Check out this episode of a 1940s Fleischer Studios Superman cartoon episode, “The Bulleteers,” which has been upscaled by YouTuber Jose Argumedo using Waifu2x. It looks amazing and is comparable to many other remastering attempts, despite being completely done with machine learning.

Waifu2x is an image upscaler that uses deep convolutional neural networks: a kind of machine-learning approach most commonly applied to analyzing visual imagery. As a machine-learning computer algorithm, it is capable of automatically improving through experience which, in this case, was based on anime; and has been shown to work well with any form of animation and even pixel art.

Check out the upscaled version here, compared to the original version below:

Waifu2x Upscaled version:

Original version:

Argumedo has also applied the treatment to the trailer for 1984’s Macross: Do You Remember Love?

As well as the trailer for 1988’s Akira:

It’s a great demonstration of the power of computers being able to learn on their own and improve… and probably one step closer to the day we’ll welcome our robot overlords. Better brush up on your binary!