Ponyo (2008)

Ponyo is hands down the cutest movie I've seen for ages! At least since last year's Up! The deceptively simple-sounding plot that mirrors The Little Mermaid in the central sea creature character's desire to become humour does little to explain how wonderful the experience of Ponyo really is. 

I've seen Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki's (sort of the Japanese Walt Disney) eariler animated films for Studio Ghibli and I'd enjoyed them, but with some reservations due to some of the inexplicable weirdness that Japanese animations often involve. Ponyo is much more linear, and simpler, but without being boring or childish in any way. I was completely entranced by the touching story of little Sōsuke and his new friend Ponyo, a tadpole-like creature, who, when she tastes human blood, begins to turn into a human child. Ponyo discovers she likes being human, and she loves her new friend, but her father, Fujimoto is king of the sea and doesn't want to let Ponyo go.

The 2-D animation looked gorgeous on the cinema screen, and the score was lucious. I saw the English-dubbed version that has been produced by Pixar creator and all-round animation messiah John Lasseter and it was a seemless blend of Japanese animation, with it's slightly jerky style, and an all-star American voice cast that includes Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Betty White, Lily Tomlin and Cloris Leachman (the latter I'd only just seen in the final 1978 episode of The Muppet Show: Season 2!). The rather twee song over the end credits with the lyrics 'Ponyo, Ponyo, fishy in the sea' has been in my head and not left for days! I walked out of the cinema beaming and when I think of Ponyo it still brings a smile to my face. Wonderful.