Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル ,Batoru Rowaiaru?) is a 1999 Japanese novel written by Koushun Takami.
The novel has been adapted into a film and a manga series (both of which have received sequels), and translated into English, French, German and Hungarian.
Battle Royale was one of the most notorious in recent Japanese cinema, sparking a national debate over violence, censorship, and youth. Here too violence is a tool to blast complacent audiences. But this dystopic youth picture is not set in a subcultural ward, quarantined from reality. It's an allegory of society eating its young and a black comedy about forcing delinquent teenagers to kill each other as media event.
Source:
Anne Tereska Ciecko. Contemporary Asian Cinema. Berg, New York 2006