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Review: Ponyo (崖の上のポニョ) (2008)
To be honest I didn't really like this movie. I understand that it's a lighthearted puppy love story but it didn't really come together for me. I wasn't convinced.
The production also didn't feel like the best I've seen from Studio Ghibli. Maybe it was because I watched a dub, but right from the beginning the motion in animation didn't really convince me.
So I guess overall I was just kind of disappointed with this movie.
Spoilers.
Story
I was a little confused when I saw that this movie was "based on Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea," because I assumed that it was a novel or short story, but it seems this movie was an original story, which is based on the Little Mermaid.
The story is pretty straightforward. Ponyo, originally a fish named Brunhilde, escaped to the surface and fell in love with a boy. Her father forbade her from doing it again but she rebelled, causing a huge tsunami in the process because she was disturbing the balance of nature. Ponyo's parents decided that if Sosuke proved he was truly in love with Ponyo, then she would become human, thus returning the balance of nature. If he didn't, she would turn into sea foam. Of course, Sosuke completed the quest and proved his love for Ponyo and thus she became a little girl.
I think there were a few reasons to why I didn't love the movie.
One was that I didn't find Ponyo cute. I thought Ponyo was really cute when she was still a fish, especially when she was with her sisters. But once she went to the surface and especially after she became human, she became a little irritating. And I might have to attribute that to the dubbing. Her voice was just...not really pleasant. She was just yelling all the time. There's ways to show enthusiasm without that piercing yell all the time.
Another thing was that I wasn't invested in the relationships. I didn't care much for Ponyo and Sosuke. I understand that Sosuke found Ponyo endearing and promised to take care of her, and Ponyo was endeared by this dedication. But I don't know, I didn't feel anything from them. No vibes. No vibes from Lisa and Koichi either.
The only relationship I cared about was Fujimoto and Gran Mamare and we got so little meaningful conversation between them. We know that they are deeply in love despite being apart. We know that Fujimoto was once human and considering he has to always been in ocean water, he presumably gave up his humanity to be with Gran Mamare. And we know that he basically hates humanity for what they're doing to the world. And one of his reasons for forbidding Ponyo from going to the surface comes from his own hatred towards humans. Meanwhile, Gran Mamare is extremely endeared by Ponyo and Sosuke's relationship and that's why she suggests the challenge. I just thought they were a lot more interesting and filled the space of the magical realism/fantasy setting a lot better than Ponyo and Sosuke did.
So those are the story aspects of the movie that didn't work for me. I know this is meant to be a kids' movie, but I've enjoyed other kids' movies before and this one just didn't seem like it took full advantage of what it had going for it.
I was sooo endeared by Ponyo's sisters and we saw that they helped her a lot. I would have loved to see them more to be honest. And just more underwater stuff in general. But a lot of the movie focused on on-land interactions, like at Sosuke's school or at the senior centre.
I also felt that the worldbuilding didn't stand out to me. Despite this being a magical realism/fantasy setting, a lot of it happened in the confines of the human settlement. We didn't spend much time underwater except to see the small place that was Fujimoto's home. I just didn't feel like I was in a fantasy setting.
Production
I know we're all spoiled rotten when it comes to Studio Ghibli animation but I have to say, I feel like Ponyo was a bit weak. Not necessarily from a strictly animation sense. At first I wasn't really into the underwater animation. It felt a bit flat for me. Now that I think about it, there were some parts with cute animation, but otherwise the underwater animation often felt normal to me. I didn't feel I was underwater. And this was disappointing because Studio Ghibli is usually so good at immersion.
In terms of the on land animation, I did get that Studio Ghibli feel, but it also felt a little flat. Maybe because there was too much going on so my eyes weren't always drawn to the main attraction, but there were occasionally some times where I felt that animation was lazy and that is very rare for me to say about a Studio Ghibli film. At the same time, I know that it's just because I'm disappointed with this movie that I'm nitpicking so hard.
Another thing that didn't quite hit for me was the combination of animation styles. We saw that sometimes the animation was drawn in a more "crayon-like" style, but somehow it didn't give the movie any charm. Ponyo herself was also animated in a few different styles and that was fine though I guess.
Another thing was that I was listening to an English dub of this movie :/ I really wished I had watched a Japanese dub but this was what I had. The voices weren't really that charming to me, particularly Ponyo, who is supposed to be really cute and the star of the show.
