Pom Poko Presentations (2022)
Channel: Scenoptica
Date: 2022-12-01

Every year, Lelly caps off a semester by having her students watch 'Pom Poko' (1994), Isao Takahata's masterpiece of tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) perseverance and resistance against unending encroachment by humans. The film is equally delightful and tragic, making you laugh as much as it will ultimately make you cry—at least in our experience, because the end credits are always met with a long stream of tears. The film is also valuable from another perspective: the ecological one. Amidst its gaiety is a harsh environmental lesson: urban development is forcing wildlife to move, compete for increasingly limited space, or perish, and Japan's native tanuki do everything they can to stymie the tide of destruction, including supernatural hijinks.

After a long semester, 'Pom Poko' gives Lelly's envionmental science students a chance to let loose and take a lighter approach to demonstrating what they've learned. Thank you to Studio Ghibli for releasing this wonderful film. Nearly 30 years later, it's still among its most important! And thank you, especially, to all the students who embraced the spirit of the event and let their imaginations get the better of them!