Persona and SMT Artist Kazuma Kaneko Drops Generative AI for His Next Game

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Persona and Shin Megami Tensei artist Kazuma Kaneko says he won't be using generative AI in his next game.

Kaneko previously worked at Atlus from 1988, with his most recent collaboration with the company being the Demon design for 2024's Metaphor: ReFantazio. Alongside that he also did freelance work, designing a boss for Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner and the devil trigger designs for Dante and Vergil in Devil May Cry 3 – with his latest game Kazuma Kaneko's Tsukuyomi receiving a Devil May Cry collab.

Now though, he works with mobile game developer COLOPL, and released his first game with the studio in 2025. That game was Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter, a dungeon-crawling roguelike where you battle with the heart of the cards. These cards use AI generated artwork, however, the art isn't based on his previous work at Atlus. Rather, he trained an AI model with new illustrations made during his time at COLOPL.

The game received a Mixed rating on Steam , with reviews calling the art "generally quite awful." Even the positive reviews say "the AI is slop, that's the fact."

Now though, Kaneko has responded to a question on Twitter (translated by Automaton ) about his future projects, as he explains that he is preparing to kick off a project at COLOPL. However, he mentions that he won't be using any generative AI tools this time around, as well as clarifying: "While I did participate in the development of a game that uses AI mechanics, I did not use AI for my own artwork."

Ahead of the game's release, Kaneko spoke about the process, saying it kind of wasn't really worth it in the end, and that "to be honest, it's quicker for me to draw it myself from start to finish." An offline version of the game released earlier this year on Nintendo Switch, titled Kazuma Kaneko's Tsukuyomi, which ditched the AI generation system, while keeping some of the artwork it made in-game.

Given the increased output of AI slop in the world in general, naturally, some weren't really happy with an artist as renowned as Kaneko using generative AI – even if it was used somewhat more ethically than your standard machine models, theoretically removing plagiarism concerns since it was taught using Kaneko's original art. However, shortly after launch, the game began generating art that looked suspiciously similar to copyrighted works like Disney's Frozen and Superman, so perhaps not.

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