Nausicaa.net is reporting (via Variety Japan) that Hayao Miyazaki's new film Ponyo on a Cliff will be released in Japan in mid-July, most likely on July 19th.  More information about the latest Studio Ghibli production will be released during the Tokyo International Animation Fair in late March.  Miyazaki has created a series of watercolor sketches to be animated for the film, which will be only the second Studio Ghibli film to have an animated watercolor look (Isao Takahata's My Neighbors the Yamadas was the first).  Ponyo is a fantasy about a five-year-old boy and a goldfish princess who desperately wants to become a girl.

The time lag between when a Miyazaki film is released in Japan and in the U.S. has been shrinking as the director's reputation has spread to these shores.  Spirited Away took well over a year to get a U.S. release, while the more recent Howl's Moving Castle debuted here just about seven months after it did in Japan, which means that there is an outside chance that Ponyo could get a December 2008 release (making it eligible for the 2009 Academy Awards).