A Reddit user has garnered some attention after posting some photos of Studio Ghibli murals on a wall being tagged with graffiti. Commenters are discussing why the vandalism happened.

The Vandalized Studio Ghibli Paintings

The alleged artist of the mural, Somos Uno Colectivo, has shared via Instagram an announcement about the Studio Ghibli mural being destroyed by vandalists. A Reddit user has tried to translate the announcement, which consisted of a statement from the artist that the mural was a project done out of joy and funded with donations from the artist’s community.

One of the commenters in the  Subreddit, StoneTown, noted that “spray paint will ruin sh*t so easily it’s not even funny.” Another Reddit user helpfully chimed in with a suggestion that “if you coat the work in an isolation layer of some kind of clear resin you can just wash off whatever gets painted on top”.

Nevertheless, the damage is already done and many Redditors are up in arms about the horrible act of vandalism. As a user said, “it is disrespectful to do a throw up over a piece and this is exactly that.” Another user expressed a similar view by saying “artists try to be compassionate when it comes to respecting each other’s work. These people are jerks.”

More Redditors Reaction

A Redditor claimed that “you could tag background or doing your piece aside, complementing whatever it was on the foreground, but foreground should never get touched, especially when the art is considered very good. People could still ask permission to paint over works on par with each other or wait for the council to wash or paint over everything away after some years” while another user added that the vandalists are what are commonly known as Toys, “absolute beginners with a lack of talent and cultural understanding” who “lack the skills to create something of value and lack the historical understanding to know when to spray and when to leave something be.”

Published by HOLR Magazine