Ponyo (Official Studio Ghibli Website) is a visually stunning animated feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, released in 2008.

In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into the fascinating cast of Ponyo. By looking back at the characters and their English voice actors, we will explore their unique charms, hidden backstories, and specific roles in the narrative. What kind of people (and magical sea creatures) actually populate this coastal town?

Please be aware that this deep-dive character guide contains major, unmarked spoilers for the entire film.

*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.

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Contents

Ponyo (2008) Main Characters and Voice Actors List

NameAgeVoice Actor (English Dub)
Ponyo, the magical goldfish princess.

Ponyo

5Noah Cyrus
Sōsuke, the brave five-year-old boy.

Sōsuke

5Frankie Jonas
Lisa, Sōsuke's fierce and capable mother.

Lisa

25Tina Fey
Kōichi, Sōsuke's father and a ship captain.

Kōichi

30Matt Damon
Fujimoto, the eccentric deep-sea sorcerer.

Fujimoto

100+Liam Neeson
Gran Mamare, the massive Goddess of the Sea.

Gran Mamare

UnknownCate Blanchett
Toki, the grumpy but lovable senior resident.

Toki

UnknownLily Tomlin
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Ponyo (2008) Character Map

A detailed Character Relationship Map for Ponyo, showing the connections between Sōsuke's family on land and Ponyo's divine family in the sea.

The story kicks off when Sōsuke rescues Ponyo—the runaway “goldfish princess”—from the rocky shoreline near his house. Desperately enamored with Sōsuke, Ponyo uses ancient magic to live in the human world, a decision that accidentally shatters the balance of nature and triggers an apocalyptic flood.

Ponyo (2008) Deep Character Profiles and Analysis

Ponyo | Voice Actor: Noah Cyrus

Ponyo, the magical goldfish with a fierce determination.

Ponyo’s Basic Information

The titular protagonist of the story, a five-year-old magical fish-girl. Her birth name is the majestic “Brunhilde,” but she absolutely prefers “Ponyo”—the name Sōsuke gives her because her tummy looks “ponyo-ponyo” (soft and squishy).

The narrative is driven entirely by her curiosity and obsession. After escaping her overprotective father, she washes ashore and is rescued by Sōsuke. By licking the blood from a cut on his thumb, she ingests human DNA, granting her the magical ability to mutate into a half-human, half-fish creature.

She also develops an insatiable, hilarious obsession with the ham Sōsuke feeds her.

Ponyo’s Astonishing Determination

Despite being forcibly dragged back to the ocean by Fujimoto, Ponyo refuses to give up. Driven by a single-minded desire to reunite with Sōsuke, she breaks into her father’s magical reserves, transforms into a human girl, and rides a massive, apocalyptic typhoon back to the surface.

Because the film is animated so cutely, your first reaction might just be, “Aww, how magical!” But if you pause and imagine that sequence in a live-action context, it is a genuinely terrifying, awe-inspiring display of raw power.

In fact, during the pre-production phase of Ponyo, Director Miyazaki famously blasted Richard Wagner’s booming Ride of the Valkyries on loop in his studio to capture the energy of the scene (Source: How Ponyo Was Born (ポニョはこうして生まれた, in Japanese)).

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The next time you watch Ponyo aggressively sprinting across the crests of the giant fish-waves, try playing Ride of the Valkyries in your head. It perfectly captures the epic, almost destructive scale of her determination!

Sōsuke | Voice Actor: Frankie Jonas

Sōsuke, the brave and incredibly independent five-year-old boy.

Sōsuke’s Basic Information

The co-protagonist of the story, a fiercely intelligent five-year-old boy. He attends the Himawari Nursery School and spends his free time chatting with the elderly residents of the adjacent “Himawari House” daycare center, where his mother works.

Sōsuke is notable for a very specific, unconventional cultural trait: he calls his parents by their first names, “Lisa” and “Kōichi,” dropping all traditional honorifics. This detail highlights his remarkable sense of independence. He is a steadfast, reliable boy who bravely honors his promise to Ponyo: “I will protect you.”

I have compiled a deep-dive psychological analysis on why Sōsuke addresses his mother by her first name in the article below:

Read the full analysis: Why Does Sōsuke Call His Mother “Lisa”? The Meaning of First Names

Lisa | Voice Actor: Tina Fey

Lisa, Sōsuke's fiercely capable and loving mother.

Lisa’s Basic Information

Sōsuke’s mother, a highly capable 25-year-old care worker at the Himawari House.

Because she drives recklessly and allows her son to call her by her first name, some viewers hastily judge her as a flawed parent. In reality, she is an incredibly dependable, heroic figure.

Operating essentially as a single mother while her husband is at sea, she balances raising a child with a highly demanding job. During the typhoon, her crisis management is flawless—she acts with the kind of decisive, instinctual heroism that often goes overlooked.

