Title: Battle Royale Deluxe Edition Vol. 1
Author: Koushun Takami, Masayuki Taguchi
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 608
Genre: Action, Drama
Publication Date: January 27, 2026
The Story
Battle Royale is a story about a government that randomly selects a class of students and places them on an island. There, they must fight to the death until only one student remains. Of course, it’s not just that simple, as there are rules to this hellacious game. Every student is wearing a collar. If Kamon, the head teacher in charge of the game, decides to, he can remotely detonate a collar and kill a student. They also serve as tracking devices, letting Kamon know where you are at all times. If nobody partakes in any killing at all, he will detonate all of the collars at once. Also, the island is divided into zones. Every day at different intervals, zones will become hostile… meaning that if you’re caught in one of those zones, the collar will automatically detonate, preventing you from picking one place to hide for the whole game.
In addition, if you try to escape the island, you’ll be mowed down by government boats that encircle it. At the center of this game is a student named Shuuya Nanahara. Shuuya is a pacifist who wishes to see everyone get off the island alive; however, even if that were possible, escaping the island would make you a wanted criminal of the government for the remainder of your life. Despite this, he doesn’t want to see any of his friends and classmates die, even though they do one after another as people either fight for their own survival or take this game seriously for personal enjoyment.
Characters
While there is a vast array of characters here, none of them truly stick around long enough to get to know them due to the nature of the game, but there are those who do have a spotlight on them.
As mentioned above, Shuuya is our main protagonist, and despite his pacifist ways, he was a bit of a rebel before coming to the island. One of the things that people associated delinquents with was rock n’ roll music, and Shuuya loved to play the guitar and sing rock n’ roll songs. He was carefree and laid-back; however, all of that changed once he got on the island. That demeanor is gone, and all that is left is a boy who just wants to make it out alive with as many of his friends and classmates as possible. While this makes him kind-hearted, it also makes him a very weak protagonist, as he lets his ideas get in the way of rational thinking. In fact, if it weren’t for someone else on this list, he’d probably be dead ten times over by now.
Shougo Kawada is a classmate of theirs who seems to know a thing or two about the game and how to survive. He easily (or almost too easily) buys into Shuuya’s ideals and decides to team up with him. With him part of the group, he becomes the voice of reason, often keeping Shuuya in check. There is a bit more to Kawada than meets the eye as he has a bit of a secret to him… one that he doesn’t exactly keep to himself. Perhaps that secret could be the one thing Shuuya needs to see his goals through.
Noriko Nakagawa is a girl in Shuuya’s class and one of his closest friends. She baked some cookies the day before they were taken to the island and happily shared them with Shuuya and his best friend Yoshitoki, the latter of whom had a crush on Noriko. When Yoshitoki dies upon them first getting into the island, Shuuya vows to protect her for his best friend’s sake. That’s all I can pretty much say about Noriko because, as a character, she’s about as flat as they come. A lot of the sympathy and investment you put in her comes by way of other people’s actions. If it weren’t for Yoshitoki and Shuuya, Noriko wouldn’t have anything to offer this series. She’s an example of a character that exists only through the efforts of the surrounding cast.
Shinji Mimura took a while to get going in the first volume, but before he came to the island, he was known as an athlete with a big heart. This was proven when he stood up to Kamon when they first arrived on the island, but his level head made him think twice about facing down their new teacher, flanked by armed military personnel. When we rejoin him later on, we discover that he has quite the gift when it comes to technology. Sports and computer hacking… what a combination! Shuuya believes that if there is anyone on the island they can trust, it’s Mimura; however, Kawada has different thoughts. So far, Mimura doesn’t seem to be the type to turn on anyone, but Kawada’s instincts haven’t been wrong so far. Perhaps we may see if they’re right in the second omnibus?
Kamon is our main antagonist for the series. He’s the teacher in charge of the game, and he is about as sadistic as they come. Any adults who protested the class being selected for the Battle Royale were instantly killed at his command. He even brought one of the bodies in just to show the students. He’s the one who killed Yoshitoki in front of the entire class by shooting him in the face. He also shoots Noriko in the leg and threatens to do the same to Mimura if he doesn’t stand down. He seems unfazed by anything that’s going on, and at times, even wants to place bets on who will come out the winner. He’s about as sick and twisted as they come, and the series does a great job of making you want to see this get succumb to the more horrible fate imaginable!
Kazuo Kiriyama is the series’ second antagonist. He is someone with the gift to excel at anything he does. Whether it’s something tranquil like painting or something brutal like fighting, Kiriyama cannot be matched. He was revered by all of the delinquents at school, and before he knew it, he had his own gang; however, Kiriyama never cared for them one bit. When he became part of this game, it was if the limitation switch inside of him was turned off, and he decided to go to town on his own classmates. Nobody who came across him survived, and for Shuuya, Noriko, and Kawada, he is going to pose as their biggest hurdle in getting off the island alive!
Final Thoughts
The 2000 live-action movie was one of the first Japanese movies I’ve seen. I know the movie was based on the 1999 novel, as was the manga, but I never read either one until now. It was interesting to see the differences between the movie and the manga, though. While I did recognize similarities, the manga changed things up quite a bit… or I guess it would be fair to say that the movie changed things up quite a bit, and I can understand why. Manga and movies are two completely different media, and while you can get away with some things in a manga, you can’t necessarily do the same in live-action. One of the biggest differences I saw was the teacher. Here, it’s Kamon, where in the movie it was Kitano. They are similar, but Kamon is much more perverted and sadistic than Kitano was. Kitano was still brutal and uncaring, but he was more stoic and in control.
Another difference was Shuuya. He was quiet, reserved, and kind-hearted throughout the whole film, and while he did play a guitar, he was never portrayed as a wannabe rock star or rebel, so that kind of took me by surprise as well. Plus, the banter between him and Yoshitaki was a little more R-rated than what was portrayed in the movie. Another big difference was the introduction of Kawara and Kiriyama. Here, they were already a part of the class when they got summoned to the island, versus the movie, where they were introduced as special additions to the game after they had arrived.
There are more differences that I spotted, but I won’t spoil them all. It was interesting to see the differences in the way the story was told, though. Despite the differences, it’s still Battle Royale, and it’s still a fantastic story. With this being an omnibus, I would say that this was equivalent to three full volumes. The original manga had 15 volumes, so I would think there would be five total Deluxe Editions for this. I could be wrong, but that’s just my best guess.
Another thing I liked was that the manga goes through every character and gives them a backstory… typically right before they meet their demise. Obviously, this never happened in the movie because you need to keep things to a certain time frame, but that extra content that I never got to see in the live-action was pretty nice… even if it overused the classic trope of fleshing out someone’s history right before they die.
Whether you’ve seen the movie or read the novel, this is still a must-have. You even get 10 or so high-quality color pages before the story even begins, and the hardcover shell is one of the better hardcovers I’ve seen. Yen Press put a ton of effort into this series, and for good reason… Battle Royale is one of the most recognizable stories from Japan. In fact, people who watched The Hunger Games claimed that it was just a Battle Royale clone. That is how well this series is known. Should you have $44 lying around, I would say go ahead and spend it on this book. It will be money well spent!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