I don't usually point this out when I don't get distracted by the English dubbing, but I do have to point out that nearly all of the voice actors for the English dub were actors and not voice actors. But I don't think it's totally on them that I was pulled out of the movie. I think there was issues with dubbing direction as well. I just felt that some of the vibes of the English dubs didn't match the tone of the movie. For example, Lisa, voiced by Tina Fey, was so grumpy and cranky and aggressive. Yes, she was annoyed at times, but it didn't really fit the cutesy tone of the movie. It was too harsh, and so right off the bat I didn't really like Lisa even though I knew she was going to be the nice adult human.
Maybe this all comes back to the fact that too much of this movie takes place with the humans and does not take advantage of the fantastical, which is where all of the magic happens.
I also felt that the music didn't really suit the movie at times. It might just be a flaw resulting from the mood changes in the movie. For example, there were times when Sosuke was working around his mom who was angry at his dad so there were mood swings that way, and the music has to play along to that. But because of that, it felt disjointed at times :/
And while there were moments in the movie where there was time to breathe and live in the moment, I felt they were wasted as there was often music playing over.
Characters
Ponyo/Brunhilde
Ponyo was the main character, a fish originally named Brunhilde, though her existence in itself is a little odd. Everybody acknowledges that she's a fish, but Toki is the one to point out that she has a face like a human. Ponyo had a lot of sisters but she was probably the oldest one, being the biggest. But she loved them very much and always gave them kisses, which I thought was so cute.
Ponyo got stuck in a glass jar and Sosuke saved her, in the process cutting his hand. Ponyo licked the blood and healed his wound, which also gave her the ability to become human.
In the short time they spent together, Ponyo fell in love with Sosuke. She probably liked that he took care of her, and that he promised to protect her. But to be honest, I didn't see why Ponyo liked him that much. The chemistry just wasn't there for me. Nothing that Sosuke did made me go doki-doki, if you catch my drift.
Ponyo was caught by her father but with the help of her sisters, broke out. Fujimoto had a secret elixir room that Ponyo broke into and so she gained a lot of power. With that power, she rose to the surface, creating a tsunami, just to find Sosuke.
In her time with Lisa and Sosuke, she was very charmed by human life. Lisa had gone to check on the seniors at the centre, but hadn't returned by the next day, so Sosuke and Ponyo went to see her. Ponyo helped Sosuke but on the journey there, started to lose power and get weak, to the point that she began to shrink into a fish again.
Sosuke carried Ponyo to Fujimoto and Gran Mamare and promised to love her as a being of two worlds, being that she would be a human that was a fish. And the movie ended with Ponyo kissing Sosuke and becoming human.
As I mentioned, I found Ponyo kind of irritating. And she didn't really seem to have a personality other than "enthusiastic" and "in love with Sosuke." Maybe I would have been more interested in her if we saw her relationship with her parents more. It would have made me understand her love for Sosuke more, other than her just saying that she loves Sosuke over and over again. I get that she's not meant to be a chatty character who says what she thinks, because she's a child, but there are subtle ways to do that and I don't think the script did her justice.
Sosuke
Just a little boy. He found a goldfish and wanted to take care of her. He was absolutely torn up when Ponyo was taken away by her father, and needed to cope with it in his own way, as kids do. But Ponyo came back to him and everything was alright again. When Sosuke found his mom's car empty, he got quite upset, but Ponyo comforted him. And then when he met Gran Mamare, he agreed to love Ponyo.
I don't know, nothing about Sosuke really stood out to me. It felt like he was protecting Ponyo because he had made that promise, but otherwise, didn't really see Ponyo for who she actually was, which was that exuberant little girl. I just wasn't charmed.
Lisa
Lisa was Sosuke's mom. As I mentioned, she seemed a bit too hard. Right at the beginning, we saw her being pretty angry at Sosuke for holding her up because she had to go to work. And then she yelled at Fujimoto and called him a freak show. Her behaviour just really threw me off.
We later saw her angry at her husband because he spent so long at sea. She felt neglected. And while her son hadn't felt neglected yet, she definitely did. But it was soon brushed away because her son cheered her up, and never came up again because it was all overshadowed by the tsunami.
And at the end of the movie we saw her concerned for Koichi after the tsunami. Which is not to say she never loved her husband, but it was too much whiplash. She had way too much rage stored in her from the beginning.
Also her having a talk with Gran Mamare was really odd to me. I understand that it's because it's their two children, but the whole idea that the spirits of the ocean have to fit with human customs just didn't really help the fantasy setting. It would have felt a little more fantastically nice if it was less rigid that way.
Fujimoto
Frankly the most interesting character in the entire movie. He was the only one I felt had some semblance of depth and had that depth shown in the movie.
