#AGhibliADay #Ponyo

Today, we watched Ponyo. The first time we watched this movie was on one of our earlier dates, at Golden Village Cinema in VivoCity.

This is a sweet adorable movie about a magic goldfish named Ponyo who longs to be human after falling in love with Sosuke. The fact that they're both five-year-olds only makes it even more adorable.

Ponyo's dad, the undersea wizard Fujimoto, is kind of jerk, but ultimately nice enough to let Ponyo choose for herself, while her mother is a sea goddess with some pretty sweet hair and probably the nicest person ever.

But I don't even want to talk about that. What I want to talk about is how great Ponyo's character design is, in all three stages of transformation. First, her goldfish stage: she clearly has a human face and red hair, and looks nothing like a goldfish, but everyone who looks at her thinks goldfish, so we'll just go with it. Her eyes are enormous and she has a round little belly (even the credits song says so). Then her intermediate stage: for some reason, when she first grows legs and hands, they are chicken legs in both positions. They are initially a bit weird, but you get used to them and they become adorable. Her face smooshes down a little, but it's still very clearly a goldfish face. She reverts to this stage whenever she uses her magic, but no one ever seems to comment on it. Finally, her human stage: she becomes an adorable five -year-old girl. Her general features are similar to her goldfish stage: red hair, red body (that is now a dress instead of her skin), and slightly large eyes (though not as large as when she's in either goldfish or intermediate stage). And while her hands and feet look human as well, she has very dexterous feet, and can use them like hands (like a chimpanzee or a gorilla). Conclusion: Ponyo is adorable no matter the stage, and this might be Studio Ghibli's best character design of all time (which is also used for Ponyo's little sisters, who are smaller than Ponyo and also incredibly adorable).

While there are some tense moments dealing with flooding and weird fish made out of water, I think this movie is suitable for kids and for adults looking for a nice, feel-good movie with no real stakes beyond adorable children going on a magical adventure.