Stellar Blade director Hyung-Tae Kim has drawn the ire of Nier: Automata character designer Yoshikaze Matsushita due to a picture the previous posted in celebration of Yoko Taro’s new Evangelion mission. Matsushita, who labored on enemy design for Nier: Automata, is greatest recognized for sculpting the ‘Emil head’ masks that you will usually see Yoko Taro sporting throughout public appearances. He took exception to the picture, which was shared by Kim to commemorate the information of the Evangelion anime directed by the Nier creator.
“I am completely thrilled to listen to that Mr. Yoko Taro is taking the helm on a very new Evangelion mission, and my coronary heart is overflowing with real congratulations,” the illustrator, Stellar Blade director, and Shift Up CEO wrote by way of social platform X. “Because you talked about feeling some stress as properly, I will change to a lighter picture for this. Please take excellent care of Asuka.” He connected an image of Asuka, one of many fundamental characters in mecha anime Evangelion, in her signature purple plugsuit, sitting atop a pile of smiling Emil heads.
Accusations of the picture being AI-generated rapidly flooded in. Whereas there isn’t any agency affirmation, Kim has not denied this, and has beforehand been a vocal advocate for the usage of such instruments. At a South Korean briefing in January, he spoke in regards to the problem for Korean sport builders to compete with the manpower of Chinese language studios, and advised that utilizing AI know-how could be a helpful instrument in overcoming this hole in order that “one particular person can carry out the work of 100 individuals.”
Matsushita didn’t handle Kim straight at first, however posted a seemingly pointed message on his personal web page, which reads (by way of machine translation): “That is the primary time I’ve seen one thing I created clearly integrated right into a generative AI. The peepholes and paint quirks stay precisely as they had been.”
He then shared a picture exhibiting that he had been blocked by Kim’s account on the platform, writing, “Ah, so that you do have some self-awareness, huh? It is principally a peephole, in any case, proper?”
Shortly after this, Kim supplied a obvious apology, though he did not level to the incident straight. “Just lately, an error with ‘Blue Blocker’ [a third-party extension] triggered a few of my followers to be by accident blocked. I wish to make clear that I by no means block anybody based mostly on their private opinion of my inventive path. If you happen to discover that you’ve got been blocked, please let me know so I can resolve it. I sincerely apologize for any concern this may occasionally have triggered.”
One reply calls this “the worst excuse I’ve seen in my life,” to which Kim responds, “That is proper. However it’s true – what ought to I do? Life is brutally entertaining.”
Matsushita provides some extra context in response to a different commenter, this time in English. He claims that Kim “in all probability simply needed to rapidly and simply make one thing high-quality that will go viral. It is unhappy.”
