Ponyo and the Magic of the Everyday

Wonder, empathy, and story structures in "Ponyo" - Miyazaki Book Club 3

Image: Studio Ghibli

Hi everyone! This May, I finished my 10,000-word thesis on Hayao Miyazaki's process. I watched every documentary, read every essay and interview he ever gave, and I came out with more respect for his work than before. To make things easier, I’ve broken the text down into three distinct essays. The first two essays cover Miyazaki's process and his approach to world-building. While you don’t have to have read the previous two to understand this one, reading all three should (hopefully) paint a larger picture of the director. This third one takes a closer look at “Ponyo” and how Miyazaki’s worldview shapes the film. I hope this essay makes you see his work a little differently!

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I’ve been waiting to write about “Ponyo” — Studio Ghibli’s most ambitious story — for years. It’s not the most ambitious in terms of scope or technical prowess, but in the commitment to its theme — that to consider our everyday reality as extraordinary and magical is an inherently radical act. To look through the eyes of a child, filled with wonder, can save the world. In “Ponyo”, we see Miyazaki’s soul, laid bare on the screen.

Act 1: Ponyo and the ocean

“Empathy is the most essential quality of civilization…And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy…It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.” - Roger Ebert, 2005¹

With its opening shots, “Ponyo” makes a quiet statement, preparing its viewer for the type of film it is. It opens with a series of shots of the ocean — light, glittering through waves. A couple jellyfish swim by, then, out of nowhere, the screen is covered with them, alive with movement.

As if to shake the viewer from their seat, Miyazaki chooses to defy preconceptions about what animation can do from the very beginning. Traditional Cel animation is limited to animated characters and props, with static paintings used as backgrounds. The film’s opening works hard to dispel that idea. The environment is given the importance a character would have in another film: “By distorting normal space and contorting normal shapes, the sea is animated not as a backdrop to the story but as one of its principal characters”². This works to set the stage for the rest of the story, and is followed by the introduction to our first character — Fujimoto, the film’s stand-in for Miyazaki’s grumpy, jaded view of the world.

While he could have been a simple villain, Fujimoto is treated with reverence: “Miya-san therefore empathizes with each character designed to play a specific role in the overall drama, gives that character its appeal and its problems, and lets it have its say. And one result is that even his ‘bad guys’ tend to suddenly stop being bad guys […] he can’t stand the idea of creating any with whom he cannot identify emotionally” ³.  We then (finally) meet Ponyo, who, upon escaping her bubble, swims up towards the surface in pursuit of freedom.

Image: Studio Ghibli

As Ponyo meets Sosuke and they learn more about one other, the story’s focus remains firmly on their physical experience of the world. Every story beat is tied to its location. The environment’s importance in the story is right there in the Japanese title — “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea”! More than simple backgrounds, the film’s locations are active participants in the story — metaphorically, and literally, as the fish-waves that form the tsunami.⁴

The tsunami! After Ponyo runs away after being captured, the film hits an emotional high point. Lisa and Sosuke drive frantically through the town, racing a tsunami that Ponyo’s escape has caused. Every shot in this sequence comes to life through expressive, almost single-level animation, and you can all but hear Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”, which inspired the sequence,⁵ playing as it unfolds.

This is one of my favourite sequences in the film — it feels like the animators went all out, with the distinction between elements that are animated and ones that aren’t becoming unclear. As the tension builds, we ascend the hill toward the house, mirroring the rising emotional intensity, and the sequence ends with a bang as Ponyo jumps into Sosuke’s arms. It’s SO GOOD!!

Act 2: Interlude (the heart of the story)

“We automatically expect new element to alter, complicate, or deepen the situation our characters find themselves in. Why, else, are they there in the first place?”⁶

As the film transitions from the frenetic chase, we settle into a slower, more contemplative pace when Lisa, Sosuke, and Ponyo reach the house. They spend time doing everyday things we so rarely see in animated films.

When “Ponyo” was first released, this scene was controversial because it slows the pacing abruptly after the chase.⁷ I think it instead serves as the heart of the story.

It’s the driving force for the second act, creating a motivation for Ponyo’s overwhelming desire to be human, explaining the necessity of the devastating tsunami. Ponyo doesn’t want a human life — this is what she wants. Mundane, everyday events become special, rendered with loving detail. The crumbling of a packet of noodles, the whirr of an electric generator, the magic of a hand-radio. I wish I could live in this scene!!

The interlude is necessary, allowing for a pause between acts while allowing us to better understand the story’s characters. It deepens the situation by raising the stakes. This interlude is something Miyazaki describes as “Ma” in an interview with Roger Ebert — “‘We have a word for that in Japanese,’ he said. ‘It's called Ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally.’ [...] He clapped his hands three or four times. ‘The time in between my clapping is Ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension.’”. ¹

As a concept, “Ma” has defined Japanese culture and storytelling for millennia, and deserves an essay of its own that I might get around to writing someday soon. But without it, the climax of the film wouldn’t be as poignant, its message diluted in constant action.

