For the novel, please go to Kaori Minami (Novel). For the film, please go to Kaori Minami (Film).
Kaori Minami (南 佳織, Minami Kaori) is a minor character in Battle Royale.
Background[]
Kaori Minami was a huge fan of pop idols, with her favorite being Junya Kenzaki. She had acne which she was very sensitive about as she tried several solutions to get rid of it, none of which really worked. She was bullied by Mitsuko Souma's Gang, who would take her money and mock her acne, calling her "Pizza Face".
Friends and Enemies[]
Kaori was best friends with Mizuho Inada and Megumi Eto. Although she was often weirded out by Mizuho's role-playing games.
Toshinori Oda thought she was a vulgar girl due to the fact that she was in the day-dreamers group.
Kaori got along with most of her classmates except Mitsuko Souma, Yoshimi Yahagi, and Hirono Shimizu. These three would often bully her.
In the Program[]
As Kaori exited the school, she started to cry and heard someone calling out to her. Fearing that she would be killed, Kaori ran away.[1]
Shortly after the deaths of Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano, Kaori was getting more anxious about her situation. She started talking to the Junya locket around her neck, believing that it talked back to her. The locket told her that since she was his biggest fan, nothing could happen to her, which cheered her up for a brief moment, until a leaf poked her on her acne.
Kaori snapped and screamed that "poking makes it worse" and called herself pizza face. Realizing what she just said, Kaori started to remember life back home with a bath, acne cream, hot cocoa, and watching Junya on television. Her thoughts were interrupted when a cat came near her, which freaked Kaori out. She shot the cat and then imagined herself laying there dead. From thereon, she started to lose her mind. She convinced herself that it was okay to play the game and the death of the cat was justified as well since it was going to poke her acne.[2]
Moments later, Kaori ran into Hirono Shimizu and started to shoot at her. Hirono hid behind a shack and fired back, although neither girl had a good shot.[3]
Their fight was interrupted by a gunshot fired by Shuya Nanahara, who was trying to stop the girls from killing each other.
The girls stopped firing and listened to Shuya as he tried to convince them to stop fighting each other and how there were others who also didn't want to fight so he proposed that they all team up. Kaori was happy to hear that she wouldn't be alone anymore and was starting to regain her sanity but when Shuya mentioned that once they were off, they could listen to some Junya music, Kaori started to hear her locket talking. The locket told her that they wouldn't trust her once they learned she'd shot the cat while also calling her "pizza face". Kaori lost her sanity once again, presumably this time for good and she shot Hirono in the arm. Hirono ran away and Shuya tried to stop her but Kaori fired above his head to stop him. Shuya became Kaori's new target as she skipped towards him and aimed her gun at his face. As she was about to fire, stating "No more pizza face" she was fatally shot in the face by Shogo Kawada, which made her bullet stray off-course with the impact resulting in Kaori's death.[4]
Appearances[]
- The Worst Game in History
- Insanity
- The Right Answer
- Persuasion
- Toshinori Oda (Flashback)
- Confession (Flashback)
- The Right Path (Flashback)
- Hope (Flashback)
Etymology[]
- The name Kaori means "good, beautiful" (佳) (ka) and "weave, weaving" (織) (ori).
- Kaori's surname Minami means "south" (南).
Notes and Trivia[]
- Kaori is one of four students who were killed by a different person in the three different versions of Battle Royale. The others are Kazuo Kiriyama, Yoshitoki Kuninobu, and Fumiyo Fujiyoshi. For Yoshitoki and Fumiyo this is because each version has a different 'teacher'.
- Kaori is one of four students who lost their minds within the program. The others are Tatsumichi Oki, Kyoichi Motobuchi and Mizuho Inada.