Battle Royale and the Tragedy of Kazuo Kiriyama

Battle Royale is both a film and a manga, but those adaptations are both based on the original novel by Koushun Takami. For the purpose of this blog post, I'm only talking about the novel, and one character in particular. Unless I specifically refer to the manga or film for comparative purposes, assume I'm discussing the book.

Also, not sure what the statue of limitations is for spoilers on a fourteen-year old English translation of a twenty-seven year old work of Japanese literature, but if you don't want significant plot points ruined or aren't familiar with the book, you might want to skip this essay until you've finished the book. Yeah, it's over 600 pages long, but those pages fly by like the scenery outside one of Japan's ultra-fast rail trains because there's almost no filler. This isn't a review, but an analysis and commentary on one major character in a book where the author racks up a body count large enough to satsify Drowning Pool, so if you keep going, I assume you're either cool with spoilers or already read the source material.

Last chance to back out.

No?

Alright. Let's dance.

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A Tragedy Within a Tragedy Within a Tragedy

Perhaps no literary format outside of Shakespeare so fully embraces and celebrates tragedy more than the dystopian novel. After all, the creation of a dystopia all but requires something disastrous to have happened already to set the stage. In Orwell's 1984, it's the rise of a fascist state which seeks to police even the thoughts of its citizens. In Huxley's Brave New World, it's the rise of technology allowing for genetic manipulation and childhood indoctrination into a rigid caste system where every individual's purpose is decided even before they are born, removing all forms of creativity from the equation of humanity. In Takami's Battle Royale, the tragedy is the rise of the Greater Republic of East Asia ("We have always been at war with Eastasia", anyone...?), a fascist dictatorship amalgamation of the worst bits of China, Japan, and North Korea combined into one Megazord that no group of colorfully-costumed teenage martial artists can defeat no matter how hard they lean on the powers of friendship and teamwork.

Emerging from a post-World-War II alternate reality, the Republic was formed in response to increasing unrest among the citizenry due to a depressed labor market and deplorable economic conditions. While most adults kept their heads down and plowed forward, the youth of Japan began staging protests in defiance of government edicts as they saw their future as a one-way ticket to Dead-Endsville: despite all the years spent in school, there were no jobs awaiting them in the adult world. No jobs meant no money, and no money meant no future. No future meant no reason to participate in society, so entire classes of children dropped out, becoming de facto delinquents, embarrassing not only their parents but their nation. The student unrest soon caught the eye of older adults, who added their voices to the growing mass, and the government was forced into action.

But rather than create new job programs or anything else which might provide hope to their literal future generations, the government dug in its heels. These uppity children couldn't be allowed to drop out of society, and the mere fact they believed they should do so was only further proof of just how much they needed the education they were denying themselves. Thus the embattled, embittered adults crack down on the juveniles, pass laws requiring compulsory education, banning most forms of creative self-expression (especially rock music, which the government considers particularly decadent) and permitting the military to enact "The Program".

Ostensibly created as an military experiment to study the effects of combat and development of survival skills under real-world conditions, The Program serves an important secondary (or, it could be argued, primary) function of keeping the youth of Japan in line. Held at different times and different places throughout each year, one group of third-year junior high school students (13-14 years old) is randomly chosen via lottery, rendered unconscious, fitted with explosive collars, and taken to an isolated location where they are each given a pack containing food, water, a map, and one random 'weapon'. Dispersed across the location, monitored by the collars, and slowly pushed closer and closer together by the use of 'forbidden zones' which instantly kill anyone who wanders into their radius, the students have seventy-two hours to kill one another off in the hopes of being the last one standing. If, at the conclusion of the three-day period, there is more than one participant left alive, all remaining collars explode; the same happens if twenty-four hours pass without a single death. Finding somewhere to hole up and avoid the action may be a wise strategy at first, but eventually you're going to have to come out of hiding. The only way to win is to be the last one alive at the deadline. The prize for winning? "A lifetime pension, and a card autographed by The Great Dictator," according to the Greater Republic of East Asia Compact Encyclopedia.

Shades of The Running Man, anyone?

