The anime
and manga industry is shaking, and this time it's not because of a Twitter
cancellation. In a move that could change the rules of the game forever,
the TV Asahi group has decided to put the "banknote"
on the table and back Xross Road, a startup that has just
secured $1.5 million in funding. The reason? The launch of the
closed beta of HANASEE, an AI engine designed to create manga from
scratch without the need to draw a single line.
Forget
about those basic generators that make hands with six fingers. HANASEE presents
itself as a "manga creation agent" capable of taking scripts or
novels and transforming them into complete works, taking care of the
composition of the story, the design of panels and even the pace of reading.
With the support of heavy investors like Arbitrum Gaming Ventures and Decima
Fund, the intention is clear: to accelerate the production of Japanese IPs to
flood the global market before you know it.
Details
of HANASEE and the Xross Road bet
What this
tool promises sounds like science fiction (or nightmare, depending on who you
ask). CEO Yosuke Utsumi assures that they do not depend on a single model, but
on multiple specialized agents working as a team. Here's what this
technology offers:
- Control by Dialogue: The creators do not use
static "prompts", but converse with the AI to direct the work,
as if you were an editor talking to his mangaka.
- Total Consistency: They promise to keep the
appearance of the characters and the world coherent in all the panels,
something that current AIs fail at.
- Web3 Management: By 2026, they plan a
blockchain-based system to handle monetization and copyright
transparently.
- Commercial Focus: The goal is for studios and story owners to test the market quickly and cheaply before investing millions in an anime adaptation.
On the
future of the industry
The vision
of Xross Road is pragmatic: Japan has the best stories, but
the process to bring them to the world is slow and expensive. Ken Kitahara,
from Decima Fund, pointed out that HANASEE seeks to be the infrastructure that
connects fans with IPs, allowing ideas to become consumable products at a speed
never seen before. Basically, they want to industrialize creativity.
With the
closed beta already running by invitation, the debate is served.
