KPop Demon Hunters fans are fuming over Amazon's AI "mockbuster"

If Amazon wants to prove that AI animation can be genuinely creative and original, it's making some strange choices. Prime Video has just ordered three projects, all generated on the tech giant's own AI production platform and backed by its GenAI Creators Fund, which provides grants for proof-of-concepts and shorts from creators with big online audiences.

The trio of AI-generated animation shows includes what sounds like a KPop Demon Hunters pastiche featuring a character inspired by a controversial YouTube kidfluencer. It's called Love, Diana Music Hunters (yes, really), and it will look like this:

Love, Diana Music Hunters sounds like it's intentionally out to cause controversy with its unsubtly borrowed title. It's being produced by Albie Hecht, the former president of entertainment at Nickelodeon and the exec who signed off on SpongeBob SquarePants, who's now Chief Content Officer at a media company called pocket.watch.

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The story will revolve around a character inspired by Diana Kidisyuk, a child influencer who became world famous through the Kids Diana Show, one of the most-followed channels on YouTube. The original channel was controversial because of parents' concerns about the young influencer's bratty behaviour and the monetisation of childhood. Love Diana has now grown into an entire brand based around the star's likeness (although Diana herself is now 12).

The AI-animated story will see her join a band of space-traveling Kpop musicians who must travel to Planet Goo to perform a concert to “restore the music” and save some aliens.

KPop Demon Hunters fans reckon a good idea for a sequel would be a courtroom drama where she gets sued by HUNTR/X, the heroines of Netflix's record-breaking movie and this year's animation Oscar winner.

“Love, Diana Music Hunters? They can't even come up with something that's not piggy backing from a work of art made by humans,” one person writes on X. “Sounds like a whitewashed bootleg of KPop Demon Hunters,” another fan thinks.

The second show announced by Amazon is no less controversial. Cupcake & Friends is being developed by BuzzFeed Studios, part of the same company that runs the listicle website.

We're told it will tell the story of “a relatable cupcake and her friends” as they “face the hilarious and thrilling challenges of a sleepover, with unexpected twists at every corner“.

If you think there's something familiar-sounding about this one too, that might be because BuzzFeed previously ran an animated web series called The Good Advice Cupcake. That was based on a character called Cuppy created by author and illustrator Loryn Brantz and adapted by animator and voice actor Kyra Kupetsky.

Loryn has taken to social media to clarify that she had nothing to do with the AI series, which she think was generated based on her character design. “The news that this character, who is based on my own personality and whom I created as a microphone to spread love and positivity, has been taken and turned into a soulless AI puppet feels like having my intestines pulled out of my body,” she wrote in a post on Instagram.

This comes just a couple of months after Kyra briefly quit her ongoing animated series Chikn Nuggit over a disagreement with BuzzFeed over the company's intention to use the series to train AI.

Finally, the last of Amazon's trio of AI animation purchases is Punky Duck. This one's controversial for a different reason in that it's the only one of the three shows to be led by a well-known animator: Emmy-winning Jorge R. Gutierrez, who wrote and directed The Book of Life and creator of El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon and Maya and the Three for Netflix.

The story sees a “lovable punk duck and his best friend, Smiley Cat, tear through a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles, hilariously stumbling into alien invasions, giant monsters, robot criminal conspiracies, telenovela-style family drama, and supernatural mayhem—all while trying (and usually failing) to do the right thing.”

In comments to Cartoon Brew, Jorge described the project as a “big experiment” and said he would be “as cautious as possible with AI” but said that a company “taking a chance on an original feels like a miracle these days!”. However, critics fear Jorge's involvement gives token credibility to Amazon's project.

It does seem that originality and quality storytelling weren't high on Amazon's list of priorities with the selection, which appears to be mainly intended for a young demographic. It may be that it sees these shows as mainly a demo for its AI production platform, Project Nara, which is used exclusively by Amazon MGM Studios and by creators selected for its GenAI Creators' Fund.

Amazon describes Project Nara as a collaborative production workspace where teams can generate video, make edits, provide feedback and track progress in real time for both animation and live-action production. It combines third-party AI video models with a proprietary model portfolio trained on Amazon MGM Studios' existing intellectual property, and it integrates AI production agents with popular video and animation software like Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine and Adobe apps.

“Creative breakthroughs happen when visionary storytellers are given access to transformative tools,” reckons Albert Cheng, Head of AI Studios at Amazon MGM Studios. “The GenAI Creators' Fund and Project Nara position human creativity at the center of our efforts to integrate generative AI into our production processes at Amazon MGM Studios. We’re proud of the work that these filmmakers have accomplished and look forward to sharing these creators’ visions with the world.”

It's not been revealed when the AI shows are expected to launch. You can sign up for the streaming service on the Prime Video website.

The news comes after the AI video company Higgsfield launched its first AI Movie near to Cannes Film Festival.

KPop Demon Hunters fans have the movie's comic and art book to take solace in.

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