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Novelist Otsuichi Co-Directs generAIdoscope, Omnibus Film Produced Entirely With Generative AI

REALCOFFEE ENTERTAINMENT revealed generAIdoscope, a full-length original omnibus movie project completely made with generative AI, in a teaser trailer on Wednesday. The film is slated to screen in Japanese theaters this year, with Hirotaka Adachi (who uses the pen name Otsuichi as a novelist), One Cut of the Dead cinematographer Takeshi Sone, and Hiroki Yamaguchi (Bloody Chainsaw Girl) directing the three original stories.

REALCOFFEE ENTERTAINMENT stated that the original stories were written specially for the project, and that all the video, audio, and music in the film are created using AI.

The three original stories included in the omnibus film project are:

During the Age of Exploration, a sailor gets washed ashore on an island inhabited by monkeys. The monkeys become interested in the books the sailor brings as cargo, and start reading them. The monkeys instantly gain intelligence through reading the books and start wearing clothes, making basic tools, and eventually iron tools. The sailor then decides to use the monkeys to escape the island.

Azusa Ishizuka is an eccentric girl who has a tendency to daydream. One day, she dreams she meets a female designer at a cafe. In the real world, the designer Azusa met is her dead mother. Wanting to meet her mother again in the real world, Azusa travels between her dreams and the real world to make her dream come true.

In a world in the distant future, Grandma Rebito (character name not confirmed), a former magician, travels around a country with her cat and musical instrument, for just one purpose. She goes from a ruined city to a forest to a huge underground city, and eventually the purpose of her journey is revealed.

Adachi uses the pen name Otsuichi for his novels such as Calling You, Goth, and his novel adaptation of loundraw's Summer Ghost anime film. Under his Hirotaka Adachi name, he wrote the screenplay for the Summer Ghost film, and the 2009 Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror film. Most recently, Netflix adapted Adachi's original story to a horror anime series, titled Exception, in 2022.

Sone has been independently producing AI films since 2023. Sone directed the My Universe here 2023 AI film, and it was selected to screen at the Japanese Serbian Film Festival that same year.

Yamaguchi started video production using generative AI this year. His short science-fiction film titled "IMPROVEMENT CYCLE" is competing in the new "AI Film International Competition" of the 2024 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, happening from July 4-14. On July 4, the AI short film won an award at the Gyeongsangbuk-do International AI Metaverse Film Festival in South Korea.

The animated film adaptation of Rika Hirotsu's Shi ga Utsukushii Nante Dare ga Itta (Who Said Death Was Beautiful?) book by motion capture studio Eins, was made through a combination of motion capture technology and generative AI. The film premiered in Japan on December 22.

Source: Press release