Ponyo
is a 2008 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi, and distributed by Toho. The film stars Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Kazushige Nagashima, Yūki Amami, George Tokoro, Rumi Hiiragi, Akiko Yano, Kazuko Yoshiyuki and Tomoko Naraoka. It is the eighth film Miyazaki directed for Studio Ghibli, and his tenth overall.
The film tells the story of Ponyo, a goldfish-like creature who escapes from the ocean and is helped by a five-year-old human boy named Sōsuke, after she is washed ashore while trapped in a glass jar. As they bond with each other, Ponyo desires to become a human girl, against the devastating circumstances brought about by her acquisition and use of magic.
The film was originally released in Japan on July 19, 2008, by distributor Toho. It was a major commercial success, grossing over $204 million worldwide and becoming the eighth-highest-grossing anime film of all time. It received critical acclaim for its uplifting themes, visual design, and simultaneous appeal towards young children and all audiences.
An English-language version of the film was released on August 14, 2009, to 927 theatres across the U.S., the widest opening for a Studio Ghibli film in the U.S. It was produced by The Kennedy/Marshall Company and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through their Walt Disney Pictures banner.
Plot
Fujimoto, a misanthropic wizard who was once a human, lives underwater with his daughter Brunhilde and her numerous smaller sisters, who are goldfish-like creatures with human faces. While she and her siblings are on an outing with their father in his four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde sneaks off and floats away on the back of a jellyfish. After an encounter with a fishing trawler, she becomes trapped in a glass jar and drifts to the shore of a small fishing town where she is rescued by a five-year-old boy named Sōsuke. While shattering the jar with a rock, Sōsuke cuts his finger. Brunhilde licks his blood, healing the wound almost instantly. Sōsuke names her Ponyo and promises to protect her. Meanwhile, a distraught Fujimoto searches frantically for his lost daughter whom he believes to have been kidnapped. He calls his wave spirits to recover her, leaving Sōsuke heartbroken and confused by what happened.Ponyo refuses to let her father call her by her birth name, declaring her desire to be a human named Ponyo. She magically begins changing into a human, a power granted to her by Sōsuke's human blood that she licked. Fujimoto forces her back into her true form and leaves to summon Ponyo's mother, Gran Mamare. Meanwhile, Ponyo, with the help of her sisters, breaks away from her father and inadvertently uses his magic to make herself human. The huge amount of magic that she releases into the ocean causes an imbalance in nature, resulting in a tsunami. Ponyo goes back to Sōsuke, who is amazed and overjoyed to see her. His mother, Lisa, allows her to stay at their house. Lisa leaves after the tsunami subsides to check up on the residents of the nursing home where she works, promising Sōsuke that she will return home as soon as possible.
Gran Mamare arrives at Fujimoto's submarine. Sōsuke's father, Kōichi, sees her traveling and recognizes her as the Goddess of Mercy. Fujimoto notices the moon appears to be falling out of its orbit and satellites are falling like shooting stars, symptoms of the dangerous imbalance of nature that now exists. Gran Mamare reassures him, and declares that if Sōsuke can pass a test, Ponyo can live as a human and the balance of nature will be restored. Fujimoto, still worried, reminds her that if Sōsuke fails the test, Ponyo will turn into sea foam.
The next day, Sōsuke and Ponyo find that most of the land around the house has been covered by the ocean. Since it is impossible for Lisa to come home, the two decide to find her. With Ponyo's magic, they make Sōsuke's pop-pop boat bigger to traverse the waters, seeing marine life from the Late Devonian period and more people on boats. When they reach the forest, however, Ponyo tires and falls asleep, and the boat slowly reverts to its original size. Sōsuke drags Ponyo to the shore, where he finds Lisa's abandoned car. As they continue walking, Ponyo mysteriously reverts to her fish form. Meanwhile, Gran Mamare grants Lisa and the residents of the nursing home the temporary ability to breathe in water. Ponyo and Sōsuke encounter Fujimoto, who warns the boy about the imbalance of nature and begs him to return Ponyo to him. Despite their attempt to escape, Fujimoto captures them and transports them to the protected nursing home.
