil toad he was, somebody is mourning him.
  • Foreshadowing: In the manga, Oda tries to trick Sugimura and when getting ready to do so moves to protect his "jewels", in case Sugimura lets off a panic shot. Guess where the fatal round of gunfire from Kiriyama hits him?
  • Groin Attack: In the manga. With bullets.
  • Hypocrite:
    • He tries to justify his killing, despite the fact that he shoots first.
    • In the manga he treats the girls with revulsion and says he'd never lower himself to touching them, but when he pushes Hirono into the well, he clearly uses the opportunity to cop a feel.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: He hates to admit that's he's ugly, but he knows it, and despises several of the boys in school for being more handsome than he is, as well as more "vulgar".
  • It's All About Me: He thinks of himself and nothing else. He lets anybody know.
  • Minor Injury Overreaction: "Ow! You broke my finger!" (crippling his ability to play the violin) In the novel, it's a little more understandable: Hiroki returned fire and ended up blowing his ring finger clean off.
  • Off with His Head!: In the film, Kiriyama slices his head off with a sword and stuffs a grenade inside to blow up the clinic.
  • Red Shirt: In the movie adaptaion, Toshinori's only role is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Bulletproof Vest and subsequently provide Kazuo with said vest.
  • Rich Bastard: Looks down on his classmates.
  • Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: He is wealthy but lacks empathy and common sense.
  • Smug Snake: For all his talk of being superior to his classmates, he's nowhere as bright as he thinks he is.
  • The Social Darwinist: He believes he's superior to his classmates and thinks they're all scum.
  • The Sociopath: His internal monologues paint a very nasty piece of work.
  • Straw Nihilist: He thinks that anyone who tries to be altruistic is doomed to failure.
  • Technician Versus Performer: The reason why Shuya was always more popular than Toshinori as a musician. This drives Toshinori up the wall.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Toshinori is not only the most odious student, but among the stupidest.
    • In the film: he shouts out that the reason he survived being shot was because of his Bulletproof Vest. Cue Kazuo Kiriyama jumping at him with sword in hand.
    • In the manga: He decides to fake a death rattle, so Kazuo will come near him and check if he's really dead, enabling Toshinori to shoot him point-blank. Kazuo checks if he's dead by firing a volley of bullets into Toshinori's unprotected crotch.
    • In the novel: No death rattle, but he doesn't realize why Kazuo is coming up to him. Kazuo is just coming up to make absolutely sure that Oda's dead via headshot.

    Shogo Kawada 

Shogo Kawada (Boy #5)

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"In the end...I'm glad I found true friends."
The mysterious New Transfer Student, Shogo is a tough guy who is older than the others and keeps to himself. He's big, covered in scars, and a chain smoker. He was the winner of the previous year's Program (and racking up the highest body count ever seen), and this gives him an enormous advantage when he enters it the second time. A true badass and a survivalist to the core, he has no qualms about killing in self-defense even though his goal is to save his classmates from the Program. He allies himself with Shuya and Noriko early on after killing their attacker, and they go along with him since he knows a way the three of them can escape from the island.
  • Accidental Murder: It's implied that he shot back at Keiko more on reflex than requital.
  • Anti-Hero: Has all the stereotypical traits of one, but his ultimate goal is heroic.
  • The Atoner: His motivation, because he accidentally killed his loving girlfriend Keiko in the previous Program. Not only did he cause her death, but he accumulated lots of guilt by slaughtering dozens of classmates in order to ensure Keiko's safety.
  • Badasses Wear Bandanas: He wears a bandana all the time (to cover a huge scar on his forehead) and is very tough and fearless.
  • Big Brother Mentor: To both Shuya and Noriko.
  • Big Damn Heroes: How he first encounters Shuya and Noriko in the Program.
  • Brutal Honesty: Shogo loves being blunt and deflating Shuya's and Noriko's wide-eyed idealism at every opportunity.
  • Crazy Survivalist: He knows his way through the jungle, knows guerilla tactics and is willing to kill if necessary, although he wants to save as many classmates as possible. In the beginning he's mostly interested in stacking up his arsenal although he starts with a pump gun.
  • Doomed Moral Victor: He dies, though he may well have started the dominoes falling that topple the Program once and for all.
  • Fatal Lovers Photo: Of him and Keiko. He is the last person to die.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Shogo dies with a gentle, peaceful smile on his face, because he now knows what his girlfriend's smile meant.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Shuya is first alerted to Shogo's past by the knife and gunshot scars on his face and arms.
  • Heartbroken Badass: It's pretty clear that he's still hurting over Keiko.
  • Held Back in School: In the film he had to repeat 9th grade several times so government could put him in Battle Royale once again. In both the novel and the manga he was only held back a year due to his injuries.
  • I Lied: What he says to Shuya and Noriko, but it was all part of his plan, he fakes their deaths to be declared the winner of the game and they return to kill Kitano/Kamon/Sakamochi..
  • Improvised Weapon: Wields a metal microphone in the manga and a pencil in the novel, to finish off Kamon/Sakamochi respectively.
  • Instant Death Bullet: Subverted. In every version, Shogo gets shot by Kiriyama near the end of the Program but survives for a very long time (possibly upwards to hours) afterwards, only to die on the boat on the way to the mainland.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Initially very brusque towards Shuya and Noriko, but he warms up to them as the game goes on.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: So very much. Initially, he treats Shuya and Noriko with a casual disrespect even while protecting them.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: The mentor of Shuya and Noriko in the brutal game. Of course he dies saving them.
  • My Greatest Failure: He's torn up inside over his instinctive killing of his beloved Keiko in the last Program.
  • Nerves of Steel: He manages to be one of the most level headed characters in the series.
  • New Transfer Student: In all three versions, though in the film he only "transfers in" when the class has already been abducted.
  • Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Stays alive for an alarmingly long time after being shot by Kiriyama in all three versions.
  • The Plan: The Program of Battle Royale went wrong because Shogo manipulated it as part of his own plan.
  • Power Trio: With Noriko and Shuya. He's possibly the most important member of it, considering his experience.
  • Pyrrhic Victory:
    • He won one of the previous Programs but could not save his girlfriend and was deliberately hold back in school by the government to go through the Program once again.
    • Technically, he is the winner (despite cheating) of this year's Program, and yet he dies on the boat. In a positive note, he's now with his beloved Keiko.
  • Sawed-Off Shotgun: His assigned weapon.
  • Seen It All: He won his first Program, so it's not surprising that he's used to the mayhem going on around him.
  • Shipper on Deck: For Shuya/Noriko because they look cute together and they possibly remind him of Keiko and himself.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Smokes and is cool, though the two aren't exactly correlated.
  • Supporting Leader: To Shuya and Noriko throughout the story, particularly in the movie.
  • Together in Death: With his girlfriend Keiko, although belated: she died in a former Program, he dies at the end of the current Program.
  • Took a Level in Cynic: The Program did a massive number on him, making him colder and more cynical than he used to be.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Played for Laughs in the movie. He chalks his various survival skills down to his father's profession, which changes from a doctor to a cook to a fisherman.
  • Younger Than They Look: In the manga, oh so very much. He's only supposed to be a year older than his classmates, but looks like a war-veteran in his 30s there. Though to be fair, in the novel he is described as being built like a middle-weight boxer, already has stubble at his age and is said that "[...] he look(s) kind of old for a junior high student."
  • Zen Survivor: Of the previous Program in the Hyogo Prefecture. He gained a lot of skills through endless suffering.

    Kazuo Kiriyama 

Kazuo Kiriyama (Boy #6)

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kazuo.jpg
"I don't care. This is fun too."
The top student of the class, he has the mind of a genius but is physically unable to feel human emotions like sadness, compassion or even happiness. When he is forced to kill his classmates in the Program, he is indifferent and really can't decide whether he should unite his friends to lead a rebellion against the Program (and endanger his life), or play the game to win (and also endanger his life). When he decides the latter by a coin toss, he does so without hesitation. In the Film of the Book, he is portrayed as a mute psychopath instead, and voluntarily signed up for the game.
  • The Ace: The novel shows how the students all have unique interests (sports, academics, music, art, fighting) but Kazuo is better than everyone at everything, without even trying. However, he seems to have problems beating Shogo in driving, and Hiroki in martial arts.
  • Adaptation Personality Change: He is highly intelligent but unable to feel emotions in the novel and the manga, where he's also just a victim of the program. In the film, he's a completely Ax-Crazy psychopath who joins the game voluntarily and is much more ruthless and sadistic.
  • Adaptational Badass:
  • Adaptational Villainy: For the film adaptation, Kiriyama goes from an Empty Shell that kills people because he doesn't know right from wrong, to an Ax-Crazy maniac that signed up for The Program for fun.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Members of the "Kiriyama Family" call him "Boss," while Tsukioka playfully refers to him as "Kiriyama-kun."
  • Ax-Crazy: Only in the film. He runs around like crazy and kills anybody he encounters with his machine pistol.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: He's intelligent enough to master fields of knowledge from biology to martial arts, combining them to deadly effect once the game starts.
  • Badass Bookworm: In the manga he even kicks ass with a book. He's even called bookworm boy by a martial artist... who he proceeds to beat.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: His dress shirt and his black coat that hangs off his shoulders, creating a Badass Cape effect.
  • Battle Aura: In the manga.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: He doesn't speak very often (he has no lines in the movie), but once The Program starts and he pulls out the guns...
  • Big Fancy House: Lives in one.
  • Big Good: Obviously averted, but he could've easily become this with the coin toss.
  • Blood Knight: In the movie, he takes part in the game voluntarily, so he seems to enjoy a good fight. Averted in the other versions, since he is forced into the game against his will and doesn't really seem to care.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Never seems to have to reload his machine pistol; it makes him all the more deadly as ammo never seems to be an issue for him.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: He's The Ace despite putting no effort into anything.
  • Broken Ace: Yes, he's the closest thing to perfection, but he doesn't have single bit of empathy or emotion. All of his success doesn't even mean anything to him; whenever he masters something new he just tosses it into the trash.
  • Bulletproof Vest: He gets it from Oda, and it comes in VERY handy when Mitsuko tries to slice him up in the film.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Happens very often to him. A good number of characters like Mizuho Inada and Shinji Mimura end up underestimating the same guy that fought Yakuza just for fun.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Every time he seems to be beaten, the story reminds you that he still has the Bulletproof Vest.
  • Coat Cape: It makes him look like Dracula.
  • The Coats Are Off: In the manga he takes it off for a while while fighting Hiroki.
  • Creepy Child: In the manga after losing his emotions.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Almost all of his fights are this despite the fact that he's often outnumbered and has inferior weapons. In the film, he guns down four students that each held more dangerous weapons than his paper fan. In the manga, he defeats an upperclassman easily with a book, and in the novel he even does this to Mitsuko.
  • Determinator: Averted. While he may be an Implacable Man that keeps on getting up, he has no drive or spirit to do anything. He pretty much spent his whole life not trying, yet still manages to be The Ace.
  • Dissonant Serenity: In the film there's one scene wherein he smiles with joy while people are firing at him.
  • The Dreaded: The rumors of his insane body count spread fast to the point where Shuya immediately assumes Kiriyama is on a killing spree upon catching wind of either gunshots or students' deaths. Sugimura spends most of their fight trying to overcome his fear of him.
  • Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: His eyes are described as this even in the novels.
  • Dull Surprise: Somewhat justified in the manga since he doesn't have emotions.
  • Empty Shell: He is completely without emotions. Justifed in the novel, Kiriyama suffered a major brain injury when he was a fetus, resulting in him to be born without emotions whatsoever. In the manga, he suffers this injury as a child.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Tsukioka towards Kiriyama.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Shogo in the film. Both are transfer students who are older than the others in the class and have had experience with the Program before, but Shogo is much nicer by comparison. They even end up killing each other; Shogo's shotgun blast kills Kiriyama, while Kiriyama's haphazard machine pistol shots fatally wounded Shogo.
  • Evil Redhead: In the film, he has reddish-orange hair.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: In the novel, he's described as only Shuya's height at best. Averted in the manga and film versions in which he is clearly taller than most of his classmates.
  • Eye Scream:
    • In the manga, it's revealed in flashback that the class' former judo teacher withdrew after Kiriyama casually plucked the man's eye out and popped it in front of the entire class! Later, he blinds Sugimura in the left eye with one of his own throwing knives. It finally comes full circle when Shuya uses one of the same throwing knives (left for him by Sugimura at the lighthouse) to take out Kiriyama's left eye.
    • In the film, he's blinded when Shinji's bomb explodes in his face.
  • Fantastically Indifferent: Very much so. He shows no surprise at being placed in the Program.
  • For the Evulz: In the film, he enters the Program for fun. He can't gain anything from it, as there is no prize or promotion for the winner. He just likes the killing.
  • Four Is Death: He comes in 4th place in all versions.
  • Flanderization:
  • Freudian Excuse: In the novel and manga, Kazuo's sociopathic behavior is attributed to the brain damage he received from an accident as a fetus(novel)/child(manga). He has no such excuse in the movie.
  • Game-Breaking Injury: He's blinded by Shinji's blast in the film. Not that it makes him any less formidable.
  • Handicapped Badass: Even blinded by explosives and staggering from the burning aftermath like a zombie, he's a force to be reckoned with.
  • The Heavy: This stone-cold killer is the single greatest threat to the three heroes' plan to escape the Program, ruthlessly gunning down anyone who could have helped Shuya and co.
  • Hero Killer: Whenever he shows up, expect the person you are rooting for to be dead. Only Hiroki manages to fight him to a draw and escape.
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: Implied. Since Kiriyama has no drive to do anything, the whole time he was in The Program he wasn't trying his best at all. He fights evenly with Hiroki while wearing a heavy Bulletproof Vest.
  • In-Universe Nickname: He's called the machine gun killer for quite some time.
  • Implacable Man: It's not just that he gets a bulletproof vest. He displays resistance that's almost inhuman.
    Shuya: It's like a fucking horror movie! He just keeps getting up!
  • Japanese Delinquents: Numai made Kiriyama the "boss" of "The Kiriyama Family." It should be noted he's not a bully or even a troublemaker, but simply the leader.
  • Just a Kid: Most of his opponents claim he's this despite his skills.
  • Ki Manipulation: In the manga, he learns how to do this by copying Hiroki's techniques.
  • Kick the Dog: He literally kicks bodies in the film. Averted in the novel, since he's described as gently taking his victim's weapon.
  • Lack of Empathy: To Kazuo, human lives are about as interesting as rocks. Justified in the manga and in the novel due to nerve damage. This is constantly lampshaded in the manga and novel.
  • Moment Killer: A walking embodiment of Deliberate Destruction type of this trope in the manga. Whenever a character or couple is going through some emotional moment or speech, you can count on Kiriyama to come in and kill every character in the room with brutal machine-like efficiency.
  • More Dakka: His main strategy is spraying his target with bullets. In the film, even while his targets are lying on the ground he just sprays them with even more bullets, far more than necessary.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Devil of Nothingness".
  • Nerves of Steel: Justified in the novel and manga, and played straight in the film. He's seen with a straight face when Shuya's friend dies.
  • New Transfer Student: In the film. This is why people underestimate him.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Possibly the creepiest character in the series since he considers killing people the same as playing an instrument due to his Lack of Empathy. Also in the film, since he signs up to kill high school kids he doesn't even know.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: He looks suspiciously similar to Johnny Rotten with his wild hair and is of course completely crazy (in the film).
  • No Kill like Overkill: The way he kills many people, especially Shinji.
  • Not So Stoic: The closest thing to emotion he showed in the novel, was slightly gasping when Hiroki knees him. In the manga, he has a full on mental Freak Out when Noriko shoots him and triggers his emotions again, alternating between agony at the rush of emotions and mentally screaming "fucking bitch shot me!"
  • Number of the Beast: His designated number is six and manages to claim the highest kill count in all versions. He's even called a "Devil of Nothingness" in the manga, further reinforcing the connection.
  • Offhand Backhand: How he kills Mizuho Inada in the novel and manga.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Happens for a short time, when he comes Out of the Inferno in the film.
  • Ominous Opera Cape: In the manga, his uniform looks much more like this by the end.
  • Out of the Inferno: In all three versions Shinji's suicide attack does not kill him, and he just walks away as though nothing happens.
  • Paper Fan of Doom: His assigned weapon in the movie, although he drops it very soon.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: In all three versions, he has the single highest body count once the story concludes, with no less than 12 other students dead by his hands.
  • Psycho for Hire: He takes part in the game voluntarily (in the film), although he can't gain much from it, as there's no prize money.
  • Psycho Knife Nut: His starting weapon in the novel is a knife. He uses it to kill his gang and later against Hiroki.
  • Red Baron: In the manga, he's called a "Devil of Nothingness".
  • Rasputinian Death: No matter which adaptation you choose, Kazuo Kiriyama does not die easily. In the film, he's blinded by an explosion and then shot multiple times until his collar explodes. In the novel, he bails out of his car as it rolls over, is shot in the chest by Shogo, shot in the face by Noriko, and then executed by Shogo at point-blank range. In the manga, he survives the car crash, takes a shotgun round to the chest, a .38 round to the cheek, a throwing knife into his left eye, and finally another bullet in his throat.
  • Sadist: In the film. When he kills Yukiko and Yumiko, he holds the megaphone very close to their mouths so that their dying cries of pain are audible for everyone, then he shoots them again.
  • Slasher Smile: In the film, he gives a particularly amused grin when Shuya shoots him the chest, which is protected by a bulletproof vest. Averted in the novel and manga in which he never smiles at all.
  • The Sociopath: In the novel and manga, he has no emotions or drive to do anything, while in the film he's a sadistic monster.
  • Smug Super: In the film he reloaded his gun right in front of Shuya just because he knew his vest would protect him.
  • Spanner in the Works: Oh, god. Let's see, just by deciding to play the game he ruins the heroes' chances of joining with him, Shinji's plan to stop the BigBad, and comes very close to stopping Shogo's plan.
  • The Stoic: In the film. Exaggerated in the other versions.
  • Unable to Cry: He doesn't have emotions... In the film, he does have Tears of Blood.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Non-stop. A reoccurring event in the novel is that everyone believes they defeated him, only for him to calmly get up since he's protected by a bulletproof vest. Being a Bookworm makes him the targets of bullies in the manga especially. In the film, the delinquent gang led by Mitsuru Numai try and intimidate him with guns. He disarms them and guns them down in about thirty seconds, then in the manga and novel he easily defeats the upperclassmen that curbstomped Mitsuru.
  • Unflinching Walk: In all three versions he survives Shinji's explosion and proceeds to come Out of the Inferno.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Only in the manga. In the novel, Kazuo was emotionless from birth.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Again, only in the manga. Being shot in the frontal lobe somehow caused him to regain the emotions he'd gotten used to not having, as well as causing him to feel the trauma of his mother's death for the first time. He proceeds to completely melt down.
  • The Voiceless: In the film he actually seems to be mute.
  • Wild Hair: In the film only, inverted in the novel and manga.

