Baby Raccoon Ponpoko - Yu-Gi-Oh!

THIS IS NOT A RACCOON.

It's the new year, and my resolution is to actually work on this again. I'm looking at the TCG release of Shadow Specters, mainly to call out and poke fun at the localiztion. Which brings us this little guy. In the OCG release, this guy wasn't a baby raccoon, but rather a baby tanuki. Tanuki is a Japanese word that has special connotations and meanings in Japan and absolutely no meaning in the US. First, a tanuki isn't a raccoon, but rather a similar looking animal, called a raccoon dog. They have similar face shapes and patterns to raccoons, but raccoon dogs are often stockier and don't all have the repeating ring patterns on the tail. Since nobody in the US knows what a raccoon dog is though, translators often purposely mistranslate it as a raccoon. The two are similar enough that nobody notices the difference.

Tanukis also feature prominently in Japanese folklore. Similar to how Native American tales have magical trickster animals like Coyote, Japan has the tanukis. They are said to be shapeshifters, often impish and prankish and nature, but their tricks are meant to do any real harm. Often times, tanukis can be helpful animals, loaning money to those who need it (though make sure it's not just leaves), or helping drunkards reach home safely. Some have even become patrons of the theater.

This card references one particular aspect of the tanuki: the drumming. People would sometimes report the mysterious sound of drumming where no drums could be found. These sounds were attributed to tanukis drumming on their bellies. Here, the artist decided to skip that and just show a tanuki with a drum strapped on. This is said to be a baby tanuki though, so maybe its belly isn't big enough for acoustic accompaniment and it's wearing the drum for practice.

Ability wise, it's a Call for Family. In the Pokemon TCG, some Pokemon had an ability called Call for Family that allowed them to summon Pokemon from the same evolutionary line. While the ability here isn't as restricted, any Level 2 Beast will do, it's clear what the intention was, Ponpoko pounding on his drum to call for the aid of his tanuki brethren. Flavor wise it works.

One final note I want to make is the name. I already pointed out why raccoon is an inaccurate translation, this is referencing something clever the fan translators did. For awhile, fans were calling this guy Tanukit Ponpoko. Tanukit is a portmanteau, two words smashed together, in this case tanuki and kit. A kit is most often used to refer to a young fox, but the term can be applied to other species, including the raccoon. Whether the term can be used for a baby raccoon dog as well I'm unsure, but I thought it was really clever what they did, and I find it sad that the TCG translators weren't as clever.