95% are drawn by AI! Japanese AI anime girl will be released next year, will human artists be replaced?

The Japanese AI animation will be released in 2025, with 95% of the scenes using generative AI.

According to ITmedia, Frontier Works, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Animate, recently announced that it will release an experimental AI animation called 'Twins Hinahima' (temporary translation) in spring 2025. The first preview of the production has been released.

The biggest feature of this work is that more than 95% of the production process of the lens uses generative AI technology, but emphasizes that AI is only an "auxiliary tool".

The anime 'Twin Ya Nai Fei Li' is based on the virtual TikToker under KaKa Creation. The story follows twin high school girls in Tokyo, with the elder sister being white-haired Fei Li and the younger sister being red-haired Ya Nai Nai. The two dream of becoming popular on TikTok, but while filming various interesting dance videos, they unexpectedly discover some unusual changes.

In the production process, Frontier Works has adopted a variety of AI technologies to assist in animation production. For example, using AI to generate animation drafts from storyboards, transforming real-life photos into animated backgrounds, and converting 3D models into hand-drawn textures.

Image source: Twins Hinahima's official Japanese AI animation Twins Hinahima will be released in 2025, with 95% of the shots using generative AI

However, in order to ensure the quality of the work, the final presentation is still modified and processed by professional creators.

When making the main visual poster, the team first took real-life photos and then transformed them into an animated style through AI. Finally, the art staff was asked to modify it. The characters and title logo in the poster were hand-drawn by the creator using drawing software throughout the process.

Image source: Twins Hinahima's official Japanese AI animation Twins Hinahima will be released in 2025, with 95% of the shots using generative AI

Osamu Tezuka, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, and their views on AI-assisted animation production

Before the release of the animation, 'Oricon News' interviewed Tezuka Osamu's son, Tezuka Makoto, and the character designer of 'Mobile Suit Gundam,' Yahata Yoshinori, asking for their opinions on AI-assisted drawing.

Tezuka believes that AI technology is like computer animation (CG) that emerged in the 1980s. At that time, there were concerns in the industry that artists and directors would be replaced, but the fact proved that these concerns were unnecessary:

The current movies no longer particularly emphasize 'using CG'. People are sensitive to AI just because they are still in the stage of publicizing.

He further pointed out that when it comes to entertainment works, the most important thing is whether the finished product can entertain the audience, regardless of whether it is drawn by humans or programmed.

He also speculated that if his father, Osamu Tezuka, were still alive, he would be happy to use AI to handle some mechanical work such as outlining or coloring.

An Yanliang and Ze said that due to the current shortage of manpower in the animation industry, the quality of animation has declined. He believes that AI may be able to handle simpler tasks, such as animation of key frames, crowd scenes, or background characters, allowing human animators to focus on other work and improve the overall quality of animation.

Image source: Twins Hinahima official, Tezuka Shin and Yoji Aihara's views on AI-assisted animation production

AI animation sparks hot discussion among netizens, will it replace human artists?

However, the production method of this animation has caused many controversies in the community. First of all, from the trailer, the movement of the characters' hair and the shape of their pupils after turning their heads are obviously unnatural, and they do not look like the usual animation style that we are accustomed to seeing.

Some Japanese netizens are also quite concerned about copyright issues, believing that the animation production team deliberately confuses the fundamental difference between human 'imitation' and AI 'replication and reuse'.

Some netizens are also worried that animation is a labor-intensive industry with very detailed division of labor. If AI replaces certain production processes, it undoubtedly deprives relevant workers of their livelihoods.

However, at the present stage, it may be very difficult for AI to replace the position of core animators.

The current common Japanese anime production process is that the investor may first propose the anime project, and form an 'Animation Production Committee' with other investors and animation production companies to establish the anime producer. After that, they will finalize the important positions such as the director, screenwriter, character designer, chief animation director, etc., and gradually promote the production process.

Some excellent original artists can create exciting segments, and there are also many different styles and schools (such as the Kantian system, realistic system, Web system), with a unique human heritage and evolutionary lineage, which is currently difficult to be replaced by AI.

