Published on: June 12, 2023  Updated on: January 26, 2024

Top 6 Best AI Anime Tools: Empowering Your Creativity

Author: Christina Muir

Portrait of young woman graphic designer looking at camera, female drawing sketch on graphic tablet, sitting in home office, freelancer working remotely. Designer creating characters for illustration

Anime is quite a specific art style; it has bold, bright colors and exaggerated features, making it tricky for beginners to get right. 

However, artificial intelligence (AI) can make all that frustration disappear with just a few clicks. Before you know it, the anime character stuck in your head has been conjured up from just a few prompts and filters.

In this article, we will be exploring the numerous platforms that use AI-generated images to create anime characters that started just as ideas or basic sketches. Whether you are an aspiring artist, a video game developer, or simply an anime fan, you are no longer limited to your artistic abilities. 

Why use anime AI tools?

Thanks to the quick development of AI, more and more tools are coming onto the scene that can help you with anime art creation. Here are some of the reasons why people love these platforms.

Character design

Coming up with anime character designs can be challenging, especially if you’re not confident in your drawing skills. 

Luckily, AI anime art generators can assist you in generating awesome character designs. Simply input your preferences for features like hairstyles, outfits, and expressions, and watch as the AI generates a range of characters.

AI can do more than just generate images; in fact, it was recently used to create a short animation. Sure, it’s not very good, but it shows incredible promise. 

Story inspiration 

Sometimes, even the most imaginative minds need a little spark. Anime AI systems can be an incredible source of inspiration. Perhaps you created a character you never thought of before or became intrigued with their accessories; these little nuances can create ideas for stories.

Artistic filters

These AI-powered applications come to the rescue by offering artistic filters specifically designed to give your creations an anime-like appearance. They work their magic on colors, line styles, shading, and other artistic elements, breathing new life into your work.

Portrait of a man on the left which is turned into an anime rendition on the right.

Source

Community

Many anime AI generators provide platforms or communities where artists and enthusiasts can share their work, collaborate, and get feedback from like-minded individuals. 

It’s a fantastic way to connect with fellow anime lovers, learn from each other, and receive support and encouragement for your artistic endeavors.

Best anime AI tools

Here at Top Apps, we want to show our readers that whoever you are, AI can bridge the gap between your ideas and reality in various ways

The AI models use deep learning algorithms to scour thousands upon thousands of anime styles and, based on your input, will provide uniquely generated images. These platforms can whip up high-quality images in seconds if you provide just a few prompts. 

Here are some of our favorites.

1. Midjourney

Midjourney, along with Stable Diffusion, is one of the most popular generative AI art tools. It takes your text-based prompts and turns them into images based on its vast knowledge of numerous artistic styles and aesthetics.

What takes this software to the next level, though, is its Niji Mode. It was specifically made for anime style text-to-image generation and works on a whole new algorithm. 

Anime inspired AI generated images ranging from cartoony to realistic.

Source

It’s not the most straightforward platform to get started with, however, as you have to sign up for a Discord account before you do anything else. It also doesn’t offer a free trial, but once you see what other users generate, the pricing plans will seem worth it.

2. DALL-E

DALL-E is a very impressive AI model developed by OpenAI. It generates unique images based on your text inputs. Even though it is not specifically designed for anime art, it can be customized to get the style you are looking for. 

It is very easy to use and requires no signup, and you get 50 credits for free to start you off. After that, you get 15 a month, with each image setting you back four credits. To get more, you will have to splash some cash – $15 for 115 generations, to be exact.

When we tried it out, our prompt was “A man wearing a blue suit, riding a red horse in a high-quality anime/manga style.” Here is what DALL-E gave us.

A man wearing a blue suit, riding a red horse in a high-quality anime/manga style.

The face of the horse and the man isn’t quite right, the horse has five legs, and the hands are blocks, but with a bit of tweaking, you’ve got an accurate picture of what you asked. 

3. Deep Anime

Deep Anime is an anime AI art generator platform and is one of the best options for those knowing what style they want to stick to. Its main purpose is to convert selfies taken on your smartphone into anime pictures.

Four selfes with filters applied to make them look like they are from an anime.

Source

It’s super easy to use and is a great tool for creators who want to have their ideas visualized, as well as for anime fans looking for personalized anime avatars.

