Gonta

Gonta Takagamori is an antagonist / anti-hero in Pom Poko. He is hotheaded and pugnacious. His wife is Otama, a docile, doting tanuki who worries about him constantly but is strong enough to fend off his attempts to woo her.

He was reportedly modeled on Hayao Miyazaki and his strict directing style.

Story
The militaristic Gonta, who dons a kamikaze-inspired hachimaki and pointlessly dies in an attempt to block traffic before facing the inevitability of change, symbolizes Japan's old fatalistic attitude against western influences. He would rather die than change his ways, thus resulting in the deaths of his peers that he swayed into action. He came to this conclusion after feeling betrayed by Kinchō Daimyōjin VI, the last of the revered Transformation Masters, who suggested, with Ryotaro's convincing, that the tanuki who can transform should go and live among the humans. This old fatalistic attitude was Gonta's growing frustration with failure after failure to find a good solution reaching a fever pitch.

Therefore, he dies as a Tanuki, rather than Seizaemon who went on living as a human and forgot his origins. His actions are driven by the destruction of Taka, his birthplace.

At the end of the film, his wife Otama can be seen laying a hamburger and a couple of beer cans at his grave.

Personality
Gonta is combative and loves to argue with others. He threatens violence on tanukis who oppose his actions. In contrast, Shoukichi respects the opinions of other tanukis, and he and Ponkichi would shoot down Gonta's belligerent ideas by reminding him of his own need to survive. Both sides of their argument have valid points. While Shoukichi is right in that hurting humans is excessive, in retrospect he admits that Gonta was right on a couple of things. Gonta accurately observed that the developers are relentless and will become desensitized to hauntings if it means making a profit. He was also right that they were just wasting time by debating after the failure of Operation Specter.

He loves to assert power, but he's sensitive to criticism and will lash out if his ego is slighted in any way.

He leads the Red Tanukis to eliminate all humans, but all mentions of humans' food cause him to soften his approach a little. He really hates lazy tanukis. However, he, hypocritically, gets bored easily and would sometimes get distracted by a hamburger or doze off during important meetings.

Though he is proud and selfish, he respects Oroku and the Transformation Masters, and joins in on the celebration of Master Hage's birthday.

Appearance
Gonta is a particularly stocky tanuki, with grey fur like Oroku's. He is distinguished by heavy black eyebrows, pockmarks on his face and tufts of scruffy fur on the top of his head. Like other clan elders, he has crow's feet around his eyes, and like most of the older males, he has a few whiskers on his upper lip that give the appearance of a mustache. His default clothing is a red vest with a single orange stripe across it. In his human form, which he only takes on a handful of times, he appears as a fat young man with short black hair, stubble on his chin, a red T-shirt similar to the vest of his tanuki form and pale blue jeans. When he leads an attack against the humans and takes a human form, he wears a red raincoat with a stripe a different shade of red across it, red trousers the same colour as his raincoat, and black boots.

Shoukichi
Gonta dismisses Shoukichi a lot, and is only friendly to him when the young tanuki agrees to one of his plans. He mistrusts Shoukichi's idea that the tanuki should study the humans extensively, thinking that Shoukichi is starting to become like one of them.

Otama
Gonta loves Otama very much. Early in the film, he tries to woo her, but she fights him off. She helps him with transformation lessons and dotes on him when he gets injured in an accident. When he comes back from a mission, they embrace each other. Other than that, not much is known about their relationship.

Oroku
Gonta respects Oroku, although he will threaten violence on her and everyone else if he gets extremely stressed.

Seizaemon
At the start, Gonta and Seizaemon are enemies, but after Oroku draws attention to the destruction of Tama Hills, they are forced to work together. When navigating the human world, Seizaemon acts as Gonta's guide and mentor. He and Seizaemon disagree on everything.

Transformation Masters
Gonta highly respects the Transformation Masters, although after Operation Specter fails he becomes disillusioned. On Yashimano Hage's birthday, he and a crowd of other tanuki, including Otama, Shoukichi, Okiyo and Sasuke, use their powers to create a giant cake for him.

Name
Gonta's name in full means "Steadfast leader of the Hawk Woods", fitting his belligerent and warlike personality.

Gonta 平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