Mitsuko Souma (相馬 光子 Sōma Mitsuko?) is an antagonist in the novel Battle Royale and the manga and film adaptations. In the English-language manga she is nicknamed Mitsu, Mi-chan and "Hardcore" Souma. Mitsuko is the second most dangerous person on the island next to Kazuo Kiriyama. Mitsuko as a teenager is portrayed Kou Shibasaki in the film; the young Mitsuko in the flashback is played by Suzuka Tonegawa. She was officially designated Shiroiwa Junior High School, 9th Grade, Class B, Girl #11. Mitsuko has blood type A.
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Early life
Mitsuko experienced a traumatic childhood in all versions of the story, but the details vary:
- In the novel, not much is known about Mitsuko's life until she was nine years old, when her mother took her to an old building in a run-down neighborhood. In the building, three men paid her mother to gang rape her and videotaped the events. When Mitsuko told a teacher what had happened, instead of getting the help she was looking for, the teacher raped her in the reading room after school. Mitsuko's friend at the time witnessed the rape and spread a rumor around school that resulted in the teacher getting fired. Mitsuko's mother tried to take her again to be raped for money, but Mitsuko accidentally killed her mother. She cleaned up the scene to make it look like a robbery gone wrong and sat on a swing in the park. Afterwards, she was taken to live with distant relatives where their child harassed Mitsuko. When the kid fell off the roof, Mitsuko was wrongly accused by the mother but was defended by the father who soon began molesting her. Being repeatedly violated in her youth shaped Mitsuko into a manipulative young woman with a twisted child's psyche.
- In the manga, When Mitsuko was young, her real father, who truly cared about Mitsuko, divorced her mother (it's implied that the government chased his father, and he divorced his wife to protect Mitsuko).The Magical Emily Ring he gave her is always with her. Before her father left, he tells a tearful Mitsuko that she would always be "Daddy's girl", a phrase that Mitsuko has a habit of repeating, if not out loud, then to herself, usually when she is seducing others. Mitsuko, who missed her father, then lived with her mother fairly happily until she was 9 years old. At that point, her mother met Mitsuko's stepfather. On their first meeting, he gave a cloth doll to Mitsuko; this was the only time he ever showed her kindness. The man violently abused Mitsuko's mother, and after brutalizing her he turned to Mitsuko and subjected her to horrible physical and sexual abuse. Mitsuko organizes his murder with a man she met in an alley way and had an affair with; he stabs Mitsuko's stepfather to death and also at the same time kills her mother. While he committed the murders, Mitsuko stood outside and called the police, leading to the man's arrest. Following this, it is unknown where she went to live. Whilst on the streets, she also ended up becoming a stripper, seducing men and having sex with them before murdering them.
- In the film, the audience sees a flashback scene of young Mitsuko (played by Suzuka Tonegawa) going home from school and saying goodbye to her friends. She then walks into her house and finds her mother drunk and a strange man sitting in the kitchen. It seems he had paid Mitsuko's mother for sex, and she runs upstairs in disbelief. He then follows and presents Mitsuko with a doll, saying, "This little girl's name is Mitsuko too. Isn't she cute? And she’s really fun." He then pulls the doll's head off and proceeds to remove all the doll's clothing, finally saying, "Now all her clothes are off! It's the other Mitsuko's turn, let's take them all off." She resists his advances and pushes him down the stairs, breaking his neck and killing him.
After these events she becomes a hollow shell of a person that does not know how to handle all the anguish and hate she feels from her past. In the novel, Mitsuko convinced some boys to arrange a "hit" on a rival female gangster who had connections with the Yakuza; a car hit the woman and nearly killed her. In the manga, Mitsuko has an affair with a famous and rich boxer. Mitsuko seduces him, causing them to have sexual intercourse. She then drugs him and steals his money. The boxer attempts to find Mitsuko and pummel her; while he is driving his car, Mitsuko calls him, slips in the words "Where you been, big man? How much you got to lose if I decide the cops should know?....I'm only fifteen!" It has a big picture of her naked, moaning happily and saying those words. This causes him to panic, making him hallucinate, and drives himself off the road, killing himself.
