PONYO - Miyazaki's "Masterpiece"

Growing up dorky in the 1970s and 1980s, I was of course a huge fan of anime. Hayao Miyazaki is perhaps the best known anime director to come out of Japan, being called the Japanese Walt Disney. He's put forth some dazzling, brilliant films, usually about man's relationship with nature. PRINCESS MONONOKE, SPIRITED AWAY, AND HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE are all great films. PONYO is Miyazaki's latest.

POORLY DUBBED SPOILERS BELOW

PONYO tells the story of Sosuke, a little Japanese boy who lives with his mom and dad on an island. Dad's a fisherman, and often gone, so Sosuke and his mom are often on their own. Sosuke finds a young fish, Ponyo, while at the shore one day. But this is no ordinary fish -- she's the daughter of a sea wizard who maintains the balance of the oceans. Ponyo tastes Sosuke's blood after he cuts himself, and she yearns to be a real human. Her dad goes after her, and the oceans storm up. And then some other stuff happens.

The main problem with PONYO is that there's no story engine -- nothing driving the action. While it's nice to get beautifully animated images of fish-shaped waves and thousands of near-identical Ponyos swimming about or the gigantic Goddess of Mercy, without something moving the plot forward, it's all just empty spectacle. Miyazaki attempts to give the story some pep by having a "test of love" between Ponyo and Sosuke that the fate of the world depends on, but it literally boils down to the wizard asking Sosuke if he'll love Ponyo forever. To which (of course) he answer yes.

The mythology behind Ponyo, the sea wizard, and the goddess of mercy is also really muddled. Perhaps these are common myths that are know to every Japanese person. But I had no clue what was going on half the time.

In SPIRITED AWAY, the protagonist's parents are changed into pigs by an evil witch, and she has to go work for the witch in an enchanted bath house to figure out how to turn them back. In PRINCESS MONONOKE, a man has to figure out how to un-curse a princess turned into a demon. These are big events that have stakes and outcomes and clear paths from start to finish. Ponyo lacks that. It has cute characters and great animation, but that's about it.