Ponyo

I would just like to take this moment to deride Netflix for providing an endless source of old movies I always meant to watch but then completely forgot about and putting them right at my fingertips. Moving on...

As with practically the entire planet, I'm a big fan of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Let's face it, he's probably the best maker and teller of fairy tales around today. So it should come as absolutely no surprise that Ponyo easily stands up with the rest of his amazing work, despite having almost none of the seriousness/drama of his more popular works. So why is it just as good? Because it's so damn CUTE, and sometimes it's good to have stories that are just plain happy.

Ponyo tells the story of a tiny fish with a humanish face and red hair escaping from her controlling formerly human father only to get caught in a glass bottle and washed up on shore. She is saved by a young boy named Sosuke, who breaks open the glass, cutting himself in the process. But Ponyo quickly licks the cut, and it heals. Sosuke decides to take Ponyo with him in a small bucket, and takes care of her as best he can. However, her father comes looking for her, and eventually sends his Muk-like wave creatures to take her from Sosuke and bring her back home. Both Sosuke and Ponyo are devastated, and Ponyo tells her father she loves Sosuke and wants to be human like him. So, she struggles real hard and starts turning into a human. But her father, with the help of some special magic elixirs, stops the process and makes her sleep. However, when she awakes she regrows her arms and legs and escapes, breaking into her father's very special elixir which releases the power of the sea, unleashing a tsunami made of giant water fish and flooding most of the town in her search to find Sosuke. Thankfully they are reunited soon enough, and are quite in love. However, Sosuke's mom left to check on the elderly women at the home she works at, and it's up to Ponyo and Sosuke to find her and make sure she's okay. Of course, it isn't simple, and it's soon revealed that there's much more at stake.

First things first, the animation is BEAUTIFUL as always, but I'm sure dealing with so many water effects was not easy and my hat is off to them for pulling off such amazing detail.

And I don't really know what else to say. The story and characters are unbearably cute, hell, even the theme song is adorable. Everything else is just style, which if you've seen Miyazaki before will be instantly familiar in its look, magical leanings, and high quality. The only thing I could fault it for is that it doesn't carry the emotional resonance of his other works and has a fairly simple plot without much conflict, but I think the film itself more just seems to resonate with its main protagonists who don't care that the moon is about to crash into the earth because love and fun is all that matters.

So in short, what Ponyo lacks in depth it makes up for in adorableness and amazing animation. It may not be perfect, but it'll certainly put a smile on your face.

Ponyo gets a 9/10.