REVIEW: DVD Release: Ponyo

Film: Ponyo
Release date: 7th June 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 97 mins
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Jôji Tokoro
Genre: Animation
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Japan

Hayao Miyazaki’s eighth film for Studio Ghibli, and his tenth overall, Ponyo is perhaps his most successful export to the West. Eschewing the now almost ubiquitous CGI, Miyazaki instead concentrates on the (almost lost) art of hand drawn animation and, at 76, shows no sign of slowing down.

Ponyo, a Princess goldfish born from a union of sea wizard Fujimoto and Earth queen Gran Mamare, has one dream – to be human. Escaping to the surface atop a jellyfish, she becomes trapped in a bottle and is rescued by Sōsuke, a 5-year-old boy who lives on the coast with his seafaring father and harassed mother.

Instantly smitten with each other, Ponyo is quickly returned to her father by powerful wave spirits he has summoned. Undeterred, she uses her father’s magic to transform fully into a human and escape once more, unwittingly releasing these powers into the ocean. This magic has a dramatic effect, summoning monstrous prehistoric creatures to swim the waters once more, the moon to move closer to the earth and tsunamis with their resulting floods to swamp the area…


For those of you not familiar with Japanese animation in general or the revered Hayao Miyazaki in particular, Ponyo is the perfect jumping off point. For children brought up on a diet of CG nonsense at the multiplex on a Saturday morning, it is much more. A welcome return to ninety minutes or so of magic, wonder and the experience of being totally immersed - it provides for kids what a little studio called Disney used to churn out on a regular basis.

That’s not altogether fair. Disney turned a corner some time ago, emboldened somewhat by the success of Pixar, which it purchased in 2006. And perhaps the biggest recommendation for Miyazaki virgins is that John Lasseter, long time Pixar head honcho and now Chief Creative Officer for both them and Disney animation studios as a whole, is the man who personally oversees Studio Ghibli’s output for a Western audience, attracting top drawer voice talent for the English dubs.

Ponyo is, point of fact, the most accessible of Ghibli’s films, but it still appears a strange tale on paper. A magical fish who turns into a girl; mysterious, humungous sea creatures reappearing in the oceans; sea wizards and Earth queens commanding tidal magic and potions, waves, floods...oh, and an old peoples’ home does not sound like a promising mix. But the scope and wonder of the animation is more than matched by the imagination. Supporting characters are given more depth and snappy dialogue than in many a mainstream, adult release (a crotchety resident of the old peoples’ home springs to mind), there’s a real sense of danger with the boiling ocean racing toward and attacking the island (more than a little prescient, unfortunately, given recent events in Japan) and Sōsuke has his toy boat turned life size by the ever wondrous Ponyo. In fact, should you mention the film to any boy child, mention that fact and miss out the phrase “princess goldfish” and you’ll have ‘em hooked. But it’s not only the young who can become lost in this world. The depth of the animation is simply breathtaking, and far more impressive than simply wondering at how long it must have taken. Everything is either hand drawn (most of the backgrounds) or painted with a real cinematic depth. The coastal town depicted is in fact real and little ones may demand a weekend trip to Tomonoura should you let this slip.

The real reason Ponyo works so well is that it follows classic, storytelling structure that’s far older than celluloid. The journey of Sōsuke, through danger, abandonment and adventure, results in redemption after a tricky moral dilemma is dealt with. True love wins in the end. It’s all terribly clichéd, but plays so well precisely because of this. Miyazaki has said that he drew inspiration from The Little Mermaid, citing the original Hans Christian Anderson tale in particular and the eponymous Disney cartoon as a staring motivation to begin work on Ponyo. Some have described this and his other features as Disney on acid and you can see where they’re coming from, even if comments like this completely miss the point. One only has to look at Spirited Away, an earlier feature that has, amongst other things, the parents of our child hero transform into gluttonous pigs at the beginning. Miyazaki might be a little leftfield, but his tales are as old as, well, the sea.


Beautiful, charming and ever-so-quirky, this should be a must have on the shelves of any self-respecting, movie watching family. And if you don’t have kids, either borrow one or two to share the magic with you, or simply borrow their copy and watch it anyway. JMB