Yonemi Kamon (嘉門 米美, Kamon Yonemi) is the overarching antagonist inBattle Royale.
Yonemi is the administrator of the Battle Royale Program. Yonemi is almost exactly the same as the novel's Kinpatsu Sakamochi; he is just as, if not more, sadistic, and also takes great pleasure in watching the class die. He appears to be very cocky and arrogant and also proves through some of the statements he makes that he is a lecher. However, Yonemi may be even more villainous than Kinpatsu as he openly mocks the students and shows more of a personality than Kinpatsu.
Yonemi, like Kinpatsu, is a government employee who has never had anything to do with the class before the Program, and, also like Kinpatsu, he never ventures out of the Okishima Island School during the course of the Program. He spends most of his time eating, smoking, watching the monitors and listening in on the students' conversations.
Yonemi tells Shuya Nanahara and Yoshitoki Kuninobu that he raped the orphanage care worker, Ryoko Anno (whether it was a lie or not is ambiguous), and then, like in the novel, Yoshitoki attacks him and Yonemi shoots Yoshitoki himself for the same reasons that Kinpatsu had him shot by three soldiers in the novel. He also kills Fumiyo Fujiyoshi in the same way Kitano does in the film (getting her with a throwing knife). These two attacks show that he is very proficient in the use of weapons. Reasonable, as he works for the military government.
When Yonemi makes the announcements, he likes to make cruel jokes about the dead students, such as saying "2 for the price of one" when he announces the deaths of Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano.
Similar to Kinpatsu, Kamon also places bets on the game and reveals to Shogo Kawada that he bet 20,000 yen on Kazuo Kiriyama to win and also complains that it was a large bet to lose for somebody of his wage bracket.
Yonemi's appearance compared to Kinpatsu's description is not too far off, as the clothes Yonemi wears seem to match what Kinpatsu is described as wearing, except Yonemi has shorter hair than Kinpatsu who is described as having very long hair.
Yonemi, like both Kinpatsu and the film's Kitano, is killed after the Program is over by Shuuya's trio after Shogo Kawada tricks the system by disabling Shuya and Noriko Nakagawa's explosive collars. Yonemi dies when Shogo stabs him in the neck with a pencil.
Etymology[]
- The name Yonemi means "rice, meter"(米) (yone), and "beauty, beautiful" (美) (mi)
- Yonemi's surname Kamon means "praise, esteem" (嘉) (ka), "gate" (門) (mon)
- The most commonly used kana for 米 is (bei) and for 美 it's (bi). Making "kamon beibi" (Come on baby) a very likely first reading of his name.