Battle Royale

Koshun Takami Battle Royale Translated from the Japanese by Yuji Oniki

I dedicate this to everyone I love. Even though it might not be appreciated.

Third Year Class B, Shiroiwa Junior High School Student List

Males

1. Yoshio Akamatsu

2. Keita Iijima

3. Tatsumichi Oki

4. Toshinori Oda

5. Shogo Kawada

6. Kazuo Kiriyama

7. Yoshitoki Kuninobu

8. Yoji Kuramoto

9. Hiroshi Kuronaga

10. Ryuhei Sasagawa

11. Hiroki Sugimura

12. Yutaka Seto

13. Yuchiro Takiguchi

14. Sho Tsukioka

15. Shuya Nanahara

16. Kazushi Niida

17. Mitsuru Numai

18. Tadakatsu Hatagami

19. Shinji Mimura

20. Kyoichi Motobuchi

21. Kazuhiko Yamamoto

Females

1. Mizuho Inada

2. Yukie Utsumi

3. Megumi Eto

4. Sakura Ogawa

5. Izumi Kanai

6. Yukiko Kitano

7. Yumiko Kusaka

8. Kayoko Kotohiki

9. Yuko Sakaki

10. Hirono Shimizu

11. Mitsuko Souma

12. Haruka Tanizawa

13. Takako Chigusa

14. Mayumi Tendo

15. Noriko Nakagawa

16. Yuka Nakagawa

17. Satomi Noda

18. Fumiyo Fujiyoshi

19. Chisato Matsui

20. Kaori Minami

21. Yoshimi Yahagi

Introduction

[A pro wrestling fan's rant in an alternate world]

What? Battle Royale? "What's Battle Royale?" Come on, don't tell me you don't know that!? Why bother coming to a pro wrestling match, huh? The name of a move? The name of a tournament? No, Battle Royale's a pro wrestling match. What? "Today?" Today, here, you mean? No, it's not today's program. It's only held in large arenas for big events. Look, there's Takako Inoue. O-oh, sorry. That's right Battle Royale. It's still held in the All Japan Pro Wrestling League. In a nutshell, let's see Battle Royale is—you know how your usual pro wrestling match is one on one or between paired up partners, well with Battle Royale, ten or twenty wrestlers all jump into the ring. And then you're free to attack anyone, one on one, or ten against one, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many wrestlers pin someone down—what, you don't even know what a pin is? Once your back's on the mat, the count goes, one, two, three, you lose. It's no different from a normal match. Players can also forfeit, and occasionally someone'll get knocked out. Oh yeah, and there's the count out. You can also be disqualified by breaking the rules. Most wrestlers lose by falls in Battle Royale. Hey, go Takako, go! Go, go! O-oh, sorry sorry. In any case, the ones who fall lose, they have to leave the ring. Fewer and fewer players remain in the game. There're only two left in the end. One on one, a very serious match. One out of those two will eventually take a fall. Then there's only one player left in the ring, and he's the winner. He wins. He's given a huge trophy and prize money. Get it? Huh? What about players who've been friends? Well, at first, of course they help each other out. But in the end they have to fight each other. You have to follow the rules. Which also means you get to watch some rare matches. Like way back when the tag-team partners of Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith were the remaining players. Same thing happened with tag-team partners Animal Warrior and Hawk Warrior. In that match though I don't remember which one, but the guy intentionally went for a count out letting his partner win, a display of camaraderie which was kind of a letdown. Oh, you can also team up with players who used to be your enemies. But the moment you think you're teaming up to get rid of someone else, this sneaky friend can suddenly betray and beat you. Let's see, a Battle Royale I'd like to see now? Well given how many federations there are, I'd like to see a Battle Royale between the leaders of each federation. Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiyaki Kawada, Nobuhiko Takada, Masakatsu Funaki, Akira Maeda, Greate Sasuke, Hayabusa, Kenji Takano, also Genichiro Tenryu, Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujimani, and Kengo Kimura could still be in the running. It'd be fun to add Yoji Anjoh and Super Delfin. They might actually end up being the last two remaining players. For women's first of all, Takako, then Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Kyoko Inoue, Yumiko Hotta, Akira Hokutu, Bull Nakano, of course Dynamite Kansai, and Cutey Sazuki and Hikari Fukuoka, Mayumi Ozaki, Shinobu Kandori, and Chigusa Nagayo and...what? How could you not know any of them? Did you really come here to watch pro wrestling? Oh, no no no no no, Takako, fight back! Takako! All-right.

Prologue Government memo

Government Internal Memo 1997, No. 00387461 (Top Secret)

Dispatched by Central Authority Secretariat Special Task Force Defense Supervisor and Battle Experiment Advisor of the Special Defense Army

To: Supervisor in Charge of No. 12 1997 Battle Experiment No. 68 Program (May 20, 18:15)