President Donald Trump has received a Studio Ghibli-style makeover as the latest AI trend sweeps the internet.
Newsweek has reached out to Studio Ghibli via email for comment.
Why It Matters
Open AI launched what they described as their “most advanced image generator yet,” which has been built into GPT-4o. The model “has surprising visual fluency, capable of generating images that are useful, consistent, and context-aware.” Social media users have quickly discovered that the image generator is good at replicating the anime style of Studio Ghibli.
Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio, known for films including My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). The animation studio has a strong presence in the industry and has been running for 40 years.
What To Know
Social media users have been quick to jump on the trend and while many have used it to reimagine famous film scenes or pictures of themselves, others have used it to remake famous images of U.S. politicians, including President Donald Trump.
One social media user gave the Studio Ghibli treatment to an individual image of Trump while others have taken it a step further, transforming images of the President in the past year, including the iconic picture of him after he was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July. Another shows him handing out fries at McDonald’s during the campaign and one shows his recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
American Saga – studio Ghibli style pic.twitter.com/ax5AzVviPo
— Mikołaj Teperek (@MikolajVonskyT) March 26, 2025
Hayo Mizayaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli has previously spoken out against AI-generated animation. In a 2016 meeting, he was shown an AI animation demo, and he said: “I am utterly disgusted.”
I’m an anime character? Wow. I didn’t know that. You’re telling me now for the first time. pic.twitter.com/ZuKduKpGfS
— Robert Bork III (@BobbyBorkIII) March 26, 2025
Sam Altman, X, addressed the popularity of the trend on X. In a post that has been viewed 2.7 million times as of reporting, he wrote “>be me >grind for a decade trying to help make superintelligence to cure cancer or whatever >mostly no one cares for first 7.5 years, then for 2.5 years everyone hates you for everything >wake up one day to hundreds of messages: “look i made you into a twink ghibli style haha””
What People Are Saying
Sam Altman on X: “We are launching a new thing today—images in chatgpt! … it’s an incredible technology/product. i remember seeing some of the first images come out of this model and having a hard time they were really made by AI. we think people will love it, and we are excited to see the resulting creativity.”
Hayo Mizayaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli in a 2016 meeting where he was shown AI animation: “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is or whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”
What’s Next
It remains to be seen whether the President will object to these portraits, and ask for them to be taken down, like the painting of him in Colorado.
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