Gake no Ue no Ponyo

A goldfish sneaks away from home and floats off on the back of a jellyfish. After getting stuck in a glass jar, she drifts to the shore where she is freed by Sousuke, a five-year-old boy who lives with his mother Lisa in a house by the sea while his father Koichi works on a fishing boat. After healing a cut on Sousuke's finger by licking it, the goldfish is named Ponyo by her new friend. Unknown to Sousuke, Ponyo already has a name and a family. Her father Fujimoto, a sorcerer who forsook his humanity to live underwater, searches frantically for his daughter Brunhilde. When found and captured, Ponyo rejects her birth name and declares that she wants to become a human. Using the power received from Sousuke's blood, she grows arms and legs and escapes to the surface once more. But the magic released into the ocean causes an imbalance in nature, causing the Moon to start falling out of orbit and the tides to grow dangerously stronger. Reunited with Ponyo, Sousuke must pass an ancient test to restore order in the world and let his companion live on as a human. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gake no Ue no Ponyo—Miyazaki's 8th animated film with Studio Ghibli—grossed more than $201 million USD worldwide. It is made up of over 170,000 individual frames. In 2009, the film won in five categories at the 8th Annual Tokyo Anime awards. It was also awarded with the 32nd Japan Academy Prize for both Animation of the Year and Outstanding Musical Achievement. Many aspects of Ponyo drew from portions of day-to-day life. The seaside village, for example, is based on Tomonoura, Japan, with some sections inspired by Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. The main character, Sosuke, is also named after the hero of The Gate by Natsume Soseki.