    Yoshitoki Kuninobu 

Yoshitoki Kuninobu (Boy #7)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_7.png
"Hey Shuya, I got a crush on someone."
Shuya's oldest friend, who is like a brother to him. He is nicknamed "Nobu", and is a part of the Five-Man Band that also includes Shuya, Shinji, Yutaka and Hiroki. He dies before the Program even starts, because Kamon/Sakamochi pressed his Berserk Button and used it as an excuse to shoot him. Originally, Noriko is his love interest, but as he dies he asks Shuya to keep her alive.
  • Affectionate Nickname: He is called "Nobu" by Noriko in the novel and by Shuya in the film.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Has a crush on Noriko, who likes Shuya.
  • Berserker Tears: In the manga, when Kamon says he raped Ms. Ryoko.
  • Boom, Headshot!: This is how he dies in the novel and manga.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Noriko doesn't learn of his feelings until after he dies.
  • Decoy Protagonist: We are led to think that he and Shuya will survive together in the manga but he dies in chapter 3.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Was this with Shuya, since they grew up in the same orphanage.
  • I'll Kill You!: Shouts this towards Sakamochi/Kamon when the latter claims to have raped Ryoko Anno.
  • Lucky Seven: Subverted. He's boy # 7, but he's the first boy killed. And that happened even before the Program officially started.
  • Press Start to Game Over: A rare non-videogame example, he dies before the game even starts.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: Along with Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, he's killed before he even leaves the classroom.
  • Trauma Button: He snaps when the Big Bad boasts about raping Ryoko Anno, his orphanage caretaker since childhood and surrogate mom.
  • Your Head A-Splode: In the film, Kitano kills him by activating his collar, although it's more his throat that explodes than his head.

    Yoji Kuramoto 

Yoji Kuramoto (Boy #8)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_8.png
The over-sensitive, surly boyfriend of Yoshimi Yahagi.

    Hiroshi Kuronaga 

Hiroshi Kuronaga (Boy #9)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_9.png
The fat guy in the delinquent gang, who doesn't do much.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Was obese in the novel and manga, but was slimmed down in the film.
  • Everyone Has Standards: As with most of the Kiriyama family, he does not want to partake in the Program and is more interested in escaping with the gang.
  • Fat Bastard: The most heavy-set in Kiriyama's gang.
  • The Generic Guy: He doesn't get many distinctive features in the film. In the novel, he's referred to as a nobody tagalong.
  • Japanese Delinquents: Along with the rest of the gang.
  • Mauve Shirt: Doesn't get much development. Even in the novel, he's referred to as someone who just sort of hangs around the gang.
  • Paper Fan of Doom: His "weapon" in the book.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He's already dead by the time Mitsuru arrives at the meeting spot.

    Ryuhei Sasagawa 

Ryuhei Sasagawa (Boy #10)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_10.png
The loudest member of the gang, although a cowardly bully. He is issued with the most powerful weapon in the Program: an Ingram M10 machine pistol.
  • Berserk Button: In the manga, the sounds of Yoshio Akamatsu's handheld videogame are Ryuhei's Berserk Button.
  • The Brute: In Kazuo's Five-Man Band.
  • The Bully: The one who picks on Akamatsu the most.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
    • He did this to Shogo Kawada in the locker rooms after he first came to the school. Nobody knew exactly what Shogo did to him, but Ryuhei was in tears and ran back to Kazuo, who didn't do anything.
    • In the film, he actually points his SMG at Kiriyama's head. He obviously didn't know just how dangerous he is; as one spit later to his head, his gun is taken and everyone at the meeting but Kiriyama dies.
  • Everyone Has Standards: As with most of the Kiriyama family, he does not want to partake in the Program and is more interested in escaping with the gang.
  • Japanese Delinquents: Even before joining Kiriyama's gang.
  • Spell My Name With An S: "Ryuuhei" in the original Japanese.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The incident where he points his gun at Kiriyama in the film. He had no idea that Kiriyama joined Battle Royale voluntarily.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He's already dead by the time Mitsuru gets to the meeting spot.

    Hiroki Sugimura 

Hiroki Sugimura (Boy #11)

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hiroki_image_9863.jpg
"You were my rock. You made me what I am."
The most quiet and reserved guy in Shuya's clique, although an incredibly powerful fighter. He is a martial arts expert but a Gentle Giant pacifist who never fights unless he is forced to. Hiroki is very shy and reserved around girls, earning him Shinji's teasing, but has a near-obsessive love for his classmate Kayoko Kotohiki. In the Program, he refuses to join up with Shuya but instead sets off on a search for her.
  • Adaptational Badass: Played with in the manga, in which Hiroki takes his martial arts prowess to a whole new level to the point where he can manipulate ki. Also worth noting is how fast he takes out Oda and calls him out on his Wounded Gazelle Gambit compared to the novel. That said, in the manga, Kiriyama decisively defeats him in hand to hand, and Hiroki is forced to use guns in a surprise attack to beat him, which doesn't work due to Kiriyama's bulletproof vest whereas in the novel, Kiriyama is a tough fight, but Hiroki finds an opening in the martial arts fight to take out Kiriyama and only loses because of Kiriyama's aforementioned bulletproof vest and subsequent surprise attack. Basically, Hiroki is an Adaptational Badass in the manga, but the problem is that Kiriyama is an Adaptational Badass there as well.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed in the film since he does save Shuya from Kazuo in this version, but his martial arts fight with Kazuo from the novel is omitted here.
  • Always Save the Girl: Spends the game looking for both his childhood friend and his crush.
  • Badass Bookworm: He's one of the few that can stand up to Kiriyama and is seen reading in the novel.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In the manga and movie, Sugimura is the one who rescues Shuya from Kiriyama.
  • Boring, but Practical: His tracking device cannot keep up with the coolness of shotguns, machine pistols, and hand grenades, but as he can see where all the other characters are, he can walk around pretty safely.
  • Break the Cutie: His best friend Takako Chigusa dies in his arms, and he spends the entire story searching for Kayoko Kotohiki to confess his love. Unfortunately, she fatally shoots him by accident. They end up dying together, thanks to Mitsuko Souma in the film.
  • Death by Pragmatism: He clearly takes the most precautions and thinks the most ahead. He still dies by the hands of the girl he loves.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: To Kayoko Kotohiki. She shoots him because she doesn't know what he's trying to tell her.
  • Cute Kitten: In the manga, this is how he and Kayoko Kotohiki had their first conversation.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the film he gets much less of a focus.
  • Determinator: He gets stabbed by Mitsuko and wounded by Oda's bullets and still continues to fight Kiriyama.
  • Eye Scream: It happens to him in the manga.
  • Gentle Giant: He's the tallest in the class, yet he's a Martial Pacifist.
  • Hope Spot: His battle with Kazuo Kiriyama in the novel and manga.
  • Ignore The Fan Service: He's the only guy besides Kiriyama that doesn't completely fall for Mitsuko's tricks. Unlike Kiriyama, however, he's more visibly uncomfortable.
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: His reaction to stray cats (and to Kayoko Kotohiki).
  • Ki Manipulation: Learns how to do this in the manga and uses it for Super-Senses and for enhancing his attacks.
  • Lethal Joke Weapon: His assigned weapon is a tracking device that tells him the location of every other student. Despite having no offensive capabilities, it quickly turns out to be one of the most useful weapons distributed.
  • Love Confession: He admits this to Kayoko just before he dies, even calling her by her first name.
  • Love Hurts: Doesn't get much more painful than having the girl you like shoot you when you've spent the whole Program looking for her so you could confess your love.
  • Martial Pacifist: He doesn't like fighting, even when others are trying to kill him.
  • Nice Guy: Considering his skills, he likely would've made short work of his classmates were it not for his infallible moral code.
  • Nose Tapping: In the manga, he does this when he's unsure (which is pretty often).
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: In the manga, Kazuo is clearly the superior martial artist despite Hiroki's dedication to martial arts. Averted in the novel where he narrowly manages to beat Kazuo.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: His quest to save Kayoko ultimately ends like this. After all the hell he goes through trying to find and protect Kayoko (which includes multiple run-ins with murder-machine Kiriyama), not only is he unable to escape with her, but she is senselessly killed shortly after him. When he finally finds her, she doesn't trust him and fatally shoots him. In spite of this, he tells her how to contact Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada so she can escape with them. She becomes so guilty and heartbroken that she just weeps over his body until Mitsuko sneaks up behind her and kills her.
    • It's even worse in the manga, where he manages to convince Kayoko that he wants to escape with her, and she even appears to return his feelings, but they run into Kiriyama before reaching Shuya and the others. He then throws everything he has into his fight with Kiriyama, but is still defeated and killed along with Kayoko.
  • Technical Pacifist: He refuses to take a gun and is genuinely concerned with only using his martial arts in self-defense because he's afraid that if he gets seriously violent, he'll enjoy it.
  • Technician Versus Performer: Hiroki is a performer who fights furiously to defend the girl he loves, while his opponent Kazuo is a technician who is all skill and no passion.
  • The Quiet One: He's not very chatty.
  • Together in Death: With Kayoko Kotohiki, after she shoots him and is killed herself by Mitsuko.

