"She's not just a gold fish, she's Ponyo."

Ponyo Volume One, covers the first quarter of the long awaited movie from Hayao Miyazaki.

Highlights

In the dark depth of the ocean, the seeds of new life are being dripped form the bottles of life-giving elixirs.  A new Jellyfish is being born from each drop of the elixir.  Fujimoto is the man responsible for distributing the elixir, and while he's doing that, his daughter, Burnhilde, is sneaking out of their home (a submarine).  Burnhilde hides herself on a jellyfish and drifts up to the surface.  

Entranced by the warmth and beauty of the sun, Burnhilde falls into a deep sleep and is carried away on the jellyfish.  When she wakes up, she is in strange waters, where there are boats, large ships, and green hills everywhere.   She ends up getting trapped in a glass jar and floating to the shore, where a five-year-old boy, Sosuke,  finds her, and frees her form the glass jar.  Sosuke's mother yells that it is time to go.  Sosuke stops by the outside faucet and fills a green bucket with water and puts Burnhilde in it. Running to the car with his find, he decides to call her Ponyo.  He plans on showing Ponyo to his class, but he remembers his teacher doesn't like Show-and-tell.  He hides Ponyo in  bush, goes into the class room just long enough to say "hi" to his teacher, then returns to the bush.

A friend of Sosuke follows him to the bush and gets to look a Ponyo.  This friend accidentally angers Ponyo, and in the end, she ends up getting her new dress wet.  Sosuke runs away from the scene of the crime over to the Senior Day Care Center next door to his school.  His mother works at the Senior Center.  One of the seniors hears Sosuke's voice, and so he reveals himself.  He shows the seniors Ponyo.  One of the seniors starts to worry that a tsunami will come because Sosuke found Ponyo, a goldfish with a "real face on it".

Sosuke panics again, and runs down to the seashore.  Ponyo's father finds her, and sends the waves to get her back form Sosuke.  Now, all Sosuke has left is the green pail that Ponyo was in…

What happens next will be continued in Volume Two!

Overall

Ponyo Volume One is all in color, which is really nice.  Each panel is beautiful, and a joy to look at.  As for the story, it's very quite, especially at the beginning.  By quiet, I mean little dialogue.  I love they way Hayao Miyazaki uses pictures to describe movement and action.

This is not Miyazaki's best work, but, everything he does is good!  His character are deep and easy to relate to. The art is just amazing and colorful.  For being a story for a younger crowd, the plot is well done!  There is a simplicity to it, as well as a deeper meaning behind it.  For just being the first volume, it did a great job setting up the rest of the volumes to come.  Also, it did a good job following the movie.

Like I mentioned before, I love Hayao Miyazaki's work and all of his movie.  I was excited to learn that he was coming out with this new movie.  His last movie, Howl's Moving Castle, was one of his best movies, and I thought it was his last.  But he surprised the world with Ponyo, pleasantly proving me wrong.

ComicsOnline gives Ponyo: Volume One. 4.5 out of 5 bottles of Elixir.