Rent-a-Girlfriend Artist Shares AI Art, Sparks Debate

Reiji Miyajima, the mangaka of Rent-a-Girlfriend, has posted his foray into AI art on his social media profile. Due to the controversies surrounding AI art, as well as the reception towards his manga, his art generated quite a bit of discussion online.

Here is the tweet in question:

In the tweet, Miyajima stated that he’s been interested in AI recently so he let it learn from his own art. He then asked the AI program to create an illustration of Mizuhara, who is the main protagonist of Rent-a-Girlfriend. At the end of the message, he stated that he finds the end result quite cute.

Most of the immediate replies to his tweet are mixed. Some think that the result looks great, and that it’s fine if he’s feeding it his own art rather than another artist’s. Others have stated that they prefer Miyajima’s own drawings, as well as voiced their disagreement with AI as a whole. Some have wondered if AI art can ease the heavy burden on mangaka—especially when the industry has already hurt several popular artists.

Miyajima’s Tweet comes very shortly after Love Hina mangaka and politician, Ken Akamatsu, talked about how he wants to implement some way to protect mangaka from AI under copyright law. This discussion was due to a manga artist finding out that people were training AI models with his art, even though he never gave them permission. A main point for supporters of Miyajima’s Tweet is that he fed the machine his own art rather than other people’s.

More information on how the law will work to regulate AI when it comes to creative work will come as the situation develops.