Ponyo is about a fish named Brunhilde. Her father is a wizard named Fujimoto who lives underwater and tries to clean up pollution in the ocean left by us humans. One day, Brunhilde escapes from her father’s ship and finds a young boy named Sosuke who decides to name her Ponyo. While healing a cut on Sosuke’s finger, Ponyo is now able to become human since she has tasted Sosuke’s blood. While trying to find Sosuke again, she ends up causing a tsunami that floods the town. Sosuke, who’s now separated from his mother, goes along with Ponyo on a journey to find her. Meanwhile, Ponyo’s parents, Fujimoto and the Mother of the Sea, must also find Ponyo because if they don’t, the earth won’t stay in balance.
There are a few problems that I had with this movie in certain scenes (though most of these problems could easily be overlooked by children). The parenting in this movie is kinda terrible. There's one scene where Sosuke’s mother tries driving to their house during a giant storm while almost getting hit by waves in the process, not only endangering her life, but Sosuke’s too. Also, it seems that everyone from the town is abnormally happy that their houses are flooded. The natural disasters in this movie don’t really affect these characters emotionally which can be bothersome at times.
Though logic and intriguing storytelling are both thrown out the window, this is still an incredibly cute movie. Despite the characters not being the most interesting, they’re still so much fun to watch. The ham-loving Ponyo is adorable and infectiously energetic. The “romance” between Ponyo and Sosuke is also really sweet too. It’s really fun to see them interact. The other characters are very likable too. Though a terrible mother, Lisa is still a funny character. I also really liked Fujimoto as the protective and worried parent.
Images from Wikipedia and Blu-ray.com