He was a grumpy man, the kind of dad no one wants. And when Brunhilde had escaped to the surface, he felt she was in danger and had to go get her. While his reasoning was that the surface was dangerous and also that her going to the surface would disturbe the balance of nature, we saw that he himself had negative opinions of humans. He hated the way they had ruined nature with their garbage and their machines.
Fujimoto tried to find Ponyo again. What I thought was interesting was that he already started calling Ponyo by Ponyo instead of Brunhilde. If he was that kind of stern dad, I would have thought he would have adamantly continued calling her Brunhilde. But by the time he spoke with Gran Mamare, he was already calling her Ponyo. I wonder if that was an oversight or if it was meant to show that Fujimoto was always a bit of a romantic.
Fujimoto found Ponyo at Sosuke's house, but could not enter as her magic prevented him. He spoke to Gran Mamare about the situation and she decided to create that challenge for Ponyo.
The thing about Fujimoto is that you can tell he is deeply in love with Gran Mamare. He commented on how his heart was already beating with the thought of seeing her, implying that they can't see each other all the time, with her being this great spirit and all. But we can tell from their short conversation that there is love between them, and there is respect between them. And he always had soft ears for his lover and that was why he went along with the idea.
After things were decided Fujimoto told Sosuke that he hoped he would see him fondly even with all that happened, and they shook hands. The more I think about it, the more offputting of a farewell scene it felt. First of all, Fujimoto should have been able to say farewell to Ponyo. He thought he was protecting her, even if he let his biases get in the way. And Sosuke's handshake to Fujimoto was just so flat. No emotion.
Gran Mamare
As much as I liked the relationship between Fujimoto and Gran Mamare, I did feel that Gran Mamare was also a flat character. She was endeared by Ponyo falling in love, but it felt like she didn't have to confront any of the tough decisions that Fujimoto did. They just were non-problems to her, and we weren't really told why.
Themes
As always, huge environmentalist themes through this movie. It was not so subtle in the way Fujimoto hated the way humans lived and how they damaged the planet. Funnily enough, Lisa thought he was using weed killer and she told Fujimoto off for it, though he was just spraying water around himself.
The other way this was loosely shown was the idea that creatures on land and sea weren't supposed to mix. When Ponyo was on the surface for too long, we saw that the moon was getting closer and closer to the world, causing all sorts of tsunamis. This was because Ponyo was a creature of the ocean and that was where she belonged. Only through love did she change her nationality I guess.
Overall
Overall, I can see why this might be enjoyable to people, but it didn't come together for me. I didn't really find myself enjoying it throughout.
The production also didn't feel like the best I've seen from Studio Ghibli. Maybe it was because I watched a dub, but right from the beginning the motion in animation didn't really convince me.
So I guess overall I was just kind of disappointed with this movie.
Spoilers.
Story
I was a little confused when I saw that this movie was "based on Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea," because I assumed that it was a novel or short story, but it seems this movie was an original story, which is based on the Little Mermaid.
The story is pretty straightforward. Ponyo, originally a fish named Brunhilde, escaped to the surface and fell in love with a boy. Her father forbade her from doing it again but she rebelled, causing a huge tsunami in the process because she was disturbing the balance of nature. Ponyo's parents decided that if Sosuke proved he was truly in love with Ponyo, then she would become human, thus returning the balance of nature. If he didn't, she would turn into sea foam. Of course, Sosuke completed the quest and proved his love for Ponyo and thus she became a little girl.
I think there were a few reasons to why I didn't love the movie.
One was that I didn't find Ponyo cute. I thought Ponyo was really cute when she was still a fish, especially when she was with her sisters. But once she went to the surface and especially after she became human, she became a little irritating. And I might have to attribute that to the dubbing. Her voice was just...not really pleasant. She was just yelling all the time. There's ways to show enthusiasm without that piercing yell all the time.
Another thing was that I wasn't invested in the relationships. I didn't care much for Ponyo and Sosuke. I understand that Sosuke found Ponyo endearing and promised to take care of her, and Ponyo was endeared by this dedication. But I don't know, I didn't feel anything from them. No vibes. No vibes from Lisa and Koichi either.
The only relationship I cared about was Fujimoto and Gran Mamare and we got so little meaningful conversation between them. We know that they are deeply in love despite being apart. We know that Fujimoto was once human and considering he has to always been in ocean water, he presumably gave up his humanity to be with Gran Mamare. And we know that he basically hates humanity for what they're doing to the world. And one of his reasons for forbidding Ponyo from going to the surface comes from his own hatred towards humans. Meanwhile, Gran Mamare is extremely endeared by Ponyo and Sosuke's relationship and that's why she suggests the challenge. I just thought they were a lot more interesting and filled the space of the magical realism/fantasy setting a lot better than Ponyo and Sosuke did.
