Joe Hisaishi doing what he does best: making you feel things you didn't sign up for. "Deep Sea Pastures" opens with this shimmering orchestral wash that genuinely sounds like sunlight filtering through water. "Ponyo Rides a Sea of Fish" is pure chaotic joy, brass and strings tumbling over each other with the energy of a five-year-old sprinting downhill.
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"Fujimoto" carries this anxious, slightly theatrical weight. Then "Gran Mamare" just stops you cold, enormous and ancient and beautiful. "Ponyo's Lullaby" is so tender it borders on unfair. "A Night of Shooting Stars" glows.
The whole score moves between childlike wonder and oceanic enormity without ever feeling unbalanced. Mandatory listening if Miyazaki's world ever made you tear up over a goldfish.