Sōsuke reunites with Lisa and meets Gran Mamare, with whom Lisa has just had a long private conversation. Gran Mamare asks him if he can love Ponyo whether she is a fish or human; Sōsuke confirms that he does. She then informs her daughter that she must relinquish her magical powers if she decides to permanently transform into a human. Ponyo agrees, and she is encased in a bubble given to Sōsuke, who is instructed to kiss it to complete Ponyo's transformation, as the balance of nature is restored. The previously stranded ships head back to port. Fujimoto respects his daughter's choice, having decided he can trust Sōsuke. Ponyo then joyfully jumps high in the air and kisses Sōsuke, completing her transformation into a human.
Cast
Production
Development
Hayao Miyazaki, the film's director and writer, was prompted to create Ponyo after producer Toshio Suzuki suggested he make a film aimed at children, noting the success of Howl's Moving Castle. The film would be created from a mixture of real-world and fictional influences, combined with a desire to implement new art and animation approaches developed by other Studio Ghibli staff in a feature-length film. In 2004 and 2005, Miyazaki spent time in Tomonoura, a seaside town in Setonaikai National Park, where he familiarised himself with its community and environment. His experience in Tomonoura established the kind of setting he wanted for his next film. During his time there, he read the complete works of Natsume Sōseki. He took particular interest in The Gate, a book involving a character named Sōsuke who lived at the bottom of a cliff. This provided him more concrete ideas for characters and settings. Initially, Miyazaki solely considered the concept of a film that would depict a stormy sea with "waves higher than the house on a hillside". He later created the character Ponyo, a name he thought of as an onomatopoeia of what "soft, squishy softness" feels like when touched. Miyazaki recalled that as a nine-year-old he borrowed a copy of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" from his neighbour, and that while he was reading it, he had difficulty accepting its premise that its protagonist did not have a soul.When preparing pre-production materials, Miyazaki hit a creative block before visiting the Tate Britain art museum, where he found himself startled by an 1852 painting named Ophelia done by English painter John Everett Millais and its attention to detail. He remarked, "I thought, my work is shoddy compared to those artists. I was just astonished. At that point, it became clear to me. Our animation style could not go on as before." At the time Katsuya Kondō, Miyazaki's colleague, had been the animation director of House Hunting, a 12-minute short film made for screening at the Ghibli Museum. The short used solid and simple lines, and largely used hand-drawn animation. During the production of the short, Kondō had discussed the possibility of producing a feature-length film like this. Kondō accepted an offer to work on the next Studio Ghibli feature film soon after completing the short, identifying an opportunity to progress the ideas behind House Hunting with more consideration to story.
Production of Ponyo began in May 2006. Kondō was given the role of animation supervisor, and worked closely with Miyazaki in outlining a set of goals that defined the direction of the project, including the use of traditional animation throughout production. Borrowing from Kondō's experience in animating House Hunting, Ponyo would use solid and simple lines; in isolating basic animation elements, the film would aim to demonstrate the advantages of hand drawn animation through the depiction of motion that cannot be reproduced in any other medium. An example of the simple style is when Miyazaki painted a picture of Ponyo riding on a flock of fish, called "Ponyo is Here", which was inspired by him listening to "Ride of the Valkyries" while writing a letter to his staff about going with a more elemental style. This would later become a scene in the film. In normal productions, animating a sailing ship would usually involve drawing one cel and sliding it across the frame, which would fix it in a predefined perspective and direction. Miyazaki, however, wanted the ships that appeared in Ponyo to be drawn frame-by-frame. A few previous Studio Ghibli films used computer-generated imagery, the earliest being Princess Mononoke. For the production of Ponyo however, the computer graphics section at the studio was closed to prioritize hand-drawn animation.
Some elements of the film were inspired by Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre. Ponyo's birth name, Brunhilde, is a deliberate reference to the eldest of the nine legendary Valkyrie and Wagner's Brünnhilde. The music also makes reference to Wagner's opera. The character of Sōsuke is based on Miyazaki's son Gorō Miyazaki when he was five.
Miyazaki wanted his next film to be a sequel to Ponyo, but producer Toshio Suzuki convinced him to make The Wind Rises instead.