Battle Royale
in: Battle Royale novel characters, Program Students, Deceased Characters, Female

Hirono Shimizu (Novel)

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For the manga, please go to Hirono Shimizu (Manga). For the film, please go to Hirono Shimizu (Film).

Backstory

Hirono Shimizu (清水比 呂乃, Shimizu Hirono) is a member of the gang headed by Mitsuko Souma. Hirono had been involved with both recreational drugs and prostitution, and she also shoplifted and bullied other classmates (including Megumi Eto and Kaori Minami). As a result of these things, she did not get on well with her parents, who treated her like a lost cause. Although considered a "bad girl", Hirono was quite opposed to the idea of having to kill people unless they tried to kill her first. Even though she committed various crimes, she prided herself on at least being genuine, as opposed to Mayumi Tendo, who she knew participated in "phone-dating" yet maintained a prim and proper persona at school. Hirono also never saw most of her actions as harmful, and it does not seem that she was pressured into committing crimes by Mitsuko, like Yoshimi Yahagi was. Hirono first entered Megumi's class in their second year of junior high school. When Megumi and Hirono were in the same hall, Hirono typically tripped Megumi and/or slashed Megumi's skirt with a razor. Eventually Hirono lost interest in Megumi. She did not believe anyone would be nice to her without having an ulterior motive. This, with the fact that she does not trust Mitsuko, means that Yoshimi was her only real friend. Because of her involvement in crime she had a very mature view of the world, she felt that you couldn't trust anyone.

Appearance[]

She was pretty though she wasn't in the league of Mitsuko or Takako. She had the mature looks of a college student. She had spiked hair. She was tall at 167 cm, just short of Haruka.

Friends and Enemies[]

Hirono was part of Mitsuko's gang, but she didn't really trust anyone because of her mature view of the world. She bullied Kaori and Megumi and wasn't trusted by anyone in the class. Hirono was on bad terms with her parents who thought she was a lost cause.

In the Program

Hirono hides inside a farmhouse and was also spotted by Shinji Mimura, but she never noticed. Shinji never called out to her because he doesn't trust Mitsuko and her friends. Hirono ends up fighting with Kaori after attempting to run away from her early on in the program, and Kaori shoots Hirono in the arm. Shuya Nanahara distracts Kaori while trying to break up the fight, and Hirono takes the opportunity to shoot Kaori and run away; Hirono shoots Kaori in the arm and the head, killing her. Hirono suffers from septicemia, and is severely dehydrated after using a great majority of her water supply to clean her wound. She discovers a well outside a house, and rushes over to get a drink. As she pulls up the bucket, she notices a small frog was in the water, and she shrieks. This attracts the attention of Toshinori Oda, who is hiding nearby. He tries to attack her with his belt. Hirono pulls out her gun and shoots Toshinori in the stomach. She believes he is dead, and rushes to take the water from his daypack, but she is unaware that he is wearing a bulletproof vest, and has survived the shot. Toshinori gets up and attacks her again, this time managing to strangle her with the belt and kill her. While he was strangling her, her vision was horrible, and she gripped his belt and tried to grab his gun with her hand. He kicked her hand off and injured it badly, and when she was at death’s door, she let go of the belt. It is implied that, much like Yoshimi, Hirono wasn't nearly as bad a person as her classmates perceived her to be - her delinquent activities have given her a clearly advanced level of maturity and perception - she knows from the very beginning that Mitsuko could not be trusted, and, noting that Yoshimi was dead, was able to correctly speculate that Mitsuko was responsible. Although she wanted to believe Shuya's invitation of peace in the novel as well, her experience on the streets renders her incapable of fully trusting him.

Etymology[]

  • The name Hirono means "ratio, proportion" (比) (hi), "spine, backbone" (呂) (ro) and "from" (乃) (no).
  • Hirono's surname Shimizu means "clear water/pure water, spring water" (清水).

Notes and Trivia[]

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