Based on Amélie Nothomb's real-life experience when she was living Japan in her early twenties in the early 1990s . The real-life events narrated in the film took place at the same time than those narrated in Tokyo Fiancée (2014) which depicts Amélie Nothomb's romance with her then-fiancé Rinri. However, Tokyo Fiancée's director Stefan Liberski set his film in the early 2010s.