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Japanese
Soundtrack |

French Soundtrack |
BATTLE
ROYALE OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK:
The music heard in the movie can largely be found in the official
soundtrack album. Some brief stretches of background music (like
during Nanahara's journey to reunite with his friends) are omitted
from the album, and some are actually borrowed from composer Masamichi
Amano's Giant Robo soundtrack. For a detailed listing of
the tracks and their corresponding scenes in the movie, check out
this page from BattleRoyaleOnline.com. You can also find scans
of the Japanese soundtrack's booklet there.
The soundtrack had two different releases: The original Japanese
release, and a French release that coincided with the
theatrical release of the movie in France. The music's identical,
but the packaging is different for obvious reasons. The Japanese
album can be bought at Amazon
Japan and CDJapan;
the French soundtrack is available at Amazon
France.
The soundtrack can also be found at some filesharing services. Some
tracks turn up once in a while on Kazaa (it's where I got most of
the soundtrack before I bought a copy of the CD), but I gather the
music's a lot easier to find on Soulseek and WinMX.
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Lily of Da
Valley |

Lily's
EP |
SHIZUKANA
HIBI NO KAIDAN WO ("Climb the stairs of quiet days")
(the Battle Royale end credits theme)
One memorable piece of music absent from the soundtrack album is
the surprisingly emotionally effective contemporary song that accompanies
the end credits. The song is called "Shizukana Hibi No Kaidan
Wo," and it's by Japanese rock-rap act Dragon Ash. The
song can be found on two of their releases: the album Lily
of da Valley, and the EP Lily's EP (where
you can also find a remix of the song). Both Lily
of Da Valley and Lily's
EP are available at CDJapan (yes, CD's are that pricey in
Japan). You can usually easily track the song down on filesharing
services, too.
Some fans have
translated the song and tabbed
the guitar chords. You can also download the mp3 at BattleRoyaleOnline.com(please
be kind to the server).
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Frequently
Asked Music Questions:
What's
the song in the intro? (also: "What's the song in the BRII Trailer?")
The piece of music is the "Dies Irae"
section of Verdi's setting of the Latin Requiem Mass, and is the most
memorable/familiar portion of Verdi's Requiem. A number of different
composers created their own renditions of Requiem; Mozart's own "Dies
Irae" was used in the trailer for the first BR movie.
What's the song playing when...?
Since answering this question would require spoilers, please follow
this link to the Assorted
Spoiler Questions page (and, as if you didn't know already, there
are SPOILERS ahead).
BATTLE
ROYALE II OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK:
The soundtrack for BRII was released on July 16, 2003, and
contains 21 tracks from the motion picture score as well as the
theme song "Mayonaka Shounen Totsugeki Dan." Except for
the familiar "Requiem" by Verdi and a Beethoven piano
piece that figures in the plot, the BRII score doesn't have
a selection of classical music classics like the original had, and
relies primarily on a new score by Masamichi Amano. We do hear a
couple of Amano's motifs carried over from the original, as well
as slightly updated versions of some themes.
From Kiriyama in the battleroyalefilm
forums, working from material from Daniel Wang, here's a translated
tracklisting of the soundtrack:
1. The fight for tomorrow
2. The fight for tomorrow part 2
3. Requiem
4. Wild Seven Declaring War
5. The time to attack
6. Shikanotoride 3B
7. The countdown to terror
8. Injured teammates
9. Getting weapons, and the death of Shugo
10. Nanahara Shuya's fight
11. Message
12. Mines
13. The Justice of a Ruler
14. Encountering Tragedies
15. Friends Forever
16. Landing Plan
17. The song of the Warriors
18. Teacher and Student Part 2
19. The glory of the resistance
20. Farewell to the Piano
21. Epilogue
22. Mayonaka shounen totsugeki dan by Stance Punks
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MAYONAKA
SHOUNEN TOTSUGEKI DAN ("Midnight Boys Attack Team")
(the BRII ending theme song):
A wistful, unpolished 7-and-a-half-minute punk ode that becomes
an energetic rallying cry at the end, the song by the band Stance
Punks seems to have as much to do with BRII as it does with "The
Midnight Workers," the nickname for Kinji Fukasaku's loyal
filmmaking crew. With earnest lines like "I charge at my
dream; I charge at your heart," the song was said to be a
favorite of Kinji Fukasaku himself.
The song is the tenth track on the eponymous first album by the
Stance Punks , which is available at CDJapan and Amazon.co.jp.;
it can also be found on the BRII soundtrack album.
A romanization
and translation of the song are available on mad
as toads, courtesy of the lovely and talented Mink.
The song can be downloaded from this little spot on angelfire:
http://www.angelfire.com/film/mayonakashounen
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What's
the song that Shiori plays on the piano?
Mark
at unheardbeethoven.org
helped
us out a great deal with the proper identification for the piece:
It's popularly known as "Farewell to the Piano,"
and is attributed to Beethoven, but his actual authorship of the
piece is doubtful. It's also known as "Glaube, Liebe und
Hoffnung" ("Faith, Love, and Hope"), and is
a waltz for piano in F major. Masamichi Amano made an arrangement
that includes a string orchestra for the version heard in BRII.
Since the work doesn't have an opus number and the authorship
is disputed, the Kinsky-Halm catalog of Beethoven's works lists
it as #15 in the Appendix.
Here's a
link to a midi of the piece, courtesy
of
lvbeethoven.com.
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