ICv2 is reporting that Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, Ponyo on the Cliff By the Sea, will be released in the US early next year. The film, which opened in Japan in July, outperformed all of Miyazaki’s previous releases–with the exception of Spirited Away, that is–earning nearly $115 million at the box office in 2008. Not surprisingly, critics have praised Ponyofor the beauty of its traditional, hand-drawn animation, its environmental themes, and its appealing characters. In his review for Time Magazine, Richard Corliss offers this description of the movie and its charms:

In this very loose retelling of “The Little Mermaid” — really, a dream triggered by a distant memory of the Hans Christian Andersen tale — we see her and her dozens of sisters navigating Miyazaki’s notion of the sea. The director doesn’t bother much with the usual cartoon bubbles; he trusts the blue-green palette, the gentle undulating of the creatures and the haunting buoyancy of Jo Hisaishi’s score to establish the location with the waves of a watery wand. One little adventuress, known to her kin as Brunhild, escapes this seeming paradise, floating up under the umbrella-penumbra of a jellyfish.

Stay tuned for the official release date announcement!