For more than a year, Studio Ghibli said nothing while the internet filled with AI images wearing its house style. On Sunday, September 8, 2026, producer and co-founder Toshio Suzuki finally answered — in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun — and his answer was shorter than anyone expected.
Quick answer
Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli's co-founder and producer, addressed the "Ghibli-style" AI image trend publicly for the first time in an Asahi Shimbun interview published September 8, 2026. He said the studio fielded many press inquiries but he expected people would get bored of the images — "as expected, they did." Asked directly whether AI can replicate Ghibli's work, he answered "No." He also said Hayao Miyazaki wants to make another feature but questioned whether his body will allow it — and that Miyazaki does not know generative AI exists.
What Suzuki actually said
Two claims, and they are worth separating.
The first is about attention. Suzuki's read on the flood of Ghibli-pastiche images was that it would exhaust itself, and he says it did. That is a producer's answer, not a lawyer's — he treated the trend as a fad to be waited out rather than a fight to be picked.
The second is about craft, and it is where he was unambiguous. Asked whether AI could replicate Ghibli, he said no. His example: when a character presses on Totoro's stomach, Miyazaki draws the depression the hand makes. That specific, unprompted attention to how a body meets a surface is the thing Suzuki argues CGI and AI cannot reproduce. Anyone who knows animation, he said, can spot the generated images.
The Miyazaki part is the bigger story
Buried in the same interview: Miyazaki wants to make another film, but Suzuki questioned whether he — and his body — still can. Miyazaki turned 85 this year and The Boy and the Heron was already framed as a farewell that then stopped being one.
Suzuki added that Miyazaki keeps developing unusual conceptual ideas, pointing to the Panorama Box exhibition at Ghibli Park as an example of where that energy goes now. And a detail that explains a great deal: Miyazaki does not know generative AI exists, having cut himself off from news entirely while making The Boy and the Heron in 2023.
Why a ranking site cares
Because the argument Suzuki is making is the argument our scoring is built on. A style can be copied; a body of work that survives thirty years of rewatching cannot be synthesized. That is what our second axis measures.
Per SenpaiRanks, Spirited Away holds 8.74 — top of the Ghibli board and among the highest scores in our entire catalog. Princess Mononoke sits at 8.36, Howl's Moving Castle at 8.25, and My Neighbor Totoro at 8.09. Those numbers are Consensus and Quality in near-perfect agreement across every one of them, which almost nothing else in the catalog manages. MyAnimeList compresses that into one figure; we keep them apart so you can see that Ghibli is not just popular, it durably holds.
Where to watch Ghibli films
Ghibli's catalog sits on Max in the United States and on Netflix across most of the rest of the world, with Japan the long-standing exception where the films stay off streaming entirely. That split is exactly the kind of thing a single streamer's catalog page will not tell you. The full ranked shelf is in our best Studio Ghibli movies board, and Ghibli's features also place inside the best anime movies of 2026 and the all-time ranking.
The read
Suzuki did not announce a policy, a lawsuit, or a film. He made a craft argument and let it stand. Whether you find that sufficient probably tracks how you feel about the images themselves — but the Totoro-stomach detail is a better defense of hand animation than most of what has been written about AI this year.
Rate the Ghibli films on their pages and you move those Consensus and Quality numbers directly. That is the part a scraped average cannot do, and the reasoning is laid out in our case for a dual-axis MyAnimeList alternative.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What did Toshio Suzuki say about Ghibli-style AI images?
A: In an Asahi Shimbun interview published September 8, 2026, he said he expected people would get bored of the images and that they did, and that AI cannot replicate Ghibli's work.
Q: Can AI replicate Studio Ghibli's animation?
A: Suzuki's answer was a flat no. He cited Miyazaki drawing the depression a hand makes when pressing Totoro's stomach as the kind of detail CGI and AI cannot reproduce.
Q: Is Hayao Miyazaki making another movie?
A: Suzuki said Miyazaki wants to, but questioned whether his body will allow it. No new feature has been announced.
Q: Does Hayao Miyazaki know about generative AI?
A: According to Suzuki, no — Miyazaki isolated himself from news while producing The Boy and the Heron in 2023 and is unaware it exists.
Q: Where can I watch Studio Ghibli movies?
A: Max carries the catalog in the United States and Netflix carries it in most other regions. Japan is the exception, where the films are not on streaming.