BATTLE ROYALE II news archive

6/17/03
BRII Goods Online Store goes retail: The online shop at http://campaign.biglobe.ne.jp/toei/BR2-list.html has begun *retail* sale of BRII merchandise (previously it had only been wholesaling to bulk purchasers/retailers). Unfortunately, I can't get the interface to work with my browser's translators, so I don't know if they are able to (or willing to) take international orders. If anyone can walk us through the ordering process, or locate a contact who can in some way facilitate buying BRII merchandise, I'd be superlatively grateful.

BA-TSU BRII Lineup: the BA-TSU BRII site has just posted individual item listings and pricess for their entire BRII clothing and accessories line, with an indication that they'll be taking orders online in the future as well.

Replica Collar for sale?: The next hot news/rumor is that they'll be selling *official* replicas of the BRII collars for 20,000 Yen (roughly less than $200). Don't know the hows and wheres of it yet, only that the collars don't explode.

Variations has major spoilers: It looks like the "prequel" novella Battle Royale II: Kitano Shiori Variations isn't merely a prequel, but takes us well into the events of the movie, including the deaths of a significant number of the students. If you really want to know which students from Shikanotoride you shouldn't be attached to (and the general order in which they meet their maker), go to this thread on the battleroyalefilm.net forums and swipe the inviso-text on the fifth post. There's also what may be a significant revelation that can be inferred from the spoiler, so, really, if you have any doubts about looking at it, don't. I just wanted people to know that this information is already out and known to fans who've read Variations.

6/14/03
Wild Seven desktops: The ever resourceful Daniel Wang has created some Wild Seven desktops to go along with his BR/BRII related desktops at his site, Battle Station. Download yourself one now!

Wild Seven Logo, Shikanotoride Logo, New Island Map: scanned and tweaked from Battle Royale II: Kitano Shiori Variations, these images can now be downloaded at my auxiliary site, BR Depot@battleroyalefilm.com.

A Stupid Gaijin looks at Battle Royale II: Kitano Shiori Variations: The parts of the book that don't require a knowledge of Japanese are described by a pathetically obsessed BR fan on the battleroyalefilm forums.

BRII Soundtrack available for preorder: at Amazon Japan.

BRII Store to go online?: Rumor is that BRII goods available at the BRII Store will soon be available for retail purchase online (another recently-opened site offers products wholesale to retailers but not to the general public). Let's hope and pray they ship internationally.

Character names revised: I've tweaked the cast pages so that the romanizations of the characters names match those listed in Variations. Only about five first names were off. I've also tweaked some of the spellings of the ones I did get right to go with Variations' simpler romanization--e.g. "Ryou" becomes "Ryo," and "Imakiire" becomes "Imakire."

6/13/03
New BRII site with making-of footage: A new BRII-related site has appeared at http://theater.nifty.com/br2/ , duplicating some of the information on the official site. It's got the "lobby trailer" in streaming Windows and Real media formats (the sixth link down on the menu). It's also got some neat new (though tiny) stills from the movie smattered about the site. But most impressive and important are the two "making-of" clips, which I presume are from the BRII Special that aired in late January: http://theater.nifty.com/br2/making.htm

The first clip, clocking in at 4 minutes and change, deals with the readings and rehearsals for BRII...it's an awesome demonstration of just how dedicated and hands-on Kinji Fukasaku was with the project, that even though he only got to shoot the movie for five days, he had already put in an immense amount of work beforehand. The footage shows the kids rehearsing for the "Normandy landing," and it's obvious that these roles are much more physically demanding than the original BR's class of kids (on the fun side, it looks like they got to practice with paintball guns part of the time).

The second clip, much shorter at about 2 minutes, deals with principal photography with Kenta at the helm...we get some of the scene where the BRII kids are hauled into their cage in the warehouse and Riki introduces himself. We also get quite a bit of Normandy--lots of things go boom (I wonder whether they called in some stunt doubles, because some of those explosions happen pretty darn close to the kids) and shooting. Even after having seen the trailers, this stuff impressed me immensely--this was hard work for everyone involved.

