IMAGICA GROUP released a new interview with Tatsuo Yotsukura, the director and R&D supervisor of its subsidiary company OLM Digital, where he spoke about the importance of AI for automation and generative processes in the anime industry.
Yotsukura has brought his expertise to numerous high-profile anime, including The Apothecary Diaries Seasons 1 and 2, and movies from the Inazuma Eleven and Pokémon franchises. As a subsidiary of IMAGICA through OLM, OLM Digital extensively supports OLM through CG; its R&D team also researches and develops production tools for the IMAGICA GROUP more broadly, open-sourcing some for the industry through its OLM OpenTools website.
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Yotsukura and the company are currently undertaking a research project called ANIMINS (ANIMe INSight), which explores where and how AI can fit in the anime production workflow. They expect AI to become commonplace in society — an ‘AI for everyone‘ — likening its upcoming use with this analogy:
‘I would like you to remember some past examples. In the days when PCs were not yet widespread, Bill Gates advocated a computer for everyone. Also, in the days when smartphones were not common, Steve Jobs said a smartphone for everyone. And both their words have become reality, and now most people have a PC and a smartphone.‘ ANIMINS began in December 2024 and will run for 15 months, where a model workflow for AI support in anime production will be presented at anime conferences, research institutes, and anime research start-ups.
They believe that AI is an important tool to enable staff to focus on their creative work. ‘Also, taking the anime industry as an example, when 3DCG technology first appeared, many people were reluctant and many people considered it taboo. But what about now? It has penetrated the industry to the point that it is difficult to find a title that does not use 3DCG technology,’ the site adds.
The Apothecary Diaries, Pokemon, Inazuma Eleven R&D Team Outlines Hurdles to Using AI in Anime
OLM Digital believes these are the four challenges facing generative AI in anime production:
- Concerns about rights and copyright infringement
- Cancel culture around AI: with fans exhibiting a strong rejection of things made by AI.
- No time to try out AI amid tight schedules: leaving anime creators worried that AI is scary or will take away their jobs.
- Technical challenges: There are fewer R&D teams and engineers in the anime industry compared to other fields, meaning fewer opportunities to explore AI.
The interview expands on the above points so it’s worth checking out. It goes on to outline how an AI tool that colors sections automatically is already being used at OLM Digital, leading to positive benefits for creators. ‘By leaving the parts that do not need to be done by humans manually to AI, we aim to create an environment where people can concentrate on more creative work. Behind this is a strong desire to secure the time and energy for humans to demonstrate their innate creativity,’ the site reads, adding, ‘We clearly position the generative AI as merely a tool and a supporter. AI is not the creator itself, but merely an assistant to help creators create better works.‘ The coloring tool has purportedly led to a work hours reduction of around 30% in some use cases.
While there’s relatively less negative reaction to simple coloring and fill tools, anime fans have been staunchly against AI that generates entire images. This resurfaced in CHOCOLATE Inc.’s recent short anime commercial for Maruchan’s noodle brand “Akai Kitsune Udon.” On top of a fierce debate about an alleged sexualization of the female version of the advert compared to the male one, many argued that generative AI was used in its production — an allegation that CHOCOLATE staunchly denied in a statement. You can see an example of alleged AI use and CHOCOLATE’s statement below.
CHOCOLATE’s statement denying the use of AI is below:
For curiosity’s sake, you can check out the advert below too:
OLM Digital outlined three areas where it is considering implementing AI. First, it highlights a chronic shortage of key animators in the industry and the massive workload on animation directors to provide corrections to remove discrepancies in animation. To that end, OLM Digital is considering developing a character drawing support tool:
‘The tool would assist in bringing rough character drawings closer to the facial expressions and designs in the setting materials, and suggest areas for correction. Our goal is to provide a function that supports the improvement of the overall quality of the work, just like an animation director.‘
Secondly, OLM focuses on in-between animators, who join up the key animation through in-between frames to create natural movement. ‘The more in-between frames there are, the smoother and more relaxed the animation will be. We believe that AI can also be used to support,’ it says.
The third area is image search technology. Pokémon and Beyblade were highlighted as long-running series where maintaining consistency was paramount. Examples of how the image search function would be used included searching the look of a past character’s room and how a character runs. The site adds that as a series grows longer, new staff members join and some leave the company: ‘While it’s reassuring to have staff members who are like living dictionaries who know the history of the work, they won’t be there forever. For such situations, we would like to explore a system that can search for scattered materials and reference materials for each cut together with AI Mage Co., Ltd., a member of the ANIMINS project.‘
Last May, a project seeking to enable partially similar ambitions, SAKUGA-42M, was launched. Its research paper was later withdrawn after sparking controversy for using 42 million keyframes exclusively from animation, many of which were obtained without consent. It sought to allow users to search for keyframes using text prompts and outlined ambitions of automatic in-between frame generation, automatic colorization, and editing (per Gigazine).
Over 10 ‘Major Anime Companies’ Agree to Test Out AI Technology, According to IMAGICA GROUP & OLM Digital
According to the above graphic from IMAGICA’s site, over 10 ‘major’ anime companies have agreed to test the findings from the ANIMINS project. NEDO (New Energy Industrial Technology Development Organization) is funding the project through its Generative AI Accelerator Challenge (GENIAC) project. OLM Digital is supervising. AI Mages and EQUES will contribute by developing technology, with OLM Digital validating it for its use cases and providing feedback. Nine universities will create prototypes from the research and identify existing technologies in the industry. The tools will be provided to parent company OLM and its subsidiaries OLM Asia SDN BHD (established in December 2017 in Malaysia’s Cyberjaya district) and OLM Thailand for experimentation. Over 10 anime studios and AI software companies will receive the technology for free to test in production.
Anime Association NAFCA Condemns Japanese Government for AI Stance
In other recent AI anime news, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun (via Newswitch) reported on February 19 that the Japanese Diet is deliberating a new AI Bill. Controversially, the government is adamant that it isn’t seeking to impose criminal penalties for malpractice, stating that it exists to encourage innovation, AI use, and cooperation between the public and private sectors. Instead, the government prefers a mechanism that allows it to investigate malicious cases and respond accordingly.
NAFCA submitted its opinions to Japan’s Cabinet Office AI System Research Group, which included criticism of the lack of penalties: “While countries around the world are moving forward with regulations to protect the rights of their citizens, Japan is taking the lead in offering its own rights to the world.” The Cabinet Office solicited comments for the bill’s drafting and received 4,557 opinions. These reportedly included many calls for penalties to be built-in and mandatory labeling of AI-generated products.
Source: IMAGICA GROUP’s Note account
Featured Image: © Natsu Hyuga/Imagica Infos/”The Apothecary Diaries” Production Committee © Nintendo・Creatures・GAME FREAK・TV Tokyo・ShoPro・JR Kikaku © Pokemon ©1998-2020 Pikachu Project © LEVEL-5/FC Inazuma Eleven・TV Tokyo
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