ONE DAY, 2050 / Sci-Fi Prototyping is a project in which SONY’s young designers and a leading science-fiction writer use “Sci-Fi Prototyping” to create a 10,000-character short story set in Tokyo in 2050, themed around diverse forms of romance, along with future products that appear in the story, which are mocked up and exhibited as design fiction at SONY Park in Ginza, Tokyo. Ohashi collaborated with illustrator Kazuya Kikkawa and animation artist Kazuki Sekiguchi to create an animated work like a film teaser that draws interest in the original novel’s story by incorporating the design fiction exhibited at the venue into the short story “Kimi ka Kimi ka.” Using halftones and dithering, the work portrays the hopeful vision of future products and the distance that emerges between the protagonists, Ichiu and Yori, after a certain incident, in a clean, dry visual style.

Sony designers and science fiction writers collaborated to depict “Tokyo in 2050” using the methodology of sci-fi prototyping. With the three keywords “2050,” “Tokyo,” and “romance” as a broad framework, they held a series of intermittent workshops to explore four themes—“WELL-BEING,” “HABITAT,” “SENSE,” and “LIFE”—which culminated in “design prototyping” by designers and “short science fiction stories” by science fiction writers.