Toei Animation‘s financial results (PDF) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025 have shed some light on its recent investment in Preferred Networks, Inc., a Japanese company that has involvement with AI.
The relevant section (slide 20) reveals that Toei Animation has an eye on applying AI to processes like storyboarding, coloring and “color specification,” in-between animation, and backgrounds.
The use cases it specifically cites for these are:
• Storyboarding: Using AI to “generate simple layouts and Shooting of the storyboards.”
• Colors: Using AI to “specify colors and automatically correct colors.”
• In-betweens: Using AI to “automatically correct line drawings and generate in-betweens.”
• Backgrounds: Using AI to “to generate backgrounds from a photo.”
Toei Animation says that it is seeking “to co-develop new business opportunities and improve the efficiency and quality of our production, capitalizing on synergies between AI and animation production technologies.”
Previously, Toei Animation’ senior director Kiichiro Yamada, through a statement in Preferred Networks, Inc.’s new funding round announcement, said that “we expect that Preferred Networks’ strengths in technology, development and organization will play a key role in Japan’s future. We believe that the combination of their strengths and our long-proven anime production expertise will create strong synergies. Going forward, we will strive to achieve sustainable growth with Preferred Networks and contribute to the overall development of Japan’s anime industry.”
In 2021, it was announced that Toei Animation and Preferred Networks had “jointly conducted trials on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to streamline production of anime.” That collaboration led to the application of Scenify, an AI-powered background tool called which “uses PFN’s AI-based image processing and segmentation technologies,” for the six-minute experimental short URVAN.
Source: Toei Animation financial report (via @catsuka)
