Shinji Aramaki on Virtual Reality and the Potential of AI

Evan Minto (Editor-in-Chief): We’ve still got a big interview backlog we’re working through here at Ani-Gamers, so here’s another treat for you all! At Otakon back in 2023, Patrick Sutton and I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with prolific mechanical designer and director Shinji Aramaki, famous for his design work on Macross and Megazone 23, and his directing on Appleseed and the 2019 Ultraman series. These days Aramaki is most well known as a pioneer in Japanese digital animation, and he is currently the Chief Creative Officer at Sola Digital Arts, a digital animation studio he co-founded in 2009.

An important disclaimer: Since this interview was conducted in 2023, and discusses technologies like AI that have seen significant development and discussion since, it’s entirely possible Aramaki’s views have evolved since this interview was conducted.

This is my second time interviewing Aramaki; I interviewed him alongside Ultraman co-director Kenji Kamiyama in 2018. Back then we chatted about his then-upcoming Ultraman project, but this time we got to dig into some larger questions about Aramaki’s relationship with developing technologies like AI, virtual idols, and VR. Enjoy!

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Ani-Gamers: So, to start out, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Megazone 23. And specifically, a lot of Megazone 23 thematically, and well, textually, is about living in a virtual world, an artificial world. And also, worshiping or being led by a virtual idol.

I wanted to ask you if you could give your thoughts on the fact that kind of both of those things exist now. People are talking about living in virtual worlds, like the metaverse. And people are watching virtual idols. Some are performers, some of them aren’t. And now, something you guys imagined 30 years ago is coming to life. What do you think of that?

Shinji Aramaki: So, as you know Macross was idol themed, I didn’t do Macross but we had a lot of staff from Macross, so that was sort of also like the sales point for this anime. From the start we were like “Hey let’s do an Idol theme” but if we did it the same way, people would say it’s the same as Macross. So we introduced a new idea, which was the virtual idol. And back then, there was no CG yet, so it was a very novel, futuristic idea. Ishiguro-san, the director of Megazone 23 and Macross, actually came up with this idea.

So, when Hatsune Miku actually came out, I thought, well, it actually really happened. But what’s so interesting about Hatsune Miku is, anyone can produce this idol. And this isn’t what we really thought about in the past. 

One or two years ago there was a big project about to start that was about a virtual idol using CG. But, we thought that would be boring since it’s already happened, so that project didn’t become a reality.

I feel like the virtual world hasn’t really been realized yet. They still have the metaverse, but that isn’t really working out that well. I’m really looking forward to the Apple Vision Pro and I believe that it’s really a breakthrough in the category of virtual worlds. 

Ani-Gamers: Augmented reality instead of virtual.

Shinji Aramaki: Hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Ani-Gamers: So, actually, related to that, you’ve been an early pioneer of a lot of digital technology in Japanese animation. So, how are you feeling now about the development of AI technology, specifically AI art? And have you tried any of it yet? 

Shinji Aramaki: That is a difficult but good question. I think it will get a little bit confusing if we talk about both digital tech and AI at the same time. So, I’ll go ahead and separate the two. 

Until about 2010, CGI still felt very novel. So, when I made movies using this new technology, everyone was surprised. But in the last five years or so, a lot of full CGI anime have been coming out. Of course, some of them were good, and some of them were bad. Now, it seems like it’s very easy to make. And I worry that, to a lot of people, CGI might seem a little cheap.

So, I feel like I need to work very hard to get over this challenge. But there are a lot of good movies, like Spider-Verse and Arkane. So, I feel like I need to find this new expression of CGI. I think Slam Dunk, their new movie, is a very good example. Did you see Slam Dunk?

Ani-Gamers: No, we haven’t seen it yet. 

Shinji Aramaki: *Laughs* In terms of AI, the technology is just developing really, really fast, so it’s a little bit hard to make a comment on that.

But, I can say that technology that has potential, cannot be stopped. So I sort of want to stop for maybe like two years and see how things progress. But more than fear, I do feel hope in seeing this progression.

I feel more hopeful towards the future. And I look forward to seeing what happens. I haven’t really done that much on my own.

Ani-Gamers: Have you actually personally tried any AI art yet?

Shinji Aramaki: I haven’t done very much on my own. I have sort of played around with Midjourney, but I do like watching people who really know how to use them. So many of my friends share many, many new art from Midjourney or something. And even new movies. That’s very interesting for me. The speed in which they evolve is really interesting to me.

Ani-Gamers: So, I want to talk a little bit more about mechanical design. A lot of your early work in your career was very toy-focused.

Diaclone, Microman, Mospeada, all these kinds of things. And you mentioned yesterday the Garland [from Megazone 23] as an opportunity to free yourself from the chains of having it actually work in real life. 

And I was wondering, how do you balance those two things as you continue doing design work? Does that bit in your head still say, this should work in real life, and I need to prove that it will work in real life? Does that ever click? 

Shinji Aramaki: So things that we are actually going to make into a product, yeah, we do really think about how it’s going to work.

So my friend is a product designer for Garland toys at Yamato, and I would actually do rough sketches, and I would send it to him. And then he would make it in CAD, and he would give it back to me, and I would just add the details. So this is a really satisfying experience for me, so that’s why I wanted to get back into toy design.

Ani-Gamers: I think we’re out of time. Thank you for speaking with us today.