Japanese AI manga: A challenge to jobs or a source of inspiration?

• The creator of a science fiction manga claims he has “absolutely zero” drawing talent and relies on AI.
• Being Japan’s first entirely AI-drawn manga, it raises concerns about the impact of technology on jobs.
• The author said it took him only six weeks to write the over-100-page manga.

TOKYO –   The creator of a science fiction manga set to hit Japanese shelves claims he has “absolutely zero” drawing talent and relied on artificial intelligence (AI) to produce the dystopian narrative.

All of the futuristic contraptions and monsters in “Cyberpunk: Peach John” were meticulously produced by Midjourney, a viral AI tool that, together with Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2, has sent the art world into a frenzy.

Being Japan’s first totally AI-drawn manga, the work has prompted concerns about the threat that technology may pose to jobs and intellectual property in the country’s multibillion-dollar comic book industry.

The author, who goes by the pen name Rootport, said it took him only six weeks to write the over-100-page manga, which would have taken a talented artist a year to complete.

“It was a fun process; it reminded me of playing the lottery,” the 37-year-old said.

Rootport, a writer who has previously worked on manga stories, used text suggestions like “pink hair,” “Asian lad,” and “stadium jacket” to conjure up images of the story’s hero in under a minute.

He then laid down the best frames in comic-book format to create the book, which has already generated internet attention ahead of its March 9 release by Shinchosha, a big publishing house.

Unlike typical black-and-white manga, his creation is fully colored, albeit the same character’s face might look in a variety of ways.

Nonetheless, AI image producers have “paved the way for people without the artistic talent to make inroads” into the manga industry—as long as they have compelling stories to tell, according to the author.

Rootport said he felt fulfilled when his text instructions, which he describes as magical “spells,” produced an image that matched his imagination.

“But is it the same satisfaction you’d feel when you’ve drawn something by hand from scratch?” Probably not.”

Soul-searching

Midjourney was created in the United States and quickly gained worldwide acclaim after its release last year.

Its whimsical, ridiculous, and occasionally terrifying inventions, like those of other AI text-to-image generators, can be remarkably smart, sparking soul-searching among artists.

The tools have also caused legal problems, with the London-based start-up behind Stable Diffusion facing litigation alleging that the program grabbed enormous volumes of copyrighted material off the internet without authorization.

Some Japanese lawmakers have expressed concern about artists’ rights, but experts think copyright violations are unlikely if AI art is created with simple text cues and little human inventiveness.

Others have expressed concern that the technology may take jobs away from junior manga artists, who painstakingly paint background graphics for each scene.

When Netflix debuted a Japanese animated short with AI-generated backdrops in January, it was chastised online for not hiring human animators.

“The probability of manga artists’ helpers being replaced [by AI] is not nil,” said Keio University professor Satoshi Kurihara to AFP.

Kurihara and his team released an AI-aided comic in the style of late manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka in 2020.

Humans drew practically everything for that project, but AI art has since become “top-notch” and is “destined to” affect the manga industry’s future, he claims.

Humans still dominate.

Some manga artists enjoy the increased technological possibilities.

“I don’t really see AI as a threat—rather, I think it can be a great companion,” says Madoka Kobayashi, who has worked in the industry for over 30 years, according to sources.

She said AI can “help me visualize what I have in mind and suggest rough ideas, which I then challenge myself to improve.”

The author, who also teaches budding manga artists at a Tokyo university, contends that manga is founded on ingeniously designed storylines as well as aesthetics.

In that context, “I’m confident humans still dominate.”

Yet she is hesitant to reproduce directly from computer-generated images because “I don’t know whose artwork they’re based on.”

Kobayashi employs figurines to help students improve their pencil drawings at the Tokyo Design School, incorporating details such as musculature, creases in clothes, and hair whorls.

“AI art is great… but I find human drawings more appealing, precisely because they are “messy,” “remarks Ginjiro Uchida, an 18-year-old student.

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Computer programs don’t always reproduce a manga artist’s purposefully exaggerated hands or features, and “people still have a superior sense of humor,” he says.

When asked if AI could disrupt Japan’s human-driven manga manufacturing process, three major publishers declined to answer.

Rootport is completely skeptical. Because real artists are better at making sure their pictures fit the context, AI-drawn comics will never become widespread.

But, “I also don’t think manga completely unaided by AI will remain dominant forever.”