Why I Started Creating AI Manga

I have an AI mentor.
That said, I didn't set out to learn AI from the beginning.
On the contrary, until a few years ago, I was the type of person who thought, 'AI? Huh, I don't really get it, it's kind of scary!'

Pastel art, watercolor, acrylic painting.
Other art supplies I know are oil paints, colored pencils, color pens, and crayons...
Having lived my whole life in the world of hand-drawn analog art, how did I end up encountering AI manga?

The trigger was something so trivial it was almost anticlimactic.

At the time, I was a company employee on weekdays, and spent my weekends drawing or teaching pastel art.
However, my company work was busy, and it relentlessly drained the physical and mental energy I had built up over decades, which also cut into the time I had for my art activities.

Someday, I want to graduate from being a company employee and choose a life where I can focus on creative activities.
But, 'someday'—when is that?
I want to live on the path I love, but is it really okay to quit my job?

While struggling with that conflict, I was always searching somewhere in my heart for a way to make it happen.

Then one day, my mentor's course suddenly appeared before me.

It had absolutely nothing to do with AI, and it was a genre of course I wouldn't normally choose.
But for some reason, I was curious; it was a single session, affordable, and could be taken online, so I decided to give it a try.

Thinking back now, that 'for some reason' changed my life.

When that course was nearing its end, my mentor asked,

'Do you like manga?'

I do. I love it. Enough that I joined the manga club in elementary school.

My mentor also taught AI manga and invited me, saying, 'It's fun, why don't you try it?'

I was able to use a computer well enough for a company employee, but I couldn't imagine myself being able to use something as unknown as AI...
I am a huge coward.

But the feeling of 'that sounds fun' won out before the feelings of fear or it seeming difficult.

I decided to trust that feeling of 'that sounds fun'.

When I took the course, it was difficult because there was so much to learn since it was my first time, but it was even more fun than that.

Now, I am able to receive a small amount of work, and I am working well (?) with multiple AIs by dividing roles and cooperating with them.
If the me from back then who thought 'AI is scary' heard this, she would probably scoff.

I think there are various opinions about AI manga, but precisely because the number of people using it has increased, cultivating 'your own color, your own worldview' is actually quite difficult.
That's why I am still in the middle of growing, too.

And I suddenly think...

Decades have passed since those days when I was an elementary school student busily drawing manga.
The methods have completely changed, but I am making manga again.
I think this is also a mysterious connection.

And now, a few years after that,
'Someday I will quit the company'
I have actually done it.

I am a super hopeless, troublesome, and clumsy student who hasn't even achieved half of what my mentor taught me, but they don't abandon me and continue to guide me.

They suddenly appeared in my life and gave me an item to express myself.
Then, many branch points that hadn't existed before began to appear on my path.
As if to say, 'There's one over here too,' or 'You can do this over there,' they light up joyfully and invite me in.

I am truly grateful to my mentor for drawing me into this world and creating the trigger that changed my life.

I intend to follow them forever.

Thank you for reading until the end.

Yoshie Aono

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