Allowing her son to call her “Lisa” isn’t a failure of discipline; it is a deliberate parenting choice to foster the exact independence Sōsuke relies on to survive the film.

Kōichi | Voice Actor: Matt Damon

Kōichi, Sōsuke's hardworking father who is frequently away at sea.

Kōichi’s Basic Information

Sōsuke’s 30-year-old father, the captain of the cargo ship Koganeimaru.

Although he deeply loves his family, his gruelling job as a sailor means he is practically never home. While he exists in the margins of the film, his physical absence forces Lisa and Sōsuke to operate as a completely self-reliant unit.

Interestingly, Ponyo is uniquely sparse when it comes to adult male characters. Aside from Kōichi (who is at sea) and Fujimoto (who is at the bottom of the ocean), the human world is almost entirely populated by women and children.

Fujimoto | Voice Actor: Liam Neeson

Fujimoto, the eccentric, anxious deep-sea sorcerer.

Fujimoto’s Basic Information

Ponyo’s overprotective, eccentric father. He was once a human being but abandoned the surface world to become a deep-sea sorcerer.

In the film, he mutters about “how much he struggled to shed his humanity,” but his powerful magic suggests he is far more than a mere oceanologist. He harbors a deep, cynical resentment for humanity’s pollution of the oceans, yet panics frantically when his daughter triggers a natural disaster.

Here is a phenomenal piece of official Ghibli lore: Fujimoto was once the sole Asian crew member aboard Captain Nemo’s legendary submarine, the Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (Source: Ghibli Textbook 15: Ponyo).

This backstory perfectly explains his hatred for surface-dwellers, his retro-futuristic aesthetic, and his deep reverence for the mysteries of the ocean.

Gran Mamare | Voice Actor: Cate Blanchett

Gran Mamare, the colossal and radiant Goddess of the Sea.

Gran Mamare’s Basic Information

Ponyo’s mother, the literal Goddess of the Sea. She operates on a scale of pure mythology, capable of altering her size from a towering colossus to the height of a normal human woman.

While Fujimoto desperately tries to control Ponyo, Gran Mamare exercises divine wisdom, making the bold, universe-altering decision to let her daughter become permanently human to restore the balance of nature.

While the film portrays her as a beautiful, glowing deity, Director Hayao Miyazaki revealed a terrifying biological secret: Gran Mamare’s true, biological form is a giant deep-sea Anglerfish. (Source: The Place Where the Wind Returns, Continued).

If you know anything about the horrific, parasitic mating habits of the anglerfish, this drastically changes the entire context of her relationship with Fujimoto! I have explored this terrifying revelation below:

Read the full analysis: The Terrifying Truth About Gran Mamare and Sōsuke’s Future

Toki | Voice Actor: Lily Tomlin

Toki, the famously grumpy senior resident at the Himawari House.

Toki’s Basic Information

The resident cynic of the Himawari House. Like the other elderly women, she adores Sōsuke, but she masks her affection behind a constant barrage of complaints and sharp-tongued warnings.

For most of the film, she is confined to a wheelchair. However, during the miraculous climax in the underwater dome, she is seen happily standing and running around with the others.

Interestingly, some fans theorize that because she is so stubborn, her reliance on the wheelchair early on might have been partially driven by her own grumpy refusal to push herself, acting as her own form of daily “sarcasm” against the world.

Other Characters

Yoshie & Kayo | Voice Actors: Betty White, Marsha Clark

Two of the sweetest residents at the Himawari House. They act as doting surrogate grandmothers to Sōsuke, providing a warm, calm contrast to Toki’s relentless pessimism.

Woman in the Boat | Voice Actor: Mona Marshall

A serene mother holding a parasol whom Sōsuke and Ponyo encounter while navigating the flooded ocean in their toy boat.

While the encounter seems brief, Director Miyazaki explicitly included the sequence where Ponyo interacts with the woman’s baby to subtly communicate to the audience that Ponyo is perfectly capable of adapting and thriving in human society post-movie. (Source: How Ponyo Was Born).

Fun Fact: In the original Japanese dub, this woman is voiced by Rumi Hiiragi, who famously voiced Chihiro in Spirited Away.

Kumiko & Karen | Voice Actors: Jenessa Rose, Colleen Villard

Sōsuke’s playful classmates at the nursery school. Kumiko is particularly fashionable and takes a keen interest in Sōsuke. Unfortunately for her, a highly territorial Ponyo finds her annoying and promptly squirts her with water!

The images used in this article are from the Studio Ghibli Works Still Images collection.

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Sifr
A Japanese man in his 30s, originally from northern Japan and now based in Yokohama. He works in the education field by day, and in his spare time, writes articles about his favorite movies and animation.