AI startup Morphic unveils AI-powered anime DQN and launches US$1 million Creator's Fund
Morphic, Inc., a Silicon Valley–based artificial intelligence company founded by Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani, has announced its first original anime series titled DQN. The show is being developed in collaboration with Tokyo-based director Kushagra Kushwaha and his animation studio 4861.
Set in an alternate timeline where the Second World War never officially came to a close, DQN follows 12 individuals who become entangled in a global competition to access a hidden vault believed to hold the power to alter civilisation. The series explores a technologically fragmented society shaped by artificial intelligence, where influence and access to information appear to define control and power.
The series makes use of Morphic Studio, an AI-powered platform designed to support animation workflows through automation and precision tooling. Key features include automated frame inbetweening, character model training to ensure stylistic consistency, and detailed scene editing through interface layers and segmentation. While the platform accelerates production, it retains a model of creative direction that prioritises artist input, allowing for detailed control over timing, motion, and visual continuity across sequences. Kushwaha, who is leading the creative development of the project, has previously contributed to series such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean and Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest.
Morphic has also announced a US$1 million Creator's Fund to encourage fresh talent in anime, gaming, comics and other visual media. The initiative aims to elevate underrepresented voices and support original storytelling across formats. A preview of DQN has already been released, with full-scale production of the series now underway.
As DQN moves through production, it may offer a glimpse of how the next generation of animated storytelling could take shape, not in spite of AI but in creative conversation with it.
