Gonta

Gonta (権太), also known as Gonta of the Falcon Forest (鷹ヶ森の権太, Takagamori no Gonta), is an antagonist / anti-hero in Pom Poko.

Personality
Gonta 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.

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; for the most part, Shoukichi even listens to Gonta's ideas.

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.

Story
Gonta's story begins when he's going into battle with Seizaemon. His battle is interrupted by Oroku, who arrives to tell the Red and Blue armies that their forest home is being destroyed. Soon, the tanuki gather at Manpuku Temple and set out a five-year plan. Unfortunately, Gonta and the others don't listen to all of it and get distracted by catering.

Gonta participates in transformation training, and navigates the human world. One day, however, he gets news that his beloved homeland of the Takaga Woods has been destroyed for construction. He went mad with grief and called a meeting among the elder, insisting that the humans must be driven out of Tama Hills by force.

He leads a group of young tanuki to stop the humans invading their land. Together, they kill three humans by sending their trucks crashing down the hillside.

When he and the others arrive back at Manpuku Temple, Gonta is joyfully greeted by the tanuki celebrating his victory. He declares that the war on the humans has begun, and that they will not stop until the invaders are destroyed. However, Ponkichi expresses his concern that if they get rid of the humans, they won't eat tempura again, among other human foods. Gonta is moved by this and reluctantly agrees to keep a few humans around, like in the old days. The tanuki show their love for Gonta and carry him to the temple. This, however, was short-lived. The tanuki hear the news that the building work will not be delayed, and absent-mindedly drop Gonta and trample him as they rush to the TV. As a result, the poor military leader is seriously injured, and wrapped in bandages.

While Gonta is incapacitated, the tanuki resort to scare tactics and disguising themselves as yokai, to the Takaga tanuki's chagrin. One night, while they're celebrating, Gonta loses his temper and insists that the tanuki need to hurt the humans. In waving his arm around, he only manages to get himself hurt.

After a while, Gonta is able to walk again. He and the other tanuki, under Oroku's supervision, visit the library. Gonta doesn't listen to what Oroku says, and is instead distracted by an image of a tanuki using its testicles to crush a man.

By the summer, he is completely healed, and continues to insist on attacking the humans. He and his Red Army stage a coup d'état and threaten everyone. This is soon defused when he is reminded that all the tanuki can think about is food.

To his delight, the Transformation Masters arrive at that moment. Yashimano Hage turns 999 during his stay in Tama Hills and Gonta and the others celebrate. He doesn't even object to Operation Specter, the initiative intended to scare the humans away from Tama New Town.

When Operation Specter fails and the Wonderland President uses it to promote his theme park, Gonta is devastated. He punches in the TV, and when they get a new one to continue watching the news, he listens to the news and beats the floor in despair.

The tanuki spend an entire night debating. The next morning, Shoukichi decides he's going to start Part Two of Operation Specter. The disaffected Gonta belittles Shoukichi's idea, and the two get in a scuffle. Just then, Kinchō Daimyōjin VI comes along and proposes that they all start living among the humans, an idea Gonta sullenly defies.

Gonta gathers his army together and, disguised in human form, resorts to eco-terrorism. When night falls, he and his army reveal their true forms and go into battle, launching an attack on the police with their testicles as clubs. Eventually, they were all shot to death (their deaths were implied as the narrator, Shoukichi, used the term gyokusai (玉砕, lit. "crushed balls") which means an "honorable death" in Japanese).

Shortly after, Gonta and his group turned into undead-like beings, and fused into a form of a tsurube-otoshi. They bounced down onto a highway, blocking traffic and destroying cars. They jumped in front of a decorated truck to block its path, but were fatally run over.

Some time later, Shoukichi, Bunta, Sasuke, Okiyo and Otama visit his grave, and Otama lays a hamburger and a couple of beer cans at it.

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.

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.

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, although they mutually mistrust Shoukichi and his adoption of human methods of survival.

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" means "Thick authority", possibly referring to his heavyset build, and "Takagamori" means "Hawk Woods" fitting his belligerent and warlike personality.

Trivia

 * He was reportedly modeled on Hayao Miyazaki and his strict directing style.
 * Gonta and his group are the only characters in Ghibli works who died twice, aside from Forest Spirit in Princess Mononoke who is stated to repeat deaths and reincarnations, and Kaguya in The Tale of the Princess Kaguya where the Moon is stated to be an afterlife according to Isao Takahata.

Gonta 平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