Ponyo and her ocean world represent the creative subconscious of the human mind, contrasted by Sosuke and his life on the land, which represents the outer, conscious human mind. Lightburn points out that this folktale contains the same motif of a mermaid and her human love.Īnother interesting point that Lightburn brings up is the comparison between the land/sea and fantasy/reality. Furthermore, while Miyazaki follows the basic narrative of The Little Mermaid, he also draws inspiration from Japanese folktales (in particular, the folktale of Urashima in which a sea princess and a human fisherman fall in love and live together under the ocean). Lightburn states that while The Little Mermaid has Christian overtones (mermaids don’t have souls, but humans do on top of that, human souls go to Heaven after they die there is also the idea presented at the end of the tale that the mermaid can work to gain passage to Heaven through doing good deeds), Ponyo has no such overtones. In her article Through the Eyes of a Child: Aspects of Narrative in Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Jane A.
While the tale of The Little Mermaid highlights the theme of self-sacrifice, and focuses on the trials the mermaid must endure in order to obtain a soul, Ponyo focuses on acceptance, devotion, harmony, happiness, and love. At first glance, Ponyo seems to be simply a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytale The Little Mermaid, but while the basic plot is similar on the surface, Ponyo diverges from The Little Mermaid in terms of themes and the progression of the story.