Not long ago, another Miyazaki animation "Goldfish Hime on the Cliff" announced the introduction of the mainland, and the friends who love to watch animation are cool.
However, after some people saw this news, the "One Man Blood Book" continued to introduce "Hal's Moving Castle", "Arieti the Little Man Who Borrowed Things", "Castle in the Sky", "Valley of the Wind", "Princess Mononoke"... Started to delusionally "one Ghibli a year" rhythm.
After all, there are so many classic animations from Studio Ghibli.
I also have a particularly favorite Ghibli animation that I want to share with you, although it is not so popular compared to works such as "Totoro" - "The Changeable Tanuki".
First of all, give you two cold knowledge of science popularization.
First, the director of "The Changeable Tanuki" is not Hayao Miyazaki, the director is not Hayao Miyazaki, and the director is not Hayao Miyazaki.
It was takahata, a few years older than him, who was also the founder of Studio Ghibli.
For domestic audiences, Takahata's name is not as loud as Miyazaki's, but he is a key figure who single-handedly carries Miyazaki and digs up Hisaishi.
Today's "Changeable Tanuki Cat" is one of Takahata's representative works.
The film won the annual box office title in Japan with a staggering result of 2.63 billion yen that year.
Second, the protagonist of "The Changeable Tanuki", "Tanuki", is not a "crisp noodle" little raccoon, nor a red panda, civet, badger, etc., but a raccoon.
Although called Tanuki, they are authentic canine creatures.
In Japanese mythology and legend, tanukiko is a cute yokai that transforms into a body.
There is also a folk saying that the larger the eggs of the tanuki, the more they attract wealth, which is a mascot that means that business is prosperous.
So everyone first has a psychological preparation, the film's painting style will repeatedly jump in the wild and stupid cute.
The protagonist of the story is a group of wild tanuki cats living in the Tama Hills.
In their everyday state, they are the "body" of blackface fangs, with a thick fur.
But in places that humans don't notice, tanuki cats will appear in their original form and walk upright like humans.
Their physique can be expanded and shrunk at will, and when beaten, they will instantly become loser-like.
Tanuki cats originally had no quarrel with the world, never harassed humans, and would not do chicken and dog theft.
However, due to the continuous expansion of human settlements and the construction of mountains and cities, the habitat of tanuki cats has been continuously encroached upon.
In order to solve this existential crisis, the two tanuki cat tribes that were originally hostile in the Tama Hills shook hands and made peace.
Under the leadership of the elders, the long-lost transfiguration of the Tanuki family began to be revived.
This is a high-end mimetic skill that only foxes, tanuki cats and a few cats can master - the caster can turn himself into an object or a human form, and the male tanuki can also perform "egg transfiguration"...
This skill sounds like it can wipe out all humans in an instant, but it can't stop the tanuki cat's natural gluttony, lustfulness, and laziness, and the road to learning art is full of conditions.
They set up a television set in the name of studying human beings, but not long after watching the news, they changed stations to watch food programs;
It was hard to get up the spirit to practice skills, and the season of estrus quietly arrived.
Although the elders have issued a ban on "family planning", there will still be lonely male cats on the verge of death;
When it came to the final practice link, when entering the city for drills, many tanuki cats were defeated because of their lack of physical strength...
In short, after a year of intensive training, only a small number of tanuki cats have fully mastered the transfiguration technique.
At the call of members of the radical faction, they launched a campaign of revenge against humanity.
The main means is to pretend to be a ghost and create a construction site accident, so that humans think that the feng shui of the Tama Hills is "ominous", and then interrupt the development plan.
The plot of the first hour of the film is full of laughter every minute.
Tanuki's means of threatening and intimidating humans are out of the sky.
It is worth mentioning that no matter how the tanuki in the film is demonized, no one will regard them as villains, because after seeing the situation of the tanuki cat, you can understand -
In just a few years, human beings have turned the original lush mountain forest into a high-end house, and the living space of tanuki cats has been squeezed infinitely, followed by a food crisis.
