What Is The Main Theme Of Hello, Universe?

The Fourteenth Goldfish is a story at its soul about childhood and its complexities and the consequences of adulthood. Ellie’s grandpa, having been turned into a teenager by science, becomes the focal point of an existential crisis that Ellie must face. Grandpa’s obsession with reversing his aging process leads Ellie to a realization that her grandfather’s search for eternal life may mean missing out on the best part of life right now. What made me laugh in this book was Grandpa’s grumpy-genius shtick. I never knew that a Nobel laureate could throw a fit about the quality of the institutional food served in a university. But in the midst of much humor, there is also much tenderness. Ellie has to learn Science with the same sense of wonder as ‘what if’ as she does with awe and responsibility. She’s not given any easy answers, and the questions that are posed are allowed to keep swimming, much like the Fourteenth Goldfish.

I first stumbled upon 'The Gadfly' during a phase where I was voraciously consuming classic revolutionary literature, and wow, did it leave a mark. At its core, the novel grapples with the tension between personal loyalty and ideological conviction. Arthur Burton’s transformation into the biting, sarcastic Gadfly mirrors the brutal cost of betrayal—both by others and by one’s own ideals. The scenes where he confronts his former mentor, Father Montanelli, are heart-wrenching; they force you to question whether love can ever outweigh duty. What’s equally fascinating is how Ethel Lilian Voynich weaves in themes of sacrifice. The Gadfly’s defiance isn’t just political—it’s almost theatrical, a performance of suffering to expose the hypocrisy of authority. The ending, where he refuses to show pain during his execution, cements the idea that true rebellion is as much about endurance as it is about action. It’s a book that lingers, like a sting you can’t shake off.

A children’s manifesto – ‘I Like Myself!’ is a joyful celebration of kid-sized self-empowerment. Written and illustrated to convey unshakeable self-love via some very unusual and humorous differences (covering yourself in spots, having a warthog’s nose for example), this charming little book asks kids to declare their love of all things ‘me’. This is so much more than accepting differences; it’s actively celebrating them in an enthusiastic manner. The wild, exciting, often-chaotic world of illustrations beautifully mirrors that of a kid’s imagination, which lends credence to the book’s delightfully natural message of confidence – and of learning how to tap into it – via laughter.

‘M Is for Mama’ is unusual in that it tries to make parenting look good, whilst at the same time trying to find the wonder in it. The themes of ‘competing priorities’ and ‘the art of surrender’ particularly hit home. Who hasn’t folded washing only to have their toddler ask to go and look at the stars minutes later? There are also plenty of ‘me too!’ moments, such as the one where the mother loses her temper and then feels terrible, and the odd sense of pride when your toddler finally stops biting. But what the book does best is to make you feel less alone in the beautiful struggle that is parenting.

'My Brilliant Career' is one of the few novels where the major flaws of the main character are the entire point of her story. Sybylla’s struggles to express herself creatively in the face of poverty, social convention and her own bursting emotions is a wonderful theme about the difficulties of being true to oneself. The backdrop of dusty, desert-like Australian bushland is a perfect external manifestation of the turmoil within Sybylla as she makes her way in life. But Franklin has resisted the temptation to turn ‘My Brilliant Career’ into a manifesto for the independent young woman and has drawn instead a remarkable portrait of a young girl trying to make her way towards something true, even when she’s not entirely sure what that will be.

