In our futile attempts to escape from the never-ending bad news that has gripped our country at the hands of one destructive man, we were pleased to discover a Studio Ghibli cautionary tale from 1994 known in Japan as the Heisei-era Raccoon-Dog War Ponpoko a.k.a Pom Poko in the American DVD release. Set in the Tama Hills of the Kanto Plain, the story is about the urban sprawl of 1960's Japan where the old farms and countryside surrounding Tokyo are bulldozed to make room for urban development. The story is told from the point of view of the raccoons who find their homes being destroyed as the forests are stripped away to build Tama New Town which drives them to war with other raccoons as food becomes scarce.
What makes this story bounce from being a sad tale of environmental destruction to comedy is how the raccoons known as Tanuki appear at first as realistic raccoons then, anamorphically wearing Samurai armor and clothes as well as walking upright. This is explained in the movie as two clans of Tanuki go to war with each other next to a construction site until the elder wise woman named Oroku convinces them that they should all die or unite in order to survive.
Having united the Tanuki of Tama, Oroku joins forces with the village elder Seizaemon, Tanuki warrior leader Gonta, and Shoukichi to devise a plan to stop the construction. While Gonta wishes to wage war, Seizaemon devises a hilarious plan to resurrect the long-forgotten art of transformation in order to scare the humans from destroying the last of their forest. Of course, not all raccoons can transform, thus they send out messengers to find legendary transformation masters to help them.
Once the masters arrive, they train and devise plans while Gonta does his own thing and uses the art of transformation to kill humans. We won't spoil this whole movie for you but in a touching scene, the last of the raccoons transform the stripped hills back into what it looked like before they were destroyed. You'll laugh and cry in this film. After a while, you forget these are raccoons and think of them more like some lost Edo-Period village from a Taiga drama struggling to survive in a war against an enemy they can not defeat. There is lots of Buddhism and Shinto folklore written into this by the late Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata. Its ultimate message reminds both of what we have lost in the name of progress and what we must continue to preserve.
Pom Poko is available on DVD with the option of English dubbing or subtitles. Please enjoy!
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