Ponyo

Alternate Titles: Ponyo: On a Cliff by the Sea, Gake no Ue no Ponyo (崖の上のポニョ)

Original Japanese Release Date: 2008

Episode Length/Run-time: 101 minutes

Summary:

Brunhilda is the eldest daughter of Fujimoto, the caretaker of the seas, and is in the form of a goldfish.  One day she leaves home and is discovered in the tidal pools near his house by Sousuke.  Sousuke names her Ponyo and they quickly fall in love and Ponyo decides she wants to live with him in the human world.  However, this decision does not come without a price.  As the world is thrown into magical chaos Ponyo and Sousuke must set it right.

Review:

Ponyo is a fantastic movie.  From the mind of Hayao Miyazaki it is his own retelling of the story of the Little Mermaid.

The animation is obviously in Miyazaki’s standard style, but the rendering is fantastic.  Despite being done a lot by computers it looks like it is nothing but hand-drawn.  It has a watercolor and pastel-esque style which looks fantastic for the series.

The story is simplistic, and one of the pure love that can be shared only among the innocence of children.  Miyazaki’s take on the Little Mermaid is interesting, and can be seen as a loose interpretation but all the important points are there making the story recognizable.  In fact, one could argue that it’s closer in a number of ways than the Disney classic.

The English voice cast is overall fantastic, since it was Disney that handled the dubbing and was released in feature film theaters.  The only voice that bugged me was Ponyo’s (bad when it’s the main character) which was voiced by the younger sister of Miley Cyrus.  Everyone else is a star cast, such as Iam Nealson, and does a fantastic job.

It’s a 4.5/5 on a Miyazaki scale, just because it’s always better when Miyazaki really makes his own stories rather than copying them or spinning off other existing stories.  But compared to any other anime it’s like a 6/5.

[starrater]