"Smashing Meteors with Pension Books" — Overly Viral Municipal PR Video Wins Acclaim at International Film Festival, Yet Zero People Actually Move There

On the 13th, the migration promotion PR video "NENKIN: The Final Impact," produced by the depopulation-stricken city of Yumemi, won the Best VFX Award at France’s Cannes Independent Sci-Fi Film Festival. The achievement of beating out works from the world’s leading CG studios has sent not just the city but the entire Japanese internet into a frenzy.

The video depicts a 10-kilometer-diameter mega-meteor hurtling toward the city, only for a group of elderly residents in their late 70s and beyond to rise up, firing dazzling matter-antimatter beams from their orange and blue pension books to obliterate it mid-air. Afterward, they casually bat away the raining fragments of burning meteor debris with gateball sticks, and the ending — where they serenely sip tea on the scorched ruins of city hall — was hailed by international film critics as “the ultimate antithesis to aging.”

However, behind this global mega-buzz, the city faces a dire “fiscal wasteland.” Astonishingly, at the mayor’s insistence on “uncompromising quality,” the entire annual municipal tax revenue of 400 million yen was poured into the video’s production. The footage, secretly produced by hiring Hollywood’s top creators, has surpassed 100 million views on YouTube, but inquiries about the original goal — “migration” — have remained at “zero” in the three months since the video’s release.

What floods the city hall’s migration consultation desk daily are foreign tourists asking with straight faces, “Where does the magic Blue Book drop?” and “Is the gateball armor made of titanium?” Meanwhile, garbage collection has been cut to once a week due to budget depletion, the grass at the actual gateball courts has grown wild, and ironically, the “devastated world” depicted in the video is becoming reality.

Mayor Oburoshiki, thrust into the line of fire for criticism, insisted at the regular press conference on the 13th, “The reason no migrants have come is that the stage we envision is simply too elevated.” He declared, “Next, we’re going for the Academy Awards. Rather than waiting for migrants, we ourselves shall become Hollywood,” and announced that the entire next fiscal year’s budget would be devoted to producing a sequel titled “Closing Dimensional Rifts with My Number Cards.”

Yumemi City, where means and ends have completely reversed and real society crumbles amid the glow of the silver screen. They may have been able to stop a meteor, but it seems the pension book was not equipped with a barrier against the catastrophe known as taxpayer money waste.

Stakeholder Comments

• Mayor Oburoshiki (Proponent): “Overspending? I’d prefer you call it an investment in art. Citizens’ lives have become somewhat inconvenient, but we are now at the center of the world!”
• Hollywood VFX Director (Proponent): “We reproduced every single wrinkle with perfect realism. The beams shooting from their pension books are a metaphor for a lifetime of experience. It was magnificent.”
• Elderly Participant (Beneficiary): “It was thrilling to think we saved the Earth. But could someone please mow the grass at the actual gateball court?”
• Foreign Film Geek (Unexpected Third Party): “Following NINJA and SAMURAI, Japan’s newest ultimate class: NENKIN. The setting where beams grow stronger the longer they live is fire.”
• Yumemi City Migration Desk Staff (Skeptic): “The phones won’t stop ringing, but every call is in English. When they ask about the ‘magic power level of the book’ instead of ‘migration subsidies,’ I have no answer.”
• Yumemi City Resident (Skeptic): “In the video they pulverized a meteor, but in reality, it was my taxes that got pulverized. Starting next week, they’re telling us to burn our own garbage.”
• Blue Pension Book (Personified): “I’d been sleeping in the back of a dresser drawer for years, and never imagined the day would come when I’d shoot down a meteor. But I’m just a booklet that doesn’t even work as an ID, you know.”
• Giant Meteor (Personified): “Nobody told me about that beam. I feel like I got dragged into some rural Japanese municipal PR video and turned into a mere punching bag.”
• Ministry of Health Official (Third Party): “The pension book is not equipped with a beam-firing function. Furthermore, the booklet has now been replaced by the Basic Pension Number Notification, making new weaponization impossible.”
• Gateball Stick (Personified): “Ever since I batted back that burning meteor, they’ve been calling me ‘Excalibur Mallet’ overseas. I’m just plastic, guys.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Pension book in hand / shattering the meteor / a dream in springtime
• Going mega-viral / yet zero migrants arrive / petals in the wind
• Tax revenue spent / every last yen melted down / for a film festival
• No beam function found / within the pension booklet / spring fields stretch empty
• On the scorched ruins / the crack of a gateball sounds / echoing through ash
• Migration ignored / the mayor gazes instead / toward Hollywood lights
• Stars of early spring / where can one purchase the famed / magic pension book
• Budget exhausted / mountains of garbage pile high / twilight fades in spring
• Lost sight of purpose / wandering through the haze now / blossoms blur the path
• Through mist-covered eyes / the Academy Award gleams / over this small town

Kanji / Chinese Characters

夢見市移住促進動画世界絶賛 高齢者年金手帳隕石粉砕 税収全額投入映像美極 然移住者皆無外人質問殺到 現実予算枯渇市民生活困窮 市長現実逃避次作構想発表

Emoji

👴👵📘✨☄️💥🏆🇫🇷 💸📉🗑️🚫🏡🚶‍♂️❌ Foreign tourists🗣️「📘❓」 Mayor😎🎥🎬✨🤦‍♂️Citizens

Onomatopoeia

KA-BOOOOM! FLAAASH! Vwing-vwing-vwing. CRACK, roll-roll-roll. ROAAAAR! Clap-clap-clap. …Silence. Dead broke, whoooosh. Blank stares.

SNS

• Pension book strongest weapon theory lol. Wonder if my grandma can shoot beams too? #NENKINVideo #MigrationPR
• VFX quality is literally WETA Digital level lmao. Heard it cost 400 million yen in taxes and suddenly it’s not funny anymore. #YumemiCity #WasteOfTaxes
• Zero migrants is just too artistically perfect lol. Where did the goal go? #EndOfTheViral
• Mayor: “We shall become Hollywood” ← Quote of the year right here #EscapeFromReality #MayorCalmDown
• Foreigners seriously asking about the “drop rate of the blue book” is too hilarious #NENKIN
• Was gonna move there after watching the video, but heard garbage pickup is once a week and noped out. #PRDefeat
• Spending so much on CGI that reality becomes a dystopia is more sci-fi than actual sci-fi. #StrangerThanFiction
• Sequel is apparently about closing dimensional rifts with My Number Cards! Definitely watching lol #NENKIN2
• So our pensions are being converted into beams now huh… (stares into distance) #PensionCrisis
• Someone please stop the mayor’s rampage. Our living expenses are being sucked into VFX. #YumemiCitySOS