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 Stupore e tremori (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.