So those are the story aspects of the movie that didn't work for me. I know this is meant to be a kids' movie, but I've enjoyed other kids' movies before and this one just didn't seem like it took full advantage of what it had going for it.
I was sooo endeared by Ponyo's sisters and we saw that they helped her a lot. I would have loved to see them more to be honest. And just more underwater stuff in general. But a lot of the movie focused on on-land interactions, like at Sosuke's school or at the senior centre.
I also felt that the worldbuilding didn't stand out to me. Despite this being a magical realism/fantasy setting, a lot of it happened in the confines of the human settlement. We didn't spend much time underwater except to see the small place that was Fujimoto's home. I just didn't feel like I was in a fantasy setting.
Production
I know we're all spoiled rotten when it comes to Studio Ghibli animation but I have to say, I feel like Ponyo was a bit weak. Not necessarily from a strictly animation sense. At first I wasn't really into the underwater animation. It felt a bit flat for me. Now that I think about it, there were some parts with cute animation, but otherwise the underwater animation often felt normal to me. I didn't feel I was underwater. And this was disappointing because Studio Ghibli is usually so good at immersion.
In terms of the on land animation, I did get that Studio Ghibli feel, but it also felt a little flat. Maybe because there was too much going on so my eyes weren't always drawn to the main attraction, but there were occasionally some times where I felt that animation was lazy and that is very rare for me to say about a Studio Ghibli film. At the same time, I know that it's just because I'm disappointed with this movie that I'm nitpicking so hard.
Another thing that didn't quite hit for me was the combination of animation styles. We saw that sometimes the animation was drawn in a more "crayon-like" style, but somehow it didn't give the movie any charm. Ponyo herself was also animated in a few different styles and that was fine though I guess.
Another thing was that I was listening to an English dub of this movie :/ I really wished I had watched a Japanese dub but this was what I had. The voices weren't really that charming to me, particularly Ponyo, who is supposed to be really cute and the star of the show.
I don't usually point this out when I don't get distracted by the English dubbing, but I do have to point out that nearly all of the voice actors for the English dub were actors and not voice actors. But I don't think it's totally on them that I was pulled out of the movie. I think there was issues with dubbing direction as well. I just felt that some of the vibes of the English dubs didn't match the tone of the movie. For example, Lisa, voiced by Tina Fey, was so grumpy and cranky and aggressive. Yes, she was annoyed at times, but it didn't really fit the cutesy tone of the movie. It was too harsh, and so right off the bat I didn't really like Lisa even though I knew she was going to be the nice adult human.
Maybe this all comes back to the fact that too much of this movie takes place with the humans and does not take advantage of the fantastical, which is where all of the magic happens.
I also felt that the music didn't really suit the movie at times. It might just be a flaw resulting from the mood changes in the movie. For example, there were times when Sosuke was working around his mom who was angry at his dad so there were mood swings that way, and the music has to play along to that. But because of that, it felt disjointed at times :/
And while there were moments in the movie where there was time to breathe and live in the moment, I felt they were wasted as there was often music playing over.
Characters
Ponyo/Brunhilde
Ponyo was the main character, a fish originally named Brunhilde, though her existence in itself is a little odd. Everybody acknowledges that she's a fish, but Toki is the one to point out that she has a face like a human. Ponyo had a lot of sisters but she was probably the oldest one, being the biggest. But she loved them very much and always gave them kisses, which I thought was so cute.
Ponyo got stuck in a glass jar and Sosuke saved her, in the process cutting his hand. Ponyo licked the blood and healed his wound, which also gave her the ability to become human.
In the short time they spent together, Ponyo fell in love with Sosuke. She probably liked that he took care of her, and that he promised to protect her. But to be honest, I didn't see why Ponyo liked him that much. The chemistry just wasn't there for me. Nothing that Sosuke did made me go doki-doki, if you catch my drift.
Ponyo was caught by her father but with the help of her sisters, broke out. Fujimoto had a secret elixir room that Ponyo broke into and so she gained a lot of power. With that power, she rose to the surface, creating a tsunami, just to find Sosuke.
In her time with Lisa and Sosuke, she was very charmed by human life. Lisa had gone to check on the seniors at the centre, but hadn't returned by the next day, so Sosuke and Ponyo went to see her. Ponyo helped Sosuke but on the journey there, started to lose power and get weak, to the point that she began to shrink into a fish again.
Sosuke carried Ponyo to Fujimoto and Gran Mamare and promised to love her as a being of two worlds, being that she would be a human that was a fish. And the movie ended with Ponyo kissing Sosuke and becoming human.
