“Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you’re worth it”, proclaims Kitano to his class of seventh graders in his explanation of why they have been brought to an island to kill each other in the name Millennium Education Reform Act. The film Battle Royale directed by Kinji Fukasaku became a scandal for its brutal portrayal of violence against and by children and became a huge cult success for its direct social commentary on the social structures of Japan. Battle Royale, with its Lord of Flies’ deconstruction of human behavior, showcases for the audience the extreme measures the Government is willing to go to in order to maintain control of the failing social structures and unruly children in the name of control; however, the Government ends up breeding the violence they want to destroy. In the end, Battle Royale isn’t just a game--it’s the Japanese way of life.
The film attempts to identify the reasons for the dangerous, disenchanted youth by examining the root of the problem: The parents who believed they would have life- long employment and found they were eventually ‘restructured’ or, in layman terms, laid off. As the director states in an interview with the website Midnight Eye, “…since the burst of the bubble economy, these adults, many of them salarymen and working class people, they were put in a very difficult position with the recession or economic downturn and all of a sudden most of them started to lose confidence in themselves” (Fukasaku). The character Shuya Nanahara is a young student whose mother abandons him and whose father commits suicide within the first five minutes of the film as he is unable to find work within the floundering economy. Shuya becomes disillusioned and loses all respect for authority in the wake of his father’s suicide and becomes one of the delinquents that the government of Japan is so frightened of. As Battle Royale centers on violence perpetrated by children, the characters act as different symbols for what Japanese society is afraid of. A child in the normal state acts as a symbol for the health and new beginnings of the state and its people. However, in Battle Royale the children are feared because of their lack of respect for authority, and the adult world would rather murder them off than have the possibility of an unruly generation devoid of any structure.
Interestingly, the murderous children that the adults are afraid of are virtually non existent. The majority of the Class B kills out of complete fear of being killed and several times express the desire to go home. Yet, there are exceptions. There is Kiriyama, the mute and frightening so-called transfer student, who ‘volunteered for the fun’ kills off quite a few of the younger characters in an overly aggressive and blood thirsty manner. However, he is the only child character that kills without reason. The only character that even comes close is Mitsuko who kills in the same aggressive manner but it comes from a place of survival and wanting to win the game. It also brought to light that the reason she enjoys killing her classmates is because she “just didn’t want to be a loser anymore.” Mitsuko, ignored by her peers as a loser in their school days, desperately wants to be a winner in a society that seemingly rewards success. If that means she must indiscriminately kill classmates who hated her anyway, so be it. At least she’ll be a winner somehow. There are several characters that are obviously pacifists and refuse to fight and instead kill themselves. The three main characters Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada do not want to kill; but they do what they must in order to survive.
The film continually points back to the State as the villain of Battle Royale. It is the State that leads the economy downhill that in turn leads to job loss, and it is the State that instills the culture of extreme pressure and bullying. Ultimately, without the villainous State there would be no such thing as Battle Royale in the first place. The Government’s solution for the dangerous youth turns out to be much worse than the problem. The game itself stands for the divisive nature of Japanese society itself. Just the idea that the Government would think of putting a group of children through a murderous rampage to solve the discipline problem, illustrates that the Government itself inflects more damage in the span of three days to children than youth delinquents ever could do to a society in a lifetime. The children, even the few predator types, are nothing in comparison to Japanese society that made them this way and continually fostering their cut-throat nature in the Battle Royale.
Battle Royale is a major allegory for life in Japanese society. As several characters put it: “Nobody’s going to rescue you, that’s just life”, and “There’s a way out of this game. Kill yourself. If you can’t do that, then don’t trust anyone, just run.” The film’s allegiance ultimately lies with the children who have been thrust in a blood thirsty rat race by a society that has forgotten them. As Shuya says, “My mom and dad ran off and died because they felt like. But I’ll keep fighting even if I don’t know how, until I become a real adult.” The children of the film have a power of the adults: their will to survive and continue on. In the end, Shuya and Noriko are the only two characters left standing, but the State has taken away any chance that they may ever have a normal life. They must continually run and fight for survival even though they have made it off of the Island. This proves that Battle Royale is not just a game; it’s the constructed social norm of Japan. As the film ends, Noriko and Shuya run and instruct the audience to do the same: “No matter how far run for all your worth. Run.”
Works Cited
Jennings, Byrant. Media effects advances in theory and research. New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2008.
Mes, Tom, and Jasper Sharp. "Kinji Fukasaku Interview." 04 Sept. 2001. 01 Apr. 2009.
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