At school
Mitsuko is described as very attractive and has a shapely body, which helps her in her life as a gang girl.
- In the novel and manga, Mitsuko controls a delinquent girl gang along with Girl #10, Hirono Shimizu, and Girl #21, Yoshimi Yahagi. The three of them engage in activities such as prostitution, beating people up, stealing money. The activities earn her the nickname "Hardcore" Souma in the English-language manga. Mitsuko's childhood experiences also seem to have given her the delusion that sexual favours make everything feel better, and that it always hurts to begin with. In the manga, she is seen doing this to Boy #13 Yuichiro Takiguchi whilst he lies in his death throes from a bullet wound he received from Boy #18 Tadakatsu Hatagami intended for Mitsuko.
- In the film, the only information given on her is that she has slept with a few of the boys at school, although it is never specified who or which class they are in. She has stolen Hirono Shimizu's boyfriend, leading to animosity between the two girls. It also appears that at school Mitsuko was harassed repeatedly by other students and causes much of her cold behavior on the Island. A passing reference is made to her pimping Yoshimi Yahagi, but it is never elaborated.
In the movie, she was one of many students who bullied Noriko Nakagawa.
During the Program
Mitsuko decides very early on that she is playing the Game and soon becomes the story's second main antagonist and one of the major female characters; she is provided with a kama sickle and in the original novel kills 7 students:
- Girl #3: Megumi Eto - slit throat with sickle.
- Boy #8: Yoji Kuramoto - stabbed in the head with sickle.
- Girl #21: Yoshimi Yahagi - shot in the head with Colt M1911.
- Girl #13: Takako Chigusa - shot in the back with Colt M1911.
- Boy #18: Tadakatsu Hatagami - beaten to death with aluminium bat.
- Boy #13: Yuichiro Takiguchi - shot in the chest with a Smith & Wesson Model 19.
- Girl #8: Kayoko Kotohiki - shot in the right temple twice with a Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum.
In the manga:
Same as in the novel except she shoots Takako Chigusa only once, she eliminates Yoji Kuramoto with his own gun, stabs Tadakatsu Hatagami in the head repeatedly with a sickle and does not kill Girl #8: Kayoko Kotohiki. Also Yuichiro Takiguchi is not killed by the gunshot but is killed by Mitsuko and her sickle, and he is raped by her. In the film:
Same as in the novel with following additions and changes:
- Girl #10: Hirono Shimizu - shot in the back with Colt M1911.
- Mitsuko does not kill Boy #8: Yoji Kuramoto or Girl #21: Yoshimi Yahagi.
- In the film Mitsuko shoots Takako Chigusa four times in the back instead of three.
- In the film Mitsuko stabs Tadakatsu Hatagami and Yuichiro Takiguchi in their hearts. Note: the fact that both boys are naked, their clothes are nearby, and she changes back to her uniform may imply that she seduced and/or had sex with at least one of them before killing them both.
- In the film Kayoko Kotohiki is shot in the heart once instead of the head twice.
Mitsuko's Weapons
Mitsuko acquires several different weapons from the different people she kills and uses them on others.
- Her original weapon is a kama, which she never loses.
- After killing Megumi Eto she acquires a knife in the novel and manga, in the film a stun gun.
- She then acquires a Colt M1911 in the novel and manga after killing Yoji Kuramoto and Yoshimi Yahagi (the Colt is Yoshimi's weapon - she ignores Yoji's weapon) but in the film she gets this after killing Hirono Shimizu; she later (in the novel and manga) loses the Colt M1911 after an encounter with Sugimura.
- She then takes a small razor blade from a house (in the novel, it is said that she carries this with her at all times).
- In the novel and manga, after meeting and seducing Tadakatsu Hatagami she throws away the razor blade and beats him to death with Yuichiro Takiguchi's aluminium bat although she does not take it with her. She takes Yuichiro's Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum (a Colt Anaconda in the manga) to replace her lost Colt M1911. In the film, neither Yuichiro nor Tadakastu are supplied with a gun, and as such, when Mitsuko stabs both boys to death, she does not gain a gun.
