Film

Ponyo

Name: Ponyo
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Family
Released: 2008
Cast: Yuria Kozuki, Hiroki Doi, George Tokoro, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Yuki Amami

Ponyo is Miyazaki at his most childlike and unguarded: a watercolor tide of a movie about a goldfish-girl who wants legs and a five-year-old who loves her instantly and without complication. The animation ripples and breathes like the sea itself. It's gentler and less plotted than his other films — pure sensory joy, made for the youngest viewers but disarming for everyone else too.

TMDb rating

7.8

If you liked this

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Miyazaki's other great ode to childhood wonder, with the same total trust in a child's-eye view of the world and forest spirits standing in for Ponyo's sea magic.

But Even less plot than Ponyo — if you wanted more story, this offers even less.

Kiki's Delivery Service1989

A young girl navigating an unfamiliar power and a new world, told with the same warmth, patience, and delight in small domestic detail.

But More melancholy undertow about growing up — less pure sensory bliss, more coming-of-age ache.

Spirited Away2001

Miyazaki's masterpiece, with the same watery, transformative magic but scaled up into something stranger, darker, and more emotionally complex.

But Genuinely frightening in places — bathhouse spirits and body horror that Ponyo's toddlers-and-tsunamis charm never risks.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Shape of Water2017

Same fairy-tale engine as Ponyo — forbidden love across the water's edge — reset from childhood wonder into grown-up desire and Cold War paranoia.

Del Toro takes the exact same premise — a human falling for a creature from the water, a fearful authority figure trying to stop it — and plays it as an adult romantic fable.

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Howl's Moving Castle2004

Another Miyazaki fantasy about love overriding logic, with gorgeous painterly backdrops and a sorcerer figure not unlike Ponyo's fretful father.

But Wartime themes and a more tangled plot make it a bigger ask for very young kids.

Arrietty2010

Studio Ghibli's quietest, most tender film — a tiny girl and a lonely boy forming a bond across an impossible divide, rendered with the same lush detail.

But Slower and sadder in tone; there's no chaos or spectacle, just quiet yearning.

Song of the Sea2014

Irish animation drawing on selkie myth, with hand-drawn art as gorgeous as Ghibli's and a similar ache about a child bound to the sea.

But Grief sits closer to the surface here — it's a sadder, more grounded film than Ponyo.

The Little Mermaid1989

The Western fairy tale Ponyo riffs on, told with Disney's own kind of exuberance, big songs, and a girl who'll do anything to walk on land.

But Louder, brasher, more conventionally plotted — none of Ponyo's dreamy, meandering charm.

Big Fish & Begonia2016no page yet

A Chinese animated fantasy steeped in folklore, with a sea spirit crossing into the human world and visuals as painterly and strange as Ponyo's.

But Denser mythology and a more melodramatic, teen-skewing story than Ponyo's simplicity.

Mary and The Witch's Flower2017no page yet

Made by former Ghibli animators, it has the same tactile, hand-drawn magic and a curious, headstrong young heroine stumbling into forces bigger than her.

But More conventional adventure structure — it borrows Ghibli's look without quite matching its soul.

My Octopus Teacher2020

Trades animated fantasy for the real thing: an actual human forming an impossible interspecies friendship with a creature of the sea, and having to eventually let it go.

A real filmmaker's yearlong bond with a wild octopus off the coast of South Africa, shot with the same patient, loving attention to the sea's strangeness that Ponyo animates by hand.

But It's a documentary about real loss and mortality — quiet, meditative, and emotionally heavier than anything in Ponyo.

The Red Balloon1956

Decades before Ponyo, this is the same idea in miniature — a child's unconditional bond with something impossible, told with total faith in a young audience's patience.

A wordless French short about a lonely boy and a balloon that seems to love him back — pure, uncynical wonder distilled into 34 magical minutes.

But It's a short film, not a feature, and its slow, silent 1950s Paris rhythms will feel foreign to kids raised on modern pacing.