Lastly, the website adds an extra paragraph to the "story info" found on the official site, mainly talking about the beach landing, and Nanahara trying to win over some of the BRII kids to his cause. It also specifies the number of students who survive the beach landing, which you can learn for yourself (if you want to) by scrolling down to the very bottom of this page or clicking here.

Theatrical Trailer Screencaps: Much gratitude and respect to BR fan "Kei" (homepage: http://perfecture.vze.com/ ) who took the time and effort to screencap the theatrical trailer for me. You can take a look at Kei's work here.

6/11/03
BRII sets record for book tie-ins: Sankei Sports points out that BRII is the movie with the greatest number of books (10) published in conjunction with the title (probably a Japanese record...not sure whether it's a world record, but I'd say it's up there when it comes to tie-ins that are released in time with the movie's initial theatrical release). The cover (or perhaps just a photograph) from the Ai Maeda in BRII photobook is shown in the online article, as well as a nice table of all ten titles. It's said that care was taken to make sure that the content of the ten books had little overlap with each other, and that the number of book projects was actually 15 at first, then narrowed down. The article mentions that the first BR had four official tie-in books for its release: BR Insider, the Battle Royale Complete Guidebook (which was rereleased with new material in conjunction with the Special Version), the Unusual Summer Vacation of 42 Students (a photobook/activity book), and Aki Maeda's Battle Royale photo book. I presume they're not including the original novel (which was published over a year before the movie's release), or the manga (released on its own as an independent adaptation of the novel), but I count at least one more...a book about Kinji Fukasaku released in December of 2000 called "Battle Royale: Without Honor or Humanity".

Magazine publishes special BRII issue: Japanese publication Young Champion magazine is devoting an issue to BRII; Ai Maeda graces the cover. Each copy of the issue will also include one of six collectible BRII cards featuring Ai Maeda, and one hundred of those cards are personally autographed by her

Another BR1 face returns for BRII: in the "better late than never" department, another addition to the cast: Actress Michi (Michiko) Yamamura reprises her role as a television news reporter in BRII. Go to the third Pictures page for a collage of images from her online journal showing her work on the new movie.

6/08/03
Tartan to distribute BRII in the UK: Gorezone.net reports that Tartan, the company that distributed the first BR in the UK (a small theatrical release and not one but three DVD releases) has closed a deal with Toei to distribute BRII (and several other Japanese films) in the UK sometime in 2004.

Amazon Japan pre-orders: dhere's a list of BRII-related items up for order/pre-order from Amazon Japan:
Battle Royale II Variations by Shiori Kitano (580 Yen, June 10)
Natsuki Kato in Battle Royale II (1600 Yen, June 17)
Shuya Nanahara x Shikanotoride Class 3-B Battle Royale II "White Paper" and DVD (1800 Yen, June 21)
Battle Royale II Gaiden (DVD) (3800 Yen--3230 Yen Amazon Sale Price, July 5)
The last battlefield of Kinji Fukasaku (DVD) (3800 Yen--3230 Yen Amazon Sale Price, July 10)

6/06/03
OFFICIAL SITE GETS REVAMPED!: Quick, go check out http://br-new.jp now--the website's just been transformed into a Flash extravaganza with numerous images from the movie, and the full THEATRICAL TRAILER!

Poster controversy: Sponichi reports that Toei is taking down BRII advertising signboards that have been put up throughout the country, in response to protests from PTA groups. 100 of the signboards were installed within a zone of a designated radius around schools. Apparently, the parents and teachers were upset by the 1m by 3m signboards, which showed the BR teacher (presumably Riki Takeuchi) commanding, "Kill!" and text reading "All persons killed in war--junior high school students." The signs are being taken down starting today, with new signs replacing them by the 16th. It will reportedly cost 1.5 million yen to do this.

Wholesale goods: Some BRII-related goodies (cell phone straps, jackets, umbrellas, etc) are now being made available to bulk purchasers and wholesalers through this BIGGLOBE site: campaign.biglobe.ne.jp/toei/. Now, if they could only sell and ship overseas...

