History Anime / PonyoOnTheCliffByTheSea

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Exceedingly brief: one shot during the credits shows Ponyo happily playing with the other kids at Sosuke's kindergarten.

* HumansAreBastards: Subverted and [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]]. Fujimoto is resentful towards humans for polluting the sea, yet when Ponyo falls in love with Sosuke he is forced to rethink. By the end he sees how, despite doing some messed up stuff as a whole, humans individually can be nice guys.

* [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter Mad Scientist's Adorable Daughter]]: Ponyo.

* WidgetSeries

* AllStarCast[=/=]CelebrityVoiceActor: while Disney has always been able to find a few famous actors to do the English dubs of Ghibli films and ''KingdomHearts'', this movie seriously takes the cake. With a cast including: MattDamon, TinaFey, Cate Blanchett, LiamNeeson, BettyWhite, LilyTomlin, and ClorisLeachman.
* AnthropomorphicPersonification: Ponyo's mother Granmammare is apparently the personification of the sea. She is also an Archetype, the GreatMother. Does that mean Fujimoto [[DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu scored with]] [[YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries the ocean? What a freaky fish guy!]]

-->''Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo - magic set's you free!''

** When Sosuke puts his captain's hat on he looks a lot like [[Anime/MyNeighborTotoro Mei and Satsuki's friend Kanta]].
*** Or like a young version of [[GraveOfTheFireflies Seita]]...

** [[IncrediblyLamePun So it's a]] LargeHam?

** Being completely alien to human life, Ponyo acts like an overexcited 5-year-old, which she pretty much is, when living with Sosuske. An overexcited five-year-old who [[TheFairFolk accidentally floods a heavily populated island just to see that cute boy she likes again...]]

* DrivesLikeCrazy: Lisa.

* MamaBear: Lisa sure knows how to handle situations with danger, specially if her son's around.

* NoEndorHolocaust: Although Ponyo raised the water level high enough to drown almost all of Tomonoura, no harm seems to have been done to the town, its inhabitants, or any of the fishing ships nearby. The explanations are two-fold: 1. It's a kids' movie. 2. They're probably prepared for flooding, considering they live on an island. [[RuleOfThree 3.]] The goddess of the sea was in an extremely nice mood that day.

* AngstWhatAngst: Every single character seems remarkably nonchalant about a catastrophic flood.

* FridgeBrilliance: Ponyo was told by her father that she can't work magic and stay human. Remember that when she casts spells, she takes on that weird appearance that looks like a tadpole or a chicken. Or a vaguely anthropomorphic [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik Tiktaalik]].

* [[HeyItsThatVoice Hey, It's That Voice]]: A lot of A-Listers are in the English dub. It is Disney, after all, so they can afford it.
** In the Disney dub, Liam Neeson plays Ponyo's father, [[StarWars a wizard]][=/=][[TheChroniclesOfNarnia god type]] [[ClashOfTheTitans person]] [[{{Film/Taken}} with a missing daughter]] [[LesMiserables that he tries to prevent from falling in love.]])
** [[HannahMontana Noah Cyrus]] and [[TheJonasBrothers Frankie Jonas]] lead.
*** To be fair, the fact that the leads are a Cyrus and a Jonas relative is never played up; Disney presumably just used them because they were cute kids upon whom Disney held the contracts.
** TinaFey plays Sosuke's mom. MattDamon plays his dad.
** Cate Blanchett plays a [[LordOfTheRings tall, beautiful woman with legendary power]].
** LilyTomlin, BettyWhite, and ClorisLeachman play old people.
** Carlos Alazraqui ([[WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife Rocko]], [[TheFairlyOddParents Mr. Crocker]], the Taco Bell chihuahua) plays one of the crewmembers of the ship Sosuke's dad is on.
** Rumi Hiiragi, who voices Chihiro in Anime/SpiritedAway, plays a young mother on a boat.
** While she has a very minor role, Colleen O'Shaughnessey - AKA Sora and Yoshino from Digimon (Adventure and Data Squad, respectively) - is also in this movie.

** Rumi Hiiragi, who voices Chihiro in SpiritedAway, plays a young mother on a boat.

** The old ladies' knick-knack shelf has a mini-[[SpiritedAway bird god]] in it.

** When Sousuke and Ponyo traverse the flooded town, they come across a tunnel remarkably similar to the one in [[SpiritedAway Spirited Away]].

** Carlos Alazraqui ([[{{ptitleyzvy929g}} Rocko]], [[TheFairlyOddParents Mr. Crocker]], the Taco Bell chihuahua) plays one of the crewmembers of the ship Sosuke's dad is on.

** [[TinyGuyHugeGirl]] Inverted with normal-sized Fujimoto and ''HUGE'' Granmammare. She can shrink herself to almost-human size, but she's still head and shoulders taller than Lisa.

In comparison with [[HayaoMiyazaki Miyazaki]]'s other recent works, this is a return to his more whimsical, SliceOfLife movies such as ''MyNeighborTotoro'' and ''[[KikisDeliveryService Kiki's Delivery Service]]''. The difference is, it's also his only movie that is directly aimed at the under-ten set. The result is that many long-time Miyazaki fans [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids didn't know what to make of it]]. It is also the studio's first film in years not to feature any CGI!

** When Sosuke puts his captain's hat on he looks a lot like [[MyNeighborTotoro Mei and Satsuki's friend Kanta]].

** There's a [[MyNeighborTotoro Totoro]] magnet on the refrigerator in Sosuke's house, Lisa briefly sings a line from the opening song of the same movie ("I'm happy as can be!"), and Ponyo flashes Totoro's signature smile the first time she grows teeth.

* HotShounenMom: Lisa. Also Granmamare, but it's to be expected since she's a goddess.
* HotShoujoDad: Fujimoto, Glam-rock star of the sea. In the Finnish dub, he is voiced by Ismo Alanko, who is literally a rock star (by Finnish standards).

** Inverted with normal-sized Fujimoto and ''HUGE'' Granmammare. She can shrink herself to almost-human size, but she's still head and shoulders taller than Lisa.

* TheJimmyHartVersion: Of "RideOfTheValkyries", when Ponyo rides the tsunami to the surface. Possibly a ShoutOut, because her real name is Brunhilde.

* WeirdJapaneseThing: Not a ''series'', but the effect is similar.