The service is available to download for free on IOS and Android. Perfect for having any anime image you want to be generated on the go.

4. ZMO.ai

ZMO.ai’s ImgCreator.ai offers a plethora of anime features to play around with. As an anime AI art generator, it converts your current pictures into anime-styled ones and has Control-net for posing.

Picture of a young man on the left which has been transformed into an anime rendition on the right.

It is among the most popular anime generators because it offers lots of control and customization, ensuring that whatever character or image you create is 100% unique. 

There’s also a vibrant community that often shares creations from cute little creatures to incredibly life-like humans. Some of the features require credits, but you can easily earn free ones by sharing your creations and experience using the software and creating an account.

5. MakeGirlsMoe

If you are looking for a little more control over your anime creations in terms of facial features and colors, MakeGirlsMoe is a great option. 

If you have an idea of what you want your character to look like and don’t want to mess around with text prompts, the filter function on this site is a better choice. 

Here is our creation; the anime art generation was instant and ticked every box.

Generated image on the left. There are various controls you can choose to alter your image. Such as:Hair: Off/Random/OnOpen Mouth: Off/Random/OnHair style types

If you are torn between two generated images, MakeGirlsMoe has a transition feature that lets you pick the starting and final images. Here is our anime creation, we chose three transition images, but this can be increased to 200. 

From beginning image to final image, there are transitions in between.

The website is not easy on the eyes, but it is very straightforward and completely free. Also, there are no options to create male characters. Still, this website should be in your bookmarks if you’re looking for quick, easy inspiration.

6. Waifu Labs

If you weren’t already aware, the term ‘waifu’ refers to a (typically female) anime character in which someone typically feels a romantic connection. So, if you’re looking to create your very own waifu, you now have the opportunity to cook them up in a lab. 

Here’s how it works. Waifu Labs uses machine learning to create anime-style avatars that you can customize in four easy steps. Here is what our experience looked like; it only took seconds to change features and produce a high-quality result.

4 steps to creating anime character/avatar.1 . Choose your initial portrait2. Tune the color palette3. Fine tune the details4. Finish with your favorite pose

What’s better is that the creators of Waifu Labs have created a new project, especially for anime lovers, called ‘niji-journey.’ To begin using it, you must first sign up for the beta through Discord, but from there, you can use text prompts to generate eye-catching illustrations.

7. AnimeGenius

Now, when it comes to the best AI anime tools, we may have saved the best for last! This AI anime art generator has an incredible number of fantastic features, meaning creating your own anime characters and anime art has never been so easy.

So, let’s take a look at what this anime AI generator can offer:

  • Text-to-image: AnimeGenius’s text-to-image feature means you can create personalized anime characters from a simple text prompt. This means anything you can imagine, you’ll be able to see in front of your eyes in a matter of moments. You can choose different models to generate anime art in, like realistic, furry, cute anime, and dreamshaper.
  • Image-to-image: If you’re struggling to write a prompt, why don’t you upload an existing image and turn it into anime art? Choose the settings, like resolution, number of images, and the anime style, and then see your image transform.
  • Comic maker: Once you’ve generated your anime characters, what will you do with them? Well, you can export them and share them, or why not make a comic out of them? This feature makes it incredibly easy to format your anime art into different comic templates. There are 6 different templates to choose from, meaning there’s something for everyone!
  • Face swap: Many AI anime generators offer the option to generate original anime art, but not many allow you to insert your face into existing art. You can upload any piece of art that ever existed, then upload your image, and with a few clicks, you will be featured in the artwork.

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Anime for everyone

After looking through our list, you can see there are AI anime art generators for almost anything you need. Even if you have a vague idea or none, it is incredible how unique, high-quality characters can be made instantly.

Features such as facial expressions, hair color, and poses can all be customized to ensure that your characters are 100% original and ready for whatever creative endeavor you are embarking on. What was once a limitation is now an opportunity to let your dreams become reality. 

Did you know that you could create anime images with AI tools? To discover what else AI can generate from thin air, head to our Top Apps blog.

Author Image - Christina Muir

Christina Muir

Christina's expertise in the tech industry allows her to provide insightful and informative content to her readers, covering a range of topics from productivity and lifestyle apps to gaming and entertainment software.

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