Battle Royale vol. 11
By Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi
With English translation by Keith Giffen
WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT!
It starts looking like Rocky with a slice of Dragonball in here.
Topics:
· The art work and use of tone.
· The pacing of the entire volume (like Stallone's Rocky)
· Kiriyama vs Sugimura
· Kayako's broken family life.
Pop culture references:
· Dragonball z – Kayako mentions it when describing the energy she emits, "Chi energy"
Synopsis:
The announcement of 7 students recently killed during the program motivates Sugimura to find and protect Kayako. Between his martial arts classes, Sugimura would watch Kayako perform her flower arranging and it was during this time he found her attractive. Only later did he develop loving feelings towards her, when he took a stray kitten into class. Sugimura struggled to take care of the kitten until Kayako noticed, she helped him nurse the kitten and gave him advice. Kayako herself reveals that she was afraid of him, due to hearing the noise from his martial arts class, one room above her flower arranging class. Seeing his sensitive and compassionate side had changed that.
Now Kayako is a victim of the Battle Royale as is Sugimura and although he successfully finds Kayako it is obvious that she is frightened. In a display of trust, Sugimura throws down his gear and weapons. He tells her about the cat, the name he gave it, which was in her honour and the books he read so to help it, as she suggested. Kayako puts down her gun and the two team up.
Sugimura tells Kayako about their fellow students, Kawada's plan to escape their prison island and the need to join him and his group with Noriko and Nanahara. Sugimura also talks about the dangers they face. About his encounters with Mitsuko Soma and Kazuo Kiriyama as well as the skills he has to protect her. And although Sugimura does have skill, he lacks resolve.
He speaks of one occasion where during a gym class, the judo teacher would bully him and demand a demonstration since he was not Sugimura's personal sensei. The class could see that Sugimura did not have the resolve to fight back. And when one of the intelligent students humiliates the teacher, this vexes him enough to pick on more students. Including the mild mannered Kiriyama, who not only had the resolve and disregard to fight back but did so with the help from only reading a manual. Sugimura does not tell what happened next so not to frighten Kayako, although it became school rumour. Kiriyama went for the eye and went on to mutilate and cripple this teacher in front of the class.
Kayako demonstrates her ability to harness taichigong energy, long thought to be the stuff of fiction and martial art myth. She remains trustful to Sugimura even if Sugimura has never explained why he's risking his life for her. Sugimura reasons that it would be best to confess his feelings for her sooner than later. The moment is wasted however as Kayako spots Kiriyama on the offensive.
Sugimura and Kiriyama begin their fight to the death. Sugiumura uses his dart to disarm Kiriyama of his guns and goes for the chi powered strike he used in their first encounter. This time it fails, as Kiriyama uses his own chi to blast Sugimura's hand away.
Kiriyama becomes offensive, getting an eye poke on Sugimura's right. Sugimura starts to anticipate the next moves and counter attacks. Kiriyama responds by being defensive. Which sends Sugimura into a panic and gets his fingers inexplicably cut off. During Sugimura's wandering thoughts Kiriyama picked up the dart. He throws it at Sugimura's good eye.
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