Director: Isao Takahata
Writer: Isao Takahata (Screenplay)
Starring: (Voice Talents) Shincho Kokontei, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida, Norihei Miki, Nijiko Kiyokawa
Plot: A community of magical shape-shifting raccoon dogs struggle to prevent their forest home from being destroyed by urban development.
Runtime: 1 Hour 59 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Strong Animation
Story: Pom Poko starts as we meet the racoons that have lived on farm land for years, but lose their home to the humans whose development has destroyed large amounts of their forest homes. Now the racoons must put their difference behind them to fight back against the humans to keep their homes.
This involved learning how to transform into humans to enter the human world to bring it down from the inside even though this is against their lazy nature.
Thoughts on Pom Poko
Characters – The characters we meet are different racoons, the have the elders who come up with plans to keep their lands, the young ones that are developing their skills to play the pranks on the humans. We also have the transformation master that are entering the battle in the real world as humans.
Story – The story follows the racoons that want to keep their land from being taken over by human development. We get a bigger message about taking the land of wildlife for our own development. This works for the story because it has fun at the struggles the racoons must go through and balance this against the serious elements of the film. we do have similarities to The Watership Down too in this one.
Comedy/Family/Fantasy – The comedy is typical animated comedy, we get moments of slapstick as we tell of the training in the most part. The family could enjoy this one and learn important lessons too and the fantasy comes from the idea racoons can transform into humans and other creatures.
Settings – The settings show us the countryside the racoons live in that is being destroyed by the humans and the human world the racoons enter. This keeps the settings simple but effective.
Animation – The animation fits the typical Ghibli style which works to tell the story well.
Scene of the Movie – Transformation training.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is slightly too long.
Final Thoughts – This is a sweet little Ghibli movie, it does send important messages about how wildlife and humans must learn to live together.
Overall: Sweet little animation movie.
Rating
