by A specific indie band’s music video (MV) produced using the image generation AI “Midjourney” is “cool,” “Who is the artist?”, “It’s so funny and awesome,” “This kind of music will become mainstream in the near future.” “Maybe” is attracting attention. A four-minute “anime-style” work that took over 100 hours to complete by a member who is not particularly good at drawing. We asked
“ Ginmaku Ichiro to TIMECAFE ” ( @Ginmaku_Jimu ) by the 5-person group. We are a “dancing entertainment band” specializing in songs that incorporate the essence of Showa songs. The song “Look for love!” was created with the concept of “a song like an anime song,” the recording took place in the spring of 2023. While exchanging opinions on the jacket design among the members, the idea was “City Hunter’. ‘
The idea was, “I’d like an anime-style illustration like this.” Mr. Matsunaga, who had been interested in AI for some time, thought, “Let’s use AI to create a full-length anime-like music video,” and decided to take on the challenge by teaching himself. Midjourney is an AI that generates high-quality images by typing text. Mr. Matsunaga created five main characters that reflected each member’s characteristics. By rapidly switching out many illustrations according to the song’s development, he started a quality that could be mistaken for a full-fledged anime work. “It took over 100 hours to create, but I think I spent about 150 hours, including studying beforehand,” says Matsunaga. “Even though I can’t draw, it was interesting that when I typed in the text, many pictures that looked like that came out.
However, I decided on the composition and pose and took about 100 pictures until I got a concept close to the image I had in mind. He says the most challenging part was the “fingers of the hands.” “As soon as you make them hold weapons, things get weird.” If you look closely at the music video released on YouTube, there are scenes where the characters have an odd number of fingers.
Also, some faces are difficult to make similar to. In that case, it would not be easy to maintain consistency in character across multiple illustrations, so he would sometimes have to start over from scratch.
Looking back, Mr. Matsunaga says, “Using AI generation to get the picture I wanted was like spinning a gacha endlessly, not knowing whether it would win.” “But that’s what makes it so much fun. As I was doing it, time started to melt away.” The completed music video begins with a worldview similar to “City Hunter,” but a giant dragon suddenly appears halfway through.
The story unfolds in mysterious ways, with strange monsters appearing. Images reminiscent of the characters’ complicated pasts are also inserted throughout, giving a sense of depth. Matsunaga said, “The concept was “an anime that doesn’t exist,” but I also carefully thought about the story. I would be happy if you could take a look at it.” Looking at the speed at which AI is evolving, image generation will become a part of culture.
The production of this music video costs almost no budget so this method may become more widespread. When I asked him about his self-evaluation of the MV’s completion level, he said, “It’s not exactly what I wanted, so I gave it around 80 points.”
