A growing controversy in the martial arts community has reached a boiling point, with mounting evidence suggesting that Sumiko Nakano, a popular online martial artist with a significant following, is not a real person at all but an entirely AI-generated character operated by real individuals working behind the scenes.
Adam McKinley, a martial artist and social media figure who says he has been investigating the account for over three years, laid out the case.
“That’s an AI creation. It’s not a real person,” McKinley said. “And everything that you see that’s going on in this video, it doesn’t exist. It was created by another person, meaning the opposite gender of who the person is in the videos.”
According to McKinley’s research, the operation involves at least two real people: Allen Woodman, who runs a martial arts magazine and manages the social media side of the Sumiko persona, and Thorsten Schauer, the majority owner of Sumiko Nakano Ltd., who is believed to be responsible for generating the AI content.
“It’s believed at this point, after collaborating with people over in the UK, that Thorsten Schauer is behind the AI creation while Allen Woodman runs the social part,” McKinley explained.
The deception has allegedly gone far beyond posting AI-generated images. McKinley has identified multiple instances where videos credited to Sumiko appear to be stolen directly from real martial artists, including Chloe Bruce and Rayna from Cobra Kai, with AI used to place the fake persona over original footage.
“Clearly you can see the same indentations from his knife hitting the wall from his video,” McKinley noted, describing one particularly detailed example involving a knife throwing clip. “The whole background is dude’s background.”
The hosts argued the fraud causes direct harm to real martial artists. “It does take opportunities away from real people, from real martial arts. If this account is getting all this monetization and it’s put out there like this is a real person, here’s her history, here’s her martial arts pedigree, it’s fraudulent in so many ways.”
After years of raising the alarm, McKinley says the evidence is now impossible to dismiss. “I’ve given people massive amounts of proof. If you choose to believe in the lie, it’s on you at this point.”
