Netflix AI Anime Is A GAME-CHANGER: Here’s Why

Netflix created an anime film that uses AI art.

Artificial Intelligence, oh how you stir the pot.

The Dog and The Boy

Netflix Japan has announced that “The Dog and The Boy” have used AI-generated art in their backgrounds.

But why did they use AI art?

Well, they claimed it was to help the anime industry.

They said, “As an experimental effort to help the anime industry which has a labor shortage we used image generation technology for the background images of all three-minute video cuts.”

Anime fans and artists were not impressed as they claim this threatens to put artists out of jobs.

The renowned anime director Hiyao Miyazaki has also denounced AI art.

He went as far as saying that it is an insult to life itself.

It’s interesting that in the credits of the film, the background designer is credited as AI plus human.

So it’s AI first, human second.

It’s not human plus AI.

Is AI Art Any Good?

So, the million-dollar question is, is AI art any good?

Let’s take a look at some of the backgrounds generated.

And you can see that they compare very favorably to some real anime backgrounds.

So, can you tell if I take these two images?

I will ask you which one is created by AI and which one was created by a human.

Also, make a mental note of which one you prefer.

Number 1 was made with ai

Some people have commented, “Bad backgrounds, please hire humans.”

It looks like human background artists can rest easy for now.

But I would retort that there is not so much difference as you can see from our test.

Generate Your Own Anime Backgrounds

Now it’s very easy to use a tool like Midjourney to generate your own anime backgrounds.

Midjourney runs inside Discord.

And once you’ve signed up you can simply set the algorithm for AI art to be specifically tuned for creating anime works.

And to do that you simply type in /settings.

Adjust the algorithm to the Niji mode which is tuned for anime.

And then you can simply type in a text prompt.

So, you can look for anime background art for a Studio Ghibli film whimsical Japanese Coastal scene.

Sit back and relax.

Have a little sip of coffee.

The popular website myanimelist.net has rated this film as 5.81.

And I imagine that the anti-AI art luddites have significantly contributed to pulling that rating lower.

And people have said that using AI art is even offensive, but people will get offended by anything these days.

So, here are my Studio Ghibli-inspired background scenes.

And you can see that they compare very favorably to the real thing.

And they’re easy to generate and quick.

This is just the latest example of AI art stirring up controversy as there are concerns about generators such as Stable Diffusion producing almost exact copies of copyrighted works.

Final Thoughts

For more information on the copyright issue check out this video.

But regardless of the controversy, it’s fair to say that AI art is here to stay.

And it will continue to evolve and develop the creative industries beyond what we know now.

So, anime fans what do you think of Netflix using AI art?

Will you watch the film or will you boycott it?

And if you want to learn how to use Midjourney, check out my AI art courses in the description.

Thanks for watching.

I’m Samson Vowles, this is Delightful Design and I hope you have a delightful day.

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