Ponyo

TITLE: Ponyo (on the Cliff by the Sea) ANIME: Ponyo is the eighth animated feature done by Studio Ghibli (well-known for other films such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke) and the tenth animated feature for Hayao Miyazaki as a director (well-known for his directorial work on My Neighbor Totoro and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind). Ponyo was released in Japanese theatres on July 19th, 2008, and won Best Anime of the Year at the Tokyo Anime Awards and the Japanese Academy Prize for Best Animation of the Year. It was released dubbed in Stateside theatres just this last weekend, on August14th, 2009, and, as of the time of this writing, is already in the number 9 position for box office profits in its opening weekend. STORY: A young five-year-old boy, Sosuke, finds an odd-looking fish who he names Ponyo and vows to protect. What he doesn't know is that Ponyo is the daughter of a sea wizard and the goddess of the sea, and that she will soon use her magic to turn herself into a girl so that she can be with him. But, unawares to Ponyo, doing this causes a rip in fabric of reality that the two of them must right. Ponyo's not so much about the broader plot, which has plenty tinges of the Little Mermaid in its story, and serves more as a way to move the movie forward and to frame the events that happen in the movie. It's more about the two kids, Ponyo and Sosuke, and the people around them and their interactions with each other. Most of the movie is cenetered around the absolute adorableness of Ponyo and Sosuke interacting with each other, and with the people around them, like Sosuke's family and the residents of the Hiwamari Senior Living Center (not called as much in the movie, but its more or less what it is). It's far more a slice of life story than it is one of Miyazaki's previous epics, such as Nausicaa or Mononoke, and you know what? He does this just as well as he does his other films. The only bad thing I have to say about this is that big threat of the world being unbalanced is very vaguely detailed, and seems like an attempt to throw in urgency in the plot, but it really doesn't end up being focused on at all, and to be frank, doesn't add that much to the plot. It could've just been left as a test of Sosuke and Ponyo, and the movie would've been none the poorer for it. ART: The visuals in this, as with any Miyazaki movie, are beyond spectacular. If you have the chance to see this in theatres near you, I definitely recommend it; seeing the visuals for this on the big screen is an experience in and of itself. There are two big things with this that I feel like pointing out: -The ocean scenes are spectacular, just in terms of sheer imagination in all of the creatures and the detail that packs the screen, and will probably make your jaw drop. And anything to do with Fujimoto or the goddess of the seas' or even Ponyo's magic are definitely some of the more spectacular scenes in the movie. -The backgrounds on this, I'm pretty sure, were done in watercolors, which add a delicacy to the entire movie. MUSIC: Joe Hisaishi did the composing work on this, just as he did with all the other Ghibli works. This score has far more emphasis on orchestral and choral numbers, especially in the horns, just a really grand sound in general, and while relying on a few repeated themes, is a really solid score. SEIYUU: The Japanese cast on this did an amazing job on their characters, especially the voice actors for Ponyo and Sosuke, whose first role this was. They do an amazing job of just being five year olds, which carries the whole production. VOICE ACTORS: There's some good voice acting, too on the dub cast's part: Liam Neeson and Cate Blanchett feature as Ponyo's parents (one's a slightly wacky magician, the other one's the goddess of the sea), Tina Fey is the main boy's fairly feisty mom, and Sousuke and Ponyo are played by one of the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus' little siblings, respectively (that last point will probably appeal more to younger siblings, but they still do a solid job). I'd actually suggest the dub cast over the original Japanese cast, as I like it far more. DUB: Whoever did the script for the dub actually got the nuances of the original Japanese language, so I'm beyond pleased that this was done so well. There's a bit more added to the characters' lines than in the Japanese version, but I think that has more to do with the timing of the voice actors and their characters' personalities. The only problem that I have with the dub is that it obscures some things with regards to the main plot; I watched the Japanese version later in the day after I got back from theatres seeing this, and there were several moments when I was going, oh, so that's why that was that way. LENGTH: Ponyo does feel a bit long towards the end, but, at the same time, for most of the movie, its a fairly dreamy pace, so you don't mind it that much. OVERALL: An amazing movie, in terms of visuals and the dub cast, fairly solid in the story, music, and original Japanese cast. If you have the chance to see this in theatres, definitely go do so, but be sure to follow it up with watching the Japanese version just so that you're clear on things. STORY: 8/10 ART: 9/10 MUSIC: 8/10 SEIYUU: 8/10 VOICE ACTORS: 9/10 DUB: 8/10 LENGTH: 8/10 OVERALL: 58/70; 83% (B)

