Let's Take A Look At Ponyo

Good evening you lovely lot, tonight I bring to you Ponyo or Gake no Ue no Ponyo.

Ponyo is from one of my most favourite and in my opinion the best studio that makes Anime, Studio Ghibli.

The story starts with a goldfish who manages to sneak away from her home and her father, the water wizard Fujimoto, and bobs along the ocean on the back of a jellyfish. After a bit the goldfish gets stuck in a glass jar and ends up drifting off to shore, still stuck in the glass jar.
Here, the goldfish meets Sousuke, a 5-year-old boy who lives with his mum, Lisa, in a lovely house by the sea. His father is a fisherman who works out at sea.
Sousuke finds the goldfish and frees it from the jar and putting it in a bucket of seawater to keep it safe. Sousuke has a small cut on his finger, which is healed by a quick lick from the goldfish. Sousuke decides to name his new goldfish buddy Ponyo.

Ponyo likes Ham!

Year of release: 2008
Studio: Studio Ghibli
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Heart warming
Film run time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Age rating: U - All ages
My rating:7/10

After Fujimoto finds out that his daughter, Brunhilde, is missing, he frantically goes searching for her. He eventually manages to capture her, but she refuses to go back, doesn't want to be known as Brunhilde and decides that she wants to live as a Human.

Having used Sousuke's blood, Ponyo starts to grow arms and legs and becomes a young girl, similar in age to Sousuke. Yup, a goldfish turns into a Human.
This seems to upset the balance of the world, causing the moon to start falling out of orbit, which in turn affects the waves and all sorts of natural disasters.
A nursing home full of oldies is also in the film, which made it feel like it was trying to show the life of an average family, that just so happens to find a magic goldfish.

Ok, so that's an overview without me overly ruining the story. Now, considering I love Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki and what they have put out to the world, Ponyo just felt felt flat for me.
There wasn't really a tangible story, there are scenes where you see potential loss of lives for the sailors on the boats, the potential for a nursing home and its inhabitants to be washed away from the face of the earth, even little Ponyo missing just didn't seem that anyone was really worried about it all.
The film doesn't really present any urgency or worry from the viewers, it just screams, Don't worry all will be fine, just relax.

This made me feel a bit uneasy, as they are throwing these big, alarming visuals, but it has zero effect, as you know everything will be fine. It made me think, why did they even bother adding them in?

The artwork, as always is spot on, the artists all have amazing talent and I love the art styles that they use in their films.
It just doesn't save the film enough for me due to the rather lacking story.

Now as usual I like to have a segment about the music, as I love a good ol bit of music.
Now strangely, I have seen Ponyo many times over the years, and there is very little memorable music that I can recall.
Which is strange as I normally am really good with this kind of stuff.

I will say that the ending theme song is a cute one,

Gake no Ue no Ponyo by Fujioka Fujimaki and Nozomi Ōhashi
Is it a great song? Not so much, it's not something I would listen to away from the film, but it's a nice and cute song, so it fits the film really well.

Images from MyAnimeList

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