The enduring relevance of 'Pom Poko', 1994
In the 1994 film Pom Poko, the theory that "the strongest survive" is presented as a harsh, tragic reality of the modern world. It is a direct response to the "Survival of the Fittest" idea we discussed, but in this case, "fittest" doesn't mean the physically strongest—it means those most able to assimilate or change who they are to fit into a human-dominated environment.
The Three Ways "Strength" is Tested
The film shows that different groups of Tanuki (raccoon dogs) define "strength" in three different ways, and most of them fail.
Physical Strength (Gonta’s Group):
This group believes that being the "strongest" means fighting humans with violence.
The Result: They are eventually defeated because they cannot compete with the massive industrial "strength" of human machinery.
Spiritual Strength (The Cult):
Some Tanuki give up on the physical world and turn to a "Treasure Ship" (a religious fantasy) to find peace.
The Result: This is a form of surrender. They "survive" only in spirit, as they essentially sail toward their own deaths.
Adaptable Strength (The Survivors):
The Tanuki who actually "survive" are those who can use the Art of Transformation to look like humans.
The Result: hey survive, but at a high cost: they must live as exhausted "salarymen," hiding their true nature just to exist in a concrete world.
The "Tautology" in Pom Poko
In the film, a Fox (another shapeshifter) explicitly tells the Tanuki that those who cannot transform are "unavoidable" losses. He argues that only the "strong" (those with the magic to change) have the right to live in the new world.
The film’s message is a critique of this idea:
It shows that the "weaker" animals (like rabbits and weasels) who cannot transform are being erased by human development.
The narrator asks the audience to stop saying these animals "disappeared" and to acknowledge that they were killed by a system that only values "the strongest" or the most useful.
A Calming Perspective from the Ending
Even though the "strongest" (those who assimilated) seem to win, the very last scene shows the survivors finding their "weaker" friends playing on a golf course at night. It suggests that community and play are a different kind of survival—one that keeps the spirit alive even when the world is changing.
Gemini