Chhote Pandit or a crimson red Porco Rosso? Bollywood gets a field day with AI-generated Ghibli-inspired posters

It’s Chhote Pandit from Bhool Bhulaiyaa, but paint him like one of the Ghibli characters!
Social media is abuzz with numerous Ghibli-like images since OpenAI shook the world with the release of its native image creation feature. Admirers of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio, have since been using the new update from ChatGPT to create portraits and memes inspired by the distinct artistic style popularized by filmmaker and studio co-creator Hayao Miyazaki.

While the Ghibli-like images range from popular memes and widely known pop culture characters (like, Michael Scott, or Jim Halpert, or even Dwight Schrute from The Office US) to personal portraits for display pictures on social media platforms - now Bollywood too has joined the bandwagon!


Is it ShantiPriya and Om Kapoor, or is it Kaguya and Sutemaru from The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya? You might need a second to decide on that!

Raj and Simran? More like Jiro and Naoko from The Wind Rises finding each other - well, running toward each other at a much over-dramatic setting!

Or or or… Seiji Amasawa from ‘Whisper of the Heart’, but with a Bollywoodification of him, which - to an extent - resembles Ranbir Kapoor’s Jordan from Rockstar, if one’s kind enough to trade violin for a guitar!

One might say, ‘tis the time of Ghiblification of Bollywood, or even a chunk of pop culture - whether one likes it or not. Given that artificial intelligence is going to heavily impact almost all the creative mediums and spaces in the not-so-distant future - if it hasn’t already started doing so - these AI-generated images are here to stay. More likely, they’re going to be used in mainstream productions as well.

Just the way, AI-generated voice is being used in the music industry already.
However, Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has previously expressed strong disapproval of AI-generated animation.
In a 2016 meeting where he was shown an AI animation demo, Miyazaki said, “I am utterly disgusted.”

The co-founder of Ghibli Studio, who has taken animated movies to great heights over the years with films like ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’, ‘Porco Rosso’, ‘Whisper of the Heart, ‘Princess Mononoke’, ‘Spirited Away’, ‘Howl's Moving Castle’, ‘Ponyo’, ‘The Wind Rises’, ’The Boy and the Heron’ added, “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 at all.”
Miyazaki also said, “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”