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Project MIRAI/ Experiment 02 - PLAYTIME

About the Project

PLAYTIME is a short character piece introducing the main cast of my original anime film series, Project:MIRAI. Released on July 5th, 2025, it served as a feasibility test for AI-assisted fight choreography using Vidu 2.0’s image-to-reference model.

The world of Project:MIRAI is a near-future society shaped by war, runaway technology, and strained human relationships. This episode focuses on the tone, personality, and chemistry of the team. Through a simple training simulation, viewers meet Mirai’s standoff-ish attitude, Archer’s childlike enthusiasm, and Haruko’s cool detachment, offering a grounded first look before delving into the main plot (slated for release next year).

What Inspired Me

Two main influences shaped this project:

1. Emotional and stylistic inspiration from late-90s/early-2000s anime such as Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, and the speculative tone of Black Mirror.
2. Personal questions about AI, identity, and control. After two years exploring AI as both an app builder and filmmaker, I wanted to examine the creative potential and unease of an AI-driven future. The series also draws on underexplored philosophical ideas from the likes of Land, Ellul, de Garis, Fisher; ideas that feel extremely relevant in our present era of accelerating technological "progress".

What I Learned

• Animating fight choreography is possible it just requires some creative editing.
• Iteration is essential. I spent April through late June refining dialogue, without a formal script by using an improvisational, “pantsing” approach.
• Constraints spark creativity. Unpredictable models forced me to direct with intention rather than rely on tools alone.

How I Built It

• AI Visual & Audio Generation GPT-4o created composition references for Vidu’s “reference-to-video” pipeline. Glitches were cleaned through manual editing; anime’s style helped mask minor artifacts. At the end of the project, Hailou-o2 was released and I implemented it in the segment where Mirai performs a backflip. Lip sync was done via Kling’s V2V Lip Sync tool. Archer’s voice was my own, with the other voice generated in ElevenLabs.

• Sound & Editing I used MMAudio and CapCut’s sound libraries, assembling the final cut in CapCut with attention to pacing, timing, and overall cohesion.

Challenges I Faced

• Early-stage fight choreography, which often produced warped or janky motion. (Newer tools like Vidu Q2, Hailuo O2, and Kling 2.5 handle this far better.)
• Wearing every hat as a solo creator, from directing to sound design.

Why This Episode Matters

Experiment 02 introduces the core cast and captures the state of AI-generated animation and fight choreography in mid-2025. It serves as both a technique demo and preview Project:MIRAI

Built With

• elevenlabs
• hailuo
• kling
• vidu