Hi friends, welcome to a new blog series Self Care and Ghibli! Every month or so I’ll sit down, practice some self care and watch a Studio Ghibli movie.
After my Kiki’s Delivery Service article, I asked myself what other lessons Miyazaki can teach me regarding self-care. This question will be answered as I make it through (hopefully) all of the Ghibli movies, starting with Ponyo!
Ponyo Ponyo, tiny fishy in the sea, was one of my first Ghibli movies. Introduced to me when I thought Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas were the next big Disney stars, I didn’t take the time to appreciate the lessons Ponyo provides. Even watching it in college, my biggest takeaway was “damn, how many people drowned?”
In watching now, I realize that Ponyo is about love. Not the romantic type, but the type of love that is unconditional. The type of love that is so innocent that a 5-year-old boy would confess it to a goddess. The type where people put your desires above theirs. The type where you take all the risk for happiness.
Friendship Love
As a kid, I thought it was so weird that these two kids were in “love”. “Why are they shipping children?” I thought. I was so foolish. Parts of my misunderstanding was because of how hard friendships have been for me my whole life. I never fully got it, and honestly, I still don’t. Romantic love was pretty clear, but platonic and pure friendship wasn’t. Watching Ponyo made me realize how blessed I was to know that I do have friends who would still love me if I were a fish.
I always believed that friendships had to be this grand thing. I was always chasing that sacred bond between two people that will travel to the moon and back for each other. Way further than any significant other could dare. I thought friendships were supposed to be complicated, and as I have learned, they are. But Ponyo reminds me that friendships can be simple. It can be someone that you see and decide, “I want to nurture you. I want to watch you grow and see the world through your eyes. Now let’s get ramen.” It can be as simple as that.
I watched Ponyo when I was going through it and needed some self-care really badly. I chose it at random, but I think it chose me. While I have a LOT of work to do to unpack the way I view friendships, I think Ponyo gave me some clarity.
Familial Love
Another love that comes hard for me is familial love. I don’t particularly have a great or horrible relationship with my family, but I do see a lot of my family in Ponyo’s. As an eldest daughter, the opening scene of the movie hits hard. I was the first one to move out in my family. Going to school and leaving home was expected of me, but I don’t think staying away from home was.
I always thought Ponyo’s dad was evil. He’s just a dad. A dad who wants to protect his daughter from how fucked the world can get. Ponyo was also fortunate enough to have a mother who would let her make her own decisions from a young age. Her sisters encouraged her on her journey. My mom always says that family is all you’ve got. As a kid, I refused to believe it. I have friends, I don’t need family. And now I think about where those friends may be now.
Ponyo reminds me of me because, despite being the oldest, she breaks out and does what she needs to for herself.
Self Love
This brings me to what I think is one of the most important types of love, self love. Ponyo took a risk when she left home. She didn’t want to be another fish in the sea; she wanted to know what else was out there. It was hard in the beginning, but she knew what she had to do. And of course I may be projecting a bit here, but I think part of that is the point.
Ponyo falls so much in love with herself in her human form that she refuses to go by her previous name. She chose the life of a human over magic because she knew she wasn’t done with her adventure.
However, with all self-love comes destruction. In becoming human, Ponyo sets off a tsunami that floods Sosukue’s home. Reflecting, I thought, has my self-love caused destruction to those around me? Have I neglected those I care about to do what was best for me? I think about my family and how I rarely visit. And I think about my friends that I avoid hanging out with to rest. When does self-care become a tsunami for someone else? That’s a question I’ll continue to ask myself, and one I may continue to answer incorrectly.
Overall, I think Ponyo is the embodiment of love. Watching the movie when I did was needed. My eyes opened to how I view and value the relationships in my life. If you’ve seen Ponyo do you agree with it being a film about love?
