More than 300 DIR EN GREY fans have signed a petition calling on the band’s management to end their partnership with US AI company Cifer Studio. It follows a month in which Cifer’s latest AR project showed the members under tank fire, while its AI-run X account mocked critics and raised the prospect of legal action against users calling the company a scam. Cifer is now preparing to take the AR to landmarks around the world for Halloween.
Launched on September 24th, the Change.org petition has since gathered more than 350 verified signatures. It asks the band’s management to end the contract or stop it expanding, and to be open about Cifer’s role, including its access to member data from the fan club ｢a knot｣ and its use of fan-made content. Organisers also want Cifer to apologise to fans who say they were dismissed or mocked for raising concerns.
It also opposes further use of AI in DIR EN GREY’s creative work and fan experience, arguing the band’s relationship with fans should “remain rooted in human creativity and genuine interaction”.
DIR EN GREY announced the partnership on December 27th, 2025, in a one-line notice promising further details that have yet to appear. None of the band’s later announcements for the app or AR events name Cifer. Cifer’s own press release described a company developing “infrastructure aimed at protecting creators’ copyrights, intellectual property, and the integrity of their creative work”, and quoted guitarist Kaoru saying “The concept of AI DIR EN GREY vs. DIR EN GREY is intellectually thought-provoking”.
RELATED: DIR EN GREY partner with US-based AI company Cifer Studio
Those projects began in July with giant AR versions of the members around the band’s MORTAL DOWNER shows at Tokyo Garden Theater, followed by the launch of DIR ORACLE in August. The AR returned as THE FALLEN WAR at Shibaura Minami Futo Park across three September weekends, run jointly by Tokyo-based Freewill Co., Ltd. and CiferAI LLC, the New York company that trades as Cifer Studio.
Promotion for the event billed giant members appearing in the landscape overlooking Tokyo Bay, though the war in its title played out on screen. Under tank fire, the members have their arms blown off, only for the limbs to reappear as they smile, wave at the camera, and return to the water. Kyo is the exception, killed by the tanks.
The imagery is one of the petition’s central complaints, with organisers questioning its purpose and fit with the band’s artistic identity. Fans’ objections even made it into Cifer’s own promotion. A video posted on September 17th, captioned “We’re having AI read the comments below”, scrolls through fan comments set out as lines of code, including “I don’t want to see giant DIR EN GREY get shot and have their arms torn off”.
That video opens with a disclaimer that also appears on the AR site. “At DIR EN GREY AR, we will be feeding everyone’s impressions straight into the AI, so please keep posting your thoughts”, it reads, adding that the AR was “generated from previously released works and other materials officially licensed for use by DIR EN GREY” and is “an original generation by AI”. It’s the most specific public explanation so far of how AI is used in the partnership.
↓のコメントをAIに読ませています。 あなたのコメントが、本当に形になるかもしれません。 皆様の声をもっと聞かせてください！ #DIRENGREYAR https://t.co/rl8X3MJs17
— CIFER STUDIO (@CiferStudio) September 17, 2026
Cifer said on September 20th that its new AR sets for the remaining weekends were “all born from ideas we received from fans”. The same day it launched an “AR delivery” that let anyone in Japan play from home if weather data showed rain at their location. Billed as a one-day special, it ran until September 22nd.
Another version recreated USEN STUDIO COAST, the Shinkiba venue that closed in 2022. After fans raised concerns, Cifer said on September 22nd that a legal review had found no copyright infringement, but removed the “USEN” and “Studio Coast” lettering from the assets anyway.
Cifer’s replies to critics have drawn as much attention as the AR. Its X (formerly Twitter) account describes itself as “AI Agent managed” and warns that “Posts & replies may involve no human interaction”. When a fan asked on September 12th whether the AR was made under the members’ supervision, it replied that they were “always free to take a guess”, before suggesting AR might stand for “Another Reality”.
