Ponyo Film Comic, Vol. 2, 2

by Hayao Miyazaki

Reads R to L (Japanese Style) Ponyo, a female fish, runs away from her home in the sea and ends up stranded on the shore. Sosuke, a five-year-old boy who lives on a cliff, rescues her. He promises to protect Ponyo forever. Ponyo grows very fond of Sosuke, and with the help of her sisters and her father's magic, she becomes human. This results in a great imbalance in the cosmos, causing great storms and floods and satellites to fall from the sky. Ponyo...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421530783
• ISBN13: 9781421530789
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Viz Media
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.1"
• Age Range: 6 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Grades 1 to 4

Customer Reviews

Nice adaptation of a brilliant Japanese children's film - part two

"Ponyo, Volume Two" by Hayao Miyazaki, et al (Viz Comics, 2009) -------------------------------------- Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has outdone himself with his new movie, "Ponyo," a wonderful feature-length film that is good for younger viewers (five and up!) and adults as well. The movie tells the story of a mysterious fish-girl named Ponyo who comes up on land and meets a kind little boy who shelters her and protects her from her creepy mad-scientist father. These small, digest-sized manga comicbook adaptations use original art from the film, replicating the original story in perfect detail, with bold vibrant colors and plenty of Miyazaki-style weirdness. American readers will learn to read the story from right to left (Japanese-style) but will be happy to have the text translated into English (charmingly, the sound effects are left untranslated in a free-flowing kanji). The small size and lack of animation make this a much different experience than the film: it's not surprising or overwhelming in quite the same way, but it is a pleasure to be able to linger on favorite sequences, or to let your mind drift a while, and savor the art in ways you cannot do in the theatre. (DVD viewing, of course, will be much different...) As with all Miyazaki productions, this is high-calibre art, imagined and realized at the highest level - it is a gateway into a wild, weird, evocative world, where Nature is powerful and untamable, comforting and sinister at the same time, full of magic and mystery. These tiny but beautiful books are a nice way to re-explore the film, and a nice entry point for younger readers into the world of Japanese manga. And although they're weird, they're not violent or gratuitously sexual -- one of precious few comics out there today that are appropriate for really young readers. Definitely worth checking out. This is the second volume in a series. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)