Pom Poko (Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko) (The Raccoon War) (1994)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Luke B

  
  I love Studio Ghibli. This was a huge disappointment. From the moment it started I knew it was going to be a poor effort from an exceptional studio. It was headachingly preachy and condescending from the very beginning. Princess Mononoke was able to evaluate the relationship between… More
  I love Studio Ghibli. This was a huge disappointment. From the moment it started I knew it was going to be a poor effort from an exceptional studio. It was headachingly preachy and condescending from the very beginning. Princess Mononoke was able to evaluate the relationship between man and nature without coming off as educational seminar. In Pom Poko, we are given facts and figures and diagrams and highly obvious visual "metaphors". The entire film is a mess of wrongfully judged tonal shifts. Yes, it was brave to have the raccoons kill the humans, but it's attempt at comedy and cuteness it severely misjudged. The whole film is narrated over in a very lazy fashion. The film is pretty much told to us, without any attempt at creativity or visual imagination. There are no lead characters to connect with, making these raccoons as bad as the humans they fight, if not worse. There are also a lot of awkward moments involving male raccoons forcing themselves upon the females, and testicles that can morph. These testicles are used as humor but are simply not funny. It's an awkward movie with an obvious message, handled with none of the charm, passion, nor humanity, that I've come to expect from Ghibli.

• Anthony L

  
  One of the more bizarre additions to the Gibli collection, it's good but I think a lot is lost in translation. Still, a mighty fine film and still better than Dreamworks.

• Lewis C

  
  Gotta love those crazy raccoons!

• Kylie B

  
  The transformation scenes were amazing, but I think the rest of the film was too cute for me, scrotums aside.

• Lesley N

  
  The story goes a bit all over the place, but I've always got time for happy ecological shape-shifting racoons

• Marion R

  
  I have been brainwashed by Disney, or so to say I am so use to the Disney-fied films, in which everything goes according to plan. This film doesn't pull any punches and in fact it made me feel really sad, I almost cried. But I didn't find the film really fun and refreshing.… More
  I have been brainwashed by Disney, or so to say I am so use to the Disney-fied films, in which everything goes according to plan. This film doesn't pull any punches and in fact it made me feel really sad, I almost cried. But I didn't find the film really fun and refreshing. I can't comment of the English dub because I watched it in subtitles.

• Ivan D

  
  definitely Isao Takahata's wildest visual expression, though its sentimental tone can still be compared to his other simplistic works("Grave of the Fireflies" and "Only Yesterday"). But these unusual choices of visual tones is one of the reasons why Studio… More
  definitely Isao Takahata's wildest visual expression, though its sentimental tone can still be compared to his other simplistic works("Grave of the Fireflies" and "Only Yesterday"). But these unusual choices of visual tones is one of the reasons why Studio Ghibli always delivers. The story, as what the title suggests, concerns cheerful raccoons and their crusade to put a stop on the housing development that will surely destroy their habitat. The plot might look very familiar, but be reminded that it's a Ghibli film, so the plot may remain intact, but the imagery may go the surrealist side from time to time . I liked the way how Takahata uses different appearances of the raccoons: Their first one which is how us humans perceive their physical form, and the other one is how they see themselves: Joyful, optimistic, and sometimes reckless. "The Raccoon War" is a very entertaining film, but with Isao Takahata hitting two birds with one stone, has also able to create a poetic ode to the pure beauty of nature and its bumbling inhabitants living in mutual harmony.

• Marcus W

  
  The tone of this film is very similiar to Happy Feet but with ten times more imagination. Therefore you're enjoying yourself with the wonderful visuals and characters WHILE being told that cutting down forests and polluting rivers is bad.

• Alex F

  
  Hehehe. They have balls. Another wonderful ecologist movie by the Ghibli people. Not perfect because it's a bit too long, but it's amazing anyway.

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