Battle Royale is a Japanese manga series written by Koushun Takami and illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi. It is based on Takami's novel of the same name, telling the story of a class of junior high school children who are forced to fight each other to the death. It was serialized by Akita Shoten in Young Champion from 2000 to 2005, and later combined into 15 tankobon volumes, which were released in English by Tokyopop from 2003 to 2006. In October 2007, a special edition of the manga began being released.
Cover of the first manga volume
Battle Royale is a Japanese dystopian horror novel by journalist Koushun Takami. Battle Royale is the first novel from Takami and was originally completed in 1996 but was not published until 1999. The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a fictional, fascist, totalitarian Japanese government known as the Republic of Greater East Asia.
First edition cover, as published by Ohta Publishing
Cover of the first English-language edition