—What is it that YOU want?
If all your hopes could come true, where would you want to live, and how?
Tell me anything that comes to mind—
VISION
Production Intention and Background
Director’s note
This work unfolds the vision latently embedded in "Ake no Sora" (Dawn Sky), a musical work by maishinta, within the landscape of the future year 2058.
The landscape depicted here is one of the countless worlds that resonate within the song.
As of 2026, with the explosive evolution of AI and the collapse of all manner of existing systems, we are entering a period in which a new humanity and a new worldview must be established. The question posed at the opening is directed at ourselves:
"What is it that you want?"
Each and every one of us carries within us the power to create our own world.
When we become aware of that creative power — the force that shapes what we turn our consciousness toward — the gift this question offers us is immeasurable.
This work boldly portrays a radiance in which the sacred creative power within humanity comes vividly back to life, bringing great hope to the world once again. It captures the divinity stirring within human beings and shapes it into a memory that can never be forgotten.
When we return to the divinity within ourselves, we come to a deep understanding that AI and robots have arrived from the same source as we have. Together with them, what kind of future do we want to live in?
I saw, within song and vision, the landscape I desired. And I lived it.
It overlaps with the landscape that ancient peoples beheld — gazing upon all things in nature as manifestations of the divine. Transcending time and space, it sings of the deep peace that prayer brings to us, and of our reverence for the world.
This work was created with eyes fixed solely on one point: a co-creative future in which AI and humanity — as expressions of human divinity — give to one another. There, true hope resides. There, the radiance of life shines. It is within that prayer that this work is released.
MUSIC
The music of this work was performed live in a single take by maishinta (Mai Sakamoto and Shinta Sakamoto) and their band. It was performed entirely by human being.
The visuals were created by Shinta Sakamoto of maishinta, who directed AI and communicated his vision while fine-tuning prompts. The process of visual production became a co-creation between one human being and AI.
Narrative
物語
AONA is a 10-year-old boy whose work is prayer.
Together with his teacher, he has set out on a journey to mend the prayer-webs that have begun to show signs of unraveling.
In the spring of 2058, he arrives in Tokyo.
Aona meets an elderly man — Leon Heart — on a bench beneath a great camphor tree in Sendagaya.
Having quickly bonded with Leon, who turned out to be an old acquaintance of Aona's teacher Emil, Aona decides to join Leon on his upcoming trip to the moon.
The two make their way to the home of Leon Heart's friend, a mathematician named Hokuko Amano, who lives in Lalitpur — one of the moon's distributed cities.
There, Leon agrees to spend a year traveling the Earth together with Yuri, the first generation of humanity born on the moon.
Yuri lives on a different timeline from ordinary humans. Growing at roughly five times the normal rate, Yuri happened to be about the same age as AONA when they first met.
Spending time alongside Yuri, who grows faster than himself, AONA gradually awakens to the true essence of "prayer."
The three at times accompany AONA on his prayer journeys, helping him in the work of re-weaving the fraying threads. Yuri, too, begins to open his eyes to the purpose behind the transcendent power over time and space that he has been given.
2058
-Era Setting-
The unification of quantum mechanics and gravitational theory had begun to take shape, and humanity had entered a new era.
Leon Heart was also a theoretical physicist of unified theory who had made significant contributions to the completion of a foundational theory explaining how human consciousness influences the 11-dimensional structure of superstring theory and shapes reality.
That completion simultaneously proved the infinity and eternity of the solutions to the existence equations of dark energy and dark matter pervading the universe, and revealed that the energy entities stored within them exist in a relationship of mutual interpenetration with human consciousness. Humanity, however, could no longer avoid confronting what that infinity truly meant.
In other words, this was an era in which a foundational theory of creation had been established — one in which the directionality given by human consciousness itself gives form to dark energy.
Ways of thinking and attitudes that impose limitations upon us came to be dismissed by people as fundamentally unscientific.
Credits
Director
maishinta
MUSIC
maishinta
Editting, AI Direction & Concept Design
Shinta Sakamoto
Vocal
Mai Sakamoto & Shinta Sakamoto
Piano
Shinta Sakamoto
Bass
Keita Hiramatsu
Drums
Leon Yuki
maishinta
maishinta is a project by Shinta Sakamoto and Mai Sakamoto. Centered on music, they pursue an integrated range of activities spanning art, meditation, technology, and beyond.
To date, they have released 4 albums. Through their own music library, maishinta music, they have made available a catalog of over 300 songs. They also share the wisdom of meditation and prayer — the very source of their creative work — through a practice they call SINGA.
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酒本信太
He began piano at age 3 and started composing at 12. At 23, while studying at Waseda University's School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, he co-founded Tokyo Recordings (now TOKA) with fellow student musicians (including Nariaki Obukuro and Yaffle). He went on to compose music for films, artists, and television commercials.
In 2015, following the passing of his grandmother, he traveled to London to study, where he began singing for the first time.
In April 2016, he met Mai Mukaida (now Mai Sakamoto), and the two began making music together. He also founded his own music label, 8th MAY Records.
To date, he has released over 30 albums (more than 300 songs) under the names maishinta and Shinta Sakamoto, including a collection of piano pieces. Since 2023, approximately 300 works from 8th MAY Records have been available for streaming on maishinta music.
In 2024, as one practice of channeling his creativity into peace work, he founded SINGA — a singing meditation. He carries out a wide range of activities aimed at making this world a more peaceful and love-filled place, with music at the center.
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酒本麻衣
At 15, she encountered a humanitarian worker active in Nepal, and at 17 traveled to Nepal alone. Led by the connections that grew from that experience, she graduated from Keio University's Faculty of Policy Management, and at 26 launched the Coffret Project — an initiative using makeup to draw out women's self-esteem.
She later founded the cosmetics brand Lalitpur with the aim of supporting women survivors of human trafficking. As her speaking engagements grew — including a TED talk — she awakened to the mysterious power of the voice and began writing and reciting her own poetry.
In April 2016, she met Shinta Sakamoto. Due to arriving late to their first meeting, the song "HOHOEMI" was born, and she became its vocalist.
From there, she began her musical career as maishinta. She has since released 4 albums as maishinta, sold at Tower Records locations across Japan.
In 2024, together with Shinta, she co-founded SINGA, the singing meditation — supporting people in reconnecting with the warm inner feeling and embodied sense of love that opens up within when the voice is allowed to resound.
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