Pom Poko

So guys, another kinda interesting Studio Ghibli film is this one, Pom Poko. This is one of those Ghibli films that's set in the real world but has a touch of some supernatural aspects. I heard this was also pretty violent and disturbing before seeing it and how some stuff was kinda unpleasant, especially regarding one thing in particular, but I'll get into that later. But, overall, I did hear that the film was mostly really fun and funny to watch too so it's not like it was a completely disturbing movie to watch. So, in the end, I think this is like Only Yesterday or My Neighbour Totoro where I don't think this is one of my favourites, but it's still a good film. The film centres around a bunch of racoons who're trying stop humans from destroying their forest. They try using an ability they have that allows them to transform into anything they want, but, most of them have forgotten how so they try getting elder ones to come and teach them and the rest of the film is one group of them trying to stop the humans by fighting the other tries to do it in a more peaceful way. So, yeah, it's kinda one of those stories where animals try to stop people from destroying their home and another one of those things where some of them are more violent about it and the other is more passive. But, we also spend time with a lot of these characters. You get to see a lot of them grow up over time and see how some of their views change. The main character in this is one of the racoons named Shokichi and he's one of the ones who doesn't want to do anything violent while some of the others do like another one of the racoons named Gonta, who's trying encouraging everyone to take action against the people. There are some bits of action here and moments where they try to attack the people, but a lot of the film is really just set in the forest where there's a lot of talking and trying to decide what to do. But, that's not the only thing, there are a lot of moments where they try to do comedy and it's not bad. I persoanlly didn't care that much for this kinda stuff and, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't really care much about these characters. I didn't hate them and they weren't doing anything wrong here. I didn't want anything bad to happen, but, it just wasn't really keeping my interest all tht much and some of it did get kinda boring after a while. It's like I've said a ton of times already, usually, Ghibli movies do this very slow paced this very well where they can do these things extremely interestingly. Here though, even though it's done well than some other Ghibli movies, it just didn't keep my interest that much. That being said, I still had a good time with a good amount the film anyway. I did still like the characters well enough, a good amount of them were pretty memorable and there were really well done sequences. I like when Shokichi was beginning to grow up and everyone was learning how to transform. Also, while there is a good amount of comedy scenes here, there's also a good amount of death scenes. Nothing super graphic, but there's still a lot of characters that die here and it's pretty disturbing. That's kinda what I meant in the beginning. There's some parts where the racoons and people die and I'd say it's not the kinda thing for kids. Not only that, but the film is also fairly infamous because there's some scenes where the racoons attack with their privates too. I know they kinda found a loophole around it with the dub, but, yeah, that's something where I can really see parents being extremely hesitant to show their kids. I mean, again, it's kinda covered up with the dub in a sense, but, yeah, that's a really weird addition. But still, moving away from that, the rest of the film is still fun to watch. Again, I persoanlly didn't care that much for it, but I can see other people getting something out it and coming to care for these characters. And I like how the ending shows some of them eventually trying to blend in with the humans and live with them. I think the last part where one of the racoons breaks the fourth wall is kinda weird and what he says is kinda weird too. I mean, I get it, but it was still pretty odd. But, the film overall is a lot of fun to watch for people too, but it's not really one I'd really want to watch again. But I was happy to see it the first time and the animation is of course still phenomenal and the voice acting from actors like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Clancy Brown, J.K Simmons and everyone is still great. So I was probably kinda harsh on this film, but it's not bad at all and I do think you should check this out. So, that's my review of Pom Poko. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.