Instead, here’s a quick repost of the abstract I sent (two weeks late…) to Colony Drop as a submission for their fanzine (forthcoming, I have no idea the hell when).

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How Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is Basically a Movie About a Cliff and Nothing Much More (Or, How Miyazaki Tricked Me Into Believing Just That)

While you might expect a colorful and energetic analysis of a film by Hayao Miyazaki, a filmmaker great enough to merit an Academy Award, this is an essay about flying fish.

Miyazaki’s Ponyo (2008) succeeds a long line of popular, animated films produced by Studio Ghibli, inclusive of such titles as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, many of which (if not all) do not feature flying fish or anything resembling airborne herring to the least degree. Ponyo, written and directed solely by Miyazaki (a first for the Studio), features a goldfish-turned-muppet-turned-girl named Brynhildr (later, she rejects her father-imposed name for the moniker, Ponyo, bestowed upon her by a five-year-old Japanese boy) who steals the role of protagonist in this film by shoving aside more-interesting characters and unresolved plot holes. And while Ponyo the film attempts to coat a bildungsroman with elementary-school zest, this is not a movie about Ponyo the muppet. This is a movie about flying fish.

Why flying fish? Or, why flying anything? Critics of Miyazaki’s films have continually highlighted the theme of flight that pervades his movies. However, flying is not what Miyazaki’s films are about. It’s really about hair. Hair, constantly moving, blown around by wind or falling or violent weapons whizzing by unprotected foreheads. Miyazaki loves to animate hair. Why do you think that My Neighbor Totoro — a film that features a monstrous, fuzzy amalgamation of a raccoon and owl — succeeds so well as an animated film, for instance? It’s certainly not the “cute” varmint that nearly devours a pair of juvenile girls in the barrens of a giant forest. The Studio has been blustering hair since Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984, gliding to Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), and culminating in the intense power of “the Ghibli Engine” that is the 1992 production of Porco Rosso.

But this is a movie about flying fish, correct? Right on the mark, but it’s about flying fish. Fish need water, water that Miyazaki unfortunately cannot animate in an acceptable manner. Water might be said to flow like hair in wind, but Miyazaki’s style dictates that all forms of liquid move like Play-doh, hair gel, or Irvin Yeaworth’s 1958 The Blob.

So, if Ponyo — a movie about a fish in the ocean — relies so much on water, does Ponyo flop? Well, this essay certainly will not let the lack of dramatic structure nor the focus on pure character profiling (the Miyazaki moé moment) slip by without lambaste. Miyazaki’s Ponyo is a wonderful work of art; however, it is not a good film. Yet, while I must believe that Isao Takahata is planning the ultimate smackdown for his directing partner in the near future, I affirm wholeheartedly that Ponyo is a good Miyazaki production.

Yes, Miyazaki pulls a fast one on his audience, forcing them to ask the filmgoer to their left or right, What the hell did we just watch?, usually preceded by, Why are Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas singing an Auto-tuned bastardization of the theme song in this American dub?, but he does so in a manner that satisfies the thematic animated style emphasized in his previous compositions. How? Flying fish. Miyazaki fashions a world where one never existed, between cliffs, a world of water in which fish fly like birds over submerged cars and through flourishing trees. And these silent flying fish carry Ponyo to the same pinnacle occupied by Spirited Away’s bathhouse or Laupta’s flying, aged castle.

I hope for this essay to fill in many holes left by ignorant American otaku on the history, style, and animation of Miyazaki’s most popular Ghibli films. And, of course, focus a bit more on the important elemental scenes of Ponyo, such as the flying fish that most reviewers so astutely and skillfully ignore.