Having had 'Spirited Away' and 'Howl's Moving Castle' for a while, we bought this film primarily for our 4-year-old grandson to watch. I'm quite sure he doesn't understand the storyline, except in its simplest essentials (neither do we, really), but the fact is that he has watched it four times right through in two weeks, totally absorbed. The nature and quality of the animation has a lot to do with this. It's not just the fish/girl (Ponyo) that's cute - Sosoke and his mum, Lisa are too, and indeed the old ladies at the Senior Citizens' Facility. Lisa is intriguing - an impetuous Mum, a very bad driver, a poor timekeeper, living on top of a cliff with her very nice and trustworthy little boy (of whom she is extremely fond), her husband a sea-captain in one of the very many coastal ships which pass and repass along the heavily polluted coastline. It's not a pretty-pretty film, and environmental issues are very much on the agenda, but there's magic too, both literal (worked by Ponyo, her father and her mother) and metaphorical, in the effect the film has on its watchers. It works whether you are 4 or 64 - believe me. Recommended.