There is an unmistakable irony running throughout Pom Poko, as the band of tanuki trying desperately to drive the invading humans off their land to survive are rarely seen without the presence of human influence. In one of the first shots of the film we see two groups of raccoons running towards each other, and slowly they go from four-legged animal sketches to comic raccoon caracatures running on two legs, gaining rounded eyes, human facial expressions, and even clothes and weaponry. Later on we see them planning an attack on the human construction site while eating McDonalds, and in the aftermath of the attack they hold a Buddhist funeral followed by a rowdy party complete with beer and television. A group of foxes advise them to use their transformation abilities to slip into society, blend in with the humans, and live on, which the tanuki reject up until the last moments of the film. And yet they are incredibly well adjusted when they finally join society; they’ve been very human-like all along. Then in the last moments of the film the narrator tells us that some of the tanuki even made a living off of selling forest land to developers, and the hilarious personification of these fun-loving creatures takes on a slightly bitter taste.
The environmental message was clear from the outset, of course. The film is about development, slowly going from a rural green paradise to a trendy urban landscape, and while following the small tanuki makes the remaining greenery seem expansive, every time the camera pans out it is revealed to be a tiny pocket in the middle of a concrete jungle. Likewise, the story follows the tanuki as they struggle against this development, but being the carefree creatures they are, any serious attempts to plan are quickly left behind in the name of fun. They learn how to transform to carry out their operations, but their failures are too comical for any of them to take seriously, and the next moment they are skipping class and singing. The narrator keeps everything moving at a steady pace, so while we get attached to specific characters, everything is grounded in a larger narrative, and soon the tanuki come to represent more of a single entity, lazy and unable to be taken seriously. Likewise the development moves forward steadily, ceaselessly, even when we aren’t watching it.
While Miyazaki Hayao is certainly known for his environmentalist messages, from Princess Mononoke to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, his contemporary Takahata Isao is no slouch either. Here we see no trace of the slow weariness of life and coming death so prevalent in his earlier masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies, but watching the tanuki play and flirt and ignore their responsibilities I was reminded of Seita and Setsuko playing together in their hillside home, away from the encroaching madness of war and famine, distracting themselves with their innocence and endless optimism. These same sensibilities were adapted into a comedy for Pom Poko, and while the same sense of approaching ultimatum can be found in the humans as in the Americans, through their blissfulness and comedy we can forget all that, even as they actively carry out a mission to protect their home.
Takahata is a genius with his comedy, as will eventually be seen in My Neighbors the Yamadas, as well as being a quintessentially Japanese director, possibly more so than any other anime director alive. His story is centered around tanuki, and not simply for a stylistic choice of character, but rather to tell their story, a story being suppressed by the modern Japanese climate. We of course already know how it ends; it is the world we’re living in, after all, and the only time we see a raccoon is when it raids our trash or gets hit by a car. But even the ending is lighthearted, and ultimately Takahata makes his case for more environmental awareness simply by letting us enjoy a story about the creatures living in it.
And oh is it enjoyable. Three elder tanuki visit from another province to help the stranded group, arriving in the form of extremely unfashionable old men straight out of Dragonball. At one meeting there is a coup as one of the more aggressive tanuki tries to instate a policy of killing all humans, but they ultimately abandon the notion when they realize they won’t be able to eat tempura anymore if the humans are gone, and so the meeting continues as if the coup never happened. A fox comes to advise them on how to integrate into human society, showing them an amusement park, champagne, and a contract for a permanent position in the park. The tanuki ask the fox to bring the park owner with the cash to their hideout, but the hideout is just a transformed tanuki, and they ultimately spit the whole group out into the woods and fly away with the cash. Everything they do is in some ways done for fun, and all of it is fantastical.
Takahata also uses gender in amusing ways. Some of the greatest leaders in the group are women, who are better at transforming into both beautiful human women and handsome human men. However the men can transform their testicles into carpets, parachutes, and even whole bridges. Their testicles are always drawn in, hanging out in the open unabashedly, and are frequently references in relation to their transformations. Is it overly sexual, or insensitive to children? No, the film treats their genitals exactly as a kid would: simply there, albeit fairly amusing in shape. The men and women aren’t supposed to breed for fear of increasing the tanuki population to unsustainable levels, but when the lead male and female couple tell each other that they will respect that rule, they are so proud of one another’s chastity and devotion to the group that they get carried away and mate, signified only by a large time skip and a wry resigned remark by the narrator. They chalk it up to the mating season, because personal responsibility seems a bit too heavy for tanuki to handle.
The whole film is a joy to watch, told as a history of the transition from forest to city, told through the perspective of the tanuki who act as both victims and amused bystanders. There are moments when their plans fail to drive the humans away, or when one of them dies and causes everyone to stop and think seriously about life. Beneath the comic exterior is certainly a more dire story that needs to be told, and small details and moments are enough to get the message across. But more than anything it is hilarious and memorable, pushing the bounds of what a story where humans are the other and non-humans are the stars can do. In fact, it blurs the lines of which is which. It begins with humans developing the forest into a few buildings and ends with them creating tiny preservations in the midst of their new home. It begins with a fight of tanuki acting like humans, and it ends with a party of tanuki who need a break from being human. When you see it that way, preservation really isn’t just their problem; it is ours too.