Sekiro: No Defeat, an anime adaptation of the hit game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, has found itself in hot water after the studio behind the project, Qzil.la, has been accused of producing the content using generative AI.
Eagle-eyed viewers pointed out anomalies like weird hand movements, wrong number of fingers on the characters’ hands, and strange in-between animations in the Sekiro trailer.
Qzil.la Insists Upcoming Sekiro Anime is a Fully Hand-Drawn 2D Animation, Dismissing AI Rumors
Qzil.la has been pretty vocal about its AI use, with the studio’s official website pointing out that they leverage the “latest technologies such as AI” to evolve production processes and expressions. While the studio has in the past produced AI-generated animation, it insists that the upcoming Sekiro anime is a “fully hand-drawn” 2D animation.
During a recent presentation, the studio boasted that approximately 60% of the drawn portions in ‘Ideal Himo Seikatsu’, an anime TV series scheduled to be released in 2026, were produced using AI.
Qzil.la’s animation producer, Tomotaka Okada, anime production manager Ai Odano, CGI producer Takayoshi Miyazawa, and CGI production coordinator Morales Chiara spoke at the venue, discussing the “future of anime expression using AI”.
The studio has repeatedly emphasized that all animations in Sekiro: No Defeat anime will be hand-drawn, but it could be in such a way that perhaps the base drawings are done by hand, and the in-betweens or backgrounds are AI-generated.
Nevertheless, the production series has a solid team of experienced professionals working behind the scenes, which minimizes the scale of the accusations against Qzil.la.
Yuji Kaneko, who worked on popular anime titles like ‘Kill la Kill’, ‘Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood’, and ‘My Little Witch Academia’, is Sekiro’s art director.
Azusa Sasaki, its color designer, has credits on ‘Sword Art Online’ and ‘Zobieland Saga’, while cinematographer Keisuke Nozawa was behind ‘Cyberpunk: Enderunners’ and multiple Pokémon movies.
The use of non-generative AI tools in animation is becoming increasingly popular and has been in use for years before generative AI really took off. Critics pointed out multiple fingers or weird hand gestures, and strange-looking in-between frames in the Sekiro: No Defeat trailer.
However, this could also be “smear” frames, which are meant to exaggerate movements, or portions that could be cut from the final output.
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Sekiro: No Defeat, a Direct adaptation of the Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice game, will be released on Crunchyroll in 2026
Sekiro: No Defeat is a direct adaptation of the 2019 hit game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and was officially announced during Gamescom 2025. The anime series produced by ARCH will be streamed exclusively on Crunchyroll.
Kenichi Kutsuna, director of the series, emphasized that his core philosophy is to “return to the basics” by depicting the rigour of Japanese sword combat by embracing the “hand-drawn essence” of 2D animation, achieving “something deeply poignant”.
Screenwriter Takuya Satou, character designer Takahiro Kishida, and composer Shuta Hasunuma make up the core team behind Sekiro: No Defeat. The cast includes Daisuke Namikawa as Wolf, Miyuki Satao as Kuro: The Divine Heir, and Kenjiro Tsuda as Genichiro Ashina.
Crunchyroll’s chief content officer, Asa Suehira, said the original game is known for its “precision and intensity”, and all those qualities will be carried through to the anime adaptation.
Game journalists and fans believe that Sekiro may be the ideal title by FromSoftware, the game’s developer, to be turned into a production series, mainly due to its Sengoku-era setting and emphasis on precise action.
Elden Ring, another one of FromSoftware’s games, is being turned into a movie by A24, written and directed by Alex Garland, who was behind Ex Machina (2014), Men (2022), Civil War (2024), and 28 Days Later (2002).
Sekiro: No Defeat is expected to be released on Crunchyroll sometime in 2026.
