Ponyo

Born as Brunhilde to Fujimoto (an underwater wizard who was once human) and the powerful maternal figure Gran Mamare, Ponyo sneaks away from her underwater home riding a jellyfish, becomes trapped in a glass jar aboard a fishing trawler, and is washed ashore. A five-year-old boy, Sōsuke, rescues her by breaking the jar; when he cuts his finger Ponyo licks his blood, initiating her transformation and setting in motion the film's central conflict between her desire to become human and the need to restore balance to nature.

Ponyo is presented as a small goldfish-like creature with a human child's face, small enough to fit in a glass jar. She appears child-sized in both her fishlike form and, later, in human form; she is accompanied by many smaller sisters who resemble her as goldfish-like girls. Visually she is vividly colored like a pet goldfish and has distinctly human facial features as depicted in the film.

Ponyo displays several magical capacities: she can change toward human form (a transformation initiated and accelerated by contact with Sōsuke's blood), she can heal (licking Sōsuke's wound heals it almost instantly), and her use or release of magic can produce large-scale environmental effects (her unrestrained magic contributes to a tsunami and broad disturbances in the sea–land balance, including visions of the moon falling and strangeness such as satellites appearing like shooting stars). She is curious, willful, and affectionate toward Sōsuke; her insistence on a human name and life is a driving behavioral trait. Ponyo is subject to family authority—Fujimoto seeks to reclaim her—and to adjudication by Gran Mamare, who can grant or rescind powers and set conditions for Ponyo's remaining human.