NeoTokyo — Vintage Cel-Shaded Anime Series (Illustrious-XL)

NeoTokyo is a series of custom checkpoints built on top of Illustrious-XL (IL-XL), merging base anime foundations with fine-tuned retro cel-shading LoRAs directly into the UNet.

The project brings back the authentic, hand-painted aesthetic of golden-era Japanese animation without relying on post-processing hacks or bulky prompts. It is split into two specialized editions to fit different vintage aesthetics:

📦 Which Edition Should You Use?

• 📼 90s Edition (Classic):

  • Aesthetic: Gritty late 80s / 90s OVA, dark cyber-noir, moody urban alleys, and rain-soaked nights (Cowboy Bebop, Cyber City Oedo 808, Wicked City).

  • Style: Heavier inking, high contrast, dramatic shadows, bold cross-hatching, and rough traditional line art.

• 📺 80s Edition (City Pop):

  • Aesthetic: Golden 80s TV anime, retro sci-fi, warm summer countryside, and City Pop daylight (Kimagure Orange Road, Dirty Pair, City Hunter, You're Under Arrest).

  • Style: Clean two-tone cel shading, bright saturated palettes, softer line work, large expressive 80s eyes, and balanced anatomical rendering.

• ✨ More editions coming soon!

Key Strengths & Features

• No trigger words needed : just prompt normally with standard Danbooru tags. The retro cel-shaded style applies automatically while keeping full character and outfit accuracy.

• Native Illustrious-XL Compatibility: Full Danbooru tagging support, excellent character recognition, outfit flexibility, and LoRA interoperability.

• 100% Passive Cel-Shading: Direct prompt rendering with bold ink outlines, cel shading, and subtle analog film grain straight out of the box.

• Pure 2D Finish: Eliminates modern plastic/3D gloss in favor of classic animation cel textures.

• Rock-Solid Anatomy: Clean facial features and reliable hand/finger rendering on complex poses.

Recommended Settings

• Base Architecture: Illustrious-XL / SDXL

• Sampling Method: DPM++ 2M

• Schedule Type: Karras

• Sampling Steps: 30

• CFG Scale: 4.5 - 5.5

• Initial Resolution: 896 × 1152

• Clip Skip: 2

Hires. fix (Recommended for best quality)

• Upscaler: R-ESRGAN 4x+ Anime6B (or 4x-UltraSharp)

• Upscale by: 1.5 (Final: 1344 × 1728)

• Hires Steps: 15 - 20

• Denoising Strength: 0.35 - 0.40

Negative Prompt:

worst quality, low quality, 3d, render, CGI, digital illustration, photo, deformed, blurry, bad anatomy, bad hands, extra fingers, missing fingers, glowing skin, plastic skin, smooth gradients