The seemingly powerful transfiguration technique, for tanuki cats, is just one more way to go to the city to forage for food.
As for those tanuki cats that do not transform, they can only enter human territory for food, and if they are not careful, they will die in car accidents and traps.
What's worse is that no matter how the tanuki cat secretly intimidates and threatens, humans have never stopped developing.
The workers sent away a wave and a wave, the heat of the "haunted event" dissipated, and human life remained as usual.
The simple-minded Tanuki did not expect that the skill of transfiguration could not defeat the greedy human heart.
Even though tanuki cats can be changeable, they have no countermeasures in the face of thousands of people and thousands of faces, like flood beasts.
From this point of view, "The Changeable Tanuki" is actually a complete transpositional thinking - from the perspective of animals, humans are the tumor that eats the earth.
In the second half, the story of "The Changeable Tanuki" begins to become cruel and ironic.
The tanuki cats of the Tama Hills invited three powerful elders from Shikoku Island, the 999-year-old bald fox, the commander of the 880-beaver general Hidden God Punishment Department, and the sixth generation of Jin Chief, the descendant of the god Jin Daming.
Using their skilled magic, the three elders plan to create a "Hundred Ghosts Night Walk" to drive away the nearby humans once and for all.
This plot is also the stroke of "The Changeable Tanuki", and the yokai of Japanese myths and legends take turns to appear.
Many flashing scenes, behind the myths and allusions, the wind and clouds of the storyboard, people are overwhelmed.
However, the Tanuki Cat took out all the housekeeping skills and vigorously made a night of ghost night walk, and did not bring about substantive changes.
The next day, the president of an amusement park held an emergency press conference, declaring that the "100 Ghosts Night Walk" was an unauthorized campaign organized by the amusement park, and apologized to the frightened people...
This trick jointly concocted by the government, real estate developers, and the media completely smashed the tanuki plan.
Because of the "Hundred Ghosts Night Walk", the three Tanuki Elders were also seriously injured, and the Hidden God Punishment Department directly fell ill and died in the procession.
The 999-year-old vulture saw through the trend of the tanuki cat race, and with a group of tanuki cats that would not change, drowned in a large boat and went to the "Elysium".
The remaining sixth generation of Jin Chang accepted the fox demon's suggestion and called on the surviving tanuki cats to abandon the forest and become humanoid and completely integrate into human life.
The few remaining radical main war faction Tanuki cats also died tragically in the confrontation with humans...
By the time the tanuki see the reality, the once lush hometown has long since become a reinforced concrete human residential area.
At the last moment, the surviving Tama Hilly Tanuki decides to do his best to restore the forest with magic.
In an instant, large trees emerge from the cement floor, tall buildings become rice fields, and the four seasons of the hills are displayed in front of human beings at the same time.
The tanuki cats tearfully bid farewell to their hometown and embarked on the road of seeking survival.
The tanuki cat, who can use transfiguration, transforms into a human form and enters the city life, becoming a social animal that lives on energy drinks for 996 days.
The tanuki cat, which is not able to withstand the pressure of human society, retreats to the dark corners of the city and struggles to maintain its life.
At the end of the film, a tanuki cat transformed into a humanoid social animal accidentally discovers the secret base of his friends, so he shows a long-lost smile, takes off his suit and kicks off his shoes, and appears to be dancing with his friends in the moonlight...
This happy ending is full of sadness, no matter how many times you watch it, it will make people full of cattle.
No matter how the tanuki cats struggle, the naïve dreams of the past are finally defeated by reality, and they can only reconcile with themselves in helplessness, and finally put on the cloak that society allows to continue living.
It's just that they lose not to humans, but to the wheels rolling forward.
Watching the entire film, you will find that "The Changeable Tanuki" is arguably the most deceptive of the Ghibli animation, obviously telling the story of the Tanuki cat throughout, but the ending is directed at the human beings themselves.
How much laughter in the front, how miserable it will be in the back. Because each of us is the tanuki cat who was once clumsy and naïve, and then defeated by reality, and had to put on the cloak of human form.