An illustration from the popular “Blue Archive” has become the topic of discussion on social media after fans noticed a peculiar error: one of the characters had six fingers on his right hand. This discovery unleashed a wave of criticism towards the franchise, with accusations of possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of the illustrations.
- From top to bottom, the errors pointed out are: (1) The torrii arch is absurdly long horizontally; (2), The roof of the second house appears to be floating, there are no walls; (3) Tsubaki’s right hand seems to merge with the wood at the thumb; (4) The right hand has six fingers.
Adding more fingers than the correct ones is a common error associated with artificial intelligence that generates illustrations. This led netizens to question whether “Blue Archive” was using AI to reduce costs in the design process.
The controversy gained momentum because image-generating AIs have been the subject of constant criticism, seen by some as a threat to human artists. The Critics argued that a big-name franchise like “Blue Archive” should employ human artists to ensure the quality of the illustrations, rather than relying on technologies that could compromise the integrity of the art.
However, the situation took an unexpected turn when “Mendou Kusai (@dmvvhv_ver2)“, the artist responsible for the illustration in question, intervened in the controversy through his Twitter account. In a series of posts, he clarified that the error was not a result of the use of artificial intelligence, but simply human error.
He even provided sketches made in Photoshop as evidence that the illustration was created from scratch, without the help of AI. And wrote:
- «1. About the six fingers: Looking at the uploaded image, the sketch is wrong from the line drawing section, so my mistake applies more than the AI problem».
- «2. The roof seems to be floating: It was not floating but covered with petals, originally I tried to cover it with blades of grass, but there may be a misunderstanding because there is only green grass around, but if you look at what I have shown in the image, the roof is not floating but covered with petals. Once again, this is due to my inability to express myself».
- «3. Tsubaki’s fingers melted into the bench: This part was painted over Tsubaki while coloring the shadow part, and has no relation to AI».
- «4. The torii gate/arch is extremely long: This part was drawn from the material they gave me, but in the process of making the drawing the part I saw and drew became strange. I didn’t suspect there was a problem because it passed the manager’s inspection. Sorry, I should have looked at this part more carefully.».
This incident highlights how The debate around image-generating AI has evolved into a kind of “witch hunt,” where any error in an illustration is quickly attributed to the use of technology., rather than considering the possibility of genuine human error. And finally, the artist arranged the illustration in question.
Fountain: Esuteru Blog
