Michiru

Michiru (ミチル) is a 30-minute animated short film made in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, by Isekai Zero, a brand of the AI company ARx Media Sdn. Bhd. Directed by Louis Muk, who wrote it with Jojo Goh, it premiered at a free cinema screening at GSC The Spring in Kuching on 12 September 2026 and went onto the Isekai Zero YouTube channel on 16 September 2026. Wikipedia describes it as Malaysia's first AI animated short film.

Michiru is the mascot of Isekai Zero's AI roleplay app, which Muk began developing in 2022 and which reached Google Play on 23 August 2025. The team commissioned the Sarawak artist Mïïn to design the character in 2025, and the film casts her as a schoolgirl. Production began around March 2026 and, according to Isekai Zero's chief community officer Jimsley Lim (spelled Lee in the Sarawak Tribune), took about six months from planning and script to finished animation, on a low budget. The crew first photographed real Kuching locations, among them the Kuching Waterfront, India Street, the Sarawak State Library, Padungan, Tasik Biru and the Siniawan Night Market in Bau, and used the photos as references. Wikipedia says they then combined AI-generated content with manual redrawing, using Nano Banana, ChatGPT, Seedance, Claude and Suno. "It's not like you type a sentence and everything appears," Lim told the Sarawak Tribune; artists built the story, took the photos and kept re-prompting.

Louis Muk is a member of ARx Media and also composed the score as kheelstrife: three Japanese-language tracks, "Transparent", "Warm Light" and "The Light You Left On". Wikipedia's infobox also credits Johnny Koo with the music. Seven editors are credited, and the character design comes from Mïïn's work for the app.

The premiere was announced in August 2026 on Isekai Zero's Facebook page and YouTube channel, and on 8 September Kuching South City Council (MBKS) mayor Dato Wee Hong Seng announced the free screening, which MBKS organised with the Torabera ACG Festival as part of the three-day Torabera 4.0 festival at The Spring. He called it the film's world premiere, "probably the first in Malaysia too". Two screenings, at 2pm and 3pm, shared 550 free tickets, all claimed within 24 hours. On 9 October 2026 the film had 317,180 YouTube views, and Isekai Zero's trailer reel on Instagram had 108,000 views.

Online reaction was divided. Wikipedia reports that some young viewers, particularly those working in animation, questioned the use of AI, raised copyright concerns, pointed to similarities with Makoto Shinkai's style, and said the film had too few links to Malaysian culture. Mïïn said he had sold the design to ARx Media without stated limits on its use and learned of its use in the film only around the premiere announcement. On 14 September Wee said the council's support was not an endorsement of any particular technology but support for young creators, adding that "the person writing the story is a person."

DayakDaily and the Sarawak Tribune present the film as a local showcase for Kuching and a platform for its young creators, and the mayor said Sarawak needed to be known for something other than haze. Its place rests on that first-in-Malaysia claim and on a council-backed cinema screening of an AI-made short.