Battle Royale's Program is specifically designed to neuter rebellious thoughts in children, who will then grow up to become rebellion-neutered adults. It does this not simply by mass-murdering a handful of kids every year, but by showcasing the government's complete and total control over everything. Adults with families would be careful of what they say, lest a careless word or rant put their child's class on the radar. Kids also, in theory, should either be a little nicer (because the first thing you'd want if your class was selected for the Program would be for friends to think twice about killing you right away) or outright loners who shun the company of others in case they wind up having to kill them later on. Both of these outcomes work against any cohesive plan of rebellion among the youth, keeping them separated from one another by their own fear of not wanting to be the first target should the shit hit the fan. When the government can get to you easily, no matter who you are, how wealthy your parents are, or how high-ranking a family member is in the political arena, the spirit to fight back is quashed from the start. Anyone objecting to the program is subject to harsh penalties. The subjects of Third Year Class B, Shiroiwa Junior High School, Shiroiwa Town, Kagawa Prefecture learn this early on when presented with a body bag containing the torture-wracked corpse of Hayashida-sensei, teacher of Class B, who tried to argue against Class B's selection. Though offering no physical resistance, Hayashida's objection results in a horrifyingly-cruel death, the result of which is used to underscore the seriousness of the situation to his 42 pupils. Likewise, the book tells us, the parents of every student participating in the Program are notified by government officials--most nod in capitulation, but should anyone protest, they're met with cattle prods to drive home the point, or a murderous hail of bullets should the electric shocks fail to get the point across. Female objectors might be sexually assaulted, as the Director does to the woman who took care of Shuya and Yoshitoki at their group home.

Takami introduces many students of Class B to the reader through the eyes of the novel's main character, Shuya Nanahara, in the opening chapter. Most of them merit only a passing mention, a brief reflection on who they are, what (if anything) they are known for to Shuya, and if they're personal friends or simply other students in class, and generally speaking, the more Shuya talks about a given character, the more important they are in the grand scheme of the plot. There's no exact correlation, since Shuya spends time reflecting on his relationship with childhood friend Yoshitoki Kuninobu and building up their friendship only for Kuninobu to wind up dead before the game even begins, and barely notes the presence of Mitsuko Souma despite her transformation into one of the Program's most effective antagonists once things get underway, but one person he does not fail to notice and spend time describing is Kazuo Kiriyama:

There was...Shuya couldn't see his face, but he could see between the seats the head with the oddly styled, slicked-back, long hair poking out by the right window. Though on its left side (well, it seemed Ryuhei Sasagawa had left two seats open in between) the others were talking and laughing over something dirty, the head remained absolutely still. Perhaps he'd fallen asleep. Or maybe like Shuya he was watching the city lights.

Shuya was completely baffled by the fact that this boy—Kazuo Kiriyama (Male Student No. 6)—would actually participate in a childish activity like a study trip.

(Since there are no pictures included with the novel, the image of Kiriyama is taken from the manga series. It's not a bad representation, in my opinion, given Shuya's description.)

Kiriyama's presence on the bus surprises Shuya, since Kiriyama frequently misses class entirely and seems to take no interest in anything happening around him. Despite not contributing in class and multiple absences, Kiriyama is the top-ranking student in Class B; not even male class representative and perennial bookworm Kyoichi Motobuchi outperforms him academically. Kiriyama's athleticism, Shuya notes, is at least equal to the best their class has to offer, including Shuya himself and fellow basketball player Shinji Mimura. Kiriyama is also no stranger to battle, with whispers that he's fought rival gangs and even the local yakuza, and emerged unscathed. Kiriyama's so good at everything he does that even before the lead starts flying, the organizers of the Program have him projected to win since they see no other equal to him among the other forty-one of his classmates, with good reason.

Kiriyama is, outside of the people overseeing the Program, the primary antagonist of Battle Royale; over the course of the story, he's responsible for not only the largest single body count among the students of Class B, but also killing all four of the next-most-deadly competitors (Mitsuko Souma from the girls' side, and Shinji Mimura, Shogo Kawada, and Hiroki Sugimura from the boys'). By the time he's finally brought down by the combined result of Shinji's suicide bomb, Shogo's shotgun, Shuya's diversion and Noriko's head-shot, he's one of the final four students left alive, an enemy more on par with a natural disaster than a normal human opponent. We should be cheering for his defeat, and I was, but maybe not as loudly as I could have been. The reason I didn't celebrate his death the same way I did those of other antagonists (especially Mitsuko's) comes down to the central theme of this essay: the death of a tragic character is always, in and of itself, a tragedy, and while he may be an antagonist without peer, Kiriryama is the very definition of a tragic character in a story filled with nothing but tragic characters.

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Throughout the novel, we obtain a much better idea of who Kiriyama is and what drives him. Shuya in the opening chapter has already identified his strengths, but it isn't until later in the story, when we see things through narrative omniscience instead of Shuya's limited focal point, that we learn the reason for Kiriyama's seeming lack of weakness. Before he was born, Kiriyama's mother was involved in a car accident that resulted in her death. Kiriyama himself, while still in development in her womb, suffered a traumatic brain injury which effectively turned off his ability to feel emotions. Kiriyama was born a sociopath, so while most children are taken in and entranced with the world around them, he took no pleasure in anything at all. The rest of his mind, unencumbered by conscience or emotion, absorbed knowledge as it was flung at him, turning Kiriyama into a highly adaptable, genius-level intellect by the time he reached junior high. Kiriyama can literally do anything he puts his mind to, and do it flawlessly--an ability any kid his age would be willing to kill for. This ability comes with a downside however: while he's able to paint like an old master, fight like the best martial artists in the world, pass his classes through only the most minimal exertion of effort, and perform flawless musical compositions that can reduce an audience to tears, Kiriyama utterly lacks the ability to take pride in this work. Kiriyama succeeds, but never reaps the reward of that success. In addition, he's also so good at whatever he's doing that he's never felt the sting of failure either. He decides he wants to do something, and he does it, consequences be damned:

When Mitsuru asked how he managed to learn how to fight so viciously, he'd only respond, "I just learned." Kazuo would only ignore any further attempts to find out more. Mitsuru would then try to coax more out of him by suggesting he must have had a reputation in elementary school, but Kazuo only denied it. Then maybe he'd been a champion in karate or something? Kazuo denied this too. Another odd point, Mitsuru learned later, was the fact that Kazuo had broken into the art classroom to paint the day they met. When Mitsuru asked why he did that, Kazuo only replied, "I just felt like it." This was how Kazuo's strange persona contributed to Mitsuru's attraction to him. (Furthermore, the quality of the painting depicting a view from the classroom of the empty courtyard far exceeded the first-year junior high level, but Mitsuru never got to see this painting, because Kazuo had tossed it into the trash after completing it.)

Imagine living in a world where there are no ups and downs, no surprises, no thrills of victory, no agonies of defeat. A single, unwavering horizontal line drawn on a graph lasting roughly 80 years is the best you can hope to achieve. You will never know pain, it is true, but neither will you know passion. This is the truth, the tragedy, of Kiriyama: no matter how well he looks the part, no matter how many people follow him, no matter how many awards he wins or skills he masters or classes he passes, he can never fully understand what it means to be human. Dropped into the meat grinder of the Program, Kiriyama's only response will be to face it like he's faced every other obstacle in life: to fight, to outwit, and to win. He's a character essentially programmed to succeed in the face of any resistance. What else would we, as readers, expect?

Takami's answer, as it turns out, is just one more tragedy heaped on the victims of the Program, and it's this genius which elevates Kiriyama further as a tragic figure and Takami's ability as an author simultaneously. Simply having Kiriyama go with the flow and slaughter his way to victory is obviously the easy way out. Takami's not interested in that though--while Kiriyama's clearly going to play to win, Takami saw another important question a character like Kiriyama must ask: who does he play to win against?

Here's Kiriyama, as witnessed by Shuya once they wake up in the abandoned classroom:

Beneath his slicked-back hair his calm eyes were staring at the man at the lectern. His look was so calm, it didn't even resemble a glare. He paid no attention to his circle of followers addressing him: Ryuhei Sasagawa, Mitsuru Numai, Hiroshi Kuronaga (Male Student No. 9), and Sho Tsukioka (Male Student No. 14).

Clearly, Kiriyama's already figured out where he is, or he's so intent on learning the truth that he's tuning out the questions from the rest of his gang. Later on, he's one of the few students who asks a question during the Q&A session prior to the start of events, but he's only interested in finding out when the killing starts ("As soon as you leave here.")

Once it's revealed to the class that they're participating in a Battle Royale, one thing is made clear: any attempt by the students to rebel and fight against the Program and its enforcers instead of among themselves will be met with deadly consequences (demonstrated by current Program director Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who orders the death of Shuya's friend Kuninobu for threatening Kinpatsu's life, thereby threatening the government itself, then a short time later takes it upon himself to kill Fumiyo Fujiyoshi while she's talking to female class representative Yukie Utsumi because, as he puts it, "Impulsive actions are strictly prohibited. That means whispering will not be permitted."). Twenty minutes after the last student receives his or her survival pack and leaves the abandoned school serving as the Director's headquarters, the entire building and its surrounding area become the first Forbidden Zone. This serves two purposes: the obvious one is that it prevents a direct assault by the students, since anyone managing to somehow get past the armed guards and breach the interior would be instantly killed. The secondary purpose, however, is to entice students to leave the premises. Lingering around, sniping at each emerging student might play as a valid strategy at the beginning, but the last mistake anybody wants to make is killing the final student out the door and falling prey to their own collar before they can vacate the vicinity. The message is obvious, even if not all of the students (including Shuya himself) buy into it.

Shuya, in fact, considers Kiriyama's actions as Kiriyama exits the room:

Kazuo had his own gang. On top of that, his gang was a lot tighter than your typical group of buddies. Hiroshi Kuronaga, Ryuhei Sasagawa, Sho Tsukioka, and Mitsuru Numai. The rules of this game turned everyone else into your enemy, but the five of them killing each other was unimaginable. Besides—Shuya made a careful note of this—when he left, his boys looked disturbingly calm. Kazuo probably passed around a note to the others. He's probably planning an escape for the five of them. Kazuo was more than capable of out-maneuvering the government [emphasis added].

