Lisa

Full name: Lisa Race: Human Age: 26 Years. Height: 5'6" / 1.72 cm. Gender: Female. Eye color: Black. Hair color: Dark brown. Occupation: Caregiver.

Lisa is a young woman with slightly tanned skin and average height. She has black eyes and dark brown/black hair styled in a bob, similar to Sosuke's. For most of the film, she wears a dark blue shirt and white pants, and a pink apron when she's at home.

Lisa is a caring, self-sufficient, and strong-willed woman. She is extremely stubborn and brave, almost dangerous when it comes to driving, but she always comes out on top at just the right moment. She seems to be a local legend for this. Responsible and wise, she tries to raise Sosuke as best she can, teaching him many seafaring skills such as Morse code with signal lamps. Still young and full of energy, she misses her husband and gets angry when he doesn't keep his promises to come home, but she doesn't hold a grudge. She is also a hero, feeling compelled to help the elderly even if it means leaving her children temporarily, and accepts Ponyo as her own without question. She is an exceptional mother and a great woman.

Lisa works at a nursing home in a small seaside town, right next to her son Sosuke's kindergarten. She makes a living caring for the elderly while her husband Koichi works as a ship captain. One day, her son finds a goldfish trapped in a bottle, and she allows him to care for it without much thought. As they travel along the mountain roads, we discover that Lisa is a crazy driver, racing a robber boat to get to work on time. Shortly after dropping Sosuke off, he gets into trouble, and Lisa saves him from the water after her father and his water spirits snatch Ponyo from him.

When they arrive home later that day, she encourages a glum Sosuke to leave his green bucket as a signal for Ponyo to come home. Her husband ends up needing to make another shipping trip and can't return home as promised, which angers Lisa. She tells him to leave in Morse code using the signal lamp in their house. Sosuke encourages her this time, and she's back in a good mood.

The next day, Ponyo returns as a child after opening the power well and causing the ocean and weather to become dangerous, with tsunami-sized waves and power outages forcing Lisa and Sosuke to go home early. Lisa seems to know no concept of fear as she races against the ocean itself to return to her high hillside home out of reach. When Ponyo appears, Lisa accepts her just as she did when she was a fish, without a second thought (even when she says her father was an evil wizard and swam away from their home), and treats her like her own daughter. She feeds Sosuke and Ponyo honey tea and ramen, turning the terrifying storm into a fun game, distracting them with simple tasks like starting the generator and setting up the radio antenna to communicate with ships at sea.

When Ponyo falls asleep and the sea calms, Lisa leaves Sosuke in charge of the house and looking after Ponyo to go help the elderly who may be stranded.

Toward the end of the film, we find Lisa again, in conference with the Sea Goddess, Granmamare. According to the elders, they had been talking all night and day. Granmamare seems to have explained to Lisa the weight of her responsibility if her son succeeds in saving Ponyo and vowed to love her forever. She would be Lisa's daughter now, and future daughter-in-law after Ponyo became human, after all.

After the balance of nature is restored, Lisa promises Granmamare to take care of Ponyo, and Lisa's husband returns from the ocean with all the other ships.

•Sosuke: Lisa's son. •Koichi: Lisa's husband. •Ponyo: Lisa's adopted daughter.

Being an ordinary human, she has no special abilities.