Setting

In 2015, a narrowly averted nuclear strike on Japan by an increasingly belligerent North Korea swept the previously marginal nationalist/uyoku movement into power. A surge of protest forced the United States to finally withdraw from Okinawa, and now, with popular sentiment leaning in a more militaristic direction, the nation looks across the sea to Korea and to China beyond, only the thinnest of margins preventing it from breaking its anti-nuclear and anti-military agreements.

With the rise of the uyoku groups has come a strong national push to return to traditionalist values and mores, responding to external chaos by pushing for internal harmony. Society has become increasingly intolerant of outcasts like hikikomori, "freeloading" freeters, and others who cannot or will not fit in.

Amidst all this, a leak within the Kirijo Group led to the forced turnover of its research and resources to the government, which intends to further it for its own purposes, and to head off any more incidents such as Gekkoukan and Inaba.

Eight years of development have culminated in the construction of Chitoku Academy for the Gifted, a facility with the nominal purpose of educating and nurturing the future leaders of Japan. This much is technically true. Its actual purpose, however: to collect and train those with the potential to use the yet-mysterious power of Persona. The academy has only opened its doors this year; its results remain to be seen.