Battle Royale has been a controversial IP since its first release, starting life as a book and then becoming a cult-classic movie. The franchise’s success in print and on the big screen led to an inevitable manga adaptation, which returns later this month in a snazzy Deluxe Edition format. The first volume of the Battle Royale: Deluxe Edition will be available starting January 27, and preorders are available at Amazon–and best of all, it’s currently discounted to $44 ahead of launch, saving you 20% off its standard $55 MSRP.
Battle Royale: Deluxe Edition Volume 1
$44 (was $55) | Releases January 27
Battle Royale: Deluxe Edition Volume 1 is a 604-page, leather-bound hardcover omnibus featuring the first three volumes of the original manga series that ran from 2000 to 2005. It’s unclear if the Deluxe Edition’s publisher Yen Press is including a new–hopefully more faithful–translation or the controversial script from the English editions published by TokyoPop. While the Japanese version of the manga closely follows the original novel’s plot, the English adaptation–handled by veteran comic book writer Keith Griffen–made substantial changes, resulting in several major plot holes in the later volumes.
Either way, considering TokyoPop’s releases have been out of print for several years, this new Deluxe Edition will be the easiest way to read the manga adaptation of the wildly popular franchise. Volume 1 launches on January 27, and we expect the next volumes in the series to go up for preorder in the near future.
Battle Royale would receive several sequel manga series over the years, but most of these are also hard to find due to their limited print runs. The most recent series in the IP is Battle Royale: Enforcers, which began serialization in 2022. Set decades after the original series, Enforcers takes place in the same universe. After a government artificial intelligence reactivates the infamous Program 68, the unruly kids of Daitoa Academy’s Class F find themselves divided into squads, given weapons, and set loose to fight each other to the death. So far, four paperback volumes of the series have been released and translated into English.
