Battle Royale (Japanese: バトル・ロワイアル Hepburn: Batoru Rowaiaru) is a Japanese manga series written by Koushun Takami and illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi. It is based on Takami's novel of the same name, telling the story of a class of junior high school children who are forced to fight each other to the death. It was serialized by Akita Shoten in Young Champion from 2000 to 2005, and later combined into 15 volumes, which were released in English by Tokyopop from 2003 to 2006. In October 2007, a special edition of the manga began being released.