Are they going to grow up as brother and sister or intimate partners? It seems both have different ideas. To me, Susuke seems to think of Ponyo as a friend but Ponyo is in love with Susuke. I'm curious what it's going to be like growing up together.
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Everyone is entitled to my opinion.
Ponyo was very much a Little Mermaid type story so my best guess (and hope) is that they over time come to mutual romantic feelings for one another.
The nice thing about this film was that since our protagonists were so young there was no sexual tension. Even Haku and Chihiro had scenes of attraction throughout Spirited Away, but Sosuke and Ponyo were pure innocence in their care for one another.
"If you should need me, tap this staff three times on a wall."
"Magic?"
"No, it's just loud."
Both of their parents have long-distance marriages so they probably will too. Sosuke did say he would accept living with a girl who lives in two worlds.
shareI've come to conclusion that there's no difference between friendship and romantic love and it was prudish people who had to invent friendship to categorize love in different ways. But human love is always based on the same instinctive things: the pleasure for touch and human contact (and this can be seen in the relationship between Sosuke and Ponyo as well; i.e where's the boundary between sexuality and non-sexuality, experts say that even breastfeeding is sexual in its true essence and libido-driven) the pleasure for caring for the other person, the pleasure for sharing thoughts and discoveries with another person. Sexuality as a separate dimension is a myth. Sexuality is intertwined with all other humans emotions and feelings, it's just a huge spectrum. And sexuality is of course innocent, so I don't know why when we think something is free of sexuality (but that's impossible anyway, there's libido even in the act of eating and taking a shower) we call it innocent.
I guess the Japanese culture is more likely to see human feelings, relationships and emotions as a wide continuum and spectrum made of the same essence, rather than categorizing different kind of relationships so schematically and narrowly.
That's why I think westerns, in general, can't understand what kind of relationship Ponyo and Sasuke have and how it would develop. Because it's ouside of the shallow and banal western schemes: siblings, friends, lovers, affiances, marriage...
There is a very real difference between friendship and romantic love. I think westerns understand perfectly the relationship Ponyo and Sasuke have and someone has already described it in this thread. Saying breastfeeding is sexual and other psychobabble like that is just silly-talk. Psychology isn't a hard science, as much as it would like to be.
shareTrue psychology is not hard science but some of its hypothesis are thought provoking. I still don't believe there's a very real difference between friendship and romantic love and I don't believe human relationships and feelings can be categorized and labelled like that. I think human feelings are a continuum without fixed boundaries or neat lines. Even Foucault used to say the distinction between sexual and platonic is just a society construction and not something real existing in nature. I think Sosuke and Ponyo relationship is far more complex than the stereotypes we have invented, just like in real life, regardless of our need for labelling and narrowing relationships, thanks god, are more complex and fluid than roles games. And judging from the holism and complexity of Miyazaki mind (as seen in other movies of his) I can say that Miyazaki certainly didn't mean to put a label on their relantionship like sibling, lover, boyfriend, husband. That's my opinion of course.
shareI think at first it will be a brother and sister relationship. One has to wonder what Ponyo and Sosuke's mothers were talking about. Maybe the relationship will move to mutual, intimate love later when they become older.
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so siblings, friends, lovers, affiances and marriage are all shallow things are they? asian culture is not superior in everything, as much as you like to think so
shareI've heard of fishing for a wife, but this wins the prize.
"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"
See, even romance films based on kids can be good if done right!!
Now, there may not be any sexual tension, but nonetheless it made me feel a little, I don't know (nothing perverted just to let you know wierd... with Ponyo's constant hugging with Sosuke, like it was bordering on too much.
"The following is based on true events. Only the names, dates and locations have been changed."
Humans crave physical contact (of which sexual is just one form) from the very first day they are born. There might be non sexual tension between Ponyo and Sosuke but there's certainly an instinctive and natural desire for intimate contact and the asian culture is better at understanding this subtleness than the shallow, labelling and infantilizing western culture.
shareWell, maybe not just Asian, but African as well...
"...Due to cruel circumstances that would not be allowed to happen quite that easily..."
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I think that they will grow up as friends, keeping things platonic because..well..they are children. I think that perhaps Ponyo is in love with Susuke because he saved her so in her mind she placed him on a pedestal. I am not sure if they will end up falling in love when they are older because they are still children, some of their personality aspects haven't formed yet. That being said I would like to think that Susuke and Ponyo separated for a little while, not out of anything negative but perhaps when they were adults Susuke went to school and Ponyo went to the ocean for a little while then reunited and perhaps found romantic love between them.
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