#PLEAAASE let me know if i'm leaving out any tw or cw tags!!!

[scuffle-with-spirals]

I remember when I borrowed Battle Royale from the library. It was one of the original translations I believe (with Shuya and Noriko on the front) and like, amidst all the absolute tomfuckery happening all around in that book, one thing young me found unironically funny was just. The way the book would bring Kazuo into a scene.

Spoilers for Battle Royale aiosdfmmiodfmiosdfmiosdfio

Big infodump under cut!!

OKAY SO

Sparing most of the details about the Program and all that, each of the 42 students who get released onto the abandoned island to fight to the death are each assigned a random weapon in their backpack, alongside some other necessities. It’s an insane coin toss on what you get here. You could get a little lucky and get something long-ranged — a gun, an automatic crossbow, etc... Maybe something on the blunter side like a bat or hammer. Or, you could be unlucky like one of the boys did and get something like a fork. It’s incredibly hit or miss.

So, for those not playing “the game” and have a good weapon, they’re at least somewhat reassured that if push comes to shove, as much as some really don’t want to, they’ll have something to defend themselves with.

But the thing is: for those who are playing, who are “with the Program”, so to speak, if the odds are in their favor, the others are uh. Kinda FUCKED

SO.

There are many, many aggressors in the novel who want to play the game. There are two big, famous ones as well, that many people who‘ve either read the book or watched the movie know: Mitsuko Souma, and Kazuo Kiriyama.

So my memory is fuzzy on the events of the book. I’m trying to finally give it a second read with the Remastered version; it’s been a few years and I’m still on it LMAO, and I’m sorry to say I’ve unfortunately not watched the movie yet. Currently, I’m only now finally finishing the manga, so it seems that, based on my fresh knowledge from that specific adaptation (which changes some things from the original novel), Mitsuko, while her assigned weapon is a sickle, does change her formula by snatching others weapons. There are many panels of her capping someone’s skull in and it’s infuriating to read for like, all of it, lmao.

But Kazuo? Nonono. No. He doesn’t get any farming tools as his weapon. Y’all, this dude is playing. And he was assigned a FUCKING MACHINE GUN

AND LISTEN

KAZUO DOESN’T FUCKING WAIT. IT IS ON SIGHT WITH HIM

sOooOoOo many characters die because Kazuo just happens to walk in through stage left and start blastin’. He’s a fascinating character to me because, while you have some people trying to convince others they’re not playing or to put their weapons down, while others go “ayo that’s stupid as shit kill or be killed dumb dumb” or Mitsuko pulling her expert gaslight gatekeep girlboss tricks, Kazuo’s just silent, blunt, and lethal. And once anyone who doesn’t get their ass obliterated before they can notice realizes this, they’re visibly terrified whenever he shows up again, letting anyone else nearby know that this dude’s out for blood even if that other person was also playing the game themselves.

So uh! About the novel!

In some, but not all cases probably, for some reason, the translator decides to announce Kazuo’s sudden entrance into a confrontation with the phrase:

“It was Kazuo Kiriyama.”

And like, at first, this made my heart stop. Especially when a character I liked was in the scene, I was like, “Ah shit, here we go, oh fuck.”

But then it just kept happening

This is literally just an example and probably matches nothing of what happens in any adaptation but just to show you how it looked, here’s a mockup of how this shit would play out:

Hiroki’s eyes darted to the nearby treetops, tensed by the rustling trees. In the glint of the moon, he assumed the worst, and tried to pinpoint any figures stationed in the branches. His eyes squinted. Please, let it be anything else. The wind, or perhaps fleeting birds, unfamiliar with the cruelty of bloodshed.

But it was Kazuo Kiriyama, and with a fucking ka-klinK he made sure his airpods were blastin that doom music as he ratatatatatata-

THIS SAME EXACT WORDING GOT USED SO MANY TIMES TO THE POINT WHERE I JUST GAVE A SLIGHT CHUCKLE WHEN I SAW IT LIKE

MAYBE IT’S JUST MY HUMOR

MAYBE I’M REMEMBERING IT WRONG?!?!?? HLEL

In the remastered versions there’s NOT ANY “it was kazuo kiriyama” moments yet, which on one end, is kinda upsetting because this is probably the easiest way to access the novel and I just want to know this wasn’t another terrible case of my memory so I can show it to people and laugh or something, but also, I mean, I get why they chose to change it up lmao. It’s. yeah.

I tried to make this an inside joke with some friends a few years ago but nobody else had read Battle Royale so i kinda gave up instantly lmao. But one friend DID suddenly hit me with a fast one referencing it one time and I just immediately lost it on SPOT she was so cool for that lmsfiofmsdfiomiosdffmiod you know who you are

PLEASE if anyone also remembers or even possibly owns the version of the novel I’m referring to, can you please let me know if this was actually a thing that happened? Like, a lot, or even at all? :0c I’m really curious, ;v;

Thank you so so much for reading this long ass post SDFIOMFSDFMIO!! And if anyone else wants me to talk about BR for any reason — whether it be because they just want to here my thoughts on things, on certain adaptations, or would just want to hear my retelling of events without actually reading the source material (SO VALID), PLEASEE LET me know. I’ll probably do this anyway but I mean!! Finding like-minded people who’re interested in anything is neat!!