The story is very pessimistic. It has a dark and gloomy texture that Japanese movie fans do not find appealing in a ‘comic hero’ film.

Oh, boo hoo! Perhaps Japanese just need to grow up.

Perhaps those Japanese moviegoers who like comic hero movies like the uplifting and exciting Super/Spider/Four/Incredible variety. But pessimistic, dark, and gloomy describe the endings of a whole lot of Japanese movies - Hero, heroine, child dies of disease, gets run over by a truck etc.

strange, when i saw it the theater was almost full. maybe it's not available on enough screens

Well, I guess it's Ponyo for me then.

Kissmint-considering the money this movie has made (half a billion already), Id say that a heck of a lot of adults everywhere need to grow up. I don't understand how anyone over the age of 21 could be sucked into these comic-book crapola movies such as batman, superman, spiderman, iron man, fantastic4, etc, etc.

Perhaps everyone ventured out and bought pirated copies. Why wait when you can pick it up from your local DVD street peddler? Stupid Japanese movie industry. Aho

I still want to see it, mostly because of what I've heard about heath Ledger's portrayal of the "Joker".