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WIT Studio Produces 'The Dog & The Boy' Anime Short With AI Generated Backgrounds

Netflix's Japan YouTube channel began streaming a new anime short titled "The Dog & The Boy" ("Inu to Shōnen") by Wit Studio on Tuesday. The short features AI-generated backgrounds (based on human-created concept art and final touch-ups). Netflix stated that the move is an attempt to alleviate the "lack of manpower in the anime industry." The backgrounds are only credited to "AI (+Human)," but does not credit who drew the concept art or made the final touch-ups to the backgrounds.

Ryōtarō Makihara is the director, storyboarder, and key animator, while Mathias Demongeot is the character designer and CG animator. Taiki Sakurai is the producer. The rinna AI company is credited for AI development. The Netflix Anime Creators' Base is credited with production, with Production I.G and Wit Studio credited for production support. Aya Hida is the editor. Kōji Tanaka is the composition director. Yūko Fujita is the color supervisor. Chieko Ichimanda is the animation supervisor. qooop, inc. is credited for post-production, while dugout Inc. is credited for sound production.

sasakure.UK produced the anime's theme song "AINOUTA" (Song of Love) featuring AI-code"M".

Netflix's "Anime Creators' Base" produced the short. Netflix launched the base at its company's Tokyo office in September 2021. Designers Namiko Ishidate and Saina Cisse are staffing the "Designers' Garage" area of the new base, meant to help creators develop conceptual art.

Netflix partnered with Wit Studio and Sasayuri Video Training Center in February 2021 to establish the WIT Animator Academy to train young animators. The first course ran for six months starting in April, and Netflix plans to cover the costs of the program for multiple years. Graduates will draw in-between animation for Netflix original anime produced at Wit Studio or Production I.G Netflix has indicated that its range of support for animators may also expand in the future.

It has been an ongoing goal of the tech industry to develop artificial intelligence programs to help with the anime production workload. Dwango's Yuichi Yagi debuted an AI program that creates in-between animation in 2017. Dwango then announced the program was utilized for some parts of FLCL Progressive. Imagica Group and OLM Digital joined forces with the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) to develop a technique for automatic coloring, further expanding AI options.

Video game company NCSoft (Guild Wars 2) researchers Jun-Ho Kim, Minjae Kim, Hyeonwoo Kang, and Kwanghee Lee introduced a program that uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to transform real-life people into anime characters in 2016. AlgoAge Co.'s DeepAnime artificial intelligence engine can automatically generate talking animation based on a single image and a voice recording.

The manga publisher Hakusensha has begun using PaintsChainer automatic coloring program for some of its online manga releases.

Sources: Netflix's Japan YouTube channel, Netflix's Japan Twitter account