Press release · Ibutamoren
kageroumado Launches Ibutamoren, a Free Anime Image Upscaler That Runs Entirely in the Browser
Ibutamoren is a free web app that upscales anime illustrations and screenshots 2x with neural network models, running entirely on the visitor's own GPU through WebGPU. No image is uploaded.
Published · Updated . Features and availability describe the product at the update date.
Ibutamoren is a free web application by kageroumado at kagerou.glass/ibutamoren that enlarges anime artwork, illustrations and screenshots to twice their resolution using neural network upscaling models. All processing happens on the visitor's own device; images are never uploaded to a server.
Ibutamoren runs the models with ONNX Runtime Web, using WebGPU for hardware acceleration and falling back to multithreaded WebAssembly on browsers without WebGPU. Large images are processed in tiles, and results can be saved as PNG or AVIF.
Three 2x models are included: Ani4K v2 by Sirosky and AnimeSharp V2 and V4 by Kim2091, each distributed under its authors' Creative Commons non-commercial licenses. Users can drop, paste or browse for PNG, JPEG and WebP images and compare the original with the upscaled result side by side.
Key features
- 2x neural upscaling for anime art, illustrations and screenshots
- Runs locally with WebGPU, with a WebAssembly fallback
- No uploads: images never leave the device
- Three models: Ani4K v2, AnimeSharp V2 and AnimeSharp V4
- Accepts PNG, JPEG and WebP; exports PNG or AVIF
How it compares
| App | Price | License | Runs where | Images |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ibutamoren | Free | MIT; models CC BY-NC 4.0 / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 | Browser: WebGPU or WebAssembly | Processed on your device; nothing uploaded |
| waifu2x.net | Free; Google AdSense ads | MIT | Website; processed on its server | Uploaded and cached 30 minutes; 5 MB and 1500×1500 px limits |
| unlimited.waifu2x.net | Free; Google AdSense ads | MIT | Browser: WebGPU or WebAssembly | Processed in the browser, never sent to servers |
| Upscayl | Free desktop app; Cloud Pro US$24.99/month | AGPL-3.0 | Desktop app: Linux, macOS 12+, Windows 10+ | Upscaled on a local Vulkan GPU |
| Real-ESRGAN | Free | BSD-3-Clause | Python, or ncnn-Vulkan executables for Windows, Linux and macOS | Local files; hosted demos on Replicate and Colab |
| Anime4K | Free | MIT | Real-time shaders in mpv, IINA or Plex | Upscales video during playback |
Availability
Ibutamoren is available free of charge at kagerou.glass/ibutamoren in current desktop browsers. No account or installation is required.
About kageroumado
I'm Mado Kagerou, publishing as kageroumado: an independent researcher and expert Swift engineer with more than ten years of software development experience. As a founder and technical lead, I take projects from architecture through release. My research interests center on computational pharmacology, computational neuroscience and AI safety. My engineering specialties include Apple platform internals, reverse engineering, GPU rendering and local model training.
Research, engineering work and leadership experience
Media contact
kageroumado · [email protected] · kagerou.glass