Animation Magazine reports that Disney has confirmed they will bring Hayao Miyazaki’s next film Ponyo on the Cliff to the U.S. in 2009.

Ponyo centers on a five-year-old boy’s friendship with a “girl-fish” who wants to be human and ventures out of her underwater world.

Miyazaki was reportedly directly involved in many aspects of the animation himself, preferring to draw the sea and waves himself. The movie debuted in Japan on July 19 and opened to roughly $17 million.

Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, the two who brought Persepolis to U.S. audiences, are producing the English-language version.