GKIDS indirectly responds to OpenAI Ghibli trend as legal action is taken by others

Over the past week-plus, netizens have seen the OpenAI Ghibli trend spread to every corner of the internet, prompting several varied responses including the latest from GKIDS. Chance Huskey, the vice president of distribution for the company, seemingly issued an indirect response to the trend while discussing the success of the Princess Mononoke 4K restoration.

GKIDS notably works closely with Studio Ghibli in licensing its films for international release, making their indirect response on the OpenAI Ghibli trend nonetheless noteworthy. However, this response also notably comes amid other troubles for Sam Altman’s artificial intelligence company, which involve a coming copyright lawsuit from The New York Times and others.

GKIDS executive fires back at OpenAI Ghibli trend as several newspapers proceed with copyright lawsuit

GKIDS vice president of distribution Chance Huskey made his comments on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 while discussing the Princess Mononoke 4K restoration film’s success. This was also notably just as the OpenAI Ghibli trend began picking up steam across the internet in general, and especially social media. Huskey’s comments are as follows:

“In a time when technology tries to replicate humanity, we are thrilled that audiences value a theatrical experience that respects and celebrates Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's masterpiece in all its cinematic hand-drawn glory.”

While Huskey certainly doesn’t mention the OpenAI Ghibli trend by name here, his emphasis on technology’s replication of humanity and the film’s hand-drawn glory make his meaning plain. This also falls in line with the major controversy surrounding the trend, which is whether or not AI art can truly and wholly replace human art by replicating all its aspects. Many argue that AI artwork’s inherent lack of humanity immediately discredits it relative to human-made artwork(s).

However, GKIDS’ indirect response to the OpenAI Ghibli trend is far from the only concern for the artificial intelligence company. The day after Huskey’s comments, a United States district judge ruled that The New York Times and other newspaper groups can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The suit seeks to restrict the two companies from using the represented newspapers’ comments to train chatbots such as its own ChatGPT.

While permission was granted, some of the plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed, which OpenAI commented on after the ruling. Per the company’s statement it welcomed the dismissal of these claims and “[looks] forwarding to making it clear that [it builds its] AI models using publicly available data, in a manner grounded in fair use, and supportive of innovation.” As of this article’s writing, this is the latest news in the ongoing lawsuit.

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio which primarily produces movies, and is known for some of the medium’s biggest and most successful films. Co-founder Hayao Miyazaki is often attached to said films as a director, such as in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, the aforementioned Princess Mononoke, and many more.