Japanese Miyazaki Hayao anime fantasy films have captivated children for generations both in Japan and internationally. These films have instilled countless viewers lifelong opposition to war, militarization, and all forms of violence, regardless of their political affiliation. Beyond studio Ghibli films such as Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Castle in the Sky, soldiers are portrayed as false fighters at best and, at worst, sexual predators.
This is why the official Israeli Defense Force (IDF) account for X-shared images, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s style, was a huge shock.
Israeli Defense Forces Used Studio Ghibli Anti-War Arts and Aesthetics to Promote Military | Photo Credit: Israeli Defense Forces of x
IDF collage was spurred by a late March update of Openai to the GPT4O model. This update allowed users to enter text prompts into chatgpt to generate images that mimic Studio Ghibli’s iconic animation style.
Most people initially used a new image update in ChatGpt to convert portraits of themselves or their families into adorable Studio Ghibli-inspired images, while others ventured even further. They created animated stills from photos of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Users have shared Studio Ghibli-style porn, “Ghibli Feed” stills from Bollywood films, and even a short video clip rethinking Christopher Nolan’s star as a Studio Ghibli film. Furthermore, the irony that Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been transformed into a Studio Ghibli style image has been lost too much.
One of the images of the AI anime that attracted widespread attention in India depicted the destruction of the historic Babrimasjid by Hindu Tubarai Othir in 1992. The image, rendered in a distorted Studio Ghibli style, featured an animated figure waving a flag over the mosque’s dome, cheering for the celebration.
Another virus image was shared by the US White House. The photo was a childish anime style that made foreign citizens accused of drug trafficking who were visibly distraught when she was detained.
US White House screenshot using Studio Ghibli anime trends to tease people arrested | Photo credit: US White House x US
X’s IDF account also joined the trend, using communication devices and planes to share animated images of the soldiers.
The art behind the trend
Professor David Leslie, director of ethics and responsible innovation research at the Alan Turing Institute, highlighted the ethical concerns surrounding the misappropriation of human life’s work in “troubling ways.”
“Miyazaki is always someone who pays a lot of attention to presenting ideas that will make him passionate with his work, and here he has the operation of patterns and styles of those works.
He described the Japanese artist as “one of the great pacifists of his generation.”
Leslie acknowledged that Studio Ghibli’s media is likely to be part of the Openai model’s training dataset. However, he emphasized the need for a more evidence-based approach to exploring the extent of its existence. He also highlighted Openai’s lack of transparency as a potential complication of this process.
Openai CEO Screenshot Sam Altman responds to Indian Government Studio Ghibli Trend use | Photo Credit: mygovindia of x
Miyazaki’s devoted fans resurfaced an old video in which a Japanese director expressed disgust when he introduced AI-generated motion animations. In the video, Miyazaki called AI art “an insult to life itself.”
Last year, Openai defended fair use defense. This allows you to use copyrighted works in certain circumstances. The company argued that the usage is “fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and essential to the US competitiveness.”
However, Leslie urged the public to consider a broader perspective beyond fair use regulations. He questioned whether Openai’s actions were advancing itself and Microsoft’s shareholder value, or whether it was consistent with the public interest.
Dive into legal complexity, Geoffrey McGovern, director of intellectual property and senior political scientist at RAND nonprofits, has revealed that certain creative products and works enjoy copyright protections, but this is not the case for concepts and ideas.
McGovern said, “If, for example, French painter Georges Braque attempts to create copyright with a style that has come to be known as metronome and Cubism, then copyright is theoretically protected. It is an image that can be reproduced, and its right to breed will be Braque. Photos, poetry, recipes, films, compositions, etc., these ideas have only appeared in one form or another.”
McGovern explained in detail: “As in this way, Studio Ghibli Style is not copyright, images generated by ChatGPT do not constitute a copyright violation.”
Tori Noble, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that US courts have not yet determined whether AI models that generate images in the artist’s “style” are considered to be in violation of copyright.
For example, Andersenv, an ongoing case in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. StabilityAI Ltd. is said to have been created by an AI art generator in the style of a particular artist. The heart of the problem lies in determining whether the output of the model has been infringed by a protected creative representation, and whether using the work to develop an AI image generator constitutes fair use. Noble sheds light on these undecided issues in this case.
Expressing love, ai
In our world, we already have works of art inspired by Studio Ghibli, created without using AI.
One example is The Glassworker, a 2024 fantasy film directed by Usman Riaz. The film was celebrated as Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animated feature film. The character design clearly shows Riaz’s deep admiration for Studio Ghibli.
Unlike AI-generated images that are assembled quickly by a machine in seconds, glass workers have been meticulously made over the years. Riaz’s film received expert support from studio Ghibli producers and paid tribute to Miyazaki’s powerful anti-war beliefs. This contrasts with “Gibrifeed” images posted by individuals celebrating the destruction of the US White House, IDF, and Islamic places of worship in India. This juxtaposition is particularly offensive to those who understand Miyazaki’s anti-war films beyond the superficial appeal of photography filters.
Unlike many civil law countries, the United States does not protect the creator’s “moral rights” in order to control how their work is used or adapted. As a result, Studio Ghibli films do not qualify for these very limited moral rights in the United States, she added. Even when applicable, American moral rights do not allow Studio Ghibli to prevent others from imitating art styles and creating new, transformative works.
Artists are currently considering the next step in response to concerns about illegally stolen or shave to train AI models.
“This is one of the biggest technical law issues of our age,” McGovern said.
He suggested that creators should be cautious about posting their work online or explore using paywalls as parents.
Meanwhile, Noble explained that websites will take action to limit content they scrape through the Robot Exclusion Protocol (REP).
Representatives can include a “robots.txt” file on their website, containing rules that limit data reduction. While these rules are not binding, Openai and other prominent American AI developers now respect the restrictions on Robots.txt, but not all, Noble said.
Some artists use anti-AI tools such as Glaze. Glazes are designed to confuse or at least mislead AI models that are virtually unperceived by the naked eye, but are attempting to shatter glaze-protected art for training purposes.
Noble proposed that social and labor policies will become a more effective tool for the country to protect artists and creators from the economic harm caused by AI.
“In the United States, at least in the United States, extending copyright protection to the use of works for AI training purposes is not an effective way to protect artists’ livelihoods and can actually undermine their interests over time,” she said.
Leslie warned that the viability of life as an artist is being challenged not only by open-lie, but also by other companies that influence how people perceive (or ignore) the work of human artists and art teachers.
“When you really think about the artists’ lives and the sustainable professional lives of artists, the Ghibli moment is really important, but it’s a surface-level warning about deeper transformation.
Published – April 11, 2025 02:32 PM IST
