Recently, an “AI palace intrigue drama” took place in the global technology circle – OpenAI’s GPT-4o used a “Ghibli filter” to turn Qi Guiren from a ruthless character in “The Story of Zhen Huan” into a cute anime girl. Netizens exclaimed, “It turns out that AI is the hidden Niulang Zhen’an, and the development progress of human beings on classic IP may not have reached the stage of wearing a hair tie and practicing in Guanshan Temple!”
When Algorithms Learned to “Copy” Hayao Miyazaki
If AI-generated content is the tech world’s “Nine Turn Big Intestine,” then Ghibli’s style is the most fragrant pot of them all. GPT-4’s latest feat can be described as “pixel-level trolling” art: users only need to insert the three words “Ghibli” into the prompt, and the AI will instantly transform into the strongest tailor in the animation industry, stitching Jack and Rose from “Titanic” into “Howl’s Moving Castle” within minutes, and allowing Zhang Min’s smile to directly cross over to the bakery from “Kiki’s Delivery Service.”
Tech nerds dug through the code and discovered that the product was an art thief – it could accurately capture Kipling’s three original sines: a soft-light filter, a tearful mole (the character’s eyes make up a third of his face), and a cherry blossom/maple leaf / unknown petal that was always falling.
Even in “Let the Bullets Fly,” Jiang Wen’s line “Dare to kill my horse” was modified by AI and became “Dare to steal my Dragon Cat,” and there was no sense of incongruity.
But the worst offender was Mr. Hayao Miyazaki. This animation god, who once scolded AI as “insulting life,” may have never dreamed that his lifelong expertise would be made into a “one-click generator” by Silicon Valley coders.
Now, netizens have begun to make wishes: “Please let the fat tiger sing “Always How Many Times” ” （the theme of “Spirited Away” song）, this wave belongs to the dream connection.
Making “Hayao Miyazaki” in Douyin, selling sweaters in Kuaishou
When overseas netizens were busy using AI to give Zhen’an Karslan’s big eyes, Chinese technology brands had already “rolled” out of the sky on the Ghibli track. Last year, when You Want to Live a Life was released, the “Miyazaki filter” of Douyin made millions of users instantly become animated characters. Even the lady who sells pancakes downstairs has her own “Castle in the Sky” flying stone.
There are two rules for the survival of AI in China:
- Cram technology into the live room:
Kuaishou AI can not only change the host’s clothes but also let the Northeast Lao Tie wear a flower cotton jacket to “Princess Mononoke” dance in the forest. - Get the bosses to be willing to pay:
Alibaba Cloud’s Tongyi model actually makes Yiwu small commodities look like “The Little People Who Borrow Things,” and it is said that a certain pajama merchant increased conversion rate by 130% with this trick, and now even lace ruffles need to be AI-generated “Ghibli-style creases.”
What’s even more amazing is ByteDance’s PixelDance, which has made short video directors unemployed – type in “Village Love Version of The Windy Valley” and the AI will immediately give you a 60-second high-energy mashup of Wang Changgui driving a flying vehicle to save Xie Dajiao, with Zhao Si’s signature twitch cinematography.
Hayao Miyazaki is suing, AI is pretending to be stupid
While the whole network was partying, the legal profession quietly pulled out a 40-meter knife. OpenAI insists it didn’t plagiarize but “learnt from Studio Ghibli’s unique way of understanding natural light and shadow” – translating to human words: “I picked up a fallen leaf in your yard, not stealing a tree!”
The Japan Animation Association has begun protesting with the faceless man’s memes from Chiba: “If you play like this again, Mother Took will have to collect your copyright fees!” Interestingly, while Ghibli officially denied sending a lawyer’s letter, it quietly registered the domain name “ghibli-style.ai”, which is comparable to An Lingrong’s “queen killed the queen”.
The most miserable is a domestic start-up company, they spent three years research and development of the “Hayao Miyazaki filter” APP, in the GPT-4o online day life plunged 70%. The founder shed tears during the transformation: “Now we specialize in Ghibli-style ID photos; after all, the police station has not yet introduced AI aesthetics.”
How much drama does humanity have left?
When AI can translate “Pink and delicate, how old are you now?” from “The Legend of Zhen Huan” into haughty anime lines, we have to think:
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Will directors collectively switch careers to become AI prompt engineers? -
Can art students practice the principle of perspective for ten years and lose to the phrase “/ Ghiblification”? -
And most importantly, Will the audience pay for the “imperfections” of hand-drawn animation when AI can produce perfect images？
The answer from Chinese manufacturers is very down-to-earth: Kuaishou’s AI fitting room allows users to first look at the “Kawaii Mon” outfit before placing an order; Meitu used the national style large-scale model to generate the “Thousand Miles of River Landscape” filter, which was played by netizens as the “cyber version of “River Landscape” “。Even die-hard fans of Hayao Miyazaki have begun to split – some insist on hand-drawn beliefs, while others silently set the AI-generated “Qi Guiren x Wuli Man” CP picture as a mobile wallpaper.
The Balance of Magic and Reality
This AI party is like Caspar from Howl’s Moving Castle – it can make scrap metal fly into the sky, but it can also burn down the whole castle. Techies are looking for “non-infringement” magic circles in code, artists are trying to hold on to the original lighthouse in the flood of algorithms, and the ultimate philosophical question of the spectators may be: “Using AI to put me into the oil house of “Sen to Chihiro’s Journey,” is it piracy or performance art?”
The only thing that is certain is that when you see the “Ghibli version of square dance grannies” on Douyin, it is best to like it first – after all, these aunts may be the last line of defense against the homogenization of AI.
