He was born in 1969 in Amagasaki, near Osaka, and grew up in Kagawa in the Shikoku prefecture. After graduating from Osaka University with a degree in Literature, he worked at the Shikoku Shimbun newspaper for five years, serving in various departments, including politics, police news, and economics. He also completed a distance learning course in liberal arts from Nihon University, and obtained a certificate to teach English at high schools.
Battle Royale, completed after Takami left the newspaper, was his debut work and the only novel he has published to date. With its release in Japan in 1999, it received widespread support and became a bestseller. Battle Royale was serialized in comic form, turned into a movie in 2000, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Since its first publication, Battle Royale continues to be a cult favorite novel in Japan and other countries around the world.
In 2012, Battle Royale: Angel’s Border, a spinoff manga written by Koushun Takami himself, was published.
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