Though it has its impressively devoted niche of English-speaking followers and more than its share of brazen counterfeiters, anime (or Japanimation, for those of you who haven't updated your vernacular since 1992) remains largely a for-us-by-us staple of Japanese culture. The notable exceptions being, of course, Pokémon and the films of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Nausica, etc.). Pokémon bridges the cultural gap through some alchemical combination of the desire innate in all children to memorize the name of everything with one of the best funded, most creative marketing teams on the planet. Miyazaki's appeal, however, is something much subtler. His best films invite us to worlds a shade darker (and two shades stranger) than our own, places teeming with restless spirits, floating castles and plucky child heroes that, for all their whimsy, are also tinged with melancholy. Even his most explicitly kid-friendly films (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service) often have a certain sense of danger bubbling just beneath the surface, often accompanied by themes of civilization versus nature or the spiritual decline of modern society. In other words, he's the best kind of children's filmmaker, cultural differences be damned. At least, traditionally he is.
In Miyazaki's latest, Ponyo, it's the absence of these now-expected darker undercurrents that sadly diminishes the film with respect to his greater catalogue. The yarn concerns the titular Ponyo (Noah Cyrus), a “fish” with the never-directly-addressed head of a baby who wants to become human. She escapes her undersea clown-wizard father (Liam Neeson) and falls in love with Sosuke (Frankie Jonas), a precocious five year old with the least responsible mother on the planet (Tina Fey). Early on, Neeson monologues about “creating so much life that human beings will be wiped out,” hinting at the presence of some of Miyazaki's pet themes, though this is never mentioned again.
Even though Neeson pursues Cyrus and Jonas throughout the film with the help of his Juggalo magic, he's never the least bit threatening, and so the greater conflict then falls to the instability in the universe Ponyo's half-humanity has created. Despite being by far the most interesting part of the story, this plot thread is never fully committed to and — worse still — is resolved by a sea goddess (Cate Blanchett) casually mentioning that it’s been fixed. It isn't exactly a Princess Mononoke-style battle with an army of demon boars, but — as if the presence of the littlest Jonas Brother and Hannah Montana's little sister weren't enough indication — Ponyo isn't exactly Miyazaki's most adult-oriented film. The movie is still beautifully animated, with simple, emotive figures prancing about colourful watercolour landscapes, and children will certainly be able to enjoy the simple story. Miyazaki's grownup votaries, on the other hand, may find themselves immune to his usual magic.
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