Twins Hinahima

Twins Hinahima - A Literal Masterpiece (Yes, I Said It)

This is my first MAL review and probably the only one I'll ever write, but Twins Hinahima is THAT anime. A masterpiece. I had to.

The plot is simple: two sisters, Hinana (red hair) and Himari (white hair), are trying to become internet famous by uploading videos, but they're flopping hard. Hinana especially wants to escape the dullness of her world and believes being popular might change something. Some weird stuff happens. Anyway, who the hell is this "justin" they're trying to get the attention from? Is it Justin Bieber? We'll never know.

This is the first anime ... made with Supportive AI, not "click a button and boom, anime". Real humans designed the characters, the storyboards, the flow, AI was used to assist, not replace. The same way humans weren't replaced by the invention of the camera or the car. We adapted. People feared the printing press once too, and now we have Twitter(or X, lmao). Evolution is scary, sure, but it's also beautiful.

People think using AI is easy. Spoiler: it's not. Not everyone can do it well. This OVA is proof of that. You think it's easy? Go make it, then. The backgrounds were pretty solid, some weird parts. Some AI text still looks weird (you know how it is), but the hands were pretty much flawless. AI hands used to be a meme and now they're clean. Love to see it.

What shocked me the most were the characters themselves. Their expressions were alive. Way more soul than half the shows airing right now (fight me). It made me think, maybe we overrate ourselves when we talk about "soul" and emotion.

And let's be real, most people hating on this probably use ChatGPT daily anyway. Hypocrisy much?

Three years ago this would've been science fiction. Now it's real. AI is growing fast, and yeah, I think it should be required by law to disclose when something uses AI. Transparency matters. But AI as a support tool is the future, and Twins Hinahima shows how it can enhance creativity, not erase it. The voice actresses were great (Hinana's VA is Ruby from Oshi no Ko, lol what).

I would like to see AI being used for CGI background NPCs, personally. Those always look weird.

The songs were bangers. Maybe AI helped with some, I dunno, but the openings and endings had actual singers. Loved that.

Even the subs I watched were made using OpenAI tools and others, some lines were off, but my basic nihongo(Japanese for those who don't know) helped. It's wild how far translation tools have come too. They'll only keep getting better, just like everything else.

This anime doesn't deserve the hate. It deserves attention. It deserves discussion. This is what evolution looks like, and some people just can't handle change.

Also, this review was made with help from ChatGPT. Gotta keep the AI train going.

It’s kinda weird, but I liked it. A pair of twins doing stuff for online views, when strange things happen.

It seems people dislike it because of the use of AI.

People are saying that 95% of the anime was made with AI, but that is not correct, only the animation part was done with AI.

The staff drew the characters, took photos, and illustrated a storyboard, then put all three elements into an AI software that animated the storyboard, illustrations, and photos. The resulting animation was then retouched by hand, and the other elements such as voice, music and sounds were added.

Have you seen those videos ... of people using AI to animated old photos? That’s basically what the staff did.

If staff hadn’t used AI, then Twins HinaHima would have been a picture drama.

An anime using AI for its animation? Yeah, no thank you. This is not the direction the industry should be taking and is honestly really sad to watch. Perhaps there was a good story here but no. I can’t bring myself to.
Pay your artists, respect people who put in the time and effort into their craft instead of feeding a soulless machine.
Let’s hope this was just a blip.

Ugh it won’t let me post my review if I don’t answer some things. Okay lighting round
Is the story unique, predictable? Don’t know, don’t know cause I don’t want to watch AI generated anything.
Is the art ... style fitting for the story? I can confidently say no. Ai is a terrible fit for any story.
Are the characters will rounded? No idea. Perhaps. Maybe they’ll remake this one day with actual artists at the helm.
Do I think others will dislike or like the series? If you have any respect for the animation industry and the people who put their blood, sweat, tears and soul into each frame, stay away from this. This season is absolutely stacked with Windbreaker S2, To Be Hero X, the continuation of Apothecary Diaries, Lazarus and so many others. Not enough? Watch anime from previous seasons or previous years

Planning a show is hard, making a show is hard, and I’m sure effort went into this, but choosing to use AI was the wrong move.