12 Ponyo Quotes in Japanese and English, Explained

These are the first human words Ponyo speaks while she is still in fish form.

That feeling becomes the driving force behind everything that follows. Ponyo escapes from Fujimoto for a second time and races back to Sosuke on top of a gigantic tsunami.

In other words, this is the line that sets Ponyo on the path toward becoming human.

It also determines Sosuke’s fate along with her own. In that sense, this innocent little declaration of love is almost like a curse that decides the future of both children.

I had always wondered how such childlike Japanese would be handled in English. The subtitle uses essentially the same idea as the original: simple words placed one after another.

That simplicity is exactly what makes the line work.

Sosuke says this to Ponyo after finding her, while she is sitting in a bucket in the car on the way to the Sunflower Home.

Throughout the film, Sosuke stubbornly tries to keep the promise he makes here.

By the end, circumstances have escalated to the point where he is effectively required to keep protecting her for the rest of his life in order to restore the world.

That is a rather large consequence for a promise made by a five-year-old, but this line nevertheless tells us something fundamental about Sosuke: when he says he will protect someone, he means it.

The interesting part of the English subtitle is “take care of.”

It is tempting for a Japanese speaker to translate 守る directly as “save” or “protect,” but in this situation “take care of you” sounds far more natural. Sosuke is not simply rescuing Ponyo from immediate danger. He is promising to look after her.

Sosuke says this during the final test after Gran Mamare asks whether he can accept Ponyo even if she remains part fish.

It is an extraordinarily innocent answer from a five-year-old boy.

And once again, that innocent answer completely determines his future.

The interesting English expression is “in between.”

English does have words such as “merman,” while something like “half human, half fish” would describe Ponyo more literally. Instead, the subtitle avoids a direct label and simply says “in between.”

That may be because conventional words for merfolk do not really match the strange intermediate form Ponyo takes in the film.

More importantly, “in between” keeps the emphasis where it belongs. Sosuke does not care what category Ponyo belongs to. Fish, human, or something between the two—she is still Ponyo.

Lisa says this after Fujimoto takes Ponyo back and Sosuke falls into despair.

She could simply have said, “There’s nothing we can do,” and ended the conversation there. Instead, she tries hard to give her five-year-old son a way to understand what has happened.

The line therefore shows Lisa’s kindness surprisingly well.

Her driving becomes somewhat more aggressive immediately afterward, but perhaps that too was part of her attempt to shake Sosuke out of his sadness.

The key English expression is “It can’t be helped.”

Its literal wording may sound strange to Japanese learners of English, but it is a standard expression meaning that a situation cannot be changed and must simply be accepted.

The final “that’s all” also reinforces the message Lisa is trying to give him: Ponyo was born in the sea, so she went home. There is nothing more sinister or complicated about it.

Of course, the audience already suspects that things are not going to remain quite that simple.

After Ponyo finally reunites with Sosuke and the worst of the storm seems to have passed, Lisa decides to head to the Sunflower Home.

Sosuke wants to go with her, and Lisa uses this line to persuade him to stay behind.

Whether leaving the children there was the right decision is certainly open to debate, but at the very least Lisa is trying to fulfill her responsibilities as a working adult.

In the end, Lisa is simply the kind of person who cannot remain still when someone may need her.

The interesting English expression is “out there.”

Depending on context, it can mean something like “outside,” “out in the world,” or “somewhere beyond here.”

The Japanese refers to “people in complete darkness,” while the subtitle converts that idea into “everyone out there.” It is less literal, but perfectly natural English.

This is exactly the sort of phrase that makes someone sound as though they really know English when they use it naturally.

I cannot do it.

Koichi says this excitedly to his crewmates after realizing that the Morse code being flashed from his house is coming from Sosuke.

It may not be the sort of line that immediately comes to mind when people talk about famous Ponyo quotes.

But the sheer delight with which Koichi tells everyone that his son is a genius performs an important job in the story.

Koichi spends a great deal of time away from home, but this tiny moment makes it clear that his absence does not mean that he cares little about his family.