As I mentioned, I found Ponyo kind of irritating. And she didn't really seem to have a personality other than "enthusiastic" and "in love with Sosuke." Maybe I would have been more interested in her if we saw her relationship with her parents more. It would have made me understand her love for Sosuke more, other than her just saying that she loves Sosuke over and over again. I get that she's not meant to be a chatty character who says what she thinks, because she's a child, but there are subtle ways to do that and I don't think the script did her justice.
Sosuke
Just a little boy. He found a goldfish and wanted to take care of her. He was absolutely torn up when Ponyo was taken away by her father, and needed to cope with it in his own way, as kids do. But Ponyo came back to him and everything was alright again. When Sosuke found his mom's car empty, he got quite upset, but Ponyo comforted him. And then when he met Gran Mamare, he agreed to love Ponyo.
I don't know, nothing about Sosuke really stood out to me. It felt like he was protecting Ponyo because he had made that promise, but otherwise, didn't really see Ponyo for who she actually was, which was that exuberant little girl. I just wasn't charmed.
Lisa
Lisa was Sosuke's mom. As I mentioned, she seemed a bit too hard. Right at the beginning, we saw her being pretty angry at Sosuke for holding her up because she had to go to work. And then she yelled at Fujimoto and called him a freak show. Her behaviour just really threw me off.
We later saw her angry at her husband because he spent so long at sea. She felt neglected. And while her son hadn't felt neglected yet, she definitely did. But it was soon brushed away because her son cheered her up, and never came up again because it was all overshadowed by the tsunami.
And at the end of the movie we saw her concerned for Koichi after the tsunami. Which is not to say she never loved her husband, but it was too much whiplash. She had way too much rage stored in her from the beginning.
Also her having a talk with Gran Mamare was really odd to me. I understand that it's because it's their two children, but the whole idea that the spirits of the ocean have to fit with human customs just didn't really help the fantasy setting. It would have felt a little more fantastically nice if it was less rigid that way.
Fujimoto
Frankly the most interesting character in the entire movie. He was the only one I felt had some semblance of depth and had that depth shown in the movie.
He was a grumpy man, the kind of dad no one wants. And when Brunhilde had escaped to the surface, he felt she was in danger and had to go get her. While his reasoning was that the surface was dangerous and also that her going to the surface would disturbe the balance of nature, we saw that he himself had negative opinions of humans. He hated the way they had ruined nature with their garbage and their machines.
Fujimoto tried to find Ponyo again. What I thought was interesting was that he already started calling Ponyo by Ponyo instead of Brunhilde. If he was that kind of stern dad, I would have thought he would have adamantly continued calling her Brunhilde. But by the time he spoke with Gran Mamare, he was already calling her Ponyo. I wonder if that was an oversight or if it was meant to show that Fujimoto was always a bit of a romantic.
Fujimoto found Ponyo at Sosuke's house, but could not enter as her magic prevented him. He spoke to Gran Mamare about the situation and she decided to create that challenge for Ponyo.
The thing about Fujimoto is that you can tell he is deeply in love with Gran Mamare. He commented on how his heart was already beating with the thought of seeing her, implying that they can't see each other all the time, with her being this great spirit and all. But we can tell from their short conversation that there is love between them, and there is respect between them. And he always had soft ears for his lover and that was why he went along with the idea.
After things were decided Fujimoto told Sosuke that he hoped he would see him fondly even with all that happened, and they shook hands. The more I think about it, the more offputting of a farewell scene it felt. First of all, Fujimoto should have been able to say farewell to Ponyo. He thought he was protecting her, even if he let his biases get in the way. And Sosuke's handshake to Fujimoto was just so flat. No emotion.
Gran Mamare
As much as I liked the relationship between Fujimoto and Gran Mamare, I did feel that Gran Mamare was also a flat character. She was endeared by Ponyo falling in love, but it felt like she didn't have to confront any of the tough decisions that Fujimoto did. They just were non-problems to her, and we weren't really told why.
Themes
As always, huge environmentalist themes through this movie. It was not so subtle in the way Fujimoto hated the way humans lived and how they damaged the planet. Funnily enough, Lisa thought he was using weed killer and she told Fujimoto off for it, though he was just spraying water around himself.
The other way this was loosely shown was the idea that creatures on land and sea weren't supposed to mix. When Ponyo was on the surface for too long, we saw that the moon was getting closer and closer to the world, causing all sorts of tsunamis. This was because Ponyo was a creature of the ocean and that was where she belonged. Only through love did she change her nationality I guess.
Overall
Overall, I can see why this might be enjoyable to people, but it didn't come together for me. I didn't really find myself enjoying it throughout.