    Yutaka Seto 

Yutaka Seto (Boy #12)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_12.png
"SHINJI, YOU'RE AWESOME"
The male class clown and Shinji Mimura's loyal friend throughout his story arc. Yutaka admires Shinji to the point of Ho Yay, although his clumsiness ends up causing problems for them both.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Towards Izumi in the novel, Fumiyo in the manga.
  • The Cracker: In the film, he manages to hack into the computer system alongside Shinji Mimura and Keita Iijima.
  • Go Out with a Smile: In the manga. Actually it's probably just about the least unpleasant death out of all the students. It was a clean kill and he doesn't even seem to have had time to notice the bullets.
  • I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Platonically, but a flashback in the manga shows that this was Yutaka's reaction to Shinji befriending him.
  • Joke Weapon: A fork. He tried to intimidate someone with said fork.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Deconstructed over the course of Shinji's plot thread, as both characters come to seriously question what value Shinji can possibly find in Yutaka and why he keeps him around.
  • Reckless Sidekick: Yutaka seriously wonders why Shinji hangs around him. Ironically, what forces him to confront Shinji about it is recklessness on Shinji's part.
  • Tender Tears: Chokes up whenever Shinji says something kind to him. The two of them being best friends, this happens so frequently that Yutaka jokes, "if you stick around with a crybaby like me you'll end up drowning before we escape."
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Yutaka actually does show some brass and call out Shinji for an action Yutaka considers heinous... too bad it takes Shinji kinda-accidentally-kinda-not murdering Keita to push Yutaka to this point.

    Yuichiro Takiguchi 

Yuichiro Takiguchi (Boy #13)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_13.png
"I've always thought you weren't as bad as everyone said you were. Even if you'd done bad things, I was pretty sure you did them because you couldn't help it, because there was some reason behind it that wasn't your fault."
A big anime fan who is seen as an Otaku by his class, Yuichiro very easily sympathizes with other people.
  • Adorkable: An In-Universe example. The novel describes him as having a cute, boyish face (a detail that the manga really captures), and he's an otaku who gets flustered easily, as seen when he nervously frisks Mitsuko for weapons and when Mitsuko later flirts with him.
  • Batter Up!: His weapon is a baseball bat, which Mitsuko beats Tadakatsu to death with in the novel.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: The little guy to Tadakatsu's big guy.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the film he's shown for only about a few seconds.
  • The Empath: He's pretty much the only person that could even tell Mitsuko was a Broken Bird without even hearing her backstory.
  • Fat and Skinny: Is this with Tadakatsu in the film.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: As Tadakatsu is about to shoot Mitsuko, Yuichiro steps between them and takes the shots himself.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: In the manga, while he was writhing on the ground in agony after being shot by Tadakatsu, he got raped by Mitsuko until she killed him by stabbing his face with her sickle.
  • Kill the Cutie: And killed rather gruesomely in the manga.
  • Male Frontal Nudity: In the manga, when Mitsuko rapes him.
  • Morality Pet: To Mitsuko. She still kills him, unfortunately, but she's much less ruthless about it in the novel. In the manga, on the other hand...
  • Nice Guy: In the novel and manga, he's the only one to even come close to connecting with Mitsuko. In the novel, she's almost legitimately sad when she puts him out of his misery.
    Mitsuko: You were pretty cool. You even made me a little happy. I won't forget you.
  • Odd Friendship: The nerdy Yuichiro and the athletic jock Tadakatsu are a very unlikely team.
  • Otaku: He's into video games and anime.
  • Red Shirt: Is this in the film thanks to being Demoted to Extra.
  • Schmuck Bait: He's stupid to enough to fall for Mitsuko's plan to pretend to seduce them and gets sliced with her kama.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Tadakatsu's manly man.

    Sho Tsukioka 

Sho Tsukioka (Boy #14)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_14.png
"I have a name like a celebrity's, but I'm just a Plain Jane."
The only openly gay student in the class, Sho is a flamboyant and somewhat vain person who is a member of Kiriyama's gang. His ultra-macho clique are obviously uncomfortable being around him, but Kazuo tolerates Sho due to sheer indifference.
  • Bury Your Gays: Invoked in the English adaptation of the manga. His file notes that he is "not to leave the island alive under any circumstances". Also, Word of God has stated that there are anti-homosexual laws in the Republic of Greater East Asia.
  • Camp Gay: Not so much in the novel and never mentioned in the film. But it's prominent in the manga, where he is depicted as slimy and leering with a pompadour haircut and uncontrollable giggling.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the film. His only purpose in the movie is to be one of the guys who's shot by psycho Kiriyama.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: In the manga, it is outright stated that even if he wins, he won't be allowed to leave. The government considers his homosexuality unacceptable.
  • Gayngster: His aspiration.
  • Japanese Delinquents: Along with the rest of the gang.
  • Little "No": In the manga, before his collar explodes.
  • Macho Camp: Although Sho is stereotypical, he's also a tough member of Kiriyama's street gang who happens to be gay.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: He bears an uncanny resemblance to Elvis Presley in the manga.
  • Oh, Crap!: When Kazuo tricks him.
  • Oral Fixation: Fond of licking cigarettes.
  • Out-Gambitted: In the novel, Kiriyama figures out he's being followed, but instead of just gunning him down tricks him into staying for too long in a forbidden zone.
  • Red Shirt: Is demoted to this in the film.
  • Stalker with a Crush: He muses on having stalked several men who caught his eye. Uncommonly for this trope, it's played as a sort of Chekhov's Skill — by doing so, he gained useful experience in following without being noticed. Too bad he wasn't good enough for Kiriyama.
  • Victory by Endurance: His plan to win boils down to this — follow Kiriyama at a distance, hope he takes some serious injuries in the course of taking out everyone else, then kill him when it's just the two of them left.
  • Your Head A-Splode: The only student to fall victim to the danger zones, via Explosive Leash.

    Shuya Nanahara 

Shuya Nanahara (Boy #15)

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shuya.jpg
"They got to you. Too late again! Dear god in heaven...do I get to save anyone?"
The male protagonist of Battle Royale, and an orphan. He has not been in the class for a long time. His father was killed for opposing the totalitarian government, and his mother died. Because of the latter, no one wanted to have Shuya, so he ended up in an orphanage, where he grew up alongside his best friend Yoshitoki "Nobu". He is a very optimistic guy, and an aspiring rock musician (rock is outlawed). A Wide-Eyed Idealist who tries to see the good sides in everyone, he makes friends easily and is quick to trust other people.
  • Action Survivor: Goes from unwilling to kill any of his classmates to killing several soldiers in the novel.
  • Actual Pacifist: Shuya really doesn't want to play the game. The few times he actually does kill it's either by accident or as a final resort. This goes away in the sequel.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • In the manga, he takes a decent one when he stays true to his 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 doesn't hesitate to shoot Kitano for pointing a gun at Noriko.
  • All-Loving Hero: The guy is so innocent and wonderful, he actually manages to convert several crazy or paranoid classmates by giving them emotional speeches (before they all die anyway...).
  • Always Save the Girl: He only seriously fights back against Kiriyama when he hurts Noriko.
  • Badass Pacifist: It's very easy to forget that the pacifistic Shuya is a star baseball player. In the novel, only Shinji and Kiriyama can match his athleticism and Sakamochi notes that Shogo has an advantage with Shuya as one of his allies. In the novel and manga, Shuya knocks out Yoshio by throwing an arrow at him, catches and throws away a grenade in midair, and manages to break through a door despite his injured state in an attempt to stop the fight among the lighthouse girls.
  • Break the Cutie: Let's see: His mom abandoned him and dad committed suicide in the film.(In the book they die in a "car accident".) His best friend is killed before his eyes and he's led to believe his foster mother has been raped. He then has to witness and reluctantly be part of the slaughter of his classmates. And even though he escapes he's being hunted by the government. Sucks to be Shuya.
  • Chick Magnet: Let's see, there's Noriko, Yukie, Yumiko, Yukiko, Megumi, Hirono (in the manga)...
  • Clueless Chick-Magnet: While he suspects that Noriko may like him, before she makes it obvious, he has no idea about the other girls. He even lampshades his obliviousness in the novel, after Yukie confesses her feelings to him.
    Shuya (thinking): How popular can one guy be without noticing it?
  • Faking the Dead: In all three versions, Shogo fakes his death together with Noriko to fool the Program crew into believing they are dead. They are back for the final.
  • First-Person Smartass: To a certain extent in the novel. It's not really clear whose point of view we're seeing.
  • Genre Blind: He fails to see that everybody around him is slowly turning into a killer or fall victim. This is why he's an Idiot Hero.
  • Grenade Hot Potato: In the manga and novel, he catches and throws away one of Kazuo's grenades from his friends and himself.
  • Heartbroken Badass: In the sequel. He's clearly taken the deaths of his classmates hard.
  • Heroic BSoD: He has several when he sees the corpses of his classmates and friends. Particularly in the manga, where finding Shinji Mimura's body is enough to almost make him give up.
  • Hero Protagonist: He's the central protagonist and a very heroic person.
  • Hidden Depths: He brought a flask of bourbon with him on the school trip in the novel, implying he's a regular underage drinker, a particularly strange fact considering his personality.
  • Idiot Hero: He and Shogo Kawada frequently butt heads on what to do, but he's rather clueless about everything and is usually the one who has to back down as Shogo is much more Badass and worldly wise than he is.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: No matter how many times he's shown that kids will kill him and Noriko, he still thinks he can rally the remaining to escape and fight back.
  • Joke Weapon: A pot lid in the film. Considering how much of a pacifist he is, it doesn't make much of a difference. Subverted, at least in a defensive way, when he uses it as a shield from Oki's hatchet.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: In the manga and novel with his long hair. Shuya in the movie looks more like an average teenage boy.
  • Lucky Seven: His last name starts with the kanji character for seven. His nickname is also "Wild Seven".
  • Nice Guy: Especially in the manga, but in all three versions, he goes out of his way — stupidly, at times — to avoid violence.
  • Ordinary High-School Student: He appears to be the most "normal" guy in the cast: he is rather nice, naive, idealistic and doesn't want to hurt anyone. He is also quite clueless about the many girls that are interested in him and could very well be the protagonist of any random high school anime.
  • Parental Abandonment: Depending on the version, his mother might have walked out on the family and his father committed suicide (film), his father might have been killed and his mother died of illness (manga), or both parents might have died in a "car accident" (novel).
  • The Power of Rock: How Shuya changed from a straight-laced sports player to a rebellious rock fan.
  • Power Trio: With Noriko and Shogo.
  • The Pollyanna: He holds on the belief that things won't turn out so bad after all. Sneeringly Lampshaded by Shogo, who calls him "Pollyanna with a penis".
  • The Power of Friendship: In the manga this is how he talks Yoshio out of killing him. Seriously.

    Kazushi Niida 

Kazushi Niida (Boy #16)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boy_16.png
"I decided this is a game. So I'm not going to pull any punches."
A football player and Jerk Jock extraordinaire. He is mostly known for his attack on Takako Chigusa, which didn't end well.
  • Abhorrent Admirer: He is after Chigusa but she absolutely hates him. He is not willing to give up.
  • Adaptational Ugliness: In the novel, he was handsome with his bad teeth as the only flaw in his appearance. In the manga, he has an even more hideous personality, and his physical appearance matches up. The movie is a case of Informed Ugliness, as Chigusa tells him he needs to wash his face.
  • Adaptational Villainy: In the manga. The novel or the movie version is far from being a saint, but at least he didn't want to kill Yoshio Akamatsu (it was self-defense in the movie, an accident in the novel). In the manga, it wasn't self-defense and he even gloats that he killed him.
  • Adaptational Wimp: The film version falls into this as he doesn't put much of a fight against Chigusa after threatening and shooting her with the crossbow.
  • Asshole Victim: Takako mutilates him pretty badly before finishing him off, but given how much of a jerk he was, nobody is sad.
  • Beauty Is Bad: Good-looking athlete who is willing to rape his classmates. Inverted in the manga.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: In all three versions. Chigusa gouges out his eyes (novel), then crushes his testicles (manga and novel) or stabs them (movie), and he subsequently dies from two more stomach injuries.
  • Eye Scream: One of the several things that happen to him.
  • Groin Attack: Suffers this at the hands of Takako Chigusa. In the novel and manga, she stomps on his crotch so hard one of his testicles gets crushed. In the film, she stabs him there, twice.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: To Takako Chigusa. When she rejects him he threatens her with a crossbow.
  • Inertial Impalement: In the manga, Takako manages to trip him by kicking him in the leg, causing him to fall onto a crossbow bolt while she held it with the point sticking up, impaling him through the back of his head. It even manages to pierce right through his tongue!
  • Jerkass: His defining character trait. He follows Takako Chigusa around and gets on her nerves whenever possible. He wants to have sex with her and asks her very intimate questions and doesn't leave her alone even when she threatens him.
  • Jerk Jock: One of the class athletes and a major jerk, especially to Chigusa, who he bluntly asks about her virginity.
  • Joke Weapon: He gets a shamisen in the novel and manga and a coat hanger in the movie, but manages to get his hands on Yoshio Akamatsu's crossbow in all three versions, as well as Mayumi Tendo's nunchucks in the novel and manga.
  • Must Not Die a Virgin: He wants to have sex with Chigusa because he believes they'll all die anyway. She refuses and stabs him with her knife.
  • Never My Fault: He meekly defends himself for cutting Chigusa's face by claiming that she made him mad.
  • Personality Blood Types: He has B-type blood. He's selfish, impatient and very much a Jerkass.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: While Niida isn't the Big Bad or even the most dangerous killer, he gets the most gruesome and least dignified death by far.
  • A Real Man Is a Killer: In the manga, he literally gets off on the fact that he killed Yoshio. This is contrasted in the other two as the reality of the game doesn't set in until he accidentally kills Yoshio in self-defence.
  • Red Right Hand: In the novel, he is described as a handsome boy whose only visible flaw is his crooked teeth.
  • Stalker with a Crush: He spread rumors in school that he and Chigusa were dating. He also stalks her in the program.
  • Toothy Issue: The novel describes him as a handsome boy with bad teeth.
  • While Rome Burns: Yes, it's the BR program and everybody is dying, but he's sure it's also a good chance for him to have sex with Takako Chigusa.

