pom poko was one of my fav ghibli movies as a kid and i still stand by it being bizzare but good, it gets harrowing at times but is just a really interesting movie because its trying to be a documentary and a fantasy adventure and slice of life all at once??? its, yeah
Pom Poko fascinates me, I've watched it about 3 times now. I didn't discover it until I was an adult (Howl's Moving Castle was Baby Bones' Ghibli movie) and at first I thought it was kinda weak but...
I've never seen another movie that was able to capture the feeling of group in-fighting and procrastination tanking a movement quite as well as Pom Poko. At every point, it feels like there's a drastic but obvious solution to their problem, which is only attempted too late.
Centrists and "level-headed" members of the Tanuki clan deescalate the passion of the more radical members, and yet, prevent them from taking acceptable (but still losing) pathways out of the conflict. It's a REALLY easy to miss detail that the same Tanuki leader who refuses the Fox's job offer, dooming his comrades to the worst case scenario, is the very same one who is selling undeveloped real estate at the end of the movie.
Because the Tanukis can't organize, can't agree to fixing the problem before it gets too bad, because Bunta keeps getting injured or neutralized, every sacrifice is in vain. They have to find some crummy 'silver lining' in their home being reduced to a golf course, half of their population working with chronic fatigue in a society not built for them, and the other half literally homeless.
But that's the Tanuki as we're shown all movie long; unable to get serious, finding simple joys and pleasures as paradise is pulled like a rug from below their feet, literally pleading to the humans in the audience to fix their problems for them.
It really stuck with me. I wanna get a nice copy on DVD lmao
The message at the end wasn't just for the tanuki's sake, but also all of the ordinary animals cannot transform, it's inciting humans to do their part to protect animals and nature. ;3;
And oof, I didn't realize the tanuki that was scummily selling the land was the same older one who rejected the kitsune's offer (cold and cruel as it was, it would've saved more of them, faster, to try and assimilate into human society, even if it meant leaving the tanuki who cannot transform to fend for themselves...)
Tanuki being jovial and living in the moment, if nothing else, helps them survive--because some situations truly are out of your control, so the most you can do is make the best of what you have. I felt it was a very realistic ending (you know, for a youkai movie), with at least some hope--I'm glad they got the message across and there was more care for preserving nature and planting new parks and green areas...
Some things are out of your control but the destruction of that forest was not. That's the problem. The tanuki mindset is to have fun and ignore your problems to the detriment of what actually mattered, and they had to "make good" out of a nearly apocalyptic scenario they could have stopped.
At so many points!! If resistance only been a little more serious, more sustained! If they weren't constantly distracted by food, if Bunta hadn't been accidentally trampled in a disorganized stampede and taken out for several months, if they hadn't waited "for the cubs to grow up" before sending for help, if they had stayed serious through the second mating season, if they broke tradition and spoke to humans sooner, if they didn't have elders "soothing" the social unrest and assuring people that they just had to calm down and wait things out.
What I'm saying is, that mindset, IT DOESN'T HELP THEM SURVIVE! It's why they lost everything! They're dying NOW and the ones who aren't dying are living miserably! It did NOT turn out okay!
Hit by cars, rummaging in garbage, homeless and in poverty, exhausted and sick working in a society not built for them. They failed to sustain resistance and the very tanukis that encouraged that "Jovial and Living in the Moment" mindset are the same ones selling land, doing it to more tanukis, and more animals who can't transform.
Accepting the fox's offer wouldn't have even REQUIRED them to abandon those who couldn't transform, the thing that ultimately happened anyway, if they had stayed as a union that cared for each other. But instead, even though they were already making their young adults work for money to support the movement (another forgotten detail), Seizaemon prevented that, citing tradition.
The only thing they can do now is make the best out of what they have left. It's a horrible, hopeless, worst-case scenario and they react to it with the same saccharine optimism that got them into it in the first place.
Unable to imagine any OTHER way they can change their situation, they turn to the humans to beg them to fix their problems and go back to their frivolous bullshit. The movie ends zooming out to show them dancing on a golf course.
And I love this ending. Because, I've never seen a movie that showed group in-fighting and procrastination tanking a movement so perfectly and so clearly.
I think that makes Pom Poko super unique, and absolutely fascinates me. Animated stories that have some "Anyway, humans, this is why you should care about the environment :)" tacked on at the end are a dime a dozen, but the fact that the tanukis HAD that fighting chance, that they COULD have saved the forest but didn't...
It's like a greek tragedy to me.