Niji mode allows us to create anime-styled images with five distinct styles.
Question; Whatâs the quickest way to get in trouble after reading this blog? Start selling the images of copyrighted anime/manga material. Donât do it!
Iâm using well-known Anime characters to give you a better idea of what each model is capable of.
How to use Niji Mode
Using Niji Mode from /settings
Using /settings and select Niji mode in the dropdown
Select the style you want
Using Niji Mode with parameter flags
You can use the following flags for 5 different styles
Command
Notes
--niji 5
The default style
--niji 5 --style cute
The cute style, bigger eyes, bigger heads and smaller bodies
--niji 5 --style scenic
More focus on the backgrounds looking good and having more details
--niji 5 --style original
The default of --niji 5 before 26 May 2023
--niji 5 --style expressive
The 2D/3D style with a focus on facial expressions
Interesting ways to use Niji mode
Combining Niji and Raw Styles
We can take images from our Niji style and turn them into photography. The cover image of this blog post is one of those.
I started with a Niji character and made a photograph of her. The prompt was inspired by office jargon đ¤Ł
in the weeds --niji 5
I tried using a remix prompt first, just changing the prompt to "in the weeds --style raw". It didn't work as nicely as the image prompt, but I'm sure it would with enough trying.
With an image-text prompt, you can't have empty text and just a style flag, so I ask to combine the image with a lighting effect, lens flare in this case.
image prompt: intheweeds-niji.png lens flare --style raw
This second example is the other way around, I started with a photography-looking image and made an Anime character out of him.
Street style centered view low - angle extreme face closeup photo from below of asian teen man for an advertisement, soft light, lifestyle, wearing streetwear, website, pastel color, neo - pop sensibility, lifestyle minimal pastel
I think the process works better from Anime to Photo, this shot doesnât quite look like an Anime picture, but the in-the-weeds-girl as a photo seems spot on. Perhaps Iâll get it right after more experimentation.
3D Niji
This works best with the Niji Expressive style. 3D is ignored with cute, scenic, and original styles. With the Niji default style, it looks average so I didnât show any of those.
Happy Cute girl, hands to her face, sitting::2 simple background, soft colors, 3D, octane rendering --niji --seed 749153539 --style expressive
rei ayanami, with school bag, neutral expression, 3d, octane rendering, intricate detail --niji 5 --style expressive
clay 3D model of pikachu irisidecent, pastel color, super deformation, intricate detail, 3D render, octane render, 8k, full body, vibrant color --niji 5 --style expressive --s 400
Niji Default Style
Niji with no style parameters. Hands usually get rendered a little better in Niji mode than the standard Midjourney models (v5.2).
dragon ball z --seed 2625854520 --niji 5
pikachu --seed 378253423 --niji 5
rei ayanami --seed 378253423 --niji 5
Niji Cute Style
Bigger heads, smaller bodies, bigger eyes, and the characters like to hold food đ˝ď¸đĽđ¤
dragon ball z --seed 2625854520 --niji 5 --style cute
pikachu --seed 378253423 --niji 5 --style cute
rei ayanami --seed 378253423 --niji 5 --style cute
Niji Scenic Style
These would make a nice desktop wallpaper. Thereâs a certain style to scenic mode that looks a bit like scenes from Your Name (Kimi no Na wa), could be just me.
To admire more of these backgrounds youâll want to have a wider aspect ratio in general, Iâm using --ar 16:9 for mine. Interesting how the model adds black borders sometimes like it wants the screen to be even wider.
If you need some help with aspect ratios, I made a previous post that can help Midjourney Aspect Ratio Guide
rei ayanami, futuristic city --niji 5 --style scenic --ar 16:9
Niji Original Style
This model is so last month, jokes, but it is a bit older.
dragon ball z --seed 2625854520 --niji 5 --style original
pikachu --seed 378253423 --niji 5 --style original
rei ayanami --seed 378253423 --niji 5 --style original
Niji Expressive Style
Gives our characterâs faces an expressive look and can create 3D anime images. This style is best used with âsome kind of expressionâ in the prompt. Such as âangry expressionâ, âsad expressionâ, âhappy expressionâ, etc.