    Mitsuru Numai 

Mitsuru Numai (Boy #17)

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"He taught me to be careful what I wish for...I just might get it. Oh, I get it all right."
The actual leader of the "Kiriyama Family" and the original tough guy of the school. Although a schoolyard bully and a teenage delinquent, he has a conscience and says he was never needlessly cruel. Mitsuru was the one who first encountered Kazuo Kiriyama and turned him from a quiet, well-behaved model student into a feared "hard case."
  • Berserker Tears: When he discovers that Kazuo killed the other gang members.
  • Dumb Muscle: Not the brightest bulb in the box as noted by Sho.
  • Everyone Has Standards: He may be a thug, but he refuses to "play" the game and hopes that Kiriyama will find a way to help all the gang to escape the Program.
  • Freudian Excuse: In the manga, his parents were abusive alcoholics.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite his delinquency, he is kind to his female classmates.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: In the novel and manga, he bullies other "tough guys" just to prove he's the hardest of them all.
  • Japanese Delinquents: He leads a gang of them.
  • The Man Behind the Man: To Kazuo. An unconventional example, since Kazuo, the gang's figurehead leader, kills Mitsuru.
  • Oh, Crap!: Despite the fact that Kiriyama obviously killed the rest of the gang, he still refuses to believe it but knows he's completely screwed upon realizing exactly how "hard" Kiriyama is.
  • Rescue Romance: Not quite romance, but he does serve Kiriyama unswervingly after he saves him from bullies.
  • Undying Loyalty: Utterly loyal to Kazuo Kiriyama and immediately believes he will find a way to stop the Program. He realizes far too late Kiriyama cares nothing for him and the others and hanging out with them was probably just the result of a random coin flip years ago.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: In the film, he's among the gang members that try to bully Kiriyama and dies quickly.

    Tadakatsu Hatagami 

Tadakatsu Hatagami (Boy #18)

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A sports jock who used to be best friends with Shuya and, in the Program, forms an Odd Couple with Yuichiro (whom he bosses around). He is the more level-headed and suspicious of the two.

    Shinji Mimura 

Shinji Mimura (Boy #19)

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"You know it, I'm the man."
A star athlete who is popular with the ladies and is very intelligent. He is good friends with Shuya and the "leader" of their clique, which also contains Yoshitoki, Yutaka and Hiroki. More importantly, Shinji was mentored by an uncle who was opposed to their fascist government. As a result, he has computer hacking skills and knows much more about the inner workings of the police state than his classmates, which comes in very handy when he manages to find a laptop in the Program.
  • Adaptation Expansion: His role in the film is expanded.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • 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. In the other versions, Kiriyama hides in a truck to protect himself from the bomb and gets away unscathed.
  • Chick Magnet: In his introduction in the manga, he wonders if he has enough condoms on him to screw the entire crowd of fangirls.
    • Deconstructed in the novel, as Shinji laments that, since he finds it quite easy to pick up girls, he's never felt a real connection with any of the girls he's been involved with, unlike Yutaka with his crush, Izumi Kanai. Twice, he thinks of his little sister, and prays that she will fall in love before she dies, because he knows he won't be able to.
  • The Cracker: Comes close to hacking the government database and deactivating their collars.
  • Deadpan Snarker: In the flashback when three guys try to rob him. "Cash-flow problems? That it? Well, good news, gentlemen. There's a new craze sweeping the streets...it's called 'employment.'"
  • Determinator: In the novel, Kazuo ambushes him and puts at least ten bullets in him, but Shinji keeps on going. See Duct Tape for Everything for a prime example in the manga.
  • The Dog Bites Back: In the film, in retribution for Kazuo killing his friends, Shinji sets off the bomb he created, blinding Kazuo.
  • Duct Tape for Everything: In the manga, after a bullet slices his stomach open, causing his intestines to begin spilling out, he uses this to hold them in.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: In the movie, despite being gunned down by Kiriyama, he still manages to set off his bomb, blinding Kiriyama and ultimately allowing him to be killed by Kawada.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Sho Tsukioka has a major crush on Shinji.
  • Genius Bruiser: Slightly subverted because his grades in subjects other than Math and English were bad.
  • Handsome Lech: He's... slept around.
  • Heroic BSoD: Has a brief one when he accidentally kills Keita Iijima, as he had only intended to scare him off with a warning shot. Yutaka pretty much snaps and calls him out for it, even going so far as to accusing Shinji of playing. Thankfully for Shinji, Yutaka remains by his side, after realizing that Shinji had stuck by him despite all of his screw-ups.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: He blows up a truck to harm Kiriyama, killing himself in the process. It at least blinds Kiriyama.
  • Mr. Fanservice: A very good looking guy.
  • Playful Hacker: Though the situation where we see him hacking is far from "playful".
  • Rasputinian Death: In the novel and manga, Shinji survives multiple bullets from Kazuo and barely escapes the explosion of his own bomb before finally dying to yet another bullet spray from Kazuo. In the manga it appears he was still alive enough after that to leave a message for Shuuya.
  • Sacrificial Lion: He dies around the half-point of the novel.
  • Spanner in the Works: While his attempt to take Kiriyama with him failed, Shinji's explosion does blind him in the film.
  • Stay Frosty: His catchphrase in the manga.
  • Supporting Protagonist: Especially in the film. While his classmates are trying to kill one another or survive, Shinji is comes up with a plan to escape the game. And it almost works had it not been for Kiriyama.
  • Taking You with Me: He attempts to do this against Kazuo Kiriyama after he's been wounded mortally. Needless to say, it failed, though in the film he did succeed in blinding him with the blast so Shogo could finish the job.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Though some of it may be due to his uncle guiding him.

    Kyoichi Motobuchi 

Kyoichi Motobuchi (Boy #20)

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"M-my father is a director of environmental affairs in the prefectural government. How could the class I'm in be selected for th-the Program?..."
The male class president and a nerdy model student. He takes pride in being the second-best student (after Kazuo Kiriyama) and in the fact that his father is a high-ranking government official.
  • Ambiguously Gay: In the manga, he talks about how his father, a government official, didn't take faggots for "the big man".
  • An Arm and a Leg: In the novel and manga, Shogo's first shotgun blast takes off Kyoichi's gun arm. The latter is so insane/freaked out/high on adrenaline that he just runs over to his severed arm and pries the pistol loose for another shot. It doesn't end well for him.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: His tactics when he fights against Shogo. Although he's wounded and Shogo doesn't try to hide his shotgun, Kyoichi still just runs at him. He has no combat training, so still understandable.
  • Ax-Crazy: Becomes this fairly quickly. He uses his revolver whenever he can and is a clear threat to everybody, but he doesn't care very much for his safety.
  • Madness Makeover: When Shuya runs into him again during the Program, it's clear that his Sanity Slippage hasn't done wonders for his sense of appearance - his glasses are smudged, his hair is askew, and (in the manga) he's crying and drooling as he points his gun at Shuya.
  • Nerd Glasses: He sports a pair of very nerdy glasses, akin to Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: He's pretty much there to establish Shogo as a guy who's willing to kill if someone tries to kill him, but not a psychopath like Kiriyama or Mitsuko.
  • Sanity Slippage: Kyoichi's mental derailment begins when he is told that it doesn't matter what his dad's position is, he's still going in the Program.
  • Social Climber: Just like his father, he's obsessed with his career even after the program has begun.
  • Spell My Name With An S: "Kyouichi" in the original Japanese.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: His motivation. He is very proud that his father is a high-ranking government official and wants his aprroval with everything he does.

    Kazuhiko Yamamoto 

Kazuhiko Yamamoto (Boy #21)

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"Even if I were to survive, I couldn't stand being without you. Don't leave me alone."
Sakura's long-term boyfriend who is deeply in love with her. Their relationship is the closest in the class.—-
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: With Sakura in the manga and novel. In the film, it seemed to have more to do with their refusal to participate. Almost amusingly, it looks almost like Sakura actually dragged him off the cliff.
  • Joke Weapon: In the movie, he got a Martial Arts Headband, although he doesn't want to play the game anyway. In the novel, he got a .357 revolver, but he never used it.
  • Suicide Pact: He jumps from the cliff together with Sakura, although it seems to be her idea in the first place.
  • Together in Death: With his girlfriend Sakura, they jump off the cliff at the very start of the Program.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Appears only for some seconds in the film.

Female Students

    Mizuho Inada 

Mizuho Inada (Girl #1)

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The weirdest person in the class, who spends a lot of time in a fantasy world and is possibly schizophrenic. Her friends don't seem to be entirely comfortable around her. During the Program, her weirdness degenerates into complete insanity.
  • Action Survivor: While she doesn't survive, she manages to make the top five (even outliving Mitsuko) in the novel and is the last non-main student alive.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: In the novel; she thinks she and Kaori are space warriors sent to Earth to cleanse it of evil (such as Kiriyama). Some fanfics elevate her into Crazy is Cool, for whatever reason. This is omitted from the film.
  • Fan Disservice: In the manga, she shows up for her final scene wearing only her underwear, apparently as part of her ritualistic throes of madness. The reader is pretty much railroaded into assessing her sexually, but considering she's gone completely bonkers by this point, it's not exactly titillating.
  • Ms. Imagination: She spends most of her time living in a fantasy world, thinking of herself as a beautiful divine warrior. In the Program her mind breaks down and she begins to actually believe in the fantasy.
  • Mutual Kill: In the film. It's implied that she and her former friend Kaori ended up killing each other over a life preserver.
  • Offhand Backhand: How she's killed by Kazuo in the novel.
  • Sanity Slippage: Though it's implied she was slightly nutty beforehand, her pregame student profile explicitly identifies her as schizophrenic. From the manga: In her personal file, Kamon describes her with two words: "A loon."
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: Her whole perspective in the novel just shows her deteriorating mental state.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Her chapter in the novel is only three pages long.

    Yukie Utsumi 

Yukie Utsumi (Girl #2)

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"Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you see why I had to save you, no matter what?"
The female class representative. She's an intelligent and caring girl, often a Team Mom to her friends, but bold and not afraid to speak her mind. Yukie has a massive crush on Shuya, and saves his life at one point. She gathers a large group around her during the Program and they take shelter in a lighthouse.
  • A House Divided: She tries to keep the group together in the lighthouse, but fails.
  • Adaptational Badass: Yukie in the film is the one to shoot Satomi even after being riddled with bullets.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: She likes Shuya, who falls for Noriko. She even has a moment in the manga where she hopes that Noriko doesn't like Shuya, because she knows this will bring them into conflict.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: In the novel and the manga, she confesses her feelings to Shuya while crying about how he nearly died.
  • Class Princess: Yukie Utsumi is a trustworthy, proactive, compassionate, and widely admired volleyball player and student government leader who tries to protect other people during the Program rather than focus on self-preservation.
  • Class Representative: A strong leader in the class.
  • First Kiss: Actually the second one. And the last one as well.
  • Kiss of Death: In the manga.
  • Love Confession: To Shuya in the novel and manga.
  • Team Mom: A shining example, but her one mistake was that she gathered a group too large.

    Megumi Eto 

Megumi Eto (Girl #3)

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A sensitive girl with a crush on Shuya (Shinji in the movie), who is absolutely paralyzed with terror when thrown into the battle. Megumi is one of the "daydreamers" (along with Mizuho and Kaori), and the only one of them who is actually sane.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Has a crush on Shuya in the novel, Mimura in the film.
  • Camera Fiend: Not much is known about her background other than her hobby is taking photographs with her Polaroid camera. She takes many pictures on the bus during the "school trip".
  • I Miss Mom: Spends quite a bit of time thinking about her family before Mitsuko shows up.
  • Mauve Shirt: She gets a few sentences of dialogue before Mitsuko kills her.
  • Nice Girl: Probably the nicest out of her friends. Her main flaw is to be too trusting.
  • Spell My Name With An S: "Etou" in the original Japanese.
  • Static Stun Gun: In the film, she has a taser and threatens Mitsuko with it. It backfires and Mitsuko cuts her throat.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Dies in all versions because she trusts and helps Mitsuko, particularly played straight during the manga where the reason she trusts Mitsuko is that she doesn't believe that Mitsuko is a bad person despite her bad girl reputation(because her delinquent sister was actually a deeply caring person) and tries to comfort her when she feigns tears, which is when Mitsuko slices her throat.

