Pom Poko (1994): The Anatomy of Defeat and the Spirit of “Somehow, We Go On Living”

Why do we fight battles we are destined to lose? Isao Takahata’s 1994 masterpiece, Pom Poko(Studio Ghibli Official), is often viewed as a quirky, environmental fable. But beneath the whimsical shape-shifting lies a deeply profound, almost painfully realistic dissection of how a society marches step-by-step toward its own destruction.

Thinking back, Pom Poko is a film that essentially spoils its own ending before you even watch it. Between the somber trailers and the undeniable reality of modern Japanese urbanization, the audience walks into the theater knowing full well: “This is a story where the tanuki lose.” I was just a child when my parents took me to see it, and it seems slightly masochistic to willingly sit down for a guaranteed tragedy.

Yet, Pom Poko remains a profoundly vital piece of cinema. Today, in the final installment of our analysis series, we are going to trace the agonizing psychological steps of the tanuki’s “defeat,” uncover the chilling historical parallels, and finally understand why Takahata’s ultimate message is a beautiful, stubborn celebration of survival.

*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.

Pom Poko (1994) Analysis: The Four Stages of Inevitable Defeat

Stage 1: Gonta’s Lethal Success [The Phantom Victory]

Anyone watching Pom Poko has likely thought at some point: “Gonta’s aggressive initial ambush was actually their most effective strategy, wasn’t it?” Indeed, the only time the tanuki inflict genuine, fatal damage on the human construction crews is during the radical, violent operation led by Gonta’s faction. This lethal sabotage triggers massive media coverage, temporarily halts the development of Tama New Town, and sends the tanuki into a state of euphoric triumph. Believing they have won, they throw a massive, drunken banquet that very night.

However, this celebration is actually the first fatal step toward their ultimate doom. If Gonta’s initial ambush had failed, the tanuki might have recognized the futility of their war and backed down, completely altering their fate. In a bitter irony, Gonta’s “success” emboldened them, accelerating their virtual extinction. While the attack killed a few humans, it did absolutely nothing to alter the macro-reality of the situation: the massive corporate development of New Town was inevitably going to resume. Their triumph was nothing more than an illusion.

This is the first psychological step of defeat: the blinding “phantom victory.”

Stage 2: Operation Twin Stars [The Frenzied Masses]

Intoxicated by Gonta’s apparent success, the tanuki population descends into a chaotic frenzy, pouring all their magical energy into playing petty, harmless tricks on human workers. The momentum becomes impossible to control. Even Shoukichi, the most level-headed and rational leader among them, gets swept up in the hysteria, executing the visually spectacular but utterly useless “Operation Twin Stars” simply to impress his love interest, Okiyo.

This operation perfectly illustrates the loss of strategic focus. They are burning vital resources just to scare people, achieving zero tactical objectives. (Though, considering Shoukichi’s romantic motivations, it is hard to entirely blame him). Only Gonta, recovering from his injuries, watches with bitter frustration. Through his eyes, the tanuki no longer look like a disciplined army fighting an existential war for survival. They look like a mindless, drunken mob, recklessly coasting on the high of his original victory.

This is the second step toward defeat: “the frenzied masses.”

Stage 3: The Arrival of the Elders [A Desperate Dream]

Eventually, reality sets in. The construction resumes, the forests continue to vanish, and the frenzied tanuki realize, “Our tricks aren’t working!” Just as despair takes hold, their long-awaited saviors finally arrive: the three legendary elders from Shikoku.

When you look at these eccentric, out-of-touch elders stepping off the train in bizarre attire, acting like they are on a vacation, it is blatantly obvious to the audience that entrusting the survival of the species to them is a terrible idea. The tanuki blindly place their last, fragile hopes on “Operation Specter”—a massive, exhausting magical parade that requires a staggering amount of energy for absolutely zero strategic gain. As outside observers, we clearly see that the tanuki have subconsciously realized they can no longer win through conventional means. Therefore, they turn to grand, theatrical miracles to save them.

This is the third step toward defeat: clinging to “a desperate dream.”

Stage 4: The Bitter End [Kamikaze Attacks, Mass Suicide, and Assimilation]

When the spectacular Operation Specter ends in total failure (and is ironically co-opted by a human theme park developer), the tanuki’s desperate dream shatters. Stripped of all hope, the fractured community splits into three distinct, tragic factions.

The hardline faction, led by the furious Gonta, launches a final, bloody Banzai charge against heavily armed riot police, leading to their absolute slaughter.

