One Piece animator roasts “idiot” AI artist

An artist on One Piece took time out of their day to roast someone using AI to create images of Luffy, the franchise’s protagonist.

One Piece is an incredibly well-known anime, one of the biggest and longest-running in the world. That means the Straw Hats are subject to a lot of fan art from people who love the anime show and manga.

From cosplay to drawings and even video game mods, fans have continually celebrated One Piece in stunning and creative ways.

A person using AI to generate an image of Luffy recently drew some fire for doing so. Images like theirs use composite assets, often taken without permission from artists who’ve gone through the effort of making their own original work, to make the final product. One of the detractors has turned out to be a One Piece production team member.

One Piece artist calls out “idiot” making AI images of Luffy

José B. Rebolledo, an artist on One Piece, challenged Óscar Bartolomé, an “AI artist” after he shared an AI-generated image of Luffy on X, formerly Twitter. Rebolledo highlighted an inconsistency in the Luffy picture, and told Bartolomé to “learn how to draw to begin with.”

In a rebuttal, Bartolomé told Rebolledo, “Not even in your dreams would you be able to make an illustration like this.” Rebolledo simply responded: “I can do better, I can animate it, because I’ve been animating for One Piece you idiot.”

X, formerly Twitter, users ate this up, and Rebolledo’s response went viral. Sometimes people set themselves up for a public flogging – and that’s what Bartolomé did. One Piece and anime fans were quick to pile on, making sure Bartolomé felt every bit of the embarrassment others had for him.

Meanwhile. Rebolledo appears to have deleted his viral tweet, stating later that he doesn’t “like to be the center of attention”, before asking that people always push for human creativity. “Support human artists and the legislation of AI to keep people safe,” he says. “And keep watching One Piece, made by humans for humans.”

We have a guide on Demon Slayer season 4 if you want to know more about another of the biggest shows going, and our list of the best anime movies on Netflix will give you more great animation made by human beings.