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 Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011).
There are several references to other dystopian works, such as Shogo Makishima reading George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four