Update, August 22: Qzil.la has responded, assuring fans that no AI has been used in Sekiro: No Defeat's production. Click here to jump to the new information.
The Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice anime, announced at Gamescom 2025, has found itself landing squarely in the hotseat—as it turns out, the studio brought in by Crunchyroll to produce it, named Qzil.la, has used AI in its past work, and fans are worried that it might be doing so again.might just be using generative AI in their work. Well. Potentially.
Here's the evidence for: As pointed out on Bluesky, Qzil.la's website, when run through a machine translation, reads: "We challenge the conventional wisdom of existing methods, collaborate with partner companies with high technical capabilities, and utilize the latest technologies such as AI to evolve production processes and expressions, thereby bringing about digital disruption in the anime industry."
Digging into the studio's history, others have discovered there've also been similar examples of Qzil.la boasting proudly about its use of AI. Namely, a presentation about how "60% of the animation is being produced using AI" in an upcoming series. I also stumbled into a past collaboration Qzil.la made with Azuki, an NFT project.
The evidence against? First-off, Qzil.la repeatedly emphasises that the Sekiro anime is "fully hand-drawn 2D animation". Which would beat most accusations off at the punch for this anime, at least—though there's wiggle room. Perhaps the base drawings are done by hand, and the in-betweens or backgrounds are 'merely' AI assisted.
Moreover, the series itself has a solid team behind it: Yūji Kaneko is its art director, and he's worked on proper series like Kill la Kill, My Little Witch Academia, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Colour designer Azusa Sasaki has credits on Sword Art Online and Zombieland Saga. Cinematographer Keisuke Nozawa crops up in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and multiple Pokémon movies.
In other words, there are industry professionals here, and I'm not super sold on the idea they'd hitch their wagon to a monstrously unpopular practice off the cuff. It's possible, mind, it just seems unlikely.
I particularly don't find the frames plucked from the trailer with multiple fingers or weird hands convincing—in animation, in-between frames often look strange. Either because they're "smear" frames, meant to exaggerate movement, or because the animation industry is kinda a hellscape, things are done to tight budgets, and the blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments are the first corners to be cut. As always, what might look like AI could simply just look rough.
Qzil.la responds
Update, August 22: Turns out, that was exactly the case. As posted on X, the studio has released a statement confirming that no AI is being used in Sekiro: No Defeat. The translation, sent by Crunchyroll to PC Gamer, reads:
"We're incredibly excited to bring Sekiro: No Defeat exclusively to Crunchyroll in 2026. The whole anime adaptation is a fully hand-drawn 2D animation created by the talented teams at Qzil.la, ARCH and Kadokawa.
"We can confirm that no AI is being used in the creation or production of this anime. Fans can look forward to the same artistry and precision that defined the original game, now reimagined in a new medium."
So that's that—there was no denial of the studio's past use of AI, but as it stands, Sekiro: No Defeat is untouched by the grim, deep-learning touch of death.
