For the manga, please go to Mitsuko Souma (Manga). For the film, please go to Mitsuko Souma (Film)
Mitsuko Souma had died. Physically? Several seconds ago. Mentally? Ages ago.
I am right, I will not lose
-- Mitsuko's last few thoughts before losing
| Character Information | |
 Mitsuko Souma | |
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Position: | 6th |
| Kills: | 7 (Megumi Eto, Yoji Kuramoto, Yoshimi Yahagi, Takako Chigusa, Tadakatsu Hatagami, Yuichiro Takiguchi, Kayoko Kotohiki) |
| Killed by: | Kazuo Kiriyama |
| Cause of Death: | repeatedly shot in the chest, head, back, and face |
| Chapter Death: | 69 |
| Assigned Weapon: | Sickle |
Backstory
Not much is known about Mitsuko Souma's (相馬光子 Sōma Mitsuko) childhood 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. She cleaned up the scene on the staircase to make it look like a robbery gone wrong, and afterwards she sat on a swing in the park. She was then taken to live with distant relatives where their child harassed Mitsuko. When the child was hospitalized after falling off of their roof, the mother wrongly accused Mitsuko of pushing the child, but Mitsuko was defended by the father who began molesting her shortly after. Being repeatedly violated in her youth shaped Mitsuko into a manipulative young woman with a twisted child's psyche.
One of her most infamous moments at her school happened when Mitsuko convinced some boys to arrange a "hit" on a rival female student who had connections with the Yakuza; a car hit the girl and nearly killed her.
Mitsuko is feared by all of her classmates, even Takako Chigusa. She had a reputation that is widespread all over the school. She did drugs, larceny, blackmail, prostitution and shoplifting with her gang that consisted of Hirono Shimizu and Yoshimi Yahagi. She is even said to intimidate any teacher with just a look, which shows how widespread her reputation is.
Appearance
She is described to a beauty on the outside as well as a cold ruthless killer.
Friends and Enemies
Though Mitsuko doesn't have any real friends, she does lead a gang which includes Hirono Shimizu and Yoshimi Yahagi. The three of them regularly engage in activities such as prostitution, mugging and larceny. The gang's victims were almost always older men, whom the girls seduced before taking advantage of them. Despite all of this, Hirono knew not to trust Mitsuko.
The majority of the girls, in her class feared her even Takako Chigusa, although she never would admit this, and the guys in the class such as Shinji Mimura realize how beautiful she is, but chose not to pursue her due to her reputation. The only person who was willing to give her a chance was Yuichiro Takiguchi, however he was too shy to talk to her.
In the Program
The First Victims
Mitsuko decides very early on the she was going to play the game and decided to take instead of being taken.
She headed toward the residential area and entered a house where she heard a cellphone go off and it was Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who was informing Megumi Eto to turn off her cellphone. She calls her out, finds her and tells Megumi that she is scared too, and wants to team up with her. Megumi is relieved, and hugs Mitsuko, telling her how sorry she was for thinking about killing her. As they embrace, Mitsuko slits Megumi's throat with her sickle; it turns out Mitsuko had been acting the whole time, and had always intended to kill Megumi. Mitsuko feels that she needs to be more careful now, though later on she does make some mistakes.
She next comes across Yoji Kuramoto and Yoshimi Yahagi in a argument and when the two start to makeup, Mitsuko sneaks up and stabs Yoji in the head with her sickle. Mitsuko says she was only doing it to protect her friend but Yoshimi is angry at Mitsuko for killing the only person who understood her, Mitsuko realizes that Yoshimi is no longer an ally and shoots her with the gun that Yoshimi had and reveals that she only intended to use Yoshimi as a human shield.
Now that she had a gun, Mitsuko walked around the island with ease. She then witnesses the fight between Takako Chigusa and Kazushi Niida. Takako wins and sees Mitsuko. The two talk briefly about how Mitsuko always wished she was a better girl like Takako and how Takako was always pretty. Once Takako realizes that Mitsuko is talking about her in past tense she starts to run but Mitsuko manages to shoot her as she tries to escape.
Boys
Mitsuko then tries to sneak up on Hiroki Sugimura, however thanks to his GPS he sees that she is behind him and knocks the gun away from her hand. Hiroki saw Takako before she died, learned who killed her and is ready to kill Mitsuko. At first Mitsuko tries to tell Hiroki that the gun was Takako's, that she tried to kill her, how scared she was and that she is glad to run into Hiroki. Once she realizes that Hiroki isn't buying into her act she reveals that she did kill Takako. She then tries to offer sex but once again Hiroki knows her tricks and Mitsuko then reveals her past to Hiroki, who is caught offguard by it. She stabs him in the shoulder with Megumi's knife and escapes.