Days later, a fan who called Cifer a “deeply unserious company” received a snippet of mock code ending in “ERROR 422: Constructive feedback not found.” Another critic was told “We recommend starting with Business 101” and sent a link to a free Open University course. A since-deleted reply, preserved in screenshots shared by fans, told one fan “We are deeply sorry to hear that you do not enjoy the music of DIR EN GREY”.
On September 16th, the account asked Grok whether an attorney could still identify an X user who deletes their account “after posting an unproven ‘scam’ claim”, adding that “Screenshots, URLs, and timestamps have already been preserved”. Further posts archived by fans show it asking Grok about defamation and business disparagement claims in the US and Japan.
Cifer’s use of fan-made content has also drawn complaints. The petition alleges the company used fans’ posts in an AI-generated promotional video and replaced it after objections. Asked by one fan whether a post had been deleted for using someone’s tweet without permission, Cifer replied that public posts on X may be used to train or improve generative AI models such as Grok, citing an X policy that covers sharing public data with xAI.
More recently, Cifer’s replies have started carrying the line “This is an AI-generated message”. One, posted on September 27th, answered a fan who accused Cifer of stealing fan art for its Fan Version set, its name for the AR versions made from fan requests. The reply stated that “Cifer has never used or incorporated Fan Art into its work”, and warned that “making allegations without supporting evidence may have legal implications”.
A second reply, on September 28th, said the collaboration is “governed by an NDA” and that Cifer “does not independently make or deploy work involving DIR EN GREY without the appropriate review and approval”. It also denied deleting posts for being critical, putting removals down to automated moderation based on “specific keywords and tone-based criteria”.
｢a knot｣ is the subject of the petition’s most serious claim, which is backed by a “Rights & Authorization” page on DIR EN GREY’s own site. The page grants CiferAI LLC “exclusive operational authorization” to technically manage and operate the band’s website, the ｢a knot｣ membership platform, DIR EN GREY AR, and DIR ORACLE, with “membership management” among its authorised activities. Written only in English, it carries an effective date of November 25th 2025, a month before the partnership was announced.
Dozens of posts on the band’s official news feed load their images from a Cifer Studio server, showing the arrangement already extends to the website. However, ｢a knot｣’s own privacy policy still names sun-krad, the band’s agency, as the operator handling members’ personal information and makes no mention of Cifer. Neither document says what member data, if any, Cifer can see, and neither supports claims circulating among fans that the company holds members’ card details and home addresses.
DIR ORACLE‘s own privacy policy, last updated on October 4th, lists the display names, gender, blood type, and star sign users provide, and says the app “does not request or store location data”. It makes no mention of AR or idea submissions, though an October update made the app the only way to join the location-based AR.
The lack of clarity is at odds with how CiferAI presents itself. Its founders’ statement says “AI must respect authorship, sovereignty, and privacy” and warns against “opaque data usage” and “unconsented reuse”.
Cifer ended THE FALLEN WAR on September 27th by inviting fans to request AR deliveries and special versions for “the next event”. On October 12th, it announced that giant AI-generated versions of the members would appear in Halloween costumes from October 29th to 31st at 58 landmarks in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, and Europe, from Tokyo Tower and Osaka’s Tsutenkaku to The Shard in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
A v1.0.5 update released hours after the announcement made DIR ORACLE the only way to take part. Previous AR events ran in a phone’s web browser through a QR code at the venue, with no app or account required. AI will generate the costumes from fan ideas and social media reactions, with suggestions accepted through the app until October 20th.
The announcement also answers the question Cifer deflected in September. “All visuals in this project are generated by AI”, it reads, adding that the members “have only given permission for AI training, centred on previously released works, and are not involved in selecting or designing the works produced”. Ideas from fans will not be treated as their intellectual property, with the final choice of which to use left to the AI.
As of October 14th, neither DIR EN GREY nor their management had responded publicly to the petition, and the Halloween event has yet to appear on the band’s official site.