6/04/03
Theme song chosen?: Reportedly, the theme song to BRII will be "Mayonaka Shounen Totsugeki Dan" (Midnight Boys Assault Team) by the Japanese punk band Stance Punks...a somewhat different stylistic choice from the first BR's mellow rock-rap "Shizukana Hibi No Kaidan Wo" (Stairway to Quiet Days). "Mayonaka" is the tenth track on the Stance Punks' first full album released in 2002.

6/03/03
Mega spoilers online: Tokyoscope author Patrick Macias , who sat in on a sound mixing session for BRII a few days ago, has posted what he remembers of the 20 minutes of edited footage he saw on the KFCCinema forums (and soon on Ain't it Cool News). WARNING: THESE ARE HUGE SPOILERS DEALING WITH THE CLIMAX AND ENDING OF THE MOVIE. If you're still willing to read them, take a moment to reconsider...then click here.

List of foreign countries in talks to get BRII: Yahoo! Japan named South Korea and France as two of the other countries working out a deal with Toei at the Cannes Trade Fair. So here's the list so far: The United Kingdom, Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, South Korea, France, and one other country not yet identified (I would hazard a guess that it's Finland, as part of the Scandinavian package). The price tags on the contracts are said to range from 100 million Yen to 300 million Yen, and Toei is said to be optimistic that they can line up 40 countries to get BRII, twice the number of countries the first BR got in its distribution run (I suppose they'll be including the first movie in any BRII distribution deal with a country that didn't get it the first time around).

6/01/03
BRII Preview at Cannes Trade Fair: Yomiuri reports that a 7-minute preview of BRII was screened at the trade fair in Cannes that's held in conjunction with the film festival. The two screenings that were held were reportedly packed (not just with potential buyers, but by general audience members), and someone was even scalping tickets to the show. The audience was said to applaud loudly when Kitano showed up in his flashback scene. In addition to the five nations that have either already signed a distribution deal or are working on a distribution deal with Toei (UK, Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Germany), eight more countries are now in line to get BR2 as a result of agreements made in the trade fair, including the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway. That's 13 foreign distribution deals even before the film has hit domestic theaters.

Premiere Tickets on Yahoo! Japan Auctions: The hottest items on Yahoo! Japan Auctions right now include tickets to one of the BRII advance screenings/premieres happening later this month, including ones that will be attended by the film's stars. Some tickets are being offered for as high as 10000 Yen.

Pictures from the set: Japanese Fansite Bloody Race has acquired pictures taken of the Wild Seven headquarters in Nagasaki's Nishi-Sonogi-gun Peninsula, among other shots behind the scenes. Link to these pages here, here, here, here, here, and here.

BRII merchandising, Part I: BRII Gaiden and BRII Bible ("Shuya Nanahara x Shikanotoride Jr. High Class 3B White Paper and DVD) are up for pre-order at Amazon.co.jp. Gaiden can also be bought from CDJapan.co.jp. and Yesasia.com.

BRII Merchandising, part II: New items include extremely limited bangles, available with either Shiori's, Asakura's, or Aoi's imprint on them, as well as cool new posters of Wild Seven (looking rough and tough) and Shikanotori Jr. High Class 3-B (looking strangely cheerful). Pictures of these items are on the Goods page.

5/23/03
Westerner sees BRII finale: Tokyoscope author Patrick Macias, who interviewed BR/BR2 stuntman Ginty Kobayashi a few weeks ago, just made this post on the kfccinema.com forums (NOTE: some of the post contains EXTREME SPOILERS that even those of you who like reading up on the story might NOT want to see, so I've hidden the last sentence. Swipe it with your mouse to see it).

Natsuki Kato BR2 Photobook release date: The photobook featuring BR2 actress Natsuki Kato on the set is scheduled for release June 17th. Details in the Books page.

BA-TSU site: BA-TSU's BR2 clothing line site recently updated with more images of the BR2 clothing line, which includes a line of apparel for little kids as well as young adults.

