Should Anime Fans Eschew AI-Generated Content? Posted Jan 15, 2026

Looking back at 2025, one of the most interesting new words we came across was “Ghiblified.” The term might not make it into the official dictionaries anytime soon, but it was bandied about a lot during the year. If you aren’t sure what Ghiblified means, it refers to the practice of using AI to transform yourself into a Studio-Ghibli-style anime character. The viral trend started in the spring when the internet was flooded with anime images inspired by the artwork of the iconic Japanese studio.

While it was fun to play around with the AI image generators at the time, not everyone was happy, including Studio Ghibli. In November 2025, the Japanese studio, along with several others, announced legal action against AI companies, asking them to cease and desist from training on their copyrighted work. It’s been a theme over the last couple of years, with everyone from individual artists to huge corporations claiming that AI training on their work without their permission poses a serious threat to their future.

A wide range of anime sources for AI to learn from

Of course, anime is not Studio Ghibli alone. There are so many ways AI can train on anime content that is not limited to feeding it endless loops of Spirited Away. From individual anime artists’ blogs to anime slots like Midnight Princess Origins at Golden Nugget online casino, there are numerous unique sources of anime content online. AI web crawlers can – and have – trawled the internet to learn about what makes appealing anime. It might have huge repercussions, especially for independent artists without the muscle to legally challenge AI companies.

The question, though, is what, if anything, anime fans should do about it? Should we stop interacting with AI-generated anime content en masse? Or is this just another step in the progress of technology? Many believe that AI is simply inevitable, and that you should probably take a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach. For example, Disney finally gave up in its own fight to protect its intellectual property, signing a deal with OpenAI in late 2025 to allow the latter access to Disney content. Many anime brands will likely do the same.

AI can help anime artists without hindering human creativity

You can certainly make an argument that AI is not the all-consuming beast that many fear it is. A lot of artists, including anime artists, view it as a tool, something that can help with the “grunt” work of animation without compromising human creativity. That’s a sound argument, but not everyone agrees that will be the endpoint for the technology. So-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be the tipping point, where the power of AI finally matches that of human creativity. Not everyone believes we will get there, but if we do, it won’t be a question of using AI simply to do some of the heavy lifting in animation cells.

All of this really depends on what your personal perspective is. Last year, an old clip (from 2016) of the Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki went viral, showing the legendary animator talking about how he loathes AI, calling it an insult to life itself. However, it should be noted that this was almost ten years ago, and the version of AI Miyazaki that he was talking about is very different from the tools we have today.

But whatever way we look at it, AI will pose an issue for human artists. And that’s really what you have to factor into your decision. If you are comfortable with a future of AI-generated anime movies, then by all means, you should embrace this groundbreaking technology. Yet if you believe that anime should be human-led art, your best course of action might be a silent protest by not engaging with or purchasing anything created by the technology.