This Pokémon Exec’s AI Endorsement Is BAD News for Anime

This Pokémon Exec’s AI Endorsement Is BAD News for Anime Pokémon's Ash Is Scared By AI Background

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By Evan D. Mullicane Published 24 minutes ago Evan Mullicane is the senior editor and founder of Screen Rant's anime section. Having started as a writer for the Comics Team at the beginning of the Pandemic, Evan was swiftly promoted from writer to editor, and then from editor to lead of Screen Rant's newly established anime vertical. Throughout his time with Screen Rant, Evan has made a handful of appearances at conventions such as Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con, and has interviewed some of the biggest names in Anime and Comics history. In addition to editing anime and manga articles for Screen Rant, Evan is also a science fiction and fantasy author. In 2018 and 2019, his short story "The Demon's Mother" won honorable mentions from the Writers of the Future contest. You can find Evan on Twitter @EvanDM and BlueSky @evandmu.bsky.socia Sign in to your ScreenRant account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

An executive producer connected to the Pokémon anime series and Netflix has commented on AI, and it's reigniting discussions about what are good use cases for the burgeoning technology. Though the producer's comments are sure to ignite frustration in the anime community, and rightfully so, the topic highlights growing issues in the industry that extend well beyond AI.

According to Internet Watch, Salamander Inc. CEO Taiki Sakurai recently spoke at a conference about AI. Sakurai is an executive producer for a handful of Netflix anime including Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Moonrise, and Pokémon Concierge.

Sakurai previously attracted controversy when he teamed up with WIT to release an anime short titled The Dog & the Boy, which used AI to generate images for its background.

Speaking about the backlash to the short, Sakurai declared that fans had things completely backwards. According to the producer, it wasn't the use of AI that was inhumane; it was not using AI.

There are also negative voices towards AI from anime fans, saying, 'It's inhumane for humans to be replaced by machines!' But from the perspective of those who create the anime, it also feels inhumane to draw 100,000 pictures all by hand.

Pokémon Producer's AI Comments Reflect The Grim Reality Faced By Anime Creators in 2025

Cyberpunk-Edgerunners-David-Stare

While Sakurai has attracted controversy with AI use in his The Dog & the Boy short in the past, it's important to note that there are no signs that generative AI has been used in other anime he's produced, such as Pokémon Concierge or Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

Sakurai went on to say that Japan's declining birthrate may necessitate the use of generative AI in anime.

With the declining birthrate meaning fewer people are entering the anime industry, there are even black jokes about how, in an era where everything has been replaced by AI, there will be no one left in the production studio

Regardless of how one feels about the use of AI in anime, it is well known that the anime industry is facing a workforce shortage.

My Hero Academia and Spy x Family director Kyoko Kotani recently opened up about the upcoming reckoning faced by anime. According to the acclaimed director, anime studios are expected to maintain movie-like quality for TV series. This, coupled with problems recruiting enough staff, makes it difficult for anime studios to meet demands.

Fans can see this sort of thing impacting their favorite series already. Solo Leveling season 3 might take years because A-1 Pictures has such a big backlog that even a record-breaking anime has to take a backseat.

In this light, fans and producers could very well see generative AI as a solution to churning out more anime faster. As Sakurai himself asks, is it more humane to make one human create 100,000 pictures, or to just use an AI and get the end result faster?

This line of reasoning will be tempting for many, but it is ultimately short-sighted. The fact is that AI is just ill-equipped to handle the task of anime completion at the moment.

AI Anime Just Isn't There Yet (and Maybe it Never Will Be)

Listen to any AI evangelist, and fans will hear that the technology will be producing Hollywood-level entertainment any day now.

This has been a line ever since generative AI gained popularity in the early 2020s, but if any product of AI has reached that caliber, it certainly hasn't been shown to the public yet.

Attempts to use AI in the arts have, universally, been messy and poorly received. Amazon's recent AI dub of Banana Fish wasn't just met with outrage because of the technology being used; it was met with outrage because the end product was unlistenable.

While Sakurai might blame technophobia for the backlash to The Dog & the Boy, the simple fact was that backgrounds were distractingly bad. They use an inconsistent style that ultimately hurts what could have been an otherwise sweet little short.

Of course, whenever such points are brought up, the common rebuttal is that it is still the technology's early days, and that AI art may, one day, become indistinguishable from human effort. It's impossible to prove or disprove such claims, but even if those predictions prove to be accurate, they don't solve generative AI's numerous other issues.

It's Not Just Quality, Generative AI In Art Has a Litany of Other Issues

My Neighbor Totoro yelling with a wide-eyed expression as he holds an umbrella.

Quality concerns might be the first thing on the minds of executives and fans, but that's far from the only issue related to the use of generative AI in art.

In March of 2025, users of the OpenAI service started flooding the internet with AI-generated images "inspired" by Studio Ghibli's iconic style. This led members of the Japanese government to formally accuse AI services of committing copyright infringement against anime producers.

Essentially, for generative AI to work, it needs to get its data from somewhere. Often, this is copyrighted material, such as Ghibli films, meaning that an argument could be made that AI art is theft.

The scale of AI use, coupled with the sheer energy required, has also set off many alarm bells in terms of the technology's potential environmental impact.

All of these are valid concerns that are holding many back from openly embracing AI usage. Even if every one of these problems were properly addressed beyond a shadow of a doubt, however, the use of AI to fix anime's production woes is simply unnecessary.

The Anime Industry Needs to Make Systemic Changes If It Wants To Be Sustainable

Gohan with a red line in the background during his transformation into Super Saiyan 2 in Dragon Ball Z.

Anime is bigger than ever in 2025. That's not an opinion or speculation; that's a fact. Anime was a $25.3 billion industry in 2024, and with hits like Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Solo Leveling, 2025 is almost certainly going to be even bigger.

Despite this, pay for animators is absurdly low.

In 2021, an animator who runs the YouTube channel Animator Dormitory Project released a video detailing their pay. The animator (who goes by Ryoko) revealed that they made about $670 a month as an animator in 2019. Unfortunately, Ryoko is far from an outlier.

The Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association released a study in 2024 that claimed roughly 40% of all people working in the anime industry earn less than ¥2.4 million a year (roughly $15,400). The problem is even worse for younger people, as 50% of all people aged between 20 and 30 were making less than ¥2.4 million a year.

According to Housing Japan, the average salary for an adult working in Japan is almost double at ¥4.6 million a year (roughly $30,000).

While there are almost certainly a myriad of factors that are holding the anime industry back from meeting its hiring goals, it seems safe to speculate that low pay is one of the main issues.

This is the real existential threat facing the anime industry. As studios like MAPPA face controversy over crunch culture, it's clear that the way companies treat anime workers just isn't sustainable.

People will only tolerate low wages and high stress before they move on to greener pastures, and if the anime industry wants to survive into 2025, then something needs to change.

While Pokémon's Taiki Sakurai might claim it's inhumane to make a human draw 100,000 pictures by hand, the real inhumanity is thinking that a machine doing it is preferable to treating workers like humans.

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