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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