While Miyazaki dived into steampunk, sorcery, magical realism and spirit worlds Isao Takahata was dealing with grimmer, more grounded works. Most know him for the staggeringly heartbreaking war film Grave of the Fireflies, some for the nostalgic character piece Only Yesterday, and fewer yet his most recent masterpiece Princess Kaguya, which has a little magic but does not strongly deviate from his usual emotional beats. And wedged somewhere in the middle is Pom Poko, a bizarre and twisted lovechild of the two dominant styles that seems to be too ambitious for its own good. The film carries an environmentalist message, which is not something Ghibli has been afraid to broach in the past. But it also differentiates itself from Nausicaa and Mononoke because it is set in modern day Japan and speaks directly to the viewer. It is more immediate, and therefore to some, more 'preachy'.
It lends itself even more immediacy by framing itself like a documentary, with a narrator first providing backstory of the Japanese economic expansion into the rural habitat, and then thereafter constantly interjecting with bits of exposition and recap. The intended effect of this frame narrative doesn't exactly hit right until the very end; the past tense suddenly gains a great deal more poignancy, because the whole film because a porthole into the past, a product of the entire tanuki population's pleading...which has more or less failed and sent them back into human hiding or the dirt ground.
It winds back to the 1960s, where industrial construction machines are devastating the countryside Tama Hills like ladybugs devour a leaf, and how the local group of tanuki have decided to fight back. The tanuki have a long history in Japanese folklore, said to possess magical shape-shifting powers, being able to speak and write, having an innate mischievous nature but working against them, their laziness and fondness for party and feast. Their body-changing abilities also apply to their testicles, which can morph and take all sorts of forms and functions - this particular point has drawn a bit of ire from the western audience and illustrates the cultural divide. The tanuki are drawn matter-of-factly, and the testicles themselves only a small presence amongst their bag of tricks, but the prudish backlash exists nonetheless.
Takahata presents this double nature of the tanuki in the most visible way, through his animation. When they are sly and angry, they snake through the trees grass with slender bodies and lean eyes, determined in their goal. Yet most of the time their form is more typical of anime animals, great big saucers for eyes, pudgy bellies to rub and drum, waddling around with an endearing, goofy look. Perhaps a little too cheerful at time; the film treats death a great deal more flippantly than Takahata ever has, with the tanuki barely containing their laughter as they celebrate a victory at the cost of three human deaths. They covet hamburgers and television a little more, and don't even seem to blink twice at their own kin's passing, their bloodlust only gleefully abated by an even stronger desire for human junk food. Sure, this is humorous enough ("Leeeeeaave the tempura") at times, and we can laugh alongside them when their final efforts are taken as a spectacular ghost parade show, but these characters are never quite developed along, and the tone bounces around so erratically that it is hard to feel too strongly for their losses. It's quaint, light- hearted (especially on death), and then only finally, and eventually, frank, silent, devastating. Like the humans, it's all a little too late.
It lends itself even more immediacy by framing itself like a documentary, with a narrator first providing backstory of the Japanese economic expansion into the rural habitat, and then thereafter constantly interjecting with bits of exposition and recap. The intended effect of this frame narrative doesn't exactly hit right until the very end; the past tense suddenly gains a great deal more poignancy, because the whole film because a porthole into the past, a product of the entire tanuki population's pleading...which has more or less failed and sent them back into human hiding or the dirt ground.
It winds back to the 1960s, where industrial construction machines are devastating the countryside Tama Hills like ladybugs devour a leaf, and how the local group of tanuki have decided to fight back. The tanuki have a long history in Japanese folklore, said to possess magical shape-shifting powers, being able to speak and write, having an innate mischievous nature but working against them, their laziness and fondness for party and feast. Their body-changing abilities also apply to their testicles, which can morph and take all sorts of forms and functions - this particular point has drawn a bit of ire from the western audience and illustrates the cultural divide. The tanuki are drawn matter-of-factly, and the testicles themselves only a small presence amongst their bag of tricks, but the prudish backlash exists nonetheless.
Takahata presents this double nature of the tanuki in the most visible way, through his animation. When they are sly and angry, they snake through the trees grass with slender bodies and lean eyes, determined in their goal. Yet most of the time their form is more typical of anime animals, great big saucers for eyes, pudgy bellies to rub and drum, waddling around with an endearing, goofy look. Perhaps a little too cheerful at time; the film treats death a great deal more flippantly than Takahata ever has, with the tanuki barely containing their laughter as they celebrate a victory at the cost of three human deaths. They covet hamburgers and television a little more, and don't even seem to blink twice at their own kin's passing, their bloodlust only gleefully abated by an even stronger desire for human junk food. Sure, this is humorous enough ("Leeeeeaave the tempura") at times, and we can laugh alongside them when their final efforts are taken as a spectacular ghost parade show, but these characters are never quite developed along, and the tone bounces around so erratically that it is hard to feel too strongly for their losses. It's quaint, light- hearted (especially on death), and then only finally, and eventually, frank, silent, devastating. Like the humans, it's all a little too late.