5/17/03
Empire Magazine blurb: BR iMDb message board poster Luke Ryan Baldock transcribed a brief article about BRII that appeared in the current issue (June 2003, #168) of Empire, a cinema/action-scifi-horror genre mag published in the UK:

Written by Andrew Osmond.
BATTLE ROYALE II
The Pitch: The kids aren't alright. In fact, they're downright pissed off.
Location: Tokyo, Japan.
Talent: Kenta Fukasaku (director); Tatsuya Fujiwara, Takeshi Kitano, Sonny Chiba.
ETA: Late 2003
"This time they're bad students," explains director Kenta Fukasaku, taking a breather from supervising one of the bloody shoot-outs in Battle Royale II. "They're delinquents." Ulp. As anyone who saw the first Japanese film knows, we're not talking fags behind the bikesheds here. Battle Royale, in which a class of schoolkids slaughter each other, was so shocking that Japanese government ministers asked cinemas to boycott it. Maybe they were put off by the decapitated-head-with-grenade-in-mouth bit. Or the sight of psycho-teacher Takeshi Kitano splitting the skull of a schoolgirl who speaks out of turn. Grange Hill wasn't like this, even with Mr. Bronson. Today, Pipeline is on a derelict-building set, all broken concrete, jagged metaland bloodstained walls. Not surprisingly, there's a life-or-death skirmish taking place, involving freedom fighters called the Wild Seven. Tatsuya Fujiwara - the sole male survivor of the first film - cradles the body of a death-rattling friend,then flies into a berserk rage. He's gone political, y'see. Japanese audiences have already seen trailers where Fujiwara blows up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, declaring war on the state. Cue more schoolkids are drafted in by the government to stop the terrorism. The production was blighted by the death of the original director, Kinji Fukasaku, whose 60-film career included Yakuza pictures, and the first Battle Royale. Despite developing cancer, Kinji started the sequel against doctors' advice, only to die a month later. His son, Kenta, who scripted the first film, is determined to honour his memory. "For me, the death of Kinji Fukasaku had three meanings," he says. "I lost my father, I lost my favourite director and I lost my master. To make a film is a battle, and my father died in the middle of such a battle. To complete this film is a revenge and a requiem."

Rough cut completed?: Unconfirmed reports on BRII fan sites say that a rough cut of the film clocks in at two and a half hours, with CGI and other FX yet to be completed.

Behind-the-scenes pictures: some rather oblique photographs of the BRII "Normandy Landing" shoot are at http://www.battleroyale2.jp/picture.html. (once again, courtesy of Daniel Wang)

More goods and prices: a couple of items added to the list of goodies available at the BRII Official Shop are up in the Goods page.

5/14/03
BA-TSU BRII clothing pix and info: BR Yahoo! Group member miyamoto_musashi25 posted scans to the group, of articles from Kera Magazine (an alternative fashion mag) dealing with the BA-TSU BRII clothing line. One of the articles was an interview with Kyo from the J-rock band Dir en Grey, along with BA-TSU head Ruki. Kyo wore some BRII clothing for the photo layout, and revealed that he had actually been offered the Kuninobu part in the original Battle Royale film. I've posted relevant portions of the scans in the Apparel section (including the prices the outfits go for), but to get scans of the whole articles, you'll have to look in the BR Yahoo! Group's file section.

5/10/03
Footage of Wild Seven's base: Another scoop by BR Yahoo Group contributor Daniel Wang, who found Quicktime movies of the Wild Seven headquarters location at one of the more popular Japanese BRII fansites. Link to the clips here: http://www.battleroyale2.jp/rupo.html (scroll down for the links)

Release dates for books announced: Some of the BRII-related books now have tentative release dates.

Credit where credit is due department: Want to see where I get some of my BRII news from? I've added links to the "where does this information come from" heading at the top of this page.

4/29/03
Crew returns from Afghanistan: Sanspo reports that the five-person crew that went to Afghanistan on the 21st of the month to shoot additional footage for BRII has returned safely. Led by director Kenta Fukasaku, they say that they've fulfilled his father Kinji Fukasaku's wish of shooting a scene of springtime encroaching on a battlefield in Afghanistan. Kenta's now moving on to complete editing the feature in time for its July 5th release. Word is that they had brought along Kinji's ashes to the Afghanistan shoot.

