Can’t Cover this one Up

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to part one of my annual Miyazaki May!  Kicking off the events is a review on a Ghibli film that often goes unnoticed.  Some may say that it’s because it’s not directed by Miyazaki, and others may say it’s a controversial film.  I’m more likely to go with the later here because this film really does let it all hang out (if you know what I mean), but we’ll get to that in a minute.   Let’s get started on this week’s review on Pom Poko.

The film follows a group of raccoons who very early on in the film were actually enemies.  When the construction of a new suburb threatens the Tama Hills-where the raccoons live- they decide to act.  At first, they start to learn about the humans destroying their forrest by relearning transformation in order to blend in with them and study them.  But one of the chiefs, Gonta, decides to take more drastic measures.  Him and a small group go to the construction site and vandalize it, actually causing of few human deaths.  When this fails, the group send out two skilled raccoons who have mastered transformation to seek out some of the top masters of the art to help.  Eventually, after continued efforts to stall the construction coupled with a growing population, the masters finally arrive.  They then come up with an idea to to scare the humans with a plan called “Operation Specter,” where the raccoons disguise themselves various Japanese spirits to convince the humans that the spirits of the forrest are upset over the construction.  The plan ultimately fails not only because one of the masters dies during the spectacle, but also because the director of an amusement takes credit for the display.  To make matters worse, a fox who works for the park tries to convince one of the elders to live as a human being and work for the park.  This doesn’t work and the raccoons take revenge by stealing money from the director.  Following this, the group splits up into various sancts.  One becomes a religious cult that eventually commits something of a mass suicide via sailing out to sea.  The other, led by Gonta, starts attacking construction workers and police, also leading to this groups death.  Finally, the few who remain try to create an illusion for the humans in the suburb of what the forrest used to look like.  The message seems to come across, but much too late for anything to really be done.  Ultimately, those who can transform live as humans while those who are not able to live as ordinary raccoons.  The film ends on an epilogue where one of the main characters, Shokochi, comes home from work to find a group of raccoons and follows them to find they were some of his old friends.

I’ll admit, I can see why this film tends to fly under the radar.  Granted, there were some good things about this movie that I enjoyed.  Still, at the end of the day, I think there were problems with it that are hard to ignore…very hard to ignore.  Overall, I give Pom Poko a 6.5 out of ten.  If there’s one really good thing I had to pick from this film, it has a really strong environmental conservation message.  Studio Ghibli movies- those directed by Miyazaki in particular-often have environmental themes to them.  I know that other films like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä are the more obvious films with these themes, but this movie’s message is blunt; destroying an animal’s home can have grave consequences.  In fact, at the very end of the movie, one of the characters talks about protecting other animals while addressing the audience.  What was also very interesting about the film in general is that it was kind of dark.  In fact, I’d argue that this is one of the studio’s darkest films.  The fact that several characters die in this movie is pretty grim.  But given the overall theme, I think it’s meant to be.  And sure, while that was all in good, it can still be a problem.  Speaking of which...

Ok, I’m going to address this elephant in the room right now: of all the problems I had with this movie, there was one big problem...well, actually two.  If you notice in the first couple of minutes of the movie that the male raccoons have some pretty obviously drawn parts...yeah, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, ladies and gentlemen, they’re testicles.  Yes, the majority of the characters in this movie have very visible balls, and what’s worse, they use them.  I know that the tanuki (or the raccoons in the film) using their extremities is part of the over legend and legacy.  Plus, I’ll also admit that culturally speaking, this is something that’s probably a little more accepted in Japan than in the west.  I’m certainly not trying to discredit the overall lore of these creatures or Japanese culture, but it’s something that, for a Ghibli film, is hard to ignore.  This is especially considering that it advertises as a family film. Now to the dub’s credit, which is the version I watched, they tried to cover this up by calling them pouches, but it’s still really hard to ignore (especially in the later scenes of the movie).  And going back to the film’s darker side, I think there are times it goes too dark.  Once again, there were some pretty gruesome deaths.  It’s hard to really call this film a family film given the obvious nudity (if you could call it that) and blunt death scenes, but it’s hard to call it an adult film because there are scenes that are obviously for kids.  And on a side note, there’s a narrator who talks for a good chunk of the film, and it get’s a little annoying.  The narration does it’s job by helping with the various time skips, but it can be a distraction sometimes.  Still it’s not that bad a watch, just keep your inner twelve year old in check.

So yeah, like the title implies, you can’t cover this one up folks.  But that doesn’t mean it’s worth taking a little peak.  If you’re curious about this movie, it’s available wherever anime is sold.  That wraps up this review.  Stay tuned next week when I review (shudder) Grave of the Fireflies!

-Hanime on Anime

Pom Poko Trailer