Mackenyu Maeda, better known simply as Mackenyu, was set to be interviewed by Esquire Singapore magazine earlier last month, following the lead-up to the second season of Netflix’s live-action One Piece adaptation. Unfortunately Mackenyu, who portrays Roronoa Zoro in One Piece, was too busy to attend an in-person chat, which is why Esquire opted to…interview Claude’s AI recreation of him instead?
Before you ask, no, this isn’t a late April Fools’ joke. In fact, the interview was actually published back in the first half of March, but its existence has only just reached Mackenyu’s fanbase (who aren’t pleased about it) in the last couple of days. This is presumably because neither Mackenyu, nor his talent agency, has jumped at the opportunity to promote the AI slop recreation of the actor featured in Esquire’s piece.
It’s a bizarre read, but the strangest thing about it is Esquire’s justification for the stunt. “We were stoked to have some face time with the Japanese-American actor, but his schedule prevented it,” writes Esquire’s Joy Ling. “With a driving need for a feature, we had to be inventive. Harnessing our creative license, we pulled his verbatim from previous interviews and fed them through an AI programme to formulate new responses.”
Reading through the “interview” itself, which Esquire notes “was produced with Claude, Copilot, and edited by humans,” feels like a fever dream. AI Mackenyu is asked a breadth of vague and ridiculous questions, like how he (it?) deals with “pressure and expectations” and feelings of “disillusionment,” and the AI responds exactly how you’d expect it would: by throwing out non-committal answers and referencing things with absolutely zero context.
Also, hey, Esquire: maybe you shouldn’t have published the bit where AI Mackenyu talks about the pressures of living up to his deceased father, the legendary action star Sonny Chiba, and how it wants “to make him proud,” because that’s incredibly fucked up. I mean, really, you shouldn’t have published this at all, but you definitely shouldn’t have published that specific bit.
As you would obviously expect, Mackenyu’s fans aren’t taking the article very well. “I’m disappointed Esquire SG wrote an entire AI interview to replace Macken’s response,” writes one fanpage on X. “I doubt they did this with his consent. Was it impossible to publish the [photo] shoot without his interview?! Please keep in mind these answers are not his.”
To that end, Kotaku has reached out to Mackenyu’s talent rep to discern whether this received the actor’s official blessing. However, considering Esquire states that he never replied to their “e-mail correspondence,” I think it’s fair to assume that the actor didn’t sign off on this pointless endeavour.