Best movie of this year hands down!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

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.

I enjoyed Pom Poko very much, and I think Disney will find a way to make money on it as soon as they can convince the American audience that Raccoons are marsupials.During the monster parade, they show the standard scene of a drunk who is amazing by amazing stuff. Where did this begin? Was it Japan, America or somewhere else? I think an early Gamara movie has a similar scene.In American toons, the drunk who sees amazing stuff usually produces a pint bottle and drops it on the ground.Just like fruit carts will always be pushed over in the chase scene of every movie, every movie with amazing things will have a drunk to see it.

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.