He is simply a very proud father.

Koichi says this after seeing Ponyo during her second escape from Fujimoto, when she races across the sea toward Sosuke.

At the time, he may simply have assumed that he was seeing things.

Soon afterward, however, he encounters Gran Mamare at sea.

And once he eventually returns home, he will discover that the mysterious girl he saw is now effectively being introduced as his five-year-old son’s future partner.

Seeing her once beforehand may have reduced the shock by at least a little.

Fujimoto says this after finally getting Ponyo back, only for his daughter to announce that she wants to become human.

The line establishes both Fujimoto’s basic attitude toward humanity and the sea, and the important fact that he himself was once human.

And yet his later behavior makes his position surprisingly complicated.

When Ponyo’s actions transform the world and place human civilization in danger, Fujimoto does not celebrate. He panics and desperately tries to fix the situation.

Even though he reacts with enormous hostility to the idea of Ponyo becoming human, he eventually accepts it after speaking with Gran Mamare.

He is not exactly a monument to ideological consistency.

But perhaps that contradiction is part of what makes him sympathetic. Fujimoto may despise humanity in theory, but when actual humans are in danger—and especially when his daughter’s happiness is involved—things become much less simple.

The key English expression is “rob A of B.”

It means to take B away from A.

Even when you know the verb “rob,” the instinct for a Japanese learner may be to use “from.” Unfortunately, English has decided that this particular construction uses “of.”

There is no point complaining. We simply have to remember it.

Fujimoto says this when he realizes that his own magic is no longer enough to suppress Ponyo’s transformation and that he must ask “that person”—Gran Mamare—for help.

The existence of this line tells us something important about Gran Mamare.

She is the sort of presence who completely captivates a man.

Fujimoto certainly loves Gran Mamare, but at times it almost feels more accurate to say that he is under her spell.

The subtitle has limited space and therefore leaves the “my chest is beginning to hurt” part to the performance and the visual expression, reducing the line to “When I think of meeting her again…!”

The omitted feeling is still perfectly visible on Fujimoto’s face.

Fujimoto says this at the end of the film, when he finally accepts the situation and entrusts Ponyo to Sosuke.

Fujimoto spends almost the entire movie running around in confusion, but when you think about the situation from his point of view, perhaps that is understandable.

His beloved daughter has suddenly become obsessed with some boy he has never met and is doing everything in her power to abandon the world in which she was raised.

A father might reasonably panic.

Perhaps everything that happens in the film is, from Fujimoto’s perspective, an enormous ritual he has to endure before he can finally let his daughter go.

And I think there is something particularly moving about the fact that he does not say, “Take care of Brünnhilde.”

He says, “Take good care of Ponyo.”

By using the name Sosuke gave her, Fujimoto finally accepts the identity his daughter has chosen for herself.

Gran Mamare says this to Fujimoto while he is desperately trying to recover Ponyo and restore the world she has thrown out of balance.

This single suggestion determines both the ending of the film and, to a considerable extent, the rest of Sosuke’s life.

She is an extraordinarily bold woman.

The main English expression here is “what if…?”

It is a standard way to introduce a possibility: “What would happen if…?” or “How about if…?”

The Japanese is actually even more direct. Gran Mamare essentially says, “Why don’t we just make Ponyo human?”

For Fujimoto, who has spent most of the film trying to stop exactly that from happening, it is quite a proposal.

Toki calls this out to Sosuke as he prepares to leave by car in the middle of the storm.

From her first appearance, Toki is presented as a somewhat difficult old woman.

But little lines like this quietly tell us, “Oh. She is not simply a mean old lady.”

Before we quite realize what has happened, the film has gradually made us fond of her.

The interesting English structure is “let A + verb.”

For Japanese learners, the instinct may be to build the sentence in the passive voice: “Don’t be blown away by the wind.”

But English naturally expresses it here as “Don’t let the wind blow you away.”

It is one of those constructions that seems perfectly obvious once you see it, yet is surprisingly difficult to produce spontaneously.