A few days ago, I finally watched Miyazaki’s latest animated film, Ponyo. I’d been stalking it in the university library forever (seems like it took eons to “process” the DVD).

According to the summary on IMDB:

The son of a sailor, 5-year old Sosuke lives a quiet life on an oceanside cliff with his mother Lisa. One fateful day, he finds a beautiful goldfish trapped in a bottle on the beach and upon rescuing her, names her Ponyo. But she is no ordinary goldfish. The daughter of a masterful wizard and a sea goddess, Ponyo uses her father’s magic to transform herself into a young girl and quickly falls in love with Sosuke, but the use of such powerful sorcery causes a dangerous imbalance in the world. As the moon steadily draws nearer to the earth and Ponyo’s father sends the ocean’s mighty waves to find his daughter, the two children embark on an adventure of a lifetime to save the world and fulfill Ponyo’s dreams of becoming human.

I really enjoyed this movie; the cuteness was almost unbearable. The animation style was incredible, as it was truly a layer of multiple techniques—flat color and line-work distinctive of anime moving on top of scenery that looks as though it has been rendered in colored pencil. Ponyo marks the return to all hand-drawn animation for Miyazaki, who said, “hand drawing on paper is the fundamental of animation.” I love that as the rest of the children’s film industry pushes towards CG and 3-D production, some people are preserving the traditional cartoon-esque style of my childhood. I also could appreciate that elements of the story reminded me of the “true” (e.g. not Disney-fied) Little Mermaid story.

The one critique I have is about plot structure. The movie is exciting, the pacing is great, but I felt the conclusion was not all that climatic. The characters seemed to be building a certain moment as crucial, pivotal, but I was surprised by how easily that conflict was resolved. Regardless, I enjoyed this film and would recommend it to any who need to experience a childlike wonder of the world. A warning: you will want to watch some nautical Discovery films after this.