- Later, in the novel, she takes back her old Colt M1911 and dies afterwards. In the film she dies after taking Kiriyama's gun.
Behavior
Mitsuko behaves in a very mentally disturbed way on the Island, which is shown by the way she talks to the dead bodies of the people who she has just killed, saying things like "Nobody'll rescue you. That’s just life" (in the film to the dead Kayoko Kotohiki) and "Red is most definitely not your color" (after she slits Megumi's throat in the English-language manga). Being raped has altered her own way of thinking and one way of killing people or getting out of difficult situations is to use her looks, and by using them she tries to seduce several people on the Island, some of which resist. Those who do not are dispatched soon afterwards. The exception to this rule is Hiroki Sugimura, where she instead runs as he points a gun at her, right after she stabs him in the shoulder (slashes his wrist in the manga). One detail in the manga is her constant assimilation with her childhood doll, given to her by her stepfather who subsequently abuses her sexually. There are quite a few instances when Mitsuko would be represented in place with her doll; sometimes the doll is torn and shredded, as a representation of her abusive past and her split personality of true love. She is also under the delusion that "touching makes it better," taught by her beloved stepfather, and rapes Yuichiro Takiguchi upon his death throes in the intent that it would make him get better. She is unable to cope with what has happened and now struggles to cope with her past. In the novel and manga she is genuinely touched by the honest kindness of Yuichiro Takiguchi who defends her from Tadakatsu Hatagami who threatens to kill her on the spot. When Tadakatsu is sleeping they have a very friendly conversation. Yuichiro being very sympathetic and saying how she couldn't have been as bad as everyone says since she has a sad look in her eyes. He unties her hands so she can drink from the bottle of water and continue talking until it is Yuichiro's turn to sleep and Tadakatsu's to watch her. Even as he dies, Yuichiro is still worried about her well being and sad that he could not protect her anymore. In the novel, Mitsuko hugs him then kissing him gently before shooting him in the stomach three times. She hugs and kisses him again afterwards and states how he was able to make her feel a little happy. This is the one kill she is slightly remorseful about.
Fate
Mitsuko is killed in all versions near the end of the program by the main antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. She is killed in different ways in all three versions:
- In the novel, Mitsuko is collecting the weapons dropped by Hiroki Sugimura and Kayoko Kotohiki, who she has just finished off. Suddenly, she is shot several times in the back by Kiriyama. She manages to get up and shoot him four times in the chest. Kiriyama is wearing a bulletproof vest. He then shoots Mitsuko in the face with a MAC-10 and she dies. Her shattered face is described as if a "strawberry pie" hit her face.
- In the manga, Mitsuko hides in a house. Unknown to her Kazuo Kiriyama is also in a house in the same area, recuperating from his brutal fight to the death with Hiroki Sugimura. She sees Kiriyama before he notices her and she tries to shoot him while she has the element of surprise. She misses, and Kiriyama throws a bag of glass in her face and shoots her through the shoulder. Mitsuko then tries to use her wiles to seduce and kill Kiriyama, but is repeatedly, non-fatally shot, slowly losing her sanity until Kiriyama kills her by shooting her in the face. The bullet goes through her nose leaving a hole in the middle of her face.
- In the film, Kiriyama shoots Mitsuko with an Uzi after she kills Kayoko. Mitsuko then plays possum, causing him to take her Colt M1911. She then gets up and attacks him with her sickle and a stun gun, slashing him across the chest with her sickle and giving him a wound that would have been fatal if not for his bulletproof vest. He then knocks her away and shoots her with the Colt M1911. He fires two shots before she falls; she rolls over and stands up, only to be shot into the pool of Sugimura and Kotohiki's blood. She lunges out with a savage yell before she is shot again, dead. Her final thought, in the roughly translated English is, "I just didn't want to be a loser anymore."
