I love Hayao Miyazaki movies, Spirited Away is one of my all time favorite movies. So you can imagine my excitement when Ponyo came out so I can share it with my tots. We made a whole day out of it – we had lunch and I even promised she can have popcorn and Coke! We got all settled in and the movie begins with the beautiful imagery Miyazaki is known for, it is truly art. I was so happy and I turned to look at my daughter expecting to see a great big smile but instead, her hands were held over her mouth and she had the look of sheer terror in her eyes. We were only 10 minutes in! I held her on my lap and asked if she can give it another chance but I can tell she was really terrified so we left =( I did research and watched all the trailers beforehand, too, and nothing tipped me off as anything other than a sweet story about a fish and a boy. Now thinking about it, Miyazaki movies do have a dark cast to the theme and the bad guys are always eerily evil. The general mood of the movie jars your sense just a tad with the strange visuals and creatures, which makes you on edge and slightly uncomfortable. Maybe that was it because Ponyo, the goldfish with a real face, is totally adorable and the boy is the sweetest ever. Either way I am disappointed I didn’t get to finish the movie and will now probably have to wait for DVD. If your tot is easily unnerved, I would probably skip this and save it for date night. The good news is, the theater manager gave me passes for us to go back for another movie.