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Battle Royale Franchise Gets New Battle Royale III: Enforcers Manga

The February issue of Akita Shoten's Bessatsu Young Champion magazine revealed on Wednesday that Koushun Takami's Battle Royale franchise is inspiring a new manga titled Battle Royale III: Enforcers that will launch in the magazine's next issue on February 1. Takami is credited with the original work, and Yukai Asada is drawing the manga.

The manga's numbering in the title implies continuity with the previous Battle Royale II: Blitz Royale manga by Hitoshi Tomizawa. The manga is based on the universe of the live-action Battle Royale film, instead of the original novel. That manga had two compiled book volumes in 2003 and 2004. Masayuki Taguchi serialized an earlier manga in Akita Shoten's Young Champion magazine from 2000 to 2005. A manga spinoff titled Battle Royale: Angels' Border ran in Young Champion in 2010.

The original 1999 novel followed a class of junior high school students who are forced to play a deadly game. On a deserted island, they must hunt each other down, and the last student left alive wins. The novel inspired two live-action films that have earned cult popularity, and the original novel's title is now often used to describe similar stories by other creators centering on characters pitted into brutal last-man-standing death games.

Viz Media published the original novel in North America, and its Haikasoru imprint reissued the novel with a newly revised text. Viz Media also the published the Battle Royale: Angels' Border spinoff manga. Tokyopop published 15 volumes of Taguchi's manga version in North America.

Source: Bessatsu Young Champion February issue and website