The World of Battle Arena Toshinden is shown to be a world not unlike real world Earth, but with parallels to help highlight its themes of the correlation with violence and criminal activity, and its connection to human nature. Not only does the series take place in the once modern day of the 1990s, but that believed to be only the stuff of the stories of the mythical and magical from legend also come to meet in the shadows of the everyday world, making it a place of both fascinating wonder and extreme danger.
The Present Era[]
Battle Arena Toshinden was mentioned since its founding as a series set then and there in the modern day, in the time of the mid-1990s. A time before the rise of the integration of the internet into everyday life, the 1990s was long believed at the time to be the decade precursor to the next millennium of the 2000s, where mankind and public consensus believed that technological advancement would rapidly skyrocket to see it match the coming of an era where quality of life and society would reach levels of those found in science fiction, and hence an interconnected world where all would live in a global community. From this sentiment, many attitudes, perspectives, and viewpoints differed greatly, ranging from anticipation and optimism of what the future would bring, and to pessimism and even dread of what could happen otherwise. Along with a rise in interest in alternative media and the world outside national boundaries by global youth, this would come to stir world interest and behavior to curiosity and awaiting of the next chapter of mankind's existence.
Earth as portrayed in Toshinden is shown as a world that is colorful but currently downtrodden and an anxious place; the world economy is said to be in a great recession since the Japan Bubble Crash of 1991, and had not been able to recover from its effects into 1997. As shown in the Toshinden Anime OAV, political tensions remain moderately high and rather fragile, while civil functions such as hospitals and the police are underequipped and under budgeted with some minor exceptions. According to the Toshinden 1&2 Official Materials Guide, the free market economy is under tight management of the multinational trade conglomerate and for-profit philanthropy organization, the Gerard Foundation.
"Those who truly rule the world"[]
Outside of the Toshindaibukai, Toshinden's major themes are that of those of the criminal underworld, secret societies who come to pull the strings of civilization from behind the scenes of history, and ultimately come to fund and organize the Toshindaibukai for the conflicts and battles between them. The eponymously named Secret Society is one such group, being the main underworld organization who has controlled and chartered the growth of the modern world from behind the scenes through the Gerard Foundation, coming to be in control of the world's flow of resources and economics for its self proclaimed goal of "the coming of the ideal state", and a global vision for all of Earth to achieve this ideal. Through such deep rooted control of the foundations of civilization, not even government power and influence is able to deter such an influence that has been able to take hold for centuries. Ironically, those they wish to control, the everyday man, is believed to be their bane, as humankind's unpredictability and will for free nature eludes and frequently sabotages their plans in the long run.
In turn however, while the Secret Society remains the biggest influence on human civilization and society's overworld, it is believed that there more shadowy organizations lurk in the shadows aiming to topple and take the place which the Secret Society holds, and comprise of its more vicious, and even evil counterparts. The Organization is one such known rival organization. A cabalistic cult of worshipers of a forsaken Olympian god of conflict and competition since the mythical days of the Golden Age of Greek Civilization, their evil practice of black magic by human sacrifice and worship of violence has grown them a flock comprised of assassins, murderers, and criminal masterminds to push human civilization towards a brutal path of the survival of the fittest and to desensitize violence and murder as everyday occurrence for the coming of their god. Banding allegiance with the savages and brutalizers of the world in the shadows, they were once unchallenged until the founding of the Secret Society.