One of the most openly childlike films ever made, Ponyo is the kind of movie I want to watch on a sleepy weekend morning, all wrapped up in a blanket with tea. The heart of the movie is the very pure relationship between Ponyo and Sōsuke, and it is expressed not through grand declarations of love, but through the concrete actions of saving each other’s lives, sharing food, and trusting each other. The movie expresses a profound theme of simple, grounding love that makes the chaotic world around us feel steady. On the surface, Ponyo is a simple story about a fish-like creature who wants to become human, but it is also a deeply rich exploration of the theme of identity and transformation. Ponyo wants to become human not because she wants to rebel against her father, but because she is trying to figure out who she is. Along the way, the film raises many questions about the nature of autonomy, and how we choose our own paths in life. One of the things that really resonates with me is the balance of the movie: between the sea and the land, magic and reality, childhood and adulthood. It’s interesting to see that Fujimoto has a ‘fear’ of humans, and a pretty typical Miyazaki anxiety about the environmental consequences of human actions and the easily-tipped-over eco-system. But Ponyo’s huge transformation of the tides to save her dad has so much resonance as to how small an action can have HUGE consequences, that it never feels like the movie is lecturing you about this. Rather, it is a wonder to behold, an alive, ancient, sometimes mischievous, and mostly kind and gentle ocean. And the way the rest of the family is portrayed as well, in relation to Sōsuke and Ponyo is also really wonderful. The calm, practical and kind Lisa is a great example of the restorative powers of care and trust, showing how parents and guardians can model the best of behavior to their children in the simplest way. However, it is the more recent repeat viewings that have revealed further depths to the film. Firstly, the emotional, true-to-life depiction of the relationship between Ponyo and Sōsuke is amazing, as is the way the film champions simple, grounding love. Secondly, there is the outstanding way in which adult responsibility is balanced against the magic of the sea. This must be the way that all environmentally aware films should be – present in the story, yet never didactic or preachy. In addition, one cannot fail to be struck by the sense of family and care that is at the heart of the film. The simple, selfless love that Sōsuke’s mother, Lisa, shows to her son and to Ponyo is wonderful, as is the depiction of responsible, compassionate adult behavior. As a result, this is a film in which parents and other adult family members are positively represented. The way in which Ponyo’s desire to become human leads to huge environmental problems also adds depth to the film and serves as a powerful warning about the potential consequences of human actions.

A theme of translation is at work in this novel. The protagonist, Kitoto, is a translator between worlds: between the masses and the elite; between the magical world and the ‘real’ one; between his past self and his present ‘legend’. Translation here becomes a central motif of the novel as Kitoto grapples to make the concerns of the peasants heard by the royal elite and to make sense of the mystical menaces threatening his old friends in terms that they can understand. ‘Might’ here is not about violence; rather it is about being able to bridge the gulf between different worlds of experience and of power. A conduit not a hammer.

A scene in ‘The Dot’ that I return to again and again is when Vashti’s teacher hangs up her ‘just a dot’ work of art in a gold frame. Why that scene is so powerful for me is it shows us that even the smallest thing about us can be lauded in such a way as to launch us on a journey. It shows us how we frequently diminish to nothing our efforts in the hope that someone will tell us that we are good enough. The book makes clear that creativity is a strength that everyone possesses and that it is a muscle that everyone can develop. Vashti goes from a slumped, angry child to a proud child who owns her work. And that is the core of the book.

'Wings So Wicked' is a beautiful love letter to outcasts. This story delivers the message that it’s good to embrace duality within oneself. The protagonist’s wings represent her mixed soul of beauty and brutality. There is no distinction between good and evil here. The author took a bold stance to redefine heroism in this work by entertaining the possibility that true strength is in the midst of duality and thus goes against the notion of purity. The subsidiary characters were also complex. They each wrestled with their inner contradictions, and by the end of the story, I was completely rooting for all of the protagonists despite their messiness and human imperfections.

A very practical theme of communication and its failure is developed in the stories: missed calls and texts that do not arrive, names forgotten, letters that arrive late. Most of the plots are constructed around the communications between the two body-swapped characters and the failed attempts to understand each other in the world that they are both in to return to. The moments of clear and perfect understanding in all the stories are extremely rare and precious against the background of so much ‘noise’. The themes are not limited to romantic misunderstandings but extend to the basic problems of human communication in order to convey one’s inner world to another human being. The supernatural elements in the stories are often used as a metaphor for such communication: a magical connection that goes around the normal ways of human communication and conveys the message of the supernatural connection that is so difficult to achieve in real life.