I watched Ponyo in the very same theater I saw Aladdin and the Lion King as a kid :)
Its been super quiet here. I miss the discussions, but I'm too lazy to find another forum. I might just unload some thoughts I had about Miyazaki films since watching Ponyo:
Even though Miyazaki's films avoid Disney like portrayals of evil, I find their 'darker' elements more confronting. Miyazaki's stories contain dark spooky things, but these elements are not repressed into the status of evil to be vanquished. 'No face' from Spirited Away or the amorphous ocean minions in Ponyo can seem like the bad guys at points, but they're never maligned driven away or destroyed. They bring a shadowy visceral element into the story that is allowed to be present without having to be linked to evil.
I think the Miyazaki approach is very integrative.
― Sam G, Saturday, 5 September 2009 21:03 (fourteen years ago) link