There's no denying AI is one of the most divisive topics when it comes to anime, and really entertainment and art as a whole. But despite the backlash, many recognize it will play a role in the future of the industry, and are beginning to welcome it as a tool that could hopefully help ease the stress put on everyday animation artists, especially when it comes to anime.
One user, Redditor TomatoJutsu, has actually given fans a glimpse of the potential future of AI use in anime by sharing a recreation of One-Punch Man's iconic fight scene between Saitama and Genos. Featured in the first season of the anime, the explosive fight sequence, which was animated by Madhouse, is famous for its cinematic choreography and fluid motion. So really, there's not much to complain about with the actual anime animation itself.
But looking to test the capability of AI, TomatoJutsu created a "live-action" version of the fight sequence using Suno AI. And while many AI creators receive flack for supposedly a lack of talent or effort, TomatoJutsu explained the process that went into creating this Ai version of the fight.
"What I actually did was take static frames from the anime to recreate images as close as possible to the original, but in my own style, and then animate them one by one and edit everything together," they explained. "Right now you can’t just take an anime video and run it through AI to get this kind of result heheh."
According to the Redditor, the sequence took about three weeks in total to make, working 12 or so hours a day.
"I didn’t just run the original through AI. I only used static frames from the anime as visual references, and everything was re-animated shot by shot," they revealed. "It involved thousands of prompts, regenerating images and videos, and a lot of manual editing over hundreds of hours to get the timing, motion, and action to feel right."
"A lot of that time was spent experimenting and iterating, not working at full intensity the entire time," they added in another comment. "It definitely wasn’t a one click upscale. There was a lot of re-editing involved: thousands of prompt iterations, regenerating images and videos, refining shots, and then carefully editing everything together until it felt right."
The result is one of the best use-case examples of AI in anime, and a glimpse at the potential future of AI use within the industry.
ONE PUNCH MAN | SAITAMA VS GENOS 👊💥
byu/TomatoJutsu inaivideo
It's not a perfect recreation, but it's still very impressive with what could be done. Here's the original scene for reference:
While many examples of AI animations are brushed off as "slop," this particular one has been embraced by the anime community, especially by many fans disappointed with the current state of the One-Punch Man anime. Although the first season was met with favorable reception, the series has fallen off under the direction of J.C. Staff. Perhaps the lackluster animation quality of Seasons 2 and 3 are why more people are embracing the use of AI.
It's worth noting that this wasn't a fully new creation, but rather a generative recreation of the original animation. Still, it's impressive to see how far AI animation has come in such a short time. I don't think anyone is rooting for AI to completely replace traditional artists, but there's now no denying the future role it will have as a tool in anime production.