THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • The tool learns a production's line shapes and palette from three frames coloured by artists, in about 90 seconds, then colours further frames in about 15 seconds each.
  • OLM Digital's Yotsukura Tatsuo estimated a roughly 30% reduction in painting work at proof-of-concept stage and about 80% accuracy; artists still check every frame.
  • The work comes from ANIMINS, a research project selected under Japan's GENIAC programme run by METI and NEDO; OLM says the system is not generative AI.

OLM Digital, the research and CG subsidiary of Japanese studio OLM, best known for the Pokémon anime, has presented an AI-assisted colouring tool that adapts to each production from a handful of examples. Board director Yotsukura Tatsuo described it at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei, in remarks reported by Variety and summarised by OtakuKart on 8 November.

How the tool works

Colourists first paint three frames by hand. From these, the system learns the production's line shapes and colour palette in about 90 seconds, then fills in each additional frame in roughly 15 seconds. Yotsukura stressed that it is not generative AI: rather than drawing on large training datasets, it learns only from material belonging to the production at hand. CGWORLD.jp, covering an OLM Digital session in Tokyo in March, described a finishing tool called SHIAGEDO that likewise trains a separate model on each cut's before-and-after colouring data and discards it once the cut is done.

What it saves, and what it does not

At the proof-of-concept stage, Yotsukura estimated that the tool cut painting work by about 30%, although checking work rose somewhat. He put accuracy at around 80% and said getting to 90% or 100% is very hard, noting that even small RGB shifts can visibly change how a scene looks. Artists therefore still review every coloured frame, and OLM presents the system as a way to keep creative decisions with people. CGWORLD.jp reported that large-motion action cuts remain a weak spot.

The ANIMINS project

The tool comes out of ANIMINS (Anime Insight), a 15-month research project led by Yotsukura that began in December 2024. It was selected as a demonstration project under GENIAC, the generative AI support programme of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the state agency NEDO, which aims partly to ease labour shortages. According to Anime Corner, partners include AI Mage and EQUES as technology developers, nine universities, and more than ten studios and software firms testing the results; CGWORLD.jp says 24 studios supported the production trials. A follow-up phase, ANIMINS 2.0, is planned.

OLM is also exploring tools to help directors retrieve past creative decisions on long-running series, and AI agents for approvals and licensing, which Yotsukura said the studio is approaching with caution.