Let’s Appreciate: Pom Poko, 1994
Written by Isao Takahata
Music by Shang Shang Typhoon
Directed by Isao Takahata
Starring Kokontei Shinchou, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida
English Dub Cast: Maurice LaMarche, Jonathon Taylor Thomas, Clancy Brown, J.K. Simmons, John DiMaggio, Brian Posehn
Produced by Studio Ghibli
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Is there a movie you’ll watch time and time again? You’ll watch the entire thing if it happens to be playing on TV, or if you happen to see the title while scrolling through a streaming platform.
For me, it’s Pom Poko.
Pom Poko is a story of two warring Tanuki (or Raccoons) clans who come together when they discover their beloved Tama Hills forest is being redeveloped into a new Tokyo-based suburbia by human beings. In the course of its two hour running time, we follow the Tanuki’s lives through spring, summer, autumn, winter, and then back to spring. We watch Tama Hills grow from a sparsely populated idyllic countryside into a sprawling urban neighborhood, and the difficulties the Tanuki face when trying to fight back with the limited resources they have.
They have a powerful tool at their disposal, however. The skill of transformation.
The Tanuki can change themselves into anything they want — the elements, other animals, human beings, and even Yōkai, supernatural begins and spirits from Japanese mythology. The only thing holding the Tanuki back from reclaiming their forest as their own is…themselves.
The English dubbed edition of Pom Poko is narrated by Maurice LaMarche, and if you don’t recognize the name at first then you’ll certainly recognize his voice. Among his many credits, he’s played: Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbuster, Brain from Pinky and the Brain, Kip from Futurama, Orson Wells in The Critic, as well as being the voice talent behind Will Farrell’s belch in Elf.
Needless to say, I’m sure you’re familiar with LaMarche’s work. His familiar voice narrating the majority of the film, like the Torii of Japan, is a gateway that allows safe passage from our normal, human world into the extraordinary, divine world of the Tanuki.
I say divine, because that’s exactly what Pom Poko stresses upon so much. This is a film that dives deep across the many myths, legends, and spiritual beliefs of Japan, and it doesn’t hold the hand of American audiences through the process. However, like all great animation, it still gives space for international audiences of all ages to enjoy it.
The best animation can tell a story without a single line of dialogue. The thoughts and emotions of the characters conveyed through pantomime.
Pom Poko does something a little different compared to other animation films, however, by using a unique strategy of adapting three different styles for the main characters. The Tanuki themselves aren’t just characters of this story. They are real, indigenous animals found only in Japan. The Tanuki are show realistically when Pom Poko begins, simply living their lives in the countryside.
It’s a good way of easing the audience into a fantastical story such as this one, because we’re given the opportunity to watch these animals as though they were actually found in the wild right outside your backdoor.
Tanuki — “TAH-nu-kee”
But then, when we finally reach the inciting incident — the moment when the plot moves past the introduction and into the actual story — the Tanuki transform into the characters we’ll be familiar with for the rest of the film.
Before moving on, I’m sure some of you are asking a pretty valid question: why are their balls so prominent in this movie?
Well, to answer that real quickly, it has to do with Metallurgy. Specifically, with metal workers of the Kamakura period (time period from 1185 to 1333 CE). Metal workers of this era found that using Tanuki scrotums, when stretched out, was the perfect canvas to shape gold into gold leaf. So, because of this, Tanuki became associated with wealth, and the artwork and folk tales of the period began to reflect this aspect of them.
So…there you go. Balls acknowledged, and moving on!
The final animation style we see the Tanuki use is a simple, highly cartoonish style that comes from director Takahata’s favorite manga as a child, “Shigeru Sugiura” from a book called “808 Tanuki.” You can think of Shigeru Sugiura as being a “Mad Magazine” style manga from 1930s Japan.
In Pom Poko, the cartoonish style of the Tanuki comes out only when we’re meant to see them at their most playful, rambunctious behavior.
Would you like to explore more “behind-the-scenes” material behind Pom Poko and all of the references used for the film?
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I appreciate the seamless fusion of humor, spirituality, and environmentalism found within Pom Poko, as well.
