Ryouichi Wada (Creator & Producer)
Let's start with Ryouichi Wada, a Japanese director and producer renowned for creating successful titles such as One Cut of the Dead, a relatively low-budget production that became a massive $40M box office hit. His diverse background in screenwriting in both commercial and entertainment projects, plus his work on original IP for Webtoons and others, gave Wada a platform that would ultimately see him founding Pocket ANIME, a platform producing globally recognized AI Anime content.
The journey to success, however, was not always an easy path. Four years ago, he set his sights on creating an animated production with global appeal. To achieve this goal, he sought to harness the talents of Hollywood, building a team capable of realizing his ambitions. However, he soon realized the risks involved with such an undertaking - the issues involved with long-term production cycles and the funding required to exist within a long-established, complex industry.
While highly skilled at planning, production, and the art of storytelling, Wada soon began exploring emerging technologies such as generative AI that could help bridge the gap between ideation and the multiple technical aspects of animation production. Having put together a team of creators adept at creating AI-generated content, Wada eventually developed Pocket ANIME, a platform dedicated to the production of short-form AI animations.
The Japanese Animation Market and the Impact of AI
While animation is one of Japan's most globally celebrated cultural exports, creating high-level animated work requires significant time and financial resources. AI is becoming essential to streamlining key aspects of the production process, giving creators more freedom to tell stories and reach global audiences with fresh content. Today's AI animation is not yet capable of creating full-length movies that can compete with other major digital streaming platforms. However, it has quickly become a powerful tool for test marketing and IP incubation.
Animation is capable of unique visual expression. In a world where originality and creativity are paramount, AI allows creators to transform the stories in their minds into unique, one-of-a-kind worlds. This is the greatest strength of animation. Turning imagination into IPs that can be monetized and scaled.
Yachimat (Creator & Product Manager)
Having established a career in the Fintech market, Yachimat decided at the age of forty-one to share his unique life stories through animation. Despite several commercial collaboration offers, he opted to publish and interact with audiences via his own media platforms, a strategy he hoped would engage audiences who are genuinely interested in his stories.
After a period of initial experimentation using AI to create manga content, in September of last year, he realized that video generation tools could be used to produce full animations. This realization shifted his focus toward story-driven animation.
Having encountered Vidu on X (formerly Twitter) where the platform was used to create action scenes, he was amazed at the potential AI-generated video proposed. The experience sparked a period of deep experimentation. His previous experiences with other tools had been stylistically disappointing. After further experimentation with various platforms, Yachimat gradually became convinced that Vidu AI video generator was the best choice in terms of animation style and overall convenience.
General Notes on AI and the Japanese Anime Market
The future of AI animation is undeniable, but Japan's animation industry is massive, and largely resistant to AI. Even minimal AI usage can spark backlash, with critics claiming it's 'taking animators' jobs'. However, people also recognize the poor working conditions that animators face. This contradiction needs to be addressed.
For professional use, tools that instantly generate final products (like T2V or I2V) don't always integrate well into the established production pipeline. The more likely use case in professional settings is in the pre-production phase, particularly for directors and writers. One of the biggest costs in animation production is re-work. Often, by the time a scene is near completion, pacing issues, or missing shots are often discovered, requiring additional time and resources to fix.
It's hard to accurately convey the rhythm of animation through paper-based storyboards or timelines. But if AI can generate a rough animated sequence early on, even with AI voiceovers, directors and writers can catch issues early and make adjustments.
This is similar to prototyping and agile development in the IT world. For directors and writers, one of their biggest challenges is communicating their vision clearly to the team. AI can help bridge that gap. When used as a prototyping tool, an AI animation generator will bring significant benefits to the industry.
However, compared to the traditional animation industry, the impact of self-published animation via social media may actually be greater. Also, YouTube audiences tend to be more forgiving of visual glitches or inconsistencies than traditional TV viewers, giving AI animation greater growth potential on these platforms.
