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An animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human.
Noah Lindsey Cyrus: Pony
Ponyo is a 2008 Japanese animated film by Studio Ghibli, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is Miyazaki's eighth film for Ghibli, and his tenth overall. The plot revolves around a goldfish named Ponyo who befriends a five-year-old human boy, Sōsuke, and wants to become a human girl.
Studio Ghibli has always retained a special place in my heart for it's imaginative animation and luscious drawings yet the magic, like most other studios today, begins to lose some of it's original glow, this being the 8th film to be released. Spirited Away achieved the pinnacle asphyxiation with audiences levitating inspiration and creativity hand in hand. Totoro was fun, while Grave of the Fireflies had an emotional resonance and truthful acculturation regarding suffering in life.
So what new narrative and wayward path does Ponyo follow? The answer is indeed nothing new. This is simply a regurgitation of previous works with the same moral happiness fibre that accelerates them all. 7 of the titles that followed, 5 of which, exceed in excelling philosophical proportions, as well as fun and imaginative meanderings.
Don't get me wrong Ponyo is a lovely film. It's detailed and has a slow pacing which captures detail and the gorgeously drawn animation; The Sea creatures and frame rate are vibrant and perfect.
The characters all have the qualities that others had previously, but I guess who cares when Ponyo is this cute right? The untrained eye and ear will find nothing to fault with this latest offering, long term fans will perhaps know otherwise.
Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey and Liam Neeson to name an exceptional few, voice the characters in the Western voice-over version. While Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Tomoko Yamaguchi, George Tokoro and Kazushige Nagashima of Japanese renown voice the Original voice-overs.
Anime Diet cited the quality of the translation, noting, "The story and the core of the film was communicated more than adequately through the professional dub and it did not get in the way of the sheer delight and joy that Miyazaki wanted to convey." Citing "slight pacing problems," it gave Ponyo a rating of 88%. The pronunciation of Japanese names in the English cinema version varied between characters, however.
The film was written, directed, and animated by the main man; Hayao Miyazaki, whom said his inspiration was the Hans Christian Andersen story, "The Little Mermaid".
Miyazaki was intimately involved with the hand-drawn animation that Ponyo has. He preferred to draw the sea and waves himself, and enjoyed experimenting with how to express this important part of the film. This level of detailed drawing resulted in 170,000 separate images—a record for a Miyazaki film.
Ponyo's name is an onomatopoeia, based on Miyazaki's idea of what a "soft, squishy softness" sounds like when touched.
The seaside village where the story takes place is inspired by Tomonoura, a real town in Setonaikai National Park in Japan, where Miyazaki stayed in 2005. Some of the setting and story was affected by Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre. The music also makes reference to Wagner's opera. The character of Sōsuke is interestingly based on Miyazaki's son Gorō Miyazaki when he was five. Sōsuke's name is also derived from the hero in the famous novel The Gate.
Overall, it is a very simplistic story with the usual quality, enjoyable and with rich textures. Ponyo will please any simple minded individual who enjoys seeing the World from a Child's vantage point. However, Miyazaki fails to imitate his glory achieved by numerous past projects, which is predictable and yet disappointing. Ponyo in fact feels like a watered downed version reminiscent to Totoro, which was innocent and realistic. Yet with Ponyo the story doesn't transition as smoothly as it should. The beginning seems disjointed, while the later segments begin to flag and become pretentious conclusions.
The lovely sea creatures and action segments of the storm make me forgive and forget most qualms. Ponyo is imaginative 2D art which eclipses and adds a needed change from the PIXAR monopoly constantly hypnotising little boys and girls.
8/10
