Anima, NovelAI 4.5, Anime FLUX or SDXL: which model to choose for anime art
Anima and NovelAI 4.5 are DiT models: they understand complex scenes and draw several characters without mixing them up. SDXL is the fast tag-based classic with thousands of artist styles. Anime FLUX gives full-body shots and 1536 px. Krea 2 handles natural language and text on the image. All of them live in one bot.
Why there are several models and not “one best”
Anime models come in two generations. The first is the UNet family of SDXL (PonyXL, Illustrious and their anime checkpoints): fast, predictable, with a huge library of artist styles, but with an old VAE and the CLIP text encoder. The second is DiT (Diffusion Transformer) models: NovelAI 4.5 and 5, Anima, Anime FLUX, Krea 2, and also Nano Banana and GPT Image. Instead of CLIP they use a language model, so they understand long descriptions and don’t confuse which character has which hair.
In practice this means: for a quick tag-based portrait SDXL is still unbeatable, while a scene with two or three characters and a complex composition needs a DiT model.
Comparison table
| Criterion | SDXL checkpoints | Anima | Anime FLUX | Krea 2 | NovelAI 4.5 / 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | UNet | DiT | DiT | DiT | DiT |
| Dataset | Danbooru, up to 2024–2025 | Danbooru up to autumn 2025 | 13M Danbooru artworks up to October 2025 | general + anime | closed, characters up to summer 2026 (V5) |
| Prompt language | Danbooru tags | English, Russian, tags | natural language | natural language | Danbooru tags, English |
| Multiple characters | mixes them up | yes, no bleeding | yes | yes | yes, with positions !a1–!e5 |
| Resolution | ~1 MP | up to 1536 px (“Resolution+”) | up to 1536 px | ~1 MP | ~1 MP |
| Text on image | no | weak | weak | yes | yes (V5) |
| Speed | seconds | ~40 s | ~40–60 s | ~30 s | up to 2 min |
| Free | 10–20 per day | 10 per day | 10 per day | subscription | 4.5 — 10–20 per day; 5 — subscription |
| Where | @aniworld_bot, VK | @aniworld_bot, VK | @aniworld_bot | @aniworld_bot | @novelai_bot, VK |
SDXL: when speed and an artist’s style matter
The Kioshi_3, NewiL, fubo_alt and other checkpoints are trained on Danbooru tags and know thousands of artists by name. The /gen command returns an artwork in a few seconds, so SDXL is handy for iterating on ideas: ten variants in a minute, the best one refined in another model.
Weak spots are full-body shots (small faces and hands “swim”) and scenes with several characters. The prompt is strictly tags:
/gen 1girl, red hair, ponytail, school uniform, cherry blossoms, wind,
looking at viewer, masterpiece, !styleAnima: several characters and artist mixing
Anima is an open DiT model trained on Danbooru up to autumn 2025. It accepts both tags and ordinary sentences, and most importantly it places several characters in a scene without concept bleeding. In the bot it supports artist mixing: every @artist is encoded separately and blended inside the model, so styles don’t average out into mush.
Bot features: the “Resolution+” mode up to 1536 px, a queue separate from SDXL, 10 free generations a day. Enable it with /m → Anima or in /flux.
/flux an angel girl with pink hair sitting on an old wooden staircase,
dusty light from a window, oil painting, melancholyAnime FLUX: full-body shots and detail
Anime FLUX is trained on 13 million Danbooru artworks and tuned for full-body shots: proportions, eyes and fingers hold up even at 1536 px. The latent space is four times larger than SDXL’s, hence the detail. It understands natural language; old tag prompts from SDXL are better rewritten as sentences.
Krea 2: natural language and lettering
Krea 2 understands English and Russian without translation and can write text on the image: signs, posters, memes. 284 styles are switched on with one tag or the 🎲 button in /fs. If the prompt is short, the bot expands it by Krea’s rules; if detailed, it leaves it as is.
/flux a neon sign "ANIWORLDAI" above a bar in a rainy city, cyberpunkNovelAI 4.5 and 5: closed models with the freshest dataset
NovelAI models are commercial and available in the @novelai_bot without a NovelAI account or a foreign card. V4.5 is free with a daily limit; V5 and the furry5 preset come with paid plans. Strengths: 16,000 artist tags, precise character positions !a1–!e5, stable seeds; V5 adds text on the image and characters up to summer 2026.
The prompt is comma-separated tags; !style inserts a proven artist mix from community ELO tournaments:
/nai 1girl, twintails, neon city, rain, reflective puddles, !styleHow to choose in 10 seconds
- A quick portrait, a specific artist — SDXL.
- A scene with two or three characters — Anima or NovelAI.
- A detailed full-body shot at high resolution — Anime FLUX or Anima with “Resolution+”.
- A natural-language prompt, lettering on the image, a Ghibli or Arcane look — Krea 2.
- Maximum consistency and the freshest characters — NovelAI 5 on a subscription.
All models live in one bot, @aniworld_bot (NovelAI in @novelai_bot); the subscription is shared, and the free limits let you compare them yourself before paying.
Try it yourself: @aniworld_bot in Telegram or novelai_bot on VK. Free generations every day.