Supervising Director, Katsuyuki Motohiro instructed his director Naoyoshi Shiotani "not to make anything that could not be adapted into a live-action film."
Katsuyuki Motohiro decided to hire writer Gen Urobuchi after seeing Mahô shôjo Madoka magika: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011).
There are several references to other dystopian works, such as Shogo Makishima reading George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four