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Taiki Sakurai, former chief anime producer at Netflix and CEO of Salamander Pictures Co., Ltd., said the workload placed on animators is “inhumane” as he defended the use of AI in anime production during a panel at CEATEC’s The AI Agent Industrial Revolution: Unlocking Japan’s Potential event held in October.
Sakurai said concerns from viewers about machines replacing human labor overlook the reality that animators are expected to hand-draw extremely large numbers of frames under demanding schedules.
According to him, reactions to AI differ depending on the field, adding that the manga industry has a stronger “allergic reaction” because AI can directly replace artists.
In animation, he said, the process still requires turning images into moving sequences, and current technology cannot automatically generate full animation.
He argued that while some fans claim AI is “non-humanitarian,” requiring animators to produce as many as 100,000 hand-drawn images can feel equally non-humanitarian for those working inside the industry.
“With fewer young people entering the industry due to declining birthrates, it almost becomes a dark joke: by the time AI takes over everything, there might not be a single person left working in animation studios,” he added.
Sakurai cited his work at Netflix on a three-minute short titled The Dog and The Boy, in which the human characters were hand-drawn, the dog was rendered in CG, and the backgrounds were created using AI.
Although the short was released about three years ago, he said it caused a significant controversy at the time, with people claiming Netflix was trying to eliminate human workers and produce all visuals with AI.
A second installment existed, but its public announcement was delayed at the time because of the backlash.
Sakurai continues to conduct AI-related image experiments at his current company. Reflecting on how far the technology has come, Sakurai noted that “when we made The Dog & The Boy, AI was still in its infancy. Instead of image-based generation, you had to give command prompts and let the AI output images. Then we would pick the image closest to what we wanted and fix the rest by hand — a very analog workflow.”
One of the projects the company is working on involves concept artist Kenichiro Tomiyasu, where he provides rough sketch-like drawings. An AI model trained solely on Tomiyasu’s artwork then refines those sketches into finished images, predicting how Tomiyasu would complete them.
The system generates around 100 variations, and Tomiyasu selects the one he feels looks most like his own work.
Sakurai noted that this is done with Tomiyasu’s permission and with the understanding that the trained AI model will be deleted after the project is completed, allowing the artist to safely treat the tool as a kind of personal assistant.
Sakurai said this approach allows humans to create from zero to one and from one to nine, while possibly bypassing the intermediary steps. “The animation industry faces an acute labor shortage, and that’s the context behind this experiment,” he said.
Sakurai previously worked as a scriptwriter at Production I.G., contributing to titles such as the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. He later joined Netflix, where he produced Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance, and Pokémon Concierge. In 2023, he founded Salamander Pictures, where he currently serves as President and CEO.
Source: Internet Watch