Make no mistake, the film deals with some heavy subject matter at times. Forests are cleared, the Tanuki lose their homes, and human beings die in a series of “accidents” at a construction site when one of the Tanuki leaders decides he’s had enough and fights back. In the scene right afterwards, the Tanuki pay their respects to the dead men by holding a prayer service in front of a television. (Their only source of information about the human world.)
That is, until they’re so overcome with glee because “they saved their forest” — and become the manga style of themselves — that they decide to throw a wild party. A party which results in the leader who originally led the charge against the humans being trampled until every bone in his body is shattered.
It’s fun to watch the Tanuki frighten human beings with their antics, transforming from one outrageous form to another, but there’s a respectable awareness of the environmental costs human beings are inflicting as well. We see them dump their garbage in public places, run over (realistic looking) Tanuki on the highways at night, and hear about the history of hunters killing Tanuki for their pelts.
Frightening antics is fun at first for the Tanuki, but the growing dilemma of how to handle the growing human population eventually forces them to use their skills in more traditional ways. Knowing they’re outmatched, the Tanuki call on “The Masters” for help on how to grow their talents.
“The Masters”
The Masters eventually settle on “Operation Spectre” — a parade of ghostly apparitions with the intent of terrifying human beings into submission for good. Every able-bodied Tanuki joins in the effort, and the end result is a spectacular display of Japanese mythology brought to life and a truly creative use of animation skill.
The parade really is quite the spectacle (and educational about Japanese culture in general). I know I would be thoroughly entertained if I happened to be one of the random pedestrians out on the street that night.
Here’s Operation Spectre in full from Pom Poko. (Spoiler Alert: One of the main characters dies.)
It’s never explicitly said in the film, but it’s interesting to note how the relationship between human beings and nature itself changes over the course of the story. We don’t see any people in the beginning of the film, but it’s implied that shortly beforehand they lived harmoniously with nature. By the time we do see human beings, there’s already a disconnect between their lives in the city versus the surrounding forests.
The Tanuki (and foxes, and certain cats) are, for all intents and purposes, literal guardians for the balance between destructive human behavior and the sustainability of nature.
It poses an interesting question when you look at the spiritual aspect of the Tanuki’s lives in comparison to human beings. Are the Tanuki really the protagonists or antagonists of this story?
Human beings, as portrayed in Pom Poko, are destructive towards the environment as a whole, but it’s not exactly intentional. The people we see aren’t trying to level forests, kill animals, or dump their waste with any intentional malice. Like the rest of the animals of the forest, human beings are simply trying to make room for their own lives. They’re simply naive about the consequences of their actions. (An element that does get rectified towards the end.)
The Tanuki, if we’re to argue that they’re the antagonists, intentionally attack human beings by inflicting fear as a major weapon. An underlying tone of spirituality throughout Pom Poko seems to be that spirituality only works if there’s an undercurrent of fear present. It’s a technique that has worked for millennia, but human beings by the time of the Pom Poko are beginning to learn not to fear nature at all.
I won’t spoil the ending to Pom Poko, except to say the Tanuki and human beings find a way to peacefully coexist with one another.
One final note of appreciation for Pom Poko.
I’m not an anime fan by nature, and I don’t read manga on a regular basis (if ever, come to think of it). However, every once in a great while I’ll pass by a discussion online — much like a pedestrian just minding my business and suddenly coming across a screaming crowd in the square — about which is better.
Subbed or dubbed?
It’s a question of whether or not it’s better to watch a foreign film with subtitles or with an English cast dubbing the material.
Personally, I’ve never taken one side or the other, and that’s thanks to Pom Poko.
I first came across Pom Poko roughly twenty years ago, and over the years I’ve watched it either with subtitles in order to enjoy the original language, or with the English cast because the voice talent is just so good.
It’s interesting to note the differences in translation between the two, and I try to encourage people to enjoy both sides of any foreign film if they have the opportunity to do so. In the original production of Pom Poko, with subtitles, the uniquely Japanese humor comes out more. There are more jokes, more songs, even, about the Tanuki’s massive balls and how proud they are of them. On the other hand, watching the dubbed version allows the audience to focus more on the spiritual/environmental message of the film. Also, it’s just hilarious to see how American companies try to work around the Tanuki in a prudish manner. They refer to the Tanuki’s natural endowment as “pouches,” instead.
