The theme to use artificial intelligences to create art is pretty hot on the internet these days and we’re having arguments for and against to give anyone migraines. Even so, it seems that no company wants to lose the experiment and Netflix It has also begun to delve into the field of creation with artificial intelligence to create anime.
One-off or long-term collaboration?
witstudio, the studio responsible for ‘Spy x Family’ and the first seasons of ‘Shingeki no Kyojin’ has previously collaborated with Netflix to release ‘Vampire in the Garden’. And now they have teamed up with Rinna Inc to develop ‘The Dog & The Boy’, a short anime short.
netflix japan has shared this futuristic short about a boy and his dog, who end up separated for a while but finally get together in a somewhat bittersweet way, for free on their networks. Ryotaro Makihara is the director, screenwriter, animator and artistic director, while Mathias Demongeot acts as a character designer Taiki Sakurai of producer and koji tanaka as a cinematographer.
“A short film of the joint project ‘The Dog & The Boy’, by Netflix Anime Creator Base, technology developer Rinna Inc and Wit Studio,” it can be read on the original tweet. “An experimental effort to help the anime industry, which is short of manpower. We used imaging technology for the backgrounds of this three-minute short.”
There is no shortage, there are bad conditions
With this description, it seems that character animation has been taken care of by Wit Studio and artificial intelligence has been used for the backgrounds. Although the story ofThe Dog & The Boy‘ is quite tender and has a good finish, has raised quite a few blisters and it has been criticized that artificial intelligence is used under the pretext that there are no animators available.
Inside the animation industry’The Dog & The Boy‘ is not having a good reception, and in fact Hamish Steelethe creator of the canceled ‘The Deadlock: A Paranormal Park’ has said that “it is not something to be proud of, darlings.”
Maybe if y’all paid your artists/animators properly so they they wouldn’t just drop dead on their desks from overwork you wouldn’t have a “labor shortage”.
Anyway, as Hayao Miyazaki put it pic.twitter.com/1QLXHJH5r8
— tea 🔞🐉🍕🐙🪐🪄 (@obsessivetea) February 1, 2023
A Twitter user has also recalled Hayao Miyazaki’s reaction to art created by artificial intelligence while pointing out that if decent wages were paid and there were good working conditions, there would be no problem finding entertainers.
Objectively, it can be said that ‘The Dog & The Boy’ It doesn’t look bad, especially since the characters at least don’t have a disturbing aspect with teeth or fingers to spare… But we’ll have to see if Netflix continues to bet on this technology or listen to its detractors.