As she travels, she thinks about what to do since she now only has her sickle as a weapon, she realises that she has no chance against the machine gun shooter (Kazuo Kiriyama) who she will probably eventually fight with just a sickle. She then sees Tadakatsu Hatagami peeing. She tries to sneak up on him to kill him, however she is spotted by Yuichiro Takiguchi before she can strike. Tadakatsu wants to kill Mitsuko as he doesn't trust her and sees the sickle in her hand, but Yuichiro believes Mitsuko is just scared and is seeking protection. Mitsuko decides to play along with them to avoid death and allows them to check her for other weapons as well as tie her up until they can figure out what to do with her. Tadakatsu decides to take a nap but makes sure Yuichiro watches Mitsuko as he sleeps. Mitsuko and Yuichiro talk for awhile and Yuichiro tells her that he believes that she isn't as bad as their classmates say she is since she seems to have a sad look in her eyes. Mitsuko is touched by his words but not enough to change her plans. He later unties her hands so she can have a drink from his bottle of water and Mitsuko is still surpised that Yuichiro is showing so much kindness to her as she is not used to it. Tadakatsu soon wakes up and takes over.
Mitsuko decides it's time to kill him while Yuichiro is sleeping. She brings back one of her knees so her skirt slides down and pretends not to notice. She the uses her feminine charm and beauty to draw Tadakatsu in. She then asks to be alone with Tadakatsu where she seduces him. While he is making out with her she tries to get a razor blade that is hidden in her panties and use it to slit his throat, however a bird alerts him and the cut is shallow.
Tadakatsu is angered by her attack and they both spring for the gun. Mitsuko realises that she won't reach the gun before him, and she bolts into the bushes. Tadakatsu shoots after her but the bullets miss as she is already in the shrubs running back to Yuichiro. Yuichiro wakes up to the gunfire and sees Mitsuko halfnaked and Tadakatsu with a cut on his neck. Both try to tell Yuichiro to listen to them but both stories seem possible to him as Mitsuko says Tadakatsu tried to rape her and that she had to defend herself with her nails and Tadakatsu is saying that Mitsuko is trying to kill him.
Yuichiro askes for the gun as Tadakatsu so they can figure things out and as this is going on Mitsuko thinks of a plan to steal the gun while it is in Yuichiro's hands, however Tadakatsu points the gun at Mitsuko and fires. Mitsuko then sees that Yuichiro jumped in front of her and took the bullet. As he falls to the ground Mitsuko grabs the baseball bat and beats Tadakatsu to death with it. She then goes back to Yuichiro who is sorry that he cannot protect her any longer and asks if she is okay. She hugs, then kisses him gently and then shoots him in the chest three times to put him out of pain. She then hugs and thanks him for making her feel a little happy, closes her eyes remorsefully and kisses him.
Mitsuko's End
She next comes across Hiroki Sugimura telling Kayoko Kotohiki to build two fires and listen to a birdcall as he dies. However Kayoko decides to stay with him as it was her fault that he died. Mitsuko sneaks up behind her and asks Kayoko is she wants to die, and Kayoko replies yes. Mitsuko says why don't you go ahead before shooting her twice in the temple. She then tells Hiroki "long time no see." As Mitsuko turns around, she muses about how Kayoko Kotohiki should have seen the obvious.
As Mitsuko is collecting the weapons dropped by Hiroki and Kayoko but she is shot several times in the back by Kazuo Kiriyama. As Mitsuko registers the pain, she feels idiotic as she did not hear Kazuo sneaking up on her the entire time, as well as not being clever enough to decipher Hiroki's plan of building a fire like Kayoko had. As Mitsuko begins to fall, she briefly flashes back on her past and tries to figure out what made her the way she was. She then tells herself that she will not lose and despite her wounds. Mitsuko manages to raise her gun and shoot him four times in the chest, unrealistically thinking she would survive. Much to her dismay, however, Kiriyama's bulletproof causes the bullets to merely bounce off. He then fires off another round of bullets at Mitsuko, this time directly in the face, killing her. Her corpse is described as looking as if a strawberry pie had been smashed into her face.
Notes and Trivia
- Mitsuko was the fourth student to murder a fellow classmate, and was the first girl to start killing her classmates.
- She is one of four girls in the program to kill a boy, the others being Takako Chigusa, Noriko Nakagawa and Kayoko Kotohiki.
- The novel is the only version where she kills seven classmates, in the manga and the film she only kills six.
- The novel is the only version where Mitsuko and Takako have a talk before she kills her.
- She is one of the seven students who's lost their virginity.
- Mitsuko had the second highest kill count at 7.
- The novel is the only version where Mitsuko is the second last female student to be killed, in the manga and film she is the last.
- Mitsuko killed both of the people Hiroki Sugimura wanted to save, Takako Chigusa and Kayoko Kotohiki.
- The novel is the only version where Mitsuko considers making an "ally". It is revealed that she wanted to use Yoshimi Yahagi as a human shield to increase her chances of surviving.
- Hiroki is the only person in the novel that Mitsuko talks to about her past and why she decided to take instead of being taken.
- The chapter when her death occurred, 69, is the number that is associated with sex, possibly referring to her sex scarring childhood.