# Watercolor Showa-era alley as a 3D diorama

> A 45-second recording of a small browser diorama, "Sunset alley": a watercolor anime illustration of a Showa-era back street at dusk, brought to life in Three.js by Opus 5.5. Codex (GPT-Image) drew the illustration from a one-line style request.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/prompt.txt
- Made with: Not stated
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5
- Built with: Three.js
- Services: GPT-Image (via Codex)
- Style: 3D & WebGL; diorama, watercolor, anime illustration, showa era, sunset, japanese street, three.js
- Length and format: 45 sec, 16:9 (1280x720 source)
- Shared by @akakuma0219 in X, Oct 2, 2026: https://x.com/akakuma0219/status/2105990418886480092
- Prompt fidelity: Partial. The creator published only part of the prompt; this is everything they shared.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. The creator didn't say which agent they used; the model was Claude Opus 5.5. Any capable coding agent should work.
2. Set up what the prompt expects: An image model for the source illustration (the creator used GPT-Image through Codex).
3. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
4. To adapt it to a new subject or look: Change 昭和の下町 (a Showa-era downtown) and 水彩画アニメイラスト風 (a watercolor anime-illustration style) for your own place and style. The prompt for the 3D build isn't published; the creator's guide, 箱庭世界のつくりかた, covers the method.
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
昭和の下町で水彩画アニメイラスト風でお願い
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

A tour of a small 3D diorama of a 1960 Tokyo back street at sunset, built from watercolor anime-style paintings: a penny-candy shop, children playing street games, a cat on a fence, and numbered caption cards.

- Color: Warm sunset orange, pink, and lavender sky over weathered brown wood and dusty earth, with red accents (a postbox, a skirt, a shop sign), a red-and-blue barber pole, and sunflower yellow.
- Type: Spaced white Mincho-style kanji for the title ゆうやけ路地 under a small red label, 昭和三十五年 夏, and cream caption cards with a small chapter number (其の一) over a bold title (駄菓子屋, メンコ, けんけんぱ) and a one-line note.
- Framing: Mostly low, eye-level views down the lane with shallow depth of field, one high overview of the whole alley, and caption cards pinned at lower left. The final card is centered over a pastel sky.
- Structure: The title over the alley in summer 1960, the penny-candy shop (其の一 駄菓子屋), boys spinning tops on a bucket (其の三 勝負), menko cards (其の四), a girl at hopscotch (其の五 けんけんぱ), a calico cat under a persimmon tree, an overview captioned as switchable between sunset, evening shower, and night (其の七), the lane at dusk, and an end card crediting Three.js and the creator's 箱庭世界 site.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 2.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 7.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 12.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 17.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 22.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 27.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 32.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 37.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 42.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/sunset-alley-watercolor-showa-era-back/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- Notes: The creator says the illustration instruction was only this line and that Opus 5.5 made the rest, including the animation. In a correction, they add that the illustration came from Codex (GPT-Image), which is linked into their setup. The instructions for the Three.js diorama aren't published. No video model was used: the clip is a screen recording of the animated page, which is live on the creator's 箱庭世界 (Hakoniwa World) collection. A caption in the video says the time and weather can be switched between sunset, an evening shower, and night.

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/akakuma0219/status/2105990418886480092
- Original post: https://x.com/akakuma0219/status/2105990418886480092
- Live diorama, on the creator's Hakoniwa World site: https://claude.ai/artifact/PPSchejbnywNbPnAurCBSk
- The creator's guide to building these dioramas (part 1): https://x.com/akakuma0219/status/2105458719362572756
- Correction: the illustration came from Codex (GPT-Image): https://x.com/akakuma0219/status/2106002737226023379