If you’re a social media enthusiast there is no way you haven’t heard of ‘Ghibli.’
Everyone is consuming this bandwagon, including actors, politicians, friends, and even your mother and father.
It is the use of AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT image generator to create photos and memes into visuals emulating art of Studio Ghibli. The latter is a Japanese animation studio popular for films like ‘The Wind Rises’, ‘Ocean Waves’, ‘Ponyo’ and more.
It’s a disruption where people started posting their pictures on social media making the trend gain rapid traction.
How did Ghibli come into popularity?
This trend caught fire when Grant Slatton, a software engineer from Seattle shared his family trip photo in Ghibli style going viral.
This has sparked controversy claiming using AI generated without consent poses threats to copyright infringement. Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli opposes usage of AI-generated images and asserts human creativity in artworks.
Why the hype around Ghibli?
Honestly, Studio Ghibli movies are to die for only for their music. People who have watched anime movies may not like Studio Ghibli movies that much.
Although Studio Ghibli has produced some popular movies like Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away, it still hasn’t won hearts as such.
It keeps building to the point where you may think there is some exciting climax but is always somewhere on same disappointing note.
However, if you love shallow, mellow and quiet endings - Ghibli films (or art) meet the grandeur.
Why is Ghibli's art gaining so much popularity?
People who have seen Ghibli movies vouch for the sheer simplicity of it.
It has movies with simpler plots, and a beautiful world rather than complicated twists and turns. They are full of life and warmth which makes you keep craving for more.
Here are some more reasons that make Ghibli's art all the more appealing.
- Nostalgia: It brings back an era of past making the art striking an inner chord.
- Aesthetic: The images look hand-drawn with soft and dreamy backgrounds making them look appealing.
- Trending on social media platforms: People have created Ghibli-styled images that are gaining traction on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.
- Ease in creation: By using AI tools it becomes easy to create an art from the images.
- Creates fantasy: People feel like superheroes by creating a synonymous image of their pictures.
- Fans love it: Since there is a huge fan following of Ghibli, anything related to it gains wide popularity.
How Does ChatGPT-4o Fit into the Trend?
While ChatGPT-4o itself doesn’t generate images, it helps users:
- Write creative prompts for AI image tools like Leonardo.AI & Stable Diffusion.
- Describe scenes in a Ghibli style to guide AI-generated results.
- Edit and refine prompts for better accuracy.
From sketch to screen: The creative process behind Ghibli
Ghibli excels at animating the small, everyday moments that make characters feel real. Instead of just focusing on grand, dramatic actions, Ghibli animators bring attention to:
- A character brushing their hair behind their ear
- A gust of wind making clothes ripple and hair sway
- A child struggling to put on their shoes
These seemingly mundane details make Ghibli films feel authentic and immersive, reinforcing their storytelling without the need for excessive dialogue.
Top 7 Ghibli image creators
Grok AI Assistant
Grok AI Image Generator is an AI image generation AI program that creates images based on text input. Just fill in the details and it will create Ghibli images within seconds.
It is inspired by deep learning where it trains the model based on millions of images uploaded. The more clarity you provide in your prompt the better the image.
Pros
- It is versatile able to create pictures from photorealistic to abstract.
- Able to create images with new and artistic approaches quickly.
Cons
- It lacks labeling that most platforms have for AI-generated images.
- It poses copyright infringement that may lead to a lawsuit. Scary right?
Fotor Studio Ghibli Filter
It creates quick Studio Ghibli images using cutting-edge AI technology. Fotor lets you reimagine yourself in Hayao Miyazaki’s magical world.
Fotor AI image generator isn’t restricted to portraits, it can be used for any type of images. Turn your dog into an adorable portrait or your city buildings into a cityscape.
Also, upload your favorite memes and transform them into hand-drawn Ghibli artwork.
Pros
- Preferred for beginners and users just for casual images.
- Quickly creates images.
- Edit images and enhance them.
- The image quality is clear and high-definition.
Cons
- Output depends on image type.
- The image generated could be more realistic.
Deep Dream Generator
It enables users to create dream-like images for social media resulting in visually appealing content. However, it doesn’t rely solely on prompts.
It blends content images with artistic styles to produce a hand-painted feel, ideal for dreamlike visuals.
Pros
- Produces dreamy painterly Ghibli-like visuals.
- Apt for fantasy landscapes and dreamy compositions.
- Mention your styles for personalized results.
Cons
- There isn’t text-to-image generation controlled by prompt.
- Fine details aren’t up to their mark and are distorted.
- Not for portraits or character-centric scenes.
Prisma
It focuses on using artistic filters to existing images rather than generating images or details from scratch. As one of the best AI Studio Ghibli style image generators, it transforms photos into dreamy visuals.
Prisma AI is an easy and fast way to give your photos a Studio Ghibli flair without needing to learn prompts or complex tools.
Pros
- It offers over 500 artistic filters.
- The app is designed keeping simplicity in mind making it accessible to users of all levels.
- It processes images quickly allowing users to see transformed images within seconds.
Cons
- The higher-level features are available only to premium users.
- It may lower the resolution original image deteriorating the quality.
- It relies on cloud processing for filters making internet connection imperative.
BeFunky
It is an online editor offering filters for Artsy section for painting, cartooniser and watercolor effects.
It offers a great balance between control and simplicity. Its one-click filters make it user-friendly, and free version has enough features to create soft, dreamy visuals.
Pros
- Its UI is user-friendly and straightforward.
- Customize outputs like colors, saturation and other artistic efforts.
- Images are generated very quickly.
Cons
- AI-generated images can sometimes flatten details like depth that comes with traditional hand-drawn animation.
- Quality of input image largely impacts the output.
Getimg.ai
The Getimg.ai Ghibli AI Generator uses the "Ghibli Diffusion." This model transforms photos or text prompts into Studio Ghibli-style images, allowing users to create Ghibli-inspired landscapes in seconds.
Transform text prompts into Studio Ghibli-inspired images or apply the Ghibli style to your photos.
Here are some prompts and their images using Ghibli
- A monsoon-drenched village in Kerala, with banana trees swaying, fireflies glowing and a child floating lotus lanterns in a flooded field using Ghibli art.
- A girl riding a glowing tiger through the Thar desert under a starry sky, passing ancient ruins and whispering spirits using Studio Ghibli.
- A cozy street in Old Delhi during Diwali, with colorful lights, food stalls steaming with chaat, and invisible spirit animals hiding among the crowd via whimsical Ghibli touch.
- A quiet Himalayan monastery where a curious monk child discovers a flying yak that only appears during snowfall via serene and surreal Ghibli tone.
- A small train winding through tea plantations in Darjeeling, as ghostly dancers appear in the mist and a curious child watches from the window in Ghibli atmosphere.
- A cluttered Mumbai balcony garden where plants grow overnight into a jungle full of talking birds and secret doorways into magical realism portraying Ghibli vibes.
- An abandoned Rajasthani haveli haunted not by ghosts, but by forgotten gods waiting for someone to tell their stories again in richly detailed Ghibli style.
Is Ghibli art here to stay or leave?
This is rather a controversial question.
Even founder of Studio Jhibli claims that usage of AI for image generation is to kill human creativity. The topic is left for its users to discuss.
If you want to explore more of Ghibli, delve into some of its movies:
- Spirited Away (2001)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
- Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)