Let me preface by noting that I am a Miyazaki fan that consider Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke (in that order) the best animated films ever to come out of Japan (or possibly anywhere). Spirited Away in particular had it all, a good story, memorable music, incredible visuals, and likable characters that grew as the story progressed. I also saw Howl's Moving Castle and while I thought it was good it wasnt up to the same quality as Spirited Away or Mononoke (still maybe about the level of Kiki though). Now I also admit that I saw the dubbed version of Ponyo featuring a castof star voices alongside Miley Cyrus's youger sister and 1/3 of the Jonas brothers. As the rule goes, Disney makes everything worse but I still rate this a 6/10 because quite frankly the voice acting was passable and was the least of this movie's problems. So take a deep breath and lets dive right in. Story: I really have a hard time believing that this was written by Miyazaki. To put it bluntly the story ranged from bad to nonexistent. Even if the story was different in the Japanese version it would have to be completely different do even be decent. I just finished watching and I still dont know what happened. There are far too many inconsistency but I will save those for character. Most Miyazaki films have a story in which the main character(s) face and overcome some sort of adversity and grow over the course of the story. In Ponyo the characters dont change a bit (save for Ponyo who changes physically at random). The only two things that can pass for adversity in this plot are a typhoon (which isnt that bad since its basically only Ponyo saying "hi") and a journey that Sasuke and Ponyo take to find his mother Lisa after the storm (which is not really that adventurous considering that its short and they travel with the villagers most of the way anyway). Also the message is hard to grasp, sometimes the movie tries to have an environmental message, sometimes it tries to have a message about trust, love, and not judging on appearances. Maybe it was trying to have lots of messages but failed miserably at all of them. Oh yeah and there is some Majora's Mask thing with the moon getting close but that only seems to be an issue whenever Liam Neeson's character shows up. Art: If it wasnt for the art being so good I would swear this wasnt a Miyazaki film. I havnt seen water animated so well in the traditional anime art style before. Also the colors work together well. Having said that the art style used isnt one I like all that much but thats a personal preference and all said I was able to stomach it fine. Sound: Now this is for the English Dub so I cant speak for the Japanese version but the voice acting was fairly lacking considering the big names in this cast. Matt Damon has maybe 5 lines (most delivered by an Aldis lamp in a funny scene), Tina Fey (Lisa) is spunky and fun until about the part where Ponyo shows up in the storm as a girl and then she becomes really bland and one dimensional. And Kate Blanchet's lines were so badly written that it was hard for her to do anything with them. Still all of these voice actors did decent jobs. As for Ponyo, Ms. Cyrus (Miley's younger sister), well considering most all her character did was shout and moan she did a good job, it was nice of Disney to throw her a bone (or ham in this case). And one of the Jonas brothers voices Sasuke (does it really matter which one?) and as such Sasuke as 1/3 the personality of a normal human being. The only voice acting job in the English Dub that is good (Tina Fey was good for the first half) is Liam Neeson who voices the sometimes crazy sea wizard guy. He actually brings a sense of depth to his character, going from wacky to grim on a dime in a way that really works. On a different note, why wasnt there a memorable song to Ponyo. All Miyazaki films have left me humming the theme after I saw them but Ponyo seemed to be lacking in any good music and instead had some kiddy playground song at the end (think puff the magic dragon only for younger audiences). Also some of the dialogue seems out of place for young audience, particularly an exchange with a mother in a boat where she explains to Ponyo that if she drinks the soup the mother can make milk for the baby...yeah thats odd for a kids movie. Character: Again the only characters I liked were Liam Neeson's crazy wizard and the spunky Lisa (Tina Fey) whose character was replaced by blandness halfway through the movie. I still cant believe how easily Lisa bought into the whole Ponyo used to be a fish but now is a girl thing. There is also a nice conflict with Lisa and the father in which Sasuke tries to take both sides but this goes away later on (along with the father who doesn't seem important enough to get an invitation to the party at the end of the movie). Ponyo herself is a decent yet one dimensional character. She almost always seems happy even when the scene doesn't call for it, and despite being adorable is also a bit creepy at times.