    Sakura Ogawa 

Sakura Ogawa (Girl #4)

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"Even if by some miracle one of us could go back, we still wouldn't be together. Even if ... even if I were to survive ... I couldn't bear being without you."
One of the most attractive girls in the class, and Kazuhiko Yamamoto's long-term girlfriend.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: With Kazuhiko in the manga and novel. In the film it seemed to have more to do with their refusal to participate. In a rather cruel instance of irony, the students approaching them were the Lighthouse Girls, who had no intention of doing them harm.
  • Cherry Blossom Girl: Her name is Sakura.
  • Disappeared Dad: Her father was killed by the police when she was a child for anti-government activities.
  • Four Is Death: She's Girl #4 and one of the first to die.
  • Riddle for the Ages: She refuses to take a backpack with her and so we never learn what her weapon would have been.
  • Suicide Pact: She jumps from the cliff together with Kazuhiko, andit seems to be her idea in the first place.
  • Together in Death: With his boyfriend Kazuhiko, they jump off the cliff at the very start of the program.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: She doesn't get much characterization.

    Izumi Kanai 

Izumi Kanai (Girl #5)

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A privileged girl who gets killed by Kazuo early on. In the novel, Yutaka Seto has a crush on her and is inspired to fight against the Program after hearing about her death.
  • Adaptation Personality Change: In the novel and manga, she's described as a wealthy girl who is still kind and considerate to her classmates. In the film, she's a member of Mitsuru Numai's delinquent gang.
  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the film, when Kiriyama wipes out all of her gang with his Uzi, she attempts to plead for her life, with no success.
  • Dude Magnet: Yutaka and Mitsuru both have a crush on her.
  • Mauve Shirt: Any notes on her character occur after she's been killed in the novel. In the movie and manga, at least she has a few lines, though in the latter case, it's in a flashback..
  • Ojou: In fact, if not in character. Her dad's a town representative.
  • The Smurfette Principle: In the novel and Japanese manga, Izumi was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the English manga, Ryuhei and Hiroshi dragged her there to be raped. In the film, she's actually part of the gang and the only girl in the group.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: She doesn't last long in any version.

    Yukiko Kitano 

Yukiko Kitano (Girl #6)

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"I don't know how much longer I can pretend to be brave."
A nice, feminine girl who is best friends with Yumiko Kusaka, with lots of Les Yay. When they team up on the island, they try to stop their classmates from fighting.
  • Actual Pacifist: She announces over her megaphone that she doesn't want to play the game.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Has a crush on Shuya.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: She used to bake cakes for Yumiko.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Tiny Girl to Yumiko's Huge Girl.
  • Joke Weapon: A set of darts, complete with a board, or a megaphone. In the manga, she gets both. In the novel, she gets the former; in the film, she gets the latter.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Using the megaphone does not end well for Yukiko and Yumiko.
  • One-Steve Limit: In the film. She ain't related to their teacher in any way, although they share the same name. (Yukiko's surname is written as 北野, while the teacher's is written as キタノ.)
  • Pacifism Backfire: In the moment she announces that she doesn't want to play the game she gets sprayed with bullets out of Kiriyama's gun.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly Girl to Yumiko.

    Yumiko Kusaka 

Yumiko Kusaka (Girl #7)

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"I'd forgotten how helping me messed you up. No good deed goes unpunished, eh?"
An athletic tomboy who is in a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with Yukiko Kitano. She is assigned a megaphone as her weapon, and decides to make use of it to get her classmates' attention.

    Kayoko Kotohiki 

Kayoko Kotohiki (Girl #8)

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"Ta-dah! The one and only ki master, Kayoko Kotohiki!"
A playful, dreamy and energetic girl who is Hiroki Sugimura's love interest (although she doesn't find out until very late). She is a waitress at a bar, and participates in unusual activities like tea ceremonies and flower-arranging.
  • Action Survivor: Although she doesn't survive the Game, it's worth noting that she manages to survive a long time all by herself, before reuniting with Hiroki. In all versions, in fact, she survives to the last ten students.
  • Adaptational Heroism: In the manga, along with her Ascended Extra status. While far from being a villain in the novel or the movie, she still shot Sugimura when she thought he was "playing" and wanted to kill her. In the manga, she trusts him enough to not shoot him.
  • Alliterative Name: Kayoko Kotohiki.
  • Ascended Extra: In the novel she only gets a few pages, and a few minutes in the movie, but in the manga she has two whole volumes dedicated to her and Hiroki's storyline.
  • Apologizes a Lot: She is prone to speak his mind before thinking, thus she tends to apologizes right after.
  • Betty and Veronica: The "Betty" to Takako Chigusa's "Veronica".
    • However, she is the eccentric love interest of Hiroki (Archie) and she was also unaware of his feelings towards her; therefore, playing a role similar to Veronica.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: She talks about Dragon Ball Z in the middle of the game.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Manga version. Talking about Dragon Ball Z in the middle of murder game seems quite distorted.
  • Cute Kitten: Has a number of cats at home.
  • Friendless Background: Since she used to spend most of her time working as a waitress in her mother's bar and because of the... uncomfortable experiences with customers, she believed she wouldn't be able to fit into any group of girls. This resulted in making her not being too good at interacting with other people.
  • Genki Girl: In the manga.
  • Go Through Me: Happens rather tragically in the manga, when she refuses to leave Hiroki's side as Kiriyama closes in.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: How she and Hiroki Sugimura would have ended up had they both survived. In the manga, they get to at least team up briefly.
  • I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: In the manga and in the novel, though to a lesser degree.
    Kayoko: "I am just a little troll compared to Takako!"
  • Irony: She runs into a wounded Hiroki toward the end, and since he had been fighting Kiriyama, she assumes he's playing and shoots him. He wasn't. He'd been searching for her to confess his love and take her with him to meet up with Shuya's group so they could escape.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: She has a massive breakdown after killing Hiroki.
  • Oblivious to Love: Played for Drama, she kills the guy who loves her (Hiroki) because she has no idea that he does.
  • Odd Couple: Her and Hiroki. She is more energetic, he's more planning and collected.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: She's very good at this.
  • Together in Death: With Hiroki. In the novel, she even vows to die with him as penance for accidentally killing him. Mitsuko sees to that.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Subverted. She specialized in floral arrangement and was a member of the tea ceremony group. In spite of this, rather than having a proper personality, she is energetic and likes to fool around.

    Yuko Sakaki 

Yuko Sakaki (Girl #9)

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"It's not my fault, it's not my fault."
An extremely shy, sensitive and fearful girl who suffers from depression and becomes part of Yukie Utsumi's group in the lighthouse. The suicidal Yuko is assigned the most unique weapon in the Program, an ampoule of potassium cyanide. She has always hated the sight of violence, and is irrevocably traumatized by the things she sees on the island.
  • Abusive Parents: In the novel, she had a very, very nasty brute of a father, who apparently regarded not just her, but also her mother and elder brother, as punching bags. It was to the point that it was more relief than bereavement when he was killed by a Yakuza thug. The problem here is that seeing Shuya standing over Oki's corpse was redolent of everything her father did, making her obsessed with making Shuya a complete non-threat...
  • A House Divided: Her own paranoia managed to utterly destroy their relatively well maintained group within seconds.
  • Beneath Suspicion: When Yuka Nakagawa dies from cyanide poisoning, the other girls suspect everybody except Yuko because she seems so incapable of doing it. After a wild shootout, a dying Satomi doubtfully asks her if she did it, but she denies it, although it was her to poison the food.
  • Break the Cutie: She's already half-broken when the Program starts, and she suffers even more when she has to see her friends die and it's her fault.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Her thought process is a little... out there. Played for Drama.
  • Cowardly Lion: She manages to poison Shuya's food despite being extremely fearful and shy.
  • Cyanide Pill: Invoked by Kitano and Kamon, as her assigned weapon is an ampoule of potassium cyanide, which she could easily use herself. She instead uses it to attempt murder on Shuya Nanahara, but this goes terribly wrong.
  • Driven to Suicide: When she comprehends what she has done to her friends, she runs up the lighthouse and jumps to her death.
  • Freak Out: When she sees Shuya accidentally kill a classmate. She believes it was murder.
  • Hope Spot: Joining the lighthouse girls seems to be a good decision, but things go wrong from here on.
  • Irony: It is Yuko who survives the lighthouse massacre, even though it was she who involuntarily started it in the first place.
  • Heel Realization: In the novel and manga, once she realizes that Shuya really isn't playing and is genuinely trying to save her life, she breaks down completely.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: She believes that Shuya Nanahara murdered Tatsumichi, and cannot be convinced that it was an accident.
  • Murder by Mistake: She wants to kill Shuya Nanahara with cyanide potassium. Unfortunately, she kills one of her friends, Yuka Nakagawa, who tastes the poisoned food. A wild shoot-out breaks loose in the lighthouse.
  • Murder-Suicide: She kills Yuka Nakagawa by mistake and gets the rest of her friends killed by proxy, then jumps from the lighthouse.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When she realizes that her actions got her friends killed.
  • Nervous Wreck: She is heavily traumatized and super fearful and only makes it that far because she joins the lighthouse girls (before reaching them she just stumbled through the grass in terror). She is terrified by any noise and the other girls have to calm her down constantly.
  • Poison Is Corrosive: Yuko's assigned weapon along with a spring-loaded baton. She uses it to poison Shuya's food, to a horrifying effect.
  • Sanity Slippage: Already frightened by being in the Program, she ends up seeing Shuya's accidental killing of Oki, which sends her over the edge.
  • Shrinking Violet: She is super-shy and only talks very little. This is the reason why nobody suspects her of having put the poison in the food that Yuka Nakagawa tastes.
  • Sickbed Slaying: She wants to kill Shuya with cyanide potassium while he's in sickbed.
  • Spell My Name With An S: "Yuuko" in the original Japanese.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's very sympathetic, but when she witnesses the death of Tatsumichi, she is ready to poison Shuya.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: The underlying theme of her character arc - she's already suicidal from the beginning, gets a weapon that seems to tell her to commit suicide, then it seems that she's changing her mind when she attempts murder on Shuya, but when this fails she chooses death again and nothing is stopping her.

    Hirono Shimizu 

Hirono Shimizu (Girl #10)

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"You're crazy, you know that, right? But a good crazy. I can relate to that."
The Dragon of Mitsuko Souma's little gang, which consists of these two and Yoshimi Yahagi. Her main hobbies are both dealing and using drugs, fighting, prostitution, shoplifting, and bullying those weaker than her. Despite this, Hirono is opposed to the idea of killing her classmates.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Hirono Shimizu, while not evil in the novel, wasn't very nice either. She shot Kaori as soon as she got the opportunity, though it was arguably self-defense. In the manga, she was open to the idea of joining Shuya's rebellion, and it was taken even further in the film where she called Mitsuko out for killing Megumi, the latter of whom she bullied in the novel.
  • Adaptational Dumbass: Also crossing over with Dumb Is Good, in the movie, Hirono calls Mitsuko out on killing Megumi and seems much nicer from her short appearance. She makes a point of not shooting her when she had the chance despite having a pretty good idea she killed Megumi, which allowed Mitsuko to get the upper hand, and the gun, from her.
  • All Just a Dream: Used for tragedy in the manga. When Hirono is wounded and drowning in a well, she has a dream of climbing out of the well, suddenly restored to full health, and joining Shuya and Noriko in their escape from the island.
  • Almost Kiss: It looked exactly like she and Shuya were about to do that when Kaori began shooting.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: In the film, she deduces that Mitsuko killed all of her gang. She confronts her with the fact that Megumi's throat was slit with some kind of sickle and that Mitsuko had started having her period the day prior.
  • Beta Bitch: Much like Mitsuko, she's much more violent than would usually be expected from this trope.
  • Dying Dream: In the manga, she hallucinates Shuya's group coming back for her as she drowns.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: She's one of Mitsuko's friends. a major bully to the other girls, and as mentioned below, kind of a Jerkass, but her internal monologue in the novel makes it clear that she finds killing her classmates to be going too far, and will only use lethal force in self defense if she absolutely has to.
  • Fingore: Clawing at the inside of the well all but tears off her fingernails.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Used darkly in the manga. In the last panel of her Dying Dream, she imagines herself to be reaching out to the heroes with a genuine, happy smile... and then you turn the page to see her drowning face pulled back in a grotesque leer as she sinks into the well. It's one of the most disturbing images in the manga, even if you can stomach the high level of gore throughout most of the story.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Appears to be about to make a Heel–Face Turn in the manga, but circumstances result in her dying instead.
  • Hope Spot: Done three times in the manga, the last one right before we find out it was all a hallucination and she was dying.
  • Japanese Delinquents: A part of Mitsuko's gang.
  • Jerkass: Hirono used to slash Megumi Etou's skirt with a razor and trip her in the stairs, provided Mitsuko with drugs (which she tested on Yoshimi), and didn't seem to be all that bothered about Yoshimi being used as a prostitute by Mitsuko.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Seems to have an interest in Shuya in the manga.
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality: In the manga, at least.
  • Trauma Conga Line: In the manga. She was in a gunfight with Kaori, but stopped when Shuya offered them both a way out of the Program. Unfortunately, neither Hirono or Shuya realized how far gone Kaori was, and letting her guard down got Hirono shot in the arm as she was talking to Shuya, making her flee. The next time we see Hirono, she's starting to suffer from an infected wound, dehydration, or a combination of the two, as she's been forced to use her limited water supply to try and keep her wound clean. Fortunately, she finds a well...only to be ambushed and almost choked to death by Oda, which she narrowly avoids by shooting him point-blank in the chest. She returns to the well to draw water...only for Oda to push her into the well, revealing that his bulletproof vest saved him. Hirono hits her head on the walls on the way down, leaving her with a long, deep gash on her temple, and practically tears off her fingernails trying to get a grip on the stone walls. As she's pleading for her life not to end like this, it starts raining...but she realizes quickly that this means the water level will rise high enough for her to get out of the well. She does so, and promptly encounters Shuya once again, and he even makes good on his promise to help her by disabling her collar. Then it turns out that everything since her initial futile attempt to claw her way out of the well has been the hallucination of a dying Hirono as she succumbs to her cumulative injuries and drowns.
  • When She Smiles: Looks pretty when she smiles in chapter 37 of the manga. Sugimura comments on it as well.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: When she gets into a shootout with Kaori Minami, one of her former bullying victims. Interestingly, some of her remarks to Shuya show that she doesn't want to be shooting, and she explicitly states that Kaori shot first. Even more interestingly, in the novel, she kills the person in question. However, the novel version of Hirono is more of a Jerkass than the other two, so...
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Cannot stand frogs. Fittingly, she is killed by Toshinori Oda, who looks like a frog in both iterations except the movie.
  • Why Didnt You Just Shoot Him: Hirono doesn't shoot Mitsuko when she had the chance, opting to threaten her into admitting she killed Megumi. This allows Mitsuko to get the gun from her and kill her with it.

