Pom Poko

1994 • 119 minutes

About this movie

From the legendary Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Away, and Academy Award -nominated director Isao Takahata, comes an action-packed ecological fable about the clash between nature and human civilization. The tanuki (raccoon dogs) of Tama Hills find their fun-loving community under attack when their quiet woodlands are threatened by encroaching developers looking to create still more houses and shopping malls. Desperate to survive, the tanuki band together and learn the ancient art of transformation, shape-shifting into a comical variety of humans and spirits as they undertake a last-ditch plan to scare away the humans and save their home, in this deeply affecting, funny and heartfelt look at what it means to live in the modern world.

Ratings and reviews

This is one of my absolute favorite films of all time; the message is beautiful and the imagery is inspiring. That being said, if you're one of those people who fetishize Japanese culture, and want to maintain your vision of everything being "kawaii" (like the previous reviewer) you probably won't enjoy this film

The core plot isn't very engaging, and it requires cultural background knowledge to make sense of some of what is going on. The hyakki yaggyo was the best part of the film, but otherwise I was not very interested in the little tanuki's plight to push back on human development.

One of my all time favorite movies. Near the end it gets a bit slow, but other than that it's very pleasing to watch