'Gake no Ue no Ponyo' had been lying in my hard disk drive for over a year before I finally got to seeing it. I somehow knew I would not like this film, and have been putting it off until now. It could've been because this movie seemed so childish from clips I saw in variety shows, the obnoxious little girl singing its theme song, and the surprising amount of marketing campaign for an animated film. However, being somewhat of an anime fan, and an avid Japanese movie fan, this is a film that I had to watch. My hunches are wrong sometimes, but unfortunately,this was not the case... it was even worse than my low expectations. If you think this movie is a masterpiece and don't want to read any negativity about it, you might as well stop reading now. I will be analyzing a few key scenes from this film that stood out for me, and it won't be pretty. We have become accustomed to all these Ghibli feature length films with deep values in recent years, but once every while, they do release kiddie films like 'Ponyo', which seemed like an attempt to replicate the success of 'Tonari no Totoro'. The stories are similar in that they both tell the tale of a child's encounter with a mysterious kiddie bait (interesting enough, the word "ponyo" means "blobby" in Japanese), and the short adventure this child takes with the creature. Unlike 'Totoro', which has become an iconic masterpiece for Studio Ghibli (enough to be included in their logo), 'Ponyo' lacks the same level of magic because its story is a mess and there are too many useless themes. In addition, the subject character lacks the enigma because, well... it speaks. The opening sequence was very enjoyable, conveying Ponyo's life in wander and beauty of the sea without a single word being spoken. However, I was a bit disappointed by the animation. Sure, it is detailed and fluid, but this is just the matter of budget per frame. It seemed very, very outdated with its coloring, like watching a classic Disney film rather than a 21st century Ghibli film. The "fish wave" scenes were spectacular, but otherwise, there is nothing in this film that we haven't seen before. While this retro hand-drawn cel style animation is certainly preferred by some and has its merits, I find it alarming that other animation studios have made a giant leaps in animation quality in the past few years while Ghibli, once industry benchmark in anime, have been largely unchanged... arguably even deteriorated in terms of quality since peaking out with 'Howl's Moving Castle'. I have nothing but praise for musical score in this movie. All the pieces were fully orchestrated, and really sets the mood for every scene, whether it's a jolly comedy, exciting action, or mysterious fantasy moments. Sound mixing / volume adjustment was outstanding, such as the sudden spike in audio volume in a "chase" scene to show the impending danger, perfectly timed to what's happening on the screen. Every piece was obviously designed specifically for each scene, and the main theme music is very memorable, also used as the instrumental for the theme song sang by the little girl in the end. Unfortunately, there was a major miscast with the seiyuu in using old school dorama actress Yamaguchi Tomoko as the mother. Often typecast into tough female roles such as single businesswoman, she seems to be the perfect fit on paper as the strict mother of the protagonist. However, the character design simply seemed too "soft". Her voice acting experience being very limited, she ended up sounding overly unemotional in some scenes. She certainly is no Kimura Takuya when it comes voice acting. The story development was forced in many occasions. There were quite a few face-palm scenes in this movie, like when Ponyo's father started talking to himself in an underwater scene just to explain the situation to the audience. It was hard to believe such reputable studio and director would resort to such poor storytelling technique. Another questionable scene was near the end, when the kid finds his washed away green bucket just as Ponyo was losing her power and returning to her fish state. It's a kiddie movie, but that is just way too convenient lazy writing. The themes in this movie were also very confusing. As mentioned earlier, the concept is almost identical to that of 'Totoro'. But Ponyo herself is a ripoff of 'Little Mermaid' (and the forbidden love with human), and then they added Ryuuguu castle reference to fairy tale 'Urashima Taro', plus a tunnel reminiscent of the one in 'Spirited Away'. The water controlled by Ponyo's father also moved like the black goo from 'Mononoke Hime' (and the two subsequent Miyazaki Hayao films). Did they simply run out of ideas, or are they trying to capitalize on their past success? There were three other scenes that I found very disturbing. First of which occurred while Ponyo was transforming in the water bubble, and her "sisters" come for help. It must have been a symbolism to a new birth, representing multiple sperms trying to penetrate the ovum. The second one occurred near end of the movie, when a mother of a newborn baby was explaining the process of breast milk production. The final one occurs shortly after when they enter the underwater castle, another sperm race to ovum entry scene. The whole movie was presented as a children's movie, and these three scenes had absolutely no place in this film. And worse yet, they verbally raise the stake: "It's up to you to save the world", from what? A shameless attempt to manufacture an epic adventure. Unlike other Ghibli films, this one did not have a real lesson learned or a concrete message. Fragmented and poorly structured plot without a central theme. The story is a complete mess despite simplicity, things just happened, and characters just behaved the way they did without apparent character development. Admittedly this is a children's movie, but it should not require intelligence level of a child to be enjoyable. The ending was the most unsatisfying one among all Ghibli film I have seen thus far. Things happened in a rapid succession, leading to a sudden jump and kiss out of the blue. It couldn't have been any more rushed than it was. The transition to the theme song was abrupt, and poor credit roll was a complete waste of an addictive theme song. This is totally inexcusable execution of the ending for what has become a mediocre anime movie. With 'Howl's Moving Castle' being a personal flop, and 'Tales of Earthsea' being a widely accepted failure, this is strike three Ghibli for me. I don't want to sound like one of those film fans who cling in the past, but they simply don't make anime movies the way they used to.

