Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano explains why AI can't replace human creativity

Yoshitaka Amano has spent decades creating art that feels untethered from reality. His paintings and character designs drift between dream and nightmare, elegance and violence, memory and myth. But when Polygon sat down with Amano at Anime Expo, the most striking thing he said about the future of animation, spoken through a translator, was surprisingly direct: “AI cannot create zero to one.” Amano clarified that he sees AI as a tool, not an enemy. “Only humans can create the original,” he said. “Maybe AI can make zero and one in the future, like maybe 100 years.” Still, the point landed clearly. At a moment when generative AI and automated production are reshaping creative industries, Amano believes the irreplaceable part of art is the human spark that begins with nothing. That philosophy runs through ZAN, the new animated project Amano is developing with a Los Angeles production office and a Japanese animation studio. Based on the illustrated novel from 2013, Amano described ZAN as “completely original," allowing him the freedom to work the story into animation any way he sees fit. Unlike his other collaborations — Final Fantasy, Angel's Egg, and Vampire Hunter D — he said, “I can do whatever I want.” When I asked about preserving imperfections in hand-drawn animation, Amano’s answer widened into something larger. He said that imperfections are “part of what makes us human.” They are not flaws to be erased or smoothed-out by technology, but evidence of humanity itself. That answer makes ZAN feel like more than a production choice. Amano and his team are pursuing hand-drawn animation in a period when digital workflows are often cheaper, faster, and easier to scale. He acknowledged those realities, but he also argued that there is still a strong appetite for hand-drawn work. “There’s a high demand for hand-drawn animation currently,” he said through the interpreter. What surprised me most was how he perceived younger audiences. Amano suggested that many younger viewers may be encountering traditional hand-drawn animation for the first time, and that style can feel fresh to them in a way that older audiences might mistake for nostalgia. “It is a new media for them,” he said. That totally reframes the debate. Hand-drawn animation is often discussed as a return to the past, but Amano sees it as something that can still arrive as discovery. It's a fascinating observation, given the rash of recent and upcoming hand-drawn anime, like Virgin Punk, The Ghost in the Shell, and Sekiro: No Defeat. However, that effort comes at a cost. While the final product won't be 100% hand-drawn, as some of the background work will most likely use digital animation, the project as a whole will take some time before it comes to fruition. Yoshitaka Amano Inc. CEO Hiroaki Ikegami explained to Polygon during the interview that ZAN will be a limited miniseries, not a feature-length film or short, and will take roughly two to three years before it's finalized. That timeline is typical for hand-drawn animation. The most notable example, Akira, took roughly three years to complete, while something like Redline, which used over 100,000 drawings and almost no repeating cels, required a seven-year timeline. Amano also revealed how he thinks about adaptations. When I asked whether some stories should remain manga, using Berserk as an example, he did not argue that one medium is inherently superior. Instead, he said that every adaptation changes the work. A manga completed as manga does not necessarily need to become animation, but if it does, “the nature of the original manga, or the original concept, has to change in order to fit the new medium.” For Amano, adaptation is transformation, not replication. Even the title reflects that philosophy. While the original project was known as "Deva Zan," Amano and his team said the anime will simply be called ZAN. The change isn’t just branding. Through an interpreter, they explained that the shorter name is easier to remember internationally, while “zan” also evokes the slash of a blade — a clean, decisive strike. It’s a small detail, but one that mirrors the project itself: focused, stripped-down, and unmistakably direct. That idea connects to Deva Zan’s unusual path. Unlike other works in the industry, the project began as an art book before evolving into a manga, and is now finally moving into animation. Asked whether live-action might be next, he offered a wonderfully unexpected answer: opera. Amano reflected on how opera and stage performance once combined visual art, music, and drama in ways that cinema later absorbed. For Deva Zan, he suggested, something like an opera might actually be a more fitting conduit than a straightforward movie adaptation, which makes a lot of sense when you look at the sheer epic scale on display in the pilot episode. Even in translation, Amano’s answers carried the same dreamlike logic that defines his artwork. When I asked about his inspirations, the interpreter explained that Amano has often said he does not pay close attention to what other artists are doing. “Everything he says, he waits for it to come from him,” the interpreter said, adding an anecdote about Amano spontaneously drawing on a napkin during dinner. Inspiration is not something Amano hunts for; it's something that arrives through constant creation. That perspective may explain why Amano resisted framing Deva Zan as a message to younger audiences. Asked whether he wanted younger viewers to rediscover traditions of Japanese painting or illustration through the project, Amano said that he does not want to “tell” audiences anything. He is just “expressing” and “drawing art,” leaving viewers to receive the work through their own perspectives. Still, the themes of humanity, imperfection, and original creation kept returning. Amano spoke about humans as part of nature, with untapped potential. He described preserving imperfections as an extension of humanity. And when the conversation turned back to AI, he returned to the same core belief: technology may become more capable, but the initial act of creation still belongs to people. That is what makes ZAN feel so compelling right now. Amano is not presenting hand-drawn animation as a rejection of modern or even future technology. He is presenting it as a defense of the qualities technology tends to smooth away: hesitation, texture, irregularity, and the visible trace of a person making marks by hand. In an industry increasingly obsessed with efficiency, Amano’s argument is refreshingly stubborn. Art does not become more human by becoming more perfect. Art becomes more human when it preserves the imperfections that prove a person was there.