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She is the previous years winner of the Battle Royale.

Mai is a winner of a previous Battle Royale. While she appears in Batoru rowaiaru II: Chinkonka (2003) (2003), she is merely shown at the start of Battle Royale in order to portray the aftermath of a Program. She is not seen and bears no further relevance to the rest of the film, and she has no connection to Class 3B who participate in the Program the film portrays (although the actress who portrays Mai plays multiple characters as stand-ins). It also states in the book that winners are forced to smile for the camera.

The story is a worst case scenario of what would happen if a corrupt totalitarian government took control and was able to do whatever it wanted to its citizens without answering to anyone. As we see in the film, the kids at Shuya's school are undisciplined and rowdy and the totalitarian government that had seized control of Japan had made a decision to curb the amount of juvenile crime and violence by holding the Battle Royale contest.

This story could also depict what would people would do if they were allowed to kill eachother and being seen as normal. As shown in the movie, some students take pleasure in killing each other, showing that many people have sick desires. A lot of times, students gang up on the transfer students. This is because they need to survive, and they believe that they show no mercy. However going after each other is a different story.

Contrary to popular belief, this film was never banned in the United States. A combination of reasons helped to stop the film's release. It failed to find the necessary distributor, failed to meet Toei's conditions for sale and also the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) general standards. The nature of the film—not the violent aspect but the fact that the main characters are so young—also created much controversy and slowed down any possibility of a US release. An official Blu-ray edition of the film (and its sequel) was released on 20 March 2012 by North American distributor Anchor Bay and has since become available through a number of distributors, disc or stream, rental or purchase.

The extended version of Battle Royale runs approximately 8 minutes longer than the theatrical version and features a mix of both prolonged story elements and violent scenes but the latter ones are in the minority. Even though the extended version is not the real Director's Cut, as Kinji Fukasaku preferred the original theatrical version, it's worth a look for every fan of this movie.