May I just start by saying that I am a big time Miyazaki fan. I loved Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (haven't as of yet seen his other ones). So, for someone who very much enjoys previous Miyazaki endeavors, Ponyo in a word is: disappointing. Yes, it's obviously for little kids (why Miyazaki couldn't make another family film that we could all enjoy is a bafflement to me), but even for children, it'd be boring. ~Story~ So a little fish girl endowed with magical powers wants to become human to stay with a little boy shemeets named Sosuke - a tale loosely based on the original telling of The Little Mermaid (there's even a reference to turning into sea foam). Seems straightforward, yes? Well, for the most part it is...expect at the climax when plot most matters. Like the original Little Mermaid, a major, life-altering decision must be made concerning Ponyo's future. Unfortunately, this decision and how it's reached is built-up, vaguely explored, and then reached with absolutely no pay off whatsoever. It's akin to asking someone if they would rather wear a red shirt or a blue shirt, they pick the red one, and balloons and rainbows! Everyone is saved! YAY! Miraculously and with no explanation as to how that red shirt helps avert major disaster. The main issue with the story is that it's very disjointed and wants so much for everyone to be happy and riding on unicorns that no real conflict or danger ever actually enters into the equation, even though dangerous scenarios that could be developed are constantly flirted with (ex: men being lost at sea, the deaths of thousands, the loss of land, the reversion of a person into sea foam etc...). These issues are mentioned with a melodramatic "GASP!" and then either ignored or solved in lightening fast speed a la the reasoning of a five-year-old. In short, it's patronizing, insulting both the intelligence of adults and children. Heck! Even Totoro had more depth and plot and didn't treat the possible loss of a child in such a "light-hearted" fashion. Totoro introduced actual calculated conflict or, at the least, intriguing events in a timely fashion so that the story progressed at a pace that kept things interesting. Ponyo lags on and on and on and thinks about introducing conflict and then skirts away from it to continue to drag on and on and on. ~Art~ Eh, the art is mediocre. I know, I'm horrible for saying that, but the cutesy "let's draw so it looks like children did it" style is only entertaining for so long. Granted some of the sea creatures were done very well and were very interesting to look at, but personally, I couldn't shake the impression the entire film that the backgrounds and environments were flat. Instead of drawing them in a manner that suggests that they extend beyond the scene into a real, 3D atmosphere, they just felt like "here's a flat backdrop in front of a car lot, pretend it's real." Spirited Away's environments didn't feel this way, and were full of detail and life. Even the individual characters were bright and multi-dimensional. Ponyo just didn't achieve that. However, I will also concede that Ponyo as a fish was incredibly well-done and believable. Her fish-like face and eyes really made her character the most intriguing. ~Sound~ I can't really comment because aside from the obnoxiously catchy ending credits music, I don't recall any of the music. The English voice actors (I did see this in theaters) did great jobs according to the script. ~Character~ Here's another huge issue with Ponyo. The characters were all poorly defined and again so geared toward butterflies and fuzzy kittens that they acted unrealistically and contradictorily. What mother leaves two five-year-old in a flood out of The Old Testament alone? What mother takes in this little girl from nowhere and doesn't try to find her parents? Why is the cranky and mean old woman suddenly nice at the end? Why does she urge Sosuke not to go with Ponyo's dad? Why is Ponyo's dad so people-hating, and then suddenly begging for humans not to think ill of him? Why is he okay with Ponyo's ultimate fate? What the heck is he even doing anyway? Why's he there? What purpose does he serve really? Other than to be an annoying and totally inefficient obstacle to Ponyo's happiness? ~Overall~ In conclusion, Ponyo might have been an entirely charming short had it only lasted about ten minutes. As it is, it has no business spanning hours and drags pitifully. It's like the creators had fifty different ideas and instead of narrowing them down to go in one direction or the other, they just decided to try to "incorporate" them all. Ponyo could have been great, it really could have, had they ironed out the plot and characters, treated the story in a non-intelligence insulting way, picked a direction, and stuck with it. Come on! Even classic fairytales aren't 100% fluff. I really hope that Miyazaki's next film isn't such a let-down.