Japan's first fully AI-created comic, Cyberpunk: Peach John, was released on March 9 by Shinchosha, a major publishing house.
The comic is based on the futuristic imagination of the author, whose pen name is Rootport. It describes how the Japanese folk tale hero Momotaro, who is said to have been born from a giant peach, lives in a dystopian (反乌托邦的) future. All the fancy futuristic objects and creatures in the book, however, were conceived and created by Midjourney along with other popular online image-generation AI tools such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2.
Unlike traditional manga (日本漫画) which are usually black-and-white and short in length, Cyberpunk: Peach John comes in full color and spans more than 100 pages. A work of this scale would normally take over a year to complete by hand. However, with AI creation, it took him a surprisingly short period - only six weeks - to finish the whole work, Rootport told CNN.
Despite gaining widespread attention as the first fully AI-drawn manga in Japan, the work has also raised some questions and panic as well. According to Gulf News and CNN, some people are worried that AI technology will threaten jobs and copyright (版权) ownership in the nation's thriving comic book industry, as well as creativity and artistic value. One Twitter user described the project as "an absolute shame to manga and mangaka (manga artists) everywhere." Another wrote: "Odd to publish a manga by AI when your country (has) some of the most talented artists in existence."
But Rootport has insisted that his comic book should be considered a work of art. "AI cannot yet create a perfect work on its own. Human assistance is essential," he told CNN.