    Mitsuko Souma 

Mitsuko Souma (Girl #11)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_11.png
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mitsuko_0.jpg
"What's wrong with killing? Everyone has their reasons."
The most feared girl in the whole school. Mitsuko lives in a cycle of abuse, having taken it as a child and now dishing it out. A life of physical and mental abuse has shaped Mitsuko into a Femme Fatale with the psyche of a vengeful child. She is the prettiest girl in her class, and often uses her adorable looks to take advantage of men. She leads a delinquent Girl Posse in school. When Mitsuko ends up in the Program, she becomes one of the most dangerous contestants. Out of the four "villains" in the game, she is the second most dangerous.
  • Abusive Parents: Mitsuko's mother, depending on the version, allowed three men to rape her in exchange for money (novel), allowed one man to attempt to rape her in exchange for money (film), or did nothing to stop her new husband from sexually abusing her (manga).
  • Adaptational Badass: The film version of Mitsuko came much closer to killing Kazuo then any other version ever did, even after taking 3 bullets, she kept on coming until the 4th one stopped her.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: In the novel, she's a Broken Bird who was raped and pushed into prostitution as a kid, leaving her a sociopathic Empty Shell killing for the hell of it and to get back at a society that hated her (on top of the horrible shit she did to classmates. In the theatrical cut of the film, her backstory is still just as traumatic and she was still an Alpha Bitch, but nowhere to the levels of her comic or novel counterpart, and it's made clear the games pushed her to her limit.
  • All Men Are Perverts: She believes this like no one else and exploits it as much as she can by trapping guys for profit.
  • Alpha Bitch: Though in this case, the "alpha" is a bit more traditional. She's pretty violent.
  • Ambiguously Bi: She does mention that she might be "a bit of a dyke" when she tells Takako Chigusa that she really likes girls like her.
  • Ax-Crazy: She poses a serious threat to anybody with her sickle (kama) and is clearly psychologically unstable.
  • Backstory: In the novel, we only see it after she's gunned down by Kazuo, but in the manga and the film it's revealed beforehand.
  • Batter Up!: She kills Tadakatsu by beating him to death with Yuichiro's baseball bat.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mitsuko can play the act of an innocent angel to a T.
  • Break the Cutie: Before the book started Mitsuko wasn't always The Vamp, in fact after being raped multiple times she pretty much loses it.
  • Broken Bird: She's so broken that she's locked in her personal hell and doesn't want to be helped.
  • Creepy Doll: In the manga, she had one in her childhood. It was given to her by her stepfather, who sexually abused her. The doll comes to represent her deteriorating mental state throughout the rest of the manga.
  • Crocodile Tears: She practically weaponizes them. Whenever she can't kill someone by sneaking up on them, she fakes tears and pretends to be a terrified innocent, before killing them the second they drop their guard. In the novel, it only fails when she tries it on Hiroki, since he had previously run into the dying Takako after Mitsuko shot her. He even admits that her act would have probably worked on him had he not heard about Mitsuko's true nature from Chigusa.
  • Dark Action Girl: One of the top killers, only beaten by Kiriyama.
  • Dark and Troubled Past:
    • In the novel, her father disappears before she's born, and her mother winds up selling her to three men who film themselves sexually assaulting her. She confides in a teacher she thinks she can trust, only for him to rape her as well. Her friend witnesses this and spreads rumors that lead to the teacher resigning. When her mother attempts to prostitute her again, Mitsuko fights back, accidentally kills her, and stages it to look like a break-in. She winds up living with distant relatives; their daughter continually harasses her until she falls off a roof. The father defends Mitsuko, and then he begins sexually abusing her.
    • In the film, her mother got drunk and sold her to a child molester while she was very young. She pushes him down the stairs and kills him, so she is next to Shogo (and possibly Kiriyama) already experienced with killing when joining the Program. She is also implied to be a social outcast due to her delinquent status; Hirono calls her out for stealing her boyfriend and prostituting Yoshimi, and her final words are "I just didn't want to be a loser anymore." Most poignantly of all, there is a flashback in the extended cut where she is shown sitting off to one side during a class basketball game while everyone else is standing together and cheering the team on. She excitedly leaps to her feet when Shuya makes the winning basket, but when everyone else rushes the court to celebrate she instead slinks out of the gym, casting a Longing Look back at her classmates before she goes.
    • The manga version is the worst. Mitsuko's parents divorce when she is very young, due to her father having gotten into some unspecified trouble with the government. A distraught Mitsuko tries to convince him to stay, but he tells her that he has to go. Before he leaves, he gives her a toy ring that becomes her most prized possession. Her mother then marries a man who repeatedly rapes and physically abuses her, while her mother does nothing to intervene. Psychologically broken, she winds up wandering the streets and offering herself to random men in the hopes that one of them will love her. At the age of twelve, she seduces a yakuza thug and convinces him to murder her mother and stepfather, sells him out to the police, then goes full-tilt into a life of sex, drugs, booze, prostitution, theft, and robbery before winding up in the Program.
  • Determinator: In all three versions she continues to fight back against Kiriyama despite being injured by his bullets.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Her starting weapon is a sickle (kama). Tough to conceal, requires a reasonable amount of physical strength to employ properly, and certainly not as easy to use as a gun. She still makes very good use if it and even comments that she couldn't do very much with it in the beginning but likes it now.
  • Disappeared Dad: In the novel and the Special Version release of the film. In the manga it's implied her biological father left in order to keep his family safe due to his anti-government activities.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Gets one in the film's special edition; she's first seen sitting on her lonesome and looking bored in a bustling sports hall. Her first appearance in the theatrical version — asleep on the bus ride — reveals less about her character.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: Done chillingly in the manga. Her stepfather gave her a doll as a present before he started raping and abusing her, and this doll reappears throughout the manga as a visual metaphor for Mitsuko's deteriorating mental state. The worse things get for her, the more battered and torn the doll appears. By the time Kiriyama executes her, it's missing an eye, its seams are ripped, and its stuffing is spilling out.
  • Empty Shell: Stated word for word in the novel, heavily implied in the manga.
    Little by little, no, more like in big chunks, everyone took from Mitsuko. No one gave Mitsuko anything. And so Mitsuko ended up an empty shell.
  • Establishing Character Moment: In the film, she identifies herself to a frightened Megumi and the audience by shining a flashlight on her face and pulling out the world's most eerie grin.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the manga, Mitsuko genuinely loves her missing father and still keeps the toy ring he gave her so she'd always feel close to him.
  • Femme Fatale: She pretends to seduce Yuichiro and Tadakatsu so that she can kill them with her sickle.
  • Fille Fatale: She's actually this, but is noted to be physically mature for her age. It gets used against men in her backstory, as a form of blackmail.
  • Fingore: In the manga, Kiriyama shoots all the fingers off her left hand.
  • Freudian Excuse: In all three versions. See Abusive Parents.
  • Girl Posse: She is the leader of a thugette trio who are feared by the other girls in the school.
  • Girl with Psycho Weapon: Her wickedly sharp harvesting sickle (kama).
  • Honey Trap: Uses herself as this in the manga to go after wealthy men and steal their money, knowing that they can't retaliate; an affair with a 15 year old schoolgirl would ruin them far more than her. And drugging her victim to die in an 'accident' if they'll actually harm her doesn't hurt either.
  • I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: An extremely twisted example, but Mitsuko seems to believe this. She used this to fool Tadakatsu and get in position to kill him.
  • I Just Want to Be Loved: In the manga and film, it's heavily implied that Mitsuko really is just looking for someone to love her, even though her warped psyche prevents her from establishing a real connection with other people.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: She invokes it in the manga when she finally comes face to face with Kiriyama, suggesting that he must get off on pain like Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers, and offering to let him "hurt" her.
  • Intimate Healing: In the manga only. She is so psychologically broken that she thought this was what she was doing to poor Yuichiro. Keep in mind, this scene is only in the manga. The original one in the novel is more of a Pet the Dog moment as Mitsuko gives Yuichiro a gentle kiss and then puts him out of his misery since Tadakatsu has already involuntarily wounded him fatally.
  • Japanese Delinquents: The leader of the girl gang at that.
  • Karmic Death: When Kiriyama kills her by blowing her whole face off, he causes her to die looking ugly. Also has elements of Irony.
  • Lack of Empathy: She casually murders her victims without showing any remorse. Subverted in the novel (and to a lesser extent in the manga) with Yuichiro, her Morality Pet, the only character in the story she showed any humanity towards.
  • Let Them Die Happy: In the novel, towards Yuichiro, her Morality Pet. She lies to him by saying that his friend Tadakatsu (whom she killed) ran away after accidentally shooting him, making him believe that he's still alive. She also doesn't reveal to him that she manipulated them all along and gives him a sincere kiss just before killing him instantly with a gun so that her face is the last thing he sees. She makes her reasons clear after killing him, thanking him in her head for his kindness, and promising to remember him.
  • Menstrual Menace: An unusually non-supernatural version in the film. Mitsuko is the most vicious female killer, and she's also established to be on her period throughout the entire game.
  • Morality Pet: Yuichiro serves as this in the novel and manga. He was the only character in the story she showed any humanity towards. In the manga, this is done just to further illustrated how screwed up Mitsuko is.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mostly in the manga, since she's naked or dressed in tight clothing half the time. In the film, she spends a decent amount of time running around in a soaked t-shirt and shorts.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: She plays the game from the start to win and thinks of it of an adventure playground. She has no remorse in any way and doesn't think that killing is bad.
    Mitsuko: "What's wrong with killing? Everyone has their reasons."
  • Nightmare Face: In the manga, there's a very disgusting panel illustrating her face after Kiriyama shoots her in the head.
  • Not So Above It All: The film's special edition ends with the recurring basketball game, which Mitsuko is shown to be suffering through on her lonesome. But when Shuya dunks a triumphant final ball and the sports hall explodes with joy, even she gets swept up in the moment.
  • Pet the Dog: As broken, cruel and damaged as Mitsuko is, she can be capable of genuine emotion when people are legitimately kind to her, even if it won't change her.
  • Pimping the Offspring: The main reason why Mitsuko believes All Men Are Perverts is because (in the original novel) when she was a child, her mother allowed three men to rape her in exchange for money. In the film this was changed to her allowing one man to attempt to rape her in exchange for money and in the manga this was changed to her doing nothing to stop her new husband from repeatedly molesting her.
  • Playing Possum: In the film version of her big showdown with Kiriyama, she plays dead and Kiriyama seems to fall for it. She uses Megumi's Static Stun Gun and her sickle to attack him, but his Bulletproof Vest saves his life and he shoots her.
  • Psychotic Smirk: She laughs quite often, and when she does all of her psychopathy shines through.
  • Rape as Backstory: The victim of an attempted rape (in the film), sexual abuse by her stepfather (in the manga), or raped by three men who paid her mother to, then by her teacher when she told him about it, then by her foster father after she accidentally killed her mother who tried to pimp her out again (in the novel).
  • Rape Leads to Insanity: Being abused for several years has not done Mitsuko any favors in the sanity department.
  • Rasputinian Death: In the manga. Kiriyama throws a bag of broken glass into her face, then shoots her in the right shoulder, right side, and left thigh. Then he blows off most of the fingers of her left hand before finally putting a bullet in her head.
  • Scary Flashlight Face: She shows one when she enters the hut where poor Megumi is hiding out. Currently serves as the page picture.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Since she was very little, she's been using her body to get whatever she wants. In the novel at least, she only started doing this after crossing the Despair Event Horizon.
  • Self-Made Orphan: In the manga, Mitsuko seduced a Yakuza member and had him kill her rapist stepfather and abusive mother before setting him up with the cops. In the novel, she also accidentally killed her mother.
  • Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: In that Mitsuko is the only character in the film to change out of her school uniform and into "home" clothes; she wears a baby tee and a pair of shorts.
  • Sex Equals Love: In the manga, it's implied that her stepfather's sexual abuse has caused her to equate sex with love, and that this is the main reason her psyche is so warped.
  • Sinister Scythe: Her weapon is a kama (= traditional Japanese harvesting sickle that can be used as a weapon).
  • Slasher Smile: She carries it around all the time.
  • The Sociopath: Years of abuse have turned her into a remorseless killer who manipulates people into trusting her. She does have a few emotional attachments in the novel and manga versions, though.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Kitano's assumption is true in her case, she's absolutely Ax-Crazy and believes that the Program is some kind of adventurous playground. She enjoys killing very much. She also shows no remorse and lures people into traps.
    Mitsuko: "I just decided to take instead of being taken. It’s not a question of good or bad, wrong or right. It’s just what I want to do."
  • Tragic Keepsake: In the manga: Her toy magic ring given to her by her real father before he left.
  • Tragic Villain: A manipulative, murderous, cruel sociopath and one of the most dangerous players of the game was once an innocent little girl twisted by abuse, pain and abandonment. Most explicit in the manga when one can barely help but feel for her and wish her life had taken a different track.
  • The Unfought: In the novel and manga at least, she never comes face-to-face with Shuya, Shogo or Noriko.
  • The Vamp: Pretty much how she gets through life, and the Program. At one point she pretends to seduce two guys but has darker plans. However, her strategy fails against Kiriyama and doesn't work well against Hiroki.
  • Villainous Breakdown: She suffers an enormous one in the manga, starting with the moment she rapes a dying Yuichiro, thinking she's giving him Intimate Healing. It all goes downhill from there and she completely snaps and has a mental breakdown while Kiriyama methodically repels and kills her, to the point of fully regressing to a childlike mentality.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She may be depraved, but damn if her backstory wasn't tragic.

