Famed animator Hayao Miyazaki wanted to make a sequel to the 2008 film Ponyo. It never happened. There’s a simple reason for that. Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki did not want to see Ponyo 2.
Miyazaki, who has retired from feature films, is currently working on a short-form CG anime called Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Caterpillar). It will take another year or two before the anime is shown at the Ghibli Museum.
Speaking with Nippon.com, Suzuki talked about Miyazaki’s last feature film The Wind Rises and how it could’ve been another movie entirely.
“He [Miyazaki] wanted to do Ponyo 2, but I didn’t want to watch that,” Suzuki told Nippon.com. “It was no more than that.”
Instead of making Ponyo 2, Suzuki proposed making a movie about Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter. Initially, Miyazaki wasn’t keen, but eventually got behind the idea.
And that’s why Miyazaki’s last feature film is The Wind Rises and not Ponyo 2.
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