Ponyo, or the literal title translation Ponyo on the Cliff, is a Hayao Miyazaki movie. You remember when I talked about him, right? Of course you do. Easily my favorite director. Well I have the great pleasure of watching almost all of his movies which didn't include Ponyo until just recently. I just got lazy I guess, or maybe the prospect of reading subtitles sounded too intimidating at the moment. Regardless, I finally watched it.
Ponyo is simply a retelling of The Little Mermaid. Sosuke, a 5-year old boy, finds a goldfish on the shore outside of his house and names it Ponyo. Turns out the goldfish is more then it appears. She is in actuality a Princess, the daughter of a powerful wizard and a sea goddess. Ponyo decides she likes Sosuke and wants to stay with him and become human - to the great displeasure of her father.
The movie was.. cute. I guess. As much as it pains me to admit, I didn't like it too much. The art was so un-Miyazaki like that it threw me for a loop and the story itself was nothing more then cute. I didn't get the heartfelt connection to the characters like I usually get. Past Miyazaki movies all had strong female characters and the movie portrayed a powerful message throughout the movie. Of course the movie had a message - you can't help who you fall in love with and once you find that someone, don't just give it up; however the message felt a little half assed. Sure the message was there, but it felt like it was there more because of convenience then actually wanting the message to be there.
I wished I liked it more, I really do. If it was on TV I'd watch it, but it's not something I'd go looking for.
Note: I feel the need to mention that I didn't prefer the sub over the dub, or vise versa. I had heard that the dub was terrible and only to watch it subbed. Well I watched both and found that I didn't care one way over the other - a heads up for anyone who wants to watch it and isn't sure which one to watch.
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