OpenAI and Meta tried, however they’ve did not safe a foothold within the AI artwork area. The most important purpose for that is Midjourney: the preferred text-to-image mannequin on the earth. A part of Midjourney’s dominance is in its creativity and adaptability.

The truth is, since anime is essentially the most recognizable type of animation on the earth, they launched Niji out there, a mannequin which focuses on anime artwork. It’s gone via a number of iterations now, culminating in Niji 6 – the most recent mannequin as of March 2024.

Since we’ve already performed a retrospective of Midjourney’s evolution all through the years, why not do the identical for Niji? Right here’s every little thing it’s worthwhile to know in regards to the adjustments made to the mannequin, in addition to a comparability of how these variations fare with the identical immediate.

What’s Niji?

Niji, which interprets to “rainbow” in Japanese, is a mannequin constructed throughout the standard text-to-image AI generator Midjourney. In comparison with Midjourney’s default mannequin that leans in direction of photorealism and different types of artwork, Niji has a deep understanding of anime aesthetics and methods. This enables it to supply photos that appear to be they jumped straight out of your favourite anime or manga.

Niji is developed by each Midjourney and Spellbrush, an indie sport and AI developer. It goes past merely including anime parts. Niji gives distinctive model parameters that allow you to additional customise your creations, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Niji 5 vs. Niji 6: Options

Since Niji is constructed on prime of Midjourney, its options depend upon present ones which might be already rolled out to the mannequin. Meaning, when Niji 5 first rolled out, it didn’t have options resembling area variations. Nevertheless it has them now.

As for particular options that also aren’t out there on Niji 5, the largest ones are improved creativity and textual content era. With Niji 6, you possibly can already additionally use model and character reference, which we’ve reviewed in-depth earlier than.

Niji 5 vs. Niji 6: Output High quality

Fantasy Anime

Immediate: a lady in a kimono and her spirit pals, whimsical, nightfall, within the model of studio ghibli, cozy, minimalist

Superhero Anime

Immediate: an adolescent utilizing his powers to regulate ice, steampunk setting, intricate, within the model of jujutsu kaisen

Sports activities Anime

Immediate: a lady on the end line, observe and subject, closeup, sundown –

Mecha Anime

Immediate: an outdated beat up rusty robotic terrorizing a neonpunk metropolis, mecha anime

Horror Anime

Immediate: a lady whose thoughts is slowly taken over by a shikigami, ominous, intricate paintings, within the model of junji ito

Publish-Apocalyptic Anime

Immediate: a cat walks via a dystopian metropolis, eerie

Slice of Life Anime

Immediate: a pair sits subsequent to one another in a rooftop whereas watching the sundown, slice of life, within the model of makoto shinkai

With Textual content

Immediate: a comfort retailer named “EATERY”

Ideas on High quality

After seeing them side-by-side, I’ve to be sincere: I battle to see Niji 6 as an enormous enchancment over Niji 5. In my view, Niji 5’s output within the fantasy and superhero style have been far superior than its evolution, and the opposite ones are debatable at greatest. 

I’ve to offer Niji 6 the win for the horror anime picture although, that one provides me the creeps. Its sports activities anime entry was additionally one other standout because it focuses on the little particulars, just like the sweat dripping from her face and the gang within the background.

One factor I’d wish to level out is that Midjourney 6 has grow to be far more coherent within the photos they produce, and it appears that evidently hasn’t trickled all the way down to Niji but. Most of those photos don’t observe logic or easy human biology. This problem is most noticeable in Niji 6’s paintings if they’ve palms (superhero picture, specifically) or the legs in Niji 5’s slice of life output.

As for textual content era, it’s not good however Niji 6 remains to be manner higher than its predecessor on this regard. On the very least, it tries to write down textual content, and never simply ignore that a part of the immediate.

Total, I’d say Niji 6 remains to be a little bit bit higher than 5, largely for its textual content era capabilities and barely higher creativity.

The Backside Line

As a lot as I’d wish to say that Niji 6 is a large enchancment over Niji 5, it merely isn’t. The truth that there’s a 50/50 probability of getting higher output from the latter is proof that newer isn’t all the time higher.

That’s to not say, nonetheless, that I’m uninterested within the subsequent model of Niji. I’m. It’s simply that I imagine they centered on bettering creativity over picture coherence. The actual fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter how fairly the picture is. If the foreground displays some type of further finger or something related, it’s all persons are going to see.

Shifting ahead, this ought to be Midjourney and Spellbound’s focus in the event that they need to enhance Niji. They’ve already fastened this problem (for essentially the most half) in Midjourney V6, so I can’t think about why they will’t do the identical for Niji. Higher luck subsequent time.

Focused on studying extra about Midjourney? I extremely advocate our articles like this one or this one. Blissful studying!