Based on Amélie Nothomb's love affair with Rinri Mizuno when she was living Japan in her early twenties. Although the real-life events took place in the early 1990s, the director set the film in the early 2010s. The real-life events narrated in Tokyo Fiancée took place at the same time than those narrated in Fear and Trembling (2003).
The song "J'aime Japan" (I love Japan) which Amelie sings in the film is a parody of "J'aime la vie" (I love life), the theme with which Belgium won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1986, performed by Sandra Kim.