Battle Royale (Japanese: バトル・ロワイアル, Hepburn: Batoru Rowaiaru?) 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 volumes, which were released in English by Tokyopop from 2003 to 2006. In October 2007, a special edition of the manga began being released. The manga follows the plot of the novel fairly closely, but expands on the backstory of each of the students. It is far more sexually graphic than the novel and film versions, but like them, is noted for its intense, gory violence. The English adaptation of manga makes several changes to the plot. Most notably claiming "the program" is a reality TV show and changing the time that the story is set in by almost 10 years, both of wh...