ABOUT
The origins, music, and making of the project.
MAKAI TENSHO
FROM MAKAI TENSHO TO MAK-AI-TENSHOA story of resurrection, reimagined through AI.
ROCK OPERA MAK-AI-TENSHO takes its inspiration from Makai Tensho, the legendary fantasy novel by Futaro Yamada.
The novel's audacious premise—historical figures returning from the dead—was brought to the screen with striking imagery in Kinji Fukasaku's 1981 film.
One enduring influence is Amakusa Shiro as portrayed by rock star Kenji Sawada: seductive, rebellious, and charismatic. Though set in a historical fantasy, his presence evokes the intensity of a rock performance.
MAK-AI-TENSHO reimagines that premise in the near future. The resurrection of the dead becomes a technological experiment driven by artificial intelligence; figures from history confront the contradictions and desires of the modern world.
To tell this new story, its creator chose the form of a rock opera.
Both the music and the imagery are made using AI. A story in which AI questions the nature of the human soul is told through the expressive possibilities of AI itself.
This world is the real Makai.
These posters date from early development. Some character designs and details differ from the current version.
WHAT IS A ROCK OPERA?
WHAT IS A ROCK OPERA?A rock opera tells a story through rock music.
Where classical opera traditionally brings together orchestral music, singing and theatrical performance, a rock opera typically draws on electric guitars, drums and the language of rock.
Rock musicals generally evolved around live stage performance; a rock opera can also exist as an album that tells a complete story. The distinction is not always clear-cut.
The pioneering 1967 rock musical HAIR helped open the way for this kind of storytelling.
Works including The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime developed different ways of telling stories through rock.
MAK-AI-TENSHO likewise unfolds across a sequence of songs.
Its narrative moves from the resurrection of the dead in the Hankon chapter to the consequences of their return in the Requiem chapter.
At the center of its music is UTSUSEMI, a four-member AI metal band within the story. The band's sound brings together Japanese folk singing and traditional vocal styles with doom, gothic and industrial metal.
Each track can be enjoyed on its own; heard in sequence, the songs reveal an unfolding story.
A story to be heard.
Two chapters, two visual identities: gold for the Hankon Arc, silver for the Requiem Arc. Concept artwork; not a physical release announcement.
MAKALON
An independent creative project exploring the intersections of music, film, storytelling and technology.
Originally active in music under the name Longinus, its creator adopted the name AIonginus on beginning to work with generative AI.
Now creating as Makalon (摩訶論), the project produces music and visual works with AI.
The rock opera MAK-AI-TENSHO is one of its principal works.
It tells a story of bringing the dead back through AI—using AI as part of the artistic process itself.
The question extends beyond the use of new technology: where do human imagination and artificial intelligence meet, and what might they create together?
Makalon explores those possibilities through sound and image.