For the novel, please go to Kazuo Kiriyama (Novel). For the manga, please go to Kazuo Kiriyama (Manga)
| Character Information | |
 Kazuo Kiriyama | |
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Position: | 4th |
| Kills: | 12 Hiroshi Kuronaga, Ryuhei Sasagawa, Izumi Kanai, Sho Tsukioka, Mitsuru Numai, Yukiko Kitano, Yumiko Kusaka, Toshinori Oda, Mitsuko Souma, Yutaka Seto, Keita Iijima, Shogo Kawada |
| Killed by: | Shogo Kawada, Shinji Mimura (assist) |
| Cause of Death: | Collar detonation (Shot in the collar by Shogo Kawada) |
| Assigned Weapon: | Japanese war fan |
| Actor: | Masanobu Ando |
Backstory
Nothing about Kazuo's previous life was known, but it is a possibility that Kazuo could have been mute. What was known about Kazuo was his enigmatic, cold, emotionless, sadistic personality and psychopathy, with him taking delight in causing pain and suffering to other competitors and feeling no emotional attachment whatsoever to any of the people he murdered in cold-blood. Unlike the other competitors, Kazuo signed up for the competition Battle Royale simply for his own amusement.
"Probably the one guy who signed up willingly for this shit."
- Shogo Kawada.
Friends and Enemies
Nothing is known about Kazuo's friends, and he considered none of the competitors anything else but 'targets' for him to kill.
In the Program
Shortly after he leaves, Kazuo is taken hostage by Mitsuru Numai and his gang, who bully him and try to get him to talk. They believe that Kazuo was sent to the program in order to have the students all kill each other, and that he is 'in it with Kitano'. Ryuhei Sasagawa points his Uzi at Kazuo's forehead and then asks if he is listening. Kazuo just simply spits his gum at him which causes Ryuhei to get frustrated and then briefly lose focus and allows Kazuo to grab his Uzi and shoot everyone down. Izumi Kanai survives the first round thanks to Mitsuru jumping in front of her but Kazuo doesn't show her any mercy when she asks Kazuo to stop, shooting her immediately. Kiriyama then takes her hand grenades and Kanai's revolver, along with the other weapons except Sho Tsukioka's nunchucks.
The next day around before noon, Kazuo hears two girls' pleas to stop fighting from a hilltop. He makes it way towards their location and fires away at Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano from behind while smiling in sadistic pleasure, killing Yukiko after the first round, though not Yumiko. In an act of sadism, Kiriyama takes the megaphone and breathes quickly on the speaker and then Kazuo kicks Yumiko in the side so she turns on her back, and then captures her cries so the whole island can hear. He then shoots her with a spray of bullets from his Uzi, and she dies.
For several hours, Kazuo doesn't run into anyone until it is almost midnight and he finds Toshinori Oda who quickly finds a bike and tries to get away from Kazuo who shoots at him. Toshinori manages to reach the clinic and then pleads for mercy and asks why he is trying to kill him, though Kazuo shoots him and leaves. When Toshinori thinks Kazuo Kiriyama has gone, he starts laughing because he survived due to his assigned weapon, a bulletproof vest. Suddenly Toshinori stops laughing, as he hears a noise, and he looks up to see Kiriyama brandishing a katana that he stole from Yumiko on the roof of the clinic that Shogo Kawada, Noriko Nakagawa, and Shuya Nanahara are in. Kiriyama then jumps down and decapitates Toshinori. Standing over Toshinori's corpse, he hears a noise from inside the clinic and realises there is someone in there; he takes the vest and goes to investigate. Kazuo then stuffs a grenade into Toshinori's mouth and throws the head and breaks a window in the clinic to try and kill whoever is inside but is unsuccessful. There is a brief gun fight between Kazuo and Shuya, though no one is hit.
Kiriyama engages in a chase after Shuya Nanahara who flees from the scene, though he is unable to cause too much harm. As Kiriyama is shooting at Shuya, he is briefly stopped by Hiroki Sugimura who then jumps into the sea after his friend in order to escape.
At around 6:00 PM in a warehouse, Kiriyama spots another victim. He finds Mitsuko Souma standing over the corpses of Hiroki Sugimura and Kayoko Kotohiki. He fires at her from above with his Uzi and she appears to have died. He jumps down to collect Mitsuko's gun and once he turns his back from her, she jumps at him with a stun gun, which, in his shock, makes him drop his Uzi. Mitsuko then starts attacking him with her sickle and forces him against a board. She then strikes him across the chest, with what would have been a deadly blow, if it wasn't for Toshinori's bullet proof vest that Kazuo stole from him, which shocks Mitsuko. She then tries to use the stun gun but he grabs her hand and kicks her off of him. Kazuo then shoots her four times with the handgun from his jacket until she finally dies. He then takes the weapons and leaves the three corpses.
At around an hour later, Kazuo finds the hacker's base. Yutaka Seto runs towards Kiriyama, thinking it is Shuya come to join them, yet his shot down with the Uzi. There are two others with him and Kazuo fires at them as well - he manages to kill Keita Iijima. His death enrages the other boy, Shinji Mimura who then makes a suicide attack against Kazuo. He is shot repeatedly, though Mimura hits the bomb and makes it explode, killing himself.
Kazuo emerges from the flames, blinded due to the explosion, and begins to walk away from the explosion until he hears Kawada's shotgun cock. He quickly turns around fires at Shogo Kawada and the two fight briefly. Kawada manages to shoot Kiriyama in the leg and then in the collar, thus causing it explode. Though he kills Kiriyama, Kawada still endures fatal wounds, which, post-game, he succumbs to death.
Notes & Trivia
- Most of the students he killed had guns which gave him an advantage in the program.
- Kazuo had the biggest body count with a total of 12 kills (13 counting Shinji Mimura as if he didn't blow himself up, he'd have died of the wounds Kazuo inflicted anyway) thus making him the deadliest person in the class.
- In the Latin American translated version of Battle Royale, many mistakes are found in the dialogs such as a soldier saying that Numai had killed Kiriyama.
- Kiriyama is believed extremely intelligent, possessing a genius IQ score.