Battle Royale (manga)

Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル) is a serialized manga, written by Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi. It is based on the novel of the same name, and was published in Japan by Akita Publishing. The manga consists of 15 volumes and is distributed in English by Tokyopop. There is a manga sequel called Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale. At October 2007, a new special edition of the manga will be released.

The manga follows the plot of the novel fairly closely, but also expands on the backstory of each of the students. It is also far more sexually graphic than the novel and film versions, and is also noted for its intense, gory violence. The name of the main character is transliterated as Shuya Nanahara in this version.

Also, the English adaptation of manga changes the time that the story is set in by almost 10 years, using the term 'in the near future', but on Shogo Kawada's profile, it references the program 2005 season; he says his last program was a year ago, leading to the assumption that the manga sets the story in 2006. In volume one of the English language version, Shinji Mimura and the news channel reporter mentions the 2007 record of three days, seven hours and twenty-two minutes. In volume 14 Kamon refers to the 2009 season, which is presumably the 2009 one. None of those dates are mentioned in the original Japanese edition. Apparently they were devised by Keith Giffen during the adaptation (see below) along with many other details non-existent in the original.

The manga revolves around seven main characters, including the righteous Shuya Nanahara, the gentle and caring Noriko Nakagawa, the hardened veteran Shogo Kawada, the athletic hacker Shinji Mimura, the kind-hearted kung fu master Hiroki Sugimura, the troubled Mitsuko Souma, and the cold, merciless Kazuo Kiriyama. As of January 2006, all 15 volumes have been released in Japan. In the US and UK all 15 of the volumes have been released as of April 2006.

Characters

 * Shuya Nanahara (七原 秋也) is a fictional Japanese student and one of the three main protagonists. Shuya, who is nicknamed "Shu", lives in the fictional town Shiroiwa in Kagawa Prefecture.
 * Noriko Nakagawa (中川 典子) is the main female protagonist of the series. She is one of the class of third-year students in Shuya's school. Noriko has a crush on Shuya, whom she admired for his music and song-writing.
 * Shogo Kawada (川田 章吾) is a transfer student and the winner of the previous Program. At the very beginning he meets Shuya and Noriko and joins up with the two of them.
 * Kazuo Kiriyama (桐山 和雄) is the main antagonist, who tries to win the Program (using a coin-toss to decide whether or not he plays), killing the most amount of students in the class making him the largest threat. It is later mentioned he had been in a car crash at a young age (where he witnessed his mother's death), causing brain damage and resulting in a lack of emotions and regret.
 * Mitsuko Souma (相马 光子) is the secondary antagonist, considered one of the most beautiful girls in the program, she is also the most deranged, and the female with the most kills, succeeding in using her feminine wiles and ability to feign emotions to manipulate then kill her classmates. It is later revealed that these psychological issues stem from a loss of her father at an early age, and the subsequent abuse she received from her surviving family.

History
The manga was serialized in Young Champion Magazine for five years.

Writing style
At first the creators of the original version of the Battle Royale manga kept the story close to the original Japanese novel. As publication increased, Taguchi took increasing liberties with the story. Takami said that he looked forward to new installments of Taguchi's story and Taguchi said that he more strongly "cared" about the characters. Takami liked how Taguchi "distributed" the time among characters; Takami said that in the manga the characters changed and grew as the story progressed, unlike in the original novel. Taguchi said that in the manga version he modeled "most" of Takami's characters after people he personally knew. Takami describes Taguchi's stance as closer to his own than the stance of Kinji Fukasaku, the director of the film. Takami describes the manga as containing the feeling of "a general, nonjudgmental love for humans."

Art style
Taguchi said that many people describe his art style as "reminiscent of "gekiga", or that it's realistic." Taguchi disagrees with the descriptions, instead characterizing faces in his works as "manga faces" since he feels that it is "really easy to put my own emotions into the faces." Taguchi said that when he shows sadness in characters, he locates the characters' eyebrows "down as far as possible." Takami describes Taguchi's art as "directly descended from Osamu Tezuka" and "manga-esque." Takami described the style as "easy to overlook" because the art contains "clean lines." Takami believed that the art style fit the Battle Royale story. In the beginning Taguchi said that he felt that all of the characters had to "look like middle school students." Taguchi said that as the story progressed for many of the characters he began to draw them "more naturally" and add "specific expressions for certain things they would say." Takami describes the newer style as "more grown-up looking."

TOKYOPOP Version
An English-language adaptation of the publication, published in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom in a multi-volume format by TOKYOPOP, was extensively rewritten by Keith Giffen, whose script does not completely follow the original comic.

The major difference between the Japanese and TOKYOPOP version is that Giffen rewrote the BR program as a Reality TV show program, rather than keeping it in tune with the BR Act, which leaves plotholes through the panels of the manga, especially in Volume #15. This can be partially attributed to the fact that when TOKYOPOP had released Volume #1, the Japanese Battle Royale was up to Volume #9 at that point, thereby not giving TOKYOPOP or Giffen ample material to prove that their rewrite would backfire.

According to TOKYOPOP editor Mark Paniccia, in the Newsarama article: "'For adapting the work, Giffen was given a tight Japanese-to-English translation of the story, but his assignment was by no means just to tweak a translation. 'I told him to do what he felt he had to do', Paniccia said. 'I told him to Giffenize it.''"

To which Giffen responds: "It's a good story that Takami is telling', Giffen said. 'What I do is go in and make bad scenes that much worse. I loved the movie of Battle Royale, and also love the manga. I just wanted to do it right. I wanted to do justice to it, and I knew I couldn't get away with doing a straight translation, because it would be horrifyingly bad."

In April 2006, Tim Beedle, a former associate editor of Battle Royale, stated on the TOKYOPOP Messageboard the reasoning behind the decision to have a fairly loose adaptation: 'Prior to starting work on the first volume of Battle Royale, its editor (Mark Paniccia, who has since left TOKYOPOP) made a decision to hire Keith Giffen, a well-known American comic book writer, to provide a much looser adaptation than usual. He made this decision for a variety of reasons, but two seemed to be more prominent than the rest. First, due to BR's extreme content and M rating, it was going to be a tough sell. (Some of the large chains refuse to carry M-rated books.) Hiring a known writer could help compensate for this by driving sales. Second, more than any other book we were publishing at the time, BR had the potential to find a crossover audience in the direct market among American comic book readers, who often are adverse to trying manga.'

Brazilian edition
Conrad Editora from Brazil began publishing a Portuguese version of the Manga at the tail end of 2006. It follows the original 15-volume format, and it does not adapt the Giffen "Reality Show" version (although the cover of the first edition mentions the reality show), but instead follows the original premise of the Novel and Manga. It was cancelled after 12 volumes.

Argentinian edition
Editorial Ivrea from Argentina published a Spanish version of the Manga. It follows the original 15-volume format.

Chapters
The following names reflect the English-language version.

Battle Royale Ultimate Edition
Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi have agreed to create a special edition of the Battle Royale Manga, it seems the first edition was released on October 16, 2007. The first edition contains the first three volumes of the series. The second edition was released on February 12, 2008. It includes more details on the characters (a discussion called 'On the Couch'), colour pages and new cover art, a new foreword by Koushun Takami, weapon details, and a piece where medical personnel discuss the different injuries of the game. It has 672 pages.