![]() ![]() The sequence is spooky and colorful, but it finds its best expression in a moment where two drunken salarymen reminisce about and dismiss their childhood belief in monsters, while missing the wild rumpus going on all around them. In Pom Poko, a group of tanuki facing extinction because of human industrialism take one last shot at persuading the local townsfolk to fear and respect their power: the creatures mount a playful spirit-parade, taking on the form of a variety of gods and monsters from Japanese myth. To begin with, the main characters are tanuki - raccoon-like Japanese animals legendarily famous for shapeshifting, trickster mischief, and cheery hedonism, all summed up with their giant transforming testicles. Isao Takahata’s imaginative but heartbreaking 1994 movie Pom Poko has always been one of Studio Ghibli’s hardest sells in the U.S., because it relies on so many pieces of Japanese folklore that other cultures don’t share. Chihiro returns to her parents, Spirited Away Adult Taeko wonders if she has stayed true to her childhood dreams, but the truth is that dreams are like pineapple sometimes they’re underripe. An unripe pineapple is the disappointing fulfillment of a dream, but it’s also a fleeting bad feeling that we will one day consider fondly. This scene reminds me of that memory, not because of the fruit connection, but because small childhood moments like this reverberate forward and change who we are. Here I was, a kid taking these beautiful little suns for granted just because they were easy to come by. I have a (now fond) childhood memory of feeling immense shame when I learned that for Victorian people, oranges were a rare, treasured delicacy. But the pineapple isn’t ripe it’s hard and unpleasant, and the excitement drains away into a quiet, disappointed evening, with Taeko trying to convince herself it’s everything she was hoping for. They all gather around for the ceremonial chopping, and tuck in under the winter kotatsu to try this exotic treat together. The story flashes between adult Taeko, taking a break to the countryside to reevaluate her life, and young Taeko during small, important moments in her childhood - like the time her father splurged on a pineapple for the family. ![]() Isao Takahata was a master of creating compelling stories from the clouds of everyday life, and Only Yesterday captures the subtle joy of a slice-of-life story. In that moment, she’s like a human standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and Yonebayashi manages to make everyday kitchen items look alien and monstrous as she takes them in with intimidated wonder. ![]() And then there’s the moment where she emerges into the vast empty space of a human kitchen for the first time, after a movie largely spent at mouse level, or in comfortingly well-appointed, close spaces. Pod silently supports his daughter and smiles at her daring, and Arrietty alternates between boldness and nervousness. But these events play out softly as a sweet coming-of-age ritual. On paper, the sequence might play like a thrilling heist movie, with Arrietty fighting off an immense, aggressive cockroach, ziplining up a narrow vertical space, and rappelling off a cabinet to the ground far below. At 13, she’s permitted to accompany her taciturn father Pod into that house for the first time, on a quiet raid to get some supplies: a single sugar cube and a single tissue. Arrietty is a Borrower, a doll-sized girl whose equally teeny family lives inside the walls of a human family’s vast country house. ![]() It’s a hushed, drawn-out experience where the biggest action is a character stopping to gape. The most memorable moment in Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s Secret World of Arrietty, based on Mary Norton’s Borrower books, isn’t dynamic or explosive. ![]()
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