The escapist faction, led by the grieving elder Yashimano Hage, completely abandons reality. They board a magical “treasure ship” and sail off to their deaths, committing a joyous, horrifying mass suicide.

Having lost faith in any future where they can survive as free tanuki, these two factions chose short-sighted, self-destructive exits. The final faction, the pragmatists, choose a different kind of death. They reveal their magical existence to the media in a final, pathetic plea…

…and ultimately decide to permanently assimilate. They transform into humans, enduring grueling 9-to-5 corporate jobs, living among the very enemy that destroyed their home.

Defeated by the crushing weight of modernity, the tanuki either died in a blaze of glory, killed themselves in despair, or surrendered their cultural identity to survive. Looking back, the entire tragic chain reaction was sparked by Gonta’s initial “success.” It is hard not to feel that Gonta simply tried too hard, fighting a war he could never win, right up until his dying breath.

Pom Poko (1994) Themes: The Raw Reality of Defeat and the Will to Survive

The Universal Anatomy of a Losing Battle

When you lay out the psychological steps of the tanuki’s defeat—the initial phantom victory, the euphoric frenzy, the desperate reliance on a “super weapon,” the suicidal kamikaze charges, and the ultimate, humiliating assimilation into the conqueror’s culture—it is impossible for Japanese audiences not to see the direct historical parallel to the Pacific War.

Gonta’s initial ambush mirrors the shock and awe of Pearl Harbor. Operation Specter is the tragic, delusional hope placed in the Battleship Yamato. The riot police clash represents the Kamikaze pilots, and the final assimilation mirrors post-war Japan scrambling to live “like Americans” (which, comically, just resulted in exhausted salarymen).

However, I highly doubt Director Isao Takahata created this film solely as a 1:1 allegory for World War II. He was capturing something far more abstract and universal.

Takahata is illustrating a terrifying truth: ultimate defeat doesn’t happen because you made one specific mistake, or because you failed to execute a plan. You are defeated because you engaged in a war that was mathematically impossible to win from the very beginning.

The genius of the film is capturing the cognitive dissonance of war: to the people fighting in the trenches, every action feels deeply serious and vitally important. But to an objective outside observer, it looks like a hopelessly futile waste of life.

If Takahata had attempted to depict this exact “anatomy of a futile war” using human characters, the result would have been unwatchable. It would have been as crushingly depressing as his earlier masterpiece, Grave of the Fireflies. Watching humans get drunk on a minor victory, embark on a hopeless war, and fight themselves into absolute slaughter is too raw for a mainstream audience to bear.

This is exactly why the story had to be told using shape-shifting raccoon dogs, narrated by traditional, lighthearted rakugo storytellers. By wrapping the brutal “rawness of defeat” in a thick layer of absurd comedy, Takahata made a devastating philosophical tragedy accessible. In the end, he proves that “comedy is tragedy, and tragedy is comedy.”

But Takahata doesn’t just leave us wallowing in the misery of defeat. He explicitly shows us what must happen the day after the war is lost.

“Somehow, We Go On Living”

The ultimate, profound answer Pom Poko provides to the trauma of defeat is simple: “Somehow, we go on living.”

When you are caught in the agonizing throes of a losing battle, pride often prevents you from surrendering. This stubborn refusal to accept reality is exactly what drove Gonta and Yashimano Hage to their tragic, short-sighted deaths.

But Director Takahata’s gentle, yet stern mandate to the audience is clear: “When absolute defeat finally arrives, you must swallow your pride, stop the futile resistance, and actively choose to survive!”

There is no glory in dying for a lost cause. If you die, your story ends. The true courage lies in surviving, even if it means living an unglamorous, compromised life.

This massive philosophical message is beautifully condensed into the film’s final, iconic sentiment: “Somehow, we’re still alive.”

It is a remarkably simple conclusion. But it is a testament to Director Takahata’s unparalleled genius that he took the bleak, agonizing reality of total societal defeat and transformed it into a life-affirming, “comical story” using raccoons and folklore.

For me, Pom Poko will always remain an absolute masterpiece, one that reveals new layers of depth the older I get. This three-part series has been a culmination of the thoughts I have carried with me since childhood.

• Part 1: The Hidden Meta-Critique and Oroku’s Dirty Secret Art
• Part 2: “Operation Specter” as a Metaphor for the Anime Industry
• Childhood Essay: Memories of the First Ghibli Film I Ever Saw in a Theater

Until I uncover my next grand theory, I suppose I will just keep drinking energy drinks, commuting to work, and somehow, go on living.

The images used in this article are from Still Images from Studio Ghibli Works.