In other words, Kiriyama's skills and abilities are not only known by the rest of the student body, they're pretty much legendary. Now the reader is left to consider what actions the other students, including Kiriyama, will take, and it doesn't take long to find out.

Kiriyama did, indeed, manage to pass a note to the rest of his gang, requesting they meet him at the island's southern tip. Mitsuru Numai, the last member of the gang to leave the school building, heads to the rendezvous point as requested, but when he arrives, he's treated to a grim sight: one dead girl, two dead boys, and Kiriyama, waiting as though everything was normal and he wasn't surrounded by bloody corpses. Kiriyama explains that the girl, Izumi Kanai, was already there when he arrived, and so he killed her. When asked about Ryuhei Sasagawa and Hiroshi Kuronaga, Kiriyama says they attacked him and he fought back in self defense. The last member of the gang, Sho Tsukioka, is nowhere to be found, meaning he either never showed up or, more likely in Mitsuru's mind, Kiriyama ran across him somewhere else on the island and killed him already. It's here, on the southern tip of the island, that perhaps the greatest mini-tragedies of all the tragedies within this tragedy takes place.

Kiriyama comes to understand he has two choices when it comes to fighting: he can take on his classmates with the goal of eventually winning the Program, or he could turn his attention to Sakamochi and the rest of the people running the Program and go after them instead. Being a sociopath, Kiriyama has no real concept of 'right and wrong'. He understands some actions are considered more correct than others, but if he performs such actions it's purely out of self-preservation or a desire to blend in with the rest of society. Thus, while Shuya's first thought of the book is to gather help from his friends and figure out a way off the island, Kiriyama's is simply to determine the way to approach things that will give him the greatest chance of success, but to him, both options seem about equal, so he flips a coin.

If it comes up 'heads', he will use his gang to wage war on the Program, its Director, and the soldiers tasked with keeping order.

If it comes up 'tails', he will instead wage that war against his fellow classmates.

The flip of a single coin determines essentially the direction of the entire novel, and this fresh tragedy becomes that of the four saddest words in the English language: "what might have been". Of course, the coin landed on 'tails' before the rest of his gang arrived, and none of them stood a chance.

Other students beyond Kazuo Kiriyama make the choice to participate in the Program and play by the rules. Mitsuko Souma decides, despite Shuya's assumption that she'd never play go for it simply because she's a girl, to kill right from the start. Yoshio Akamatsu chooses to play partially out of fear but also as a way to get back at a class that bullied him for his weight. Motobuchi cracks under the stress, and goes violent in the belief that if he wins, he gets to go home and nothing else will matter. Others fight back only when attacked, or accidentally take out friends when, in fact, they were aiming at someone else, but in all these cases, the choices are conscious ones born out of fear, desperation, or psychopathology. Only Kiriyama chooses to battle his classmates based on chance alone, as opposed to self-defense, a desire for revenge, or a need to spill blood, and the ensuing body count is stark testament to his skill.

So Kazuo Kiriyama becomes the chief antagonist and obstacle among many antagonists and obstacles faced by Shuya, Noriko, and Shogo as they try to figure out a way off the island. Whether he's facing down a foe unarmed, as in his battle with Sugimura, going after them with guns blazing and blades flashing, or setting up a trap that will trick an unwary adversary into a Forbidden zone, Kiriyama is the chief recurring danger, surviving situations that should kill him time and again thanks to his wits, his weapons, his gear, or a combination of all three.

The reader can only sit back and wonder, after the smoke has cleared, the ringing in the ears subsided, and the blood has begun to dry, what the result could have been if the Fates had woven a different strand into the tapestry of history. Could Kiriyama have succeeded where the odds were so stacked against him? Would he have been able to rally others to his cause, come up with a solution to the problems posed by the explosive collars, the Forbidden zones, the boats patrolling the island to prevent swimmers from escaping, and the armed Self Defense Forces soldiers guarding the school building? How would the story play out under this new direction? Was it possible to live up to Shuya's evaluation of his capabilities when it came to beating the government?

The truth is, we'll never know...and where Battle Royale is concerned, I contend that is the greatest tragedy of all.

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Thanks so much for reading this far. If you have any further thoughts or comments about either this essay or Battle Royale in general (book, film, or manga), I'd love for you to chime in and leave your thoughts down below. Of course, Upvotes and Resteems are always appreciated. I'll get back to lighter fare in the coming days, I promise, with some great book reviews coming down the pipeline.

Now, once again, "2 students remaining."
But of course they're part of you now.