Dot Hero, or Dot Yuusha as its known in Japan, is a major mobile RPG by China-based developer Efun. Recently, the game’s official X account issued a statement and apology addressed to Japanese players related to alleged use of generative AI in its promotional artwork.
The controversy started last week, when Dot Hero announced an in-game collaboration event with the major anime franchise Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. A now deleted X teaser image (featuring silhouettes of Code Geass characters) allegedly included a faint watermark left by an AI tool, which sparked criticism. It’s not possible to verify this with the original post gone, but several users have since posted screenshots of the image (seen in the embedded post below), and Dot Hero’s subsequent statement has acknowledged the existence of a watermark.
The situation worsened a couple days later, when Dot Hero revealed promotional artwork of Code Geass characters Lelouch and Suzaku as the collaboration event drew closer. Users found the art strikingly similar to character sprites used in Code Geass: Genesic Re;Code, a licensed Code Geass mobile game by Japanese developer JORO that ended services back in 2021. Due to the previous AI watermark incident, people started speculating that AI might have been used to modify Genesic Re;Code’s art for Dot Hero’s promotional images (side-by-side comparison below).
Dot Hero’s developers addressed the backlash on February 20, stating that they had launched an internal investigation regarding the image, but determined that “no AI generation was used in the creation of the illustration whatsoever” and that “it was entirely hand-drawn by the creators.” On the other hand, they explain that the AI tool watermark ended up in the teaser image during post-editing, when text layers were added.
“We sincerely apologize for the significant inconvenience and concern caused to all supporters of Dot Hero and “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, as well as to the copyright holders and all other parties involved, due to our insufficient asset management and verification processes,” Efun wrote, promising to tighten up its internal procedures.
However, from the looks of it, Japanese users aren’t very keen on accepting the explanation of the AI watermark nor the apology, especially given that the resemblance of Dot Hero’s Suzaku art to that of Code Geass: Genesic Re;Code’s existing character sprite has not been addressed. Since the developers have not confirmed that they re-used/modified the original art with permission for the new event (instead claiming it was fully hand-drawn) this has fueled further suspicion of plagiarism and/or tracing.
