Studio Ghibli’s groundbreaking film Princess Mononoke means a number of things to generations of anime films. Whether it be its innate, raw violence that carries a powerful message about the constant struggle between humanity, nature, and industrialism, it also discusses a timely issue in the minds of many – the abhorrent danger associated with unchecked progress. Coincidentally, the film’s recent IMAX re-release, which put the film back in 330 theaters for the first time since 2016 in the West has been seemingly fighting back against a recent controversy surrounding an AI image generator ripping off the studio’s iconic art style.
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Earlier in the week, ChatGPT, an AI generation tool created by OpenAI launched an update that allowed users to upload photos and generate altered versions of them in the stylings of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s signature animations. The update was – for good reason – met with an immense amount of backlash for stealing the hard work of real, human artists in order to produce cheap imitations attempting to replicate decades of hard work. While OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has been encouraging the use of these “Ghibli-fied” images, those who truly appreciate Miyazaki’s work have been pushing back to prove human work is always more worthwhile, and based on the box office success of Princess Mononoke‘s revival, they’re correct.
[RELATED: Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke Gets Surprise 4K Remaster & Re-Release]
The Princess Mononoke Re-Release Is Dominating Despite Its Limited Screenings
Despite only being screened in 330 theaters, Princess Mononoke earned a whopping $1.2 million on its domestic opening day, as reported by DiscussingFilm on X (Formerly Twitter). The film’s enduring legacy, mixed with its timely political themes, makes the recent pushback against OpenAI’s recent slop generator makes the timing almost too perfect for Miyazaki’s work to, once again prove that the passion and skill poured into art by real artists will always trump what image generation software is capable of. This isn’t the first time Studio Ghibli has – directly or otherwise – combatted the use of generative AI in media, either.
Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki Has Always Held Strong Opinions Against AI-Generated Content
In a 2016 documentary created by Kaku Arukawa and released by NHK, a group of animators and designers showed Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki, a producer at Studio Ghibli, an AI-generated animation that their team had created. As the story has resurfaced in light of the Ghibli-inspired AI content flooding social media lately, The Independent brought Miyazaki’s words to light.
In response, Miyazaki gave an impassioned statement, saying, “I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work. I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself.”
While other filmmakers involved with the documentary attempted to soothe the situation by stating it was simply a personal project and not something they necessarily intended to commercialize, one of the team members mentioned that they wanted to create a machine that could draw as humans do. To end the discussion, Miyazaki delivered a final, cold message to the group, “I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”
Source: DiscussingFilm on X (Formerly Twitter), The Independent US
