Back to Origami_Cyclone's Profile Origami_Cyclone's Profile

The most recent Dr. Slump outing at the time of this review
This is a very cute and very short 'movie' at only five minutes long.
The art style is very charming, I love the thick line cartooning style, like a picture book come to life.
The twist is that the new character 'Abale' is not evil but just wants to be a biker girl.
The alien designs in this short show up again in Dragon Ball! In Dragon Ball: Yo! The Return of Son-Goku and Friends!! : we see Tarble and his wife Gurei, who is of the same alien race. Which makes sense as it has already ... been previously been established that Dragonball and Dr Slump exist on the same planet.
Plus it ends with the world's biggest piece of poop. What more could you want?

Pointless spinoff where 'actually the bad guys were good the whole time just misunderstood!' like a bad YA novel
Image a Dragonball spinoff but Goku was Evil and Pilafs was good and Mai's gran-daughter had to kill Goku or something
The series was mostly filler and most of the budget was spent on the final episode.
They forgot about the dead mom catalyst until the last 20 seconds standing over her grave

Why was the main cast constantly naked including the 9 year old?
What was everything washed out and shaded with a black gradient?
Why were we supposed to care about any of this?

I don't know

Pom Poko is one of my favorite anime movies, although that's not to say it's a perfect movie. The documentary-style opening , complete with uninspired narration, will lull most people into a false sense of security before the second half. If you can stay awake for the second half, prepare to be blown away.
The Tanuki's transformation prowess here makes for some of the of the most imaginative and unrestrained animation I've ever seen. A careful eye will notice Kiki, Totoro, Porco Rosso, and Galaxy Express 999 during the parade sequence. The tanuki themselves fluidly turn without restraint into hyperrealistic, humanistic, and charicature forms. ... (the third being a homage to a classic manga-ka)

The characters for the most part aren't very notable, more important is the interactions in the community.

Pom Poko is easily the most misunderstood movie put out by Studio Ghibli. While there is some environmentalist message there, I feel this movie is more about adapting. In fact, while the main characters are raccoons, they represent the Japanese society, and how it has to cope with tradition being overtaken by technology. The older raccoons wear traditional kimonos and plan to wipe out the humans developing on their land. The grand masters apparently inspired Japanese deities-(the oldest master being 999 years old.)

Eventually the tanuki learn to hide among the humans (modernize) but, not before one last battle. Most people view the battle as humorous, and it is indeed the most commented part of the movie (because of what, exactly the tanukis transform.) But I see it as an act of desperation, putting their very manhood on the line for one last hopeless push. The aftermath of the battle is all the warriors' dead bodies being dumped in a huge pile, more reminiscent of Auschwitz than a Disney movie.

Because of the overwhelming circumstances the main characters must fight against, I found this movie to be sadder than Grave of the Fireflies, Takahata's much more famous work. This isn't Fern Gully or Avatar however, the tanuki are full of flaws. When they steal a TV to learn more about humans, they become couch potatoes instead. In another scene, they feast upon stolen McDonalds hamburgers.

This is a very Japanese movie, it is filled with references to Japanese culture, mythology, yokai, folklore, and culture. This can make it dense and unappealing to some. They say that a truly good film is universal, but after seeing this film I disagree.

Truly a great movie, one of the best. However, it might take a little patience on the viewer's part to fully enjoy. One of the best- but you might want to watch it in two parts.

If you know ShinChan only through the Adult Swim television series, you might be surprised how great this movie is. I know I was.
In this movie, Shinchan and his family have to go back in time to help Fubukimaru save his (her?) sister from a deviant time traveler. Because of this, the movie deviates early on from the usual scatological humor of the tv show into an epic samurai action flick, with Shinchan mostly along for the ride.
Don't be turned off by the art style. The lack of details in the characters allows for a fluidity of animation that is ... rarely seen in anime movies.The movie starts off slow, but the middle of the movie in particular is one extended castle-raid, which is one of the best action scene I've ever seen in anime.
And just as you think everything is over, a twist reveals that time travel is much more complicated than you think. The future scenes have zany architecture reminiscent of Tekkon Kinkreet. The sight of a fuedal castle turning into a battle robot is wacky and awesome at the same time.
The movie drags on rather long, and ShinChan's juvenile humour never did make me laugh that much (then again, I am not the target audience) , but if you liked Castle of Cagliostro, or Samurai swordfights, check out this movie. You will be pleasantly surprised.