Pokemon Anime Studio OLM Creates New AI Coloring Tool That Learns From Three Hand-Painted Frames

What Happened

Japanese animation studio OLM has developed a new AI coloring tool that learns a show's exact color style from just three hand-painted frames. OLM Digital board director Yotsukura Tatsuo shared details about the system at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest in Taipei. The tool came out of a 15-month research project named ANIMINS, which was run under a generative AI program overseen by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

How It Works

Unlike typical AI models that need massive amounts of training data, OLM's system focuses only on the production's own art. An artist colors three frames by hand, and the tool learns the line shapes and color palette in about 90 seconds. It then colors each remaining frame in roughly 15 seconds. Yotsukura noted that the system is not strictly generative AI, and because it trains only on a show's own frames, no external works are harmed.

Industry Impact

Other companies are working on similar technology. Toon Boom Animation is wrapping up the beta phase of its own AI coloring tool in its Ember software suite. Meanwhile, French studio Blue Spirit takes a stricter approach, noting that Netflix prohibits AI use on its projects without explicit written approval. Yotsukura views OLM's tool as a way to handle mechanical work and gain creative freedom within fixed budgets rather than to cut staff.

Context

Anime production involves heavy manual labor, particularly during the coloring and in-betweening stages where artists must paint thousands of individual frames by hand. Studios are increasingly exploring technology to ease these routine bottlenecks while trying to maintain strict artistic control over character designs and color accuracy.