4/26/03
Cast Update: Pictures and names of the auxiliary Wild Seven terrorists are up in the Cast page.
Trailer Screencaps: don't care to view the trailer? You can viddy some screencaps here.

4/25/03
Full trailer debuts: a trailer for BRII has been put up on the official website. Sources say that this isn't a theatrical trailer, but one that runs on monitors in theater lobbies; a different theatrical trailer may be forthcoming.
http://sb.tsutaya.co.jp/WM/BR2_high.asx - High Bandwidth
http://sb.tsutaya.co.jp/WM/BR2_low.asx - Low Bandwidth

4/23/03
Weapons! We got weapons!: Opened up a new page featuring some of the hardware that will be seen in the movie.

Official Site Updated with Story Info: The BRII official site has been updated with information about the movie's story:

This time it's war.

Battle Royale 2: Requiem

The New Century Educational Reform Act (the BR Act) kills the students of one class chosen at random out of the third year students at junior high schools nationwide until one student remains--what becomes of those who survive the ultimate scenario of killing all of one's classmates?

Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa survived BR and escaped from the island, and the world was plunged into an era of terrorism for three years. Nanahara, who became the leader of an anti-BR organization resisting the government, declared war on all adults, curbing the murders resulting from the BR Act. The organization was put on the wanted list as cruel terrorists responsible for bombings in the city.

The adults enacted a new game: The New Century Terrorist Countermeasure Alternative" (BRII) in the name of justice. One year after the bombings that destroyed the city, 42 students from Shikanotoride Junior High School Class 3-B (where delinquents, problem children, and truants were assembled from all over the country) are kidnapped by the army while on the bus taking them to skiing school for the Christmas vacation. The students are forced to change into a military uniform and their teacher RIKI appears when they are forced into a huge army tent: They have been chosen as the class to participate in BRII.

The rules:

1. The objective: to kill Shuya Nanahara in his island hideout within three days.

2. Pair Tag Match: The collars are linked between students of the same roster number so that if one dies, the collar of the other explodes.

The students who bore the same number as Shuya Nanahara --#15--are killed this way to force the others to participate. The remaining 40 students are put on six remotely-piloted boats in order of their attendance number, and leave for the "battlefield" front line.

4/22/03
Interview with a BRII insider: Shonen Jump USA editor Patrick Macias sat down to dinner with Ginty Kobayashi, the stuntman/journalist who co-wrote BRI (Battle Royale Insider), the making-of book about the original Battle Royale. Kobayashi cameoed in BR as a soldier, and spent time on the BRII set. Here is Patrick's post as it appeared on the kfccinema forums:

Ok. My buddy Ginty Kobayashi just got back from seven days on the set of Battle Royale 2. I sat him down for a big Korean dinner and asked him to tell me everything he could about it with notepad in hand. Unfortunately, most of what he had to say had to go off the record ª the best I can do is tease with a montage of taboo subjects involving: a flaky Quentin Tarantino, a staff divided between a living Kenta and the memory of Kinji, and if BR author Koushun TakamiÆs has been suffering acute writers block or not. Rest assured that the really juicy stuff will come out eventually. Below is the stuff I am authorized to say....

Kenta's otaku sensibilities (his dream is reportedly to make a live action version of old superhero TV Kikaida) are pushed to the forefront, resulting in a work that will have a strong anime-like atmosphere...although one action scene will strongly recall the Normandy Invasion sequence from Saving Private Ryan.

The casting of Riki Takeuchi was at the request of Kinji himself. He was a great fan of Dead or Alive. The rumor is that Riki threatened to quit when Kinji died.

Before BRII, Kinji had started pre-production on an adaptation of the infamous super-violent manga THE WORLD IS MINE (think Natural Born Killers). It is possible this will Kenta's next film.

Toei will be mad cashing in on the film. Consumer items will include mass produced versions of the new solider suits that the students wear and official BRII bottled water to be sold in convenience stores ª just like those included in survival packs.

Lastly, there is an enormous BRII poster up in Ginza that has become a shrine of sorts for Kinji Fukasaku fans and admirers. It is covered in signatures and messages (from space).