“Battle Royale: Angel’s Border” offers no surprise for those who read the novel or manga series or watched the live action movies. We know these characters are going to die but this tragic side story is about humanizing the characters and showing the brutality of the experiment. If anything, while it’s great to see Koushun Takami return for another “Battle Royale” story, don’t expect too much from this side story. Just look at it as an extension of what you have read or watched, and if you have enjoyed “Battle Royale”, then this one-shot manga is worth checking out!
Image courtesy of © 2012 Koushun Takami/Mioko Ohnishi/Youhei Oguma. All Rights Reserved.
MANGA TITLE: Battle Royale: Angels’ Border
STORY AND ART BY: Story by Koushun Takami and Art by Mioko Ohnishi and Youhei Oguma
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: Akita Publishing
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: VIZ Media, LLC/Shonen Jump Manga
RATED: OT for Older Teen
RELEASE DATE: June 17, 2014
The Program is a brutal military experiment that pits junior high students against each other every year in a brutal battle to the death. Most of the students from Shiroiwa Junior High scatter as soon as they reach the remote island where they must participate in the latest round of the Program. But Yukie Utsumi and five of her friends lock themselves in the lighthouse, clinging to a desperate hope of survival. They all trust each other, but they also know that only one can survive the Battle Royale…
Back in 1996, Koushun Takami would go to work on a novel which would be known as “Battle Royale”.
Because of the novel’s controversial content, “Battle Royale” would become a bestseller, selling over a million copies. But the novel would lead to a manga and two live-action film adaptations.
For those not familiar with “Battle Royale”, the story takes place in an alternate Japan which has become a police state known as “Republic of Greater East Asia”.
Fifty randomly selected classes of secondary school students are forced to take part in a program in which all must slaughter each other with one person surviving and winning the battle. If no one fights, around their neck collars are devices that are set to detonate or if they wander into forbidden zones, the collar will detonate.
The collars provide organizers to hear the student’s conversations and log their activities. And this “Battle Royale” must take place within 24 hours.
The program was created as part of military research that has become part of reality television.
In the novel and film, a group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School, who think they are on a study trip, find out that they are taking part in a “Battle Royale” with each student receiving a survival pack with a random weapon or tool and one person survives.
While it’s been nearly 20-years since Koushun Takami had written “Battle Royale”, Koushun Takami returns with a side story titled “Battle Royale: Angels’ Border” revolving around a group of female students who were literally safe inside a light house but for some reason, ended up slaughtering each other.
The idea for this side story came from the 2009 edition of the North American translation of the “Battle Royale” novel in which Takami wrote that he had an idea for a scene about the two girls talking atop the lighthouse and sure enough, “Angels’ Border” was born.
“Battle Royale: Angels’ Border” focuses on two stories.
The first revolves around Yukie Utsumi and Haruka Tanizawa. Two friends who discovered how much they love each other.
We learn the background stories of both young women but also how these two ended up dying and what circumstance has led to their death during the “Battle Royale”.
The second story revolves around Chisato Matsui and Shinji Mimura. The story is about how the pure and innocent Chisato going on her first date with the bad boy Shinji Mimura.
As we learn the background stories of both characters and how they enjoyed their first date together, we also find out the details of how both of these individuals were killed.
“Battle Royale: Angels’ Border” is fascinating for the fact that Koushun Takami, who has not made anything after “Battle Royale”, has chosen to do another story revolving the group of girls who managed to kill themselves under the stress that they can’t trust each other.
Granted, the result of the girls dying remain the same as it was in the novel and the movie, but what is explored are the backstories of various characters. For Yuki and Haruka, how these two young girls who depended on one another, ended up dying.
The stories of these two made you feel how these two had so much life and many years to live for, but due to this “Battle Royale”, only one can live. And how these two approach their lives together, their final moments together and expressing their feelings towards one another.
The same can be said about Chisato Matsui and Shinji Mimura, how these two unlikely people would end up being friends or being close with one another.  And the fun they had in their first date (*if you call it a “date”).
If anything, you get a sense that if these individuals lived, they would have had relationships or close friendships as they treasured their life but now, nothing is the same.
Of course, it’s a tragedy knowing that these characters are going to be killed but that is part of the storyline of “Battle Royale”, trying to show the brutality of this experiment and how people who are full of life, are forced to take part in a barbaric experiment and their chances of survival are slim.
As for the manga series, unfortunately Masayuki Taguchi of the original manga series is not involved but you do get Mioko Ohnishi and Youhei Oguma as the illustrators, give two different styles for each story and for the most part, character design are typically closeups but I did enjoy the art for style by Oguma Yohei for the second story.
Koushun Takami also offers an original script for both storylines at the end of the manga.
Overall, “Battle Royale: Angel’s Border” offers no surprise for those who read the novel or manga series or watched the live action movies. We know these characters are going to die but this tragic side story is about humanizing the characters and showing the brutality of the experiment. If anything, while it’s great to see Koushun Takami return for another “Battle Royale” story, don’t expect too much from this side story. Just look at it as an extension of what you have read or watched, and if you have enjoyed “Battle Royale”, then this one-shot manga is worth checking out!