Ponyo Review

By Perry Meas, Staff Writer

Have you ever wished you knew a world where everything you can imagine is bizarre and mystifying? Well, famed academy award-winning Japanese Director Hayao Miyazaki does. If you are familiar with Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli\’s other works like Howl\’s Moving Castle, or the critically-acclaimed 2001-hit, Spirited Away, then you should be able to comprehend the lore and fiction of a Miyazaki film. But for most Americans, where imported Japanese Animes are a rare commodity on the big screen, Ponyo (pronounced Pon-nee-o, not Pawn-yo) is just the start.

Released in Japan in 2008, the film was applauded unanimously by critics. Praised for its colorful art-style and appealing premise, Disney sought to import the film to the United States as it had done with previous Miyazaki films, which was sure to bring eager viewers to the big-screen.

The film begins with a colorful backdrop of a great oceanic reef. It is centered on the story of a young, magical goldfish named Ponyo who acquires the desire to become a human being. Over the course of her various trials to become human, she encounters a young boy named Sosuke who saves her life after being caught in oceanic waste. She would ultimately transform into a human, sharing many adventures with Sosuke, and ultimately falling in love with one another.

The film is beautifully crafted, with great attention paid to the art itself. Miyazaki\’s colorful world of magic and magnificence is materialized effortlessly by Ponyo as awe-inspiring, giant fish and massive waves fly across the screen.

The film, like other Miyazaki\’s works touch human and real issues. He is prudent to portray water-pollution as a great threat to the environment as Ponyo is caught in seafloor-garbage during one point in the narrative.

With such stunning, aesthetically pleasing art and admirable ambitions, Ponyo was a large success — in Japan, that is. Ironically, the film\’s greatest drawback was its exportation to the America.

The “Disney-fication” of Ponyo proved to be most disheartening. Disney carelessly made overuse of established voice talents. Matt Damon essentially played every other male character in the film; one could not truly tell one man apart from another.

Although Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus (respectively) played  Sosuke and Ponyo well, their voice talent did not lend a hand to the remixed Theme Song, which was actually quite irritating with its elements of synthesized pop-music. A minor flaw that Japanese-maniacs will be able to nitpick out is the mispronunciation of names between the Japanese and English version.

One of the more disappointing elements of the film was its lack of plot coherency. The element of human pollution plays only a minor role. The story\’s true conflict derives from a disruption between the balance of the magical world and the physical world caused by Ponyo\’s transformation into a human.

Ultimately, it would be Ponyo who would restore balance to the teetering world. But Miyazaki visualized this in such a way that the plot felt rather incomplete. The film was surprisingly short (101 minutes) and at times, anticlimactic.

Regardless of these shortcomings, Ponyo is a well-crafted and visually-stunning film which needs work on its rough edges. For newcomers to Anime and its genres, Ponyo is a must-see. For Anime-fanatics and Miyazaki-patrons, it is recommended that you watch the Japanese-version for its equivalently quality voice-work and lack of Disney.

Final Rating: 8/10

Running Time: 101 minutes

Rated: G for General Audiences