When I was first trying it out, I didnât add the âsome kind of expressionâ bit to the prompts and didnât see the value of this style, but after adding âsome kind of expressionâ to the prompt, itâs pretty cool to play around with.
goku from dragon ball z, full body, relaxed expression, pebbles levitating behind him --seed 2625854520 --niji 5 --style expressive
rei ayanami, touching her head with her finger, thinking expression --niji 5 --style expressive
Niji Styles compared
Letâs compare all the Niji styles and see what v5.2 would look like for the same prompts. I use the same seed in all the prompts to keep the randomness constant.
Permutation Prompts
This is a good place to use permutation prompts if you want to do some comparisons. Permutation prompts are where you add different options inside curly braces {}.
Permutation prompts are a shorthand to generate multiple prompts in one go. You get a confirmation to click before it proceeds since it multiplies your GPU time usage. Here's what I started with, but later modified some of the images.
dragon ball z --seed 2625854520 --niji 5 --style {original,scenic,cute,expressive}
You'll get asked if you want to then generate 4 prompts, click Yes, and away you go. In the screenshot below I've clicked "Show Prompts" so you can see what the prompts are
Goku Compared - Niji vs v5.2
Our Goku from Dragon Ball Z pictures compared
Niji default
Niji style original
Niji style expressive (relaxed expression)
Niji style cute
v5.2
v5.2 with âanime styleâ added to the prompt
Niji style scenic (aspect ratio 16:9)
When using the normal v5.2 model we see that adding âanime styleâ to the prompt is much the same image (not always, but in this case). Also the image already looks a bit anime but also a little 3D with some details making it look a bit less like the actual anime and more an artistic impression of it.
Notice how the Niji Expressive style created a 3D image when we didnât ask for it. Personally I quite like how the 3D style looks with Niji Expressive style.
Rei Compared - Niji vs v5.2
Rei Ayanami from Evangelion pictures compared
Niji default
Niji style original
Niji style expressive (thinking expression)
Niji style cute
v5.2
v5.2 with âanime styleâ added to the prompt
Niji style scenic (aspect ratio 16:9)
This time when using v5.2 we see again that the regular v5.2 model has a bit of a 3D look to it. âAnime Styleâ v5.2 was a little bit like a watercolor painting.
Pikachu Compared - Niji vs v5.2
Pikachu from Pokemon pictures compared
Niji default
Niji style original
Niji style expressive (upset expression)
Niji style cute
v5.2
v5.2 with âanime styleâ added to the prompt
Niji style scenic (aspect ratio 16:9)
Notice how v5.2 and v5.2 anime style turned out nearly identical, just like our Goku test. It seems the extra token of âanime styleâ isnât effective when already dealing with anime characters.
In-the-weeds-girl Compared - Niji vs v5.2
Iâve named our character from earlier in-the-weeds-girl. Sheâs a bit mysterious, with olive skin and slightly curly hair. She was created from the prompt âin the weedsâ, which doesnât describe any of her features.
Test 1 - Same seed
Using the same seed, our results show that we didnât generate the same character in any instance (only 1 and 5 are the same character in my eyes), which is from an image prompt.
The seed I used was (--seed 60665406) and rerolling makes no difference when we use the seed.
Niji default
Niji style original
Niji style expressive (determined expression)
Niji style cute
v5.2 with an image prompt and using style raw
v5.2 with âanime styleâ added to the prompt
Niji style scenic (aspect ratio 16:9)
Test 2 - Image as the seed
Now using image (1) as the seed in every prompt, we find my character looks consistent in all generations đ¤Š
v5.2 with âanime styleâ added to the prompt and style raw
Niji style scenic (aspect ratio 16:9)
All Niji styles held up nicely with the hair, olive skin, jacket and being in the weeds. The cute style did have slightly lighter skin tone, but that would be an easy fix with Midjourneyâs new inpainting feature.
In image (5) where we wanted a photography version of our character, Iâm happy with that interpretation. In image (6) this is the âAnime Styleâ version of (5) which looks exactly right.
However we already have our anime version, which is our original image (1), so perhaps image (6) is redundant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Fanart Illegal?
If the creator comes after you, then thatâs a problem. If youâre creating fanart for yourself and donât make money from it, itâs probably ok, Iâm not a lawyer.
