The mysterious worldview, which is a fusion of animation and live-action, is a must-see!  Set in Japan in the near future, ridiculed as Sunset Japan Even though it is science fiction, the setting is Japan in the near future in the year 202x, when 40% of the population is elderly, the economy is in decline, and the country is ridiculed as Sunset Japan. Why did we choose politics as our theme?  Mr. Sano suggested that if we wanted to combine live-action and animation, it would be better to use an animation scriptwriter, Reiko Yoshida, rather than a live-action scriptwriter, whom we have known for a long time.  Then, when I met with Ms. Yoshida, the story of 17-year-olds building a country and the title “Empire of a 17-Year-Old” came up as the theme I wanted to try, and I said, ‘Well, then, it’s going to be about politics.'” The story begins with the launch of a project called “Utopi-AI” (a.k.a. UA) in Japan, where there is no way out. 17-year-old Aran Maki (Fuju Kamio) is chosen as the prime minister of the experimental city of UA, and the other ministers are all around 20 years old namely, Anna Yamada, Yuumi Kawai, Ayumu Mochizuki, and Shota Sometani. At first glance, the use of AI to compensate for the lack of experience that young people lack in politics seems hopeful, but in the background is the real crisis and despair that Japan is currently facing.  It is in the tradition of NHK dramas to create works with a sense of criticism. This time, however, we tried to create a film that would be interesting for children to watch while maintaining being critical and modern. If politics were depicted in a live-action film, it would tend to be difficult and heavy-handed, but if it were done with an animated touch, it would be freed from the usual gravity, tradition, and stagnation, and a new coming-of-age drama could be depicted. Another key element of the film is that it is set in the near future, in the year 202X. The usual science fiction setting is that something happens in Japan, such as a disaster, and a major part of the country is changed.  But we couldn’t win if we did something similar to a big movie on our scale. After talking with Mr. Yoshida, they decided of depicting politics as something close to home. It would be interesting to capture the problems today in a way that is somewhere between fantasy and reality. However, he laughs, “I didn’t know how to read the script at first.”  He laughs, “It was experimental for me as an actor, and I think I felt like I was going into something for which I didn’t know the answer.  But when Anna Yamada buys a good-luck charm at a shrine on the first day of shooting, I was impressed and said, ‘That sounds like a character.’ Anna had watched a lot of anime and studied the movements and facial expressions, and with the help of Daisuke Iga’s wonderful costumes, including the blue uniforms, as the shooting progressed, I began to feel that we might be able to create a world that I had never seen before in a Japanese drama.”