Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

augurar I find it hard to summarize this film, since it is sort of all over the place. The main plot of the film involves the tanuki (raccoon-dogs) of the Tama hills near Tokyo and their struggle against the encroaching development that is destroying their woods. As the tanuki attempt to defend their home through the use of their shape-shifting abilities, they are also challenged by an inability to agree on the best course of action and a growing sense that their efforts may be inevitably doomed to failure.The film, like its tanuki characters, seemed a bit unfocused at times, especially towards the end. Indeed, the plot mainly served as a set-up for showing a succession tanuki antics. Admittedly, said antics were very entertaining, but at 2 hours of runtime I'd prefer a little more narrative support.Some have referred to this movie as environmentalist in nature, but viewed from that standpoint, it is actually somewhat weak. I was especially disappointed by the ending, which I thought failed to make any meaningful comment on the sequence of events depicted in the movie. Without giving too much away, it seemed like the movie was saying, "Development and urban sprawl are inevitable, but oh well. At least there are still golf courses and parks!" It was as if the people making the film didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I have nothing against ambiguity, especially with such a broad theme as the conflict between humans and nature, but I thought the overall effect of the film was wishy-washy, avoiding more serious questions for the sake of preserving a lighthearted tone.The best aspects of this film in my opinion were its unrestrained playfulness, wacky sense of humor, and use of Japanese culture and folklore, much of which was largely unfamiliar to me as a Western viewer. The art and animation were also quite well done, with realistic natural elements rendered quite convincingly and an overall visual harmony between the static backgrounds and animated figures. Despite the shortcomings mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, I enjoyed this film quite a bit. 7 / 10.

Jose Cruz This is perhaps the only film by Ghibli that I really found it to be BAD. I mean, it is truly BAD. I watched it in the same day as Only Yesterday, and boy, the contrast in quality was amazing. Takahata really dropped the ball on this one: his previous film is easily the best film of 1991, for me at least, and this one is BELOW average. I mean, Ghibli has managed it: they made a film that is below the Hollywood average quality for their canned products.Why this film is so bad? Because nothing works: the characters don't fell like "people", they are cartoon characters truly. This film is perhaps the least artistically accomplished film that Ghibli ever made and one of the least intelligent ones as well. It feels much like an American cartoon, and yes, those suck. Not recommended, really: a genius like Takahata made this poppy!

Rectangular_businessman Most anime fans remember Isao Takahata best for his wonderful tearjerker, "Grave of the Fireflies", will find interesting this title as well. This lavishly animated tale about raccoons battling for their homeland isn't so dramatic as "Grave of the Fireflies" but is an interesting amalgam of humor, drama, and action delivered instead. At times, the viewer gets treated to scenes which recall the tragic elements , but even though the tone of the movie is somber, a handful of lighthearted moments elevate the overall production out of depression. As this is a Studio Ghibli film, production values are spectacular. Backgrounds are painted with a tasteful mixture of simplicity and art, and the raccoons are as cuddle-some as you would expect. (If you're scratching your head while reading this, don't be alarmed--according to Japanese folklore, raccoons have the power to transform into anything--including human beings) The actual animation is as colorful and imaginative as you might expect from a Ghibli movie(and there is one scene where we are treated to cameo appearances by Porco Rosso, Kiki, and Totoro.) While Pom Poko has a story to tell and a meaningful message for one to think about, its character and plot aspects may come across as a bit off-putting to viewers expecting a typical animated feature. Indeed, while some raccoons identify themselves with distinguishable names and/or personalities (for example, Gonta is a burly, rough-and-ready raccoon who is always looking for a fight, while Oroku is the "wise woman" of the tribe), the story offers little in the way of character development. In fact, most of the action in the story is narrated (by Maurice LaMarche in English, Kokondei Shinchou in Japanese), which elevates the overall effect of the movie to that of a semi-documentary. For the most part, this approach works to a very interesting degree and is a refreshing change of pace. However, there were some scenes in the movie where I wished the narration could have been reduced a little bit, as it sometimes gets in the way of appreciating the beauty of the visuals on screen. Unfortunately, most of the attention that this movie received were some silly controversies about the fact that the movie shows the testicles of the male raccoons, but that was a minor detail if you compare with the charm and the originality of the story. Even when it is not perfect (Some consider this movie a inferior work of Ghibli )this movie was funny enough for me, and is one of the my favorite animes.

Tweekums When I saw the trailer for Pom Poko on another Studio Ghibli DVD I thought this would be an overly cute film as it featured talking animals. However it is quite different to any film of that type that I've seen as they are certainly more anatomically correct than animals in western animation and some of them do get killed.The characters are Tanuki, a raccoon-dog native to Japan although in the subtitles they were just referred to as raccoons. These creatures are masters of disguise and some are even capable of shape-shifting. At first this seemed very strange to me but I later learnt that it is based in Japanese folklore. Despite featuring cute animals this is one of Studio Ghibli's more serious films, which shouldn't be too surprising given that it was directed by Isao Takahata.The film is set on the Tama Hills in the late '60s which are in the process of being urbanised at the expense of the tanuki's habitat. They decide to use their shape-shifting abilities in order to scare the people off the land but even though some people are killed they don't stop the work. When that is unsuccessful they seek the assistance of three master shape-shifters from another island. These suggest scaring the people with a "goblin parade" which unfortunately is mistaken for the work of the new theme park opening in the area.As one would expect from Studio Ghibli the artwork is very good, especially during the parade where if you look closely you may spot characters from previous Ghibli films. This is a film that seemed to get better on further viewing when I had more understanding. The film has an obvious environmental message but that isn't over-played.