PLA AI video attacks Sanae Takaichi, sparks backlash in Japan over alleged Studio Ghibli copying

A Chinese military account’s latest AI-generated political video was meant to accuse Japan of abandoning pacifism and reviving militarism. Instead, it triggered an angry reaction online in Japan, where viewers said the film had plainly copied Studio Ghibli’s celebrated animation style.

The more than two-minute video, titled “The Mask of Peace,” appeared on September 2 on the official overseas X account “China Military Bugle.” Its soundtrack included a song linked to Chinese Foreign Ministry claims that Japan was moving toward “new militarism.”

The animation depicts a Japanese government burning the Constitution and diverting money from public services to expand its military. It also features a woman resembling Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. She works with a figure dressed in the American flag and a farmer wearing a hat decorated with bananas, apparently seeking to ignite conflict among neighboring countries.

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break completely with militarism

The closing scene shows a little girl resembling Setsuko, the central character in Japan’s classic wartime animated film “Grave of the Fireflies,” crying amid ruins. The imagery suggests that abandoning peace would bring back the suffering represented by the character.

The Chinese military said it released the video to urge Japan’s government to “break completely with militarism” and regain the trust of China and other countries. Japanese users instead attacked what they called “a complete copy of Ghibli.” Critics described the video as contradictory because it condemned Japan while borrowing from Japanese animation. Others pointed to China’s military expansion and actions in the South China Sea and East China Sea, while some invoked the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and accused the Chinese military of failing to reflect on its own past violence.

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a complete copy of Ghibli