I'm not making this up, you know.

[buttonbright]

Last night I rented a Japanese anime film called Pom Poko (from the same studio as favorites Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, but not the same director), and was surprised to find my self watching a story about shape-shifting raccoons who do very unusual things with their balls.  Yes, I do mean their testicles, plus the handy little sacs they

Comments

[fawsley]

It really doesn't help that the racoons look rather like beavers...

[buttonbright]

You're so right! They start out looking very raccoon-like, but sometimes for no apparent reason they shape-shift into a sort of beaver-bear hybrid toon thing. Did I mention that it makes no sense?

[fawsley]

Beavers with breasts, from the look of that still!

[buttonbright]

Yes, in addition to their other accessories, they do sport man-boobs. How come there's nothing like that in Bambi?

[brigantine]

*snortle* I feel your pain. Or rather, that disturbing sensation of, "Hey, did someone drug my coffee?"

A couple of years ago I tried to watch that film, but I never made it to the end. I mean, Japanese anime tends to be weird enough even at its most coherent, but "Pom Poko"'s level of WTFery is off the charts. If you made it the end you have my respect, man! XD

[buttonbright]

WTFery! Heh!

It actually took me two tries to get to the end, and I'm still not convinced that it was worth it. So please don't feel that you missed a whole heck of a lot.

Love your Jayne avatar!

[alex_quine]

Is this like Puppetry of the Penis? (Australians have such interesting hobbies).

[buttonbright]

Hah! Have you seen Puppetry of the Penis? It played here in SF several years ago, but I gave it a miss. Those who did go said they were booooooored. The success of The Vagina Monologues was not repeated.

[alex_quine]

To be honest, I gave it a miss too. Friends who went said it was fairly startling in a I-can't-believe-I'm-watching-this-oh-that-looks-painful sort of way...and yes, one of the guys tried out some of it. You could buy instruction leaflets in the foyer.

[buttonbright]

I think most men have indulged in a bit of penis puppetry on occasion. But we don't generally expect others to buy tickets.

[eremir]

That sort of looks like "Gummi Bears: The R-rated Version".

No, most anime made for adults doesn't make any sense, and I don't like it much. I prefer the cutsie-wutsie stuff made for kids and the mucho-macho stuff made for older kids.

[buttonbright]

Yes, there's some weird stuff out there. But I do love Miyazaki's films. His best ones are genius.

[brigantine]

Totoro! It's high on my list of Comfort Films. :)