Battle Royale takes place in a fictional fascist Japan in the year 1997. The state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia, arose after an alternate World War 2 where Japan emerged victorious and a rebellion was put down by the combined military and police forces. The government controls everything, and anything "immoral", such as rock music, is banned, unless it beautifies the government, along with an unnamed dictator with a strong cult of personality able to bend the whims of the populace.


The government has established a military program, the Battle Experiment No. 68 Program, wherein fifty randomly selected classes of third-year junior high school students are kidnapped, dropped into a remote location, and forced to kill one another until only one student of each class remains. Ostensibly, it is to help the government and its military research survival skills and battle readiness – in actuality, it is meant to instill terror and distrust in all of Japan's citizens to curb any attempts at rebellion, by showcasing the government's power and ability to target citizen's families and preying on the fear of being killed by a friend.


-Wikipedia