FILM · 1994 · JAPAN
Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko
17 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (17)
- #001
Just before the tanuki begin the "Poltergeist" project, they fly on a train made of spirits and ghosts, and images of characters from other Ghibli works can be seen, including Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso's seaplane from Porco Rosso (1992), Totoro on the roof from My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and young Taeko from Only Yesterday (1991), just above the winged skeleton.
- #002
Japan's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 67th Academy Awards in 1995.
- #003
The creatures shown during the Poltergeist project, in order of appearance: the shadows of hungry spirits; Inari in the fox; the foxes (kitsune) performing the Fox Wedding; a lantern spirit; a skeleton; an umbrella; a fire-breathing tiger; an oni; the demon hunter Shoki; Agyo; tiny people carrying out funeral rites; Raijin (the Thunder God); Fuujin (the Wind God); various squids and a fish; a lantern; a tengu; light bulbs; samurai bowing like children; a maneki neko facing a bowing samurai child; goblins; colorful insects; a snow spirit; a spider; a many-headed woman; flames; a skeleton; monkeys; rabbits; frogs; a ryuu (dragon); a train; dancing white flames; a man whose face can be turned upside down; more thoughtless goblins; a blue goblin; a snake-like creature with a human face; a purple spirit; a woman with a camel's face; a four-legged cyclopean creature; a mouth creature; two oni; the Seven Lucky Gods (Benzaiten, Ebisu, Fukurakujo, Hotei, Daikoku); blue and flesh-colored goblins; walking on stone legs; animated telephone poles; a skeleton; fire trucks and firefighters; the superiors; eyed pill-like structures; a flood; a tanuki flying in flames; the Gashadokuro skeleton; the Seven Lucky Gods together with goblins; Amida Nyorai with Bodhisattva attendants.
- #004
Shoukichi's father's warning about how much humans enjoy killing and eating tanuki is justified in a sense. There is a soup called "tanuki jiru" that mainly avoids using real tanuki meat, but in some regions tanuki meat is used for it.
- #005
The scene in which the transformed tanuki's face disappears is a reference to the legend of the faceless woman, "noppera-bou."
- #006
The tanuki in their extremely simplified forms were called "Sugiura tanukis" during production because they were drawn in a style reminiscent of the artist Shigeru Sugiura.
- #007
In Japanese folklore, tanuki are said to place leaves on their heads and sing before transforming. Oroku dismisses this as "for beginners," and she and many of the tanuki in the film are shown transforming easily without needing a leaf.
- #008
When Bunta returns to Tama Hills after three years and finds that it has developed, he says he feels like Urashima Taro, the folkloric character who saved a turtle, was taken to the Dragon Palace and stayed there for what seemed like a few days but was actually a hundred years.
- #009
The song the tanuki sing while carrying Gonta to the temple is based on "Shojoji no Tanuki Bayashi," a children's song about the mysterious drumming sound tanuki make in the forest.
- #010
Abbot Tsurugame's petition is signed "from 808 tanuki," a reference to the number of tanuki living in Master Inugami Gyobu's home.
- #011
During the Spectre Operation, Gyobu Inugami summons the image of the Gashadokuro, the spirit of a fallen warrior who hunts lone travelers by biting off their heads to drink their blood.
- #012
The ending reveals that the narrator is an older Shoukichi.
- #013
Fujino, where Hayashi comes from, is now part of Samigahara City.
- #014
It is one of the few Studio Ghibli films with no behind-the-scenes video for its English dub.
- #015
Clancy Brown, Gonta's English voice, shares his birthday with Hayao Miyazaki, who was the model for Gonta.
- #016
In the scene where Gonta learns of the destruction of the Taka forests and witnesses it in his realistic tanuki form, the English dub adds a scream from Clancy Brown over Gonta's tanuki cry.
- #017
Gonta is the first main character to appear in the film, while Oroku is the first character to speak.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work