A typical Ghibli film may take over 100,000 hand-drawn frames, crafted over years by teams of skilled animators. (A single 4-second scene may take months!) In an era dominated by CGI, the studio remains committed to the traditional, painstaking beauty of 2D animation. The reverence many fans have for Ghibli is not just for the stories it tells, but for the rare artistry behind them. (View Highlight)
AI-generated images in the “Ghibli style” may borrow its surface features but they don’t capture the soul of what makes Studio Ghibli exceptional in quality. They lack the narrative depth, the handcrafted devotion, and the cultural resonance. (View Highlight)
Like a celebrity impersonator, the ChatGPT images borrow from the cache of the original. But sadly, hollowly, it’s not the same. What made the original shimmer is lost in translation. (View Highlight)
The key is not confusing the quality of a technology with what it makes easy. What we are seeing is a quality coup. Producing a Ghibli-fied image or a Mona-Lisa-style portrait or a Picasso-like painting will not create quality art; those islands are already too well mapped. In fact, all visual imagery as a category may soon feel tired for this very reason. (View Highlight)
Perhaps here we can learn from Studio Ghibli itself. To ascend to the next plane of quality-hunting, we need the richness of a narrative, commitment to a specific craft, and multiple mediums of expression. (View Highlight)
Quality, like a dazzling sunset, is dynamic. Ever second it is changing and receding until it flickers out. You cannot grasp it for long. You can only keep turning a new corner of exploration and hope you’re lucky enough to encounter it again. (View Highlight)
Yet others call this progress. There are those that argue the exposure Studio Ghibli has gotten, even if it hadn’t been compensated for the model training, is likely worth untold millions in new revenue. The exposure further cements Studio Ghibli’s legacy! (Would any of us be writing these essays otherwise?) (View Highlight)
Miyazaki is at the twilight of his life, without a clear successor for the studio. Another way to tell the story is to view AI as humanity’s collective brain, allowing individual creations to live on in the ever-changing tides of evolution. (View Highlight)
We don’t yet know the facts of how OpenAI’s anime images came to look so similar to Studio Ghibli’s style. Did they explicitly train on Ghibli’s work? Did they have permission? No one has said anything definitive. For many, knowing these facts may change their judgements of whether this was morally “right”. (View Highlight)