Audiences familiar with the animation production process can even infer the quality of unreleased works from the selection of animation producers. For example, CloverWorks' producers, Shota Tsuboi and Yuichi Fukushima, are both recognized as capable leaders of a strong animation team, and audiences generally do not worry about the quality of their team's animation works.

However, excellent producers and animation staff are hard to come by. Most animation production companies struggle to balance between animation quality, manpower cost, and time pressure, allocating resources to only a few works, while some works can only be 'sacrificed'.

Image source: Nico Nico News. Both the producer, Shota Umehara, and Yuichi Fukushima from CloverWorks are recognized as candidates who can lead a strong animation team.

Can using AI solve the labor shortage? The key still lies in whether the treatment of animators has improved.

The problem behind the labor shortage in the Japanese animation industry is very complicated. Currently, it mostly relies on outsourcing to animation studios and animators from various countries, and it seems that it cannot be solved solely by AI-assisted drawing.

Due to the prevalence of production committee system, the related income of Japanese animation does not all fall into the pockets of production companies, but is distributed to the main contributors of the committee.

Some companies such as Kyoto Animation (Kyoto Animation) usually strive to be included as the largest contributor to the committee to ensure maximum returns and arrange suitable production periods. Its employees also adopt a monthly salary system, but most animation production companies are not the largest contributors, and can only reduce manpower expenses due to limited income, so project outsourcing and piecework have become common employment models.

In a previous report on 'Crypto City', the 2023 survey by the Japan Animation Creators Association (JANICA) showed that the average daily working hours of animation industry workers reached 8.84 hours, and only 43% of them were able to take a full 8 days off per month.

What's even more worrying is the issue of salaries. The average annual salary of new employees aged 20 to 24 is only 1.966 million yen, and the average annual salary of employees aged 25 to 30 is 2.928 million yen, lower than the median annual salary of 3.3 million yen for 20- to 29-year-olds in Japan (according to a survey by ManpowerGroup at the beginning of 2024), indicating generally low salaries for newcomers in the Japanese animation industry.

Source: The 2023 survey report of the Japan Animation Creators Association (JANICA) The 2023 survey report of the Japan Animation Creators Association (JANICA) shows that the average annual salary of new recruits aged 20 to 24 is only 1.966 million Japanese yen.

Another result from a survey conducted by the Japan Anime Film Alliance (NAFCA) shows that out of 323 valid samples (191 of which are animators), the average monthly cumulative working hours is about 219 hours, and the median is 225 hours. This is much higher than the national average of 162.3 hours in Japan. In addition, 37.7% of practitioners earn less than 200,000 yen per month.

Source: The results of the survey conducted by the Japan Anime Film Alliance (NAFCA) show that the average monthly cumulative working hours of animation industry employees in Japan is approximately 219 hours, which is much higher than the national average of 162.3 hours.

To address these issues, local AI and blockchain experts in Japan have launched the 'Anime Chain' project in January 2024, attempting to solve AI copyright and ethical issues through blockchain technology, and to establish an environment for creators and enterprises to safely use generative AI.

However, as many industry insiders have pointed out, the Japanese anime industry may not be able to sustain its development solely with AI technology. It also needs to address the long-standing issues of low wages, overwork, and other pathological labor issues, as well as the structural problems faced by freelancers such as tax pressures. Only by fundamentally improving these issues can the industry truly achieve sustainable development.

We have discussed the labor shortage in the Japanese animation industry and Hayao Miyazaki's views on AI creation: AI copyright infringement, animation industry shortage! Japan's private sector launches 'Anime Chain', can it really improve the industry?

In the AI era, it is even more important to maintain the original intention of creation! Looking back at the remarks of Naoki Urasawa on 'Pluto', why can't AI surpass humans?

『95% of them are drawn with AI! Japanese AI beautiful girl animation will be released next year, will human artists be replaced?' This article was first published in 'Crypto City'