Shuya nanahara in the movie battle royale.

The main characters are a 3e class of 42 japanese students and their teacher. But the most important are:

 

 -Shûya Nanahara. Shuya is deeply emotional and somewhat sentimental; he is impulsive and quick to trust people (this particular aspect often proves to be a liability during the course of The Program, nearly resulting in his death several times). He is also very caring, honorable, easy going and likable. It is more than once said it is hard to be sad around him even in sad times. He is a dreamer and an idealist, and never remains silent when he feels anyone around him is being mistreated, regardless of the consequences.

 -Noriko Nakagawa Noriko is very timid but during the program( see plot) she prooves herself to be able to act courageously. She is in love with shuya. Even though she is a main character she stays quite mysterious.

-Shôgo Kawada Prior to the events of the film, manga and novel, Shogo Kawada was not the combat-hardened survivalist that he is in the present game. he is quite proficient in first aid, as his father is a doctor, appears to be quite intelligent although slightly unsympathetic.

-Kinpatsu Sakamochi Sakamochi is a vile and sadistic man who likes watching the class die and makes the announcements of dead students. He likes to say things like "I'm proud of you all!" He also seems to be involved in bets over who will win the game (his money is on Kazuo Kiriyama). In the end, Shogo Kawada fatally stabs Sakamochi in the neck with a pencil. Kinpatsu Sakamochi's name is a pun on Kinpachi Sakamoto, the name of the dedicated teacher in the drama series Kinpachi-sensei.

The point of view changes a lot throughout the story but it is usually done by an intern narrator who focuses on one character at the time. (Every student has had his chapter where the reader sees the events through him/her.) The narrator uses the 3rd person. "Certes, Izumi KanaÏ n'était pas le pire des boudins, seulement les premières filles qui venaient à l'ésprit quand on disait "jolie", c'était Takako Chigusa (bien plus son type de femmes!), Sakura Ogawa (qui sortait avec Kazuhiko Yamamoto, mais ils étaient morts tout les deux), ou Mitsuko Sôma (encore qu'une salope pareille, aussi canon fût-elle, de toute manière c'était non). Il ne serait jamais venu a l'idée de Shinji de citer Izumi KanaÏ...". This narrator enables the reader to follow the story through many different point of views, and to be closer to the characters' feelings.

 Battle royale's main theme is friendship.

 

Friendship

 

 

In battle royale friendship is very important. The students are pushed to kill their friends. Some decide to cheat them; others unite with them despite the fact that there can be only one survivalist.

In this book, the reader can see where friendship starts and where it stops.

In this kind of situation, Should a real friend give his life for another? Or should he forget who his friends are and kill everybody in order to protect his own life?

Koushun Takami puts this relationship into question: who are our real friends? Would they risk their life for us? Would we risk our lives for them? The author tries to remind us that friendship is some kind of alliance, of mutual understanding and that even if something gets into the way (in this case the program) the pact shouldn’t be broken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battle royale denounces explicitly the crudeness of the Axis (the republic of greater east Asia’s government is supposed to be as if the Axis had won the 2^nd World war). The state which the author made up is aggressive and totalitarian. It started the program which in fact is a way to frighten the young and to prevent any kind of mutiny; and “experimented” in a way, a new cruel way to keep a temporary peace.

 

 But the author’s disapproval with the Nazis methods might as well be a criticism of today’s governments. In other words, Mr Takami, by scolding the past regimes, could implicitly find fault with the actual leaderships! The author condemns the ways that the leaders use to keep their population calm (fear, unkept promises, etc). Even if the republic of greater east asia is exaggerated, some aspects resemble the real governments.

 

One could even go to say that Koushun Takami is trying to tell us that today’s society will loose us. He may mean that our world will soon turn into Battle Royale’s world, with a few big and independent empires ruling with no democracy.

 

 

 

 All those potential disparagements owed the book some very controversial reviews.

 

But apparently, Stephen King agrees that this is a very good book:

 

  « Battle Royale évoque un riff de guitare follement divertissant, mélange improbable du jeu Survivor et d’un match de catch. A moins que Battle Royale ne soit juste complètement fou. »

 

 

 

 

 

Battle royale contains lots of dialogue, which gives the reader a distorted view of the events. But this allows to to be closer to the characters. Despite the situation in which the students are in, the conversations can be very humorous, or tense:

 

« Nanahara lui a bel et bien échappé. C’est sûr… 

-         Mais alors, pourquoi Shûya ne…

-     Parce qu’il se cache peut-être quelque part… Ou alors il s’est perdu.

-     Il est peut-être blessé ! Ou pire… »

 

« C’est bizarre… », dit-il.

« Est-ce que je suis à l’hôtel avec la déléguée de classe ? »

« Ha, ha, c’est bien toi ! Je suis rassurée. Tu as dormi longtemps, tu sais!”