    Haruka Tanizawa 

Haruka Tanizawa (Girl #12)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_12.png
The best friend and second-in-command of Yukie Utsumi and one of the lighthouse girls.
  • Butch Lesbian: According to the bonus illustrated Battle Royale: Angel's Border chapter that released 15 years after the novel was published, it reveals that Haruka is lesbian and has a crush on Yukie.
  • Does Not Like Men: According to the manga, she's the one who demanded to ban boys from joining their group (possibly due to abuse in her past). She attributes it to having seen Niida kill Akamatsu, and admits that she may have overreacted.
  • Huge Schoolgirl: Noted to be one of the tallest girls in the class.
  • The Lancer: Of the lighthouse group.
  • Last Breath Bullet: How she kills Satomi, though she's not a villain and Satomi is not exactly a hero in that moment.
  • Taking You with Me: Although she was arguably thinking more in terms of saving Yuko from Satomi.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Yukie in the Angels' Border manga.

    Takako Chigusa 

Takako Chigusa (Girl #13)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_13.png
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chigusa.jpg
"You said this was a game, right? Fine. I'll be your opponent. I won't lose against an asshole like you. I'll give everything I have to erase your existence. Got it? Do you understand? Or are you too stupid?"
A loner but among the most beautiful girls in the school, she is Hiroki Sugimura's best friend and fierce supporter since childhood. Takako's nickname behind her back is "Robo-Bitch" because of her outwardly cold demeanor. Although she is proud, severe and quick to anger, she's unhappy being shunned by the other girls in her class. She is deeply in love with her only friend Hiroki, but he doesn't know.
  • 13 Is Unlucky: She is girl #13. For starters, Takako is in love with a boy who is in love with another girl. In addition, she gets in a fight with Niida, who is trying to rape her, and even when she kills him, she gets shot by Mitsuko for her troubles.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: She loves Hiroki, but knows that he likes someone else.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Makes one to Hiroki while dying in his arms.
  • Attack the Mouth: In the novel, she kills Niida by stabbing him in the mouth with her ice pick.
  • Betty and Veronica: The "Veronica" to Kayoko Kotohiki's "Betty."
  • Blood Upgrade: She goes berserk after being wounded in the face.
  • Death Glare: Just from the way she looks you could tell it's a bad idea to stalk her. She looks extremely grim, dark and dangerous, ready to strike any second, but Niida still doesn't quite get the message.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies in Hiroki's arms after being fatally shot by Mitsuko.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: She finally confesses to Hiroki but he's honest enough to tell her he loves someone else (although there are dubs where he says he loves Takako).
  • Groin Attack: How she saves herself from Niida. She either stomps on his groin (novel and manga) or stabs his balls twice with her knife (movie) and then stabs his stomach.
  • Ice Queen: How most people see her. She is rather reserved and prefers to stay on her own and avoids fighting.
  • Joggers Find Death: Although not right away. She first kills Jerkass Niida and is then hit by a bullet out of Mitsuko's gun. She dies in the arms of Hiroki.
  • Passionate Sports Girl: She goes jogging during the Program and even has her tracksuit with her.
  • Shout-Out: Her given name is taken from long-time star of female Japanese Professional Wrestling Inoue Takako.
  • Stay with Me Until I Die: She knows she'll die and wants Hiroki to be with her until the end.
  • Tsundere: She is this, by Sugimura's account. She is very harsh with a Death Glare but seems to have a sweet side deeply buried down. She's more the original version, though, whereas you get to know her she warms up considerably.
  • The Unfettered: Takako shows little reaction when Niida threatens to rape her, telling him to get lost, but when he cuts her, she goes absolutely ballistic.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Hiroki. She is in love with him but he's oblivious.

    Mayumi Tendo 

Mayumi Tendo (Girl #14)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_14.png
A girl who wore her hair in a lobster braid. She is the first death in the Program proper.
  • Compensated Dating: The book says she did this, while keeping a prim and proper facade.
  • The Dying Walk: In the film, when she's hit by an arrow in the neck, she just keeps going until she falls to the ground.
  • Joke Weapon: She gets boxing gloves, the most useless "weapon" in the game.
  • Mauve Shirt: Most of what we know about her comes after her death.
  • Red Boxing Gloves: Her assigned "weapon" although they're rather pink.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: As noted above, she's the first death in the Program proper. Hell, she's killed as she's leaving the school.

    Noriko Nakagawa 

Noriko Nakagawa (Girl #15)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_15.png
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/noriko.jpg
"Hello! "The chick" has a name!"
The female protagonist. She is at first the love interest of Shuya's friend Yoshitoki, but gradually grows closer to Shuya over the course of the story. Since the teacher shoots her in the leg early on and the wound is infected, she is The Load much of the time. Noriko is a perfect fit for Shuya: good-hearted, idealistic and quick to trust. Although she does not realize it, Noriko manages to keep both Shogo and Shuya balanced and she is the only other person besides Shuya to survive the game.
  • Action Survivor: Less obvious than Shuya, but she grows into one. She even manages to kill Kiriyama in the novel.
  • Actual Pacifist: She avoids all conflicts as much as possible, but scores one kill in the novel.
  • Alliterative Name: Noriko Nakagawa.
  • Break the Cutie: So very much. She even breaks down after she shoots Kiriyama in the manga.
  • Faking the Dead: Shogo fakes her death together with Shuya to fool the Program crew into believing they are dead. They are back for the final.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: She even bakes cookies for the class trip.
  • Final Girl: She's the last female student standing.
  • The Heart: She is the "glue" that makes Shuya and Shogo stay together. This is particularly evident in the movie.
  • Insecure Love Interest: Later in the novel, while Kawada notices that Shuya has begun to develop feelings for her, she still believes that she has a one-sided crush on him, as she thinks that she doesn't compare to his crush, Kazumi Shintani.
  • Joke Weapon: A boomerang in the novel and the manga and binoculars in the film. She can't make use of any of these. Downplayed in the film since she does use the binoculars to find Yumiko and Yukiko from afar, but otherwise, the binoculars were useless.
  • The Load: She slows down Shogo and also Shuya. Not by choice, however. Averted by the end of the novel and manga versions.
  • Meta Girl: Much like Simon in Lord of the Flies, Noriko is thought to represent a voice from outside the novel, such as the voice of the author or the audience.
  • Naïve Everygirl: Along with Shuya, she's a bit naive and stays away from fighting.
  • Neutral Female: The poor girl is shot in the leg during the Program briefing because she stood up for Yoshitoki, and as result, can't do much. This ends up subverted toward the end, when she kills Kiriyama of all people.
  • Nice Girl: Good-hearted and idealistic.
  • Power Trio: She even comments that she, Shuya and Shogo are like the Three Musketeers.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In the end of the novel and the manga, she takes a more active role by helping Shogo and Shuya reload their weapons and even manages to score a hit against Kiriyama, which kills Kiriyama in the novel version. In addition, she helps Shuya infiltrate the administrator's ship and take out the enemy soldiers to save Shogo.
  • The Quiet One: She doesn't talk too much and rather relies on others.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: She is still idealistic even when surrounded by mayhem.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: She's sweet, traditional, feminine, a good cook, a dutiful daughter, and loving sister... Stands up to, and survives, the Program (admittedly with help, but she was wounded). She's even more of this in the manga: she's tough-minded enough to tell Shogo Kawada, perfectly politely, that he's tearing himself up inside for no reason, and that Keiko would have understood and forgiven him for shooting her by mistake in the previous Program. Oh, and she delivers the death-blow to Kazuo Kiriyama..

    Yuka Nakagawa 

Yuka Nakagawa (Girl #16)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_16.png
"Let's have a taste, then."
The female class clown. She is the most optimistic of the girls in the lighthouse and a Plucky Comic Relief to them. Apparently, when you're a fat girl in Japan like her, there are very few choices in junior high school, so class clown is as good as any.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: She's chubby in the manga but slim in the movie.
  • Artistic License – Chemistry: She vomits blood when she tastes the poisoned food for Shuya. Cyanide potassium doesn't do that - it actually shuts down the respiration in cells and will result in rapid respirations, loss of consciousness, convulsions, gasping, and death due to cessation of respiration.
  • Big Eater: Only in the manga/novel. Bites her in the ass when she decides to taste-test Shuya's food before giving it to him.
  • The Big Guy: Of the lighthouse group.
  • Blood from the Mouth: When she is poisoned by Yuko with cyanide, although this shouldn't be possible.
  • Catchphrase: In the manga. "That gets the Yuka seal of approval!"
  • Dropped a Bridge on Her: Her optimism and cheerful attitude is abruptly interrupted when she dies from cyanide poisoning.
  • Genki Girl: Definitely the cheeriest of the lighthouse girls.
  • One-Steve Limit: Has the same last name as Noriko. Lampshaded by Shuya in the novel when Yoshitoki tells him he has a crush on Nakagawa, and wonders if the "Nakagawa" in question is Yuka.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Known for being this even before the Program.
  • The Pollyanna: She is the most optimistic one of the girls and is always cheerful and upbeat.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: Ends up on the deadly side of this. Her death quickly spirals into the death of her friends.

    Satomi Noda 

Satomi Noda (Girl #17)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_17.png
"What about you? You're different, right?"
A model student. The smartest and most suspicious of the lighthouse girls, but also the most ruthless. Satomi is also, besides Kazuo Kiriyama, the most heavily armed of the students.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Satomi is a quiet, intelligent girl who kills three of her friends (the highest kill count of all the students, behind Kiriyama and Mitsuko) when she suspects one of them poisoned Yuka.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The first to turn on her friends.
  • Deadpan Snarker: In the flashback chapter "Energy" in the manga.
  • Face–Heel Turn: In the manga, after she has slaughtered Chisato, Haruka, and Yukie, she approaches Yuko Sakaki, telling her they're both safe. However, Satomi lets slip that she will "get them all" and play to win.
  • Freak Out: When she kills Chisato.
  • A House Divided: She is the most distrustful of the the lighthouse girls and is the one who starts fire and hell breaks loose.
  • Irony: She kills everyone in the lighthouse except for the one person who killed Yuka.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: She is the character in the film who does this the most, namely Chisato Matsui, Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa, all of her friends.
  • Sanity Slippage: Most pronounced in the manga, where she goes from calm and collected to drooling lunatic within about a dozen pages.
  • The Smart Guy: One of the top students.
  • The Stoic: Until she becomes not so stoic in the lighthouse incident.

    Fumiyo Fujiyoshi 

Fumiyo Fujiyoshi (Girl #18)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_18.png
"Psst...Yukie..."
A member of of Yukie Utsumi's clique, not much is really known about her other than she was a caring nurse's aide and was very talkative. In the manga, Yutaka Seto had a crush on her, and after her death, he described her as being pretty, no matter what she was doing. She dies before the Program even starts when the instructor kills her with a throwing knife.

    Chisato Matsui 

Chisato Matsui (Girl #19)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_19.png
The smallest and shyest of Yukie's friends, who take refuge in the lighthouse.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Has a crush on Mimura in the novel.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Cooks the stew along with Haruka.
  • Freak Out:
    • Shows signs of one in the manga at least. The prospect of being killed is enough to make her grab a gun and aim it at Satomi... which gets her shot.
    • The Angels' Border manga (which is based more on the novel) adds a different motive. Chisato is worried that Haruka might point it at Satomi, so she moves to grab the gun and throw it out the window in the hopes that Satomi will come to her senses. Satomi, of course, takes it the wrong way.
  • Shrinking Violet: Noted to be rather shy.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Again, not much screentime or characterization.

    Kaori Minami 

Kaori Minami (Girl #20)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_20.png
"No mercy. Junya. I'm going to be killed! Shoot. Mom. Sister! Dad. Shoot! Shoot! The new record release!"
A girl with an acne-covered face and a total obsession with j-pop idol singers, especially one Junya Kenzaki. When she ends up in the Program, her mental derailment is spectacular.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Was acne-prone in the book, but has none of that in the film.
  • Ax-Crazy: Or Gun Crazy rather.
  • Boom, Headshot!: This is how she dies in the novel.
  • Butt-Monkey: In some of the flashbacks in the manga, she is constantly bullied by Mitsuko's gang (they usually steal her money).
  • Cat Scare: In the manga. It doesn't end well for the cat.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the film.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Some students label her "pizza face" (in the manga) because of her acne problem. During the program she goes insane because of this and often chants out the sentence "no more pizza face!"
  • Fangirl: Of Junya Kenzaki, a popstar.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: In the manga, the reality of her situation hits her when she kills a kitten.
  • Mutual Kill: In the film,she and her friend Mizuho seem to have ended up killing each other over a life preserver.
  • Nerd Glasses: Also in the manga.
  • Sanity Slippage: When she starts hearing her Junya Kenzaki necklace talking to her, you know she's gone off the deep end.
  • Tempting Fate: In the film, she says goodbye to her friend Mizuho Inada after her name is called, promising they will still be friends. Later on they have stabbed each other over a life preserver.

