AI in the scenario: A brand new episode of a successful Japanese manga by the master of the genre, Osamu Tezuka, was released on the Japanese archipelago on Wednesday, 34 years after the author’s death using artificial intelligence.
Tezuka (1928-1989), considered the father of modern manga, contributed to the development of this artistic form, attracting adults and children alike thanks to complex plots and original graphic proposals.
The new episode of “Black Jack”, one of his most famous works with “Astro the Little Robot”, was published on Wednesday in the pages of the weekly “Shonen Champion” to mark the manga’s 50th anniversary.
“For this work, AI and humans teamed up to pose a humble challenge to Osamu Tezuka, the god of manga,” publisher Akita Shoten said in a statement.
“AI was a good partner and assistant in the creation of this manga. But she can’t read and enjoy this manga by herself. We hope you will read it,” he added.
Black Jack, published between 1973 and 1983 in Shonen Champion, tells the adventures of a genius surgeon who operates without an official license, selling his services for huge sums but treating the most disadvantaged mercifully.
According to the specialist website Mangazenkan, the 25 volumes have been sold around 147 million copies worldwide.
The new episode tells the story of a patient who suffered complications after having an artificial heart implanted.
A team of researchers and artists used the GPT-4 language model and the Stable Diffusion artificial intelligence image generator to write the story and develop the appearance of the characters. The final illustrations are the work of human artists.
“I know this project will not please everyone, but I hope it will fuel discussion about the creative applications of AI,” Makoto Tezuka, the mangaka’s son, told Japanese media.
Japan’s first fully AI-drawn manga, titled “Cyberpunk: Peach John,” was released in March, raising eyebrows among purists and stoking fears about jobs and copyright enforcement in the multi-billion dollar industry.
The author of “Cyberpunk: Peach John,” known by the pen name Rootport, said at the time that he had “absolutely no” talent for drawing, explaining that it took him just six weeks to create this hundred-plus-page color work.