You can pretty much guarantee that anything with Hayao Miyazaki’s name attached to it will be superbly wrought, fantastically animated, and delivered with a fine dose of poignant storytelling. He has left a legacy of films in his (no longer retired, for now) wake, including Ponyo, which has its 10-year anniversary this year and is celebrated in a series of screening events happening across the country, which includes presentations in three Seattle and Bellevue area theaters.

The anime fantasy is loosely based on The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen’s version, not Disney’s), about an austere, potentially malevolent warlock/sea king whose young amphibious daughter runs (swims) away from her home. The little boy, Sosuke, who scoops her from the waves believes she’s a goldfish, names her Ponyo, and introduces her to a small slice of his world before her father finds her and brings her back to their underwater kingdom. But Ponyo’s taste of food and friendship fuels her next escape, setting off a chain of events that will change her (and Sosuke) forever. This film gets me choked up every time.

Check out the original English language trailer to the film below. See the dubbed in English version on March 25 and March 28, and the subtitled version on March 26.