Being someone who has paid a lot of attention to Ghibli, I wouldn’t say their style was well established 35-40 years ago… There is considerable evolution and refinement to their style from Naushika, to later works, both in the artistic style and the philosophical content it presents.

I think allowing it to be fair game would have destroyed something quite beautiful that I’ve watched evolve across 40 years and which I was hoping to see the natural conclusion of without him being bothered by the AI-fication of his work.