If you have used X (formerly Twitter) or any other social media app, you must have noticed that everyone is posting some cool-looking anime-style edited photos. This is made possible by OpenAI’s new image generation model based on GPT-4o, which is now available in ChatGPT. These images are called “Ghibli Style Anime”. But what are these ghibli edits that the entire internet is obsessed about? Let’s have a look.
What are Ghibli Style Anime Pictures?
The term Ghibli Style comes from Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio with a rich history 40 years in creating top-quality anime movies. If you look carefully, ghibli-style images have a distinctive style which appears natural and funky at the same time. This art style was made popular by Hayao Miyazaki, a renowned Japanese animator, who founded Studio Ghibli.
All the ghibli-style images that you see online are coming from ChatGPT, as OpenAI has introduced a new powerful image generation model based on GPT-4o. While the tool is capable of many advanced and creative tasks, such as graphic design, the ghibli-style trend took off as a typical social media trend.
Somewhere on the internet, a user used ChatGPT to edit an image in ghibli-style and posted it. It quickly became viral and everyone started to post these unique anime-looking edited pictures. OpenAI did not intentionally do this, and this is just a typical internet trend.
tremendous alpha right now in sending your wife photos of yall converted to studio ghibli anime pic.twitter.com/FROszdFSfN
— Grant Slatton (@GrantSlatton) March 25, 2025
How to Create Ghibli-Style Anime Images?
You will require a ChatGPT Plus subscription to create ghbili-style anime images. Although the new image generation model was expected to be rolled out to free users also, OpenAI is facing a huge load on its servers due to which the company has limited its access only to paid users.
You can get the ChatGPT Plus subscription for 1 month by paying $20 (approx Rs 1715). It’s not affordable by any means, but it is the best way to get anime-style edited images.
Once you get the paid tier, you can upload any image to ChatGPT and use the following prompt: “Convert this image into ghibli-style anime”. Depending on the load on the servers, the tool will respond to your request within a few seconds or a minute.
ChatGPT analyses your image and edits it to match the Japanese animation style of Hayao Miyazaki. This is why most of the images look similar, as if these are a part of some anime-based documentary.
Best Ghibli Style Images: Memes, Bollywood, and More
Once a topic gets trending, people take no time to express their creativity. From popular meme templates to some iconic Bollywood movie scenes, users started to convert everything into ghibli-style anime edits.
One user posted anime-style images from DDLJ, Hera Pheri, Rajpal Yadav in Bhool Bhulaiyya, Bahubali, Sholay, and many other legendary movies. You can easily guess which scenes these are as they need no description.
Okay here are some more. I am loving this pic.twitter.com/SaFW5Sgq0I
— Vivek Choudhary (@ivivekch) March 26, 2025
Another X user took the trend to a new level by editing some popular memes.
It's been 24 hours since OpenAI unexpectedly shook the AI image world with 4o image generation.
Here are the 14 most mindblowing examples so far (100% AI-generated):
1. Studio ghibli style memespic.twitter.com/E38mBnPnQh
— Barsee 🐶 (@heyBarsee) March 26, 2025
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman also joined the trend and changed his profile picture to ghibli-style. Even Elon Musk embraced it, but in a weird way.
changed my pfp but maybe someone will make me a better one
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 26, 2025
Theme of the day pic.twitter.com/2ioG0StAxL
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2025
Controversy of Ghibli Style Images
While the internet is enjoying these cool anime-like image edits, some creative artists have heavily criticized it. The ghibli-style art is a legacy of Hayao Miyazaki’s hardwork of 40+ years along with all other professionals who contributed to the growth of this style.
Imagine being Miyazaki, pouring decades of heart and soul into making this transcendent beautiful tender style of anime, and then seeing it get sloppified by linear algebra
— Nabeel S. Qureshi (@nabeelqu) March 26, 2025
Artists complain that its unfair by ChatGPT to use ghibli-style edits, as it skips the credit and hardwork that went into the development of this art-style. However, other users say that its a just a simple theme and ChatGPT is making it easy for users to edit the photos in a specific style.
ChatGPT also risks a potential copyright infringement as it mimics the ghibli-style by accepting prompts from users. For comparison, the tool refuses to generate media of copyrighted content from Disney, Marvel, etc. which is why you can’t use it to edit characters like Mickey Mouse, Iron Man, etc.
It will be interesting to see whether ChatGPT nerfs this feature to prevent another copyright-related lawsuit. But in the meanwhile, you can get a ChatGPT Plus subscription and edit anime-style images to join the trend.
