The son of manga legend Osamu Tezuka is using AI (and human creators) to continue Tezuka's classic manga Black Jack

Tezuka Productions has announced that, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of its founder Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack manga, the company will be producing a new Black Jack story through an AI and human collaboration that the company calls "AI x Human."

Makoto Tezuka, the president of Tezuka Productions and son of Osamu Tezuka, has worked with AI and Tezuka's art before on a project called Paidon, which also used AI art generated from a program trained off of the art of Osamu Tezuka. About this new Black Jack project, Tezuka says "it’s been three years since Paidon and AI is advancing in leaps and bounds…This time, various creators will actually collaborate with AI to create new methodologies for content creation. Japan's manga culture may have a new future ahead of it."

This new AI and human-made Black Jack manga will be published under the TEZUKA2023 project and will launch in the fall in the pages of Weekly Shonen Champion, where the stories from the original manga appeared from 1973 to 1983. An English language release has not been specified.

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