On Ghibli-styled AI art as an expat in Japan

You’d have to be living under a rock (or at least offline) not to have seen the Ghibli A.I. photo craze that’s taken over social media in the past few weeks. So many of my friends and family scattered in different places around the world have jumped on the trend, and after much avoidance, I gave it a go, too.

As fun as it is to turn your kids, your pet, or your neighborhood into a Miyazaki movie scene, I feel like it's worth asking whether it's okay to recreate someone else’s artistic style, especially when that someone has very strong feelings about it.

An AI "Ghibli-style" artwork of my dog.

Hayao Miyazaki has long been vocal about his skepticism of artificial intelligence in art. In past interviews, he’s called A.I.-generated animation “an insult to life itself,” emphasizing the importance of human emotion, intuition, and intentionality in creative work. Even though his comments weren’t directly about these AI-generated Ghibli-style images, it’s hard to imagine he’d view them much differently.

Without sounding too cheesy, I've really noticed living in the countryside how day-to-day moments can feel like a Ghibli scene. Moss-covered shrine paths, kids walking home in their uniforms, laundry flapping in the breeze…it’s all got that ethereal vibe to it. But I guess my question is rooted in the ethics of A.I., and where homage becomes infringement of creative property.

Have you hopped aboard the Ghibli-style A.I. trend?