Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro is now free: Can it ‘Ghiblify’ your pictures like ChatGPT?

Google rolled out its latest Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) language model to non-paying users on Sunday, amid a raging trend for Studio Ghibli-style images driven by ChatGPT’s native image creation capabilities. The Sundar Pichai-led company had previously said that Gemini 2.5 Pro would only be available to its Gemini Advanced subscribers, but the company reversed its decision amid growing competition in the AI space.

Google’s latest basic model is a reasoning model, just like OpenAI o3 Mini and DeepSeek R1, with advances in math, science, reasoning and coding skills across various benchmarks, including the coveted Humanity’s Last Exam and UC Berkeley researchers linked LMArena.

Gemini 2.5 Pro is primarily seen as Google’s answer to ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, which have been seen as the leaders in coding-related tasks. However, amid a “biblical demand” for Studio Ghibli-style images, the big question is whether Google’s new language model can generate images inspired by the Japanese animation company.

Can Gemini 2.5 Pro generate Ghibli-style AI images?

Google’s official release blog for Gemini 2.5 Pro does not mention whether the latest model has native image generation capabilities or which external model it relies on for image generation. It does say that Gemini 2.5 Pro can “comprehend vast datasets and handle complex problems from different information sources, including text, audio, images, video and even entire code repositories.”

Having used the Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) model, it is clear that the chatbot relies on Google’s Imagen 3 model for image generation, which makes it intrinsically different from the superior native image generation capabilities of GPT-4o running ChatGPT.

Turning real-life images into Studio Ghibli-inspired ones isn’t easy either. Simply typing “Ghiblify this” results in an error message from Gemini 2.5 Pro saying “I’m sorry, I cannot fulfill this request. The tool needed to apply the “Ghibli” style to your image is currently unavailable.”.

I then used ChatGPT to generate a more detailed prompt that Gemini could not refuse, which resulted in the chatbot generating a Japanese anime style image that bore absolutely no resemblance to the original image I uploaded.

I made several other attempts to get Gemini to generate ‘Ghiblified’ images, using Grok and ChatGPT for prompts, but Gemini 2.5 Pro did not provide the desired image, with results ranging from a straightforward error message of some kind to the chatbot being left at the loading stage.

What is Studio Ghibli?

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio founded in 1985 by Miyazaki Hayao, Takahata Isao and Suzuki Toshio. The company is known for its high-quality filmmaking with hand-drawn animation and rich storytelling.

Some of the company’s most notable animated films include Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke.

Why is Studio Ghibli trending?

The Japanese studio gained renewed attention on social media after social media users used ChatGPT’s new image generation tool to transform their images in various art styles like Lego, The Simpsons, Southpark and Pixar. Among them, however, Studio Ghibli’s signature Japanese anime aesthetic resonated the most with users.