Miyazaki's Challenging Animated World

When we think of animation in the U.S., we think Disney, talking animals and Scooby Doo.

But if you haven't immersed yourself in the surreal, ethereal, earth-embracing work of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, you're missing one of cinema's true originals. His hand-drawn, anime-influenced work is difficult to describe in lil' blurbs such as this, but each entry in his diverse universe creates its own rich, sometimes daunting world in which magic and humanism and cruelty and an enduring love of nature all battle for a hardscrabble brand of survival.

His new entry, "Ponyo," is sort of "The Little Mermaid" stripped of the songs and the saccharine. The tale of ocean goldfish and her quest to become human is a bit sweeter than most of his complex recent work, but it's still soooo much more rich and complex than the "insert celebrity voice here/insert flatulence joke there" approach that's gobbled up much of American animation. Sorry, Shrek.

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