Act 3: Resolution

Image: Studio Ghibli

“Though we may seem to be living lives of routine each day, each experience is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Yet it is incredibly difficult for us to perceive the significance of the experiences in our own lives. But when we look at children, for them each day is full of new things. For children, these are a series of significant events, and it is a delight to be able to witness these dramatic scenes.” ²

While the moon approaches the earth in what is promised to be an apocalyptic collision, the film insists that this isn’t that important. The world Ponyo and Sosuke find after setting off to find Lisa is beautiful. We find the town submerged, full of pre-historic life. The colors are vibrant and happy, and nothing (other than the looming moon) suggests there’s anything to worry about. In many ways, the town looks happier after the tsunami. People are being evacuated, but their spirits remain high. Flags wave through loud cheers as a brigade of makeshift boats makes for the mountains.

And that’s the end of the film! It’s sudden, but sweet. After a final test of faith, Sosuke and Ponyo reach the underwater bubble, and through their love for one another, the Earth is suddenly saved.

As the characters progress through the story, it's not them who must change, but the world around them. In a reversal of typical screenwriting rules, our protagonists change very little. That might be why Miyazaki’s films are so beloved in our late-capitalist society — they offer a refuge from the narrative that there is something wrong with us. They suggest the radical possibility that nothing is wrong with us, and instead, it’s the world that might need fixing.

The only villain in “Ponyo” is the blindness with which we live our everyday lives. Our planet suffers as fishing boats rake across its seabeds, destroying ecosystems. Not out of malice, but a lack of imagination — a “forgetting” that happens as we grow up. We forget to look at the world with wonder, the belief that anything is possible if you believe that it is. After all, that’s exactly how Ponyo’s magic works in the film. Maybe that is why Fujimoto is there too — an infinitely powerful wizard that reminds us no amount of power or anger can ever make a difference without wonder.

Even as the world ends around them, Sosuke and Ponyo are enamored with its beauty. Every moment, each “everyday experience” becomes a significant event in their lives. And we are allowed to step into their shoes and see things from their perspective and believe that the world can be better — that is Roger Ebert’s “empathy machine”. Rather than a film “in which nothing happens”, “Ponyo” is a radical statement, delivered in tones vibrant enough as to shake even the most dormant of us into waking from our slumber.

And if we decide to take Miyazaki up on that and take a look through Ponyo’s eyes — full of wonder, we too could see that love can save the world.

Act 4: What comes next?

“This is my response to the afflictions and uncertainty of our times - A little boy and a little girl, love and responsibility, the ocean and life” ²

I still remember the first time I saw “Ponyo” - in a small cinema in 2008, with my family. It was my first Studio Ghibli film, and I remember the feeling I had leaving the theater - of pure awe! I’d never seen a movie that gives kids such agency, a story truly told through my point-of-view. Ponyo might be Miyazaki’s most radical film, and it’s only fascinated me more as I’ve learned more about it.

And there is so much to know! That “Ponyo” was born out of a Tate Museum visit, and Miyazaki, having seen the painting “Ophelia”, decided to try and capture the painting’s vibrancy and attention to detail in an animated film.⁸ Or that Miyazaki’s not even in the credits - ending with a simple “We made this film”, his name is not in the credits at all!

Despite everything, I feel as though I’m only starting to understand Hayao Miyazaki as a director. This essay is the end of my thesis, but since then, I’ve continued reading everything I could find about him. I promise to revisit him in the future! In the mean time, I hope there’s been enough of me in these essays, and you’ll decide stick around for what I have in store. There’s so much more for me to learn, to write about, as I direct my first short film or start my first job in animation.

Thank you all for reading my blog this year! I’ve received so many sweet and insightful comments, met such incredible people. I can’t wait to show you what I have in store for 2025. Happy holidays everyone! Stay warm 🌟

1. Ebert, Roger. “Interview with Hayao Miyazaki.” 2002

2. Napier, Susan. “The Anime Director, the Fantasy Girl and the Very Real Tsunami.” 2012.

3. Miyazaki, Hayao. Turning Point: 1997-2008. 2014.

4. “Miyazakian space is fundamentally three-dimensional, and grounded in its own reality. … He differs in this from other (great) directors of animated films for whom space is often used as a malleable support for exteriorization and exploration of the psychological state of the characters” - Trouillard, Emmanuel. “Animated Geography: The Experience of the Elsewhere in Hayao Miyazaki’s Work.” 2014.

5. Arakawa, Kaku. 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki: The Making of Ponyo. 2020.

6. Saunders, George. To Swim in a Pond in the Rain. 2021.

7. Walker, Doug. Nostalgia Critic Episode 200. 2012

8. Entin, Nicole. “Ophelia and Ponyo, Millais and Miyazaki: How the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Influenced the Animated Films of Studio Ghibli.” 2020