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OpenAI’s latest image generator has sparked a social media trend where users upload images and ask ChatGPT to transform them into a specific anime style pioneered by Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli.
Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that the viral use of ChatGPT for Studio Ghibli-style images has become so popular that it is overwhelming the company’s AI servers.
The trend started on Tuesday, when OpenAI released its 4o image creator, its “most advanced image generator yet,” building it into ChatGPT for paying and free plans.
Users quickly discovered that ChatGPT’s new image generator could replicate the Studio Ghibli anime style, characterized by muted colors and vivid details, seen in popular films like “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron.”
ChatGPT users flooded social media with these images earlier this week, transforming family portraits, replicating memes, and generating video clips of The Office.
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
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
Presenting The Office x Studio Ghibli pic.twitter.com/nHYrGc2uDs
— Justine Moore (@venturetwins) March 27, 2025
However, Altman stated in a post on X on Thursday that while it was “super fun seeing people love” ChatGPT images, the massive amount of image generation was overloading OpenAI’s servers.
“Our GPUs are melting,” Altman wrote. GPUs, or graphics processing units, are specialized processors that power AI tasks.
Altman wrote in the post that OpenAI would temporarily limit the number of images users could generate, with free users allowed a maximum of three images. He also changed his profile picture on X to a Studio Ghibli-style image of himself.
it’s super fun seeing people love images in chatgpt.
but our GPUs are melting.
we are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. hopefully won’t be long!
chatgpt free tier will get 3 generations per day soon.
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 27, 2025
But it might not all be AI fun.
The co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, is famously very anti-AI. After seeing an AI-generated animation in 2016, Miyazaki said he would “never wish” to integrate AI into his work.
“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” he said, at the time.
According to the 2020 documentary “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki,” Miyazaki and his team created 60,000 to 70,000 frames for a movie, each hand-drawn and painted with watercolor. A four-second clip in the 2013 movie “The Wind Rises” required 15 months of effort from one animator.
Some social media users objected to ChatGPT generating images in the style of Studio Ghibli, writing on X that AI would never be able to replicate the emotion and depth present in human-made art from the studio. Others said that OpenAI stole the studio’s artwork and is now profiting without compensating or seeking permission from the studio.
The trend “is an insult” to Miyazaki, one user wrote in a post on X.
Hundreds of creatives recently voiced concerns about OpenAI and other AI companies training their systems on copyrighted pieces. Earlier this month, more than 400 Hollywood actors and filmmakers filed comments with the Trump administration‘s Office of Science and Technology Policy, pushing back against OpenAI and Google lobbying to train their AI on copyrighted work. Last year, musicians like Jon Bon Jovi and Billie Eilish signed an open letter speaking out against the use of AI in the music industry.
OpenAI reportedly can’t decide if Studio Ghibli-style images violate copyright.
According to Business Insider, as of Thursday, the free version of ChatGPT blocks users from generating Ghibli-style images because Ghibli “is a copyrighted animation studio, and its artistic style is protected.” However, the paid version of ChatGPT, with plans ranging from $20 to $200 per month, churns out these images with no problem.
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