    Yoshimi Yahagi 

Yoshimi Yahagi (Girl #21)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/girl_21.png
"Thank you, Yoji. I was so happy being with you."
The junior member of Mitsuko's gang and a hopelessly romantic but also rebellious girl. Yoshimi was exploited by Mitsuko, who even pimped her to strangers at one point. She is deeply in love with her boyfriend Yoji, even though she's still one of the thugettes.
  • Alliterative Name: Yoshimi Yahagi
  • Alpha Bitch: Like Hirono, Yoshimi is more of the "delinquent" type. In a flashback, she is seen robbing Kaori in school.
  • Break the Cutie: Poor, poor Yoshimi. Being prostituted to two strangers by her "friend" Mitsuko, who then made jokes about it.
  • Broken Bird: She is described as "an abused bundle of low self-esteem."
  • Broken Smile: In the manga, Yoji's death leaves her with a stunned half-smile for a couple of pages.
  • Demoted to Extra: In the film.
  • Japanese Delinquents: She pulls something of a Heel–Face Turn before the book starts, though.
  • Joke Weapon: In the film, she gets a plastic hammer but never uses it.
  • Kill the Cutie: By Mitsuko in the novel and manga.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Of the "bad girl has to reform to get the guy" variety. Though she wasn't nearly as bad as Mitsuko and Hirono, and notes that she remained friends with both.
  • Suicide Pact: She and Yoji are found hung with Yoji's rope in the movie.
  • Together in Death: With her beloved Yoji in the film.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Not much information about her in her screen time.


Others

    The Administrator/Director/Supervisor 

Kinpatsu Sakamochi/Yonemi Kamon/Kitano

"The reason why you're all here today ... is to kill each other."
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kitano2.jpg
The administrator of the Battle Royale Program, who instructs the students in what to do and oversees the death match from beginning to end. This would normally be an unpleasant task, but he relishes it and the total power over life and death it gives him. Since he is an employee of the totalitarian government and thus unaccountable, it's a death sentence for the "players" to threaten him or even look at him the wrong way. In The Movie, where Takeshi Kitano plays him, his character is more humanized and has a personal grudge against the students, but has a soft spot for Noriko. He has a daughter called Shiori.
  • Abusive Offspring: His daughter is innocent in the manga and the novel. In the film however, she seems to hate his guts and makes it clear to him whenever she calls him.
  • Adaptational Heroism: 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 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 of them, Yoshitoki Kuninobu, 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 tried to make sure Noriko won because she was the only student that showed respect for him.
  • Affectionate Parody: "Kinpatsu Sakamochi" is a pun on the name of the heroic teacher in Kinpachi-sensei.
  • Anti-Villain: The movie version of the Director, who is somewhat more humanized and has a legitimate grudge against the students (minus Noriko) and a Morality Pet in his daughter Shiori.
  • Big Bad: His incarnation in all three versions is the one that runs the Battle Royale Program.
  • Chucking Chalk: Kitano throws chalk at students who talk in "class". The first time. The second time, it's a knife.
  • Death Seeker: Kitano may have become this by the end of the film, as his daughter hates him and the students he despised so much are all dead by then. He tries to goad Noriko into shooting him by pointing a gun at her, which is then revealed to be a water gun when Shuya guns him down instead.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Several times. In the manga and novel, he deserves it. In the movie, not so much.
  • Evil Teacher: In all three versions, he is a former high school teacher. In the film, he used to teach this same class and hates them all.
  • Fat Bastard: In the manga.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Sakamochi likes to play at being a friendly, upbeat class instructor, but in reality he's a petty, sadistic bully who brags about raping Ms. Anno, murders Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, gleefully tells the students how their friends are dying, and rub Shogo's apparent carelessness in his face once he reveals that he knows Shuya and Noriko are still alive. Kitano in the film mostly plays that trope straight as well, but is genuinely affable towards Noriko, saving her from Mitsuko giving him a umbrella to protect her from the rain and trying to make sure she wins the Program.
  • Finish Him!: He uses his megaphone to inform the active players about recent deaths and to encourage them to keep killing.
  • Gonk: Kamon is an ugly, ugly man, both inside and out.
  • The GM Is a Cheating Bastard: Kitano goes out of his way to ensure Noriko's survival.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: He had one in the film with Noriko, as she was the only student who actually respected him.
  • Jabba Table Manners: Kamon has horrible eating habits.
  • Jerkass: As if being the overseer of the Program wasn't horrific enough, all three versions are shown to be a selfish dick in little ways as well, such as eating cookies and not sharing them with the soldiers serving under him.
  • Laser-Guided Karma:
    • In the novel, Shogo kills him with one of the pencils which he had instructed the class to use when writing down "We will kill each other" and "If I don't kill, I will be killed."
    • In the film, he's on the giving end, inflicting this both on his daughter and the student who maimed him, Yoshitoki "Nobu" Kuninobu.
      • He maims Nobu in the exact same spot Nobu maimed him two years ago. And later on, he activates his collar, blowing his head off.
      • After being fatally wounded, he literally clings to life just long enough to answer his verbally abusive daughter's call one last time, spite her by telling her he isn't coming home and that hating someone has consequences, before dying for good.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: Besides throwing a knife, he doesn't seem very skilled in fighting.
  • Orcus on His Throne: He never ventures outside his headquarters once, and spends his time doing paperwork, smoking, eating junk food, and making cruel announcements over the PA system. This is for a very good reason, since there are armed teenagers out there who hate his guts. In the film, he briefly goes onto the island to save Noriko from Mitsuko, but he immediately returns to base and this is never brought up again.
  • Pet the Dog: In the film only. His bizarre painting of Noriko symbolizes his obsession with her. He also enters the game zone at one point and hands her an umbrella.
  • Psycho Supporter: Sakamochi, of the Republic. It really says something when he's perfectly willing to let his own daughter become Program fodder if her class is ever chosen, because it'll help to keep the bakufu lasting forever.
  • Sadist Teacher: As noted, he either is or was a teacher, and he later became an administrator in the Program.
  • Seen It All: Kitano seems to be completely apathetic with everything and nobody can surprise him anymore, not even his own death. He tries to secure Noriko's survival, but doesn't really seem to care if that works or not.
  • The Stoic: Kitano shows very little emotion, in contrast to Sakamochi and Kamon. Only when he sees the training video girl does he react overtly.
  • Suicide by Cop: Double Subverted in the movie. Kitano gets killed by Shuya after pointing a gun at Noriko but stands up again to eat his last cookie, then dies anyway.
  • Teens Are Monsters: He believes this trope so much that he is willing to host the BR-program. He thinks that teenagers are lazy and ungrateful and make fun of adults whenever they can. In the film, he only makes as exception for Noriko, who he tries to help.
  • Tormented Teacher: Kitano'a antipathy towards the kids under his "care" stems from his former life as a much-abused teacher who got maimed by one of his students.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Subverted in the film, he just stands up after being shot, sits down on a couch and then still dies anyway.
  • Villainous Rescue: He saves Noriko from Mitsuko in the movie.

     Other Adults 

Training Video Girl

"You're the lucky class chosen for this year's Battle Royale!"
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tvg4.jpg
"Congratulations!"
She appears in the film as the host of a briefing video shortly before the game starts. She seems to be in her late 20s and wears an orange top, camouflage hot pants, a camouflage cap, a head-set and many accessories. She speaks in a very cheerful voice, makes many wild gestures and seems to be just way too happy about the game.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Given her brief screentime it’s unclear if her attitude is merely part of a script she was given or if she really is as psychopathic as she behaves.
  • Canon Foreigner: She's a character uniquely created for the film and appears nowhere else.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: She is so happy and cheerful in the anticipation of lots of blood and suffering that it becomes grotesque.
  • Declarative Finger: Shows it very often while giving her exposition.
  • Genki Girl: She seems to be in her late 20s, but behaves like a teenager at best, is very energetic and disturbingly upbeat. She uses many exaggerated gestures too.
  • "Good Luck" Gesture: She makes many exaggerated gestures to wish them (sarcastically) good luck.
  • Military Salute: She starts her announcement with saluting in front of the students.
  • Ms. Exposition: She gives basic information about the rules, the island and the equipment of every participant.
  • No Name Given: Her name is nowhere to be found.
  • Perky Female Minion: Her upbeat and genki personality contrasts Kitano's stoic and tired Seen It All-attitude. Kitano is still a huge fan of her.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: She is clearly older but behaves like a hyperactive teenage girl. She's still clearly a psychopath.
  • Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": She finds it absolutely hilarious that the teens will soon be killing each other. She is extremely (darkly) cheerful and makes bloodthirsty/taunting remarks.
  • Show Within a Show: She only appears on a video tape to give her instructions. It's rather overproduced and seems to be a parody of Japanese music shows and/or game shows. Kitano treats it like his favorite TV show.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: We never learn what happens to her during or after the game.

Ryoko Anno

In the novel and manga, the young caretaker of the orphanage and the closest to a mother Shuya and Yoshitoki have.
  • The Determinator: Many examples:
    • Her adopted orphan sons, who she raised from childhood, are taken away to a fight to the death.
    • She is brutally and heartbreakingly raped by Sakamochi and Kamon (unless he was lying when he trolled the class with this; if it is possible to hope for a fictitious character, one would hope for the latter here).
    • Her co-worker and friend Hayashida is murdered in front of her and taken away to be an object lesson.
    • By the end of the Program, her sons are lost to her: one is dead, the other is on the run.
    • After Shuya's escape and Kamon's death, one must assume that Ryoko and the orphanage are being watched.
    • She goes right on caring for and loving her orphan children, even as she knows that any of them could be taken away to be murdered, again.
    • When Shuya secretly checks on Ryoko from afar three months later, he sees that not only has she stayed with the orphanage children, but has gone on to have a love interest. ("What men do...and still, you stay.")
  • Mama Bear: In the manga, she is this to Shuya (after his real mother's death) and Yoshitoki.
  • Parental Substitute: To the children of the orphanage.
  • Promoted to Love Interest: She's only a minor background character in the book and not even mentioned in the film, but the manga (at least the English version) made her this to Yoshitoki. Yes, his surrogate mom and love interest. This was made up in the English adaptation.
  • Tender Tears: Sheds tears for the Program winner Shuya and Yoshitoki saw on TV.

Masao "Dragonfly" Hayashida

The teacher of Year 3 Class B. A very kind and moral person who taught his students not to judge others by their reputations. He is killed when he objects to his class' participation in the Program.
  • Cool Teacher: Noriko believed him to be this.
  • The Mentor: To his students.
  • Nice Guy: He tries to save his students from the Program and gets killed for it.
  • Oh, Crap!: In the film, he notices something is up when their bus begins to pass multiple checkpoints guarded by soldiers.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: The first time we see him in the novel it's as a corpse.

     Mai 

Mai

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mai3.jpg
Mai is the winner of last year's Battle Royale. She is briefly seen during a TV news report in the beginning of the movie, while she is hugging a bloody doll. The reporter notes that Mai is smiling, but fails to note of how crazed her smile is, as Mai's experience has driven her mad. She appears twice in the second movie, by that time she has become a member of Wild Seven, a terrorist organization led by Shuya Nanahara.
  • Canon Foreigner: She's a character uniquely created for the film and its sequel.
  • Cute and Psycho: She would be a cute teenage girl if it weren't for her crazed Slasher Smile. This is even more true in Requiem (she puts explosives into her doll and kills soldiers).
  • Heroine Of Another Story: While she is only a hero from the standpoint of the government, she is the winner of the last BR-program, so you can imagine that she did lots of killing and also hiding from danger.
  • Lonely Doll Girl: She still keeps her doll even after winning battle royale, but it's blood-splattered by now as a symbol for her Subverted Innocence. Invoked as it's left ambiguous how much of the lonely-part she fulfills, we never see her during the game and after the game, she returns in Requiem where she uses her doll to hide explosives to kill soldiers.
  • Sanity Slippage: She turned crazy after seeing her classmates die and probably killing a lot of them too. It seems that she started out rather innocent but became tougher after lots of blood.
  • Slasher Smile: She gives a very dark one in the beginning, although the reporter says she's just smiling.
  • A Winner Is You: She won the last battle royale, but other than surviving, what did she gain? The government neither give her any prize, nor any promotion, so she is all on her own after the game. She joins Shuya's group later on however.

     Students in Shogo's original class 

Keiko Onuki

Shogo's girlfriend, whom he tried to keep alive during his first Battle Royale.
  • All for Nothing: In the manga, Shogo killed almost half his class specifically to ensure that Keiko would be the winner. Then when he found her, she apparently pulled a gun on him, and he reflexively shot her, only to find out that she was actually trying to shoot another student who had snuck up behind him.
  • The Lost Lenore: For Shogo. Her death is what made him determined to disrupt the next Program and go after the government.
  • Posthumous Character: One of the last to die during Shogo's first Battle Royale.

Nakata

Another student in Shogo's first class. He also had a crush on Keiko and resented her relationship with Shogo. A manga-exclusive character.
  • Asshole Victim: The short interaction we have with him shows him to be a deeply jealous, spiteful, unpleasant human being.
  • Posthumous Character: Shot by Shogo during a Battle Royale.


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